Month: July 2004

Finally, a conservative objects to the fact that social liberals are all going to be given the prime speaking spots at the Republican convention. Kate O’Beirne wants to know where the real leaders of today’s GOP are: Rick Santorum, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist. She’s right. If it’s a sign of weakness that Kerry picked Edwards, why is it not a sign of panic that Republicans are showcasing people who have opposed much of Bush’s domestic agenda at their convention?

DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “Many of us feel discomfort at confronting this issue. I sure don’t like writing about it. Shouldn’t we live and let live? But as Dobson points out, history demonstrates that initial appeasement just worsens the eventual ramifications. When the countries of pre-World War II Europe noticed Adolf Hitler’s emerging aggression, they said, “It’s not my business.” But, as we now know, it was their business. How much sorrow might have been prevented had they recognized that burying their head in the sand wouldn’t help?” – columnist Shaunti Feldhahn, in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, comparing gay couples seeking marriage rights with Nazis.

The veep pick was the right one. But did you hear Kerry’s speech yesterday? It was so bad, so vacuous, so dumb-liberal it strained credulity. If this is Kerry’s message, Bush will continue to be one of the luckiest politicians alive. I fisk away here.

Two new developments. Another horrifying mass murder by the “insurgents,” i.e. Jihadists and Baathists. This time, they underlined their message by murdering fourteen mourners at a funeral for a public official that the Jihadists murdered earlier this week. They kill and kill again. This particular incident cannot in any way be attributed to the presence of the Coalition forces. It’s designed to terrorize Iraqi civilians into a new dictatorship. You have to believe that most Iraqis can see this for what it is. In fact, I do believe it. After the transfer of sovereignty, you can see the potential contours of the struggle that will now define that country and the region: terrorists versus democrats, Jihadists versus Muslim patriots. Remember this has never happened before. In the police states of most Arab countries, there’s no democracy to fight for or against. But now there’s a chance that there will be. And so we will get tough Arab democratic leaders (like Allawi) cracking down on terror; and we will also get new vigilante groups targeting the Jihadists. Here’s a fascinating quote from a video made by a group of viglantes who are now targeting Zarqawi:

“We swear to Allah that we have started preparing … to capture [Zarqawi] and his allies or kill them and present them as gift to our people… This is the last warning. If you don’t stop, we will do to you what the coalition forces have failed to do.” (My italics).

Notice what these people must have absorbed to put the battle in that context: that the coalition did indeed liberate Iraqis from tyranny, that they have been unable to prevent terrorists from exploiting the subsequent power vacuum, but that Iraqis themselves will now do the job. The silver lining of the U.S. failure to pacify Iraq just widened a little.

The news of Iranian officers caught with explosives in Baghdad is also an important turning point. The truth is that the “resistance” to the liberation was always formed around Baathists, Jihadists and Iranian and other foreign meddlers. But until sovereignty was transferred, they could always be portrayed as fighting America, not fighting Iraq. Now, within days of the power transfer, we are seeing the new dynamic. It seems to me that the best reason for voting for Bush this fall is Iran. We know they will fight back soon. We also know that Kerry is closer to the “see-no-evil” French approach to the Iranian mullahs. This is the next phase of the war. It has already started in Iraq.

FISK ON SADDAM’S TRIAL: Reading Robert Fisk’s sympathetic treatment of Saddam Hussein’s trial is an eye-opener. The language is particularly revealing. Norman Geras guides you through this terror-excusing hack’s rhetorical nihilism.

WHAT GOVERNMENT COSTS: When you add up all the taxes, red tape, bureaucracy, subsidies, pork, and entitlements, the cost of government now consumes well over half of national income. At least, that’s what Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform outfit argues in this PDF document, released today. That makes the average American someone who essentially works for the government each year until July 7. So congrats. You now to get to keep your own money. Woohoo. But the small print also suggests that, with the explosion of government spending under the big-government Bush Republicans, this number could go much higher in the future. It’s perfectly possible that, if John Kerry wins in November and immediately raises taxes, government’s take of the people’s wealth will have been ratcheted up a whole new permanent notch. That could be George W. Bush’s domestic legacy: the man who made the new liberalism possible.

Here’s an interesting little nugget from the RNC’s attack sheet on John Edwards. One of their points on which Edwards allegedly “doesn’t share the priorities of American families” is the following:

Edwards Said States Should Decide Civil Unions Status.
“Palmieri said Edwards believes states should decide whether to allow civil unions, a legal status conveying many of the same benefits as marriage, that was first recognized in Vermont during the tenure of Gov. Howard Dean, a 2004 presidential rival.” – Raleigh News and Observer.

So it’s now Republican policy that states should have no right to regulate the question of even civil unions? Maybe they should just be clear and put in their platform that any liberal states that want to pass laws that might displease the religious right should be denied the right to enact such laws. Why not a constitutional amendment to that effect? Oh, wait …

BLOGS AND CIVILITY: Why don’t I have a comments section? Dan Drezner explains.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “[Michael Moore] says that the whole of American foreign policy is determined by the Saudi Arabian royal family. Now, the Bush administration has been to war with two of Saudi Arabia’s friends. The Taliban, who they helped to impose in Afghanistan, and the government of Saddam Hussein, which they regarded as their buffer state against the Shia. The actual history is exactly the opposite of what Moore’s paranoid suggestions are. He openly says that he believes that the other side of this war, the Islamic jihad, torturers, saboteurs, beheaders and fanatics and murderers are the equivalent to the American Minutemen. So welcome to his contribution to the 4th of July celebration. The man is openly on the other side in this war, and the film shows it in every frame.” – Hitch, on CNN, telling it like it is. Actually, I think Moore may be objectively on the side of the Jihadists. But subjectively, he simply loathes American market capitalism more than Islamist fundamentalism. This mindset is structural. It was the same in “Roger and Me.” And like all ideologies, it is resistant to any new data. So the threat of Jihadist terrorists using weapons of mass destruction is unimportant to Moore compared with outsourcing or the nefarious Bushes or evil corporate America. Those are his priorities. Nothing changed on September 11 for Moore. He has simply used that tragedy to pursue his ancient objectives. And they are a terrible, cynical distraction from the war on terror. In other words, Moore is guilty of the fundamental charge he has leveled against this president.

Some intransitive permutations of a transitive verb.

This is what the Republicans have prepared on Edwards. A sign of things to come.

I’m not the only one to notice John Derbyshire’s psycho-sexual obsessions.

“Let’s see if I have this right. Kerry needed to pick Edwards because he’s “uplifting” and Kerry is not. Edwards’ positions are problems, but he’s a decent man? How about what’s right for the country. No, Andrew, Kerry failed the first test of leadership by simply abdicating it. What Bush did in 2000 was select a man who would add to his ticket and credibility, but stay in the background while Bush took his shot at convincing us he should be president; whereas what Kerry has done is choose someone who will be front-and-center carrying his water for him.

And if, as Saletan says, Edwards is being chosen because he can do what Kerry can’t, sell himself, then how on earth is Kerry going to be able to sell his policy positions to a hostile Congress or, heaven forbid, US positions to friend and foe abroad? This pick screams that Kerry knows he’s toast. And once the public figures out that John Edwards makes great speeches but has nothing else, Kerry’s unique position as the man no one outside of the strictest partisans wants to elect, will be self-evident. The betting here has to be that this won’t get figured out until the second week of November. Pathetic and self-absorbed choice, completely ignoring what is best for the country (a sober, experienced and competent Gephardt), and placing this country’s national security a distant second in the list of priorities. Frankly, I think this makes the Bush/Cheney point about them being best qualified to fight this war quite well. It’s not so much that they don’t think anyone else is qualified, just that the Democrats aren’t. Today Kerry proved it.

It comes down to this: As good a story-teller as Edwards may be, is that reason enough to put him into a position where he’s one accident away from the Oval Office? In a way, Kerry has actually selected a clone of himself in that form is more important than function.

The Democrats delude themselves if they think this will help Kerry pick-up states in the South. Edwards can’t reelected in his own state. Kerry has never frightened me in the way Al Gore did. As much as I want to see Bush reelected, I thought I could live with Kerry – until now. This choice is not just bad strategically and tactically, but psychologically insightful. John Kerry does not believe he is good enough to win this race. What more needs to be said?” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

Chait nails it:

Not having listened to Kerry speak since the primaries, I was surprised how awful and meandering his speech was. Even worse, it was politically tone-deaf. When discussing America’s role in the world, he put the emphasis on restoring alliances rather than keeping America safe and strong. He’s inviting the Republicans to translate his remarks into, “He won’t go to war without permission from France.” He also had a riff about investing in education rather than spending the money on prisons. That sounded very much like a belief that prisons come at the expense of education. (In truth, criminals prey mainly on the poor. Keeping criminals off the streets allows poor kids the safety they need to have some chance at getting ahead.) Substance aside, I think Clinton showed pretty clearly that the right political message for Democrats is to be tough on crime. What made Kerry’s departure from the Clinton pattern all the more striking is that there was nothing about prisons in the prepared text. It was all ad-libbed. Talk about bad instincts.

Right now, the profound weakness of Kerry’s candidacy – the man himself – has been obscured. Edwards is a perfect way both to keep it that way and to sell the positive aspects of the idea of a Kerry presidency (rather than the tedious, uninspiring reality). Again: a very smart pick.