Potomac Ponderings

Change of Plans

2005-01-22T12:51:00.000-05:00

Well, subsequent to my announcement that I was taking a bloggatical, I received an interesting offer that has has changed my plans a bit. Rather than taking a break from blogging entirely, I am going to be abandoning this site (for now at least) and joining my old friend Jimmie over at The Sundries Shack. I'm still not sure how frequent a contributor I'll be there, but I'm grateful for the opportunity to have a forum in which to post when the urge strikes me. Thanks to Jimmie for the opportunity, and I hope you'll all come join me over at my new home!

Bloggatical

2005-01-03T19:01:00.000-05:00

In the past few weeks I've been doing some thinking. I finished up finals a couple weeks ago and I've yet to return to blogging. Frankly, I've been drained for a while from trying to juggle school and work and blog. With finals over, I've succumbed to an intense longing just to kick back and not do any serious thinking about anything. Having done so, I haven't been able to re-motivate myself to return. A part of me really wants to - I do love doing this. But a part of me also feels like something's gotta give, and the only thing that really can right now is the blog. So at last I've reached a decision on this: I'm shutting the blog down for the time being. I can't say it's a permanent thing, but at the moment I'm regarding it as permanent until I change my mind. So let's call it a sabbatical of indefinite length.

Before I go, I just wanted to thank all my blog friends for all the great conversations we've had here. I've really enjoyed getting to know all of you, and I hope to return. For those of you who are also bloggers, you'll probably still find me lurking in your comments from time to time. Adieu!

Finals Blow

2004-12-12T21:10:00.000-05:00

For the record, I have an econ final tomorrow night, a history final Tuesday night, and a paper due on Wednesday. In addition, I'm an editor for my grad school journal and I have to return the first draft of the paper I'm editing to the author tomorrow. (Who came up with this schedule, I have no idea.) I've taken a week off of work, which means that I'm on this very bizarre sleep schedule where I'm staying up working till three or four in the morning then sleeping till eleven or noon. That sleep time might get shortened some in the next few days. So basically, all this is a long way of saying that the only way you'll be hearing from me in the next few days is if I get really loopy and decide to write an Ode to Coffee.

Quote of the Week, Dec. 12th

2004-12-12T14:37:00.000-05:00

As I noted yesterday, I had to read Tom Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree for class. (Don't ask why I hadn't read it before - it had actually been sitting on my bookshelf for over a year.) He's got a lot of good lines in there, but this one stuck out as my favorite:

“The hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist.”
-Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree

The Genesis of Personal Principles

2004-12-11T23:18:00.000-05:00

It's interesting to consider sometimes where one gets one's principles from. Usually the answer is either from one's parents, from teachers or other mentors, or from peers. But I was considering this with regard to my own positions on free trade, and I think that I've determined that I must have been congenitally pro-free trade, because I can't for the life of me figure out how I became this way.

I've been considering the free trade issue in preparation for a final, for which I've been reading Taking Trade to the Streets, by Susan Aaronson, which is basically takes a look at the history of protectionism in America (and a relatively fair one, in my opinion). This is intended to be a counter perspective to Tom Friedman's Lexus and the Olive Tree, which we also read.

In any case, in reading about the opposition to NAFTA, I had a funny recollection. Keep in mind I was only in junior high school when those negotiations were going on, so I didn't really have the faintest idea about economics. I remember my father being ardently opposed to NAFTA, railing about jobs going to Mexico. (This is funny in retrospect, because now he's apparently pro-NAFTA and revises history to insist that Clinton had nothing to do with NAFTA's passage - it was all Bush and my dad was for it all along, goes the current story.) I remember listening to his reasons for opposing NAFTA, and nevertheless concluding that I thought he was wrong and that NAFTA was a good thing. Where did I get that from? My father was my only source of information about this kind of stuff at the time and I didn't take an economics class till college. Beats me.

Actually, as I was writing that, I recalled that even before that, my dad was upset about Japanese imports and I couldn't figure out what the big deal was about that either. Japanese competition was an issue, what, in the late 80's? Was I 10, at the oldest? Where did I come up with this stuff? Apparently I've been pro-free trade since before I even knew why.

Conservative Intransigence

2004-12-11T01:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Jimmie put up an interesting post about the FMA and why folks who oppose gay marriage but would otherwise support states' rights to choose on the matter would support the FMA. I responded in his comments:

See, that’s where the Republican party has erred in pushing the idea too far. I support gay marriage but I also support the right of states to decide for themselves. It sounds like you oppose gay marriage, but also support the right of states to choose for themselves. If the administration had pushed for a version of the FMA that said that the FFAC clause doesn’t apply to marriage, codifying established legal practice (a state that doesn’t allow 16 year olds to marry doesn’t have to recognize a marriage of 16 year olds from a state that does), it would have broad support and would probably pass. I would support it, if that’s what it said. But it’s not. As it is, it is not going anywhere, and thus states that want protection from recognizing gay marriages won’t get it. They’ve made a huge tactical error in pushing for the FMA as it is.

I wanted to elaborate a bit further on this theme as this is one of the things that really gets under my skin about those on the right who are on most other issues my allies. I generally disagree with the right's views on social issues, but I respect those views. What I can't stand is that they dogmatically tie themselves to positions that don't have broad support and refuse to take more moderate positions that most people would consider necessary, and completely thwart their own point of view. Gay marriage is one example - if they would go for a gay marriage amendment that preserved the right of states to choose for themselves rather than one that defines marraige for the states, it would pass. As it is, it won't and states that don't want gay marriage will be forced to accept it. The exact opposite of their intention.

Another example is on cloning. Nearly everyone, including most scientists, supports a ban on reproductive cloning, because the technology has not proven reliable enough in other mammalian species to be ethically performed in humans. (See this letter from 2002, signed by 40 Nobel Laureates, including James Watson.) But the religious right wants a ban on all cloning, which doesn't have broad support. And so, because they insist on pushing for a ban on all cloning, which consistently fails both domestically and internationally, the quack in Kentucky who wants to use cloning as reproductive assistance can still do so.

While to a certain extent I respect intransigence when one feels strongly about something, at times excessive intransigence can lead to undermining ones own principles entirely. The religious right consistently does this. If constitutionally banning gay marriage outright is going to fail, why not support an intermediate position that at least protects those states that don't want to recognize gay marriages? If a total ban of cloning is going to fail, why not at least support a ban of reproductive cloning, which is far more frightening in its implications than its more benign therapeutic cousin? Their dogmatism doesn't lead to a conservative victory, but rather a victory for those who are far more liberal than the vast majority of Americans.

The Struggle for Democracy

2004-12-10T12:06:00.000-05:00

This WSJ column, which looks at the struggles for democracy going on in Ukraine and Iraq, warmed my heart. Read the whole thing.

'Tis the Season

2004-12-09T17:00:00.000-05:00

Company Christmas party tonight. I do not anticipate being in a good condition to write when I come home. But who knows?

It Has Begun

2004-12-09T14:12:00.000-05:00

Campaign 2008. Yeah, yeah sure, there's been talk before now. But today, I saw my first "Say No to Hillary in 2008" bumper sticker. Now it has really begun.

Calm Down People!

2004-12-08T23:05:00.000-05:00

Wow, it's amazing how into the Weblog awards people are. Maybe I shouldn't talk - I'm nowhere close to the lead, even in my humble category, so maybe I'd feel a bit differently if I actually had like, a shot at winning. Especially at winning a major category. But I'm not sure. I'm not sure this level of bitterness is really necessary, no matter where you are in the "big dick contest" as it's being termed.

UPDATE (12/10 - post-company Christmas party and many glasses of wine): Damn. Jeff Goldstein actually visits my site and comments and I've apparently inadvertently come off as being densely immune to humor. For the record, the above link was more to the comments section of that post, in which some of the bitterness appeared not to be in jest. I realized Jeff was kidding about Meryl's endorsement. For any aspiring bloggers out there, this is a good case study in how not to get major bloggers to come back to your site....

Testing the Waters

2004-12-07T21:29:00.000-05:00

This week I wrap up my first semester of grad school classes, and considering some of the atrocious stories that circulate the blogosphere from time to time of extreme liberal bias and even outright hostility towards conservative points of view, I feel compelled to make a couple of observations. The Reader's Digest version, is that, in spite certain experiences of isolation as a Bush-supporter, my experience has actually been pretty balanced thus far.

The faculty teaching my classes this semester was actually pretty balanced and moderate. I have four classes. In the first, my teacher served in the Bush administration, so I assume that he is a Republican. In class, he never betrayed a strong bias either way. In the second, the last session of which (besides the final) was this evening, I never had a strong feel for his political perspectives until this evening. He had revealed previously that he came from a family of conservatives, but hell, so apparently does Maureen Dowd, so that doesn't mean anything. Tonight we didn't have that much more material to cover, so we spent most of the class chatting (on topics such as this and this, among other things), and he revealed that he is a conservative, albeit of the fiscal variety that breaks out in hives at the thought of the budget deficits the Bush administration is running.

The third class is the one I've written about previously, taught by a journalist from the mainstream media. I never got any strong sense of her personal political leanings, but I did pursue my intended course of attempting to cause mischief with a mainstream journalist. I got nothing, except, well, glowing A's. I did use a much-revised version of this piece for my op-ed. A, accompanied with commentary about how it was a superb piece. I also used Mark Steyn (who's back, by the way!) as my example of a column that I enjoyed. A. So either this woman was definitely not a liberal, or she is a person who delights in other viewpoints. Either way, certainly not a hostile environment for right-leaning students.

The fourth class is probably the most interesting case. This is class in which this incident occurred. The teacher of this class was definitely anti-Bush, and I knew that before election day. What was noteworthy in this context about that class was that even though I was outnumbered 20-something to 2 in the Kerry-supporters vs. Bush supporters department, a) the class discussions were always interesting and b) the teacher was not at all hostile towards those who did not agree with him. He took the view (and this is very nearly a direct quote, though not directed at me), "We disagree, we can scream and yell at each other, but in the end, we are still friends." The day before Thanksgiving a group of us went out for drinks after class and the teacher came with. He actually went so far as prefacing criticisms of Bush with apologies to me (totally unnecessary!). He also told me that he finds my writing persuasive even when he's not willing to be persuaded and that I should be a diplomat, because I defend my country very well (not interested, but it was intended as a complement, so I took it as one). So again, even though it was a very left-leaning class and a left-leaning teacher, I didn't find my political views to be a problem.

So overall, I'm pretty satisfied. I mean, one has to expect grad school to be left-leaning. Especially in DC. But as long as I don't feel like being honest about my political views is going to hamper my ability to be successful in school in any way, I'm happy. And after semester 1, I feel like that is the case.

Intelligence Reform: The Finale

2004-12-07T20:46:00.000-05:00

Brendan Miniter at the WSJ has a good column up on the intel reform bill that passed. His view: it doesn't really matter, but, thanks largely to Rep. Hunter, a crisis was averted.

Crying Wolf????

2004-12-06T23:08:00.000-05:00

Ah, that's why I trust the Republicans more on economic issues. I did need a little bit of a reminder, but thank you, Senator Reid, for reminding me why I vote Republican for both security and economic reasons. Is he kidding with this shit?

RUSSERT: Private accounts for Social Security, the president has made that a priority of his domestic agenda. Will you work with him in privatizing part of Social Security?

REID: Tim, I can remember, as a little boy, my widowed grandmother with eight children; she lived alone. But she felt independent because she got, every month, her old-age pension check.

That's what this is all about. The most successful social program in the history of the world is being hijacked by Wall Street.

Yes, Social Security is a good program. And if the president has some ideas about trying to improve it, I'll talk to him, and we as Democrats will. But we are not going to let Wall Street hijack Social Security. It won't happen. They are trying to destroy Social Security.

RUSSERT: No private accounts?

REID: They are trying to destroy Social Security by giving this money to the fat cats on Wall Street, and I think it's wrong.

RUSSERT: But, Senator, there are now 40 million people on Social Security. In the next 20 years, there will be 80 million. Life expectancy used to be 65 years old. It's approaching 80.

If you have twice as many people on these programs for 15 years, you've got to restructure them in some way, shape or form. What is your solution? What is your alternative?

REID: Tim, all experts say that Social Security beneficiaries will receive every penny of their benefits that they're entitled to, 100 percent of them, until the year 2055. After that, if we still do nothing, they'll draw 80 percent of their benefits.

I want those beneficiaries after the year of 2055 to draw 100 percent of their benefits. But this does not require dismantling the program. For heaven's sakes, they are crying wolf a little to regularly here.

Hmm, "all experts say", huh? I wish I had a good study to link to here, but I have a very hard time believing that "all experts say" that, given the soon to be swelling ranks of social security recipients, there is no problem ahead. Maybe some experts say that. But other experts might qualify that "Social Security beneficiaries will receive every penny of their benefits" statement with, "provided the rest of the population is willing to pay taxes out of their asses."

Now, if the Democrats don't like the privatization idea, fine. For God's sake, come up with your own idea, then!!! Denying that there is or is going to be a problem is not constructive. You'd think that losing the election might have encouraged Democrats to start thinking seriously about serious issues. But nope. I do hate to be so condescending, but until the Democrats can bring their own ideas to the table - on economics and security - they just need to step back and let the adults run the country.

(Via Jimmie)

Go Colonials!

2004-12-05T23:26:00.000-05:00

Dude, the last think I expected when I decided to go to George Washington for grad school was to actually have a sports team worth routing for. But who'd have thought:

In one weekend, George Washington established itself as a national contender, beating two top 15 teams, both of which have won a national title the past five years. But the celebration was reserved; Coach Karl Hobbs has engrained in his team that the season's true accomplishment won't come for three months, when George Washington hopes to be invited to its first NCAA tournament this decade.

Yesterday's 101-92 victory over Maryland in the championship game of the BB&T Classic marked one "step further toward our dream," Hobbs said. It was a significant victory nonetheless, one that likely will propel George Washington (5-1) into the Associated Press top 25, released today, for the first time since February 1998.

The Colonials used their athleticism to beat No. 11 Michigan State, Saturday's opponent, and No. 12 Maryland, two teams from more talent-rich conferences.

Woo-hoo! I love college hoops, now I'm going to have to start going to games!

Divide and Conquer

2004-12-05T23:14:00.000-05:00

Heh. Are the Jews playing divide and conquer in the Muslim world? Hey, not a bad idea. Apparently, the credit for this act of genius goes to the Llamas.

Quote of the Week, December 5th

2004-12-05T22:46:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so I skipped a week. Going on yesterday's (and last week's) theme:

"The privilege of being able to print the world's reserve currency, a privilege which is now at risk, allows America to borrow cheaply, and thus to spend much more than it earns, on far better terms than are available to others. Imagine you could write cheques that were accepted as payment but never cashed. That is what it amounts to."
-The Economist, 2 Dec 2004

Good Cop, Bad Cop?

2004-12-05T19:56:00.000-05:00

Robert Kagan seems to be floating the old good cop, bad cop strategy for the transatlantic alliance:

Cooper describes the E.U. as a liberal, democratic, voluntary empire expanding continuously outward as others seek to join it. This expanding Europe absorbs problems and conflicts rather than directly confronting them in the American style. The lure of membership, he notes, has helped stabilize the Balkans and influenced the political course of Turkey. The Turkish people's desire to join the European Union has led them to modify Turkey's legal code and expand rights to conform to European standards. The expansive and attractive force of the European Union has also played its part in the Ukraine crisis. Had Europe not expanded to include Poland and other Eastern European countries, it would have neither the interest nor the influence in Ukraine's domestic affairs that it does.

Cooper, unlike many Europeans, acknowledges the vital role of U.S. power in providing the strategic environment within which Europe's soft expansionism can proceed. Employing America's "military muscle" to "clear the way for a political solution involving a kind of imperial penumbra around the European Union," he suggests, may be the way to deal with "the area of the greatest threat in the Middle East." In the Balkans, Europe's magnetic attraction would have been feeble had Slobodan Milosevic not been defeated militarily. And undoubtedly American power provides a useful backdrop in the current diplomatic confrontation over Ukraine.

We play bad cop, the EU plays good cop? Hey, I could go for that strategy. It might even work, if we and Europe could agree just enough to coordinate it.

Myth-bustin' at the WaPo

2004-12-05T19:44:00.000-05:00

Kudos to the WaPo for taking on the post-election myths that have already taken on the status of political gospel. First, on the infamous "moral values" question. And second, on Ohio. Get this:

The reason Kerry lost the election had much more to do with the war in Iraq and terrorism than the political ground war in Ohio. Terrorism trumped other issues at the polls -- including moral values -- and anxious voters tended to side with Bush.

• By 54 percent to 41 percent, voters decided that Americans are now safer from terrorist threats than four years ago, national exit polls said.

• By 55 percent to 42 percent, voters accepted Bush's view that Iraq is a part of the war on terrorism. By 51 percent to 45 percent, they still approved of the decision to go to war (though a majority expressed concerns about how the war is going).

• Just 40 percent said they trusted Kerry to do a good job handling the war on terrorism, compared with 58 percent who felt that way about the president.

No shit. There's more there, too. I give the WaPo credit for actually taking a look at the facts.

Intelligence Reform: Round 2

2004-12-05T11:00:00.000-05:00

Intelligence reform heads to the House floor again tomorrow. The WaPo has a pair of articles that deal pretty fairly with the opposition to the bill:

Some of the senators have grown wary about quick passage of the legislation because of questions raised by four former CIA directors in the past summer's hearings, congressional aides say. George J. Tenet, who retired recently as CIA chief, criticized the proposed separation of the national director of intelligence from hands-on control over the CIA, an issue brought up in the summer.

White House negotiations with congressional leaders continued yesterday while Bush attended the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia.

Bush delayed for the second day sending a letter to Capitol Hill that will include a final plea for passage and language that is designed to assuage the misgivings of the Republican holdouts. White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said that the delay is "a good sign" because it shows that "everyone is interested in the fine print, and in making sure the fine print is to everyone's liking and addresses everyone's concerns."

Under the bill, which could come up for a vote this week, the director would become Bush's chief adviser on intelligence, but he would only "monitor the implementation and execution" of intelligence operations carried out by the 15 agencies.

"I don't think you should separate the leader of this country's intelligence from a line agency," Tenet said at a conference last week. "This person has to be leading men and women every day and taking risks."

William H. Webster, who led the CIA from 1987 to 1991, said in an interview last week that he, too, has problems with the bill. He said that because the new director of national intelligence would not be directly in charge of CIA's clandestine operations, "he cannot be accountable for those operations."

Webster also said he believes the counterterrorism center director should not be a presidential appointee and that he should be accountable to the director of national intelligence.

John E. McLaughlin, who retired on Friday as deputy CIA director, is known to feel the same way, though as a government employee he has publicly supported Bush's version of the bill. In the summer, however, during testimony before Warner's committee, McLaughlin asked: "Can substantive and management responsibilities be separated" and "will responsibility and accountability be harder to pin down" if "substantive matters," such as direct control over CIA operations and analyses, are not directly run by the DNI?

I question if the folks who presided over past intelligence failures should be taken too seriously in matters of reforming the failed system. At the same time, their concerns seem fair.

The second article profiles Rep. Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a main opponent of the bill:

Hunter's son, a Marine lieutenant who has served two tours in Iraq, phoned him from embattled Fallujah and "told me to hang in there on the intel thing," the congressman said in an interview late last week. "A lot of military people have told me that," he added, but his accounts of his son, Duncan Duane Hunter, have proved especially moving to his House colleagues, several said.

Hunter has raised two main objections to the legislation that emerged from House-Senate negotiations: It would give the Pentagon insufficient budgetary control over intelligence operations and would make it possible for a director of national intelligence to override Pentagon efforts to deliver information from spy satellites immediately to troops at war. Hunter said in the interview that the budget issue had been resolved, but not the other.

"The military folks are very concerned about the chain-of-command issue," he said. "The Senate has got to move across the finish line on this." Senate leaders have said they will make no further compromises.

That too seems fair. I see the virtue of having a centralized authority to preside over the different intelligence entities. I also see the problems with it. Not enough autonomy for the separate intelligence agencies could cripple their abilities to pursue their unique objectives. There's a reason we don't just have one intelligence agency: each different branch has its own function, serving a different agency with its own intelligence needs. On the other hand, too much decentralization results in unnecessary overlap and compartmentalization, which seems to have been somewhat responsible for intelligence failings leading to 9/11. A balance needs to be struck that promotes information sharing without tying the hands of the individual agencies. I don't pretend to have enough expertise to know if this bill strikes that balance or if it goes too far in the centralization direction. But it's good that Congress is earnestly debating this, because it's far too important an issue to push through without serious thought.

Ouch

2004-12-05T00:18:00.000-05:00

Wow. This is what I get for not blogging much for a few weeks. Yesterday I got fewer hits than on any other day since before this, to which I attribute the majority of my readership. While the Weblog awards are going on, even. Consider me chastened. I need to start blogging more again, because yesterday was a little sad.

Just Like Your Mom Told You, Money Doesn't Grow on Trees

2004-12-04T23:43:00.000-05:00

Throughout the election season, I more or less ignored economics, largely because I felt both candidates were so awful in this regard that if I had focused on it too much, I might have just said to hell with it all and voted for Badnarik or not voted at all. Okay, that's a lie, I would have voted for Bush anyway. Both because economic issues were only number 2 in this election and because I have slightly more faith in the Republican party to manage the economy than I do in the Democratic party - sadly, only slightly. But I confess, a somewhat heretical thought crept into my consciousness this week. It was passing thought. But for an evening this week, I was considering the possibility that we should all be far more concerned about the long-term prospects for the U.S. economy than about terrorism.

For much of the week, I was inundated with tiny and not-so-tiny reminders about the falling dollar and the unsustainability of large government and current accounts deficits - ranging from discussions in classes to a banner greeting me as I stepped out of the Metro on Wednesday: "Bush's IQ or the dollar - which is falling faster?" (Ha. So clever, those embittered Democrats, eh?) In any case, earlier in the week, I was inspired to write a colossal post about the dollar and the long-term prospects of the U.S. economy. But by the time I actually had time to sit down at the computer and think about it, I was too exhausted to engage in such a draining and depressing activity. Alas, several days later, I still can't escape it. The forces of the universe seem to be conspiring in their insistence that I sit down and crank out a post about that which had me thinking such heretical thoughts earlier in the week. Never one to argue with the forces of the universe, I'm afraid I must comply, though this may be a little less colossal than I was planning earlier in the week.

So we all know the dollar's falling. And it's been falling for a while. Ho-hum. $1.3460/€, was the new low set Friday. Yawn. Unfortunately most Americans are inclined to shurg their shoulders at such news. But the falling dollar is the symptom of a deep and perennial malaise in the U.S. economy, which we've been fortunately or unfortunately spared of facing for a very long time. We've been running current account and budget deficits for so long that we don't really think they're worth worrying about anymore. Indeed, the economists who've been shrieking about this for so long are starting to look like Chicken Littles, as the catastrophe they've long predicted has yet to materialize. I've heard very intelligent people argue that economies don't work like households - where a household is limited in consumption by what it spends, economies have no such limitations.

Doesn't that sound lovely? Our government can keep spending more than it takes in and we can keep buying more than we produce for all eternity and there will never be a problem. The problem with this argument is that those who adhere to it seem to basically be arguing that for economies, money really can just grow on trees. But your mom was right: it doesn't. The money to finance our twin deficits comes from somewhere. It comes from foreigners who are willing to hold onto dollars, rather than trading them in for their own currency. As The Economist puts it: "Imagine you could write cheques that were accepted as payment but never cashed. That is what it amounts to."

We get money to finance our personal and government consumptions only by virtue of the fact that the dollar is regarded as a safe currency to hold. Central banks, in Asia especially, hold dollars by the trillions (according to the same Economist article, the value of dollar assets held abroad is estimated at $11 trillion). So long as they're willing to continue to keep doing this, and keep buying dollars to keep its exchange rate from falling too sharply, we can keep spending to our hearts' delights. But the longer we do so, the more skeptical they become of us. Fundamentally, a country is exactly like a household or a company, in spite of what some claim. It works on a much larger scale, yes. But think about it. You, as an individual, can actually spend more than you take in, by virtue of consumer debt. However, the more debt you take on, the more skeptical banks become of your ability to repay it. Financial markets, both for consumers and for countries, are entirely subjective. As long as lendors believe you can repay your debts and investors believe you're worth the price, they'll continue to give you money. As soon as they believe otherwise, say good-bye to fast money.

The fact that foreigners have been willing to finance our consumption for as long as they have is rather astounding when you think about it. It is testament only to the fact of the extraordinary power of the U.S. economy over recent decades. Signs are that this willingness is coming to an end. Says Bloomberg:

The dollar may decline to $1.57 per euro and 87 yen before it finds a ``long-term bottom,'' according to a study by Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

``It seems very hard to believe that the dollar is close to the end of its decline,'' judged by a history of currency crises in other countries, wrote Alberto Ades, director of global markets research, and Jens Nordvig, a market economist at Goldman in New York.
Goldman studied 26 emerging-market currency crises between 1985 and 1999 to estimate how low the dollar may drop to help narrow its record current-account deficit.

Yellen helped send the dollar down almost 1 percent on Sept. 10, when she said the deficit will widen unless the dollar falls.

Overseas investors may curb their financing of the U.S. deficit, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said at the European Banking Congress in Frankfurt on Nov. 19. ``A diminished appetite for adding to dollar balances must occur at some point,'' he said.

Fed officials' comments ``reinforce the widespread assumption the Fed thinks a weaker dollar is likely and probably beneficial,'' said Sean Callow, a currency strategist at IDEAglobal in New York.

And CNN:

Reports showing accelerating U.S. factory growth in November and a strong start to consumer spending in the fourth-quarter did nothing to stem the dollar's slide, despite bolstering expectations for the Federal Reserve to keep lifting official rates.

By comparison, European data showed manufacturing growth stalled last month and new orders for goods contracting for the first time in more than a year, with some economists blaming the dollar's gains on the dent to exports.

"Nobody seems to care about the economic data," said Marshall Gittler, senior currency strategist at Deutsche Bank in Tokyo. "That indicators' sentiment for the dollar is seriously, seriously bearish."

Even a 1.5 percent jump in the S&P 500 Monday to a new three-year high offered no solace for the dollar.

The dollar has fallen by a 35% against the euro and 24% against the yen over the past 3 years. That 's a pretty big drop. Fortunately for all of us, and I do mean all of us, it has been a gradual drop. A weak dollar (negative as such a thing sounds) is the only way to correct our current account deficit. If it drops slowly, hopefully, things can stay in relative equilibrium and not cause massive chaos and recessions or depressions worldwide.

In spite of this, the idea of a weak dollar doesn't sell very well in Europe or Asia.

Japan and the eurozone authorities have discussed the prospect of joint currency market intervention if the yen and euro continue to strengthen against the dollar, a senior Japanese finance ministry official said on Wednesday.
[...]
The official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, added that recent comments about the US current account deficit by Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, were a “misjudgment” that had increased market volatility.
[...]
The ministry official said the dollar should not be weakening given the superior US growth performance. “If there is a general depreciation in the dollar, we should have harmonised action,” he said. “If the [dollar's] movement affects the European economy and the Japanese economy, we should defend ourselves.”

I side with the Fed on this. While I appreciate the European and Japanese concerns, that the weakening dollar hurts their exports to the U.S., the fundamentals of the U.S. economy suggest that the dollar should be weak. Eventually, the dollar is going to fall. If it does so relatively slowly, it might be relatively painless. If, on the other hand, foreigners continue to artificially prop it up by buying dollars, it will eventually experience a precipitous crash that we will all deeply regret. Indeed, The Economist, which seems to agree with me on the need for the dollar to fall, is far less sanguine than I am about the possibility of it to fall painlessly:

America has habits that are inappropriate, to say the least, for the guardian of the world's main reserve currency: rampant government borrowing, furious consumer spending and a current-account deficit big enough to have bankrupted any other country some time ago. This makes a dollar devaluation inevitable, not least because it becomes a seemingly attractive option for the leaders of a heavily indebted America. Policymakers now seem to be talking the dollar down. Yet this is a dangerous game. Why would anybody want to invest in a currency that will almost certainly depreciate?
[...]
America's current-account deficit is at the heart of these global concerns. The OECD's latest Economic Outlook predicts that the deficit will rise to $825 billion by 2006 (6.4% of America's GDP) assuming unchanged exchange rates. Optimists argue that foreigners will keep financing the deficit because American assets offer high returns and a haven from risk. In fact, private investors have already turned away from dollar assets: the returns on investments in America have recently been lower than in Europe or Japan (see article). And can a currency that has been sliding against the world's next two biggest currencies for 30 years be regarded as “safe”?

In a free market, without the massive support of Asian central banks, the dollar would be far weaker. In any case, such support has its limits, and the dollar now seems likely to fall further. How harmful will the economic consequences be? Will it really undermine the dollar's reserve-currency status?

Periods of dollar decline have often been unhappy for the world economy. The breakdown of Bretton Woods that led to a weaker dollar in the early 1970s was painful for all, contributing to rising inflation and recession. In the late 1980s, the falling dollar had few ill-effects on America's economy, but it played a big role in inflating a bubble in Japan by forcing Japanese authorities to slash interest rates.
[...]
Many American policymakers talk as though it is better to rely entirely on a falling dollar to solve, somehow, all their problems. Conceivably, it could happen—but such a one-sided remedy would most likely be far more painful than they imagine. America's challenge is not just to reduce its current-account deficit to a level which foreigners are happy to finance by buying more dollar assets, but also to persuade existing foreign creditors to hang on to their vast stock of dollar assets, estimated at almost $11 trillion. A fall in the dollar sufficient to close the current-account deficit might destroy its safe-haven status. If the dollar falls by another 30%, as some predict, it would amount to the biggest default in history: not a conventional default on debt service, but default by stealth, wiping trillions off the value of foreigners' dollar assets.

The dollar's loss of reserve-currency status would lead America's creditors to start cashing those cheques—and what an awful lot of cheques there are to cash. As that process gathered pace, the dollar could tumble further and further. American bond yields (long-term interest rates) would soar, quite likely causing a deep recession. Americans who favour a weak dollar should be careful what they wish for. Cutting the budget deficit looks cheap at the price.

The problem with their analysis is that I'm not exactly sure what they think we should to do about it, absent a fall in the dollar. Yes, clearly, the budget deficit is a part of the problem, and that's something that Congress ought to deal with, but shows no signs of caring about. But fixing the budget deficit alone will not correct the current account deficit. The current account is a product of decentralized American consumer preferences, not the organized effort or negligence of some centralized authority. How does one fix that, besides by making imports more expensive, i.e., by letting the dollar fall?

This is a looming crisis that has been gathering for years. If the dollar gets propped up by foreign banks again, and the U.S. economy continues to look healthy by other indicators, we will probably all continue with the happy delusion of the strong U.S. economy. But eventually the illusions will come crashing down, and the longer we preserve them, the worse the crisis will be when it finally comes. And the disruption in the world economy were the U.S. economy to crash would be absolutely devastating, to the point that I hate to even think about it.

I started this post by confessing that I was briefly entertaining the thought that the economy could be a worse threat to us than terrorism. I say this, not because I've come to the conclusion that terrorism isn't really a threat, but because past periods of economic turmoil have led to, well, massive wars. Should the dollar and subsequently the U.S. economy crash in a really brutal way, which I believe could happen, the worldwide economic order could come completely unglued. And with it, the relatively peaceful political order that much of the world has built since our last truly catastrophic war.

Go ahead, discuss.

And I thought Blogger was bad...

2004-12-04T21:23:00.000-05:00

Now you can blog through MSN. I need say no more.

Meddlesome Congress (UPDATED)

2004-12-04T18:33:00.000-05:00

You know, I'm a big fan of John McCain, but sometimes he really does come out with some loopy ideas.

UPDATE 12/5: He should spend more time and effort harping on stuff like this, where he's far more credible and intelligent.

Evil Doers

2004-12-02T20:05:00.000-05:00

Eric at Classical Values on accidents, evil oil companies, SUVs, and blue states. Yeah, it's quite a post.

2004 Weblog Awards

2004-12-02T19:25:00.000-05:00

Go vote! I wouldn't be so presumptious as to suggest who you should vote for, other than that you should vote for me in the 2500-3000 category!

Webster Legitimizes Blogs

2004-12-01T22:41:00.000-05:00

A lot of people have linked to the declaration by Webster that "blog" is the word of the year. That's pretty cool in and of itself. But possibly even cooler is that their elevation of the word to such high status has spawned a host of news articles. At present, if you go to Google News, a Melbourne Herald Sun article about it is among the headlines, and if you click on "Related Articles," 120 pop up, from all manner of news sources. That seems like a lot.

Is it just me, or does CBS's article seem to be barely concealing its bitterness?

(CBS/AP) It's possible you may have looked at a "blog" to help make your decision whether to re-elect the "incumbent" during the recent "electoral" process.

And if you did, you weren't alone. Dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster is out with its list of the 2004 "Words of the Year."

Topping the list by a wide margin is the word "blog," which is generally used to describe an online personal journal. The word has shown up consistently since July on the daily top 50 list of words looked up on Merriam-Webster's sites.
[...]
Coming in at number two was "incumbent," which describes President Bush.

The third spot was captured by "electoral," a word we're all probably tired of by now.

I also enjoy the fact that the #10 word of the year was "defenestration."

A Media Outlet Gets Blogging

2004-12-01T21:48:00.000-05:00

I haven't been reading the Economist lately and I'm not sure why. It's been one of my favorite news sources for ages. So forgive me for over-linking it as I return to reading it. I'm not sure if this article got play in the blogosphere and I just missed it because of Thanksgiving weekend, but its article on Rather's resignation and the blogosphere was really fabulous. The subheading (this piqued my interest in and of itself): "Dan Rather's retirement marks a welcome change in American journalism." They describe Rathergate as follows:

Mr Rather claimed to have documents proving that Mr Bush had violated a direct order to take a physical examination, and also that his superiors had been put under pressure to “sugarcoat” his evaluation. But within 14 hours internet sleuths had shown that the documents were forgeries. Mr Rather stood by his story for 12 excruciating days, while his supporters arrogantly contrasted the network's rigorous fact-checking with “a guy sitting in his living room in his pyjamas writing”. But the pyjama guy turned out to be right.

Indeed he did. The Economist seems far more in tune (and less hostile) to the changes in media these days than most news outlets I've encountered. It gets better:

Mr Rather's retirement epitomises two broader shifts of power. First, the old media are losing power to the new. And, second, the liberal media establishment is losing power to a more diverse cacophony of new voices.

For most of the post-war era the American media were dominated by a comfortable liberal consensus. The New York Times was the undisputed king of the print news, while the network anchors lorded it over TV news. That consensus is now under siege.
[...]
But old media also face a newer and more unpredictable source of competition—the blogosphere. Bloggers have discovered that all you need to set yourself up as a pundit is a website and an attitude.

All through the recent election campaign, the new media outsmarted the old media when it came to setting the news agenda.
[...]
Given America's fractious politics, it is easy to look at Mr Rather's retirement merely in terms of a left v right scorecard. But, more fundamentally, it is about choice.
[...]
Most Americans now get their news from an ever-proliferating range of sources: not just Fox or CNN, but also foreign newspapers and even the innumerable original documents that are now available at the touch of a button. And fewer people regard any single news source—be it CBS News or the New York Times—as the embodiment of truth.

And here is the best part, they seem to truly get the fundamentally non-ideological nature of the blogosphere:

The erosion of the old media establishment probably does entail some shift to the right, if only because so many of the newer voices are more reliably pro-Republican than Mr Rather. But the new media are simply too anarchic and subversive for any single political faction to take control of them.

There are plenty of leftish bloggers too: such people helped Howard Dean's presidential campaign. And the most successful conservative bloggers are far from being party loyalists: look at the way in 2002 that they kept the heat on the Republicans' then Senate leader, Trent Lott, for racist remarks that the New York Times originally buried. It is a safe bet that, if the current Bush administration goes the way of previous second-term administrations and becomes consumed by scandals, conservative bloggers will be in the forefront of the scandal-mongering. Mr Rather's passing does not mean that the liberal orthodoxy is about to give way to a new conservative one. It means that all orthodoxies are being chewed up by a voraciously unpredictable news media, which is surely all to the good.

The Future of the Trans-Atlantic Alliance

2004-12-01T20:59:00.000-05:00

The Economist on Europe and Islam in the wake of Theo Van Gogh's murder. This little domestic interplay is, to my mind, crucial in how the European response to the threat of Islamic terrorism ultimately plays out. The first major terrorist attack in Europe was met with retreat, or at least the strong appearance of it. If the second is met with the same, we can forget about a Europe (Western, at least) that can be a true ally in this fight. If, on the other hand, it ultimately prompts Europe to wake up, then there might still be hope for the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Somewhat relatedly, read this article on French politics.

Thanksgiving Hiatus Not Quite Over

2004-11-30T22:21:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I've been brain dead since returning from Thanksgiving. It was one of those vacations when you need a vacation to recover from vacation. More tomorrow, maybe.

The Cabinet's Function

2004-11-29T23:00:00.000-05:00

After the appointment of Condi Rice as Secretary of State a couple of weeks ago, I had the following exchange with one girl in one of my classes who was very upset about the appointment. She capped off a long screed about why Condi was a horrible choice with, "She's just going to support the President!" I responded, rather incredulously, "Isn't that her job?!?"

Democracy Hanging in the Balance

2004-11-28T23:58:00.000-05:00

In the Ukraine, of course. Not enough time for thoughts at the moment, but Art Chrenkoff's been following the story, with translations of Aleksander Kwasniewski's statements in Polish, just click and scroll. He also noted some interesting and less-reported developments in Romania. For now, I'll just say that this story deserves the attention it's getting.

Back from Thanksgiving

2004-11-28T22:50:00.000-05:00

I'm back. For Thanksgiving I went to New Jersey for dinner with my aunt and cousins and their family, then up to Vermont for some premature skiing. Considering it's only Thanksgiving weekend, the skiing wasn't too bad, although there wasn't much open. Pretty good weekend, besides the traffic and the fact that I got rear-ended - not once, but twice, on the Jersey Turnpike coming home. Twice! Who gets rear-ended twice in the course of two hours? Apparently I do. Fortunately my car seems to be built like a tank and very limited damage was done. Anyway, I've got some work to do tonight, so this is all for blogging this evening.

Thanksgiving Hiatus

2004-11-25T00:23:00.000-05:00

I'll be gone through Sunday, with no internet access. This is a little disappointing, because as I see I've been nominated by the Watcher's Council this week! So I won't know if I've won (not that I'm particularly expecting to) till I get back. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Sorry no blogging tonight - went out for drinks after class and just got home.

A UN I Could Get Behind

2004-11-24T00:06:00.000-05:00

Or a start at least. Vaclav Havel for UN Secretary General!

My Laugh for the Day

2004-11-23T22:16:00.000-05:00

Via Tim Blair, I find that the world is now responding to The Sorries. Funny. In some cases, misguided but well intentioned. I kind of liked this one, from a German:

Well, if they're going to remember history, I'd prefer they'd remember how rather than trying to utterly destroy them after WWII, we pumped considerable money into their economy and tried to rehabilitate them, but hey - at least they're trying to be grateful for something.

Ah, now I get it. A while back over at the Llama's we had a discussion about lefties who like LOTR and our common bafflement as to what appeal the story would have for lefties. It's so clear now, I don't know why we didn't all think of it before: Bush = Sauron. Blair = Saruman. Al Qaeda = the Fellowship. Now I get their logic.

Aparentemente, esta persona cree que nosotros somos tan tontos que no sabemos que España está en Europa.

If anyone in my 51% is looking for some weed and willing to sell your soul by pretending to be in the other 49% to get it, this girl's offering. Cruise on up to B.C. Weed and sorries go great together.

Whoa... that's deep, man. So, then, who's the puppetmaster, dude? Who do we have to kill? Oh, dude! I get it now! I'm so with you, man! [Sorry, it was that weed from the last chick.]

Ha. So it seems this guy's not accepting their apologies.

Well, one thing's clear. apologiesaccepted.com does not censor. Props to this guy.

This one has to be satirical. It has to be. If it wasn't intended to be, it's certainly self-satirical.

Ha. Had to throw that one in there.

But then there's stuff like this. You know how I've said a couple of times that the Poles are awesome? Case in point:

I'm not quite sure what to make of this one. In fact, I'm not sure I want to think about her meaning in too much depth. Does she want to suck Bush's cock? Or does she just want him impeached?

And on that note, I think I'm going to stop now. Though really, if you have some time to kill, highly recommended browsing. It's hilarious.

Have We Been Wrong About Europe?

2004-11-23T00:11:00.000-05:00

I haven't written on the murder of Theo van Gogh and its implications for the Netherlands, only because (as if you hadn't noticed) I didn't really have time to blog during the time it was all unfolding. But I would like to make a couple of short comments on it.

I think it's going to be interesting to see how the aftermath of this plays out. There are signs that the Netherlands is doing some serious reevaluation:

"It is a disgrace that we know potential terrorists are running free in this country," said Geert Wilders, a right-wing lawmaker who demanded that all the suspected radical Muslims on the government's watch list be arrested.
A harsh critic of Islamic fundamentalism, Wilders has gone into hiding since Van Gogh's murder, except during the parliamentary debates. Also hiding is Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a conservative legislator who collaborated with Van Gogh on "Submission," his film that criticized the way Islam treats women.

The government announced new steps to make it easier to infiltrate terrorist networks. If enacted, investigators will not have to prove "reasonable" suspicion of terrorist activities to conduct searches and detain people -- "indications" will suffice.

"When it comes to preparing a terrorist attack, it's better to have 10 possibly innocent people temporarily in jail than one with a bomb on the street," said Maxime Verhagen, the floor leader of Balkenende's own Christian Democrats.

It will also be easier to access bank accounts of suspects and the right for police to make preventive searches of vehicles near sites where many people gather such as sports arenas, airports, industrial parks and rail and bus stations.

And:

Re-branded as the AIVD, or General Intelligence and Security Service in English, the organisation seemed bereft of enemies of the state. September 11 in the US and more recently the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam on 2 November has changed all that. The focus is now firmly on “Islamic terror”. Armed with the promise of “several tens of millions of euros” in increased funding, the AIVD has been given new orders in direct response to the brutal assassination of Van Gogh. The organisation has been tasked with tightening surveillance on suspected “extremists” and preventing future attacks.

And:

Dutch immigration minister Rita Verdonk, this week: "If you want to live in the Netherlands, you have to adhere to our rules."

Those are just a few examples. Now, ignoring the issue of whether these proposed changes are positive or negative, they definitely signal a society ready to get tough on terrorism, kind of the way we did after 9/11.

It seems I've been a little hard on the Netherlands in the past, as have most right-wing American pundits. They have that whole Benelux association with Belgium, but one fact that is rarely mentioned - and interestingly, hasn't even been significantly mentioned since Van Gogh's murder - is that the Netherlands is actually a part of the Coalition of the Willing, with 1,345 currently in Iraq (putting it at number 6, not including U.S. forces). I'm not sure the Dutch people have highly supported that involvement, but it distinguishes them from many other Western European nations nevertheless. I predicted a little over a month ago:

I think at some point in the next ten years the EU is going to crack in half and form two separate coalitions. The Axis of Weasels on one hand and the Friends of America on the other. (Well, they probably won't actually refer to themselves as that.) Britain will stay on our side. Eastern Europe will stay on our side. I think we'll lose most of the other western European countries that have been on our side so far (Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway) to the Axis of Weasels.

Perhaps I was wrong. (And happily so, I might add.)

I said it was surprising that Dutch involvement has gotten little mention. Contrast with the Madrid bombings, after which everyone was crowing about how Spain was being targeted because it had supported the U.S. in Iraq. Granted, the nature of this attack is very different - targeting a specific individual as it did. And I'm sure I could dig up some sources mentioning this if I looked. But the point is that no one has made a big deal of it - including the Dutch.

Now I don't know what to expect in terms of future Dutch involvement in Iraq or the broader War on Terror. Indeed, I have seen no pledges of future support to our efforts. I haven't seen it from the Russians since Beslan either. But the Dutch response to the gruesome and dramatic murder, while not draconian, has not been to retreat. I find that an encouraging sign for Europe, certainly great strides ahead of Spain's response to 3/11. We tend to joke about the Europeans and appeasement, suggesting that this will be their strategy with the WOT as well, but perhaps not.

A potential advantage of having an enemy that is not especially unified, not controlled under a clear hierarchical structure, is that the enemy is likely to err strategically, winning a few battles but losing the war more quickly. If Islamists want a real war with Western Civilization, they would do well to split us in half first, as they appear to have done fairly well till this point. They would do well to leave Europe alone, content in its delusion that only American jingoism was to blame for the Troubles (to borrow a euphemism from the Irish). Otherwise, if past analysis of myself and others proves to be wrong - as I'm proposing that it may be in the Netherlands - and Western Europe still has some fight left in it, I expect that the Islamists may be done for sooner than I had expected. Whether all of western and quasi-Western (by which I mean the Russians) society stands shoulder to shoulder at this juncture isn't so important. If the majority of us at least have some resolve and common purpose, renewed alliances will come with time, if the Islamists continue on their present course.

Hard to say at this point. But maybe the transatlantic alliance isn't as dead as I have proclaimed it in the past.

A Victory

2004-11-22T22:28:00.000-05:00

I've heard it argued that taking out Fallujah as enemy headquarters doesn't really make any difference because terror groups tend to be amorphous and adaptive. Their bases are therefore not critical to them. This is where I disagree. Certainly, terror groups are more nimble than most enemies one might face. But to be an effective combatant, anyone needs some type of base for certain things, such as storing weapons. Or shit like this. Without significant areas of refuge, shit like this is going to be much harder to pull off. And I think that we can all agree that that will be a major victory, not just for Coalition forces or for Iraq, but for all that is good and decent in the world.

(Via Jimmie)

Tales from China

2004-11-22T22:18:00.000-05:00

It sounds like the Unabrewer had fun in China, if stories of hot Chinese girls named Meow Meow sitting on his lap are any indication.

Housekeeping

2004-11-21T22:47:00.000-05:00

A blogroll update was long overdue, and it has now been done. I deleted a bunch that I don't really read regularly - no insult intended to those blogs, it's just that there are only so many hours in a day! - and added a bunch that should have been there a long time ago. Plus some new promising finds. I also added a reciprocal links section. I try to keep up with this via Technorati and the Ecosystem, but please, if you have me blogrolled and for whatever reason I don't have you, email me and I will add you.

Quote of the Week, November 21

2004-11-21T21:39:00.000-05:00

The election over, Republican victory in hand, I no longer feel the need to focus on the reasons I supported the Republican party and President Bush through the election. Instead, I expect to return to my more natural stance as a somewhat disgruntled Republican and spend more time criticizing the aspects of the party with which I disagree. Hence, more recent posts on domestic issues, which is where the Republican party and I have more tendency to part ways. Quotes of the week are likely to reflect this change in tone for a while. This week, I draw on a past Republican, whose ideas I fear have been lost in the modern incarnation of Republicanism:

“I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I first determine whether it is Constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.”

-Barry Goldwater

Required Reading

2004-11-20T23:50:00.000-05:00

The definitive rant on what the left has become. (Via Zendo Deb)

I have just one question. I was totally on board with the conservative takeover of the world until all the young females had to be enslaved. Can't some of us be in the ruling elite too? After all, there are plenty of leftie males just begging to be the sex slaves of domineering rightie women. Can I have Ben Affleck?

Intelligence Reform Stalls

2004-11-20T19:32:00.000-05:00

Implications for the intelligence community aside, I found this extremely interesting from a political persepective. From the NYT:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a defeat for President Bush, rebellious House Republicans on Saturday derailed legislation to overhaul the nation's intelligence agencies along lines recommended by the Sept. 11 commission.
``It's hard to reform. It's hard to make changes,'' said Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who sought unsuccessfully to persuade critics among the GOP rank and file to swing behind the measure.

So much for post-election Republican unity. I expected that after such a striking victory, Republicans would be playing as a team, at least for a while. It seems I'm not the only one who's surprised:

``I am very disappointed that these objections have been raised at the 11th hour and temporarily derailed this bill,'' said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the primary negotiator on the measure for Senate Republicans.

Collins said it was surprising, given Bush's recent re-election triumph, that Republicans were not willing to approve legislation that he favored and his aides lobbied for throughout the day.
Democrats were biting.

``The commander in chief in the middle of a war says he needs this bill to protect the American people,'' said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., who led Democratic negotiators on the issue.

He said the development was ``particularly shocking after the president, the commander in chief, has been re-elected.''

Nancy Pelosi's casting blame:

``Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House, and the blame for this failure is theirs alone,'' added House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

Regardless of what you think about the substance of the bill, I say this is a good thing in broader terms. Politicians playing lemmings is never a good thing, and if people have honest objections to the bill, then they should oppose it, partisan loyalty aside. Indeed, Pelosi should actually be happy that Republicans are not following in lock-step behind the president - it means she might have some chance of winning future battles.

As to the substance, my inclination is to say that the bill isn't a great one anyway, but I don't feel knowledgable about the subject either way to form a strong opinion. For the perspective of the "nays," see here, though it's a bit old now. I can only say I feel more confidence in Porter Goss than in the intelligence reform bill.

I Died for Love; I Died for Honor; I Died for Bureaucracy

2004-11-20T18:30:00.000-05:00

This "FDA under fire" business worries me a little bit. Obviously, the presence of unsafe drugs on the market is worrisome, but if criticism results in the FDA's being even slower to approve new drugs than they already are, then more lives are likely to be lost as a result of the chilling effect such caution could have on innovation. The notion that the FDA approves new drugs "too quickly" is laughable to anyone familiar with the process. Getting a new drug to the market is already an arduous and expensive process. Make it moreso and you will only a) delay new and potentially lifesaving drugs from reaching the market even more, b) increase the time and expense of new drug approval, making it less likely that drugs with less market potential (i.e., those for rarer conditions) will be made at all, and c) create an even greater hurdle for smaller companies, particularly nascent biotechs, possibly pushing some out of the market. None of this will save lives - it will cost lives.

And what is the controversy, after all? Five drugs:

Crestor, a cholesterol-lowering statin; Accutane, an acne drug; Serevent, an asthma drug; Meridia, a weight-loss drug; and Bextra, an arthritis and pain drug....
Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, has been battling all five drugs for years. The organization has urged limited distribution of Accutane, which can cause birth defects, and put the rest on a "do not use" list for consumers. In addition, Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, has petitioned the FDA to withdraw Meridia and Crestor. The weight-loss drug, which increases blood pressure in some patients, was linked to a death in a clinical trial, and patients taking the cholesterol drug are 75 times more likely to suffer kidney failure or damage than patients taking other statins, according to Public Citizen's analysis.
The FDA placed its most serious "black box" warning on Serevent in 2003, after a safety study found that it was linked to a higher rate of asthma-related deaths, particularly in African-Americans. Bextra has been linked in two studies to an increased risk of heart attack in bypass surgery patients when taken orally and intravenously, and will soon carry a black-box warning about the risk of a rare, but sometimes fatal, skin disease, according to its manufacturer, Pfizer.

Obviously, all bad things. And if it is determined that the health risks are severe enough, they should be pulled from the market. But this is dangerous talk:

For the past decade, the FDA has been too quick to approve drugs with serious health risks and with benefits no greater than existing treatments. Critics say the agency bows to pressure from the drug industry to approve their products more rapidly and that it does not effectively monitor the safety of drugs once they are on the market.

"Since the mid-'90s, the FDA has seemed more concerned about meeting the needs of the average drug company than meeting the needs of the average patient," said Dr. Jerry Avorn, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and author of "Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks and Costs of Prescription Drugs."

Ah, how I hate the meme of the drug companies as the evil villians. I've said it before and I'll say it again: drug companies save lives. And help people live better lives. Just because they make money in the process does not make them evil. If there were no money in the process, more people would die. It is that simple. And now "consumer advocates" (eh- cough) are trying to condemn the FDA with the drug companies' evil taint.

Yes, there is always a risk when a new drug comes to market that it will have side-effects that did not appear in clinical trials, either because the sample size was too small or because the effects only appear over the very long term. And it is the FDA's job to continue to monitor drugs to see if they prove dangerous enough to be withheld from the market. But virtually all drugs have some side-effects. Unless the side-effects are particularly egregious, then it is not the government's job to decide for consumers what risks they should be willing to take for whatever condition it is they wish to treat. If they do so, they will effectively be imposing a system of values on the consumer. It is their job to make sure that the risks are known and that doctors are aware of them so that they can pass the appropriate warnings along to their patients. It is then a decision between the doctor and the patient if those risks are worth taking.

As an example, take Accutane, one of the drugs cited above. I took Accutane when I was 18 or 19 to treat acne. It does indeed cause birth defects, among other things. And indeed, it warns you of that on every single pill . They don't come in a bottle, but in a strip (like Advil Cold & Sinuses or Tylenol Flus) . The cardboard backing that you have to peel away to get to each pill has a picture of a pregnant woman with a big red universal "don't " sign through it. "Do not even think of taking this pill if you are pregnant or are planning to become pregnant." My doctor would not prescribe it to women - even sexually inactive women - unless they were also on birth control. It has to be represcribed every month contingent upon a pregnancy test.

That's doctor/patient responsibility. And, while it certainly presents complications, it's the only way to balance the risks and rewards of new and potentially risky medications without hampering innovation or having the government impose values on the citizenry. Was my acne life-threatening? No. Was I aware of the risks of taking Accutane to treat it? Yes. Was it worth it to me at the time? Apparently, yes. That was my decision. And it's not one I want the government making for me. And I especially wouldn't want the government making the decision for me for a condition more serious than acne.

The Road Ahead for Taxation

2004-11-20T15:56:00.000-05:00

James Joyner writes about where the adminstration is going with tax reform, which appears not to be very far. From the WaPo:

During his reelection campaign, President Bush piqued interest among conservatives and liberals alike when he said replacing the income tax with a national sales tax was "an interesting idea." Just after the election he signaled that tax policy would be a centerpiece of his domestic agenda, reiterating his pledge to name a bipartisan panel to draft a fundamental tax reform proposal. That sent conservatives scurrying into either the flat tax or sales tax camp to muster political momentum. But before the tax panel is even named, administration officials have begun dialing back expectations that they will move to scrap the current graduated income tax for another system.

Instead the administration plans to push major amendments that would shield interest, dividends and capitals gains from taxation, expand tax breaks for business investment and take other steps intended to simplify the system and encourage economic growth, according to several people who are advising the White House or are familiar with the deliberations.

The changes are meant to be revenue-neutral. To pay for them, the administration is considering eliminating the deduction of state and local taxes on federal income tax returns and scrapping the business tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance, the advisers said. As the tax discussion takes shape, "we're not talking about a replacement system," said a former White House aide familiar with the emerging policy.

James says:

But we're supposed to be talking about a replacement system! This is disappointing on a number of levels. Not only does it do very little to alleviate the problems that Bush citied in the campaign--the incredible amount of time and money that simply complying with the current system consumes--but it actually strikes me as harmful. If we're going to maintain a wasteful, complicated, incentive-laden system of wealth redistribution disguised as a taxing mechanism, surely incentivizing provision of health insurance is more advantageous than shielding real investment income from taxation.

I was excited during the summer when rumors were floating about that the Bush administration might go for a flat tax system. I was less excited when I started hearing that instead the reform might take the form of a national sales tax. A national sales tax (unless I misinterpret the concept) is actually a regressive tax, because, you're only taxed on what you spend. If you're in lower income brackets, you spend the majority of your income. If you're in upper tax brackets, you spend only some of your income and can save or invest the rest, shielding it from any taxation at all. I don't find that to be any fairer than the current progressive system, though it would be far less wasteful. As such, I don't support the national sales tax idea.

I would however, be interested to see how such a radical change would affect other aspects of our economy. It seems that a sales tax would discourage spending and encourage savings. Discouraging spending might not be great for the economic engine, though both factors together might have the effect of reducing the trade imbalance, which would be a good thing. On the other hand, if I'm right and spending is discouraged, tax revenues would decrease. Ordinarily I would say that is a good thing as well - if I had any faith in Congress or this president to reduce government spending accordingly. Since I don't, what we might see is decreased trade deficits and increased government deficits. There would likely be other effects I haven't considered. And probably some unintended consequences that no one has considered.

Via INDC Bill.

A Name That Shall Henceforth Never Be Mentioned

2004-11-19T22:48:00.000-05:00

Someone in the comments over at Tim Blair's commented that the Ted Rall cartoon that has me so upset is actually one of his less offensive bits of commentary. I suppose that's probably true, if it's not on a subject you take personally. I do agree that he's had many past howlers - racist commentary on Condi Rice, calling for the deaths of American troops, derisive comments about Pat Tillman. Here's a FrontPage Mag article from June that rounds up the loathsome excuse for a human being that is Ted Rall pretty well.

Given Rall's history, why do I even care enough to get upset? It's just repulsive and absurd that pundits on the left still get away with this. (UPDATE: And by "this" I mean shit like the Ted Rall column, or this, in case you'd forgotten about that.) As I've found out within the last hour or so, it seems Ted Rall has won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards for Cartoons: "for outstanding coverage of the problems of the disadvantaged." He's been a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Christ's sake! And let me rant for a moment about the "problems of the disadvantaged." I don't know for whom Ted Rall has advocated in the past to earn him such a distinction, but it doesn't matter who it was: there is no disadvantaged group less deserving of Rall's or anyone else's ridicule than the disabled. That's because of all "disadvantaged groups" only the disabled - particularly the mentally disabled - can truly do nothing about their condition. In some cases, they can't even realize that they have a condition. True, black people can't change their skin color and women can't change their gender (no Michael Jackson or transsexual jokes, please), but in today's day and age, neither race nor gender nor ethnicity nor religion nor sexual orientation need hold you back unless you let it. Mental disability is entirely different. It is a struggle - you have no idea how much so - for the families of some disabled people to even accomplish basic goals like tying shoes or answering a direct question or writing a short sentence. Things the rest of us take for granted - cannot be taken for granted with severely disabled kids. Put simply, that kid Rall is ridiculing can't help that he's drooling. He can't. There's nothing he or anyone else can do to stop it.

Disabled kids receive quite enough ridicule from their peers. They don't need it from adults. (Though it could be argued that an adult claiming that someone who disagrees with him is a "retard" isn't really deserving of the title "adult.") They don't need to be used by pundits who think they're so clever to make a dull and cliched political point.

Was Rall also criticizing the doctrine of inclusion in our public school system, as some letters that Rall links to at his blog (who knew?) suggest? Perhaps. But this is not the way to do it. My mother is an advocate for parents of children with special needs and as such is firmly committed to the inclusion doctrine. I am lukewarm about it, myself. She and I argue sometimes about the best way to educate disabled kids - and kids in general. It's a valid discussion. But it doesn't need to take the form or ridicule. Especially of people who can't defend themselves.

I could keep going on this, but I'm stuggling somewhat to put all my thoughts into words. So I'll end by informing you, as someone in Tim Blair's comments informed me, that Rall is trying to get fans to send email to the Washington Post in protest of their decision. If Ted Rall has ever disgusted you, on this issue or any other (and I find it hard to believe that he hasn't), please, send the WaPo an email congratulating them on a job well done.

What In God's Name Has Happened to My Free Time?

2004-11-19T20:33:00.000-05:00

If you're wondering where I've been of late, I can only say I haven't had a free moment. I didn't have a lot of them before, but the last couple weeks have just been insane. The next few weeks should all ease up a bit and blogging should be a bit more regular (except Thanksgiving weekend, when you won't hear from me at all).

Right now, my head is too tired to come up with anything on my own, so I'm just going to do a bit of a link-a-thon this evening.

Jimmie, on UN scandals and choral music!

Jeff Harrell, because it's his birthday and because he's sick. And, if you're a Survivor fan, because of Survivor. (That really was a shameless link-whoring post Jeff!)

Greg Djerejian on Condi. I haven't gotten around to mentioning this yet, so while I'm on the subject, I'm thrilled about Condi's appointment. And why Powell's resignation and Rice's appointement such a big shocker to everyone? A year ago or more, I would have bet substantial money - more money than I even had - that if Bush were reelected, Powell would resign and Rice would be the new Secretary of State. I have a hard time believing that anyone was really surprised by this, but apparently, some were. More on Condi at Classical Values, plus some interesting stuff on the Dutch (and Dutch-Americans), and the Great Liberal Sorry-Fest.

The Belmont Club: Jacque Chirac vs. Paul Wolfowitz. I link, you decide.

Aw. Steve and Robbo have a sweet anniversary post.

Holy shit. The Washington Post drops Ted Rall, finally, over a cartoon that has me so insulted I will not even link it. Story from Tim Blair. I just - wow - how does that bastard (not Tim Blair, Ted Rall) still have a paying job? I can't even - okay, moving on, I don't have any words for this one.
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Okay, that cartoon has so repulsed me that now I'm bitterly sending off emails to my family (you'll recall I have a disabled brother, if that helps explain my outrage). I will probably have more on this soon. But that marks the end of my link-o-thon. Sorry to any I might have linked but didn't. Blame Ted Rall.

Our Ally, Poland

2004-11-17T21:22:00.000-05:00

Art Chrenkoff has a great post about the Poles and their historical relationship with the French and why he feels it has changed since the Cold War. I actually wasn't aware of the historical relationship between Poland and France, but his observations about why the Poles are such strong allies of ours now are very interesting and similar to my own. I would extend them to much of the rest of the former Soviet bloc as well, although the phenomenon is definitely stongest in Poland. He talks largely about the ideological component - that the US is seen as the one country that really championed them during the Cold War. Further, I've said before that Western Europe and its socialism (an intermediate between the American system and the Soviet system) is not so appealing to Eastern Europe, which has had quite enough of the government in their lives over the past few decades.

I think the point that Chrenkoff neglects is that there is also a pragmatic component to Poland and Eastern Europe's alliance with America. Eastern Europe, and Poland above all, has historically been ripped this way and that by European powers on either side of them. No matter what changes have occurred in recent years or will occur in future years, I think it will (and should) be very hard for a country like Poland to ever trust the Germans or the Russians or any other European power. We are far safer, and by cultivating a friendship with us, the Poles and other Eastern Europeans make it likely that the next time someone in Europe threatens them, we will come to their aid. It's really very simple from a realist perspective: if Poland were threatened, and both France (or the whole EU) and the US were equally inclined to help them, who would be most likely to successfully effect the situation? I need not answer that question.

America and Israel (A Re-post)

2004-11-16T23:03:00.000-05:00

A lot of people have linked to Jay Tea's smackdown of a troll over at Wizbang. It's delightful reading over all, but I found this point really interesting:

He cited the 800,000 refugees who fled their homes shortly after the founding of Israel. He's showing his ignorance here. There were actually 1.6 million refugees created at that time, people who fled their ancestral homes (often with little more than the clothes on their backs) and fled to strange lands, filled with people with whom they only had a tenuous, ancient familial kinship. It was a terrifying time, but some were more fortunate than others. Fully half of these refugees quickly resigned themselves to never returning to their homes, assimilated into their new lands and prospered, enriching their new homes. The other half found themselves treated as nuisances at best and hated interlopers at worst, shoved into miserable hovels and slapdash refugee camps and their wretched condition preserved for future use as political weapons.
The unlucky ones were, of course, the Palestinians. The fortunate ones were the Jews who fled or were driven out of the other Arab nations surrounding Israel. Everyone focuses on the 800,000 Palestinian refugees; no one mentions the 800,000 Jews who were displaced at the same time, in the opposite direction.

And why should they? Those people got dealt a crappy hand and DEALT WITH IT. They refused to stay victims. They, through fierce determination and sheer force of will, took lemons and started a lemonade franchise that soon grew into a multinational conglomerate. They refused to stay refugees.

I think that this pervailing attitude of the Jews, their willingness for centuries to just "deal with" whatever shitty cards they were dealt over and over, has a lot to do with America's and Americans' general support for Israel. Back when I was travelling in Eastern Europe, I made the following observations:

It is often said that America continues to support Israel because it is a democracy. That's true enough. But in the past month I've visited a lot of Jewish and Holocaust sites in Central Europe, the region whose Jewish populations were most ravaged by the Holocaust - including Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Jewish Quarter in Prague, and the synogogue in Budapest (Europe's largest) - and I have further thoughts on America's (and Americans') support for Israel.

The thing that immediately jumps out at anyone who spends even a few minutes reflecting on the history of the Jews is the extent to which they have been persecuted over and over again for no reason whatsoever (or for highly irrational reasons). The Jews were blamed for the Plague (it was said they had put something in the water). Europe is littered with Jewish ghettos, because ruler after ruler felt the need to segregate the Jewish population from the Christian one. Hitler garnered support for his final solution by claiming that the Jews were responsible for the Depression. And so on. But what is just as striking is their perserverance in the face of this perpetual persecution. Part of the reason they have always made such easy scapegoats is because they always manage to be successful in spite of everything. This is where the stereotype and ethnic slur of the money-grubbing Jew has come from.

There are two types of people in the world. There's the type of people who no matter what happens to them, pick themselves back up and keep trying. Then there's the type of people who, when they fail, wallow in their failure, feel sorry for themselves and try to find someone else to blame for their failure. As a people, the Jews fall very strongly into the first category. You rarely hear the Jews whining about their troubled history; they just keep being successful in spite of it. Meanwhile, those in the world who fall into the latter category find in them someone to blame for their own failures, as we can clearly see throughout the Middle East today.

Herein lies what I think is a subtler reason for America's support of Israel. While America certainly has its share of the latter type of individuals, I think most of us would identify the former as the prototypical American: a person with perserverence in spite of adversity who takes responsibility for his own success or failure. As such, we haven't had as much of a problem with anti-Semitism as other regions in the world, because we as a nation don't need to seek out someone to blame when things go badly for us. Further, we have respect for others who are the same way. The aforementioned ethnic slur of the money-grubbing Jew isn't really so much of an insult in America: we respect people for making their own fortunes. We love to root for the underdog who succeeds against enormous odds (isn't that the real appeal of March Madness?).

I still think there's a lot of truth to that.

A New Jan Palach?

2004-11-15T23:50:00.000-05:00

When I was coming home today, I heard this story about a man setting himself on fire outside the White House this afternoon:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A man set himself on fire about 2 p.m. Monday on Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House.
The man, whose identity and condition have not been released, was taken to a hospital for treatment.
[...]
One witness said the man approached a security checkpoint building at the northwest gate of the White House and showed a writing pad with the word "urgent" written on it. When a uniformed Secret Service guard asked if he could help him, the man began walking along the fence toward the guard.

Another witness near the scene heard the unidentified man yelling in Arabic, "God is great," several times. And several witnesses said a bag the man was carrying started burning, pouring out thick black smoke that enveloped him.

The man appeared to fall face forward on the ground in front of the gate security building, the witnesses said, and uniformed Secret Service agents rushed to put out the flames with a fire extinguisher.

It doesn't seem clear at this point who this guy was or what his goal was. But this called to mind the story of Jan Palach, a Czech man who set himself on fire in Wenseslas Square in 1969 in Prague following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Wenseslas Square is actually less of a square more of a huge boulevard in the Prague's New Town, a Czech Champs-Elysee. It's a site with a lot of historical significance for a number of reasons - most recently it was where the people gathered in the massive but peaceful protest that was the Velvet Revolution in 1989. One of its earlier claims to fame was being the site of Jan Palach's self-martyrdom and the top of the boulevard bears a small memorial to him.

Palach became a hugely important symbolic figure during the ensuing years of communism. He wasn't anyone important in life - he was a 20-year old student at the time of his death. But the dramatic manner of his death made him a striking symbol of resistance to the Soviet occupation. He sacrificed himself as a protest of the Czechoslovak government's decision to turn away from democracy. The preceding spring had been the "Prague Spring," the Czechoslovak's government's attempt to bring a "human face" to communism - basically it was glastnost and perestroika two decades too early. At the time the Soviets didn't like the idea so much, so they invaded and the Czechoslovak government was perceived as caving to pressure, though I'm not sure how much choice they actually had.

In any case, Palach became an important symbol in the next two decades. Consider this passage, written for the 30th anniversary of his death:

For Czechs, three names will always symbolise truth, freedom and democracy...three names used to uplift the crushed spirits in times of oppression, and the very names used to trouble the authorities whose power was based on force rather than democracy. These three men, who stretch their hands to reach one another across five centuries, are the Catholic church reformer Jan Hus, and the students Jan Opletal and Jan Palach. The first of them died a long time ago, in the early 15th century, the second one in the early months of the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, and the last one shortly after the Soviet tanks quashed the 1968 Prague spring....

When dying of his burns in hospital, Palach pleaded with the people by his side to make sure the world knew that his act wasn`t a suicide but protest. He set himself on fire like it`s done in the Buddhist tradition, and became a human torch, both literally and spiritually. His act shook the demoralised nation like nothing else. For the following twenty years, it served as a constant reminder to those defending the truth, and a permanent reproach to the authorities, who tried to root out every memory of Palach`s death.

In any case, the point of this little lesson in Czech history is to float the theory that this guy who set him self on fire in front of the White House was a attempting to emulate Palach's example or to emulate a common example in the Buddhist tradition. Either way, he was trying to make a dramatic political statement.

Just a theory. When I first heard it on the radio coming home, I made the connection thinking it was some nutty American buying into all the histrionic nonesense about Bush being the new Hitler, and trying to make a symbol of himself in protest. With the bit in the CNN story about the man yelling in Arabic, "God is great," it takes on a bit more sinister cast, though it doesn't preclude my theory.

Finally!

2004-11-14T21:27:00.000-05:00

Michael Totten finally found someone on the left who figured out the real problem.

A Day in Court for France?

2004-11-14T20:39:00.000-05:00

Okay, one more thing. I just can't pass this one up. Jeff Harrell posts about the dispute brewing between France and Cote d'Ivoire. The gist:

Côte d'Ivoire (sometimes called Ivory Coast) has been torn by civil war since September 2002. Rebel forces control the northern part of the country while the government of President Laurent Gbagbo, who seized power after a failed election in 2000, holds the south. In January 2003, a French-brokered peace accord gave the rebels an official role in the government and ended major fighting, but otherwise failed to resolve the conflict. In February 2004, the UN Security Council deployed more than 6,000 peacekeepers to supplement the 4,000 French troops already in the buffer zone between the government- and rebel-held halves of the country. Though no US troops are involved in the operation, the United States pays 27% of the cost of all UN peacekeeping operations.
Two weeks ago, government forces launched a series of air strikes against rebel targets in the north, ending the tentative cease-fire that had lasted since last May 2003. On November 6, an air strike killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker. (The Ivorian government later called the attack a mistake.) France responded by destroying the tiny Ivorian air force — two Russian-made Sukhoi fighters and a small number of helicopter gunships. A wave of anti-French violence erupted, threatening the 14,000 French citizens who call Côte d'Ivoire home; mobs armed with machetes and lead pipes hunted for foreigners through the major cities of Abidjan and Yamoussoukro. French forces quelled the violence by seizing control of the embattled areas, deploying what the Associated Press called "overwhelming military force."
The Ivorian government now plans to petition the International Court of Justice, seeking damages for the French killing of Ivorian citizens and the destruction of Ivorian aircraft.

Jeff concludes, quite reasonably:

For all practical purposes, a state of war exists between France and the Gbagbo government. With thousands of French citizens living in Côte d'Ivoire, France has not just a compelling interest but an obligation to intervene in the failed state's internal affairs. Despite our two countries' differences over the past several years, the United States should be supportive of France in his crisis. If the situation were reversed and it were American lives at stake, we would expect — indeed, demand — nothing less from our friends across the Atlantic.

We would, and, as a commenter notes, we would not receive it. This is what drives me absolutely up the wall about the French. It's not that they're self-interested. I've noted before in comparing them to the Russians, I can handle a country that bases its policy on self-interest alone. That's what Russia does. And that's fine. What I hate is how, when it's someone else's national interests at stake, France tries to dress it all up in flowery, virtuous language, like they're the moral standard-bearers of the planet. But when it's their own national interests at stake, they're like regular American "cowboys" - "virtue be damned, we're kicking some ass!" See previous rant:

France is a whole different beast. It has, largely because it has tried to perpetuate, the reputation of being some sort of paragon of virtue. It is one of the leading exponents of European unification, one of the most liberal, internationalist projects of all time. It is the home of some of the greatest liberal thinkers in history. It lauds itself on its 35 hour work weeks and its nationalized healthcare. It rails against hegemonic American policies. It huffs and moans in the press and the Security Council whenever the US pursues an action that it, in its infinite wisdom, deems immoral. France thinks of itself, and tries to sell itself, as the world's moral arbiter.

This is all hypocricy. Meanwhile it sells weapons to the world's dictators and whenever French national interests are threatened, it responds without consulting anyone. It profits from the oppression of the Iraqi people by Saddam Hussein. Essentially, its entire foreign policy is focused on being whatever the United States is not.

This business with Cote d'Ivoire is just another case in point. We all know what pigheaded unilateralists we Americans are for our reluctance to take part in certain European pet multilateralist projects like the Kyoto protocols and the ICC. Now watch the French spin their excuses as to why the established rules don't apply to them if the Ivorian government continues to pursue this issue.

The French may well be totally justified here. But this is their obnoxiously hypocritical pattern. They sing the praises of all things internationalist until those institutions begin to crimp their style - see their blatant flouting of the EU budgetary rules, of which they were principle architects. But a US upfront rejection of an institution it disagrees with is morally reprehensible.

Quote of the Week, November 14th

2004-11-14T20:24:00.000-05:00

Damn, where did this weekend go? Don't worry, I haven't disappeared completely. I actually have a post in the works that I expected to have up this weekend, but all the sudden it's inexplicably Sunday night. But I'll take a short break from my other duties to throw up a quote for you.

In light of the fact that Mark Steyn is sadly taking a hiatus (and in light of the fact that I have decided to use him for my columnist assignment, which is due tomorrow) I thought he deserved quote of the week status. My personal favorite from his splendid Tuesday Telegraph column:

"Once you've turned citizens into junkies for government crack, it's very hard to wean them off it."
-Mark Steyn, 9 Nov 2004

To Fellow Virginia Residents (UPDATED)

2004-11-12T21:09:00.000-05:00

I know a few of my readers are VA residents. For you I have a question. We've all seen the 9/11 commemorative VA plates. For non-VA residents:

Classy, no? I've really wanted one ever since I moved here, and tomorrow is set to be Hellish-DMV Day, during which I attempt to transfer the title of my car from my dad's name (in another state) into my name (in Virginia) and register it here. Odds that this will be accomplished tomorrow? Slim to none. It took me two trips just to get a drivers' license. In any case, in the off chance that I will actually be attaching Virginia plates to my car tomorrow, here's the question: does that extra $10 a year go to charity? I looked up the source of the logo, which is the Arlington PD. The proceeds of the decals they sell go to charity. They mention that Virginia is now using it on their license plates, but neither they nor the Virginia DMV mention if the license plate proceeds go to charity. If it goes to charity, I'm all about it. But I don't think it does and I'm sure as hell not paying an extra $10 a year into the coffers of the hellacious DMV for a stupid license plate. Anyone have more information?

UPDATE: All right, problem solved. Thanks to Dave, who is not a Virginia resident, for digging into the Virginia code for me and discovering that, as I suspected, the extra cash goes to the DMV. Screw that. I think I may just buy some decals from the Arlington PD and stick one on my car. Same effect - money to a charity. Hell, I wouldn't mind if it just went to the Arlington PD, that's a good cause in itself. The DMV - not so much.

Isn't this kind of a shitty DMV practice? As Dave points out, Virginia has a hell of a lot of specialty plates. I think it's kind of fun, personally - it lets people single out an issue that's important to them and advertise it on their cars without the tackiness of bumper stickers. But wouldn't you think that the money raised by the plates should go to the cause it promotes? The "Fight Terrorism" plate is very, very common, but there are tons of others, including, "Friend of the Chesapeake," "Breast Cancer Foundation," "Kids First," "Virginia for the Arts," an assortment of wildlife, etc. That would be a great way to raise money for a myriad of causes. Let everyone pick the cause most important to them, advertise it on their license plate, and donate a small amount each year to a relevant charity. But no. You get to pick a cause important to you, advertise it on your license plate and pay extra money to the DMV.

I don't know what other states' practices are, but I had always assumed the proceeds of those types of license plates went to appropriate charities. I also wonder if there are people who don't bother to ask or research who think that's exactly what's happening. That's their bad, but still - I think the whole thing is very shady.

Short Blogging Break

2004-11-12T18:54:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't been around much this week. Post election, I think I need a short break. It's not even that I haven't had anything to say, I just haven't had the energy to collect my thoughts and post them. I've also been busy with other things. I expect this little break to continue for a bit longer - maybe till tomorrow, maybe through the weekend.

Ding Dong

2004-11-10T23:19:00.000-05:00

The wicked witch is dead.

Blah

2004-11-10T20:56:00.000-05:00

I've started two posts this evening and they've both sucked. Apparently tonight was not meant for blogging. Perhaps I will come back later. Perhaps not.

Quick Exercise in Brevity

2004-11-10T00:29:00.000-05:00

Belmont Club. Update. Fallujah. I need say no more.

And Clueless in Massachusetts

2004-11-09T21:06:00.000-05:00

And speaking of narcissism, this has to be a joke:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Defeated Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) has dropped hints he may run for president in 2008, as glum party officials debated the way forward after last week's Republican sweep of elections for the White House and US Congress.

This is possibly the most painful thought I've had since the election. Having to put up with Kerry through another election cycle? I shudder at the thought.

Fortunately, I am comforted by the fact that, however slow on the uptake the Democrats have been post-election, no one could possibly be so stupid as to nominate Kerry a second time. Couldn't possibly....

Oy, unfortunately, I had a few sentences there about just how stupid they would have to be, but after I typed them, I realized that I could think of past examples of people actually being that stupid. All right. Then all I can say: do they give Darwin awards for figurative deaths or only literal deaths? If the Democratic party nominates Kerry again, they will absolutely deserve a collective Darwin award.

(Via Naked Villainy)

Clueless in LA

2004-11-09T20:58:00.000-05:00

Will Hollywood's narcissism never stop? I know, I know, silly question. But really: we all worship at the Hollywood altar for entertainment purposes. How often does Hollywood need to be hit in the head with the obvious fact that America doesn't give half a damn what they think about politics before they all shut the hell up? Apparently a few more. Alas. I suppose they didn't become actors because of their intelligence. Which, actually, is kind of the point....

Operation Phantom Fury

2004-11-08T23:42:00.000-05:00

I like the name. In any case, if you want to understand what is going on in Fallujah, in common sense terms that can be understood without a military background, the Belmont Club is by far the best source I've found. I don't often blog this extensively about military operations, but it is my suspicion (as a layman) that this is the most significant battle we have faced or will face in Iraq. Today Wretchard explains why we shouldn't expect that Zarqawi will give up Fallujah without a fight - or if he does, he will fail to be a significant force operating from elsewhere. And more on the current military ops.

A Moment of Praise for the Genius of Americans

2004-11-08T00:51:00.000-05:00

Occassionally, I find myself moved by the simple genius of the American people. These moments typically follow moments when I find myself thanking God that the Democrats have not managed to further a particular portion of their agenda. For example, when I read about the dysfunction of Canada's healthcare system, I can only be utterly relieved that Americans have been smart enough not to travel down that nationalized healthcare path. And just now, I read Zendo Deb's post about the problems that have come of the infamous British gun laws, and I am utterly relieved that Americans so dogmatically cling to the Second Amendment. What baffles me is that while Canada reevaluates its system, and while Brits are overwhelmingly finding their self-defense rights inadequate, the American left continues to push for policies that aren't working so well in other Anglosphere countries. Fortunately, we are spared of these perverse bits of their agenda for the time being.

And So It Begins (UPDATED)

2004-11-08T00:29:00.000-05:00

The Battle for Fallujah. Let me say again: this is a big moment in Iraq.

UPDATE: While you're at the Belmont Club, take the time to follow the links that ~~an ex-~~ a former Marine left in the comments. Three maps: here, here, and here. For some reason, I hadn't pictured Fallujah as being nearly as big as it is. It's not huge, but you can imagine if you look at the maps that a city of that size crawling with insurgents is going to be no simple feat to conquer.

Waiting for Maturity

2004-11-08T00:02:00.000-05:00

Michael Totten is "rankled by all the hectoring and sneering at the 'Jesusland' red states." Personally, I've had the exact opposite response. It bothers me only in the sense that I think it's kind of sad to see otherwise intelligent and reasonable people making such asses of themselves. I actually think he's being somewhat generous by calling them eighth graders. To respond to a loss or disagreement by saying, "Yeah, well, you're stupid!" cannot possibly exceed elementary school maturity - I was going to go with 3rd grade, tops.

In any case, besides inciting a previously unknown streak of pity, the left's petulant cries have bothered me not in the slightest. You see, I know that I'm neither ignorant nor bigoted, so when my coworkers suggest amongst themselves that Bush won on the basis of voters' stupidity and bigotry, it has no effect on me. Speaking of elementary school, "I'm rubber, you're glue....." oh never mind.

Quote of the Week, November 7th

2004-11-07T17:18:00.000-05:00

For the Democrats:

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."
-Robert Frost

The Ire of the World, #3

2004-11-07T16:51:00.000-05:00

From Reuters:

The chairman of the All-India Anti-Terrorist Front (AATF), and former Youth Congress chief Maninderjeet Singh Bitta holds a banner during a staged rally with school students supporting U.S. President Bush (news - web sites)'s re-election in New Delhi on November 6, 2004. Recently Bitta said India should emulate Israel in evolving anti-terrorist strategies. REUTERS/Desmond Boylan

The picture here speaks for itself. Via: Joe the Unabrewer and LGF.

A Pivotal Moment In Iraq (UPDATED)

2004-11-07T11:03:00.000-05:00

The time has come for the battle for Fallujah. Allawi has called a state of emergency in Iraq to last 60 days in anticipation of the battle. Wretchard at the Belmont Club of course has thoughts about the imminent battle. The battle for Fallujah will no doubt be a crucial moment in putting down the Iraqi insurgency. If reports of his location are correct, it will be an opportunity to capture or kill Zarqawi. Success there will hopefully go a long way toward stabilizing the country ahead of the January election. Not that success in Fallujah will be a panacea for all the violence in Iraq - far from. But it will be a critical victory. And I have every faith in our troops to secure that victory. Hearts and thoughts with the Marines.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has a letter from a Marine that tells the story of Fallujah today.

The Ire of the World

2004-11-06T21:05:00.000-05:00

I think I might make this into a recurring feature. Consider this #2. This from yesterday was #1. Anyhow, via Chrenkoff's Around the World feature, Iraq the Model has translations of the responses to BBCArabic's question about our elections. Omar notes that the opinions of Iraqis are generally very positive, while the opinions of people in other Arab countries are far less so. Choice quotes:

"I wish Arab regimes would have half of what the Americans have of freedom of expression and participation in deciding their future."
- Fartis Adil-Basra-Iraq.

"There will be a great competition between the two candidates but I expect Bush to win. As for what will happen for Iraq, I believe who started the war is the only one who will finish it. Bush has toppled Saddam the tyrant and I'm sure that some Arab rulers are afraid that their fate will be like Saddam's."
- Rasoul Jamil-Iraq.

"Victory will be for Bush because he works to secure the interests of his country and this is what the American voters want. I don't wish Bush to win because I like him, but because I hate the Arab dictatorships that he terrorized when he toppled Saddam."
- Saif Ali-Nassyria-Iraq.

"Most Iraqis favor Bush because he needs to finish what he started, while Kerry might bring the Ba'athists and Saddam back to power."
- Mohammed Aboud-Baghdad-Iraq.

I've cherry-picked the quotes I liked - there are some anti-Bush ones there, and it's not my intention to portray it as otherwise. But the point of this series, as I should clarify, is not to demonstrate that the whole world loves us. We all know that it doesn't, and we're reminded of it often enough. It's just to demonstrate that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the whole world doesn't actually hate us. I know this from my own experiences, but it's always a little uplifting to be reminded of it from time to time.

Culling Through the Exit Polls

2004-11-06T03:18:00.000-05:00

While exit polls have proven distinctly unreliable in predicting the outcome of the election, they have some fascinating things to say about who voted for whom and why. I cruised over to CNN because a lot of people have linked to the polls as evidence that, contrary to popular liberal opinion, Bush did not win the election based on the anti-gay marriage vote. Then I just kept scrolling. Interesting facts:

Voter Education: Among voters without college degrees (58% of voters), 53% voted for Bush and 47% voted for Kerry. Among voters with college degrees (42% of voters) 49% voted for each candidate (1% for Nader, and another 1% seems to have been lost to rounding or other parties). Seems to belie the notion that Bush voters are an uneducated bunch, eh?
Party Affiliation and Ideology: Among Independents (26% of voters) 48% voted for Bush, 49% for Kerry. Among moderates (45% of voters) 45% voted for Bush and 54% for Kerry. Conservatives comprise 34% of the population. Naturally 84% of them voted for Bush. I have to wonder who that 15% of conservatives who voted for Kerry are. In any case, this too bolsters my earlier points that a) Bush voters are not a monolithic block and b) there are a number of moderates out there who voted for Bush.
First Time Voters: Of the 11% of voters who voted for the first time, 46% voted for Bush and 53% for Kerry. It seems that the Democrats were slightly more effective than the Republicans at getting new voters to the polls. But then, I imagine a substantial portion of that 11% were young voters, and voters under 29 typically vote Democrat and did in this election (54% for Kerry vs. 45% for Bush).
Religion: The majority of Catholics and Protestants (together 81% of voters) voted for Bush. 25% of Jews voted for Bush, an increase of 6% since 2000. Among non-religious people (identified as "none" - constituting 10% of voters) 31% voted for Bush. Similarly, of voters who say they "never" go to church (14% of voters) 36% voted for Bush. Yep, only religious folk voted for Bush. Among evangelicals (23% of voters) 78% voted for Bush. 21% of evangelicals voted for Kerry? The hell you say!
Military Service: Among the 18% of voters who've served in the military, 57% voted for Bush. Among the rest of the population, the vote was roughly split.
The Gay Vote: Bush only lost 2% of it as a result of his support of the FMA. 23% of gays voted for Bush. That surprises me, actually. I think if I were gay, I would have a really hard time voting for Bush.
Major Voting Issue: Nothing much surprising here. People who saw terrorism as the number 1 issue voted for Bush, people who saw Iraq as the number 1 issue (presumably those who see no connection between the two) voted for Kerry. The one thing that jumped out at me here was who are the 18% of voters who cited "moral values" as their number 1 issue who voted for Kerry? Voting for Kerry based on moral values? Okay...
Presidential Qualities: People who want a strong leader who is honest and trustworthy, has faith, and takes clear stances on issues voted for Bush. Those who wanted a leader who is intelligent, cares about people and would bring change voted for Kerry. The former sounds about right. The latter - mostly okay, but please - apparently those 75% of the 9% of people who cited that they wanted a leader who cares about people and voted for Kerry need to have their phony-barometers examined.
Iraq and Terrorism: See, I group them together. In any case, no big surprises here either. Those who think that Iraq was a good decision and that it's going well voted Bush. Those who didn't voted Kerry. Those who think that we're safer from terrorism today voted for Bush. Those who didn't voted for Kerry.
Family Financial Situation: The more interesting stat here is not who voted for whom but how many Americans gave which answer: 32% of voters said they were better off than they were 4 years ago. 39% said they were the same. Only 28% said they were worse off. Now let's scroll back up to income, since the Kerry campaign seemed to operate under the belief that only rich voters were helped during the Bush presidency. Let's see, only 3% of voters make over $200,000 a year. Dropping down one bracket, only 4% of voters make between $150K and $200K. That's still only 7% of voters. Wow, we have to go all the $75-100K mark to find 32% of voters. That means if only the "richest" Americans found themselves better off under the Bush administration, we must be defining $75K a year as "rich" these days. Not to be glib: 28% of voters worse off is hardly something to boast of. But to hear Kerry talk, you'd think all middle- and lower-class Americans were scraping to get by while Bush, Cheney & Cronies, Inc. wiped their asses with $100 bills.
"For" or "Against": Confirming some conventional wisdom, 25% of voters said they were primarily voting against their candidate's opponent. 70% of those voted for Kerry (or rather, against Bush). I find it kind of funny actually that 7.5% of voters (25% times 30%) actually went to the polls to vote against Kerry. You all know that Kerry was really pissing me off by the end, but he wasn't that bad.
Mudslinging: Both candidates did it, and voters noticed. 67% of voters said that Kerry "attacked unfairly." 60% of voters said the same of Bush.
Integrity of the Vote: Asked, "will votes be counted accurately?" 87% of voters were confident that they would be. Among those who weren't confident, 68% voted for Kerry and 29% voted for Bush. This seems to beg the question, are Kerry voters just a more paranoid bunch than Bush voters or were they in on something?
Gay Marriage: No big surprises here either: people who favor gay marriage tended more towards Kerry, people who don't tended more towards Bush. But not as strongly as conventional wisdom suggests. Of the 25% of voters who support gays' right to legally marry, 22% voted for Bush.
The Economy: Most voters did not trust either candidate to handle the economy. 53% did not trust Kerry. 51% did not trust Bush.
Tax Cuts: Whew, did they influence people's votes, in both directions. Of the 41% of voters who said they were good for the economy, a full 92% voted for Bush. Of the 32% who said they were bad for the economy, a full 92% voted for Kerry. I'm not going to go back and check, but I think that is one of, if not the, strongest factor in determining votes.
Job Losses: Another factor that is noteworthy not because of the trend, but because of the relative weakness of the trend relative to conventional wisdom. Of the 33% of voters who said someone in their household had lost a job (clearly at any point in the last four years), only 63% voted for Kerry. The same went for the 17% of voters who had personally lost a job.
Urban vs. Rural Voters: Per convetional wisdom, urban voters tended Kerry, rural voters tended Bush, but not by a terribly dramatic margin (45% of urban voters voted Bush and 42% of rural voters voted Kerry). The most interesting part was in the changes since 2000: Bush gained 10% among urban voters, and actually lost 2% among rural voters. Who'd have thought that? Incidentally, Bush also gained 4% among northeast voters, but then he gained a few percentage points in every region!

Well, that was interesting. What the hell am I doing up at 3:15 in the morning looking at exit polls? I need to go to bed.

One last comment before I go: if you haven't followed the link yet, do so for just a second. Now tell me, if you were seeing those three candidates for the first time in those pictures, are they not the goofiest looking bunch you've ever seen in your life?

Email from Abroad

2004-11-05T19:28:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned before that when I lived in the Czech Republic, I was surprised to learn that some of my students were rooting for the reelection of President Bush. One of them emailed me yesterday offering sincere congratulations. The whole world just hates us, don't they?

World Fallout

2004-11-05T18:34:00.000-05:00

...or not. Prior to Wednesday, those around the world not happy with the President's agenda could hope that the Bush presidency and all it has brought was but a fluke that was soon to be reversed. Now, there can be no doubt of America's commitment to the present course. Which means those discontents must evaluate what that means for them. It seems some in the most unlikely places are doing so. And the result is good. The Llamas have a series of articles from the Arab News that are a required read. My favorite part:

The only glimmer of hope that I see in the second Bush administration is that the pressure for democratic and economic reforms in the Middle East will continue, much to the consternation of all autocratic regimes in the region.

While many believe that Bush invaded Iraq just for the oil, there is growing evidence that he may have also done so to permanently improve the Middle East.

After the fact emerged that the 19 hijackers who slammed US passenger jets into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington were Arabs, many in the Bush administration realized that decades of coddling regional dictators coupled with a resurgent Islam and stagnant economies had created the monster of Al-Qaeda and its millions of supporters across the Muslim world.

Enemies of the US, who envy its success and freedoms, want it to fail in Iraq, as if it succeeds it would set an example for neighboring countries that Arab governments would find hard to resist.

Read it all.

Looking Forward to 2008

2004-11-05T17:58:00.000-05:00

Damn, that didn't take me very long, did it? No seriously, I just wanted to pass this along. John McCain was on Leno last night and I taped it. Leno was (of course) asking whether he has intentions of running in 2008. He (of course) denied it. That's all to be expected at this stage. What was more interesting, Arnie came up, and McCain said, quite enthusiastically, that he would support a Constitutional amendment that would allow Arnie to run for president.

Leno: Do you think there's a chance that they would amend the Constitution so that Arnold could run for president?
McCain: I would be the first to support that!
Leno: Really?
McCain: Look, America is a nation of immigration. That's what's the greatness of America. And I think that Arnold ought to be able to compete just like everybody else.

I'm not opining on this, just passing the word along.

In Case You Care...

2004-11-05T17:36:00.000-05:00

Remember that op-ed I have to write for my writing class? Well, as it turns out, it's due on Monday. The previous post was originally conceived as just a post, but before I had even typed the first word, I had decided that it's also going to serve as a rough draft for my op-ed. (Rough, mostly because the final draft needs to be about half as long.) Yeah, I decided to go for sincere appeal to Democrats rather than something designed to inflame them. You see? I'm much more gracious after Tuesday. I almost feel I should print out copies and distribute them around my work and entire the District of Columbia as a public service. Would it do any good? Ah, probably not. I'd love to see the Democrats come back in 2008 humbled and, more importantly, focused. Really I would. But so far at least the signs of the sincere soul-searching that would require are notably absent.

My Message to the Democratic Party (UPDATED)

2004-11-05T17:20:00.000-05:00

In the aftermath of a broad Republican victory in last week’s election – the reelection of President Bush, gains in both the House and the Senate, and one new governorship for good measure – much ink and many pixels will be spilt wondering where the Democrats went wrong. After such a loss, surely all sober heads in the Democratic Party recognize the need to reevaluate. The 2000 election could certainly have been considered an electoral fluke, one that was only a concern for the Democrats because it was a fluke that America would have to live with for four years. Perhaps at the time, that was indeed all it was. But 2002 gains in the House and Senate, the 2003 election of a Republican governor in California of all places, and last week’s grand sweep all paint quite a convincing picture of a strongly unfavorable trend for the Democrats. Given how tumultuous the past four years have been, how could the challenging party do so badly?

To put it succinctly, the most fundamental problem with the Democratic Party today is that it lacks the strength of convictions. Many Democrats would no doubt object to this characterization, but one must ask: did John Kerry really stand for anything or did he simply stand against George Bush? Much of his campaign was spent second-guessing and criticizing the actions of the President. Certainly, the President’s decisions were open to critique, and much of what Senator Kerry had to say in this regard met a receptive audience with moderate voters he was hoping to win over. What he failed to do to turn his receptive audience into Kerry voters was provide an alternative. All his campaign provided besides condemnation of the President were vague pledges to internationalize the effort in Iraq, incessant repetitions of the phrase, “I have a plan,” and ridiculously vacuous slogans like, “Help is on the way.”

Empty platitudes. Bile. Cynicism. Equivocations that rendered his positions on virtually every issue difficult to decipher. This was largely what the Kerry campaign offered America.

However, John Kerry was a symptom of the malaise in the Democratic Party, not its cause. Bill Clinton suffered from similar deficiencies, though he possessed charisma enough to compensate for them. The Democratic Party of late has become so intent on pleasing everyone – both within our country and abroad – that it is reluctant to take a stance on anything. Particularly with regard to foreign policy, it insists on thinking though every possible ramification of any proposed action that it has difficulty acting at all. With Clinton, this was known as “analysis paralysis.” The paradox of this over-willingness to please is that it ultimately ends up pleasing few, because it loses the respect of people who respect action and convictions.

And that’s the type of people that the Democrats are trying to win over. Americans are, on the whole, a people who value belief and the courage to act upon those beliefs. Belief in this sense doesn’t necessarily (or exclusively) mean religious belief – it also means belief in one's self, belief in one’s country, belief in a certain set of values, be they religious or secular. The Democratic Party over the past few decades has ceased to stand for anything and with lack of conviction comes hesitance to act. And Americans have slowly started to notice.

In their despair over their defeat, partisan Democrats have spun all sorts of theories as to why they lost, most of them highly unflattering and derogatory towards those who voted for Bush. It seems to be an article of faith among cosmopolitan Democrats from either coast that Middle America is made up of ignorant bigots. They point to anti-gay marriage propositions on the ballots in eleven states as evidence that Bush was carried to victory on the backs of the boorish homophobes who flocked to the polls.

No doubt some did. Both parties have their undesirable elements. But if the Democrats choose to salvage their feelings of moral and intellectual superiority by convincing themselves that they lost because the majority of Americans were simply to stupid or too bigoted to vote for them, it will be a catastrophic and self-defeating delusion. The Republican Party is not a monolithic block of uneducated evangelicals. Certainly, the Republicans have a strong base of very religious people. But rather than focusing their ire and disdain at this contingent of Republicans, the Democrats would do well to consider such respected and popular Republican figures as John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger, neither of whom support the President’s religious agenda, but both of whom supported the President for reelection. The Democrats would do well to consider McCain’s constituents in Arizona, who voted for Bush by a 55% to 44% margin. They might even consider Schwarzenegger’s constituents in California, 4.4 million of whom voted for Bush. This wasn’t enough to win California for Bush, but it did constitute roughly 7% of Bush voters nationwide, and was larger than his nationwide advantage in the popular vote. Neither of these states is heavily populated by evangelical Christians or the stereotypical “Middle Americans.” Who are these Republican voters and why did they support the President for reelection? This is the question that Democrats need to take some time to seriously consider if they hope to regain their appeal and political clout.

I offer this advice in earnest, as a voter who looked honestly to the Democratic Party for an alternative to President Bush, but found nothing credible. I could list a number of things I find off-putting about the Democratic Party today, but much of it can be summed up by saying that it is difficult to even consider voting for a party or a candidate whom you don’t even respect. I neither like nor support the President’s religious agenda. But I believe that it is founded on sincere conviction, so I can at least respect it. Looking at the Democratic Party and following Senator Kerry’s campaign, I found little that was deserving of analogous respect. Kerry’s fatal flaw was that he tried to be all things to all people. This is a vice to which all politicians succumb at times, but with Kerry’s campaign, it was more the rule than the exception.

This betrays a candidate and a party that function without core convictions. Those that they have are vestiges of past eras of Democratic greatness: a love of social programs, dating back to the days of FDR; a distaste for displays of American power, dating back to Vietnam. On the whole, however, the Democratic party is an amalgamation of various groups – including minority groups, labor unions, environmental lobbies – who have little in common but the belief built up over the years that the Democratic party is on their side.

The Republican Party, in contrast, after the embarrassment of Nixon, managed to regroup itself under Reagan with a system of beliefs – fiscal conservatism, small government, strong defense, and an unabashed love of America. The core values of Reagan, not religion, are the glue that binds the disparate factions of the Republican Party together even today.

This is not to say that the Democratic Party should adopt those beliefs. It is to say that they must find their own. Democrats across the country should ask themselves the question, “What do we stand for?” As a voter who was willing to be convinced, I was very clear that the Democratic Party stood against Bush. I was never able to figure out what the Democratic Party stood for. Democrats, if they are smart, will use this embarrassment to self-evaluate and answer that question for me and other swing voters across the nation. If they are smart, they will stop enslaving themselves to what the polls tell them will be popular and craft a vision with which to lead. Americans will appreciate and respect a party with convictions and the courage to act upon them – even if they don’t agree. And America will be better if it has two strong, competing visions of the future from which to choose.

UPDATE: Pixy Misa has some similar thoughts about the left, both here and in Australia. ~~She~~ He [Sorry!] also has a roundup of the lefties at Slate trying to self-diagnose and coming to the conclusion that the path to victory is through learning to lie better. Sincere convictions, people. It's all about sincere convictions. The sooner the left learns this, the better off we'll all be.

You Want a Winning Streak?

2004-11-04T20:06:00.000-05:00

In case it is lost on anyone, the good guys in the WOT have been having a serious winning streak lately. First John Howard wins reelection. Then President Bush wins reelection. Now Yassir Arafat is dying or even possibly dead. Score one for Australia. Score one for the US. Score one for Israel. Score three for all the good guys. Who else is due for good news? This has been a damn good week and a damn good month.

UPDATED 11/6: Afghanistan too! How did I forget Afghanistan?

Losers

2004-11-04T19:57:00.000-05:00

You've gotta say one thing about Arnie, love him or hate him: the man has certainly livened up the American political scene. It will never be politics as usual so long as Arnie's around. I mean, how many politicians would say something like this:

At a Thursday news conference, the Republican governor who branded Democrats "girlie men" during a budget fight last year was asked whether he would listen to tax-increase proposals from Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata or other Democratic leaders.

"Why would I listen to losers?" Schwarzenegger asked. "Let's be honest."

Via the Unabrewer.

A Question Answered

2004-11-03T23:13:00.000-05:00

I asked just a few hours ago:

In what world could the election results be considered anything but a mandate?

Thanks to Josh Marshall for answering that question for me:

This is the touchstone and the sign. A 'broad, nationwide victory'? He must be kidding. Our system is majority rule. And 51% is a win. But he's claiming a mandate.
"A broad, nationwide victory"?

It would almost be comical if it weren't for the seriousness of what it portends. This election cut the nation in two. A single percentage point over 50% is not broad. A victory that carried no states in the Northeast, close to none in the Industrial midwest is not nationwide, and none on the west coast is not nationwide.

And yet he plans to use this narrow victory as though it were a broad mandate, starting right back with the same strategy that has already come near to tearing this country apart.

Ah, I see. The first, rather snarky answer, is that it is a world where the goalposts have peculiar tendencies of shifting backwards, but we knew that already about the Democrats. In 2000, sure Bush won by an annoying technicality in the Constitution called the Electoral College, but he lost the popular vote, which means nothing constitutionally. So, according to them, he had no mandate. This time he wins both the popular vote and the electoral vote, and now he apparently didn't win it by enough. Sigh.

But the second, more serious answer, is that a world in which Bush's win is not a mandate from the people is a world in which democracy cannot function. Our democracy has functioned for over two centuries now because there are rules. They are laid out in our Constitution and we follow them. According to the Constitution, the President is selected by the Electoral College, and it's winner take all. Under a different system, one for which some might reasonably advocate, it might be that the President were elected by a straight majority of the popular vote. This would mean, that if, after all the votes were tallied, the final count was 57,000,000 people for one candidate and 57,000,001 for the other, he with 57,000,0001 would win the election. Period. He would have the mandate of the people. Any system in which democracy can function is and must be winner take all. Otherwise, what's the margin for a "real mandate"? 5%? 10? And what's a winner who wins by less than that margin to do in office? Nothing? Because he hasn't gotten the support of a broad enough of a majority of the people?

Hogwash. If an official is elected to office, by whatever margin, he has the mandate of the people. But a mandate for one person is not a free license. Because the power in a democracy doesn't lie all in one person. We elect a president, but his powers are limited. We also elect Representatives and Senators, so that all these people can keep one another in check. That's why there are Supreme Court Justices who are appointed for life, so whimsical swings in political preferences don't result in wild changes in the government. It's all quite brilliantly conceived to balance many different concerns in many different ways. Sure, there are arguments to be made as to why certain elements might not be the best way. But all things considered, it's worked pretty well for about 225 years now.

(Via Jeff Goldstein, who has a lovely roundup of the healthy vibes coming from Democratic bloggers. Just let them get it out Jeff. They lost and they lost big. No one likes losing. We won and we won big. Everyone likes winning. We can afford to be nice to them for a while.)

A Message to Democrats

2004-11-03T22:13:00.000-05:00

Michele Catalano has a message to Democrats, which I'd like to second:

I voted for George Bush.
I am not a redneck.
I do not spend my days watching cars race around a track, drinking cheap beer and slapping my woman on the ass.
I am not a bible thumper. In fact, I am an atheist.
I am not a homophobe.
I am educated beyond the fifth grade. In fact, I am college educated.
I am not stupid. Not by any stretch of facts.
I do not bomb abortion clinics.

You will not be thrown in jail for the sole reason of being a liberal.
Your child's public school will not suddenly turn into a center for Christian brainwashing.
Your favorite bookstore will not turn into puritan central.
This is not Nazi Germany in any way.
You will not be forced into concentration camps.
You will not be burned in human-sized ovens because of your religion.
We will not be forced to wear uniforms and march in line every day.
You will not live in fear.
If you think this is a country in which you have to live in fear, I have some friends in Iran who would like to have a little talk with you.

What does the (presumed) election of George Bush mean to you, as a member of the left? It means you and your party have four years to get yourselves together and figure out exactly what you stand for. It means you have a couple of years, max, to come up with a viable candidate who represents the majority of you and doesn't pander to every knock off group of your party. It means you have time to get your act together and decide once and for all what you stand for and produce a leader who will stand up for your ideals. It means you better find a candidate who is someone you can vote for with conscience, and not just vote for out of hatred for his opponent.

Read the whole thing.

So, Who's Hosting the Victory Party?

2004-11-03T22:00:00.000-05:00

Wizbang's got the numbers to display just how decisive the victory for Bush and the Republican party was:

Bush is the first President to be re-elected while gaining seats in the House and Senate since 1936 and the first Republican President since 1924 to be re-elected while re-electing Republican House and Senate majorities.
The first President to win a majority of the popular vote since 1988.
He received 57.4 million votes - more than any other candidate in history. He broke President Reagan's 1984 mark of 54.5 million. (96% reporting)
He increased the popular vote by seven million votes since 2000 - more than twice Clinton's increase from 1992 to 1996.

Also, a fine summary of what's wrong with the Democratic party:

We have, in the Democrats, a failed party. A party more concerned with the acquisition of power than governance. A party whose motto is "win at all costs" and has shown a willingness to do just that.
In the last few years to say the Democrats have broken all bounds of civility and decency would be an understatement. They've played politics with national security and made slanderous charges against the President during a time of war.

They've shot up, broken into and vandalized GOP offices. Kicked people who wore GOP t-shirts and slashed tires of GOP vans. And that was just in the last 48 hours.

They have increasingly lost touch with the needs of the average voter and have been co-opted by the radical left. Where once the Democrats stood for the common man, now they stand against all his values.

But the electoral nightmare is not over for the Democrats. They predicted a large turnout would help them, but instead the good honest people who were disgusted by their behavior turned out in even bigger numbers and learned that they are indeed part of the silent majority. These people now got a vivid reminder that they are the majority and their vote counts. A lesson that won't soon be forgotten.

Is the Democrat party irreparable? Not by a long shot. They could turn it around in one election cycle.

Quit lying to the American people. Get a coherent foreign policy and plan for terrorism. Drop the class warfare and the victimology and appeal to what is best in America and not it's worst.

Don't bring the full force of law against someone who has the temerity to say the word God. Work to build poor people up rather than tear the middle-class down. Quit cheering for our enemy while we are at war. Admit the terrorists are responsible for terrorism and that we didn't "bring it upon ourselves."

Basically, quit being jackasses and the American people will support you.

The Day After Inside the Beltway

2004-11-03T20:43:00.000-05:00

Boy, was today a fun day. Well, kind of. I mean it was fabulous, but it would have been far more fun if I could have celebrated a little bit more. I was all but dancing in the car as I was driving to work, but then I had to simmer down and remain simmered down all day long, so as not to appear a sore winner. It was rough. When I finally got in the car heading home, I just burst into laughter. Not over anything in particular, just of supressed glee.

How to describe the mood inside the beltway today? Despondent might be a little too strong. But distinctly gloomy. And incredulous. Definitely incredulous.

If you're not acquainted with DC, you might be under the impression that DC, since draws politically inclined people from all over the country, might be a little more heterogeneous than other areas of the country. I was under that impression before I moved here. Not so. Did you see the DC breakdown? 90% Kerry/9% Bush/1% Nader. That is one high concentration of liberals right there.

So here was my inside the beltway experience today. As it turns out, in an office of nine people, only two of us are Republicans. (You'll recall, this is a new job, so there were a few people I still hadn't gotten a feel for.) The other Republican was out sick (too much celebrating last night?). So I was quite alone. As I said, I didn't want to be a sore winner or rub salt in any wounds, so I just quietly kept my distance as they mourned. And I eavesdropped. That was kind of fun.

Poor souls. They really just can't understand how their guy lost. They understand that Kerry was a bad candidate. There was some recognition that the Democratic Party was going to need to reevaluate itself. But I got the sense (the sense, I say - it was all but explicitly stated) that they feel they need to reevaluate themselves if they ever hope to win elections in the future. Not because there's anything inherently wrong with their stance. It's because of all those ignorant rural Americans - how can a party full of such educated, intelligent people do well when most of the country's just so bloody stupid? "All the intelligent, informed Republicans I know voted for Kerry," said one. The irony was there was an intelligent, informed Republican sitting in the next office eavesdropping who voted for Bush. She just didn't know that. But it was too great of a day to take any offense at all. The overheard quote of the day was, (in the hesitant tone of voice of one who's just had a frightening flash of clarity) "You know, he's going to view this as a mandate." The response, in a similar tone, was, "That's a good point." Again, I could only laugh to myself: in what world could the election results be considered anything but a mandate? Do they understand how democracy works? The people are ultimately supposed to tell the leaders what they want, not the other way around. Geez. But it was too great of a day to get upset about such things.

Next was class. This was fun too, at first at least. You'll recall, this is the class in which last week we had such a fabulous political discussion. I was previously under the impression that the people in this class were of a reasonably wide range of political views (at least as much so as one can possibly expect to find in a university in DC). I still think that this is true, but apparently not enough so to manifest itself in people's voting preferences. The teacher finally put us all on the spot today. "Who is unhappy with the election results?" Lots of hands went up. "Who is happy with the election results?" Two hands went up. Mine and that of my ally from last week. We generally sit next to each other, sort of in the middle of the class, and he looked around laughing. "Are we really the only ones?"

Yes, yes we were. And as it happened, this week's discussion was far less interesting for us both than last week's was. I think the true bleeding-hearts in the class were so aching to have their voices heard somewhere that the conversation veered towards the environment and poverty and "redistributing wealth" and I started getting bored. My compatriot and I weathered this discussion in relative silence, exchanging glances and eye-rolls and quiet snickers and even a note here and there.

Let them get it all out. That was my mantra for today. You all can take your moral and intellectual superiority and wallow in it. That and a buck thirty-five apiece can take them all to the White House, where they can protest the new president. 'Cause we won the election, suckers.

It's Official

2004-11-03T07:31:00.000-05:00

It's official at Potomac Ponderings anyway. The networks haven't called it yet. But I'm calling it. And the mandate is huge. Majority of the popular vote, first time since 1988. 3 gains in the Senate. 4 in the House.

CONGRATULATIONS PRESIDENT BUSH!!!

Before Bed Roundup

2004-11-03T01:00:00.000-05:00

According to Fox's numbers, Bush needs 4 more EVs. AK's almost sure to be Bush, so that's 3 more. He needs one more state, assuming their Ohio prediction holds up. NM is looking to go red, which would be the only Bush pick-up. That's 5 more. That's a win.

Most of the midwest is looking blue, as expected. Iowa's still tight, and Wisconsin's close too. Nevada's oddly close, with Kerry slightly in the lead. Hawaii's completely up in the air, since polls are just closing.

It all hinges on Ohio. He who takes Ohio takes the election, barring something weird happening.

That's it for me tonight. I go to bed feeling reasonably confident. I'd give Bush an 80-90% chance at this point.

Wow!

2004-11-03T00:41:00.000-05:00

Fox is projecting a Bush win in Ohio! Meaning Bush only needs 3 more EVs to win! Woo-hoo!

Colorado and Florida go Red

2004-11-03T00:25:00.000-05:00

According to Fox. And CNN. That's 246-206.

Playing it Cautious

2004-11-02T23:55:00.000-05:00

Watched CNN for a while after Susan Estrich drove me off Fox. They're being really cautious about making projections. They were playing around with hypotheticals, the point of which was to show why Ohio was so important. They must have said at least a dozen times, "Again, we are not projecting this..."

Seriously though people: CALL ARIZONA. 55% - 44% with 87% of precincts reporting. IT'S RED. ARIZONA IS RED. Fox and MSNBC both have it red.

Meanwhile, patronize MSNBC: Oregon's red on their map, but here's the breakdown they have:

President Electoral votes: 7 \| FULL RESULTS \| EXIT POLL
Candidate	Votes	% of votes
John F. Kerry (DEM)	638,538	54%
George W. Bush (REP)*	533,134	45%

Clearly, red.

Fox Just Got Turned Off

2004-11-02T23:42:00.000-05:00

Susan Estrich. Oh my God. CNN wins when Susan Estrich is on Fox,

Ohio's Swinging

2004-11-02T23:29:00.000-05:00

Fox is saying it's all about Ohio. Bush is at 52% in Ohio, but it's uncallable. Pre-election predictions were right about that.

The Market View

2004-11-02T23:26:00.000-05:00

The markets' look from the Llamas:

Looks good.

Ah, Just Paint it All Red

2004-11-02T23:06:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling good right now. So far no state has swung Kerry or Bush, but Ohio and Florida are both looking good for Bush. That's 20 + 27 EVs. With Arizona (10), Colorado (9), Montana (3), Idaho (4), all of which I expect to go red (some already are, depending on which news agency you look at) that's 73 EVs for Bush. On top of 193 already reported by CNN (that includes Idaho, so subtract 4), we're approaching the 270 mark. The thing that makes me feel the best is that Bush has the popular vote right now, which means nothing electorally, but a lot politically. If either candidate can claim mandate from the majority of the population (no matter how slight) I think that will help a lot.

California

2004-11-02T23:04:00.000-05:00

Of course, Cali is far from a swing state. But I'm seeing 0% of precincts reporting. How can it be called?

Ohio's Looking Good Too

2004-11-02T22:51:00.000-05:00

Ohio:

Bush: 1,309,907 (52%)
Kerry: 1,183,518 (47%)

But with only 47% of precincts reporting

The Florida Margin Looks Healthy

2004-11-02T22:48:00.000-05:00

With 89% of precincts reporting:

Bush: 3,210,035 (52%)
Kerry: 2,932,510 (47%)

Is New Hampshire the New Florida?

2004-11-02T22:41:00.000-05:00

Fox just said Bush & Kerry are separated by 400 votes in New Hampshire. Oh God. Not this again.

Things Look Good on Fox

2004-11-02T22:35:00.000-05:00

I've been surfing around websites, but I've had Fox on TV. Fox is calling the Kentucky Senate race for Bunning, and are now declaring that the one thing we can be relatively certain of at this point is that Dems won't be taking back the Senate. They also said precincts in Florida are reporting that the Republican turnout seems to be stronger. I'll switch stations as soon as they stop talking about Ohio.

Me to Media Folks: Paint Arizona Red

2004-11-02T22:21:00.000-05:00

Please. Bush has 54% and Kerry 45% of the vote with 40% of precincts reporting. McCain was reelected with 76%. Arizona's not going blue, folks.

Seriously though, how does CNN make these calls? CNN is calling Missouri for Bush, with 26% of precincts reporting. The split is 52% - 48%. But they still haven't called Arizona.

Fox & MSNBC have the same call.

The Current Calls

2004-11-02T21:37:00.000-05:00

MSNBC: 171-112

CNN: 170-112

Fox: 165-112

The difference between CNN and Fox is Mississippi. 6 electoral votes, CNN's calling it for Bush with only 16% of precincts reporting. I can't figure out why CNN and MSNBC have different tallies, because they seem to be calling the same states.

Catching Up On The Day

2004-11-02T21:15:00.000-05:00

The Llamas have been blogging all day.

UPDATE: Apparently a boat-load of celebrities have promised to move abroad if Bush wins (same Llamas link.) Go then! The great thing about this country is if you don't like it, you can leave. Particularly if you're rich. We won't lament your loss. I might have missed Robert Redford, if he weren't old now. So he can go too, I don't mind.

Virginia Went Red!

2004-11-02T21:06:00.000-05:00

No surprise, but I feel like I did my part at least!

Election Blogging Begins

2004-11-02T20:59:00.000-05:00

Today was a uniquely crappy afternoon. It's not worth rehashing. Frankly, it's not all that interesting, it was just one of those days. I bought a case of Sam Adams OctoberFest and am settling in now. While the beer will help, the only thing that could redeem today is a Bush win. Come on George, don't let me down!

Fairfax County, VA Voting Report

2004-11-02T08:39:00.000-05:00

Well, that's done. Things seem to be running smoothly in my precinct. Had about an hour's wait. Nice, easy touch screen system that would be pretty hard to mess up. Orderly system of getting everyone through the line and ensuring that everyone was a registered voter. The only problem anyone had while I was there was one guy had a voter card but wasn't on the master list. They called in to the registration office, the mix-up was straightened out and he got to vote. Added an extra 15 minutes to his wait time. There was a pair of election observers, 1 Democrat and 1 Republican making sure there was no funny business. Neither was interfering in any way, they were just keeping up with who was voting, presumably cross-checking against a list that they had concerns about. They didn't have to do anything while I was there. All right, off to work now.

Election Day

2004-11-02T00:04:00.000-05:00

Well, it's now election day. I'll be getting up early tomorrow morning, casting my vote (hopefully, this won't take too long), taking care of an issue with my car (long story), then heading to work for the better part of the day. Then class. Then home. Election blogging will probably start around 8 or 8:30 tomorrow. I have to say: I'm a little nervous. In 2000 (the first presidential in which I was old enough to vote), I voted for Bush, and watched the election hoping for his win. But this time, my vote will be cast with far more enthusiasm (I was really a McCain supporter in 2000) and I will watch the outcome with far more anxiety. That's all for tonight. I'll see you all later today. Happy voting.