Month: October 2007

Mental Health Break

Galaxies

In the heat of a primary campaign, it’s worth getting a little perspective, with the help of a Hubble photograph released yesterday by NASA, and sent me by a reader:

Two galaxies perform an intricate dance in this new Hubble Space Telescope image. The galaxies, containing a vast number of stars, swing past each other in a graceful performance choreographed by gravity.

The pair, known collectively as Arp 87, is one of hundreds of interacting and merging galaxies known in our nearby universe. Arp 87 was originally cataloged by astronomer Halton Arp in the mid 1960s. Arp’s Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies is a compilation of astronomical photographs using the Palomar 200-inch Hale and the 48-inch Samuel Oschin telescopes.

The resolution in the Hubble image shows exquisite detail and fine structure that was not observable when Arp 87 was first cataloged in the 1960s.

No Good Military Options Against Iran

This Stratfor analysis by George Friedman struck me as dispositive. It raises the possibility of every single kind of military attack on Iran – from air-strikes to attempt to degrade its nuclear capacity, to blockades, ground invasion, and bids to use military force to drive a wedge between the Persian population and the Islamo-fascist regime. Stratfor is hardly a peacenik outfit, and it concludes that almost all the options are extremely complicated and probably counter-productive. Here’s the nuclear analysis:

First, the available evidence is that Iran is years away from achieving a deliverable nuclear weapon. Second, Iran might be more interested in trading its nuclear program for other political benefits — specifically in Iraq. An attack against the country’s nuclear facilities would make Tehran less motivated than before to change its behavior. Furthermore, even if its facilities were destroyed, Iran would retain its capabilities in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere in the world. Therefore, unless the United States believed there was an imminent threat of the creation of a deliverable nuclear system, the destruction of a long-term program would eliminate the long-term threat, but leave Iran’s short-term capabilities intact. Barring imminent deployment, a stand-alone attack against Iran’s nuclear capabilities makes little sense.

Friedman is not a great deal more optimistic about any other goal and the means to achieve it. I’m not a military expert, so I welcome any critiques of the piece. But it is pretty persuasive to me that we have very few effective military options against Iran, and the ramifications of an attack could be dire.

Clinton On The Ropes

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One thing that strikes me about these debates: the Democrats are much more boring than the Republicans. I’m not entirely sure why. My hunch is that the Democrats actually think they may need to govern the country, and the Republicans are still just having some fun in the post-Bush wreckage. But the responsible rhetoric, stilted language, and long, literate paragraphs that came out of the Democrats tonight were a reminder that this has been the party of Adlai Stevenson, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis.

The obvious loser was Senator Clinton. Her constant calculation, careful parsing, avoidance of direct answers to direct questions: all these were reminders of a pure politician. She’s obviously capable, extremely intelligent, and so hollow you could almost hear the focus-grouped platitudes echo within her. She also lost that new-Clinton benign smile, that newly poll-tested glow. Instead we got an occasionally droning, lecturing, and unrelenting stream of tight-faced opportunism.

As someone who thinks Obama is still the best bet for real change in this election, I kept feeling underwhelmed by his performance. You wait for him to go in for the kill … and … he … never … quite gets there. He seems to be possessed of an almost pathological high-mindedness, and an inability to encapsulate his arguments in ways that get traction against his opponents. There were times when his oratorical high-point was the word "actuarial." If this is how he performs after we’re told he’s taking the gloves off, Rudy Giuliani must be licking his chops. Goddamn it: stop being so fricking reasonable and above it all. His response to the Romney Osama-Obama smear was – sorry to say – pathetic. He can’t get mad at these racist attacks? He had a great answer to the final UFO segment, and he got a few final cracks in against She Who Is Inevitable. But he needs to grow some balls fast.

The winner was clearly Edwards. He was concise, aggressive, completely right about Clinton and always on point. He seemed unafraid to take her on, while Obama was still playing a too-careful defense. If I were to give an instant sum-up of the debate – and I’m a blogger so it’s my job – it would be that Clinton’s profound weakness as a general election candidate was pretty badly exposed. And the main alternative just about survived as a credible presidential candidate.

In other words: a great night for the GOP.

(Photo: William Thomas Cain/Getty.)

Ambers On The Debate

Check it out. He’s there in Philly. Money quote:

Obama confronted Clinton in his way, Edwards confronted Clinton in his way, and none of us writing about the debate can say with accuracy which approach voters prefer…

Strategic ambiguity in this case may have provided the media with the anti-Clinton sound-bite it has long been craving. In real time, the way Clinton answered this question provided her opponents with a point of evidence to attack her credibility and character.

In the long run — or in aggregate — is this enough? As in — enough to generate an anti-Clinton movement among Democrats? Probably not.

Reagan and Race

There are two memes that attempt to tar Ronald Reagan with many of the toxins that now infect mainstream Republican politics, especially the issues of AIDS and race. Reagan’s AIDS record was far from perfect, and his long silence on the matter inexcusable. But the idea that Reagan should have been the ideal spokesman to reach gay men and their sexual practices in the 1980s – which was the primary means for restraining the epidemic – seems to me to be far-fetched. And anyone with a faint acquaintance with the science of restraining a retrovirus like HIV knows that the idea that the feds could have crashed a cure or effective treatment in Reagan’s term is a fantasy. But the race issue has also been cited many times, in particular his first campaign speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, which has been interpreted as a wink and a nod at Southern racism. Bruce Bartlett has a fascinating post up on that very speech, its context and timing. Having read Bruce’s post, I’m inclined to agree with Kevin Drum that Reagan got a (slightly) "bum rap" on that speech. But make your own mind up.

America Fights Back

Whenever I have gotten too depressed about what has happened to this country these past few years, it helps to recall that almost all the abuses of decency, justice and transparency under the Bush administration have been exposed by many decent, professional individuals within the government itself. For every Geoffrey Miller, there has been an Ian Fishback. For every David Addington, there has been a Jack Goldsmith. And there have been some surprises: three cheers for John Ashcroft, for example, a man I often derided, but whose integrity has shone brightly under the more exacting light of history.

Many of those resisting what has gone on have been conservatives in the best sense of the word: good public servants dedicated to the rule of law. I hate to cite Bill Clinton, but he did put it best: almost everything that’s wrong with America can be fixed by what’s right in America. Among these: the career military lawyers, the JAGs, and the military judges at Gitmo and elsewhere who have often fought the injustice and inhumanity sanctioned by Bush and Cheney under circumstances far more onerous than some well-paid blogger. Here’s a quote Scott Horton found from a Gitmo judge, criticizing the kangaroo courts that Cheney and Rumsfeld constructed for terror suspects:

The members of al-Qaeda may or may not ‘deserve’ trials in a time-tested and jurisprudentially sound forum. However, the world-respected reputation of United States criminal courts has not been built nor maintained for the benefit of any evil person . . . The use of an established court system at this critical time should not be viewed as an action on behalf of accused terrorists, but rather as a representation to needed international partners that the course of our ship of state is steady, and properly charted for the rough waters ahead.

Know hope.

Stoning And Executing A 13-Year-Old

An insight into the mentality that rules Iran:

Child offender Makwan Moloudzadeh, an Iranian Kurd, is believed to be at risk of imminent execution. He has reportedly been convicted of anal sex for the alleged rape of a 13-year-old boy. Makwan Moloudzadeh was aged 13 at the time of the alleged offence. His death sentence has been passed to the Office for the Implementation of Sentences and he is due to be executed in public, near his home.

…The witnesses and the two people who had pressed charges against him withdrew their claims after the trial. Under Iranian law, children (boys of up to 14.7 years) are to be flogged for homosexual acts.

However, the judge relied on the “knowledge of the judge” to determine that penetration had taken place and that Makwan Moloudzadeh could be sentenced to death.

… During his trial, Makwan Moloudzadeh reportedly maintained his innocence. … He is reported to have gone on hunger strike for 10 days to protest against his ill-treatment in detention. Prior to his trial and conviction, on or around 7 October 2006 Makwan Moloudzadeh was reportedly paraded through the streets of Paveh riding on a donkey, with his head shaved. People in the street shouted abuse and threw things at him.