Month: August 2006

Baltimore City, Maryland, 11 am.

By Michael J. Totten

TEL AVIV – Um…something’s not right. Iran is supposed to nuke Jerusalem today, and today is almost over. All they’ve done so far is harass the Romanians. Well, that’s the Middle East for you. People around here just don’t respect time the way Westerners do. Everything is done at the last minute, late, or never. At least I made it through dinner at that fancy French place on the corner with the piano next to the bar.

by Michael J. Totten

Israel is not a good country to pick a fight with, as what happened to Hezbollah showed. Romania, though. They’re easy, apparently.

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — A Romanian oil rig off the coast of Iran came under fire from an Iranian warship and was later occupied by Iranian troops, a company spokesman said.

The Iranians first fired into the air and then fired at the Orizont rig, said GSP spokesman Radu Petrescu. Half an hour later, troops from the ship boarded and occupied the rig and the company lost contact with the 26 crew members shortly afterward.

Petrescu said he had no information about any injuries or deaths. The Orizont rig has been moored near the Kish island in the Persian Gulf since October 2005, he told the Associated Press.

Eugen Chira, the political consul at the Romanian Embassy in Tehran confirmed the incident, but provided few details.

"Some forces opened fire. That an incident has happened is true. We have no details or the reason yet," he said.

By Michael J. Totten

TEL AVIV — Okay, now I‚Äôm getting annoyed. Here I am, ready to liveblog the first use of nuclear weapons in anger since the end of World War II, right outside the blast radius, and Iran‚Äôs little nutjob-in-chief looks like he might not be into it after all. Maybe he‚Äôs waiting for the sun to set so the flash over Jerusalem will be bright like he promised.

My Nikon, my Sony video cam, and my Olympus podcasting dealie are all on standby. And no, I will not post a photo of myself wearing the helmet and goggles…

by David Weigel

Ryan Sager (read his book) takes issue with my dismissal of Mario Loyola’s adoration of the president, arguing that Bush’s "unique disregard for public opinion" is "a positive trait."

Where he’s gone against conservative principles is in areas where he simply doesn’t have any conservative principles. For a man who came into office without a foreign policy, Bush is uniquely unengaged in domestic policy.

He sold-out small-government values on education in his first major bill as president because he really doesn’t believe the government is the problem in public schools — he thinks the federal government just needs to enforce stricter standards.

He gave free-market health-care reform short shrift and signed the Medicare prescription-drug bill because he didn’t see anything particularly wrong with massively expanding the size of the welfare state.

He signed off on pork-filled highway and farm bills because reducing pork has never been a priority in his administration.

These aren’t moral failings, or a failure to stand up for what he believes in. He simply doesn’t believe in a number of principles that used to define conservatism.

I’ll buy some of that, but I don’t buy that Bush ignores public opinion. He "ignores public opinion" the same way a losing kiddie soccer team ignores its 0-11 scores. He’s obviously peeved when he’s down in the polls, or when Americans rebuff one of his initiatives. It was pretty clear in his yesterday’s press conference, but it was clearest in the 2005 Social Security campaign (an initiative I actually supported, at first). Bush was clearly angry that the polls were turning against him and tried to reframe the fight as his courage versus the whims of a wimpy public.

What Marlo wants to know is whether or not we’ve got the courage, the political courage to take this issue on and solve it.  That’s what she wants to know. And what I want to assure you all is that I like calling Congress to do big things, because that’s what we got elected to do.

He eventually gave up that fight, of course. And he had claimed, as he had claimed about vetoing pork-stuffed appropriations packages, that he was in it to win it and wouldn’t give up, damn the polls and damn the torpedos. He did the same, as Sager points out, on McCain-Feingold. He caved on the Department of Homeland Security – a big government disaster he originally claimed to oppose – when he (or Karl Rove) saw how it could be thumped over the crania of the Democrats.

There’s nothing wrong with retooling an agenda or message to stay afloat and push it through Congress. (OK, it depends on how you retool the actual agenda.) And it’s expected that an administration try to paper over its shifts and mood changes and claim not to care about the polls. But it obviously pays attention to polls in doing so.

(Cross-posted on Hit and Run.)

by David Weigel

The great Radley Balko (read his research on no-knock raids here) flags this video from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: 5000 past and present officers of the law united to lobby for reform in America’s drug laws. The group’s been ramping up its public appearances, and this is a collection of the best stuff. (Warning: The gap between organization quality and website quality will shrink as the group grows in prominence. Hopefully.)

(Cross-posted at Hit and Run.)

by David Weigel

Ana, I notice that the DSCC’s graphic is missing one of the GOP’s strongest Senate challengers – Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. Of course, Steele is black (he’s meeting with Russell Simmons this week – alright stereotypes!) After the Weekly Standard caught flak for portraying Al Sharpton as a chauffeur, I bet the Democrats didn’t want to risk the avalanche of negative press for calling a black dude a snake.

by Ana Marie Cox

It’s an improvement over immigrants=terrorists visual rhetoric of the last DSCC video, but, please, make it stop.       

by David Weigel

This blog post over at National Review is a classic of the genre, that genre being "Bush is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end."

Bush has virtually never in his political career made a decision that he didn’t think was the right thing to do and the right way to do it. Conservatives who are piling on the anti-Bush bandwagon should consider that this trait‚Äîwhich makes the Bush family historically great‚Äîis a historical rarity to be treasured. This administration would do well to be more concerned with its popularity ‚Äî the President and even Vice President should appear every week in press conferences and on the Sunday talk shows ‚Äî if only to strengthen the political viability of their agenda, and be able to shape the terms of debate. But it was not so long ago that Americans could only wish for a president who was obviously trustworthy, upstanding, and principled. And the day is not far off when we will think ourselves lucky to have seen this President defend the honor and integrity of his office‚Äîand the American people‚Äîfor eight years.

It’s funny on its own, and then you notice the author’s name: Mario Loyola. I’m looking forward to the post about how Hillary Clinton deserves unanimous Republican support in ’08 by Jeffrey Sarcastico.

by David Weigel

The newest in Nazi chic: a restaurant in Mumbai, India, called "Hitler’s Cross."

A huge poster of the Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler, adorned the inauguration function of the eating house, much to the surprise of the invitees.

The signage at the entrance also showed the Swastika encircled by the letter O in Cross. Bollywood actor Murli Sharma, who was among the guests at the inauguration, told TOI : "I found it amusing to see this poster of Hitler at the restaurant."

When you consider how many restaurants are opening in India this week and how this is the only one anyone will talk about, sure, that’s amusing. And you have to love this plug from the owners.

"We are not promoting Hitler. But we want to tell people we are different in the way he was different."

Indeed, all of the chefs are failed painters who secretly romance their cousins.