Month: April 2004

ABC News gets a big scoop on the U.N. oil-for-food corruption scandal. I wish I could say I’m shocked. In fact, I’m shocked that more hasn’t come out yet. Saddam had a lot of people on the take in the West and the U.N. But this story is about more than a simple U.N. scandal. What it shows is what the alternatives to war against Saddam actually were: a slowly disintegrating regime, becoming ever-more Islamist in tone as it tried to cling to power; sanctions that were in effect starving kids, destroying Iraqi civil society and enriching corrupt U.N. officials and Saddam’s family; and the potential of those sanctions being lifted at some point, leading to a resurgence of WMD development. We were so right to intervene. The alternatives were far, far worse.

POTTERY BARN VERSUS POWELL: They don’t like the analogy. And it’s not even true.

BLAIR’S GAMBLE: It’s a fascinating moment in British politics. The big constitutional question of the last few decades – Britain’s relationship with Europe – will be put to a referendum some point in the future. Tony Blair has finally decided that the new, proposed EU Constitution – which would, in my view, mark the essential end of the European nation-state as we have understood it – will be put up for a vote. Previously, Blair had balked, fearful that he could receive a stinging rejection from the voters. But now he’s for it – although it may not happen until after the next election. There are broader ramifications. Nine EU countries are set to vote on the new constitution. If a sigle one votes against, it will be dead. If Britain votes against, it will be as dead as the infamous parrot. It sounds suicidal for Blair, but it may not be. He gets to change the subject from Iraq, he gets to take the initiative in arguing against what he believes are euro-skeptic “myths”, and he also sets himself up for an obvious post-election retirement if he loses the vote, handing the poisoned chalice of power to his ally and rival Gordon Brown, some time late next year. Worth watching.

VIRTUALLY NORMAL: A neighborhood birthday party for a one-year old. With a small difference.

POLL-PORING: Some interesting nuggets in the latest Gallup poll. Bush’s highest area of opposition comes in healthcare (understandable, given that it’s a natural Democratic issue) and the deficit. The president’s handling of our national finances is disapproved of by 60 percent of the sample. I think it has now become true that the Republicans are no longer identified by the public as the party of fiscal responsibility. It’s no longer part of the brand, as it were. We expect Republicans to rack up debt for future generations, to make only piddling attempts to reform entitlements, and to be indistinguishable from Democrats on pork. Bush has now cemented this in the public mind. But the most revealing question to me was the following: “43. Overall do you think Bush has done more to (unite the country), or has done more to (divide the country)?” 50 percent said he unites the country; 48 percent said he divides it. Quod erat demonstrandum.

NOT REAL EVANGELICALS: That poll that showed a majority of evangelicals oppose a constitutional amendment to ban civil marriage for gays has come under fire – from evangelicals.

ENVIROCONS: There are more of them than I gave them credit for. Check out the Economist’s and Bjorn Lomborg’s “Copenhagen Consensus” website for practical non-lefty proposals to make cost-effective changes that can tangibly improve the environment and people’s lives. It has a far broader area of concern than the environment but it is an encouraging pragmatic sign. There’s the Property and Environment Research Center, whose motto is “Improving Environmental Quality Through Markets.” There’s also material here and here. This is also a good moment to plug Matthew Scully’s beautifully argued and gut-wrenching book, “Dominion,” on the enormous harm we are doing to the animals we own and control. And here’s a profile of a Bush administration official who doesn’t quite fit the stereotype.

Time to complain that High Times is killing the buzz. But here’s a liberal argument for liberating Iraq: weed is now de facto legal in that country. Freer than the U.S. where insane anti-marijuana laws still hold sway.

Their recent editorial going wobbly on Iraq deserved a response. The original Tory-wimpy editorial was not online. It is now.

ENVIROCONS: Here’s a local blog trying to advance a little conservative sense into the environmental movement. Nick Schulz also emails to point out the real import of Bjorn Lomborg’s work:

What Bjorn gets right that the left doesn’t understand and the right has yet to embrace is that the key to sensible environmentalism is getting priorities right. With limited financial and political resources to address problems we can’t attack all problems in the same way at the same time; so we need to be smart about what problems we do tackle and in what order. The problem with Kyoto isn’t that it can’t be ratified (which it can’t) or that it won’t work (which it won’t) or that it’s too costly (which it is) or that the science doesn’t justify it (which it doesn’t). It’s that there are for more substantive and pressing ecological problems (overfishing and lack of potable water, to name just two) that deserve immediate attention and that we can actually do something about.

Exactement.

FROM HERE TO WOLFIE: I’m proud that Paul Wolfowitz cited the Marine email that I posted a while back in the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing this morning. I’m even prouder that such a Marine is serving this country.

GOING NEGATIVE: Now the campaigns have really gone and done it.

ANOTHER RAVE: Jon Rauch’s superb and calm case for equal marriage rights gets another rave review from civil rights historian David J Garrow in the Washington Post. (Memo to the WP: why don’t you provide links to online book-sellers in your online reviews? C’mon. This is 2004.) Honestly, this book is worth buying and reading. And if you missed Michiko Kakutani’s review of Alice Walker’s new book in the NYT today, then prepare yourself for a fillip of joy. Money quote:

In the end “Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart” is less a novel than a cloying collection of New Age homilies, multicultural pieties and trippy Carlos Castaneda-ish riffs, hung like politically correct Christmas ornaments on the armature of Kate’s tortuous journey from self-pity to self-congratulation.

No liberal bias there. Just honesty.

How can he still be taken seriously? Like everyone else, I’m absorbing the Woodward latest. For me, the big news is the following alleged exchange:

When McLaughlin concluded, there was a look on the president’s face of, What’s this? And then a brief moment of silence.
“Nice try,” Bush said. “I don’t think this is quite — it’s not something that Joe Public would understand or would gain a lot of confidence from.”
Card was also underwhelmed. The presentation was a flop. In terms of marketing, the examples didn’t work, the charts didn’t work, the photos were not gripping, the intercepts were less than compelling.
Bush turned to Tenet. “I’ve been told all this intelligence about having WMD and this is the best we’ve got?”
From the end of one of the couches in the Oval Office, Tenet rose up, threw him arms in the air. “It’s a slam-dunk case!” the director of central intelligence said.
Bush pressed. “George, how confident are you?”
Tenet, a basketball fan who attended as many home games of his alma mater Georgetown University as possible, leaned forward and threw his arms up again. “Don’t worry, it’s a slam dunk!”
It was unusual for Tenet to be so certain. From McLaughlin’s presentation, Card was worried that there might be no “there there,” but Tenet’s double reassurance on the slam dunk was memorable and comforting. Cheney could think of no reason to question Tenet’s assertion. He was, after all, the head of the CIA and would know the most. The president later recalled that McLaughlin’s presentation “wouldn’t have stood the test of time.” But, said Bush, Tenet’s reassurance — “That was very important.”
“Needs a lot more work,” Bush told Card and Rice. “Let’s get some people who’ve actually put together a case for a jury.” He wanted some lawyers, prosecutors if need be. They were going to have to go public with something.
The president told Tenet several times, “Make sure no one stretches to make our case.”

Tenet misjudged the intelligence (if Iraq’s WMD stockpiles were a “slam-dunk,” then I’m a heterosexual) and he failed to ensure that no one stretched the case. The president asked the right questions. Tenet gave the wrong answers. It was on his watch that 9/11 took place. He still argues it will take another five years to get the bureaucracy in shape. Until he is fired, no one should have ultimate confidence that the Bush administration can win the war on terror.

GREEN CONSERVATISM: The incomparable David Brooks looks at the Bush administration’s environmental policies. I agree with everything he says – including his criticism of the broken Bush promise to come up with something instead of Kyoto. I’ve long believed that there could be an imaginative fusion of conservative principles with environmentalism – a sensible policy toward greater animal welfare, the use of market mechanisms to trade pollution rights, higher gas taxes and lower income taxes, to name a few. My first ever publication was called “Greening the Tories,” a little pamphlet written for Margaret Thatcher’s free-lance policy unit in 1985. But it never really caught on. Doesn’t seem to work with the brand, especially in America. But I’m still hopeful. Look at Bjorn Lomborg’s positive proposals (as opposed to his critique of enviro-leftism) and there’s a whole arena of policy to be exploited by conservatives.

BUSH GAINS: How to account for president Bush’s resilient polling numbers? It’s the war, stupid. And guess what? All of you who thought that press conference was a disaster were, ahem, WRONG. Whatever the headlines, the domination of the debate by national security can only benefit the president unless Kerry can out-hawk him. Kerry’s “Sister Souljah” moment must come when he denounces the anti-war left. Without that moment, he’ll lose.

SOCIAL SECURITY: Want to rescue the program and balance the budget? It’s easy, m-kay. (Hat tip: Mickey.)

VIETNAM AND IRAQ: A blogger does some numerical fisking of a Knight Ridder quote.

Lileks goes after me on the gas tax. I ride a bike; his family owns gas stations. He makes a few good points. I don’t think there’s much point in rehashing all of this. As a general principle, I favor sales taxes over income taxes. And I favor low taxes. But the gas tax is so low, so damaging to our environment, to fuel efficiency and to our foreign policy, I still favor an increase. It won’t happen, of course. But I wonder what James – whose writing on the war and love for the Pet Shop Boys will always earn him a warm place in my heart – thinks we should do to deal with our burgeoning fiscal bankruptcy.

“‘…in alienating large sections of moderate opinion and failing to sway even a majority of the evangelical base.’

Andrew, why the complete suprise? As a member of an (to understate it wildly) often maligned minority yourself, why do you succumb to the exact same sort of attitude against evangelicals? Simply put, you, also, are a prejudiced, opinionated, biased jerk.
Some of us who are evangelicals can read, comprehend multi-syllable words, and tie our own shoes. In fact, I can frequently find my own way home at night without the guidance of a snobbish, self-aggrandizing, liberal elitist such as yourself. (Some of us are even able to read and comprehend your blog.) So you want to lump us together and assume we, none of us, are moderate about anything or can form our own opinions. Get over yourself and grow up.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

Much closer than Sid Blumenthal gives them credit for.

THE LEFT VERSUS KERRY: This is the Kerry campaign’s dream: get the anti-war, anti-American left to start calling you worse than Bush on Iraq. Pity it’s in Australia.

HITCH’S SECOND THOUGHTS: They amount to a wish that we had acted ten years sooner to get rid of the Saddam cancer in the Middle East.

I’m still an optimist on Iraq – more since the past week. Here’s my Sunday Times column on why.

APOLOGIZE TO YEE: The military needs to apologize to Captain James Yee, the Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay, who was smeared, attacked, prosecuted and now muzzled by his superiors – with no valid case against him at all. Nothing less than a public apology from Rumsfeld seems to me to be appropriate, given that Yee was accused of espionage and then, when that case fell apart, adultery. Instead, the top brass are still smearing him.

EURO-ANTI-SEMITISM WATCH: Just read this thread by readers in response to anti-anti-Israel articles in the Guardian/Observer, a paper that routinely spins the news against the Jewish state. Here’s a classic statement: “Aaronovitch and Cohen should accept that with a Jewish ancestry, they are the last people in Britain with any credibility in the denunciation of the use of violence in pursuit of political ends – let alone the insanity of religious belief.” Or this comment: “The point is that The Observer should give some thought to employing people of Jewish descent and allowing them to write one-sided diatribes which are more than likely to be latched upon by anti-Semites.” After reading more and more of this, it’s hard not to feel a sickening lurch in the stomach. Is this poison really still around? And in enlightened British circles?

A HAWK WOBBLES: … and rights himself. A wonderfully frank piece by Johann Hari.

HEADLINE OF THE DAY: From FinanceAsia.com.

EVANGELICALS AGAINST THE FMA: I was always intrigued and somewhat perplexed by online polls on evangelical websites that showed opposition to the unprecedented attempt to ban gay marriage by amending the constitution of the United States. I don’t trust online polls, so i figured they’d been hijacked (as some often are). But along comes a real and comprehensive poll of over 1600 evangelicals that finds a majority opposed to amending the constitution to ban civil marriage for gays. The poll was commissioned by PBS and US News and World Report. 52 percent of evangelicals said they preferred the matter to be handled by the states. So they are conservatives after all! Moreover 48 percent of evangelicals said that support for marriage rights for gays would not disqualify a candidate from their vote. According to the Baltimore Sun, “John Green, a professor of political science at the University of Akron and a leading authority on evangelicals, attributed their opposition to a strong belief in federalism and a reluctance – shared with many Americans – to tamper with the Constitution.” So the president’s endorsement of this extreme measure has succeeded in alienating large sections of moderate opinion and failing to sway even a mjority of the evangelical base. The genius of Karl Rove strikes again. (Meanwhile, Jewish denominations agonize over and debate the issue.)

AN INTERVIEW: With a relatively new blogger by yours truly. Am I prepared to back Kerry over Bush this fall? I explain.

MORE LATER: Having been all the way across the country and back last week, I took yesterday off for R&R. It was a summer day here in Washington D.C. Hence the light dish this morning. Tune in later today for more blogging.

All of your opposition merely convinced me I was right. Here’s my Time column on why raising gas taxes would be a very good thing. Here’s Ramesh Ponnuru’s critique. Make your own mind up.

MOORE LIES: A blogger goes after the big fat idiot of the left.

The religious right head of the Office of Special Counsel is at it again. First, he tried to reverse anti-discrimination policies against gay federal employees. Now he’s trying to issue a gag-order on whistle-blowers. Where do they find these people? Obvious answer: Karl Rove.

MORE ONION SERIOUSNESS: Another foreign newspaper takes the Onion seriously. This time in China. No, Beijing Evening News, Congress is not going to build a retractable roof any time soon.