Centerfield

Wolfie's Baaccckkkkkkk!

Yep, he's back... Heading an arms control committee at State. At the last two things Wolfie headed, the results were so bad many of those he headed IN BOTH PLACES want to punch him. So we need to add a third place?

Why does loyalty need to extend beyond his think tank spot? Does Bush see non-management jobs as not being real jobs? I mean, being a manager, among other things, he should get that some people are bad at managing. Mr. Wolfowitz' record suggests to me and plenty of other people that he falls in that category.

Another Economic Boogeyman

Bad enough for us all that the economy isn't going so great, and that scary stories fan the flames of our worries, which make us spend less, which makes the economy go less great which leads to more scary stories which...

That's bad enough. So imagine my further dismay to read an extensive article suggesting that there are portions of our inter-related global economy so complex and arcane that we're at their utter mercy. From The Black Box Economy, here's the main thesis as stated:

The drumbeat of bad news over the past year, they say, is only a symptom of something new and unsettling - a deeper change in the financial system that may leave regulators, and even Congress, powerless when they try to wield their usual tools.

That something is the immense shadow economy of novel and poorly understood financial instruments created by hedge funds and investment banks over the past decade - a web of extraordinarily complex securities and wagers that has made the world's financial system so opaque and entangled that even many experts confess that they no longer understand how it works.

Pretty scary, huh? Ready to crap your pants yet? I was buying in, even though I was wondering what the author, an assistant history professor, knew about economics. Then I got to this bit:

...when the mortgage crisis broke last summer, it opened a window on something else: The existence of a huge wilderness of investments in the financial sector that are nearly impossible to track or measure, and which operate out of the view of both investors and regulators. It emerged that investment banks, hedge funds, and other financial players had issued, bought, and sold hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of esoteric securities backed in part by other securities, which in turn were backed by payments on high-risk mortgages.

When borrowers began defaulting on their loans, two things happened. One, banks, pension funds, and other institutional investors began revealing that they owned huge quantities of these unusual new securities, called collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs. The banks began writing them off, causing the massive losses that have buffeted the country's best-known financial companies. And two, without a market for these securities, brokers stopped wanting to issue risky mortgages to new home buyers. Home values began their plunge.

In other words, a staggeringly complex financial instrument that most Americans had never heard of, and which many financial writers still don't fully understand, became in a matter of months the most important influence on home values in America. That's not how the economy is supposed to work - or at least that's not what they teach students in Economics 101.

Well, I'm no economist, but I know a bit, and this sounds like age-old garden-variety greed and speculation to me. Sure, lots of folks got killed on bad loans. But a big part of the story there, despite what some have heard, is that the folks who got killed borrowing were credit idiots who didn't deserve their loans in the first place, many of whom were foolishly using their home equity as an ATM. My sympathy for these folks is somewhat constrained. But I'll join those of us unhappy that the economy is now ailing due in large part to rampant real-estate speculation which led to the eager granting of tons of loans to people who couldn't afford them.

Let's think about those eager granters, because now we're talking about the folks near or inside this alleged black box. Are we REALLY supposed to believe that high-powered worldwide investors were unaware of what was driving high investment returns? I don't buy it. You don 't have to be a financial savant to know that the high return on investment bone is ALWAYS connected to the high risk bone.

IOW, I got your black box "right here," as they say. The vast majority of people managing or controlling large sums of money had to have made these investments with their eyes wide open. The returns have to come from somewhere, and anyone with minimal smarts knows enough to ask the basic questions. if it's high return, it's high risk, and there's usually a pretty simple explanation that goes like If A happens, we make a killing, and if B happens. we get slaughtered.

And sure, I suppose it's possible that some investors really didn't ask or didn't understand the dynamics. Cry me a river for them. Bottom line, I'm just some guy, but I knew back a year or more ago when I heard about people taking loans where they were only paying back interest and not principal, and loans where the payments quickly escalated, that it was going to all end badly. Black Box? Doubt it. My guess is that it just seems like one when a bunch of folks get blinded by greed and all the tide riders go along for the trip without asking too many questions.

McCain's Gadfly

We all know that there's a core of GOP folks who think they ARE the base, and who think that John McCain is a sad excuse for a true republican. No surprise there. These critics seem to have been tuned out to some extent, as McCain is collecting endorsements and acting like the campaign has become a victory tour.

But there's another critic out there. Matt Welch is something of a self-styled small-L libertarian and internationalist who seems committed to gadflying from a different angle, in How Johnny Got His Groove Back

If John McCain bounces from his victory in Florida this week to a nomination-clinching Super-Duper Tuesday in California and the 23 Dwarves, there are three main categories of humans he'll have to thank for the biggest worst-to-first primary performance since George McGovern's in 1972. They are: his pratfalling competitors, his gullible independent supporters and his always-willing enablers in the media.

...

Here's the funny thing about independent voters: They still love John McCain, think he's a straight talker. No matter how many times he claims to run a positive-only campaign on the same day he releases an attack ad; no matter how many ways he violates the spirit of his own campaign-finance legislation (do yourself a favor and Google "The Reform Institute"); no matter how unconvincingly he stammers his way through wanting to make permanent the same tax cuts he eviscerated in 2001 and 2003; no matter how inaccurately he slimes Romney and others for insufficient support of "our troops"; no matter how many immigration bills bearing his name he now opposes; and no matter how many times he confesses to manipulative, ambition-driven lies in his own damned books, independents still come out for their maverick — 42 percent of them in open-primary South Carolina, and 39 percent in New Hampshire.

...

As a direct result of his long media honeymoon, much of what we think we know about McCain is wrong. Exit-poll numbers out of the early states showed that McCain was doing especially well among primary voters who were antiwar. The numbers say something disturbing about our capacity to believe that independent antiwar voters are seriously considering a man who championed pre-emptive war three years before it ever occurred to George W. Bush, who personally told me that the U.S. share of defense spending — more than one-half of the world's total — was much too small, and who has demonstrated repeatedly these past weeks that he doesn't understand why any American would question the deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq 100 years from now. After more than seven years of increasingly unpopular war, Americans look poised to nominate the most explicitly pro-interventionist presidential candidate since Teddy Roosevelt. Don't say you weren't warned.

Welch is so convinced and irritated that McCain is not what he sells himself as that he has gone to the trouble to write a book on it: McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, And as editor of Reason, he wrote An Open Letter to Editorial Page Editors suggesting they all need to review his record more closely for the gap between fact and well-honed myth:

I bring you all here on this Michigan primary day to make one last plea on behalf of the dwindling number of us who read or care about newspaper editorials. Before passing on your McEnthusiasms to the Copy Desk, please remember your canonical journalistic responsibility not to make shit up or pass along easily debunkable falsehoods. Particularly when the subject of your affection has provided copious evidence to the contrary of your claims.

...

Considering that McCain in New Hampshire this month railed against "negative ads" while running them, and then bragged in his victory speech that he "always told you the truth," it seems timelier than ever to double-check, rather than rubber-stamp, the new front-runner's honesty. Particularly since his voluminous writings are filled with warnings like: "the worst decisions I have made, not just in politics but over the course of my entire life, have been those I made to seek an advantage primarily or solely for myself."

And so on. Anyway, we've heard the conservative McCain critics ad nauseum. Welch's criticism is different, that maybe McCain is not so much the maverick and straight-shooter he sells himself as. Check it out.

Lingering Obama Doubts

[Alan over at Maverick Views suggested I make my Obama Backlash comment into a CF Post. so here goes.]

I don't think I'm an especially virulent critic of Obama, but maybe if I posted at Kos I'd feel differently.

Anyway, I've noticed several skeptics climb on board the Obama train as it were, notably you [Allen Stewart Carl] and Michael Reynolds. Myself? I've been trying to talk myself into him ever since he entered. I like him.

But my doubts remain. If I vote for him and he doesn't come through with genuine conciliatory and pragmatic offerings to move the country forward, well, let's just say I'll have a seat by the door.

His rhetoric of conciliation absolutely doesn't line up with his espoused policy positions. There is no evidence to suggest that he is actually either willing or more importantly capable of bringing about pragmatic and useful compromise. So we're left to accept his wonderful rhetoric on faith alone.

Yet any realistic assessment of politics, as the art of the possible, dictates that compromise comes about when one side adopts a position that incorporates some of the views and needs of the other side. Virtually none of Obama's votes or currently stated policy positions does this. This latter could be a function of who he currently needs to vote for him. If he wins the nom, I'll ultimately need to see him temper his policy positions substantially to acknowledge more moderately conservative views, or I won't be able to vote for him.

My greatest fear of an Obama presidency is that he will use pretty rhetoric and a powerful honeymoon to demagogue through some of his most expensive liberal social programs, spending tons of money on giveaways to college students, public schools nationwide, expanded healthcare without regard to cost control, and ignore social security and medicare while establishing punitive taxes on the very rich and evil wall street/corporations. All this would have sounded like a dream come true to me when I was 20, but I've rounded 40.

The biggest conundrum for me is that in order to believe the dream of his conciliatory rhetoric, I have to believe his position statements are largely temporary and/or misleading, But to believe he'd undertake such artifice is to circle back round to questioning whether he's honest and genuine enough to deserve my faith in the first place.

His lovely rhetoric says that he is not a class warrior, but his positions say either that he really is, or that he's eagerly courting class warriors. If Obama wins office and undertakes a series of expensive and basically socialist reforms, I'll fight hard against him, and my goal will be to make him

1)the last pretty talker I'll ever fall for
2)the last democrat I ever vote for

7 days to go, chips R a-fallin open thread

Seven days from now, give or take, we are likely to have a very good (or at least much better) idea of the main combatants in november super bowl 2008. McCain won in FLA last night to great acclaim, and Hillary won to no acclaim.

And the chips are falling right away. Giuliani has bailed and will endorse McCain, Instapundit has plumped Roger Simon heralding the arrival of McCain Derangement Syndrome, and Roger's thread was invaded by the righteous, certain of McCain's untrustworthiness and cataloging his alleged betrayals.

And more chips. Word is that Edwards will quit. This, along with SC, may indeed render the many polls showing Hillary generally ahead in big Super tuesday states moot. What will the polls going into the weekend say? I have to think that the "2 Americas" folks will tend to flow to Obama.

Whaddaya think? Chime in, amigos.

Should We Elect Generals?

EVERY American war since 1789 has had to overcome a mass of incompetent incumbents in uniform; our constitution seems to fail us on this point.

Meanwhile, electing generals isn't as stupid as it sounds. Ancient Athens used to elect theirs. Plenty of them were truly great by any metric. Themistocles invented half of naval strategy and used it to save Greece from the big, imperial Persia; he also left advice that let Athens make itself great the same way the UK did 2000 years later. Other great generals included Pericles, who, for better or worse, imposed and grew Athenian Empire on much of Greece. Pericles had a great fellow general, one Demosthenes.

This last week, I've been rereading Fiasco, and binging in the Small Wars Council back threads while drunk. and thinking it didn't hafta be like that in Iraq. I mean, Rumsfeld and Franks' errors of not thinking we really needed an occupation was something really basic; Rumsfeld's choices to run Iraq reflected Ike's old observation about B men choosing C men as reports. Neither was remotely up to running a country. We have very smart men in uniform; but they seem to be badly represented at the top.

We can see the same troubles in the Air Force, subject of my recent grumbling posts. Not only is is it uninterested in serving the ground as it's required to, it's made bad airplane order choices over most of my lifetime. They've spent so much money on so few planes that most of the effective planes and especially actual bombload deliveries are made from planes far beyond their projected lifetimes. Because USAF can't make choices about features, no replacement is expected for the now-failing F-15 for years; no replacement is planned for the most effective bombing platform by far in the last war and all its predecessors to Vietnam, the ancient B-52. The ultraexpensive B-2 delivers far, far less. Meanwhile, the new planned fewer planes will cost beyond belief to face a vanished threat. Generals, of whatever military force, are required to lead. That hasn't happened in USAF for at least three decades.

Now, to be sure, the Athenian system had a real weakness: candidates for the position had even more of an incentive than other politicians to overstate threats, likelihoods of successful wars, and what kind of loot soldiers could hope for. One elected general, one Alcibiades, ended Athenian power forever by convincing Athenians in their arrogance that they could quickly conquer and get lots of loot from a fellow large democracy, Syracuse.

We're different from Athens because we're a democratic republic, meaning, among other things, that the electorate is the whole nation instead of just the city of Washington, DC, making us much more stable. We've elected warlike Presidents, Presidents who went to war in stupid settings, but none who wanted to war on our friends and none who did anything so stupid as what Alcibiades did (Vietnam was stupid, but small), which suggests we could probably trust ourselves with electing generals, too.

For better or worse, the system gave the Athenians far fewer petty and bureaucratic generals than ours does (they did have some).

Proposed Constitutional Amendment: Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs, and one field general (to do what Franks and Schwartzkopf did in Iraq should it be needed), all to appear on the national ballot as Presidential candidates do. Terms would be four years, and a limit of two terms would apply.

An alternative might be to have Congress pick them instead of the current system.

CNN-sphincter sez wot about the Florida Primary?

This is CNN's lead for their Florida GOP Primary story:

Floridians are voting today in a primary battle that could play a crucial role in deciding the Republican presidential nominee. If Sen. John McCain wins, his status as the national front-runner will be cemented. If former Gov. Mitt Romney comes out on top, the battle for the GOP presidential nomination will be up in the air.

It's so irritating to me that they don't even get a link. Screw 'em. Here's the thing....their own table shows Romney having carried 3 states to McCain's 2, and also shows Romney with a 67-38 lead in the delegates.

So how the frack does a McCain win cement his frontrunner status while a Romney win would merely throw things in the air? McCain needs this win to BECOME the frontrunner. If Romney wins, he's a bit more in command. CNN has it 100% bass-ackwards.

Another thing wholly missing from the story as reported by these alleged pros is any explanation of how many delegates are at stake and how they will be handed out. I had to go hunt it down, myself. Thanks for nothing, projoes.

Anyway, Florida doesn't apportion its GOP delegates, it's winner-take-all, which in this case is half of 114=57, because of the national party's 50% penalty. So if McCain wins it's 95-67 McCain, and if Romney wins its 124-38. Which of those scores whiffs of a blowout?

CNN saw fit to bury the most cogent part of its story in the 15th and 16th paragraphs:

Florida is a closed primary, which means that only registered party members may vote in their own party's primary. McCain won primary contests in New Hampshire and South Carolina, thanks in part to the backing of independent voters who cast ballots in the Republican contests. McCain won't have that luxury in Florida.

"A McCain victory in Florida will be particularly significant because only registered Republicans can vote in the Republican primary. It will be a way for McCain to prove his bona fides with the base," said CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider. "If Mitt Romney wins Florida, it will be a clear signal that the base is not happy with McCain. The Arizona senator could be facing a conservative revolt."

If I had to bet, I'd place my dough on Romney in effellay.

Why Obama Might Appeal to Conservatives

I surfed over to poligazette, and was at first intrigued to see a post by a chap named Jason entitled
Why Conservatives Might Like Obama

But all I found was some whining about the Clintons, some admiration of Obama's superior style, and the following unsupported assertion:

And that stated preference is backed up in his remarkably detailed issue positions, where one will often find the conventional Democratic positions modified ever so significantly by important gestures of conciliation towards those who disagree.

Sounds like quite a wealth of material. So if you could do us all a REAL solid simply name 3, Jason. Just link to three from amongst this vast wealth. I might have even settled for these alleged remarkably detailed positions, but since you claim that they also include important gestures of conciliation, I'm going to need to see that too. Consider that gauntlet [ahem] thrown.

Further, the comments thread includes the following as-yet-unconfirmed-by-me-Obama quote:

"The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact,” the Illinois Democrat wrote in “The Audacity of Hope,”

If true, this is the most foolish and troubling idea that I have yet heard Obama express. Perhaps it sounds a pube less idiotic within context. But as one who has spent an entire lifetime trying to find a reliable line that splits the world in half with fewer idiots on one side, I'm skeptical.

The Pending Kennedy Endorsement

Like it or not, JFK is a legend in the zietgeist, and people don't like their legends tarnished. You really can't get folks to listen to criticisms about JFK, like the fact that he didn't govern long or do much. He was our golden boy, and we'd have surely found Camelot by now if he had not been cruelly struck down. Period.

Now, JFK's sad, aging brother, a lion in winter, is poised to symbolically hand his brother's mantle to Barack Obama. Rest assured that the sound bite is being crafted as we blog. Maya Angelou might even be writing it. Or Oprah. The more the critics bitch, the higher the rhetoric shall soar. Annoying, aint it?

Don't you see what this is? Obama is going to pull the sword out of the stone while Teddy watches. And when Teddy symbolically implies that Obama IS JFK for sufficient intents and purposes, complete with a gorgeous soundbite, and maybe even a few lion's tears, who will dare to contradict him?

John was Teddy's brother, and that's all that matters. Except that he was Bobby's brother, too! Anyone who either tries to diminish JFK's stature or suggest the comparison is inapt is probably wasting their time. Obama is the hope salesman extraordinaire, and folks are buying. Do you know what people buy hope with? Not reason. Most assuredly not. They buy it with faith, not accessible to reason.

Once people start falling in love with Obama, who can stop this? Ever try to talk a friend out their blind and starry eyed faith in the mate they've chosen, wretched choice or not?? What's the running record for success on that one, 0 and gazillion?

And I like him too. But not as a lover, as a friend who can see his faults.

Mitt Clintoney

Now is as good a time as any to notice that folks on the right have been gleefully joining in the attacks on Clinton "mudslinging." This chorus will quickly dwindle to abject silence when Mitt Clintoney turns his eyes to the general election. Practices that today are being said to have led to the deserved rejection of Bill and Hillary will morph into righteous truth-telling come fall. I wish there were a way to bet on this in Vegas.

Also, please let me know whether or not Mitt has continued to talk uo his plans for the government to partner with the auto industry since he left Michigan. I guess he has other stuff on his mind. Probably busy with research for his upcoming "a pony in every pot" speech.

The fox news ticker reported today that Mitt has been saying that John McCain will say anything to get elected. How much irony can a Mitt-chuck chuck if a Mitt-chuck could throw sheer bullcrap at the wall and see what will stick?

If anyone runs across a photo-chronicle of Mitt Romney's wardrobe changes (the physical ones, not the philosophical ones), please let me know. I caught Mitt's untucked and tieless white cotton crested shirt at a speech to Florida Cubans yesterday. Strangely, Mitt didn't seem that interested in chatting about border fences and punitive immigration policy. Go figure.

Setting aside all the piling on above, let me say that I'm not reflexively anti-Mitt. He did a decent job as my governor in MA. He's capable, intelligent, and has executive experience both in the biz world and in state government. Notably more successful as an autocrat than a bureaucrat, but still. Now it seems to me that he is dangerously close to utterly losing his mind. In his zeal for votes, he's bordering on incoherence, never mind over-promising. Start standing for a reasonable and consistent set of things Mitt, or taste the skewers.

The Politics of Candor

While watching Barak Obama's victory speech last night, I thought about all the usual stuff everyone notices. The unrivaled combination of vision and charisma that Obama brings to the American political landscape. It's not just talent, or speaking skills, or charisma -- it's all that plus a certain compelling perspective on what's right and wrong about American politics, and a determination to take the nation and our culture in a different direction.

I thought about something else, however, that is far less comforting for someone like me who has centrist views on the issues.

In the Democratic primaries this year, two candidates have stayed closest to the middle of the spectrum. Joe Biden offered a compelling foreign policy vision that might have provided us with the dynamic leadership we need on the world stage right now. But he got knocked out in the first round, after polling just 1% in Iowa.

Hillary Clinton has almost as strong a focus in exploring the center of the spectrum, policy-wise. She buit quite a respectable record in the Senate, and set some of the same themes of responsible, balanced leadership in her early appearances on the campaign trail. But then she shaded her views to the left -- particularly on Iraq -- in recent debates and interviews as we got closer to actual voting.

In terms of policy, Barak Obama is to the left of both Biden and Hillary. He's not all the way out on the left wing with the likes of Edwards and Kucinich. There is some nuance to his approach -- when you hear him talk about polity in interviews -- that is largely missing from the more doctrinaire liberals in the field.

What bugs me is that Hillary is the one, along with her husband, who is practicing the politics of old in this race -- the willingness to distort your opponents record, to stir up false controversies, and to adopt a kind of bullying approach that has its roots in Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, and all the accomplished wedge-campaigners of the past. By contrast, Obama is the one exploring and establishing new themes of honesty, candor, and rising above the false attack politics of the past -- e.g., the attacks based on emotion and visceral impact rather than underlying differences in policy.

Obama's appeal to a new kind of politics is something I associate with the best kinds of independent and centrist leadership. It was explored by John McCain in the 2000 presidential race, with his Straight-Talk Express and his blunt speaking style. I think it's a big piece of our path to victory in the broad political landscape of American politics -- the candid, direct, and plain-spoken style that Americans can actually believe. It's a potent antidote to the base-driven wedge politics that's been the norm in national political contests for the last couple decades.

I'm disappointed that Hillary has veered off that path. I think Obama has earned a great deal of respect for his determination to explore that territory. I see a lot of independent support flowing in his direction, and I've noticed a number of centrist bloggers -- even some who are Republicans -- expressing real regard for Obama and appreciation for the themes of his candidacy.

We should not cede the politics of candor to the left. We should applaud either side for adopting that perspective, whenever they're willing to do so. But we should certainly ask our leaders to get out front and explore the kind of grounded, realistic, candid leadership that can ultimately reshape our political culture into something positive and constructive for the nation.

Back on the Scene

Hi folks. I haven't been around for quite a while. I took a step back from blogging a little over a year ago, when I decided to try to write a book. I'm just at the finishing stages of the book, and it's about to go to the printer.

I'll have a little more to say about the book in a while. It probably won't be available for a month, at least. I just wanted to post a little something, because I may start sharing a few thoughts here from time to time, and I'm not sure how many of you guys remember me.

Glad to see things are still going strong here. I like the infusion of new blood.

Poor Righties

...it's as tough being a rightie today as it was being a leftie in 2004. Not only are the political winds against them, but, now that Giuliani has imploded, the only clear good (R) leader in the race has gone liar and demagogue like our Dean did in 04. Nobody's constructing a strong coalition. And we have TWO strong candidates.

Stephen Green's / Vodkapundit's been doing most of this year's campaign coverage drunk. And in the last (R) debate, I notice Tigerhawk joined him in a drink or two. And here's what Reynolds had to say:

I tuned in long enough to see Romney answer a question on the Second Amendment and . . . well, it was a good Massachusetts answer. That was all I could take -- surely there's a Girls Next Door rerun or something.

And this is just sad. I'm one of the few Dems who thinks Rice has ability, but this is a bit much (and BOLTON?? - there's a candidate who'd do the ticket about as much good as Quayle).

Bill Isn't Good At Going Negative

According to CNN's Political Ticker Blog,

Roughly 6 in 10 South Carolina Democratic primary voters said Bill Clinton's campaigning was important in how they ultimately decided to vote, and of those voters, 48 percent went for Barack Obama while only 37 percent went for Hillary Clinton. Fourteen percent of those voters voted for John Edwards

And here's Jonathan Chait's column on his and others' exiting of the Clinton coalition. Must build big tent, not tear it down.

Friday Open Thread

The time-honored tradition continues.

So smoke 'em if ya got 'em. Read any good books, seen any good movies, ate any good food lately? Discover any good bands lately? Done anything you were proud of? Need a pat on the back? Pipe up!

When We Withdraw...

I say "when" because we aren't staying forever, at least not in numbers near our current ones. The days will come when we start to draw down substantively, right?

Over at the Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch comes up with some prescient thoughts on a few ways that this could unfold against the backdrop of partisan politics:

Partisan Retreat: Our inevitable withdrawal from Iraq could poison American politics for a generation.

In 2009, a Democratic president might say something like this: “Every year of this administration, America will reduce its troop strength in Iraq. The downward path is nonnegotiable and ironclad. But the pace is not. If Iraqis try sincerely and strenuously to keep their country together, or if they decentralize enough to keep the peace, and if they produce results, we will help them, including militarily. If not, we’ll pull out much faster.” This is not unlike what Joe Biden has said, both as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a Democratic presidential candidate. It implies a faster withdrawal than Bush Republicans prefer, but a slower one than dovish Democrats demand. And my guess is that many, if not most, Republicans would go for it.

Republican hard-liners, of course, might prefer demagoguery. But grown-up Republicans would recognize that withdrawal is inevitable; they would want to be relevant; they would feel battered by the election results, and tired of incurring the public’s wrath; they would face intense pressure not to sabotage a new commander in chief who could claim the public mandate.

The bigger problem for a middle way out, I would guess, would be on the Democratic left. So far in the primary campaign, Democratic presidential candidates have had a hard time keeping the door open for any American forces to stay in Iraq. If the Democrats sweep the board this year, doves will say that the public has spoken and wants change. Why in the world should they pace the withdrawal from Iraq at a rate that suits the losing party?

Yet if the Democrats were to rush for the exit with Republicans unified against them, they would be blamed by Republicans for whatever subsequent disasters befell Iraq and, for that matter, the whole disaster-prone Middle East. For years, they would face charges of having “cut and run,” which could reinvigorate the debilitating stereotype of Democratic weakness. On the other hand, a policy with significant two-party support would be less contentious, more sustainable, and thus more likely to succeed. Running the whole government, Democrats would need to care about succeeding.

I did my best to choose the most encompassing excerpt, but I can't quite do it justice without repeating the whole thing. Way too much good stuff for me to cover all the ground Rauch did. So if you can, please do go and read it all.

I Don't Know How The War Is Going

Does anyone else? See, what confuses me is that all the democratic partisans seem convinced Iraq is on the verge of collapse, and all the GOP partisans seem convinced that the surge has been so magic that victory is all but assured, a simple matter of more time and hard work. Color me skeptical that either side has it quite right.

Steve Chapman hypothesizes that both sides are off and a stalemate is what we're looking at...

The more sober supporters of the war recognize we have far to go. "Very real progress is anything but stable victory, even in the area where the U.S. and Iraqi surge has been most effective," writes Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The surge, he says, "has not brought lasting stability and security" even to Baghdad.

The surge itself may not be as important as another change in strategy—joining forces with Sunni militias previously allied with al Qaida. "Paying them not to blow us up" is how one American sergeant summarized it for the Los Angeles Times.

For the moment, at least, that tactic has served to quell attacks in some areas. But it comes at a high price: strengthening groups that, once we leave, may revolt against the Shiite-dominated central government.

Mark Kimmitt, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle Eastern affairs, recently said that if he had to guess the chance that the surge can bring stability, he'd say "maybe it's three in 10, maybe it's 50-50, if we play our cards right." That glum forecast may be too generous, since playing our cards wrong has been the hallmark of the occupation.

The surge, it's easy to forget, was not intended merely to improve security, but to facilitate political progress. But of the various legislative actions Bush demanded of the Iraqi government a year ago, the only one it has passed is a new law to allow former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party back in government.

Plenty to make both sides' partisans grumpy there, which suits me just fine. Of course, the anti-war folk are bound to chime in that a stalemate means we ought to quit, while the pro-war folk are bound to be unable to refrain from the truism that we can't win if we don't stay.

More on the prospects for the long-term endurance of this schism over the war in the post above.

Balko Delivers a Good Laugh

I don't agree at all with Radley Balko that performance-enhancing drugs ought to be allowed in sports. But his editorial on the subject delivered one of the best laughs I've had in awhile:

If it’s about fairness and competition, I’m dubious. Take Rep. Tom Davis, one of the more camera-hungry politicians to demagogue this issue. After the 2000 census, Rep. Davis maneuvered to have his congressional district gerrymandered to include as many Republicans as possible, ensuring his continual reelection, and limiting the number of real options for his constituents. He ran the next year unopposed. Davis also snuck a provision into an unrelated piece of federal legislation preventing an apartment complex from going up in his district because, he said, he feared it would bring too many Democrats into his district.

This guy is cheating at democracy, and he’s lecturing baseball players about fairness.

Ba-dump bump.

Clintons

It seems to me that Hillary has gone "all in" by sending Bill out as her surrogate hack, and it is not a sure bet. These are unchartered waters. What do people think about the recent days of the Clinton(s)-Obama dustup, both in terms of acceptable political protocol and the ultimate impact on the horserace?

Poll

Afghan Air Force

Afghanistan has just inaugurated its Air Force.

Do Fiscal Stimuli Ever Help Anybody Other Than Politicians?

I recently heard somebody on NPR Marketplace make a good case for skepticism that fiscal stimuli ever help, since it's just stirring money around - and sometimes even losing money by paying interest on it, like Bush' 2001 and 2002 efforts. And they involve little money per recipient.

They do seem to help politicians look like they're doing something, though, give them a chance to make speeches about caring about the people, and improve their chances of being elected.

What do YOU think?

More On Clinton Cutting Into Her Coalition

In order to win, of course, politicians have to have the biggest coalition to win. Often that's partly or mostly anti-coalitions against other candidates, but she has real competition in Obama, so she can't just be the least icky candidate. Instead, she's mostly been campaigning on her name and as the most experienced and ept candidate.

Recently, as I noted, their campaign head big'un, Mark Penn, lost his cool. Since then, the Clinton campaign has been offending people and slowly (emphasis on slowly, though), losing bits of their coalition. It's hard to know how much is deliberate meanness and how much isn't; certainly less than all and more than none.

Here's a list of some problems the Clintons may've caused for themselves.

British Witchcraft Prosecution On Churchill's Watch

I found the following intriguing note in an appendix of Churchill's V5, bk 2 of his WWII history, from April 3, 1944:

Prime Minister to Home Secretary:

Let me have a report on why the Witchcraft Act, 1753, was used in a modern court of justice.

What was the cost of this trial to the State? - observing that witnesses were brought from Portsmouth and maintained them here in this crowded London for a fortnight, and the Recorder kept busy with all this obsolete tomfoolery, to the detriment of necessary work in the Courts.

I had to follow up on that, of course.

Here's what Google has to say. Helen Duncan was found guilty of witchcraft after telling a seance audience that a naval vessel had sunk.

Open Pigskin Thread

Go Patriots! Go Chargers! Oh, wait, I have to decide who to root for.

Digesting Today's Results

Think McCain has it sewn up for (R)s?

The D side is still very close, as I thought it would be. Here's some evidence of Obama catching up (hat tip, Lawyers, Guns, and Money), as I predicted, though it's too early to know if the trend will catch up in time or be stopped by a change in the dynamics.

More tomorrow on Clinton continuing to burn her coalition, including me.

Open Sourced Thread

This thread has been open-sourced according to the BSD license. Hit the "Continue reading... link to see the copyright notice.

The BSD (Berkeley Standard Distribution) license is one of the two original forms of Open Source license; the other one is the GPL, the Gnu Public License. BSD is the freedom-lovers' form - you can do anything you want with this thread's content except use it as an excuse to sue me. GPL is the viral, momma-state-loving version, that makes redistributors provide source code.

The Profesora recommends buying OneStepAhead stock, because we've been buying tons of their stuff now that the kid's crawling. Our unpacking is also annoyingly on hold while we make EVERYTHING safe, since it's alot easier to do this before loading things up with stuff.

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Obama Plumps Reagan

Barack Obama has committed the sin of saying something nice about Ronald Reagan.

The excerpt ruffling feathers is on youtube: Obama Plumps Reagan, and if you are a real context buff, and you can bear it, here's the entire 49 minute interview .

I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

OK, to start, please note:

• Obama didn't say he WAS Reagan, and

• Obama didn't say that he thought all the changes Reagan made were good.

Obama's point was made in the context of saying that the 1980 election was"different," that it occurred at a time when many folks were dissatisfied with the basic direction of the country, and ready to be led in a somewhat different direction. What Obama did say was that he thought Reagan changed our country in a fundamental way, much more so that say either Nixon or Clinton. And that the people's readiness for this played a big part. Pretty much objectively true, IMO.

This to me is refreshing, a liberal democrat giving credit where it's due. I was a young liberal in those days, and I hated Reagan. But I was bamboozled by one-sided liberal BS, and self-bamboozled by my age-appropriate commmunitarian impulses. Most folks around during those times recall that our country was in a pretty intense malaise, not just economically but emotionally. Now I appreciate Reagan. He really did change our direction in fundamental ways. I think it's pretty hard, for example, to believe that Reagan's tax cuts had nothing to do with the national economic prosperity that ensued.

Unless you're a hard left conspiracy theorist and you're going to go to your grave insisting that nothing good came of Reagan's presidency while highlighting every conceivable negative that occurred from 80 to 88 as directly Reagan's fault.

Now apparently the fact that Obama has just stated a pretty simple truth isn't going to stop many folks from losing their minds. John Edwards is apoplectic, for example. Apparently, liberals don't want Obama to admit any positive truth about Reagan. And I'm going to bet that at least some conservatives are going to claim that Obama somehow isn't entitled to speak this truth.

I can hear the feverish clicking of the "Obama, You're No RR" columns. So, to reinforce, before you lose your minds, here again are the bullet points:

• didn't say he WAS Reagan

• didn't say Reagan's Presidency was 100% uninterrupted paradise

Keep these points in mind for the sake of your own sanity, OK folks?

Army Loses One Of Its Best

John Nagl, coauthor of the new Army COIN manual, has resigned, bound for the friendlier waters of a centrist leftie think tank.

I bet plenty of people he showed up and made nervous are less than unhappy about this. But this is a tragedy for the Army.

As we saw in Iraq, and beforehand in the Vietnam he wrote about, clueful and historically clued-in senior leadership is essential to understand that, look, military occupations are simply a part of what militaries do and as needed as battles. Now he won't be there as a general to know which way is up in the next crises. One of the articles in the blogburst hopes he can join the likely next Democratic administration with some Pentagon responsibility. Me, too.

Why Has Giuliani Sunk So Low?

I've been flabbergasted to see the once-mighty Giuliani sink so low in the polls. Not being a Republican, I didn't really understand. Nor did I feel like MY reason for being deeply dubious about voting for him was likely to apply too widely. My reason is that some heroes can come to feel they're above the democracy, and his character doesn't give me much hope he'd be up to, say, General Eisenhower on that score.

So here's a linkfest of some different reasons google turned up. It looks to me like we're looking at not so much one reason as a sort of anti-coalition of different reasons for people not trusting him.

Many, many lefties don't like him because he's pro-war and has even been defending Bush, even stretching to historically wrong analogies to Lincoln (he claimed the Civil War was unpopular, too, but it was actually very popular in the North except for big cities, since Lincoln managed its politics much more cleverly and energetically, and didn't get his public claims in advance of facts). Oh, and Lincoln was planning his occupation well before the war ended instead of having to be banged on the head electorally to do it three years after war's end.

Now we start on the righties. Here's one who doesn't want a daddy state (not too off from my motivations, except he gets there by observation of past behavior instead of my vague fear).

Brendan Nyhan calls Giuliani Polarizing and unpopular. He notes that alot of his support suddenly vanished once he stopped being frontrunner, no doubt socially conservative Republicans feeling they didn't have to put up with supporting him anymore.

Here's a rightie press - Weekly Standard - strategery complaint.

What If Marginal Rates Are Raised for Top 1% ?

Hat Tip to Marginal Revolution for hipping me to Lane Kenworthy, who self-describes as follows:

"I study the causes and consequences of poverty, inequality, mobility, employment, economic growth, and social policy in the United States and other affluent countries.

Kenworthy is a professor of Sociology and Political Science at the University of Arizona. he has an interesting post on the relationship between effective tax rates and subsequent government revenues.

It is commonly objected that higher tax rates on the affluent will reduce incentives for saving, investment, entrepreneurialism, and hard work. Economic growth will slow. Thus, taxes will be collecting a larger share of a less-rapidly-growing economy. In the end, higher tax rates will yield no increase (and perhaps a reduction) in government revenues.

Is this true? A lot of research has been done on this question, but there is little agreement about the answer.

Nice to see someone bring the conversation as far as focusing on effective tax rates, and acknowledging the PoV that raising taxes is far from a guarantee of more revenue. Educated folks ought to at least be able to get this far.

Kenworthy then sums up:

The effective tax rate on the incomes of the top 1% of Americans is substantially lower now (31%) than it was in the late 1970s (37%) and in the mid-1990s (36%). When the rate is higher, the federal government tends to collect a larger share of the national economy in taxes. And the experience of the past several decades suggests that higher rates have had no adverse impact on growth of the economy.

This evidence is by no means conclusive. But it lends credence to progressive hopes that a somewhat higher rate of taxation on the richest Americans would not only be fairer but also enhance the government’s ability to provide valuable services and benefits.

I have insufficent expertise and background knowledge to assess how reasonable Kenworthy's methodology is. My only guess is that he seems to be cherry-picking, how unreasonably I dunno. (Tully's bound to straighten us out if Kenworthy's pissing him off....). But do notice that Kenworthty prefaced it all by saying that there's little agreement, so it's not like he's making a truth claim here.

IMO, the big positive is leading a few more folks to understand the merits of focusing on effective tax rate, even though that is itself a moving target. Also good is noting the perils of assuming that raising a rate will lead to increased revenue. Not how it works, and folks oughtta face that. It's likely to be a waste of time talking taxes with folks who don't get this, and dismiss it when you try to explain it.

Mitt: Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

Mitt Romney has decided to lengthen his nose even farther in Michigan. Here's what his campaign says he said.

. . . "And as part of this, we will directly address and rectify the enormous product cost and capital cost disadvantages that currently burden the domestic automakers. From legacy costs, to health care costs, to increased CAFE standard costs, to the cost of embedded taxes, Detroit can only thrive if Washington is an engaged partner, not a disinterested observer. . . .

Now, I know that there are some people who don't think that there's a future for the domestic automobile industry. They think that the industry and its jobs are gone forever. And they're wrong. [strawman]

Let's leave Mitt's nice, straw-man-filled world for a second and return to our real one. Why were so many jobs lost? There's a clear and obvious primary reason: Detroit made many products that did less, were less reliable, and/or cost more than their competition. And they adapted worse and worse to changing conditions, even before pensions and healthcare became so much of their balance sheet. Toyota and Honda had to face higher CAFE and other standards, too - somehow they were able to grow their businesses anyway with clearly better products in more and more parts of the market. Giving and lending money, and research subsidies out the wazoo have all been tried - and here we are.

American Presidents have no ability to turf out senior management of the Big Three auto manufacturers and choose replacements up to their jobs. That's the only thing that could bring jobs BACK. And even then, not so many, because productivity per worker has risen, and bringing back as many jobs are were lost would lose their competitiveness.

Does Romney understand all these things I've been writing in this post? Youbetcha - he was a majorly successful capitalist. He knows he's lying.

One heartening bit about Romney's opportunistic change on moral questions and this story is that Romney's the least popular major candidate (item 12), despite his relative eptness and strong history of getting things done. The American electorate would seem not to be hopelessly stupid. He could win Michigan, because people in pain sometimes listen too much to fantasies, but he's going nowhere nationally. Moral: never get desperate about being President.

The Maverick View on Obama

Alan Stewart Carl over at Maverick Views suggests that Obama may be appearing optimistically revolutionary while being decidedly wonkish.

First there's this, which rang so true that I was astonished:

Of all the candidates, I find Barack Obama to be the most enigmatic (which is why I keep writing about him). I am certain he is not a con man but I am not at all sure what realities prop up his rhetoric. Is his earnestness a product of naiveté or does it come from a deep wisdom about America and our government?

A thousand times yes. Unlike our esteemed ex-patriates and reliable anti-Obama frothers over at Stubborn Facts, blogger Simon and war-obsessed poster Maxtrue, I don't worry that Obama is no more than a bullshit artist with a stealth agenda that is equal parts Jimmy Carter anbd Che-fricken-Guevera.

Alan goes on to refer to the recent newsweek profile.

Newsweek reveals a number of incidents where Obama has chosen pragmatism over idealism, preferring to hammer out a compromise rather than play the usual zero-sum game. He defines success as any forward movement, however small, toward his goals.

...

Take away his golden tongue and Obama is a mainline liberal who has shown an aptitude for combining persuasion and compromise to achieve incremental change. His rhetoric is made for primetime but his political temperament is more the stuff of C-Span. That’s not to say he wouldn’t make a decent president – just that those who vote for him need to look behind the big speeches and understand that by “change” Obama almost certainly means “small, drawn-out steps towards change.”

Plenty of food for thought there, By the Way, Alan is a one-time devoted centrist who used to blog at the dormant Yellow Line, and then decided he was a bit more independent than that after all.

Since I've been trolling blogrolls to review what, if anything, has become of one-time centrists who are enduring, I've found so far that there's fertile ground in reincarnation as an independent critic, Nothing wrong with that at all.

The hypothesis that suggests itself is that would-be centrists are more suited to loose confederation than they are to marching in formation. More on that in a future post, unless circumstances overtake me.

Free Pass Just As Easy for Hillary to Come By?

Middle Earth Journal suggests Hillary's the one getting the freepass:

If the media were judging Hillary Clinton on her resume, where should their attention have been focused? As Ms. Clinton's only publicly elected office, surely they should have been looking at her list of achievements as the junior Senator of New York, comparing the promises she made in ascending to that office with the results which have since been delivered.

However, at the national level, I never seem to see the pundits and debate hosts asking her about that record. Today I would like to take a look at some of the chief talking points from Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate race, along with her early years in office, and how she has performed since then.

...

The following is strictly a personal editorial - my conclusions having been a resident of New York throughout Senator Clinton's tenure here and observer of these events, promises and results. Hillary Clinton has not been the personal author of any true "disasters" for the State of New York, but neither has she delivered on her chief campaign promises. In truth, she has been largely invisible in terms of the state's local affairs. (All politics are local, remember?) As I view it, Ms. Clinton spent a large portion of her first term farming relationships and building alliances in Washington, DC keeping an eye to her political future. Since her re-coronation election in 2006, she has done virtually nothing but plan and run her campaign to be president. I will grant that she has done a satisfactory job in showing up for votes in the Senate, though many of those votes have been questionable in judgement, but in terms of serving the people who elected her and delivering on the promises she made, it has been a lukewarm performance at best.

Read it all, it's centrist testimony from the front row. I've been happy to share my centrist front-row take on Romney. Ron Beas looks to have the same advantage when it comes to Hillary.

And I think it's interesting that Ron is sporting an even-handed take. I mean, you're glad when your senator takes notice of your plight and tries to address it, as Hillary clearly did in Ron's account. But when the result is expensive boondoggling, isn't that a good place to start to worry? If Hillary is going to give us a feel-your-pain refrain and spend a lot of dough on splashy pie-in-the-sky seedlings never bear edible fruit, I'm not on board.

And if Hillary is telling us she's the hard-nosed and experienced leader who can really deliver change, we have a right to ask her why we should believe that. We have a rightt o ask that of everyone making such promises, from Barack to Hillary to Mitt to John McCain and right on dow the line,

I'm looking for a dose of realism here in 2008. So ok, candidates, every one of you should be ready to tell us all something we'd prefer not to hear.

Abolish Air Force? I Go Halfway

Robert Farley wrote a post suggesting abolishing the Air Force and folding it into other organizations. It made me think - I decided that, being a moderate, I'd just get rid of half of it.

IMHO, half its budget and personnel should stay Air Force, doing air superiority and strategic bombing, which is probably all we need in the post-Cold-War world. The other half should go to other services as air support. As my earlier post suggests, the USAF has little interest in and is doing its best to abandon its half of the bargain to provide that air support made early in the Air Force' existence.

The Air Force is probably so unhappy about ground support because, well, would you rather be flying fast, Stealthed air superiority planes or slow, ungainly things aptly named Warthogs? If we divvied it up like I suggest, Air Force would only have the planes they think are sexy, and Army would only have the aircraft suited to their mission.

I've never heard of Marine pilots wanting to bail on their aircraft types, so that existing example seems to work. Plus, the loop between troops and support air would shrink alot.

A Pox on the InterNOT

Has anyone else noticed how every time you use google or some other search engine to search for anything these days, no matter what it is - most of the results are some sort of bot-generated page of text ? It's jammed with almost nothing but sales pitch sentencestfilled with your keywords. It's surrounded on every side by ads. And menus of links with your keyword. If you click through on any of the links, you just get more of them.

There's no actual content whatsoever. It's not internet, it's internot. It's the cyperspace equivalent of trying to F%&*k yourself.

Almost like some sort of, I dunno, ponzi spam. Somebody in the biz must know what these evil pages are called. And more importantly, we need a commonly accepted clever name for these vile things. so we can declare war on them, and punish those responsible with the most heinous of retribution. Anyone got a name?

Immigration Platform For Review

Sadly, my post below on The Messy Politics of Illegal Immigration by Victor Davis Hanson had a messed up link(it's fixed now), and no traffic. So I thought I'd try again with a review of his suggested platform:

Close the border now through fencing, more agents, employer sanctions, enforcement of the law and verifiable identification. Restore faith in the melting pot by insisting that new legal arrivals learn English and the customs and protocols of the United States.

Explain to the Mexican and Central American governments that using the United States to avoid addressing internal problems -- while making easy dollars off the backs of their own expatriate laborers -- is over.

Finally, deport aliens who have broken the law, are not working or have just arrived. Some illegal aliens will not like the new atmosphere of tough enforcement and will voluntarily go back home. Others may have criminal records or no history of employment and should leave as well.

Sounds like a good start to me. Comments, as usual, are open. Idiotarians who equate anything short of 100% deportation with amnesty will be tolerated only at the whim of my ever-changing moods. And yes Alex, that may mean you. Plan your posting accordingly.

Cheap Ethanol is Fricken Cool

Hap tip to Instapundit for this story about GM getting into celllulosic ethanol production

Today at the North American International Auto Show, GM announced it has taken a non-controlling equity interest in biology-based renewable energy firm Coskata Inc. The greater-Chicago-based company simultaneously announced that it has developed a proprietary process for converting renewable carbon-rich materials ranging from cornstalks and woodchips to old tires and city trash into clean-burning ethanol at a cost of roughly $1/gallon. A pilot operation will be up and running at Coskata's R&D headquarters in Warrenville, IL by the end of January, 2008, and a 40,000-gallon commercial demonstration facility under construction at an as yet undisclosed location will go online by the end of the year. General Motors will purchase much of the ethanol produced by this plant for use in the test vehicles at its Milford, MI proving ground. And plans are in the works for a 100-million-gallon/year facility to be up and running by 2011.

GM's interest is primarily in making ethanol more widely available to increase the popularity of the many models it sells with flex-fuel capability (by 2012, half of GM's North American production will be flex-fuel capable). The company is also investing extensively in university research and in other firms pursuing different methods of cellulosic ethanol production. GM research suggests that by 2030, one-third of transportation fuel needs can be met by biofuels.

Boy I can hardly wait for idiotarians to start complaining about how $1 a gallon fuel could be bad.

I find it really promising that folks are working hard to solve the problem of our dependency on non-renewable fossil fuels, especially from foreign sources. If the result is cheap fuel and a way-reduced need for petroleum. I don't care if the inventors get filthy rich and there are 2 hummers in every driveway.

Then there are those who'll be crestfallen if everyday folks are not made to suffer for their evil, selfish, oil-consuming ways. F__K 'em, I say.

Got Any Moderate Voices?

If a centrist falls in the woods, does anyone even hear it? As I pick up blogging again, I can't help but notice the contrast between the vigor of the wings and comparative sad lack on centrist sites, at least as I've looked so far.

Centerfield is practically a deadletter office. Unity 08 tanked. (Unbemoaned by me, BTW.) The Mighty Middle is some sort of embarassing linkbot, so sad I won't even hypertext it. The Moderate Voice? Woefully bereft of comments. Check out the center links at left and join in the depression.

I won't embarass myself by issuing a clarion call. That'd be a pop gun during a firefight. I'll just ask folks who forebear both wings to tell us what sites pass for go-to destinations for comparative political sanity.

And I'll ask folks who occasionally lurk in wingnut threads for entertainment purposes to make an occasional inflammatory derogatory remark to bait folks over to CF. If 10 come, one may linger.

The Immigration Perception Gap

In The Messy Politics of Illegal Immigration, Victor Davis Hanson declares that would-be winners in the fall better take care to come in line with popular sentiment:

To the extent Democratic candidates ignore illegal immigration, or demonize those who worry over hundreds of thousands of new illegal aliens each year, or talk of guest workers and amnesty before they mention closing the borders, it is a losing issue that could alienate millions of voters.

Democratic candidates can't really claim that redneck racists are rushing to the border to clash with poor campesinos just crossing to better their lives, because many poor Democrats also resent how illegal labor drives down their own wages. It is mostly the American poor and middle class who worry about the sudden influx of thousands who don't speak English and often need public assistance.

But the Republican candidates have to watch it, too. If blanket amnesty is a losing issue, so also is mass deportation -- the practicality and morality of which are rarely considered by those rightly calling for an end to illegal immigration. Busing every illegal alien back to Mexico right now might resemble the past messy partition of India and Pakistan, and reopen the issue in a way that Democrats can legitimately exploit.

Hanson suggests that the conventional take (that sides on the immigration issue cleave neatly along party lines) on immigration is an oversimplification. I'm with him there. He goes on to suggest a whole platform of positions wise candidates ought to adopt (Read the whole thing, scroll down...). While the platform sounds reasonable to me, it's still the point where I go agnostic on Hanson. Even if the conventional wisdom is wrong, it still has vast power to cast politicians into the roles that their parties dictate.

Here's the thing: Davis is right that popular unhappiness over our dysfunctional immigration policies crosses party lines and a bunch of other related demographics. But what he's wrong about is his contention that politicians MUST respond by trying to give the people what they seem to want. Make no mistake, many pols are getting piles of cash from powerful folks who do not want any sort of interuption in the flow of cheap labor. And that means that many pols are going to embrace the CW roles as a way to give the appearance of stalemate, and just run out the clock.

In other words, they might look at a list like Hanson's as a menu, and ask themselves, "what's the least we can do?" And one big reason why they'll do this is because there's a pretty big gap these days between what a lot of everyday Americans want, and what our naton's power brokers want.

And to be fair (in my inaugural reincarnation outing as the Cranky Critter), everyday folks do need to acknowledge that making substantial changes in immigration policy carries the risk of the unknown. It's human nature to look to such changes only for the benefits they can bring, while dismissing worries about the likelihood of negative side affects as apologism.

No Rove

I'd title this post Rovenfreud, except I hate the word schadenfreude, so I won't.

I've been writing for some time now that Rove probably wouldn't be running campaigns in the '08 elections. I was right. Hat tip, .

Of course, my Hillary v Giuliani nomination prediction is looking rockier.....

Everybody Younger Than Baby-Boomers Are Terrorists?

That's the only reason I can figure out for this rule only requiring RealID from everybody younger than 50 (slashdot thread here. Well, it IS true that we make more noise about rules like this; clearly, in our hearts we must just want the terrorists to win.

The Boomer generational rule for distrust used to be, older than 30. Now it's younger than 50. Make up your minds! ;-)

This kind of thing encourages me to vote for Obama, who seems to be less into the mommy state. He's against RealID, whereas Clinton just wants to review it in a way that'd bring states onboard. ...sigh...Iraq...mommy stste... pity we have to choose.....

GOP Probably Losing The Latino Vote in '08

This is something I'd already seen and commented on in a Stubborn Facts debate sitout thread that I can't seem to find again. I noted that Clinton's hubby put together a winning voter coalition without appearing on Fox, but Bush had very much reached out to Latinos in all his victories, and won because of them.

PBS had a NOW show today on the likely GOP Latino loss. They had on former Bush voters, who pointed out that calling their cultural brothers a major threat to the nation wasn't a good way to win their vote. That, of course, is what major GOP candidates have been doing on immigration. The show also had a quote to the effect that Latino voter registration is trending much more Democratic than eight years ago, Despite Latino cultural conservatism.

Of course, we Dems can't take them for granted, either. But paying attention to Latinos is more of a (D) norm.

Bush rightfully pointed out back well before the '00 election that no party can have a winning coalition, either nationwide or in southern border states anymore without at least some Latinos, due to the increases in Latino population, and that's only going to grow more true.

Shut up, she says

I try to talk my wife (who has a law degree from Duke) from time to time about stuff like this, and she tells me to STFU because she finds grass-roots politics so revolting. Hard to argue.

Friday open thread

Because we all need to get things off our chest. For example:

- My head told me that I wanted Obama to win NH. But as I watched the returns throughout the night, I realized that my heart was with Hillary (at least in NH). What was that all about?
- I hate the Patriots (who pilfered Randy Moss from the Vikes [via the Raiders]), and the Celtics (who pilfered Kevin Garnett from the Wolves). Now we just need Santana to go the Red Sox. Minnesota: Boston's farm team. I'm so proud.

What's up with you?

Censorship Is Censorship

It's really troublign to see it come to this. I'm rooting for the conservatives to win here:

The early reviews are in, and three federal judges appeared in agreement Wednesday that a movie lambasting Hillary Clinton seemed an awful lot like a 90-minute campaign advertisement.

Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group, is challenging the nation's campaign finance laws, which require disclaimers on political advertisements and restrict when they can be broadcast. The group argues "Hillary: The Movie" and related television advertisements are not political advertising even though the New York senator is in the presidential race.

...

Under campaign finance laws, Citizens United would be required to disclose its funding for the ads. It would also have to disclose donors and pay the costs of airing it on cable television from a political fund.

The movie is scheduled for two screenings in theaters, once each in California and Washington. It is also being sold on DVD. Neither of those methods are regulated under campaign laws. The advertisements, however, are scheduled to run during the peak presidential primary season and would be regulated.

My emphasis above on financing. I have no trouble with disclosure. But any station or theater that thinks it can make money showing it ought to be able to do so. The last round of campaign finance MAY have been well-intended, but that makes some aspects of them no less disgraceful.

I wonder whether the feds will be making the rounds going after all the Michael Moore film festivals on college campuses and trendy theaters in urban liberal enclaves over the next 7+ months. Maybe they even present a "teaching opportunity," he said with an evil grin.

Hat tip to the indefatigible Instapundit for this story.

Is Clinton Obama Really a Demographic Nightmare?

Is Clinton Obama really a demographic nightmare scenario, or are we "not ready yet?"

I'd like to talk about a few competing perspectives on the nature of our nation. For the sake of that discussion, I'm going to presume that a 2008 democratic ticket of either Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton is 95% in the bag. We can make that a separate thread if anyone wants to discuss that.

Should the 2008 dem ticket be Clinton/Obama, some folks, myself included, are tempted to think that this presents a demographic nightmare scenario to the GOP...the fantasy fairytale version is a virtual landslide for the woman and the black, a 21st century ticket that looks more like modern America, sweeping aside 2 white guys.

Fairytale vision or not, Clinton-Obama has real demographic power. I mean, who doesn't think that when push comes to shove, Hillary won't carry a minimum of 55% of female voters (probably more) eager to elect the first female President? And who doesn't think Obama will bring much higher black turnout with a substantial Obama majority?

Then there's the contrary view, the one that doubts whether parts of America are "ready" to elect a woman or a minority to the white house. Do we really know, at this juncture? I don't think we know just how ready we are. I believe that most of us are more than ready. The younger you are, the harder it is to believe that this could even be an issue. But only a fool would deny that there are at least a few men everywhere who cringe at the idea of a female Prez, and only a fool would deny that racism endures in America to some extent.

I for one hope such folks stay home in November. At this juncture it's well worth noting that come fall, the election may in many folks minds be cast as such a referendum. Now, we can't say with certainty that a Clinton-Obama admin would lead us in better directions on pressing issues such as Social Security, Foreign Policy, Medicare, Healthcare, or Energy independence. In other words, policywise, mileage varies. We know this.

However, if this ticket wins, we CAN all celebrate a joyous milestone, one which brings us closer to one we really want to reach... the point where it's considered quaint to think gender or race could be an issue. THAT day will really be a party.

Conversation Starters-Evolution and other odds and ends

OK, resurrection of the friday open thread...some traffic would be nice. Litttle sense for me in blogging if there's no audience to join the discussion. If any of our old buddies are out there, chime in even if you've nothing to add.

Here are a few conversation starters.

Over at Reason, Ronald Bailey does a useful survey of the evolution positions of major candidates. All worth reading, but what caught my eye is that Mitt Romney's statement seems pretty on target:

Former Gov. Mitt Romney (Mass.) has said, "I believe that God designed the universe and created the universe. And I believe evolution is most likely the process he used to create the human body." Romney also stated, "In my opinion, the science class is where to teach evolution." He added, "If we're going to talk about more philosophical matters, like why [the world] was created, and was there an intelligent designer behind it, that's for the religion class or philosophy class or social studies class."

How many perspectives Mitt tried on before arriving at this one is another matter, but credit where it's due here.

Mythbuster Jamie Hyneman has a righteous take on, irritating features of some technology at Popular Mechanics:

Flashlights and other small electrical devices that run on exotic batteries. I have a lovely little LED flashlight called the Fenix that puts out 1 watt, uses a single AA battery and lasts for months of use. If you look around, most similar flashlights on the market use lithium or other expensive batteries. The catch? Unless you need a high-intensity beam, they don't work any better or last any longer than mine does. I'd be happier if compact LED flashlights that require $13 batteries had never become so mainstream.

Jamie has lots of good points in this one. Makes me think of nominating him for President under my President as Mayor philosophy, where the President spends more time fixing small problems every one suffers from and leaves the big stuff aside. If he adds "every voicemail system must have a 'Press zero to speak to a human' feature on penalty of death" to his platform, he'd probably carry 45 states.

So there are a few starters. Chime in on almost any topic you want, but if you bring up football, it may unleash a chautauqua on the Inevitable Patriots. And I say "almost" any topic because I declare this thread to be a foreign-policy-free zone. Consider it a vacation, Max.

Musings On the Audacity of Hope

As I rejoin the blathersphere, we're on the brink of the decision days likely to determine the free world's next leader. Seems like a good time to pipe up. I'd like to talk about the hope salesman, Barack Obama, since he's the guy that seems to have most captured the GenPub's imagination. I haven't read Barack Obama's book, but I understand the theme. Herewith, some musings on the audacity of hope, from a centrist, a pragmatist, a committed utilitarian.

Hope is a very good thing. A very powerful thing. And a very dangerous thing. So many of us respond to Obama's message on a gut level, don't we? How beautiful and attractive to believe that we can re-make our world to better suit us, via the sheer force of our collective will. But just how true is that belief? Mileage varies, I think.

Hope is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success. The 1 in a thousand starlet who travels to Hollywood and makes the silver screen needed that force of will and belief and desire to make it. But no such volume is sufficient to get a slow-footed 5'4" hoopster onto an NBA team.

After Barack Obama speaks of hope, he then speaks of its opponents, who he labels cynics. Cynics are those who believe the only human motivation is selfishness, and that hope is a predatory lie. What a feverishly dark and venal place to live. Cynicism is a sickness that shrinks your heart and pulls you under. Cynics are the grinches and scrooges of this world, plain and simple. But so too are the unconditional lovers and unbounded hopers the potential fools and doormats of the world. People will often be at least tempted to wipe their feet on anything that has welcome written on it. (So spake XTC.)

Fortunately, there's plenty of really liveable space between the life coaches of unbounded hope and those of limitless cynicism. Thus the common phrase healthy skepticism. Come on in, the water's fine!

God bless Barack Obama when he inspires us to believe we can do better by force of will. America can use the B12 shot. The belief that we CAN make big improvements is a necessary condition for them to come. But it's not sufficient. Obama as president MAY indeed be able to get the right people to the table in the right frame of mind to make good things happen on matters such as healthcare, social security, the environment even foreign policy.

But filling the seats at the table with the right folks is only ever the end of the beginning. As hard as it is to do that, it's still the easy part. Folks won't come away from the table with handshakes and smiles unless hard bargaining is done. Legitimate differences in approach exist on every sticky issue our country faces. that's WHY they're sticky.

Can we solve, overcome, get past all these sticky issues?

YES WE CAN!

God bless us all Barack, you're right about this. You have our attention.

So now tell us how. So we can all join the conversation.

Paulist Dormancy?

Captain Ed suggests the Ton Paul movement's time on this earth is up.

Well, probably basically dormancy, really - haven't we seen this cycle before? But still, probably true, and IMHO welcome news, just as it is to Pat.

I'm not sure why I've been so interested in this story, but I've found comment thread after comment thread fascinating. Any thoughts why?

NH After-Primary Blogifaction

The first primary's in, the results, as all too often happens, confounding the predictions. I think it's going to be a squeaker of an election season for us Dems, like this NH race, though I still think Obama's likely to pull it out at the end.

The Clinton camp, including the usually unflappable Mark Penn, have started to panic and make mistakes. My Theory Of The Day is that maybe Penn's problem isn't arrogance, but fear of Obama's superior use of network technology. Is Penn afraid of being obsoleted? Whatever the reason, we're seeing the Clintonistas eating their own coalition by insulting and annoying parts of it.

One thing I'm finding interesting is how much interest these early primaries generate abroad, or at least in the UK. This is just the longest primary-related British political thread I've seen.

Obama Or Hillary For The Big Win?

My money's STILL on Hillary for the big win - she still has the better organization in 50 states.

My vote's also still with Hillary, though as ever, I won't be unhappy if Obama wins. He's been paying less attention to Iraq and other important foreign policy issues. But I do think Obama would do better for me domestically - less of a mommy state, and IMHO he'd do fine econwise. I think he has the vital-for-me centrist quality of always trying to figure out what's going on.

If he wins, I'll be happy supporting him in the general, unlike the weak Gore and Kerry of the last two Presidential election cycles.

UPDATE

Maybe Hillary isn't so organized after all, if her Campaign Head Cheese is saying things like this:

At least two of Hillary Clinton’s upper-echelon advisers, Mandy Grunwald and Mark Penn, were decidedly unimpressed.

“Our people look like caucus-goers,” Grunwald said, “and his people look like they are 18. Penn said they look like Facebook.”

Penn added, “Only a few of their people look like they could vote in any state.”

Way to hand plenty of folx to Obama - Arrogance is a good way to lose ANY campaign. It's like failing to issue coats to your troops invading Russia. Now I think Obama has the edge.

No More College Football For 3/4 Year!

...sigh...snif. Good going LSU, you did great!

There Is No History Without Freedom

Outside free societies, there is no history in the real sense of knowledge of what has happened and true analysis of why big things happen.

The Tibet history I'm currently reading has several pieces of evidence that most Chinese historians don't try to understand what's really happened, and why, so much as they try to throw smoke over past Chinese limitations and problems, with the support of state torture to keep people within the party line. The Mongolian conquest of China, for example, was, they say, actually a conquest of Mongolia by the glorious Chinese Empire. The Tibetan Empire that conquered the Tang capital was actually a province of China, of course.

In unfree states, writers have to brown-nose to be published, and it's even more true of history, which can be a delicate line of business if too much truth appears. You will read first about the greatness of the writer's diet(ies), then about the greatness of its rulers, and then about the greatness of the writer's patrons. THEN you get actual stuff - but just the bits that make those in power look good. Victory will be ascribed to God, the ruler's superior relationship with God, the ruler's or the peoples' inherent and obvious superiority, anything but what really happened.

Intermediate examples I've always found interesting are Roman Imperial subjects Plutarch and the Byzantine historian Tacitus. They both lived within the limits of state unfreedom while still delivering pretty good histories, Plutarch about the fall of the Roman Republic and Tacitus about the Byzantine Emperor Julian. They had no doubt read real history, written by free men, and were able to put more perspective into their writings than normal for unfree historians.

Most historians agree that real history started with a free man with the intellectual tools, time, money to do the job, and a war to tell the job - a Classical Athenian named Thucydides. After all those years of history not being invented, it was a free man who did the job. No accident, "History of The Peloponesian War" is the first history to have real respect for evidentiary standards, and the first to use physical evidence to deduce how the past was (Ch1).

Open Thread: Moving Is Hell

We finally have our Internet working after a pretty hard move.

The baby made our packing take longer than had in our schedule. Before him, I think our schedule would've been tough, but just doable with some sleep to spare. As it was, we ended up moving 20% of our stuff ourselves after the movers had gone. Despite missing alot of sleep. So it seemed like forever before we finally finished cleaning the old place. It's done now.

We're pretty happy with the place, though.

The Internet was messed up for six days because Time-Warner makes it hard to have simultaneous cable connections, which is fine for TV, but terrible for Internet connectivity. We Internet types hate what we call "Flag Days", where everything moves at once, and it takes lots of luck to get everything working then. I'd rather've had a week or so of overlap - paying for both connections would be worth it in my mind.

The kid doesn't yet have those upper front teeth that're aching, but he can say "Mama" and "Dada," and today showed he knows which of us is which.