Month: October 2007

Democracy Or Liberalism?

Daniel Larison counters Bob Kagan:

The authoritarianism in Russia and the populist demagoguery in Venezuela are both products of the very elections Kagan boosts.  The fact is that liberalism has a small constituency in both countries (outside of a very few western European, Anglophone and North American countries, this has often been the case), and when put before the electorates of Russia and Venezuela liberalism fares very poorly.  Some of this has to do with the fact that relatively liberal politics was associated with the wealthy elite and tycoons, and the effects of policies carried out in the name of liberalism were generally poor or even disastrous for the people who now back authoritarian populist leaders.  There will be objections that Russian elections in particular are not fully “free and fair,” but against this I would note that even with fully free and fair elections the overwhelming majority would still want nothing to do with the Russian liberals.  This is hardly surprising: in mass democracy, the politics of liberty tends to lose and lose badly, while one form of demagoguery or another (be it nationalist or revolutionary socialist) usually prevails.

A Generational Struggle

A reader writes:

In response to your reader who feels the reason Obama isn’t gaining traction with establishment Dems is race, I think it’s a whole lot more simple than latent racism or anything at all to do with race.

The establishment Dems are made up of baby boomers … of which I am one.  Like many other things my generation loves, power is utmost.

Obama represents youth and a consequent loss of control for my generation.  Kennedy faced the same turn the page hurdles with the added complication of being Catholic.  Obama’s complication is being black but he represents that same generational passing of the torch.

Make no mistake, this is about control and power.  My generation will likely not give up either without one whale of a fight.  Watch HRC’s dismissive demeanor when she puts him down…just as a mother might to a wayward, troublesome son.

I will thankfully be voting to rid DC of my generation.  We have so many old grudges that were never resolved, it’s time to turn the reins over to the young for some fresh thought, fresh innovation and fresh hope.  My generation burned all theirs out.

Quote For The Day

"I am very concerned about the undermining of the absolute prohibition of torture by interrogation methods themselves in Abu Grahib, in Guantanamo Bay and others, but also by rendition and the whole CIA secret places of detention. All that is really undermining the international rule of law in general and human rights but also the prohibition of torture. [Other countries] say why are you criticising us if the US, the most democratic country with the oldest history of human rights, if they are torturing you should first go there. It has a negative effect because the US is a very powerful and important country and many other countries take the US as a model," – Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, who has been trying to pressure the Sri Lankan government to stop torture and abusive interrogation.

In seven years, the US has gone from being a beacon of human rights to an enabler and legitimizer of torture in regimes not even Cheney would find savory.

Advice For Obama

A lot of people are asking if he will and whether he should directly attack Clinton. Of course he should attack Clinton, and, if he’s smart, he’ll focus on her endorsement of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment and her shilly-shallying over torture. But what he should really be doing is attacking Giuliani. The major worry many Democrats have is that Obama cannot stand up to Rudy-style "all-my-opponents-are-terrorists" politics. Give Rudy hell, tonight, Obama. That’s what you really have to prove.

Malkin Award Nominee

"In response [to Islamofascism Awareness Week], anti-American leftists and organizations supporting the Islamic jihad organized a national campaign of vitriol and hate that was almost unprecedented," – David Horowitz, taking a perfectly admirable stance – exposing the evils of Islamist terrorism – and turning it into polarizing McCarthyism.

Drum On Clinton

He’s leaning toward her:

It’s funny. I was talking to a friend over the weekend and asked if he’d decided who to support. Hillary, he said. We talked about that for a while, and he went through several possible problems with her candidacy and why he’d decided they weren’t really big things to be concerned about. But I didn’t really find myself convinced. In fact, the conversation mostly just reminded me of a bunch of reasons to be concerned about her candidacy.

When you get down to it, I guess I’m sympathetic toward Hillary but really, really wishing that Obama would give me a good reason to change my mind and support him instead. But he just never does. Domestic policywise he’s been fairly cautious and mainstream. On the foreign policy front he’s better than HRC, but only by a couple of notches. And his Kumbaya campaigning schtick leaves me cold. Worse than that, in fact: it leaves me terrified that he just doesn’t know what he’s up against with the modern Republican Party and won’t have the instinct to go for the jugular when the inevitable Swift Boating commences. (Needless to say, I have no such doubts about Hillary.)

Kevin, I’d guess, is not alone. Tonight’s debate will be interesting.