I agree with everything that's been said in here pushing back against Israel's crazed critics and defending its right to defend itself. But we shouldn't fool ourselves that this operation is going to "discredit" Hamas, as some conservatives hope, much or at all. Yes, Hamas ultimately is responsible for the conflict. But when an Israeli shell kills your family or your neighbor's family, most people aren't going to think it through enough to blame Hamas, they are going to direct their hatred and their desire for revenge at Israel. That's why probably the most that realistically can be hoped for from this operation is a diminishment of Hamas' capabilities. Achieving more than that would require holding territory and engaging in classic counter-insurgency operations, including providing services to win over the population. Israel's not going to do that, and it doesn't seem the PA is capable of it. Extremist groups like Hamas can indeed be marginalized and defeated. We did it with the Mahdi army in Iraq. But we held territory, worked to win hearts and minds, and—perhaps most importantly—had an Iraqi government pulling in the same direction, which politically isolated Sadr and convinced people his nationalism was cover for thuggery and mayhem. By this standard, Israel is 0-3. I hope I'm wrong and the sheer military beating Hamas is taking undermines its political standing, or the PA steps up, but, alas, it doesn't seem likely.
Major Development: Key Democratic Senator Says Burris Should Be Seated [Byron York]
According to the Associated Press, Sen. Dianne Feinstein says Roland Burris should be seated.
Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, said that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, however tainted by corruption charges, has the right to appoint someone. The Rules Committee decides whether Burris is qualified to serve.
Feinstein of California said that blocking Burris would have ramifications for other governors' appointments.
The Surgeon General is *not* a general. The Attorney General is *not* a general (I used to pull my hair, of which I have little to spare, when I heard the phrase "General Reno" during the Clinton administration, and I felt no better when I heard "General Ashcroft" (and even worse when I heard "General Gonzales")). I know that it's strange in English, but "General" is the *adjective*, not the noun.
Please. Just say "Surgeon General Gupta." Though at least for now, you should say "Surgeon General-Nominee Gupta..."
Mea maxima culpa.
Update: Here's the 411. The surgeon general is a commissioned officer.
Beware of Liberals Bearing Tax Cuts [Peter Kirsanow]
The story line on the Obama stimulus plan seems to have settled on the expectation that the $300 billion in tax cuts will get Republicans to sign on to the overall $775 billion package. Apparently, the theory is that if you wave $300 billion in tax cuts in front of Republicans, they'll give you a green light to spend nearly $500 billion.
— Even if Joe the Plumber would recognize a significant portion of the $300 billion in purported tax cuts as something more akin to "spreading the wealth."
— Even if there doesn't appear to be any guarantee that the spending will be coterminous with the tax cuts.
— Even if there's a good probability the spending will be wholly unrelated to addressing the recession (See, e.g., Thomas Sowell's column today).
— Even if there's a good probability that a good chunk of the spending will become a permanent feature of the federal budget (See, e.g., recent U.S. history).
— Even if the $500 billion is probably just a down payment on even more spending liberals plan to do down the road.
— Even though we'll be adding titanic sums to both the federal deficit and debt — promising more fun and games in the future.
The apparent selection of a health reporter for the post of Surgeon General is an acknowledgement of the fact that the office now serves a purely educational function, and not a terribly serious one at that. It would be nice if that meant that the surgeon general and his staff (and the Public Health Service in general, which of course does serve other functions too) stopped wearing those weird pseudo-military uniforms, and even nicer if this surgeon general did not become just a publicist for the nanny state or a mouthpiece for the cultural agenda of the radical left, though that of course seems terribly unlikely in the Obama administration.
At the very least, if Gupta says he worries about moving his family from Atlanta to Washington, the post might be folded into the (Atlanta-based) CDC, where it rightly belongs anyway, and made far less prominent and troublesome. But of course, by choosing a well known figure, the Obama team is signalling the opposite intention: they want him to be prominent and visible.
Last summer I wrote an article for NR (available only to subscribers, I gather) about the Surgeon General’s office, its long and storied history, and its future. A snippet:
The surgeon general today is little more than a finger-wagging preacher calling on the public to give up unhealthy habits. Earlier this year, the surgeon general's office released a report on teen drinking, and last year Carmona released one on second-hand smoke — the latest in a long line of reports on tobacco use, which has been the favorite subject of assorted surgeons general since the 1960s. In recent years, the office has published a report on the role of culture, race, and ethnicity in mental health, and another on youth violence — neither of them a public-health issue under any but the broadest definition.
These reports — which are generally just compilations of government statistics produced not by the surgeon general or his staff, but by bureaucrats in other agencies — routinely fall into exaggeration and excess. In 2006, Carmona described obesity in America as "a terror within" comparable to Islamic fundamentalism, and claimed it takes the lives of almost half a million Americans a year — a figure the Centers for Disease Control later had to acknowledge was unfounded.
The tone of surgeon-general reports makes for a telling case study in the way health has usurped the place of virtue in America's public vocabulary. Public health is the only remaining language in which to speak of vice — an old-fashioned word that once would have been the obvious way to refer to, say, smoking and drinking. The self-righteousness that colors the crusade against obesity, smoking, and other modern sins is as near as the Left gets to religion, and the surgeon general fills the role of oracle or prophet.
Here and there are some small signs that the economy is at least bottoming — a crucial stepping stone to meaningful recovery.
For example, the ISM non-manufacturing services report released today for December came in at 40.6 on the composite index, compared to 37.3 in November. New orders, employment, backlogs, and exports all ticked higher than the previous month. So did the overall-business-activity index. It’s still a recession reading, but a small increase is better than a decline.
The November factory-orders report showed non-defense capex rising at a 3.9 percent annual pace, the first increase in four months and the best gain in 10 months. Computer orders surged 12.5 percent.
Pending home sales — which tracks home re-sales under contract, according to the National Association of Realtors — declined again overall. But out West pending sales continued to increase, and they are up 27 percent since the August 2007 bottom.
Commercial construction rose 0.7 percent annually in November, and is up 12.1 percent over the past three months.
And in the November personal-income report, real disposable income jumped 1 percent for the month and is up 7.1 percent at an annual rate over the past three months. Real consumer spending in that report rose 0.6 percent in November.
These income and spending gains were largely a function of plummeting inflation, where the PCE deflator has fallen 6.1 percent annually over the past three months. That, of course, is largely a function of collapsing oil and retail gas prices. The gasoline drop is probably worth $350 billion as a consumer-purchasing-power tax cut. This is a key recovery mustard seed. So is the outsized growth in the money supply as measured by M1 and M2, fueled by the gigantic increase in the monetary base as the Fed continues to expand its balance sheet.
Additionally, the credit freeze continues to thaw. The three-month LIBOR rate is all the way back to 1.4 percent. And corporate bond rates continue to decline, a signal that private capital markets are starting to function again. The 30-year mortgage rate is holding around 5.3 percent.
At a recent conference in San Francisco, academic economists were very pessimistic, expecting recession to last through the whole year. But easy money and low retail gas prices may be a lot more stimulative than the academics think.
President-elect Obama said today that we should expect trillion dollar budget deficits for the next few years. But do we really need this unbelievable increase in the size and scope of government? Art Laffer is very gloomy about big-government spending and borrowing. He believes deficits of this magnitude and a large increase in the government share of GDP are liens on future tax hikes that will slow the economy’s potential to grow.
It was Milton Friedman years ago who taught us that the real tax burden on the economy is best measured as the government spending share of GDP. That measure has been falling for over 20 years, until President Bush’s second term. Now Obama’s plan will ratchet this tax burden much higher.
My point? We don’t need all this. Lower tax rates for large and small businesses along with easier money and lower gasoline prices will get us on the right track to increase the economy’s potential to prosper.
Once again, I ask what the Republican party intends to do. Will it be me-tooism? Or will they provide a choice, not an echo?
To clear up some semantic confusion, the Minnesota Senate election count has been "certified" by the State Canvassing Board with Al Franken (D.) 225 votes ahead of Norm Coleman (R.). Yet Franken's victory has not been "certified."
After seven days, or at the end of an unsuccessful Coleman legal challenge, Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie must sign off and provide Franken with a certificate of election. Then he will be "certified" the winner and presumably sworn in without further ado.
Roland Burris, on the other hand, lacks certification of his appointment only because Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White refuses to sign it. Franken and Burris are in a similar boat, but for very different reasons.
Blackwell, on how, as RNC chair, he thinks he can convince other people of color that they should be part of the GOP: "One of the things I've done is, I've criss-crossed the country and I've spent a lot of time in the territories, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, as well as Puerto Rico. I think those three territories can help us with African-Americans, Latinos and Asians."
More: "When we stop looking at a cookie cutter approach here in Washington, DC, and sort of tap the leadership of resources of the party at the grassroots level, that's when we can develop solutions that respond to the legitimate needs and aspirations of people of all colors. We don't have to adopt an approach that is color-conscious. We can adopt an approach that has been consistent with Republican legacy, one of being the party for freedom, limited government, and the rule of law."
Blackwell, on ex-TN GOP Chair Chip Saltsman sending around a CD with the song "Barack the Magic Negro" on it, and whether he thinks it was appropriate, even as a joke: "Well, look, what I know is that this is selective hypersensitivity. The reason I say that is because, when Al Sharpton and others would come into Ohio and call me outside of my name, call me Whitewell instead of Blackwell, because I happen to be a conservative Republican, I didn't hear this hypersensitivity and concern about that approach. It seems that it's okay to attack conservatives and call them out of their names and use parody and humor to degrade them, but all of the sudden, Republicans get shot down for parody and humor that a lot of folks ... get millions of dollars for."
CNN's Chetry: "Well, you called it a bit of hypersensitivity. Let's just say that you had an opportunity to send a gift to the RNC committee members. Would you have sent out this CD?"
Blackwell: "No, I wouldn't have. But again, I'm not going to throw Chip under the bus because he sent a CD with 30-odd cuts on it, and one happened to be a parody that was actually geared towards criticizing Al Sharpton's concern for the fact that Barack Obama was liked by so many people" (CNN, 1/6).
Sure enough, CNN's top doc is being nominated for surgeon general. Knowing Obama, there will be a Fox News nominee before long — to make it all look fair and balanced. Does anyone know Geraldo Rivera's whereabouts?
That's how one Senate minority leadership aide descibes the scene on his side of the Hill today. He adds: "Our guys are feeling their oats; not nearly as pessimistic as everyone thought. We know it’s going to be rough, awful, but we’re going to put our stamp on things."
If you wonder whether Burris is being treated unfairly in order to save Senate Democrats a minor embarrassment, just ask Congressman Danny Davis (D., Ill.). Like Burris, he is a black politician from Chicago with a long and commendable record of service. And like Burris, he was offered the Senate seat in question, just days before Burris.
He turned it down.
“When I was approached, the reason I said ‘no’ is because it would be so distracting in terms of my already being a member of Congress and having work to do,” Davis told NRO, explaining his decision. “There are issues I want to deal with, instead of dealing with inquiries about what kind of deal the governor and I had cut, that kind of stuff.”
Of course, one could say something similar for Burris — although Davis does not. Despite his respectable reputation for previous service, Burris chose to participate in a farcical appointment process that has helped Blagojevich re-assert his legitimacy in the face of grave political scandal. But Davis holds Burris harmless and believes he has a legal right to be seated, even if polls show the public strongly opposed to the idea.
“Burris has nothing to do with” the controversy surrounding the governor, Davis said. “I think the most rational and most prudent act that could be taken is to confirm Roland. The governor obviously has the right to make the appointment. Roland has an impeccable public service career — 20 years as a statewide elected official, never an event of impropriety or anything that would bring a negative to the Senate appointment. They should just do it and let the voters deal with the governor, and the judicial system and the Illinois legislature.”
To argue otherwise on technical grounds, Davis said, is to say that a secretary of state has the authority to veto a governor’s appointment. “That is unheard of — completely unheard of,” he said. Burris’s lack of certification, he added, is “a fallback position” that Senate Democrats have adopted in order to avoid a bigger controversy.
Whether on legal or ethical grounds, the question of whether Burris can, or should, or must be seated — now or later — is one in which the major debaters stand awkwardly. As one Senate aide put it, “It looks like no one has the moral high ground today.”
The party line among Senate Democrats is that Burris’s appointment has not been certified, and therefore he cannot be seated. Because of the Blagojevich controversy, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White has simply refused to sign the certification documents. This technicality saves Democrats from an embarrassing Senate showdown for now, but it also prevents them from seating Franken, which they would like to do. Franken cannot receive his certificate of election under Minnesota law until a legal election challenge is completed.
But if anything, Burris has the more legitimate claim to a Senate seat right now. Franken’s election result is in legal limbo for now, but Burris has been appointed by his governor, the legitimate legal and constitutional authority on the matter. Only a technicality, the lack of a perfunctory signature from a state official, stands in the way.
“I don’t see what the problem is on Burris, but that’s their call,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.). “I don’t think that Franken can be, because under Minnesota law, he’s not certified yet.”
There will be no Senator Bush. We're looking at a statement now ....
From an e-mail he sent out this afternoon:
While I will always have more than fond memories of my years in public office and was humbled by the outpouring of support I received over the last few weeks, now is not my time to be running for office. To sum it up, in the words of Dr. Stephen Covey, I have decided to put “First Things First”.
I will continue to stay involved in the advocacy of a vibrant, growing Republican Party and with it, 21st Century conservative solutions to the challenges we face.
All the best,
Jeb
UPDATE:
The statement:
This morning, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush released the following statement on the 2010 United States Senate race in Florida for Senator Mel Martinez’s Senate seat: “After thoughtful consideration, I have decided not to run for the United States Senate in 2010.
“While the opportunity to serve my state and country during these turbulent and dynamic times is compelling, now is not the right time to return to elected office.
“In the coming months and years, I hope to play a constructive role in the future of the Republican Party, advocating ideas and policies that solve the pressing problems of our day. We must rebuild the Party by focusing on the common purposes and core conservative principles that unite us all – limited government, a strong national defense and safe homeland and the protection of liberty tempered by personal responsibility.
“While fundamentally different ideologies divide Republicans and Democrats, we can not allow politics to come before the needs of our people and communities. We must raise the level of debate to reflect the American people’s desire for change and bi-partisanship, embodied by November’s historic election. President-elect Obama ran a tremendous campaign and I am proud to call him my President. I am confident Republicans will find productive ways to work together with the new administration to advance reforms both sides of the aisle can support.
“For me, there is no greater calling than education reform. Securing our nation’s economic future starts with providing a world-class education to every single American student – building a system that lessens our populace’s dependence on government. Through the Foundation for Florida’s Future and Foundation for Excellence in Education, I remain committed to advancing policies key to a reform agenda, including higher academic standards, greater accountability for learning and more educational choices for all families.
“Finally, I thank Senator Martinez for his extraordinary service to our great state and thank the many Floridians and Americans across the country that offered me support and encouragement as I came to this decision.”
I have been contacted by both President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden, and they have explained to me the reasons why they believe Leon Panetta is the best candidate for CIA Director.
I look forward to speaking with Mr. Panetta about the critical issues facing the intelligence community and his plans to address them.
Capitol Hill — “No fist fights yet,” muttered Sen. Kit Bond (R., Mo.) as he left the Senate’s first meeting of the 111th Congress.
Indeed, today’s Senate swearing-in ceremony was largely free of the controversy that had been expected around the rejection of two almost-senators — Al Franken of Minnesota, and Roland Burris of Illinois. Franken’s successful election result, while likely to survive a legal challenge, remains unofficial. Burris’s appointment by Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D.) to the seat vacated by President-elect Obama is perfectly legal, but is marred by accusations that Blagojevich had been trying to sell the Senate seat.
The only drama surrounding Burris had taken place hours before the doors to the chamber were opened, when the former Illinois attorney general showed up at the Capitol and was turned away by the secretary of the Senate. He then crossed the street for a press conference at an outdoor podium near the Russell Senate Office building. Actually, Burris merely made a prepared statement from an outdoor podium, angering the mob of reporters who had hoped to question him but were instead forced to stand in the cold rain and question his lawyer.
Off the Senate floor today, senators preferred other topics to the two men who were not there. Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) discussed the budget deficit. Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) discussed tax policy. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I., Conn.) discussed Obama’s nominees. Franken, whose election is tied up in litigation, was nowhere to be found. The previous night, Democrats had backed away from their threat to seat him.
Obama has offered the job of surgeon general to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and correspondent for CNN and CBS, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.
Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer.
When reached for comment today, Gupta did not deny the account but declined to comment.
Actually, I think it's a pretty smart move on Obama's part.
At least 30 people were reportedly killed and 53 wounded in an explosion in a UN-run school in the town of Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Palestinians. The IDF issued a statement saying the school grounds were used by terrorists to fire mortar shells at the troops. According to the IDF, among the dead were members of a Hamas launching cell, including operatives Immad Abu Askar and Hassan Abu Askar.
Yesterday, I had a column (whopping thing) called “My Kingdom for a Safe Zone.” This was all about the intrusion of politics into spheres that ought to be nonpolitical. NRO readers have been going to town on this topic. And I discussed it on Wisconsin Public Radio this morning: the Kathleen Dunn show. We had a (largely) delightful and stimulating hour. I understand that the show will be rebroadcast tonight at 10 (Central). Also, the program should be available here, on the Internet. (Your equipment might have to be better than mine.) (Computer equipment, I mean.)
As the RNC looks for a new chairman, its voting members might want someone to pay attention to their Young Eagles program. This young group of donors might give off the wrong vibe about the seriousness of the stakes for the GOP. The Young Eagles were most recently mentioned in The Corner for e-mailing out an invitation to a party at The Breakers in West Palm proclaiming: “As is apparent to most of you, this election was not stellar, but let me give you some decent news…we lost far fewer House and Senate seats than expected.... We can either rest on our laurels, or we can move forward and rebuild and revitalize the party.”
(Um, what laurels?)
And now, there is this, which comes via forwarded e-mail, from an RNC "coordinator":
Subject: Young Eagles: "Turnin' Up the Heat" Miami, FL Event
All,
Please find the attached invitation to the Young Eagles "Turnin' Up the Heat" event in Miami on January 23rd and 24th. I hope that you can attend as this will be our first event of the New Year. It is imperative that we discuss and plan the future of the Young Eagles as we move forward and look to the 2010 elections.
We are currently working on lining up a few VIP's for both the dinner and the game. I will keep you posted on any developments. Additionally, Rich Beeson, the RNC political director, will be attending as we look to get the group more involved within the RNC. He will address the GOP's plans for moving forward, forecast upcoming elections, etc.
In terms of lodging, Miami has a plethora of options. Several choices to consider are The Fontainebleau (305) 538-2000), the Ritz Carlton (786-276-1144), or The Shore Club (305-695-3100).
I look forward to seeing everyone in Miami. …
I have nothing against even losing parties having parties, but I hope some of those Young Eagles share my reaction to this first YE event in the Age of Obama: The hard choices are not the Fountainebleau, the Ritz Carlton, or the Shore Club.
Israel, after months of enduring rocket attacks against its civilians, has launched an invasion against Hamas terrorists. The Vatican has issued statements decrying the invasion, and one of Italy's — and the world's — most respected Vaticanologists has tried to explain what's wrong with the Vatican's stance. Writing on the www.chiesa website, Sandro Magister says the following:
The authorities of the Church, and Benedict XVI himself, have raised their voices in condemnation of "the massive violence that has broken out in the Gaza Strip in response to other violence" only after Israel began bombing the installations of the terrorist movement Hamas in that territory. Not before. Not when Hamas was tightening its brutal grip on Gaza, massacring the Muslims faithful to president Abu Mazen, humiliating the tiny Christian communities, and launching rockets every day against the Israelis in the surrounding area.
About Hamas and its vaunted "mission" of wiping the Jewish state from the face of the earth, about Hamas as an outpost for Iran's expansionist aims in the Middle East, about Hamas as an ally of Hezbollah and Syria, the Vatican authorities have never raised the red alert. They have never shown that they see Hamas as a deadly danger to Israel and an obstacle to the birth of a Palestinian state, in addition to its being a nightmare for the Arab regimes in the area, from Egypt to Jordan to Saudi Arabia.
In the December 29-30 issue of "L'Osservatore Romano," a front-page commentary by Luca M. Possati, checked word by word by the Vatican secretariat of state, claimed that "for the Jewish state, the only possible idea of security must come through dialogue with all, even those who do not recognize it." Read: Hamas.
Now, of course, this issue is a minefield for anyone trying to exercise the elementary virtue of justice. Raise questions about the morality of a particular Israeli decision, and you risk the wrath of hotheads accusing you of anti-Semitism; express the opinion that a country has the right to wage war against terrorists launching rockets at it, and some crank will accuse you of believing in "the Immaculate Conception of the State of Israel and its Preservation from all sin, both Original and Actual." But it's precisely because tempers are so raw on this issue that we need to make a special effort to understand those with whom we disagree. Magister says that:
"L'Osservatore Romano" gave no emphasis to the statements made during that same period of time by the head of Germany's government, Angela Merkel, according to whom "it is the legitimate right of Israel to protect its civilian population and to defend its territory," and the responsibility for the Israeli attack on Gaza belongs "clearly and exclusively" to Hamas.
Affirming this, the German chancellor broke from the chorus of condemnation that came, right on cue, from many state departments - and from the Vatican - after Israel exercised its right of self-defense by force. In Italy, the expert in geopolitics who gave the greatest emphasis to Angela Merkel's position, in the newspaper "La Stampa," was Vittorio E. Parsi, a professor of international politics at the Catholic University of Milan and until a few months ago a leading commentator for "Avvenire," the newspaper of the Italian bishops' conference. In "Avvenire," Parsi had written two years ago, at the time of the war in Lebanon, an editorial entitled "Israel's reasons," in which he stated:
"The bitter reality is that, in the Middle East, Israel's presence is believed to be 'temporary', and the guarantee of the Jewish state's survival lies - as unpleasant as it may be to say this - in its military superiority."
The problem is that the "temporariness" of the state of Israel is an idea shared by a significant part of the Catholic Church. And it is this idea that influences Vatican policy on the Middle East, that traps it in outdated, ineffective options, and prevents it from grasping new developments, although they have become so evident in recent days. These include the extremely strong and increasing aversion to Hamas on the part of the main Arab regimes and even of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, objectively closer to the views of Israel than the Vatican is.
What's important here, in my view, is that the Vatican is being misguided not so much by a bias against Israel, as by a misunderstanding of the facts on the ground. Pope Benedict XVI, like the Catholic Church generally, deserves praise for speaking out over the past few decades in defense of the human rights of the Palestinian people; what we have in the current case is a dispute about which specific actions by which power will most conduce to the protection of those rights — and the human rights of others in the region — over the long run. The Pope and the Vatican speak for peace; so do many of those (including me) who have decided that the current Israeli invasion is a wise course of action. If I thought the purpose of this action, and its likely result, was the oppression and subjugation of the Palestinian people, I would oppose it. But I have a reasoned hope that this action is motivated by, and may result in, a greater likelihood of a two-state solution in which Israeli and Arab can live in peace.
One for the "Moral Equivalence" Crowd [James S. Robbins]
Here is a good example of Hamas's modus operandi. They set up a mortar team next to a school crowded with refugees, fire a few rounds (acoustic mortar detectors can locate the source fairly quickly), then run before the counterstrike arrives. Innocent people pay the price — in this case, 30 killed, 55 wounded. This has happened at two different schools so far. So Hamas is not just hiding among civilians or using them as human shields, they are intentionally engineering headline-grabbing mass casualty events they can blame on Israel. Great bunch of guys.
“Government is not the solution to our problem,” declared Ronald Reagan. “Government is the problem.” So why worry about governing well?
Where did this hostility to government come from? In 1981 Lee Atwater, the famed Republican political consultant, explained the evolution of the G.O.P.’s “Southern strategy,” which originally focused on opposition to the Voting Rights Act but eventually took a more coded form: “You’re getting so abstract now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.” In other words, government is the problem because it takes your money and gives it to Those People.
Got that? If you believe government is a problem, you're nothing less than a neo-Confederate.
The idea that Hayek or Mill or any other philosopher of the Whig tradition might have had anything to do with it doesn't seem to occur to Krugman. In particular, Mill's idea of the harm inflicted by the tyranny of the majority and the idea that government must be constrained becuase of this seems to have failed to penetrate the Krugman Kranium. In advancing this argument, Krugman proves that he is no liberal, because he doesn't understand the history of classical liberalism, nor how it came to be integral to what we today call conservatism. More thoughts along these lines here.
All this talk of Palestinians comparing the Jews to the SS is even more ridiculous if you know a little bit about the history of Palestinian nationalism.
Just last night I was reading Hamas Vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine, an excellent new offering from NRO contributor Jonathan Schanzer. In the book Schanzer notes that Haj Amin al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem from 1921-1948 and the first prominent leader of the Palestinian nationalist movement, established ties with SS head Heinrich Himmler during World War II and even helped create the Handjar SS battalion raised among Bosnian Muslims in the Balkans that fought for the Third Reich.
So if Palestinian spin doctors want to run around comparing the Jews to the SS, perhaps they ought to be reminded them what an unfortunate comparison this is given the checkered history of Palestinian nationalism.
My Impromptus today touches on the explicit racialism in the matter of the Illinois Senate seat: Some people think that, if the voters elected a black man in 2004, the replacement today has to be a black man as well. A reader of ours quipped, “Well, if that’s true, why not give it to the guy who finished second that year?” (Ahem — that’d be Alan Keyes.)
A jest, yes — but the kind of jest that points up perfectly the grossness of American racialism as it is manifested today.
Q: Would Leon Panetta have been your CIA chief choice?
A: He’s an excellent choice because he will be loyal to the president first, not to the CIA. Mr. Obama needs someone who can be trusted, a person who will support him when the going gets tough.
A “safe” choice, viewed as inoffensive by the CIA’s top bureaucrats, would have been dangerous. Directors Tenet and Hayden were placid Washington civil servants of neutral loyalties, quickly coopted by the CIA’s bureaucracy. A military officer might have had good leadership experience but would have lacked sound partisan political connections.
The choice is a brave one because it can open Mr. Obama to charges of appointing a loyalist to a crucial post. But that is exactly what is needed at this time.
Q: What can he bring to the job?
A: Panetta has no espionage experience, but he has the only qualification he needs: the ability to bring the power of the presidency to bear.
Americans want President Obama to succeed, and for that he’ll need a CIA that can provide the intelligence necessary to protect Americans and our allies. If Mr. Obama relies less upon military strength, he will necessarily rely more upon intelligence.
Now that the Democrats are in charge, their focus shifts from winning power to holding it. A nuclear attack on America or an ally that could have been prevented through intelligence reform will severely harm the new president and his party.
Q: More generally speaking: Whomever the nominee, what’s the opportunity Obama has to seize when it comes to the CIA?
A: The superbly run Obama campaign showed that the Obama people know how to manage an effective organization. Reform of the CIA can begin simply by requiring the CIA to obey existing laws and directives: 1) The CIA must get its clandestine-service officers out of the United States and spying in and on foreign countries. The great majority of CIA employees now live and work within the U.S. 2) Its clandestine operations should move away from embassies because, unlike the old Soviet targets, terrorists and nuclear proliferators do not attend diplomatic cocktail parties. Congress has already funded this move, but the CIA has not complied. 3) Ruthlessly streamline the bloat. Terrorists have flat chains of command and no bureaucratic turfs. The CIA has dozens of byzantine management layers which, octopus-like, loop back upon themselves. Human-source intelligence collection has been effectively strangled. 4) The CIA must strictly account for the handling of taxpayers’ money, as the law already requires. Post-9/11, the CIA has become a place to get rich for contractors and former managers.
You're right, Jonah, that that Stanley Fish Top Ten list is strikingly non-post-modern — and nor does he attempt to justify his appreciation with the usual intellectual contortions one has come to expect from scholars confessing to a fondness for the sincere and heartfelt.
Reading his thoughts on Meet Me In St Louis,I briefly wondered whether the whole thing wasn't some artful New Year leg-pull that we NR types were too unsophisticated to get. But the comments from Times readers — “The 8 Best American Movies from When I Was Young and 2 that Slipped In Somehow”, these deplorable films "were made decades before this nation saw any significant social progress", there's nothing that "speaks to my generation", and where's American Beauty? (!) — are a hoot.
Look, this is somewhere between surprising and shocking. Choosing someone with no experience in intelligence to head CIA at a time of two wars, what we saw in India just a few weeks ago, bad guys out there trying to do collect weapons of mass destruction.
The reason this happened is because Obama has caved to his left. The left will not accept anybody who served in any way in the last eight years under the Bush administration because of the enhanced interrogation, the secret prison programs, and the eavesdropping programs.
That's why, for example, Jane Harmon, who is head of the House Intelligence Committee, who would be an excellent CIA director and the first woman, was nixed because she early on had approved of the listening in on terrorists abroad.
So he chose a novice. I think it's a mistake. I think he's going to get a lot of heat in the end. He'll pass because Panetta is known and liked. But you got a rookie as a president, a novice as head of the CIA in a time of war—not a good idea.
On tax cuts as part of Obama's stimulus:
I think it was a very smart political stroke. Look, Bernanke, the head of the Fed, once said the way to cure recessions is to drop dollars out of a helicopter. Attacking our recession can be done with spending or tax cuts, either way.
Democrats like both. The Republicans only like cuts. So by having a large percentage of this package, about a third of it or more, being in cuts, this is the way Obama is drawing in the Republicans.
Why is that important? It isn't just that it creates an atmosphere of comity at the beginning, it's because it's going to be a long recovery. It's going to be slow. And the last index of recovery is unemployment. It could be at 10 percent in two years at the midterm election.
If you started entirely with Democratic votes, it means the Democrats will be blamed and attacked and could have a massacre in that election.
If he brings in the Republicans as he has, he is ecumenical, he brings them in, he protects himself in two years in what is going to be a very slow recovery.
Yesterday Jonah reprised the incisive analysis of the guy who dragged me through all those "human rights" cases up in Canada, Dr. Mohamed Elmasry:
Gaza has, in fact, been reduced to a new Auschwitz: the only difference – a nightmarish irony — is that Jews are now playing the role of Hitler’s ruthless SS.
But maybe the real nightmarish irony is that that piker Hitler's ruthless SS wasn't ruthless enough. On the streets of Toronto, an anti-Israel demonstrator complains:
Hitler didn't do a good job.
So Jews are only the new Nazis because the old Nazis didn't do a good enough job. At Maclean's and my trial in British Columbia, Dr Elmasry's Canadian Islamic Congress claimed to represent all Canadian Muslims. so I wonder if this fellow is one of their members. By the way, it's good to know that, while my books and columns may be "hate crimes" in Ontario, shouting explicitly genocidal and eliminationist slogans on Toronto's main downtown thoroughfare isn't. Indeed, the city will send a large detachment of police officers to protect your right to do so.
I notice in the pictures of demonstrations in western cities many of the protestors appear to be Muslim. There is a crude arithmetic logic about European antipathy to the Zionist Entity: For your average finger-in-the-windy politician, there is simply no electoral upside in being pro-Israel, and quite a lot of potential downside. If you think Europe is soft on Israel's "right to exist" now, just wait another ten years.
The swearing in ceremony for the new Senate begins today at noon. However, there's still a number of unsettled questions. The Democratically controlled Senate has declined to seat Al Franken while the legal challenges are still being worked out.
But the biggest question remains Barack Obama's successor, Roland Burris. Despite Senate Majority Leader's threats to keep from seating him, he attempted to show up for the swearing-in ceremony and was turned away a few minutes ago.
What's more, NRO's man on the scene, David Freddoso reports that while Burris was briefly in the Capitol building before he was turned away some reporter shot a video of Burris with his cellphone and it is now floating around the Net. Unathorized filming in the Capitol is a srtictly verboten, and the reporter will likely face some sort of disciplinary charges for having done so. (If you've seen the video and know where to find it, e-mail me and I'll try and get it up on the Corner.)
Stay tuned, Freddoso should have more about the swearing-in circus later.
But though the GOP's mistakes are real, it's also worth keeping in mind that many of its problems are not quite so unique to the Republicans as its liberal detractors and the news media (increasingly a distinction without much of a difference) would have everyone believe. Many of the GOP's problems stemmed from the fact that it was simply the party in power in a bitterly divided country.
Take the GOP's "corruption problem." The Democrats retook Congress in 2006 largely on the strength of popular dismay with Republican scandals. Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff dominated the news, as did allegations of impropriety and corruption on the part of then-Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and confirmed cases of criminality on the part of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Just before the '06 election, Florida congressman Mark Foley was alleged to have "preyed" on young male congressional pages via online chats. The following summer, Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho was accused of using gay-bathroom Morse code to signal to an undercover cop in the next stall that he'd like a wingman on a trip to funky town. These stories fueled the corruption narrative leading to the Democratic sweep last November.
Sounds bad, and it was. But it's worth remembering that Democrats had plenty of scandals of their own. In 2004, New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey resigned after the married father was alleged to have hired an unqualified boy toy to run his Homeland Security Department. In 2006, Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana was caught with nearly $100,000 in his freezer. That same year, Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island rammed his Ford Mustang into a Capitol Hill security checkpoint and, faster than his dad could say "Chappaquiddick," checked himself into rehab for a pill addiction. Last spring, New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer, a self-righteous anti-corruption zealot, resigned after it was revealed he had been using a call-girl service. Then the Democrat who replaced Foley was brought down for allegedly firing his mistress. Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards was caught cheating on his cancer-stricken wife. Charles Rangel, the Democratic dinosaur in charge of the House Ways and Means Committee, is embroiled in a series of allegations of self-dealing corruption. And now, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has bowed out as President-elect Barack Obama's choice to be Commerce secretary thanks to an unfolding investigation into possible pay-for-play deal of less than Blagospheric proportions.
Such scandals are subjected to enormous double standards by many in the anti-Bush news media. But at least one of those double standards is defensible. The party in power warrants — and gets — more scrutiny than the other guys. Well, the Democrats now dominate American politics in a way they haven't since the 1960s, if not the 1930s. Suddenly, a Democratic "culture of corruption" seems like a pretty easy story to write, thanks only in part to the most enjoyable — and therefore un-ignorable — scandal of the 21st century so far: Blagopalooza. Wiretaps, grotesque corruption, the race card, R-rated dialogue and hair you can see from space: What's not to love?
Big Push for the Employee Free Choice Act [Peter Kirsanow]
A wake-up call for those who think that in light of the economy, labor will give the Obama administration some breathing room on EFCA: The Denver Post reports that the Service Employees International Union will announce tomorrow that it is committing $85 million in resources to promote the passage of EFCA (as well as health care reform and economic recovery).
Mr. Obama listened as Republicans raised concerns about waste and transparency in the economic stimulus plan. He agreed with a suggestion raised by Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, about putting the entire contents of the legislation online in a user-friendly way to see how the money is being spent.
A bunch of reasons, I guess. Sometimes, because it cheers me up: Last night, Keith Olbermann had on a foreign-policy expert who said that Hillary may well bring with her to the State Department some advisers who are "neoconservative fellow travelers" with a history of supporting the Iraq War. The commenter did not seem to be as light-hearted about this news as I would be; and I sheepishly admit that that, for me, is a great part of the fun.
Thanks for the plug to my piece. It's an interesting list. Not only is Groundhog Day on the list, it's the only film made after 1980 on the list. After Raging Bull the next most recent film is Vertigo. It's too bad JPod isn't around here anymore, but it seems to me there's something interesting to be said about the fact that America's most famous post-modernist thinks 80 percent of the best movies ever made were produced decades before his ideas took hold among filmmakers.
Scenes from the Final Days at the Bush White House [Byron York]
It seems that Salva Kiir Mayardit, the First Vice President of the Government of National Unity of Sudan and President of the Government of Southern Sudan, likes to wear hats.Even in the Oval Office:
But a while back he took off the headgear, and put on a conservative dark suit, to meet the Chinese.
What gives? After all, he took off the hat for Tony Blair, too:
But he left it on for the UAE, although in that case there was headgear all round:
For decades, astronomers thought when it came to the major galaxies in Earth's cosmic neighborhood, our Milky Way was a weak sister to the larger Andromeda. Not anymore.
The Milky Way is considerably larger, bulkier and spinning faster than astronomers once thought, Andromeda's equal.
Scientists mapped the Milky Way in a more detailed, three-dimensional way and found that it's 15 percent larger in breadth. More important, it's denser, with 50 percent more mass, which is like weight.
Andrew Breitbart is an untiring force of nature (something Matt Drudge, another remarkable spirit, had the wisdom to realize long ago). Breitbart, along with Gary Sinese, and a not-so-small army of independent thinkers in Hollywood are making popular culture better — through coordination, support, and honesty. Congrats to Andrew on the launch of his “Big Hollywood,” that coming-out party of sorts for conservatives in the entertainment industry. I know many people who are grateful to him and for him and who are cheering him on.
Today at 12:30 there will be a rally in front of the Israeli Embassy at 3514 International Dr. NW, Washington DC. I plan to be there. If you are in the area please come and help demonstrate that millions of us passionately support Israel's right to exist in peace and security.
Sources within the transition and the Justice Department said that Richardson had played down the importance of the probe and did not reveal that his office and staff could be at risk. The seriousness of the matter became apparent after the FBI began its own background check on Dec. 2.
The news in this is the Post's report that the FBI background check began on December 2. Why is that news? Because Barack Obama formally announced the Richardson nomination, with Richardson standing at his side, on December 3. Now perhaps the Post has it wrong. But if the December 2 date is correct, did Team Obama really give Richardson a full vetting? I seem to remember criticism of the McCain campaign for an allegedly rushed and incomplete vetting…
I would think that given his background and expertise Mr. Panetta would be a good choice for again being director of OMB, not CIA. His lack of intelligence background will not inspire the employees at the Agency, who have seen their institution under attack from all sides in recent years and need some breathing space. Those on the Democratic side who complained loudly about the politicization of intelligence during the Bush years will be hard-pressed to support what can only be seen as a politically inspired appointment. Also, given the organizational changes in the Intelligence Community in recent years, being the CIA director is not as important a job as it used to be. Admiral Dennis Blair, the proposed director of national intelligence — who will be Panetta's boss — is highly experienced in the ways of Washington and has intelligence experience that he picked up during his long and distinguished Navy career. With a weak DCI, Blair may be tempted to continue the expansion of ODNI in ways the old guard at CIA may not like. If Obama's objective is to render the CIA less effective in a bureaucratic sense, this is a good way to do it.
What Congressional Democrats Knew and Did About "Torture" [Andy McCarthy]
Lots ... and nothing. The Wall Street Journal provides a valuable history.
NRO previously weighed in, here. And, if you are an NR Digital subscriber (which you should be, especially in these trying times), you can find my own recap in the Bush Retrospective Issue (Dec. 29), here.
Jay's round-up of politicized conductors, Boston Pops narrators, etc, tossing in dreary reflex Bush-bashing even in the middle of "Peter And The Wolf" should really be read in concert with Andrew Breitbart's plans for his new Hollywood website. They both address the same phenomenon: Liberalism is the default mode of the culture — to the point where the left-of-center position is so pervasive it's no longer a position at all, but rather something uncontentious, received wisdom, part of the air we breathe. In several of the examples Jay cites, I'll bet the musicians involved would be stunned to find that there was anyone in the room who would find the message remotely disagreeable.
In these conversations, one should distinguish between the activist types — the Sean Penns and whatnot — and the far bigger number of actors and musicians who don't think about politics terribly much and for whom a passive allegiance to the only recognized party of the entertainment state is just the easy option. Personally, I wouldn't want to live in a one-party state, and I'm slightly taken aback by the number of bigtime Hollywood stars who've said to me sotto voce in the last two years how much they agree with my book but please don't mention it to anyone. But Andrew Breitbart gets to what's really at stake:
If conservatives don't figure out popular culture soon, the movement will die a deserving death.
I think that's right. If the non-political sphere is permanently left-of-center — the movies, the pop songs, the plays, the sitcoms, the newspapers plus the churches, schools and much else — it's simply unreasonable to expect people to walk into a polling booth every other November and vote conservative. The culture is where the issues get framed and the boundaries set.
The day began with the observation by Michael D. McCurry, the President's press secretary, that "there are no chances at this point" of President Clinton signing legislation that would prevent the Government from coming to a screeching halt next week.
That prompted the Republican leaders, Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senator Bob Dole, to call a news conference at the Capitol where they sought to assign blame for the conflict to the White House.
"It is very difficult to work with a President who seems to be primarily driven by his political advisers to engage in public relations stunts," Mr. Gingrich said.
And Mr. Dole said: "It's up to the President of the United States. If the Government shuts down, his fingerprints are going to be all over it."
Not to be outdone, Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and Leon E. Panetta, the President's chief of staff, scurried to the White House press room.
"Don't put a gun to the head of the President and the head of the country," said Mr. Panetta. "That's a form of terrorism."
And I'd bet Newt gets the blame for this if/when it comes up at the confirmation hearing. August 5, 1996:
Speaker Newt Gingrich said today that Congress was reluctant to give the Federal Bureau of Investigation more authority to fight terrorism because lawmakers felt the bureau had mishandled the investigation of files given to the White House.
In particular, Mr. Gingrich said, the F.B.I. warned the White House of the existence of its confidential report relating to the investigation, and that action, Mr. Gingrich said, ''is very disturbing and frankly was a major factor in stopping us from being able to give them the wiretap authority they seek.''
A rushed effort to pass new antiterrorism legislation last week before Congress left for its August recess failed when Senate Democrats refused to accept a House-passed version that left out two White House proposals: new Federal wiretapping authority and a requirement for chemical markers to help identify the source of explosives.
President Clinton had urged Congress to take quick action after the crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 and the pipe-bomb explosion at the Olympic Games in Atlanta.
''When you have an agency that turns 900 personnel files over to people like Craig Livingstone and doesn't protect those files, it's very hard to justify giving that agency more power,'' Mr. Gingrich said on ''Fox News Sunday.''
[...]
The Administration wants to extend emergency wiretapping authority, which is now available for fighting organized crime, to people who are suspected of terrorism.
''We should not tie the hands of law enforcement in the effort to bring these terrorists to justice,'' Leon E. Panetta, the White House chief of staff, said on the CBS News program ''Face the Nation.''
On Panetta — in addition to opinions in The Corner, there is the ever-so-slightly more important opinion of the new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein:
I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA Director. I know nothing about this, other than what I’ve read. My position has consistently been that I believe the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.
Ouch. It is interesting that Obama would settle on a CIA director without even giving a heads-up to the Intelligence Committee chairman, especially one of his own party. Word is Obama didn't tell outgoing chairman Jay Rockefeller, either.
I think Michael's take is probably right in many respects. I like Panetta, too. He's a grown-up and, while his politics aren't mine, he's enough of a wonk, mensch and political craftsman that I think he's open to listening to smart people, but also not intimindated by them either. Nonetheless, his appointment strikes me as just the mother of all cop outs on Obama's part (as Byron suggests below). During a period when intelligence gathering is huge important, Obama either won't or can't appoint someone with an intelligence background who agrees with him. That should speak volumes about the intelligence community, Obama, his positions, or all three.
Leon Panetta may not know very much about foreign affairs or defense matters. He is wholly unacquainted with the questions and quarrels that have roiled the US intelligence community for a half century. But, as veteran political warrior, he will do what President Obama expects of him: prevent CIA from making war upon him as it made war on George W. Bush. When Bush appointed Porter Goss as CIA director to stop that war, CIA's old boys somehow convinced Bush to fire him. Panetta's appointment however tells CIA's old boys that if they trouble the Obama team, they will be the ones fired.
Do you get the sense that the Washington political world has declared the Bill Richardson story over and done with — in the course of less than a full daily news cycle — so that it can get on with the more exciting business of Barack Obama arriving the nation's capital? George Stephanopoulos described Richardson's withdrawal as Commerce Secretary nominee as a "hiccup" that is "likely to be a small blip" for Obama. Some news coverage suggests that others agree.
But the Richardson story matters. Here you have a cabinet nominee, and a high-profile former rival of Obama at that, withdrawing because of a federal criminal investigation. And Obama, of course, along with his chief of staff and another top incoming White House official, has already been interviewed in the course of another federal criminal investigation. And we're still two weeks away from the inauguration.
No one has accused them of any wrongdoing, but one more "hiccup" and, as they say, there will be a pattern. Perhaps even a "cloud" over the new administration.
On the substance of it, this afternoon I talked to Colleen Heild, the investigative reporter who, along with Mike Gallagher, broke the CDR investigation story in the Albuquerque Journal. I wanted to know what she thought the Obama vetting team could reasonably have known in the weeks leading up to the December 3 announcement of Richardson's investigation. "We reported in August, and then in October, that there was an FBI investigation into this," Heild told me. "Those stories didn’t specifically tie this to the Richardson administration doing anything improper, except that the state agency that let the contract was under his control."
Still, Heild said, the case was moving forward in October and November. "I think the FBI was getting close to where they wanted to be," Heild told me. "We're unclear as to how many witnesses they interviewed, but I think that from what we understand, there had been subpoenas that came from the grand jury, and they were looking at a number of records, and that was going on in November." During that time, Heild said, some figures in the case began hiring lawyers. (Richardson did so recently, according to an Associated Press report.)
Heild told me she was told yesterday by Richardson's spokesperson that Richardson had given the Albuquerque Journal stories to the Obama transition team.
So should Team Obama have known something was up? "I'm searching my memory for anything that might have triggered the Obama people to say, 'Is this really somebody we want to nominate?'" Heild said. "And I don't see it in any of the coverage at the local level."
Claremont has re-posted Charles Kesler's provocative take on the late Samuel Huntington's book Who Are We? An excerpt:
Unfortunately, his Anglo-Protestant culturalism, like any merely cultural conservatism, is no match for its liberal opponents. He persists in thinking of liberals as devotees of the old American creed who push its universal principles too far, who rely on reason to the exclusion of a strong national culture. When they abjured individualism and natural rights decades ago, however, liberals broke with that creed, and did so proudly.
In the very early days of the Bush administration, Karl Rove asked a Washington policy wonk what personnel changes he'd recommend to newly arrived George W. The wonk said "there is one matter of life and death: he must replace Tenet at CIA and put in one of his own people, someone he absolutely trusts." Rove said "well, good luck with that one." Obama knows better, and he's putting Leon Panetta in Langley.
I always liked Panetta. He served in the Army and is openly proud of it. He seems to be a good lawyer (oxymoronic though it may seem). He's a good manager. And he's going to watch Obama's back at a place that's full of stilettos and a track record for attempted presidential assassination second to none. But Italians know all about political assassination; you may remember Julius Caesar. Or Aldo Moro. The self-proclaimed cognoscenti will deride his lack of "spycraft," and he's never worked in the intel bureaucracy or, for that matter, in foreign policy or national security. But he's been chief of staff, which involved all that stuff.
So Leon Panetta seems a slightly odd choice to head the CIA. Why him? Well, drawing a few conclusions from this New York Times account, Obama had a hard time finding anyone with recent intelligence experience because those people have had to deal with the real-world problem of the war on terrorism — and thus might be the target of lefty attacks. Better, for confirmation purposes at least, to get someone who has just criticized from the outside:
