Apropos Jonah's comment about the rivalry between Wasilla and Fairbanks, I think Wasilla may have an unfair advantage. I was looking something up in the glossary at the back of a Koran earlier today, and stumbled upon the fun fact that "Wasilah" in Arabic means "favour; honourable rank"!
The Heartland Institute’s Matthew Glans has a good piece out on how our screwy tax code contributed to the financial meltdown. Glans summarizes the work of a Heartland colleague, Sam Eddins, whose Tax Arbitrage Feedback Theory (TAFT) seeks to explain how differential tax rates affect economic decisions and the business cycle.
Credit-default swaps, for example, appear to be in part a way to game the tax system:
Credit-default swaps are revealed to be a massive tax arbitrage that shifted government tax receipts to Wall Street bonus pools and necessitated the creation of massive quantities of low credit quality debt,” Eddins continues. “The structure of this trade ‘insulated’ Wall Street agents from the credit risk while allowing them to arbitrage the tax savings of their clients as long as counterparties remained solvent.”
For more interesting tax-policy reads from the nation's leading think tanks, check out these recent releases:
• The Heritage Foundation’s J.D. Foster writes about a rare case where the Obama administration is advocating a useful fiscal policy — applying pay-as-you-go budget rules properly to tax issues.
• A recent book from the American Enterprise Institute, Tax Policy Lessons from the 2000s, offers a series of interesting discussions of, well, tax policy lessons from the 2000s.
• Cato Institute Senior Fellow Jim Powell has some recommendations for how outraged Tea Party protestors can continue to fight back against fiscal recklessness. The key is to focus attention on government misspending closer to home, over which citizen activists can have more immediate control. Powell cites the work of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy in Connecticut, which has pioneered the use of citizen audit committees to go after high property taxes.
I’ve written a lot about why I believe that even if one accepts that Waxman-Markey will accomplish its stated goals for greenhouse-gas emissions reductions via a cap-and-trade mechanism, it would still be a very bad law.
At a practical political level, as far as I can see, the fulcrum of the debate is among midwest and mountain-state Democrats. The Republicans (excepting the senators from Maine) seem solidly against it, and most coastal Democrats solidly for it. The legislative strategy appears to be to cut whatever side deals are necessary to get the swing Democrats to support it. This mostly has meant giving away special allowances and spending programs to pretty much every industry or region that actually produces greenhouses gasses at sufficient scale to play the lobbying game.
There does not seem to be any line in the sand that they will not cross. At this point, the side deals seem to have consumed the cap. That is, when you look under the hood, there is not really a material binding cap in this bill for at least a decade. Nothing is left but the political rents. This is basically why the CBO now estimates that all those net revenues from auctioning ration cards that were going to help offset our structural budget deficit are not going to be there. In fiscal terms, Waxman-Markey will bring in almost nothing. We’ve given it all away.
Most of the border guards who work at a closed Canada-U.S. crossing in eastern Ontario at the centre of a dispute between Ottawa and Mohawks won't return to work at the site even when the matter is settled, the guards' union said Tuesday.
Ron Moran, president of the Customs and Immigration Union, said the majority of the 37 guards who work at the Cornwall Island, Ont., crossing have been told by their doctors not to return to work as long as the border crossing remains on the island, which is on the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve straddling the Ontario-Quebec-New York State borders. Doctors have warned guards that the tense relationship between guards and the community is too stressful and might have adverse health effects.
I teach English and Biology for the Juneau public schools and am considering using Adam Smith in my World Lit class next fall. The following is why I don't let my students use Wikipedia for research:
"He [Adam Smith] died in Edinburgh on 17 July 1790 after defeating the decepticons and was buried in the Canongate Kirkyard.[34] On his death bed, Smith expressed disappointment that he had not achieved more.[35]"
The link is here and the decepticon entry was still posted as of 10:22 AST, June 18.
For good or ill, the decepticon bit no longer seems to be there.
I was happy to see you note that it fell below its standards today. I would add that it's not just that editorial. There's also more editorializing on the Federal page—there has always been snark, but there is an out-and-out endorsement of Obama's same-sex benefit move. The story on Ensign says, "A staunch conservative, Ensign supported a constitutional amendment that would have strictly prohibited same-sex marriage. . ." Strictly? What's that doing there? Except to make him look even more "staunch" and right-wing and disreputable? I guess same-sex marriage is now an issue where we can't expect, er, straight reporting. (Links added—RP).
says Ezra Klein. There has been a noticeable pick-up in the number of liberals expressing such worries. That's a very good thing because all the worrying has the potential to lead to a virtuous circle.
That's the catchy title of a posting by David French over at Phi Beta Cons that isn't about immigration and yet sums up the strategy of the pro-amnesty side. They're just running out of arguments that people find plausible and have resorted instead to pointing and sputtering at how awful and appalling the immigration critics are. As David put it in his posting, "Why convince when you can browbeat?"
This is the sum total of the recent SPLC/La Raza amnesty blitzkrieg, and just yesterday, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights joined in, with a report intended to boost passage of a new hate-crimes bill. Stupid as that is (every crime is a hate crime, after all), what got my attention was the report's focus on immigration; on the very first page of the report, my shop, the Center for Immigration Studies, is accused of having "inflamed the immigration debate by invoking the dehumanizing, racist stereotypes and bigotry of hate groups." Translation: I haven't toed their line on amnesty and open borders, and therefore I'm a baaaaaad person.
Daniel Henninger makes a very good point about how Medicaid is causing havoc with many states' budgets. He says that the problem is costly federal mandates. I'm not for costly federal mandates, but the bigger problem here is federal bribes. The program is structured so states that spend more get more federal cash. When times are good, that incentive leads to overexpansion. When times are bad, it leads to smaller-than-optimal cuts. It thus generates continuing state budget trouble.
Hans (if I may), the Post is really losing its cool on the D.C. voting-rights issue. Over the weekend it accused Republicans of being too "gutless" to oppose the bill openly—which, for the record, most of them do. Today's editorial doesn't really even bother trying to connect its anger with Ensign on the D.C. voting issue to the sex scandal. It just uses the scandal as an excuse to vent about something totally unrelated. I genuinely expect better from the editors of the Post.
What Jonah said. And then some, as Kathryn and I — and I'm surely not giving away any secrets here — have had … issues now and then. I've never known her fairness and professionalism to waver though, not by a millimeter — nor her innate good nature, either. I treasure K-Lo's acquaintance, and wish her well on her new beat.
The Washington Postgoes after Senator Ensign today over his admission that he had an affair, but the part of their editorial criticizing him for the gun-rights amendment that he successfully attached to the D.C.-voting bill is bizarre (or “noxious” to use their own words) in its reasoning. The Post claims that Ensign would “never, in a million years, strip Nevada officials of their right to write local laws or in any other way visit upon them so extreme a sovereignty-stripping measure.” But the Post’s editorial writers ignore the district’s special status under the Constitution in the exact same way as the supporters of the bill to give D.C. a voting member of Congress.
The whole reason the D.C.-voting bill is plainly and obviously unconstitutional is because the District of Columbia is not a state like Nevada. It is a federal district over which Congress “exercise[s] exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever.” Congress is not exercising “extreme” sovereignty-stripping power when it prevents the District over which it has complete and sole governmental authority from enacting “laws or regulations that discourage or eliminate the private ownership or use of firearms.” It is simply preventing the district government that has been granted limited home rule from stripping citizens of their Second Amendment rights, a true example of extremism. To paraphrase its own words, what works for the Washington Post “at any given moment is the only thing that seems to matter.”
I've held off saying anything about Kathryn's career change. She's joining the ranks of NR/NRO editors-at-large. Since WFB's passing, I believe there are only three of us in the NR universe, John O'Sullivan, yours truly, and now Kathryn. I have every confidence that Kathryn will do more with that title than me and Johnny O combined.
Anyway, one reason for my silence was that I was consumed with a deadline earlier in the week and I didn't want to rush saying something about her move. But an even bigger part of it was that even if I had all of the time in the world, I still wouldn't know exactly what to say. While I have many good friends at NR, I am deeply, deeply grateful to two. One is Rich Lowry, who took a flier on me back in the old days and then took another chance when he (and Ed Capano) asked me to start a little enterprise called National Review Online. Rich was always very involved in the product, to be sure. But he put a lot of trust in me and I'll always be grateful to him for that, and I'll always be proud of what I did with NRO and what it has become.
But it's that second part — what it has become — that brings me to Kathryn. It has been nearly seven years since I formally stepped down as editor, and longer than that since Kathryn became the alter rex (alter regina?) of NRO. When I was at the helm, she did more than I can recount to make my tenure successful. But unlike with me, giving Kathryn the reins was never a flier. She'd proven that she was the hardest working woman in show business, if by show business you mean conservative journalism or carbon-based life. Still, more than we could have imagined Kathryn became an indefatigable and zealous champion of our shared dream of making NRO the MobutuSeseSekoKukuNgbenduwazaBanga of the worldwide web (the all-powerful rooster who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake). She is responsible for so much of NRO's success — and my own — that I will be forever in debt to, and in awe of, her.
Whatever successes NRO has in its future, they will be growing from the soil Kathryn tilled for so long. Congratulations to her on a job well done and all best wishes for ever greater success in the future. She ain't leaving of course — we wouldn't let her — but it won't be the same without her, either.
DOJ's Dismissal of Voter-Intimidation Charges [Peter Kirsanow]
Several days ago, the Department of Justice dismissed voter-intimidation charges against individuals who were stationed outside of a polling place in Philadelphia, brandishing nightsticks and hurling racial threats and insults at prospective voters during the 2008 presidential election. The U. S. Commission on Civil Rights sent the following letter to DOJ concerning its actions:
The next great conservative best-seller won't be out till late September, but you can now pre-order it on Amazon.
I wish I could understand Amazon pricing. How can they discount books even before they're published? Still, it gives you all the more reason to buy half a dozen copies to distribute among friends.
[Side effects may include discouragement, despondency, depression, despair, hopelessness, anomie, accidie, melancholia, tedium vitae, Angst, Weltschmerz, and fin de siècle ennui. To avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for a dejection lasting more than four hours.]
A good article over at The Weekly Standard today talks about the D.C. Board of Elections’s decision not to allow a referendum that would have provided a public vote on the D.C. Council’s decision to recognize out-of-District same-sex marriages. The Alliance Defense Fund is representing D.C. residents in challenging that decision.
Given its oversight of the District, Congress too could act. An act to overturn the D.C. law has already been introduced and there is precedent for Congress to give the people of the District a voice. In 1992, Congress provided for a referendum on the death penalty in the District.
In other marriage news, Governor Schwarzenegger’s attorneys say he will remain “neutral” in the federal lawsuit challenging Proposition 8, thus ensuring that no California government official will defend the marriage amendment in court.
We use Orwell, Orwellian, and Orwellianism loosely a lot these days, but what is going on in the Obama administration is beginning to get a little creepy and resembles a lot of things Orwell wrote about in 1984.
When in, Soviet fashion, a critical overseer is dismissed as being "confused" and suffering mental problems in carrying out the law, as Gerald Walpin probably did in uncovering waste and possible fraud in connection with the mayor of Sacramento; or when the government begins to create new words like "overseas contingency operations" and "man-made catastrophes"; or when Justice Sotomayor says that a Latina is inherently a better judge than a white man — and then says she does not mean what she says — or that a female-only club that has no males does so because no males apparently applied (using the argument of pre-Civil Rights Southern country clubs); or when the president begins nationalizing companies because he has no interest in the federal government interfering with private enterprise or swears that he is going to uncover waste and insist on financial sobriety as he runs up a nearly $2 trillion deficit, we see a creeping Orwellianism everywhere. Bush (and "Bush did it") has become the proverbial enemy at large, sort of playing the role of Trotsky in the Soviet 1930s, or the face on the big screen we are supposed to hate — alternately demonized and airbrushed (when Obama adopts his policies like military tribunals, Iraq, or renditions). Newspeak has even proclaimed our president a "god," and a journalist has adopted proskynesis in his presence.
All this dissimulation is based on two general principles — one, the cause of egalitarianism and equality of result is so critical that the tawdry means of distorting reality is not only worth it, but not tawdry; and two, 30 years of postmodern teaching in our law and graduate schools have insidiously convinced many of our elites that there is no absolute truth, only competing narratives that take on credence depending on the race, class, gender, and access to power of those who speak.
As a rule of thumb, when key administration officials say they do not wish to do something, the odds are they have already done it, and when they imply "Bush did it" it means that they will adopt it (e.g., anti-terrorism protocols) or exceed it (Bush deficits).
The president is also speaking in code. The Pope [John Paul II] spoke in a code which was implicit and understood support for the forces of freedom.
The code the administration is using is implicit support for this repressive, tyrannical regime.
We watched Gibbs say that what's going on is vigorous debate. The shooting of eight demonstrators is not debate. The knocking of heads, bloodying of demonstrators by the Revolutionary Guards is not debate. The arbitrary arrest of journalists, political opposition, and students is not debate.
And to call it a debate and to use this neutral and denatured language is disgraceful.
Beyond that, the point here is no longer elections. The reason that at least eight have died is not because they wanted a recount of hanging chads in the outer precincts of Esfahan. What they wanted is to no longer live under a tyrannical dictatorship, a misogynistic, repressive, incompetent, and corrupt theocracy.
And that's what the demonstration and the moment is all about. It's about the regime. There is an opportunity — revolution is going to happen one way or the other eventually, and this theocracy will fall. It may not happen now, but it ought to be supported, because it might happen now, and it would change the world if it did.
On the media's coverage of the president:
Well, look, the media are so in the tank, really, they ought to get scuba gear...
But what's really interesting, the president yesterday has said, he complained about FOX, and he said, I think accurately, that it is the one, only voice of opposition in the media.
And it makes us a lot like Caracas where all the media, except one, are state run, with the exception that in Hugo Chavez-land, you go after that one station with machetes. I haven't seen any machetes around here, so I think we are at least safe for now.
But the rest of the media are entirely in the tank, and it's embarrassing. You would think it would be embarrassment that would deter them.
Obama does u-turns on all kinds of policies—on taking [public] money in campaigns, on rendition, on eavesdropping, on all kinds of issues, and the press does a u-turn, a whiplash u-turn in step.
In the end, what you have to—could—conclude is that it is, in part, ideological affinity with Obama, but also in part, he's a rock star, and he sells. So it isn't only ideology. It is greed. If you have him on the cover, he sells.
And that is the only defense that the mainstream media have, and it isn't a pretty one — money.
Obama is the first American president who is unaware of the historical sources of America’s moral strength. In his tepid response to events in Iran, the president hailed democratic process, freedom of speech, and the ability to select one’s own leaders as “universal values.” But they aren't. A quick glance around the world’s totalitarian regimes, including most especially that of Iran, should convince anyone of that. These values come from America and the West. Imagine having a president who either doesn't know or won't say it.
I find it more than a bit amusing that Jenifer Lynch says that "harsh criticism of the commissions in the media had discouraged many of their supporters from coming forward to defend their missions." It was just a few days ago that Lynch refused to appear on a CTV with segment to debate Canada's "Human Rights" Commissions with Ezra Levant. If she won't defend HRCs in Canada, how does she expect others to come forward? Of course, Lynch found a lackey to appear on CTV in her place. Tellingly, he was only able to on television and defend Canada's Human Rights Commissions by lying through his teeth. (You can watch the CTV segment here.)
Conservatives have warned on these pages that the language used in proposed anti-racial-profiling legislation would drive the police to adopt racial quotas in their policies, because of its use of a “disparate impact” standard and the requirement that the police collect racial data on their stops. Well, here’s evidence from across the pond that we’re right. Lord Carlile, a “Liberal Democrat peer” and “independent reviewer of anti-terrorism laws,” has found that “`there is ample anecdotal evidence’” that the British police are “carrying out the[ir anti-terrorist] searches on people they had no basis for suspecting so they could avoid accusations of prejudice” by “`“balanc[ing]” the statistics.’”
She also claimed that those who accused the CHRC and its provincial counterparts of “chilling” free expression with the prosecutions of writers such as Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant were themselves guilty of “reverse chill.” Harsh criticism of the commissions in the media had discouraged many of their supporters from coming forward to defend their missions, she said. Others who were brave enough to speak out had been subjected to withering personal criticism in opinion pieces and letters to the editor, so much so that “50% of interviewees for an upcoming book on human rights have stated that they feel ‘chilled’ about speaking up.”
Defenders of state censorship are too cowed to speak out in favor of not letting people speak out? Oh, my! Remind me to ask Sean Penn to host an all-star fundraiser . . .
The great Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute has a very good piece in the Wall Street Journal about the president's plan for the country's financial industry. As Wallison mentions, Obama of course didn't fail to pay lip service to the free-market, but then demonstrated that, fundamentally, he either doesn't get it, or he dislikes it. In the end, the product will be one that Wallison has been fighting for 25 years, something that resembles Freddie and Fannie. Just bigger.
In other words, the administration's plan would create what are essentially government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in every sector of the financial economy — insurers, securities firms, finance companies, bank holding companies, and hedge funds — where these specially regulated firms are to be designated. The result will be devastating for competition. Larger firms will squeeze out smaller ones and aggressive small companies will have less opportunity to overcome the government-backed winners.
Here is some interesting political data from this June 10 Wall Street Journal article:
Independents hold the balance of power in the Obama era. That's the conclusion of a recent, 165-page Pew Research Center survey that shows independent voters climbed to 39% from 30% of the electorate in the five months following the 2008 election. During that same time, Democratic identification fell to 33% from 39%, while Republicans fell four points to 22% — their lowest since post-Watergate.
Medicare Can't Do the Market's Job [John R. Graham]
I was appalled to see Prof. Tyler Cowen accept the idea that a government agency is capable of determining value for the almost 50 million Americans on Medicare. This is Ludwig Von Mises/Friedrich von Hayek/Milton Friedman grade 1 page 1: A central planner simply cannot perform this function.
This bankrupt program has existed for almost half a century: If Medicare knew how to figure out how to pay doctors and hospitals across the country the right prices for the right services, it would have done so by now. Secretary Leavitt tried again and again to force Medicare to pay for an “episode of care” for each patient, and failed. This is something that markets have done for millennia. (Think of an airplane ticket as payment for an “episode of travel”: You have no idea how much the co-pilot was paid for the flight, or how much the fuel cost, nor do you care.) Indeed, Professor Cooper has shown that once private spending is added to the Medicare data that everyone claims shows that more spending does not result in better outcomes, more spending does actually result in better outcomes. My colleague Jeffrey H. Anderson has shown that Medicare spending per capita has increased one third more than private insurance plus private out-of-pocket spending, between 1970 and 2007.
The only way to get Medicare spending under control (in a politically tolerable way) would be for Medicare to report each senior’s health-care spending on his Social Security statement, along with a note stating, “If you can get your own health care for less money, we’ll split the difference.”
The Corner's been a bit silent on the plight of Gerald Walpin, and that's a shame given how so much of the media has been, too. So far, the case reminds me so much of the Clinton travel-office scandal, where the Clintonites tried to cover-up their old-style crony machine politics tactics by accusing inconvenient-but-honorable staffers of criminality. The Obama machine seems to be going with a more Soviet style approach and accusing Walpin of being mentally incompetent merely because he's politically inconvenient. Of course, maybe he is a bit senile, but I've seen no evidence of that in his numerous interviews or when he took the mental acuity test on Beck last night. And, even if he is, Obama broke the rules in how he fired him and broke basic decency too.
Of course ITWB ("If This Were Bush"), the lefty blogs would be disemboweling themselves in rage.
Bruce Bartlett argues for a Value Added Tax to fund health-insurance expansion. Land O’ Goshen! A brand-new tax — on top of the income and capital-gains tax hikes already looming? We don’t need the government controlling even more of our health-care dollars: The government needs to return the health-care dollars it’s taxed away from us, either directly or indirectly (by giving our employers a tax break that we don’t get if we buy our own health insurance.) But the real jaw-dropper is his claim that “One of the reasons that Social Security and Medicare have worked so well is that they have specific payroll taxes that fund their benefits. This is important both economically and politically. Politically, people believe they have paid for their benefits. This has made it impossible to ever meaningfully cut Social Security benefits, just as Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt intended. When explaining why he instituted a payroll tax rather than fund Social Security out of general revenues, Roosevelt said, “We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions. . . . With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my Social Security program.”
In a sense Bartlett is right: Because these programs are funded by dedicated payroll taxes, people think they’ve “earned” their Social Security and Medicare benefits, which keeps these Ponzi schemes alive long after they should have collapsed. The Medicare Hospital Insurance (Part A) expenses will be $20 billion greater than payroll taxes this year, and the mythical “trust fund” (historical, excess payroll taxes that are actually used to fund the government’s non-Medicare spending) will be empty by 2018. Furthermore, Medicare Part B premiums, deducted from seniors’ Social Security deposits to pay for doctors’ visits, cover only one quarter of the cost of that program. For the Medicare Part D prescription-drug benefit (President Bush’s greatest health-care blunder), premiums cover only about 11% of total costs. Overall, general revenues pay for about 53% of the Medicare budget today — but try telling that to a senior who prefers to believe that he has paid for “his” Medicare.
Real health reform comes from reducing taxes, not piling them on.
That's what I told my wife this morning over coffee. The Fair Jessica is a Fairbanks native, but it seems all the news is out of Wasilla. First there's the governor, who has made some headlines, and now there's this:
It's an 18-foot mecha-exoskeleton being built by a Wasilla man. When will Fairbanks smell the coffee and catch up with their valley nemises?
Man, It's Hard to Figure Out What's Going on in Iran ... [Andy McCarthy]
when so many smart people are in such deep disagreement. Danielle Pletka and Ali Alfoneh penned an op-ed in the New York Times yesterday arguing that Ahamdinejad and the Republican Guard had effectively carried out a coup d'etat, shifting the country from an Islamic to a military dictatorship. That seemed a strange assessment to me on a number of levels — suggesting divides where I doubt they exist between the IRGC and Khamenei, and between Ahamadinejad (the guy who had the streets widened to prepare for the Madhi's coming) and radical Islam.
On his blog, Michael Ledeen describes this assessment as "incredibly silly," and provides a starkly different analysis: The regime (i.e., the mullahs and the IRGC) determined to crush a rebellion still growing strong — with "the most powerful leaders in Iran . . . facing a life or death showdown." Michael elaborates with this dire picture: "Both Khamenei and Mousavi — the two opposed icons of the moment, at least — know that they will either win or die. After nightfall, millions of revolutionaries chant from their rooftops 'Allah is Great' and they are chants of defiance hurled at the Islamic Republic. I cannot imagine a soft landing."
reports that Ahmadinejad has a “base” of support in the countryside is not only wrong, it’s backwards. The uprising we’re all watching on YouTube is taking place inside Ahmadinejad’s “strongholds,”
the assertion of a thumping victory has provoked the restless and disenfranchised voters who desperately sought change in the figure of Mousavi, who served as the country's prime minister under Khomeini from 1981 to 1989. Although he has proved himself a dedicated servant of the Islamic republic, Mousavi is one of a number of prominent Iranians who feel they have been sidelined. Others include former president Hashemi Rafsanjani and his successor, the moderate Khatami. These men have undoubtedly given the current protests a sense of purpose and direction. But they also point to the fact that, even if it is successful, Iran's green revolution is unlikely to mean anything more radical than a change in personnel, and certainly not the comprehensive regime change so many crave.
For the past 30 years, Mousavi and his supporters have demonstrated their unswerving dedication to the cause of revolutionary Islam. Under his premiership in the late 1980s, Iran came close to all-out war with the US and its allies during the death throes of the Iran-Iraq war. The greatest advances in the country's nuclear program, including the regime's attempts to build an atom bomb, were undertaken during the presidencies of Rafsanjani and Khatami.
Their primary aim in opposing Ahmadinejad's election victory, therefore, is to reclaim some of the power and influence they once enjoyed, rather than to effect a radical change in the way Iran is run.
It is for this reason that the democratic hopes of all those brave Iranians who have taken to the streets will ultimately be in vain. Even if Khatami were to sacrifice Ahmadinejad in the interests of preserving the regime, the President would simply be replaced by another Iranian leader whose first priority would be to protect the ideological foundations of Khomeini's Islamic revolution.
This is probably the classiest way I've seen a former president criticize a sitting president. Though I'm sure Rick Brookhiser or Michael Barone would have other examples.
And I wonder if his big-government statements came from a place of nagging guilt.
Rich, you write: "For all the talk of Obama's realism, he is pursuing a policy driven by a fantasy about international affairs — that all disputes can be resolved through negotiations and governments can be talked out of their interests." You are right, but rather than dismiss Obama's approach as a fantasy, the belief that engagement and dialogue can always succeed is an ideology, one that infects a good proportion of those who consider themselves realists.
Carter, as president, started with a different ideology, one that saw human rights in foreign policy as paramount. Memoirs of Carter administration officials show he moved to undercut the Shah in part because, he felt that Khomeini would be better for human rights. Carter was wrong, and stubborn. Rather than admit some of his pet targets — Mugabe, Arafat, Assad were not interested in peace or human rights, he simply shed this pretext and embraced the same ideology which Obama appears to have now — a belief in moral equivalency and the idea that negotiation can solve all ills regardless of the extremism of the adversary and the immorality of the position.
As to the rest of your post, you are right that the Carter-Obama analogy doesn't hold up on Iran. If you believe Obama's concern is simply engagement over the nuclear issue, then the "Chicken Kiev" analogy is more apt.
Jerry: No, I don't have any regression analysis to back up my contention that, other things being equal, increasing density will lead to increased government.
Say this for him: Barack Obama is not making Jimmy Carter's mistakes in Iran. Carter arguably didn't do enough to support an Iranian government faced with a popular revolt; Obama isn't doing enough to support a popular revolt against an Iranian government. Carter's foreign policy was achingly idealistic; Obama's foreign policy is cold-bloodedly "realist." Ultimately, though, both presidents share a deep naïveté, even if it has slightly different iterations. For all the talk of Obama's realism, he is pursuing a policy driven by a fantasy about international affairs — that all disputes can be resolved through negotiations and governments can be talked out of their interests. He is giving the Iranian demonstrators the cold shoulder partly because he believes he can deal with Khamenei and persuade him to give up Iran's nuclear-weapons program. The chances of this happening are quite remote. Fundamentally, then, Obama isn't turning his back on the protestors out of hard-headedness but on account of a gauzy illusion, although one with a realpolitik veneer.
The plot thickens. Notice the similarities between Krugman's advocacy for lower interest rates to spur homebuilding (then) and his advocacy for deficit spending to spur consumption (now). Krugman's strong bias toward government action blinds him to the long-term consequences of government intervention. I guess it's the Keynesian in him. In the long run we're all dead, right?
On the Sack of Rome: "Any time a major urban area is plundered so quickly, it is concerning to us. We are sure the Gauls and Chieftain Brennus understand Roman worries about the utter devastation of their city."
On the Blitz: "Any time a city is bombed for 57 straight nights, we take notice. That is something that interests us. We hope all national air forces involved in this dismaying conflict behave responsibly."
On the creation of the Berlin Wall: "Any time a barrier divides people we get worried, and perhaps even chagrined. We hope all Germans can work this out amicably, and agree on construction standards and building materials going forward. We, as Americans, stand ready to observe closely."
On the boat-people exodus from Vietnam: "Any time people resort to watercraft in such numbers that is certainly notable. I'm sure the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam will work with its duly constituted maritime authorities to resolve this matter in a manner satisfactory to all parties.”
Matthew Cooper writes that "the idea that that the Clintons were unwilling to take half-a-loaf [on health care] back then [in 1993-94] is total revisionism." (I saw the post via Kaus.) No, it's not. Clinton aides said they would "roll right over" Senator Moynihan, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, if he raised objections to their plan. The Clintons promised to veto any plan that didn't meet their standard of universal coverage: 91 percent coverage wasn't good enough. In the summer of 1994, a bipartisan group of senators calling itself the Mainstream Coalition came out with a compromise bill. The unions, AARP, and other liberal interests rejected the compromise and the White House refused to make a deal. Maybe the Clintons would have failed anyway, but their rigidity didn't help.
P.S. Cooper also writes, "And now that the outlines of a real plan are on the table we see the wolves gathering, first in opposition to the very seensible idea of a public plan—because Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich HATED their health insurance when they were in government—and then surely later to the whole cost of the package." The federal employee health benefits plan provides employees with a lot of options, but none of them is government-run.
The Fed in Charge of Systemic Risk? What a Mess [Larry Kudlow]
The big winner of the Obama financial-regulation plan appears to be the Federal Reserve, which becomes the consolidated supervisor of large, systemically important banks.
This is like the fox guarding the henhouse. After all, the Fed’s overly loose money policies created the asset bubble — including housing, commodities, and energy — in the first place. Near-zero interest rates, huge money growth, and total disregard for the plunging dollar are what set up the housing boom and the unfortunate overleveraging by consumers, mortgage borrowers, and Wall Street securitizers.
It also set up the astronomical $150 oil shock, which came alongside the Fed’s overly tight money policies to offset the prior loose policies that would cause this credit crunch and deep recession. In fact, looking back to the last two bubbles — the tech bubble of 1999-2000 and the housing/energy bubble after that — it was the Fed’s pillar-to-post go-stop-go-stop lurches that deserve the principal blame for the economic messes that ensued.
The Great Moderation of the ’80s and ’90s has given way to extremism in Fed policy. And we may be in danger of repeating it all over again, with a new round of near-zero interest rates and a massive 11 percent growth of M2 over the past nine months.
There is one positive in the Obama plan: Sponsors of securitized asset-backed bonds will be forced to put 5 percent equity-skin in the game, in order to improve incentives for more appropriate risk and responsibility in lending.
But it strikes me as somewhat ironic that the Fed would be placed in charge of systemic risk.
We also don’t know if any of the new regulations from the Obama White House and Treasury will deal with the moral-hazard question of “too big to fail” that was pointed out in Paul Volcker’s China speech last week. There will be new resolution authority to close down banks, but whether that will apply to the big banks remains to be seen.
Then there’s the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. This provision was apparently written by liberal-left Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, a staunch foe of free markets and an overzealous supporter of consumer-as-victim rights. Among its massive powers, this agency would enforce the Community Reinvestment Act, which has for years forced banks and other lenders to throw mortgage money at borrowers who cannot afford it. And the consumer protection would reach deep into bank supervision as well. What a mess.
Missing from the package is a reform that would put Fed monetary policy back on a commodity-price rule, including gold and the dollar. This rule was basically used from the early ’80s to the late ’90s, during Paul Volcker’s Fed term and the first half of Alan Greenspan’s term. This would have been the best-possible reform, but of course it’s not in the proposal.
So now the Fed has become the supreme Keynesian unemployment vs. growth Philips-curve tinkerer. Until this totally mistaken policy is changed, we can have ten more reregulation plans that will not fix the real problem.
White House: 'Too Big to Fail' Is Here to Stay [Nicole Gelinas]
The White House has released its 88-page blueprint for financial-regulatory reform. The report makes clear that Washington does not want to eradicate its “too big to fail” approach to financial firms, but instead wants to formalize and expand it.
In the report, the Obama administration addresses a big problem. Bad financial firms have no way to fail without destabilizing the financial system and the economy.
The FDIC doesn’t have the authority to wind them down, as it does with depository banks. Bankruptcy is sometimes inadequate to address the systemic risks to the economy, as we saw in the Lehman Brothers case.
So the administration has jumped wildly from bailout strategy to bailout strategy in the cases of AIG, Bear Stearns, Citigroup, and others.
But “too big to fail” did its real damage well before the credit crisis started.
Fifty years ago, the East Germans rose against their Communist tyrants. As Russell Berman notes:
Bertolt Brecht, whose relationship to democracy was far from clear, pinpointed the hypocrisy of dictatorship in a poem worth rereading with regard to Iran.
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?
I appreciated the kind words about me by the editor-in-chief of L’Osservatore Romano in Delia Gallagher’s interview this morning. As readers of my original article in National Review know (the same article mentioned by Vian that was translated for the Italian newspaper Liberal), I did not accuse Vian or the paper of being in favor of abortion, but rather suggested that because of the distance and the difference between the two cultures, their long article on Obama at Notre Dame did very much encourage pro-choice Catholics, and did make life a bit more difficult for pro-life Catholics. I heard this from a number of U.S. prelates and pro-life leaders before publishing my article. Mr. Vian is a kind man, a gentleman, and extremely loyal to the Church. It is true that I have volunteered to write for L’Osservatore Romano, and I still would be happy to do so at any time. In general, the paper has much improved under his leadership, and many of us are very grateful to him.
It will cause outrage among some cat owners, but research suggests the pets are not as clever as some humans assumed – or at least they think in a way we have yet to fathom.
Psychology lecturer Britta Osthaus says cats do not understand cause-and-effect connections between objects. She tested the thought processes of 15 of them by attaching fish and biscuit treats to one end of a piece of string, placing them under a plastic screen to make them unreachable and then seeing if the cats could work out that pulling on the other end of the string would pull the treat closer.
They were tested in three ways, using a single baited string, two parallel strings where only one was baited, and two crossed strings where only one was baited.
The single string test proved no problem, but unlike dogs (which Osthaus has previously tested) no cat consistently chose correctly between two parallel strings. With two crossed strings, one cat always made the wrong choice and others succeeded no more than might be expected by chance.
Update: The Cat Lobby spinners are fast. From a reader:
All right, I just can’t let this go. Any cat owner can tell you that cats are much more interested in playing with string than they are with what’s attached to the other end. Food as an incentive for a cat? Get serious. The cats have staff to deal with food issues. They were just playing and the scientist is the one that isn’t smart enough to know the difference.
The Iranians are accusing Obama of meddling even though Obama says he doesn't want to meddle. It seems this offers a great opportunity for Obama to meddle! How about giving a serious speech or statement in which he says something like:
The government of Iran has accused the United States of America of interfering in their domestic affairs. I wish to forthrightly deny this accusation. America has not intervened on the part of the heroic forces of reform and democracy as they daily risk their lives in their noble struggle. The United States of America is sincere in its desire to open a new era of franknes and cooperation between our two great nations. Therefore we will work with the unelected government currently in power which is brutalizing its own people as the whole world can see. And we will gladly work with the heroic people of Iran as they struggle against daunting odds for a better life for themselves and their children should they succeed in their peaceful Jihad for justice.
I'm only partly joking. It seems to me that Obama is a master of passive aggressive rhetoric. We certainly saw that skill on ample display during the primaries and general election. Why not use it on the international stage as well.
Richard Adams has really interesting item on Obama invocation of John Adams in his Cairo speech. Here's the beginning:
In his Address in Cairo President Obama said: "In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote: "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims."
As a close student of the founding era, I was surprised to find that I did not recall Adams saying that. That Adams was not President until 1797 tipped me off that something was askew. Some research turned up this phrase from Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli which President Washington negotiated and which was ratified by the Senate and signed by President Adams in 1797:
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. I suppose saying that Adams "wrote" that (with some silent elipses) is close enough to the truth for a politician.
But there’s more to the story. That passage, apparently was absent from the Arabic original (and therefore presumably official version) of the treaty, translated by Joel Barlow...
A reader who, if not exactly disgruntled, is far from being gruntled:
Mr. Derbyshire:
I read your Corner post on local government pensions. Unbelievable. i work for the Navy, am on the old retirement system that was replaced by a less generous system 25 years ago, and there is no way I can come close to those numbers. At best, I can retire with 80 percent of my pay … after 42 years of service. And the base pay scale isn't that impressive.
These local and state pensions are absurd. If Obama wants to appoint czars, let him appoint one to control local and state government pay.
[Me] Come, come, Sir, let's be fair. How can submarine duty compare in national importance to keeping a suburban school district supplied with erasers?
Derb: I, for one, am relieved that you don't Twitter — because if you, of all people, jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, the fabric of space-time would collapse.
This is a story currently on the main page of cnn.com. This is amusing on so many different levels. First, is it newsworthy that the President was annoyed by a common insect? What's next, "Obama displeased that his cereal is soggy?" Maybe I shouldn't joke about that.
Second, Obama didn't just smack the fly, he "coolly" smacked it. Gosh darn it, everything that guy does is cool! Beneath the video (Yes! There's video! Gotta see that!), it points out that he "kills the fly with one swat." Because, you know, only spastic fools take two swats to kill a fly.
Third, those CNN folks are mighty easily impressed. The cameraman even felt the need to zoom in on the offender's corpse. Wow! He really killed it! Message: Don't mess with the O-Man.
Roll Call is reporting that the Senate Finance Committee’s markup of the health care bill will be delayed, maybe until after the July 4 recess, seriously setting back the Democrats’ rushed schedule. The best part of the story is Senator Grassley’s discussion of the reason:
Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said after Wednesday’s closed-door Finance session that three key issues have yet to be negotiated: the possible inclusion a government-run, public insurance option, financing for the bill, and the “pay or play” component affecting the business community.
Cell phone? Blackberry? MySpace? Facebook? Twitter? I have no clue. How do people keep up with all this "trivial magic"? People tell me Kindle is kind of neat, though. I might get one. Next year, maybe.
My posture towards this stuff is basically the same as this guy's. I believe we speak for millions.
And having just read Bill Forstchen's latest (in which U.S. civilization is brought to its knees, and our population reduced 90 percent, when hostiles wipe out all our electronics with EMP), I'm thinking a shotgun may be a wiser investment than a Twitter account at this point in techno-time.
A friend of a friend is an Iranian who works at VOA and said something that got me thinking: "The great thing about this is that no one can say the Americans did it." I may be reading more into this, but I think it points to a reason for us to stay out of the ferment in Iran that I don't think I've seen. It's not just that our involvement would give the mullahs a propaganda cudgel to use against the protesters in the battle for public opinion — the regime's propagandists are going to accuse us of meddling no matter what we do, as Michael pointed out (though our actions can make such an accusation more, or less, credible in the eyes of the Iranian public). But more importantly, it's the protesters themselves who need to see their movement as free of foreign influence. However much the "Great Satan" propaganda has made many Iranians sympathetic to America (remember the candlelight vigils after 9/11), they're still proud patriots who don't want to be seen by others — or to see themselves — as acting on the agendas of outsiders. Their victory would almost certainly be our victory, regardless of Mousavi's specific views, but it's a victory they have to win for themselves.
FCC and Senate Flirting with Crippling Cell-Phone Regulation [Chris Butler]
If you like the frantic pace of technological development in the wireless arena, and fierce free-market competition between the iPhone, the new Palm Pre, and Research In Motion’s Blackberry, you should be concerned by the prospect of new FCC regulations.
Thanks to rapid technological advances, mobile phones are turning into handheld computers with more power than desktop PCs had just a few years ago. While consumers love the multiplying choices and the technological leaps, many don’t understand how they get funded.
The most important developments in mobile technology have required creative funding streams that have necessitated carrier exclusivity agreements. For example, the iPhone’s “natural” cost would be well north of $600, were Apple not able to create a subsidy for purchasers through an exclusive partnership with AT&T.
Exclusive and exciting technology generates more subscribers to the carrier, which allows it to subsidize the technology on the front end. Further, exclusivity creates incentives for new phones to be developed in partnership with competing carriers. (Case in point: the Palm Pre.)
Enter the dark clouds of FCC regulation. The Commission is set to determine whether these private contracts between providers and manufacturers are “anticompetitive” and “contrary to the public interest,” which would be a reversal of its own decision in 1992. Unfortunately, the Senate seems eager for such a reversal; today the Commerce Committee is holding hearings on the subject.
These hearings, and subsequent FCC proceedings, could be a bellwether of how the Obama administration and Congress will handle telecom and technological issues. If they embrace heavy-handed, meddlesome regulation, that will bode ill for one of the U.S. economy’s few remaining growth areas.
For some striking images of the recent protests in various Iranian cities, go here (Tehran), here (Ahwaz), and here (Shiraz). A compilation of videos and photos can be found here. (All courtesy of YouTube.)
This Big Tent post Jonah mentioned seems just to assume away any conflict between our interests and ideals — i.e., anything we do to promote our interests is ultimately idealistic because we're a nation of ideals. That's one way to look at it. But as a practical matter, U.S. policymakers have to choose between our ideals and our other interests—counter-terrorism, stability, etc. — all the time.
At the most basic level, we have a hierarchy of needs when it comes to the war on terror. It tracks pretty well with this statement by Walter Lippmann: “I do know that there is no greater necessity for men who live in communities than that they be governed, self-governed if possible, well-governed if they are fortunate, but in any event, governed.”
We should want: First, nations and territories to be governed. Otherwise you get the hell of Somalia and Iraq circa 2006, and chaotic spaces ripe for terrorist exploitation. Second, governments to be hostile to terrorism. Egypt, for instance, fails by most standards of governance, except this very important one. Third, nations and territories to be governed well, so they respect the rights of their people and provide a benevolent outlet for their energies. Ideally, we want all three, but the first two are the most urgent.
Three Cheers for the Sunset Caucus [Kevin D. Williamson]
Finally, a Republican congressional project worth getting behind:
Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price, Congressman Kevin Brady, Congressman Jason Chaffetz, and other members of the RSC will unveil the Sunset Caucus, a permanent new initiative to shrink the size of government by eliminating federal programs, offices, and agencies. Each member of the Sunset Caucus will adopt a part of the federal government that has outlived its use or never should have been created and offer an amendment to strike it during the appropriations process, as well as introduce a stand alone bill to do the same.
So Senator Ensign has now resigned his leadership post as chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Unless there’s a lot more to this story, this strikes me as an overreaction. A few angry lefties will shout about “hypocrisy” — “Promise Keeper, huh?” — and that’s enough to force the guy out of his post? All my best wishes go out to Senator Ensign and his wife as they work out their marriage problems, and if they think stepping down from that job is the right thing to do, that’s their call; but, in general, I don’t think giving in to the baying hounds is something that should be encouraged.
Peter Wehner mentioned Robert Kagan's column earlier, and it seems to me its thesis is worryingly plausible:
Obama never meant to spark political upheaval in Iran, much less encourage the Iranian people to take to the streets. That they are doing so is not good news for the president but, rather, an unwelcome complication in his strategy of engaging and seeking rapprochement with the Iranian government on nuclear issues.
One of the great innovations in the Obama administration's approach to Iran, after all, was supposed to be its deliberate embrace of the Tehran rulers' legitimacy. In his opening diplomatic gambit, his statement to Iran on the Persian new year in March, Obama went out of his way to speak directly to Iran's rulers, a notable departure from George W. Bush's habit of speaking to the Iranian people over their leaders' heads. As former Clinton official Martin Indyk put it at the time, the wording was carefully designed "to demonstrate acceptance of the government of Iran."
Indeed. The president's unprecedently deferential remarks toward Iran's "Supreme Leader" are inexplicable if you're sympathetic to the fellows currently being fired on but entirely consistent with a strategy of regime legitimization. Mr. Kagan adds:
The idea was that the United States could hardly expect the Iranian regime to negotiate on core issues of national security, such as its nuclear program, so long as Washington gave any encouragement to the government's opponents. Obama had to make a choice, and he made it. This was widely applauded as a "realist" departure from the Bush administration's quixotic and counterproductive idealism... His strategy toward Iran places him objectively on the side of the government's efforts to return to normalcy as quickly as possible, not in league with the opposition's efforts to prolong the crisis.
The administration's behavior fits this depressing thesis — as I'm sure the mullahs have already figured out.
Isn't Systemic Risk an Artifact of Government? [Iain Murray]
The whole financial-regulation debate has moved dangerously away from some central principles of free markets. At root, the financial system amounts to nothing more than voluntary exchanges among human beings who don’t have a right to obligate others that they didn’t contract with.Proper rules of the game (the real meaning of regulation) would ensure people pay for their own mistakes — or their private compatriots who assume the risk — and not ensure that government assumes anybody’s risk.Financial institutions have been regulated, artificially promoted and capitalized and indemnified for decades, which is the entire source of the so-called systemic risk.
Think of it this way. As the great Arthur Seldon said, "Risks which cannot be removed or shifted profitably must be born by the entrepreneur. He will generally do so only as long as his expectation of profit outweighs the chance of loss." Systemic risk can therefore exist only when there is systemic removal of that chance of loss.Government (or organized thievery = same thing, essentially) is the only thing that can do that.Systemic risk cannot therefore exist without a government distorting the market.
We have reached a position, however, where regulation gets a pass, no government agency is eliminated or reprimanded for even disastrous interference in the market (eg Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), and we are now taking indemnification to a new level.What we will end up with is basically a system of commerce whose resemblance to capitalism is remote. That is something the American people need to appreciate in this debate.
The government summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Iran, to complain about American interference. The two countries broke off diplomatic relations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. An English-language state-run channel quoted the government as calling Western interference "intolerable."
There's a useful lesson here for President Obama and those who think they can somehow be a little bit pregnant in a brothel: You're going to be accused of meddling anyway, since out there in the real world you are believed to be the leader of the forces of freedom and democracy. So stop pretending to be a sweet innocent, and get in there and fight for people who are dying in the name of our values, and who want to be part of our world.
The president's proposals for an arch-regulator with powers to seize financial institutions he doesn't like the look of is really just a logical progression of the same old overregulation that got us into this mess in the first place. Here's my colleague John Berlau's excellent statement on the subject:
Early on in the Obama administration, there were encouraging signs that his economic team was pursuing true regulatory reform and modernization, consolidating and combining functions of key financial agencies and moving away from the "more is better" approach to regulation that had been followed even in some Republican administration in response to a crisis. Even this week, administration officials Tim Geithner and Larry Summers wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that the current "framework for financial regulation" contains "jurisdictional overlaps, and suffers from an outdated conception of financial risk.
Initial reports indicate, however, that these early hopes of a more accountable regulatory structure have been dashed. What the Obama administration is likely to put forward will do little to address the "jurisdictional overlaps" cited by Geithner and Summers. It leaves the status quo among regulatory agencies largely in place, and only adds additional layers of "systemic" regulation from "super" agencies such as the Federal Reserve. This new mountain of red tape could choke many small businesses, the engines of economic recovery, and do little to prevent the next crisis.
The new Obama regulations should be also be viewed in light of another systemic issue in the economy: stimulating innovation. A recent Business Week cover story reports that "there's growing evidence that the innovation shortfall of the past decade is not only real but may also have contributed to today's financial crisis." If financial regulation chokes off financing for entrepreneurial firms in technology and other sectors, as the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting mandates have already done to a great extent, the economy could suffer the systemic effects of stagnation.
Blogger Tom at Radio Free NJ was railing eloquently about this two years ago, though by way of an extended metaphor that left this dad of a soon-to-be-college-age princess feeling a little queasy.
Couple of days ago the blogger Half Sigma expressed some skepticism about Iranians' desire for democracy. He returned to the topic yesterday. There are good comment threads on both posts, with pros and cons both aired.
Is Iran's population seething in anger at a rigged election? Or are the seethers just some segment of the urban middle classes? I have no idea, and am not convinced anyone knows. Seems to me there's a lot of wishful thinking going around. U.S. politics is full of surprises. What does any of us know about Iranian politics?
Where Republicans Are On Health Care [Ramesh Ponnuru]
I think David Brooks got it wrong in his last column. He wrote,
This brings us to the current stage: The Long Tease. Every player in this game has a favorite idea, and you are open to all of them. The liberals want a public plan, and you’re for it. The budget guys are for slashing Medicare reimbursements, and you’re for that. The doctors want relief from lawsuits, and you’re open to it. The Republicans want you to cap the tax exemption on employee health benefits. You campaigned against that, but you’re still privately for it.
There may be one or two Senate Republicans who want the Democrats to include a cap on the tax exemption for employee health benefits, but that is not what "the Republicans" as a whole want. My impression from talking to congressional Republicans and their aides over the years, and especially over the last few weeks, is that they favor modifying the tax break for health insurance so that it applies to individually-purchased policies as well as employer-provided ones. But they are not in favor of simply raising taxes on employer-provided health insurance and using the funds to create a new, even more government-heavy health-care system.
Three of our kids were adopted. There's not a day that goes by that I don't thank God for the courage and kindness of their birth mothers. A nation without shame is doomed.
If the regime survives by brute force, it will be revealed to be relatively weak in terms of popular support and will be less credible globally than it was before. If the regime simply waits the protests out, then very little will have changed at all. If the regime survives by abandoning Ahmadinejad, then it will be focused on maintaining its credibility internally, and Mousavi will not be in a position to go off the reservation much if at all – so negotiations with America, if they happen will not really go anywhere. If the regime does not survive, it will be because the military turns on it decisively (which I would be really surprised by), and whatever regime emerges to replace it will have to establish its own credibility as a patriotic guardian of the Iranian people. That means no dramatic rapprochement with America, whatever happens behind the scenes.
Update: You can comment on Millman's argument, and the Iranian situation generally, at my Washington Post page.
I tend to think men should be able to have clubs and women etc. But if we're going to have a standard for one sex as pertains to the judiciary, it should be applied equally.
Having likely started my own life under similar circumstances to Emmie's baby, her story is just unbelievably tragic. Like many conceived under such circumstances in the pre-Roe era, I was placed for adoption. Emmie could have done that, given a good life to her baby, and still tried for her "perfectly planned" child later. Thank God that my birth mother didn't have the kind of "support network" Emmie did.
Jasim al-Dulaimy, another tribal leader in Anbar who brought in Bangladeshis, said the workers had adapted well to desert life, adding that he had made them adopt the long, loose dishdashas traditionally worn in the province.
Dulaimy said he doesn't need to worry about the foreign workers joining the insurgency or acting as moles. And there is an additional benefit, he said. Because Awakening leaders have become targets of the insurgents, all his employees are vulnerable. But if any of his foreign workers are killed, he said, "I don't care as much as I do if one of the Iraqis working for me gets killed," explaining that relatives of slain Iraqi employees expect to receive hefty compensation.
This is why they used Irish immigrants to build the antebellum railroads instead of slaves — if the Irish got killed, it was no big deal, but slaves cost money.
I'm working on a speech for a conference this weekend on WFB at Portsmouth Abbey, focusing on him as a Catholic.
At the time of his passing, many expressed an admiration for, or were outright inspired by, how Catholicism informed his journalism. We even had the occasional priest or sister say he or she was inspired by his faith in practice.
If you have any thoughts or experiences you care to relay, I'd be interested . . . thanks, in advance, for the e-mail. If you can't make Rhode Island this weekend, I'll be bringing readers thoughts there and will report back.
Andy — You are right, of course. I do try to remind in every post (and on radio) that we're talking about a regime that's been at war with us for 30 years, that Hezbollah has been killing Americans since the early 1980s and is the "A" team of terrorism, and that this regime is the lead sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East while it is trying to acquire more nuclear technology while thwarting nuclear inspectors. On top of all that, we should not forget it has openly talked of making possible a world without America or Israel.
I don't think there's daylight, or much, between us — I hope not. If there is, I'm probably wrong and you're probably right. What I do hope is that if there's an opportunity for us to do something it isn't squandered.
Since I've been hard on Obama regarding Iran, I should say his administration should be applauded for asking Twitter to stay up and running by delaying scheduled maintenance so Iranians can keep the lines of communication open (though Twitter downplays the importance of the State Department's request). That is precisely the sort of thing the U.S. government should be doing. It will be interesting to learn whether that was a presidential decision. Either way, it was the right thing to do.
It seems the Obama administration wants to tax everything from cell phones to health insurance, but, as we have seen in the last five months, the most common theme is that the White House wants to penalize the so-called rich. The Cato Insitute's Dan Mitchell's new video provides five compelling reasons why class-warfare tax policy is a big mistake.
Seth, we've had numerous teachable moments just over the last 13 years, and all involving Iran killing Americans. The problem with the "forward march of freedom" contingent is that it overestimates the degree to which the hopes and aspirations of Iranians are going to move public opinion in America — especially an America that has spent a number of years disfavoring an Iraq war that it's been told has been almost exclusively about the hopes and aspirations of the Iraqi people (at least since mid-2003).
The Iranian regime has to go because it's a threat to the national security of the United States. That is the case that has to be made — as has always been the case. That this happens to jibe with the hopes and aspirations of Iranians (how many we don't know, but hopefully most) is a very good thing. But those who think what's being done to the Iranian people is going to sway American public opinion decisively (and force Obama's hand) should prepare to be disappointed. The anti-American element is the dispositive one — and it's the one Obama won't acknowledge; if that doesn't get turned around, this is a lost cause.
I am a medical student. There was chaos last night at the trauma section in one of our main hospitals. Although by decree, all riot-related injuries were supposed to be sent to military hospitals, all other hospitals were filled to the rim. Last night, nine people died at our hospital and another 28 had gunshot wounds. All hospital employees were crying till dawn. They (government) removed the dead bodies on back of trucks, before we were even able to get their names or other information. What can you even say to the people who don't even respect the dead. No one was allowed to speak to the wounded or get any information from them. This morning the faculty and the students protested by gathering at the lobby of the hospital where they were confronted by plain cloths anti-riot militia, who in turn closed off the hospital and imprisoned the staff. The extent of injuries are so grave, that despite being one of the most staffed emergency rooms, they've asked everyone to stay and help—I'm sure it will even be worst tonight.
What can anyone say in face of all these atrocities? What can you say to the family of the 13 year old boy who died from gunshots and whose dead body then disappeared?
This issue is not about cheating(election) anymore. This is not about stealing votes anymore. The issue is about a vast injustice inflected on the people.
ME: The president says he doesn't want to "meddle." Aside from the fact that he unhesitatingly meddles in Israel, how can any American remain aloof from this sort of thing?
Over the last few weeks, several Democratic senators who say that they don't support EFCA "as currently written" have, nonetheless, declared that because the bill addresses important issues it deserves to be brought to the floor for a vote (i.e., a Kerryesque vote for EFCA before voting against it).
These senators aren't fooling anyone close to the EFCA debate. Both supporters and opponents know that a vote for cloture is a vote for EFCA "as currently written." If EFCA passes a cloture vote, supporters will likely have enough votes to pass the bill even with a handful of defections.
EFCA opponents must continue to make it clear that a vote for cloture is a vote for EFCA.
Mark: That's a nice argument. I think the premise — i.e. that the U.S.A. has irresistible expansionist urges — is dubious, but not preposterous. If it's granted, then your conclusion — i.e. better we should satisfy those urges by occupying Asteroid #87014 than by occupying Trashcanistan — is one I entirely agree with. Just not sure about that premise …
And even if I grant your argument, the role of government remains to be decided. Stuck as I am with the rooted conviction that government does everything badly and in a spirit of financial irresponsibility, I'd keep government involvement to a mimimum, with just perhaps a modest subsidy here or there to encourage entrepreneurs. Shuttle missions at half a billion dollars per, though? No thanks. Not unless I'm on board!
To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.
Oy. Might want to remember that sentence next time you consider any of Krugman's economic advice.
That fizzing and popping you hear is my blood boiling as I read this article in a back issue (June 6) of our local rag, Long Island Newsday.
As [New York] state officials struggle to close gaping holes in the budget and deal with skyrocketing retirement costs, records show that at least 1,325 retirees collect six-figure pensions from the state — and nearly one-half of them are from Long Island.
Which is where I live. So why am I in the hole for these public-sector pensions?
With New York state retirement funds compelled to make up losses of more than $73 billion because of the recession, many are worried that school districts and local governments will have to turn to taxpayers to cover the costs. Private accounts such as a 401(k) rise and fall with the market, and have no such safety net. "There's going to be massive increases" in taxes to make up for the losses, said E.J. McMahon, executive director of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank in Albany.
The two "Click here" links at the bottom of that story put names to the dollars.
• James Hunderfund, an employee of Commack school district, will retire September 1 with a monthly pension of $26,353.75. (Nothing hunderfunded about his pension plan, ho ho.)
• Richard Brande of Brookhaven-Comsewogue will also be heading for the golf course September 1 with a monthly pension of $24,222.43.
• William Brosnan cleans out his desk at Northport-East Northport July 1, and for the rest of his life will trouser a monthly pension of $19,058.80.
The Arab-Israeli conflict is often thought of as a Muslim-Israeli conflict, although it is not. Israel has normal relations and even alliances with a number of Muslim-majority countries – with Turkey, Albania, Azerbaijan, and some others. Kurdistan, if it existed as a sovereign nation, would instantly align itself with Israel against the Arabs. A number of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government officials told me they are not-so secretly friends with Israel now.
Iran used to have normal relations with Israel. I met Israel’s last ambassador to Iran in Jerusalem in 2006. He was posted in Tehran before the old regime of the Shah was overthrown by the Khomeinists. His very existence reminded me that hostile relations between Israel and Iran need not be eternal. A post-Khomeinist Iran, whether it comes into being now or later, might resume normal relations with Israel or at least dial down the hostility to a lower volume.
The rest of the post has a really excellent excerpt from Amir Taheri's book, The Persian Night.
Last week I wrote that adding tobacco regulation to FDA would overwhelm an already overworked FDA Commissioner, currently the talented Dr. Margaret Hamburg. This morning’s Washington Post reports that:
Hamburg's days are jammed; she conducted an interview while being driven from Health and Human Services headquarters across town to the Brookings Institution. She says she is determined not to let the work overwhelm her life and makes it a point to try to eat dinner with her husband and two teenage children, toting home a briefcase filled with 10 pounds of work each night. She falls asleep reading briefing books.
How many pounds will that briefcase weigh once she has tobacco regulation to deal with as well?
In today’s papers are two pieces that are noteworthy. One is by Dan Senor and Christian Whiton, laying out five specific things President Obama could do to promote freedom in Iran. To those who insist there is nothing we can do, Senor and Whiton reply: Yes There Is.
Among the specific recommendations by Senor and Whiton are these: (a) Mr. Obama should contact Mr. Mousavi to signal his interest in the situation and Mr. Mousavi's security; (b) the president should deliver another taped message to the Iranian people — only this time he should acknowledge the fundamental reality that the regime lacks the consent of its people to govern, which therefore necessitates a channel to the "other Iran"; (c) Obama should direct U.S. ambassadors in Europe and the Gulf to meet with local Iranian anti-regime expatriates; (d) additional funding should be provided immediately for Radio Farda, an effective Persian-language radio, Internet, and satellite property of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; and (e) the administration should take steps — for example, access to the Web and other means of communication — to give Iranian reformers and dissidents a level playing field with the regime in the battle of ideas.
The other piece, by Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says this:
Whatever his personal sympathies may be, if he is intent on sticking to his original strategy, then he can have no interest in helping the opposition. His strategy toward Iran places him objectively on the side of the government's efforts to return to normalcy as quickly as possible, not in league with the opposition's efforts to prolong the crisis… If Obama appears to lend support to the Iranian opposition in any way, he will appear hostile to the regime, which is precisely what he hoped to avoid.
This is an important, and potentially a decisive, moment in Iran; it is hard to know what will eventually emerge from the popular uprising we are witnessing. The situation is quite fluid, and may be for some time to come. How President Obama deals with this matter — whether he takes actions that show tangible support for the forces of liberation or whether he sits passively by as events unfold, nervous to offend cruel regimes — will tell us a lot about him and his core commitments.
While most of us are on the same page, and I quibble with nothing below, I would add to Andy's post that what I do think may in fact be different today is the moment, and in two ways: i) we now have a mass organic demonstration which provides numerous opportunities (and, equally, numerous opportunities to do nothing) and ii) those demonstrations have provided a teachable moment to the rest of America (and the free world) that has not paid enough attention to all Andy writes. Jim Hoagland once put it this way: "Knowledge is important not when it first becomes available but when an audience becomes available to absorb and act on the knowledge." I think that's right.
I find the president's reaction bordering on the bizarre. It's not just little and late, but he had a statement today in which he welcomed the Iranian leader's gesture about redoing some of the vote, as you indicated.
And the president has said "I have seen in Iran's initial reaction from the supreme leader." He is using an honorific to apply to a man whose minions out there are breaking heads, shooting demonstrators, arresting students, shutting the press down, and basically trying to suppress a popular democratic revolution.
So he uses that honorific, and then says that this supreme leader — it indicates that he understand that the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election. Deep concerns? There is a revolution in the street.
And it is not about elections anymore. It started out about elections. It's about the legitimacy of a regime, this theocratic dictatorship in Iran, which is now at stake. That's the point.
What we have here is a regime whose legitimacy is challenged, and this revolution is going to end in one of two ways — suppressed, as was the Tiananmen revolution in China, or it will be a second Iranian revolution that will liberate Iran and change the region and the world.
And the president is taking a hands-off attitude. Instead of standing, as Reagan did, in the Polish uprising of 1981, and say we stand with the people in the street who believe in democracy. It is a simple statement. He ought to make it.
And it is a disgrace that the United States is not stating it as simply and honestly as that.
On North Korea:
…What I think is remarkable is that even though over the last 16 years in the Clinton and the Bush administrations we did not succeed in stopping, although we slightly slowed the nuclear program, look what's happened in the six months of the quote, unquote, "smart diplomacy" of the Obama administration?
Long-range missile tests, the explosion of a nuclear weapon probably a third the size of Hiroshima, the declaration that the plutonium the Bush administration had frozen will be weaponized entirely, the entire stock, and the declaration that the uranium program which the Bush administration talked about, which Democrats had said was an invention of the Bush administration, the uranium enrichment is going to start up. All of that and the seizure of two Americans.
Weren't we promised some methodical and deliberate governance from President Barack Obama? Where is it?
The president claims that we must pass a government-run health insurance program — possibly the most wide-ranging and intricate government undertaking in decades — yesterday or a "ticking time bomb" will explode.
If all this terrifying talk sounds familiar, it might be because the president applies the same fear-infused vocabulary to nearly all his hard-to-defend policy positions. You'll remember the stimulus plan had to be passed without a second's delay or we would see 8.7 percent unemployment. We're almost at 10.
A commonly utilized Obama strawman states that "the cost of inaction" is unacceptable. "Action," naturally, translates into whatever policy Obama happens to be peddling at the time.
'Black Swan Trader Bets Reputation on Inflation' [Veronique de Rugy]
It's time to start paying down those lines of credits with variable interest rate. According to the Wall Street Journal:
Mark Spitznagel made a fortune predicting the "black swan" that hit markets last year. Now the relatively unknown hedge-fund manager is emerging from the shadow of his collaborator, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, with a big bet inflation will soar.
The Prospects for the Cameron Tory Party [John O'Sullivan]
About a week ago Mark Steyn invited me to discuss the Cameron Tory party’s prospects in the light of how Britain voted in the local and European elections. Sorry to be such a sloth about it, Mark, but here it is at last:
1. Mark is absolutely right to suspect that the party’s prospects fall somewhat below the headline predictions. These typically focus on the gap between the Labor and Tory percentages in opinion polls — “Tories nineteen points ahead, Heading for a 150 Commons Majority,” and so on. What these comparisons mainly measure, of course, is the astonishing collapse of the Labor vote. In the local elections, Labor scored its lowest percentage of the vote since the 1920s at 23 percent of the total. It did even worse in the European elections on the same day. Labor sank to third place in those elections behind both the Tories and the fledgling Euroskeptic United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP.) It scored less than 16 percent of the national vote in those elections. It’s not hard to outperform a party that is performing so badly.
With all due respect to the president's concern not to be seen "meddling" in voicing support for those in the street agitating for free and fair elections, everyone meddles in everyone else's elections (Have we forgotten Iranian efforts from 2003-8 to destroy democracy in Iraq?).
In 2004 the Kerry campaign made a big deal over the Iranians' stated preference for Bush (e.g., the Kerry campaign responded: "It is telling that this president has received the endorsement of a member of the axis of evil.") The same year British subjects were hectoring voters of swing-state Ohio not to vote for Bush. In 2008, Palestinians were manning phone banks on the West Bank to raise money for Obama.
And it worked both ways. The United States practically ordered the Shah out of Iran after working behind the scenes to undermine him. We went on the record in various ways to bolster demonstrations in the Ukraine, Chile, Serbia, Poland, and elsewhere. No country has done more to meddle in the affairs of others in order not to bolster, but to destroy democracy than has Iran. Just ask the Lebanese and Iraqis.
One can sympathize with worry not to undermine the resistance by being tied to it, or being concerned about nuclear weapons, or trying to figure the odds of who will win, but all that said, it's starting to get a little shameful for the professed humanitarian Obama to be seen so nakedly uninterested in the hundreds of thousands in the streets of Tehran both voicing values similar to our own, and ridiculing a government that for 30 years has serially killed Americans, promoted worldwide terror, and violated international agreements.
We are now well below the Ford administration's 1975 snubbing of Solzhenitsyn.
Another point I think needs making. Lots of folks argue — including President Obama — that Mousavi isn't that different from Ahmadinejad on issues like Israel and Iran's nuclear program and so why make such a fuss? I think this is an awfully static analysis of the situation. Sure, if the election had gone swimmingly and Mousavi had won, he might have been the dutiful Egon Krenz of the Mullahcracy, with some window dressing reforms to placate the masses. Or he might have done better than that. Who knows? But all of that is academic now.
Moreover, that debate is a little annoying because it tends to support the idea that this was a legitimate election in the first place. Mousavi was a handpicked hack. His leadership of the reform forces is by default or as Michael Ledeen put it, "He is a leader who has been made into a revolutionary by a movement that grew up around him." At this point the question is, do the people of Iran succeed or does the clerical politburo and its henchmen succeed. If the people succeed, the regime is in real trouble. It's amazing how so many observers doubt something the regime itself manifestly knows. If these protests weren't a threat to the regime and the established theocratic order the regime wouldn't be shooting people. It wouldn't be tearing down the web, raiding the universities, kicking foreign journalists out, or showing documentaries about archeology while the streets filled with millions.
Lastly, I understand why Obama is fixated on keeping Iran from getting nukes. I don't want Iran to get nukes either, even though I think Obama's approach to that goal has been flawed and is getting worse. But if Iran is determined to have nukes regardless of who leads it — and I think it pretty much is — then it is very much in our interest for Iran to become more democratic and "normal." Of course, we are a long way from Iran being a healthy, normal, democracy, but it's worth remembering that healthy, normal, democracies are much less likely to export terror or lob nuclear missiles at their neighbors.
Behind Curtain #1 is Ahmandinejad. He is a known quantity. We know that Ahmandinejad isn't interested in giving up his nuclear program. We know that he's keen on Israel being wiped from the map. We know that he is not a rational actor. Of course it is possible that what we would find behind Curtain #2 is not that different from what lurks behind Curtain #1. But there's a very good chance that it would be a lot better and that's in our vital national interest. Could it be worse than the devil we know? No conservative can ever rule out the "it could be worse" potential of any choice. But it's hard to see how the reformers would be worse than what we've had for 30 years.
Sure, there's a certain leap of faith there. But there's also a leap of faith involved in betting Ahmandinejad and the mullahs can be reasoned with.
So if we have to take such a leap, why not have the wind of our principles and ideals at our back?
Andy, I think we're on the same page. But to clarify. You write:
I agree with Jonah that John is off-base in suggesting that there is a current of opinion on the Right which holds that demonstrations in the streets mean a government is illegitimate and must fall. But I disagree with what I take — perhaps mistakenly — to be the implication that something has happened in the last few days that ought to change our view of the legitimacy of this government. This was never a "democracy." It was a farce. The elections never meant anything in terms of legitimacy. The mullahs controlled the outcome of the elections through and through. Until now, it has been enough to exercise veto power over who could stand for election — but the fact that they were doing that was confirmation that, if the vote went bad and they needed to take the next logical step of fixing the vote count, they would fix the vote count. The fact that the bank robbery occurs at high-noon for all to see doesn't make it more of a robbery than one conducted in stealth.
This is the point I was trying to make when I wrote:
Where I take exception is when John suggests that other folks on the right haven't made this calculation as well. It seems to me, they made it without needing to see police wearing ski masks to understand that this regime deserved to go. I like his new bright line standard, but his epiphany doesn't mean his friends on the right are quite so romantic and naive as he makes it sound.
Those on the right who've been more enthusiastic about aiding the forces of "hope and change" didn't need to see the images from Tehran this week to be convinced the Iranian regime needs to go. The images this week merely convinced us — or at least me — that this is a good time to expedite a process that should have started a long, long time ago.
I read the three part NYT story with young Emmie finding herself unexpectedly pregnant.
There was something utterly barbaric about it. So well hidden behind the emotional confusion and teary distress was a crude, desensitized petrie-dish feel to this life growing in her womb. This was a public discussion on whether a young woman should kill her baby. Even in my cynicism, I cannot wrap my mind around that.
"I firmly believe that there’s nothing to regret here and we didn’t do anything wrong. Birth control fails. People get scared. They underestimate themselves and each other. Everything will be okay."
Poor Emmie. There is everything in the world and thensome to regret. And regret she will.
As someone who has favored for years a policy of regime change in Iran (see, e.g., here, here, here, here and here), what stuns me about the commentary over the last couple of days is the perception that the regime has done something shocking with this election. The regime isn't any different today than it was the day before the election, the days before it gave logistical assistance to the 9/11 suicide hijacking teams, the day before it took al-Qaeda in for harboring after the 9/11 attacks, the day before Khobar Towers, or every day of combat in Iraq. Throughout the last 30 years, this revolutionary regime has made war on America while it brutalized its own people. The latter brutalization has ebbed and flowed with circumstances, depending on how threatened (or at least vexed) the regime felt at any given time.
Serial American governments, however, have shunned moral clarity and shunned their own fatuous rhetoric — rapprochement," "engagement," "cultivating 'moderates,'" "democracy promotion," "the Bush Doctrine," back to "engagement" again — in pursuit of what our foeign policy geniuses have been so certain is the grand bargain with Iran that has been within reach any day now for the last 30 years. The Clinton administration obstructed the FBI's investigation of Khobar because highlighting Iran's complicity in the murder of 19 members of our Air Force would have been inconvenient for its overtures to "reformer" Khatami (while the real power, the mullahs, happily plowed full speed ahead — death to America style — building their nukes and abetting our enemies). The Bush administration was flat incoherent, with the president correctly calling Iran an implacable terrorist regime while his State Department treated them like they were any rational government — eschewing sticks and continuing to entice them with more carrots every time they mocked the last batch of goodies.
'the White House may need to start over from scratch. Iran is the same country it was a week ago, but it no longer has quite the same government.' [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
There's been a lot of controversy here and elsewhere about L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, and remarks its editor made about President Obama, among other things. He explains himself to Delia Gallagher here.
I would like to refer readers who think I'm reading Obama wrong in my column, to read Robert Kagan's outstanding column in the Washington Post today. An excerpt:
It's not that Obama preferred a victory by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He probably would have been happy to do business with Mir Hossein Mousavi, even if there was little reason to believe Mousavi would have pursued a different approach to the nuclear issue. But once Mousavi lost, however fairly or unfairly, Obama objectively had no use for him or his followers. If Obama appears to lend support to the Iranian opposition in any way, he will appear hostile to the regime, which is precisely what he hoped to avoid.
Obama's policy now requires getting past the election controversies quickly so that he can soon begin negotiations with the reelected Ahmadinejad government. This will be difficult as long as opposition protests continue and the government appears to be either unsettled or too brutal to do business with. What Obama needs is a rapid return to peace and quiet in Iran, not continued ferment. His goal must be to deflate the opposition, not to encourage it. And that, by and large, is what he has been doing.
If you find all this disturbing, you should. The worst thing is that this approach will probably not prevent the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon. But this is what "realism" is all about. It is what sent Brent Scowcroft to raise a champagne toast to China's leaders in the wake of Tiananmen Square. It is what convinced Gerald Ford not to meet with Alexander Solzhenitsyn at the height of detente. Republicans have traditionally been better at it than Democrats — though they have rarely been rewarded by the American people at the ballot box, as Ford and George H.W. Bush can attest. We'll see whether President Obama can be just as cold-blooded in pursuit of better relations with an ugly regime, without suffering the same political fate.
Majid Khan Prefers CIA Custody to GTMO [Marc Thiessen]
The other day, theWashington Posthad a front-page story,“CIA Mistaken on ‘High-Value’ Detainee, Document Shows” — another in the MSM’s efforts to “prove” that Abu Zubaydah was not a top terrorist operative. The Post piece is taken out brilliantly by Tom Jocelyn here.
The Post’s evidence, apparently, is Zubaydah’s own assertion in a newly-released transcripts of GTMO combatant status hearings saying, “They told me, 'Sorry, we discover that you are not Number 3, not a partner, not even a fighter.'” In other words, they take Abu Zubaydah’s assertions that the CIA told him this at face value.
If we’re going to start taking detainee statements at face value,here are some assertions made in the same set of documents by Majid Khan, who was held by the CIA before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in September 2006.
Khan, you may recall, was the al-Qaeda operative who, on KSM’s orders, delivered $50,000 on to a southeast Asian terrorist named Zubair — money to fund al-Qaeda’s West Coast plot to hijack a plane and fly it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, before it was broken up thanks to KSM’s interrogation.
Apparently, Khan says, he prefers being in CIA custody to his experience at GTMO. Here is what he told the tribunal about his sufferings at GTMO: “I am brought here to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I swear to God this place in some sense worst than CIA jails. I am being mentally tortured here. … On 28 November 2006, I wrote on my walls, ‘Stop torturing me — Stop torturing me, I need newspaper, my lawyer, and my mail, etc.’ I don’t cooperate with them until they would treat me as a human and until they would stop mentally torturing me. … They are … getting even with me here under DoD, and making me suffer by mentally torturing me. They know my weaknesses — what drive me crazy and what doesn’t.”
I Don't Know Much about Climate but I Know What I Don't Like [Mark Steyn]
A Boston art appraiser declines to appraise oriental rug for notorious MIT warmo-denialist Richard Lindzen:
I am sorry to inform you that after some consideration, I’ve decided not to perform the appraisal service that you’ve requested. Your writing on the subject of global warming is offensive to me personally, and I feel that I would have difficulty being an impartial appraiser of value given my view on the subject.
Seth — I take a backseat to no one in my admiration of John Hinderaker and the folks at Powerline, but this line of John's is just off-base and deeply strawmanesque:
I am perhaps a little less willing than some of my friends on the right to assume that because demonstrators take to the streets and the government tries to crack down, it necessarily means that the government deserves to fall.
Who are these friends on the right who instinctively assume that a government must fall because there are demonstrators in the street and the government cracks down? I'm straining my memory to think of conservatives who've lept to the conclusion that France's government, or Germany's, or America's should fall simply because demonstrators took to the streets and the government responded by trying to maintain order.
And about that. John says that "the first duty of any government is to maintain order so that its citizens can go about their business." I agree entirely that governments have a duty to maintain order so citizens can go about their business. But that is not their first duty. A government's first duty is to be legitimate and just. If it is not those things, it is in a very fundamental sense evil. We can get into all sorts of definitional weeds about what constitutes legitimate and just, but as John himself is willing to concede, Iran's regime does not meet the test.
Where I take exception is when John suggests that other folks on the Right haven't made this calculation as well. It seems to me, they made it without needing to see police wearing ski masks to understand that this regime deserved to go. I like his new bright-line standard, but his epiphany doesn't mean his friends on the Right are quite so romantic and naïve as he makes it sound.
there were signs on Wednesday that the authorities were preparing to deepen a crackdown on the way news about the protest is being spread. On Tuesday, the government revoked press credentials for foreign journalists and ordered journalists not to report from the streets.
And on Wednesday, The Associated Press reported, the powerful Revolutionary Guards went further, threatening restrictions on the digital online media that many Iranians use to communicate among themselves and to send news of their protests overseas.
In a first statement since last Friday’s vote, the Revolutionary Guards said Iranian Web site operators and bloggers must remove content deemed to “create tension” or face legal action, the A.P. said. Despite that warning, new amateur video surfaced outside of Iran on Wednesday, apparently showing a government militia rampaging through a dormitory area of Tehran University late Tuesday or early on Wednesday.
Reuters reported, meanwhile, that Mohammadreza Habibi, the senior prosecutor in the central province of Isfahan, had warned demonstrators that they could be executed under Islamic law.
“We warn the few elements controlled by foreigners who try to disrupt domestic security by inciting individuals to destroy and to commit arson that the Islamic penal code for such individuals waging war against God is execution,” Mr. Habibi said, according to the Fars news agency. It was not clear if his warning applied only to Isfahan or the country as a whole, Reuters said.
Re: Immigration is the Health of the State [Jerry Taylor]
Mark, do you have some regression analyses to back up this claim of yours that dense population = bigger and more intrusive government?Like John Derbyshire, I can think of plenty of counterexamples and even more cases where lightly populated areas happen to coincide with political and economic tyranny. Even so, the claim that population density is political destiny suggests that those who seek to control family size and reproductive rights are the true freedom fighters while those of us that are queasy about such policies are "objectively statist." I don't think you would be all that happy with the policy implications of your argument were it followed to its logical conclusion.
Derb, I think there really is a case for space, though different from those offered by your correspondent. Great powers always expand, in one form or another, and that combined with our frontier, pioneer, city-on-a-hill national character means that we're always going to be sticking our nose in other people's business. Other than our ridiculous conquest of the Philippines and Puerto Rico, we don't do empire like the empires of old, but we're always going to get sucked into something, whether nation-building in Kreplakistan or liberating Elbonia or bombing tyrants in Pottsylvania. In Madeleine Albright's immortal words, "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?" And it's not just an elite thing — there's also a public appetite for national glory in some form, alternating between forcing democracy on goat-herders and doing social work in Darfur. So a foreign policy based on a limited conception of national interest (which is my own preference, and I think the public's, despite the public's simultaneous and contradictory appetite for national glory) is not likely to be sustainable, unless we direct our expansiveness vertically — ad astra.
Hopefully, the protests in Iran over the past few days will not abate. Rich Lowry here, as John Hinderaker at Powerline, have shared their diffidence about getting too excited with the talk of regime change in Iran. Smartly. But if I read them right, they also have taken to reconsidering such diffidence as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has hardened and the images of Iranian police in face masks are shown trying to disperse the protestors — kicking, beating, and dragging them away to who knows where.
As John Hinderaker pointed out: “I am perhaps a little less willing than some of my friends on the right to assume that because demonstrators take to the streets and the government tries to crack down, it necessarily means that the government deserves to fall.” But, he goes on: “the difference here is that Iran’s regime is brutal—brutal when it hangs homosexuals, when it stones adulterers, when it drags college students from their dormitories.” He admits he has a new, “bright line standard: when your policemen wear ski masks, it’s time for a new regime.”
Here are some additional items to add to the standard: As CNN reports, yesterday, “Iran’s government banned international journalists from covering rallies and blocked access to some online communication tools in the wake of last week’s disputed presidential election. Reporters working for international news outlets, including CNN, could talk about the rallies in their live reports but were not allowed to leave their hotel rooms and offices.” And, of course, we know this regime is — to remind — the lead sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East, trying to acquire more nuclear technology while thwarting nuclear inspectors, and has openly talked of making possible a world without Israel or America.
The wife of Rep. John Conyers — chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which oversees the FBI and U.S. attorneys — could be headed to the pokey, according to the Detroit News:
Detroit —Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers said Tuesday she's trusting God to deliver her from her mounting problems — a possible federal indictment and the prospect of prison.
Prosecutors who offered Conyers a chance to plead guilty to a five-year bribery-related felony charge in return for expected leniency wanted an answer by the end of Tuesday, persons familiar with the investigation said, though it was not clear that represented a firm deadline.
Conyers, who had not answered by the end of the business day, does not want to go to jail and is resisting pleading to an offense more serious than a misdemeanor, sources said.
The federal investigation of Conyers has focused on an alleged pattern of behavior that includes accusations she demanded and accepted cash and other benefits in connection with her duties as a council member and her former role as a trustee of the city's General Retirement System, persons familiar with the investigation said.
Leaders in Western Europe continued to voice concerns about the election, with the strongest remarks coming from President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who said Tuesday that the “extent of the fraud” in Iran was “proportional to the violent reaction” in the country, news agencies reported.
In response, the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the French ambassador to protest Mr. Sarkozy’s remarks, the ISNA news agency reported. The British ambassador was also summoned after Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged the Iranian government to listen to its people.
At his daily briefing earlier today, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs reminded California not to expect the administration to bail it out of its budget crisis. “We’ll continue to monitor the challenges that they have,” he said, “but this budgetary problem unfortunately is one that they’re going to have to solve.” One of those “challenges” is the stimulus package, which limits what the state can cut. “Trying to balance our budget in this fiscal environment is challenging enough,” said a spokesman for the Department of Finance a few weeks ago. “Doing it under Washington's multiple requirements in order for us to receive federal funds multiplies that challenge.” A Washington Poststory, however, suggests that a bailout may still be possible — at a price. “These policymakers continue to watch the situation closely and do not rule out helping the state if its condition significantly deteriorates, a senior administration official said. But in that case, federal help would carry conditions to protect taxpayers and make similar requests for aid unattractive to other states, the official said. The official did not detail those conditions.” Might California become another GM? Might the feds condition a bailout on passage of another state tax increase? It’s hard to say, but this situation is not looking good.
She accepted David Letterman’s apology, so — one hopes — this controversy is now over. But I just now read conservative columnist Debra Saunders’s fascinating take on this dust-up, and how she believes it could actually harm Palin politically; I think Corner readers will find it thought-provoking. Writes Saunders: “During the 2008 presidential campaign, I wrote about the unfair personal treatment to which the political press corps subjected Palin and her children. Now I just want her to stop milking her role as GOP martyr. . . . These [controversies] don’t tell voters that Palin has the smartest energy policy or that she’s been a more successful governor than California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger — they tell voters that Palin’s life is a nonstop soap opera. Republicans who want to win back Washington would do well to look for a winner. Not a victim.” Read the whole thing here.
I suspect Saunders is actually wrong on the politics of this. Remember, some six decades ago, a politician won the vice presidency by talking emotionally about how his children loved their dog, Checkers, and how his wife looked good in a Republican cloth coat. Less than two decades ago, another politician won the presidency by going on 60 Minutes with his wife to talk emotionally about how they worked through the problems in their marriage. We Americans — and especially American pundits — like to think of ourselves as favoring a hyper-rational politics, based on a combination of philosophical principle and utilitarian calculation. But in fact, emotional identification can be just as important, if not more so, in our political life. A respected friend was talking to me about the most recent Palin controversy the other day and told me, You just don’t get it; you’re not a parent. If parents identify with Sarah Palin, that may indeed do her more good in 2012 than any number of intelligent energy-policy proposals (or even being a better governor than Arnold).
History repeated itself Tuesday in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg as Russia endorsed Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the victor in the disputed Iranian elections. It was almost five years ago that Russian leader Vladimir Putin endorsed Viktor Yanukovich as the winner in the falsified 2004 Ukrainian presidential elections and congratulated him on a “convincing victory.”
Ahmadinejad’s purpose in coming to Yekaterinburg was to attend a summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which was set up as an alternative to NATO and whose members include Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Iran has repeatedly expressed interest in becoming a full member of this elite group.
Ahmadinejad made various hackneyed remarks about “end of the age of empires” and “international capitalism.” But more interesting than what he said was the spectacle of regimes that differ greatly from each other finding common cause in their shared opposition to their own people. The significance of this spectacle is that efforts to win Russia’s cooperation in influencing Iran are doomed to failure. Russia’s tie to the Iranians exists at a deep, subliminal level. It is rooted in faith that a cowed or misled population can always be manipulated. This faith does not convince Russians that a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands is no danger. But it reassures them that it will inevitably be aimed at the West.
— David Satter is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. His latest book isDarkness at Dawn: the Rise of the Russian Criminal State.
As massive protests rocked Iran after the “re-election” of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over “reform” candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, the western press was eager to attribute the protests to Barack Obama’s international influence — specifically the “support” Obama threw to Iranian reformers in his now famous speech in Cairo. Others suggested that Obama’s speech essentially frightened the Iranian regime into an overreaction, securing itself by rigging the election. Such is the power of hope and change.
The irony is that Obama probably did have a critical effect upon the outcome — albeit the opposite of what is being suggested.
Prior to his speech in Cairo, Obama made clear that his policy was to eschew meaningful action to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions unless and until Israel complied with Obama’s approach on Palestinian issues. This sent a clear message to the regime in Iran: Obama had prepared an excuse for himself if Iran should become nuclear power — a variation on the traditional Arab-Muslim strategy of blaming the Jews.
During his Cairo speech, Obama also continued his “Apology Tour” approach to American foreign policy, which attempts to win favor abroad by positing that the U.S. is at least as bad as, if not worse than, other nations. The mullahs were again the beneficiary: “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government,” Obama said, referring to the CIA’s role in the 1953 deposing of Iranian prime minister Muhammad Moussadeq. [Preposterously, this statement was set against the 30 years of terror that the Islamic Republic has inflicted on the Unites States, Israel, and the West.] Most Iranians are too young to remember Moussadeq, of course. Obama was talking directly to the regime, making clear that he does not favor efforts to oust foreign leaders.
Given the conventional belief that military strikes against Iran’s nuclear assets will produce minimal success and possibly drastic retaliation, America’s only alternative in preventing a nuclear Iran seems to lie in working with the greatly pro-American population to bring down the regime. On its face, then, the Cairo statement gives Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reassurance that Obama will not engage in such an effort.
Obama’s Cairo speech had one last bit of aid and comfort for the nuclear-minded mullahs: “No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons. . . . And any nation, including Iran, should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
It is clear to any rational thinker that Iran’s activities to date can not be confused with the effort to obtain peaceful nuclear power. As Amir Taheri writes in his brilliant book, The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution:
The only nuclear power station under construction in Iran, in the Bushehr peninsula on the Persian Gulf, was designed by Germans in the 1970’s and is being built by a Russian company that constructed Chernobyl. The Bushehr plant is designed to use a specially graded and codified fuel that is produced only in Russia; it cannot use the uranium enriched by Iran.
Taheri further adds that Iran “is building a heavy water plant at Arak, west of Tehran, supposedly producing fuel for a nuclear power station using plutonium. However, the Islamic Republic has no such plant, nor has it even planned to build one. What is produced in Arak, therefore, could only have a military use.” In Cairo, Obama effectively announced to the world that he is willing to assist the Iranian regime in maintaining its charade that it is not working to obtain nuclear weapons — while at the same time preemptively granting it the right to do so.
America now mirrors the United Nations in its pusillanimous response to Iran’s persistent efforts at violating international norms. Why would Khamenei — who controls Iran’s election results just as he controls Iran’s nuclear program — feel any need to dismiss Ahmadinejad in favor of the faux-reformist Mousavi? Such a move would, in Persian minds, signal its own weakness — a strategic attempt to fool the world that some meaningful “change” is occurring. Why play that card now? No change is needed at present — not even a superficial one. So why not save that trump for later, in case the international community should reverse its course and promise strong action against Iran — or in case the Iranian protests and the crackdown against them should continue, threatening lasting effects. In either of those scenarios, the concession from the mullahs will come in spite of Obama, not because of him.
In Iran’s last election, Ahmadinejad used the slogan “We Can!” Once again, Obama is adding the word “Yes” to all that Ahmadinejad does.
My reader email of the month, if not the year, came in this afternoon. I reproduce it here with the sender's permission. Thank you, Sir.
Mr. Derbyshire:
Very interesting perspective. As a retired NASA astronaut perhaps I might add an item or two for your consideration.
• 1 We have done things in the Shuttle era that I have been told have made our lives safer in this country. Our classified work can never be fully known, but on my first mission, STS 39 — an unclassified DoD mission — we did some very complex simultaneous maneuvers with multiple orbiting vehicles that would have been impossible to choreograph with robotic/deployable systems. We were told after the mission that results of our work greatly enhanced our ability to recognize ballistic missile threats, among other things. If true, and perhaps we will never really know, I would think this information and its utilization in America's defensive systems would be significant. This is just one example of which I have some personal knowledge.
