Month: August 2006

by David Weigel

Doesn’t it seem like Charles Krauthammer compares America’s enemies du jour to Hitler with frequency approaching self-parody? Brendan "Spinsanity" Nyhan did some digging and found that not only does Krauthammer repeatedly compare foreign leaders to Hitler, he repeatedly uses the exact same quote, from Idaho Sen. William Borah, to do so. Reading through them really takes you back to the Chinese invasion of Israel back in 1992.

Talk about hack column writing – these read like a parody of lazy conservative opinion journalism.

Um. "Like" a parody?

Scotts Valley, California, 10 am.

by David Weigel

Chandrasekhar has now ended two consecutive films with Willie Nelson pot jokes. Do I smell an auteurist motif?

Blogger Tim Brayton, trying valiantly to find the artistic core of the uniquely inartistic comedy Beerfest.

by Michael J. Totten

TEL AVIV — You never know what, really, to make of official rhetoric coming out of Beirut unless you‚Äôre inside Lebanon and know what the ‚Äústreet‚Äù thinks. The Lebanese government often makes public statements that are designed strictly for public consumption in foreign capitals, primarily Washington, Damascus, Paris, Tehran, Cairo, and Riyadh.

Last week Prime Minister Fouad Seniora said he was interested in peace talks with Israel. Today he said Lebanon will be the last country to make peace with Israel.

Who is the real Fouad Seniora? I’m in Tel Aviv right now, not in Beirut, so it’s hard to read the geopolitical tea leaves and entrails. I suspect Seniora got himself in a bit of, um, trouble in certain quarters and felt the need to “clarify” his position. Lebanon’s government is only slightly stronger than the governments of Somalia and Colombia, and is under constant pressure from foreigners to join the West, the pan-Arabists, and the jihad.

Even so, there are many in Lebanon who really don’t want peace with Israel, who really do prefer the state of perpetual war. They are the ones who enable and allow pressure from the Syrian-Iranian axis. Now is the time for Lebanon’s other friends, its real friends, to ask Dr. Phil’s favorite question: How’s that working for ya?

by David Weigel

Justin Raimondo bases his latest column on my post about Dana Milbank’s coverage of Mearsheimer and Walt’s appearance at the National Press Club. Milbank saw a sloppy presentation and picked it apart; I called the column "brutal."

Milbank, "brutal"? Oh please ‚Äì the Washington political gossip   columnist’s sneering "review"   of the distinguished scholars’ performance consists of noting that Mearsheimer   pronounced two congressmen’s names incorrectly (a big no-no in D.C., where politicians   are akin to rock stars) ‚Äì and the same tired,   old accusations of anti-Semitism if anyone looks cross-eyed at the   Lobby or its partisans. Oh, but you see, Mearsheimer is claiming to be an   "expert" on how policy gets made in Washington, therefore not getting   two congressmen’s names right effectively debunks everything he has to say.   And that is what passes for "logic"   among the Washington cognoscenti.

Well, that wasn’t everything Milbank saw. And those weren’t the parts I played up. What I played up was Mearsheimer’s misrepresentation of a poll on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict and the weird "Fight the Israel Lobby" button that he happily accepted after the speech. The bogus usage of the poll was, to me, Mearsheimer’s biggest mistake. Like I implied earlier, I take their arguments seriously and would love it if a serious debate broke out about the subject of their research. Curiously self-serving mistakes like this make it easier for the screeching Krauthammers of the world to dismiss Mearsheimer et al as anti-semites and frauds, and I absolutely don’t want that.

Raimondo links to the C-Span tape of the speeches, which is still worth a listen.

by David Weigel

In Venezuela, tough luck if you work on a golf course.

The mayor of Venezuela’s capital Caracas says he plans to expropriate two exclusive golf courses and use the land for homes for the city’s poor.

Mayor Juan Barreto has said playing golf on lavish courses within sight of the city’s slums is "shameful".

In Guatemala, tough luck if… well, if you enjoy having constitutional rights.

The Guatemalan government announced Tuesday that it had suspended some constitutional rights in five cities along Mexico’s border as it cracks down on drug growers and traffickers in the remote region.

A two-week order, called a state of prevention, allows the government to suspended the rights to carry firearms and hold demonstrations and meetings, while expanding authorities’ rights to conduct searches.

by Ana Marie Cox

Rumsfeld gave an endearingly retro anti "blame America first crowd" speech yesterday. VERY 2004, right down to a Hitler reference!

Someone recently recalled one U.S. Senator’s reaction in September 1939, upon hearing that Hitler had invaded Poland to start World War II. He exclaimed:

"Lord, if only I could have talked with Hitler, all this might have been avoided."

Think of that!

I recount this history because once again we face the same kind of challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism.

Also? The first rule of fight club is to never question fight club!

Any moral or intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can weaken the ability of free societies to persevere.

In other words, if you have to ask whether we should torture terrorists, the terrorists have already won.

by David Weigel

In response to my Stanley Kurtz post, I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails like this.

Weigel has not explained how he would propose to "stop" a ballistic missile from JihadLand to NYC. Only a ballistic missile has a 6000-mile trajectory, and as far as I know, there is no operational ballistic missile defense for the east coast of the USA against a transatlantic attack. [There _is_ a nominal BMD on the USA west coast.]

From Navy Times:

By the end of the year, the Navy will have a total of six warships capable of tracking and shooting down ballistic missiles.

Three cruisers — Shiloh, Lake Erie and Port Royal — already have the capability to track ballistic missiles with upgraded Aegis radar. They also have the ability to hit a ballistic missile with an SM-3 missile, shot out of standard Navy vertical launch system tubes.

By year’s end, the destroyers Stethem, Decatur and Curtis Wilbur will also have ballistic-missile defense capability, according to Lt. Tommy Crosby, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon.

The ships patrol the Pacific right now, but I have no trouble believing they’d be redeployed to the Atlantic if we found ourselves in Kurtz’s future world, where Iran flings around nukes willy-nilly and soylent green is made out of people. Remember that Kurtz’s nightmare scenario – the one more dangerous than the Cold War – involved a rogue power firing a single nuke at the United States. I doubt we’ll soon develop the sort of missile defense that could have neutralized a MAD-style situation with thousands of nukes. But one nuke?

by David Weigel

President Bush will launch another major public-relations offensive to strengthen support for the Iraq war — this time likely emphasizing the high stakes and changing nature of the battle more than the progress being made. The series of speeches begins tomorrow at the annual American Legion convention in Utah and will continue through the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and on into the middle of next month.

The new campaign is aimed at framing the Iraq debate over what the White House considers the vital stakes involved in the war and reinforcing public sentiment that favors sticking it out. The speeches will be aimed at rebutting mounting public calls — from Democrats and even a few Republicans — for setting some kind of timetable for at least a limited troop withdrawal.

– The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 30

WASHINGTON, DC—In a nationally televised address Monday, President Bush urged all citizens, regardless of race, creed, color, or political affiliation, "to quiet down for just one minute" so he could have "a chance to think."

"Every American has an inalienable right to free speech and self-expression," Bush said. "Nonetheless, I call upon the American people to hold off on it for, say, 60 seconds. Just long enough for me to get this all sorted out in my head."

"Please," Bush added.

– The Onion, Aug. 30

by David Weigel

This is already shaping up to be the worst year for incumbents since 1994, as Joe Lieberman*, Cynthia McKinney, Frank Murkowski, and Joe Schwarz have all been ousted by angry voters. Is Rep. Al Wynn (D-MD) going to be the next to fall? The congessman who represents the black suburbs of DC has lost the Washington Post’s endorsement to challenger Donna Edwards.

As we’ve noted in the past, Mr. Wynn has often seemed more involved in playing the role of a kingmaker in Prince George’s than in his duties in Congress. On key federal issues, he has cast himself as the most bipartisan member of Maryland’s congressional delegation. That’s great in theory, but too often his votes have been at odds with good government and the interests of his constituents. He has backed the estate tax repeal, a measure that benefits the richest Americans at the expense of the poor and middle class. He supported the Bush administration’s energy bill in 2003, offering subsidies to oil and gas companies even as they were headed toward record profits. He has flip-flopped on fuel efficiency standards and opposed campaign finance reform. And he has tried to clear the way for casino gambling in Prince George’s. All in all, it is a lackluster record.
…
Mr. Wynn insists he has been a successful pork-barrel politician; we suspect Ms. Edwards, razor-sharp and relentless, would be at least as effective. We disagree with her on some important issues, but we are convinced she would be the more forceful, principled and effective representative.

This is an unsophisticated political wish, I realize, and I’m not on board with all of the WaPo’s justifcations, but I can think of no finer outcome to the midterms than the ousting of 50 percent or so of the current Congress. From both parties.

*I need to explain what the asterisk is for?