Month: August 2008

Honor to those who in their lives
demarcate and guard a Thermopylae.
Never swerving from duty,
just and upright in all their acts,
but compassionate and sad nevertheless;
generous when they are rich, when poor
generous again in small ways,
again rushing to help as much as they can;
always speaking truth
but with no hatred for liars.

And more honor is fitting for them
when they foresee (and many do foresee)
that Efialtis will appear in the end,
and in the end the Medes will break through.

– Thermopylae, C.P. Cavafy.

(Photo: Fallujah by Roslan Rahman/Getty.)

Ezra sees the logic of Biden:

A Democrat has not been elected during wartime in over 50 years. A healthy party cannot only prosper when the world is at peace and the waters are quiet. But seven years of Republican incompetence and failure have generated tremendous mistrust in the conservative foreign policy approach. Iraq was a historic blunder, Osama bin Laden is loose, America’s international standing is dismal. There’s an opening for Democrats to press the advantage, argue that they, in fact, have the better record, and the sounder ideas, on national security. But they have to actually engage the argument. They can’t hope that events will do the work for them. Picking Biden, the Obama campaign signaled that this is a project they want to take on, and a project they realize will have to be engaged affirmatively and aggressively. The fact of Obama, the fact of Iraq, it’s not enough. You need to actually win the argument.

A reader writes:

I watched this program from the perspective of a Christian.  Obama gave thoughtful honest answers which, I think, reflected his faith and how it informs his life and politics.  He came across to me as genuine.   Clearly, McCain is uncomfortable talking about his faith; maybe that’s because it’s just who he is but it also may be that his faith is only superficially a part of his identity.   McCain avoided being personal by stringing together jokes and anecdotes along with statements from his stump speeches and ads.

You and I saw this very differently.  In my view Obama was the winner.  He participated in a personal conversation and McCain in a town hall meeting.

Another echoes:

While he is more animated than usual, he recites the tired talking points of his stump speech we all have heard a million times.  Not conversational like Obama, he says nothing remotely original.  His responses are set pieces he has seared in his memory from countless repetition.

I take the point, but the crowd lapped it up. This was a religious forum and the audience responded to affirmations of faith, anecdote and broad, somewhat asinine notions that our job on earth is to "defeat" evil. If that’s how you see foreign policy, you’re going to love the McCain presidency. So much evil. So little time.

9.57 pm. McCain’s evolution into a candidate who knows how to stroke the Christianist base is somewhat impressive. It was a little canned at times, but it will work with evangelicals. All in all, this struck me as pretty much a draw. But it also struck me that the questions could have been asked in a non-religious setting and by a real journalist who might have even followed up the questions and not allowed both candidates, but especially McCain, to go on anecdote auto-pilot. By the way, McCain said he’d go to any venue in this campaign. Somehow, I doubt that. 9.55 pm. I don’t mean to sound churlish but the cliches are pretty overwhelming at this point. America’s best days are ahead … etc etc. And then we get this strange peroration with the obvious refrain that the campaign has decided on: putting country first. 9.51 pm. Peerless answer on adoption.

9.46 pm. Why does the early Christian history of Georgia have anything to do with our decisions in foreign policy? He keeps mentioning it – so it’s obviously a talking point. Weird. Like Russia isn’t a predominantly Christian country? And his policy seems to be: send a message to the Russians. That appears to be it.

9.42 pm. So what is it: freedom or national security? And then he backtracks to say that national security is paramount – not everyone’s freedom. In several areas, McCain’s policy seems to be "all of the above." On the environment, he’s for every policy option on the table. Ditto with education. What’s not to like?

9.36 pm. "We’ve got to give them hope."

9.34 pm. Oy on the Congress joke and the bear research joke.

9.33 pm. "Rich" begins with income of $5 million. Obama said $150,000, as I recall. (Update from readers: Obama said that $150,000 and lower was where the middle class began. He defined rich as $250,000 or top 3-4% and above. Not sure what the people in the middle are.)

9.31 pm. I’ve never seen McCain this animated about education. He’s doing very well.

9.21 pm. He cites his own state’s position on marriage – but his own state voted down an anti-marriage equality amendment. And again, he simply says that gay couples can make "legal arrangements," and argues that gay couples should not be denied any of the rights of other citizens. But those "legal arrangements" can be overturned or removed by other family members without civil marriage rights. And he isn’t asked about civil unions, the obvious follow-up. I get the feeling Warren simply wanted to get both on record against marriage equality. Again: no mention of the people whose relationships are the target of these amendments.

9.18 pm. It’s going to be the cross in the dirt story! It’s a beautiful story, and he pulled it off very well. But I have now heard it a million times.

9.13 pm. "It took a lot of prayer."

9.11 pm. How many times have I heard the pro-American president of France joke? And the Senate Miss Congeniality joke? God bless him, they’re good jokes. But it’s getting like your grampa at Thanksgiving.

9.10 pm. How weird that an evangelical audience would give its biggest applause so far on domestic oil drilling.

9.08 pm. Two early shots at Bush: on his shopping comment and on torture. Both men have now cited torture as an issue – to Warren’s bafflement.

9.05 pm. A somewhat poignant self-criticism on his first marriage. Brilliant way to defuse the adultery issue in front of evangelicals, but he seemed to mean it too.

9.01 pm. He seems less at ease than Obama and his first answer – Petraeus and Whitman – was good, but not as natural as your mom and wife. But his humor shines through as always.

(Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty.)

8. 57 pm. I don’t retract anything about my concern that the first debate of sorts should be held in a church. But actually this forum so far was in no way offensive to secular values. It did not demand adherence to any religious doctrine and debated moral issues in terms that reflected faith but didn’t exclude the faithless. Kudos to Warren. 8.56 pm. "I want people to know me well." "We will get the president we need." There’s a strange calm to the guy, a self-distancing that isn’t simply aloofness. Maybe it’s faith. 8.54 pm. His basic pitch: to build bridges. To restore empathy. 8.52 pm. Finally, Obama mentions torture. Why has Rick Warren not mentioned this? Is it not incumbent on a government to police itself morally before it seeks to solve every wound on God’s earth. He has cited any number of moral issues, but not the transcendent moral issue as it relates to the direct actions of the current administration. 8.50 pm. "Enormous credit" to Bush for PEPFAR. 8.42 pm. Man, he can even talk me into higher taxes. Here’s how: he actually makes a simple case that we cannot have something for nothing. I get that. I know that. Of course, if all the federal government were doing were good schools and good roads, most of us would not be whining. And, of course, the little rant against complexity and loopholes cannot do him any harm.

So far, this is a masterful performance. Having watched nothing but ads and soundbites and speeches for the past few weeks, I’d forgotten a little bit what a class act he can be.

8.34 pm. What a great moment in the history of race relations that a black presidential candidate can say that he would not have nominated Clarence Thomas – because he wasn’t qualified enough! And, of course, I’m relieved that he takes issue with John Roberts’ view of executive power.

8.31 pm. Humility in the fight against evil? What a lovely change of pace. And the notion that a presidential candidate can actually say that we can do evil even as we think we are pursuing good ratchets the quality of presidential discourse up a universe or two on or current incumbent.

8.28 pm. Marriage: Obama makes the critical distinction between civil and religious institutions. But he and Warren duck the issue. The question is equality in the civil sphere. Warren opposes that equality; Obama favors it. And Obama sees that civil equality as compatible with Christianity. It is, of course. But what was depressing is the refusal of both men to speak of gay people as such, explicitly and clearly. Remember "the least of my brethren"?

8.21 pm. The egoist: "If I get out of the way," God will help him. He doesn’t seem like the celebrity big-head we’ve been hearing a lot about, does he?

8.12 pm. I wonder how those who still argue that Obama is a flaming leftist react to his citing of Lugar and Nunn as two foreign policy experts he’d listen to. Or that welfare reform is an issue on which he has changed his mind – to favor the Clinton reform.

8.10 pm. The first two people Obama spoke of as advisers were women.

8.05 pm. I find the Scriptural introductions a little much, but so far, Rick Warren hasn’t gotten too holy-roller on us, and has allowed an open conversation beyond sectarian or religious boundaries. Obama’s facility with religious discourse is quite obvious. The reference to Matthew was effortless, and his call for America to serve "the least of my brothers" a big hit with the crowd – and will resonate with evangelicals.

(Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty.)

A reader writes:

A. James Bacevich was my Colonel while I was in the 11th ACR stationed in Fulda, Germany.  Not sure if you know much about his background, but he was, I believe, passed over for general and retired.  His being passed over was at the time attributed to his having been the CO of the unit during the largest accident ever, which happened on July 11th, 1991, at Camp Doha in Kuwait, when our motor pool blew up injuring a few people and rendering the base inoperable. I was there, and it was a terrifying mess.  You can read about it here. 

Long story short, some folks in them motor pool were doing some maintenance, and put the halon fire extinguishers in an ammo carriers for m109’s (artillery vehicles) on mechanical safe, a heater caught on fire, ammo cooked off, and it caused a chain reaction.

My squadron was the one on rotation to be guarding (the other two were in the field doing maneuvers and border stuff), and I was asleep in one of the big airplane hangers when a 100 pound 50 caliber machine gun came flying through the roof and landed about 10 feet from my bunk, part of one of the vehicles blown up in the initial series of explosions

If rumors are true, because of that accident, a few weeks later, Schwarzkopf himself came to the base and and visited Bacevich, and a few months later, he was replaced.  Col. Bacevich allegedly took full responsibility for the mess, even though it was not his fault (it was the idiot mechanics who had the halon on mechanical safe), but he believed in accountability.  As such, he is the only man to ever be CO of the 11th ACR to be passed over for Brigadier General.  Before that, command of the Blackhorse was a sure stepping stone for General. Another soldier who was also there discusses it here.

At any rate, when you talk about Bacevich, not only has he lost his son to this stupid war we both supported, but he is just a decent, honest, honorable, good man.  At a time when no one ever takes responsibility, he is a man who believes in it, and walked the walk.

Ryan Avent calls Manzi’s article on global warming "the most sophisticated argument against comprehensive carbon regulation that you’ll ever see," but thinks it’s "fundamentally flawed" and goes on to argue in favor of a carbon tax.

Richard Just has a long and fairly nuanced piece on Darfur:

No genocide has ever been so thoroughly documented while it was taking place. There were certainly no independent film-makers in Auschwitz in 1942, and the best-known Holocaust memoirs did not achieve a wide audience until years after the war. The world more or less looked the other way as genocide unfolded in Cambodia during the 1970s, and the slaughter in Rwanda happened so quickly–a mere hundred days–that by the time the public grasped the extent of the horror, the killing was done. But here is Darfur, whose torments are known to all. The sheer volume of historical, anthropological, and narrative detail available to the public about the genocide is staggering. In the case of the genocide in Darfur, ignorance has never been possible. But the genocide continues. We document what we do not stop. The truth does not set anybody free.

From the archives David Freedman’s article on the Messier Marathon, a competition for astronomers:

Soon hundreds of stars were shining, along with three planets. By eight-fifteen most competitors had settled into a steady routine. Under other circumstances they might have filled notebooks with descriptions and sketches of their sightings — and many of the Messier objects are quite beautiful, from galaxies that appear as opaline whorls or streaks to nebulae whose indigo or other tints can be picked up by large telescopes. But tonight’s objects were quarry to be spotted quickly — "bagged" is the term marathoners use — and then immediately left behind.