Month: July 2009

Floyd Norris highlights 'vote renting' in Iran.

Or a secret Muslim Kenyan impostor? It takes an awful lot of effort to get an Inhofe spokesperson to say no. I'd wager that a good half of the GOP base believes that Obama is a Muslim non-American. That's why the GOP in Washington cannot simply dismiss this. Still, I see no reason why Obama should not produce the original copy of his birth certificate. Well: I can see a cynical one. This stuff just marginalizes the GOP more. Still, I have no doubt whatever that Obama was born in Hawaii, but believe in total transparency from politicians. So show us the original. And then we'll ask Palin to produce Trig's birth certificate and actual medical records and we'll all move on to the real work of stopping any kind of change in Washington.

After actively supporting a formal policy of torture and abuse of countless prisoners, Rush Limbaugh now says this:

The GOP is against imaginary torture; but in favor of actual torture. In fact, of course, they have no such principles. They are for anything a Republican president does; and against anything a Democratic president does.

By the way, Mr Limbaugh, in response to your question: "Who's gonna vote for torture?" You, Mr Limbaugh, twice.

A sobering and highly convincing explanation (via Fallows) of why Obama is betting big on a hopeless cause. Not as hopeless as Iraq, I'd say, which is slowly unraveling on schedule, even with 130,000 US troops still sitting there. But pretty hopeless nonetheless.

It seems to me that the experience of the last few years helps us understand that the one thing that destroys both the Taliban and al Qaeda is giving them a chance to rule. And yet US policy is designed to prevent that from ever happening, to invade and occupy countries so that we keep the US (and not al Qaeda) as the enemy of the population, and to continue to send young men and women to die in two "countries" that have never been successfully governed, never been successfully occupied, and destroyed every imperial power before the US. I hope, I guess, that a miracle happens. It would be lovely if Iraq became a united constitutional democracy; ditto Afghanistan. But the one country in which America is now very popular is the one country we haven't invaded: Iran. Of course, that's why the neocons want to bomb it. Funny how that happens, isn't it?

All this would be interesting if the US had limitless resources, a booming economy and a solid financial base. But the US is now fatally, chronically, bankrupt for a generation at least – the way all over-reaching imperial powers become bankrupt. Washington is currently unable to do anything but spend money for special interests. Even a new president with big majorities can get nothing done on fiscal discipline except hold summits on it and propose reforms that will make things even worse. If he believes that the crippling debt of the next decade (let alone after) can be ameliorated by Orszag-style reforms in healthcare privision (however admirable they might be) he's more delusional than Cheney. In the end, Obama will have to decide if a country this utterly bankrupt has any business running a vast global empire that keeps expanding. He may be the last president with any ability to make such a decision, and callibrate it to America's advantage. After that, the global financial markets will decide it for us. At that point, it may come as a relief. As it did, in the bitter end, for the British.

The blue men get a splash of new color (a lovely ad that nonetheless makes me think instinctually of actor-genius David Cross):

Blue Thousand and One from Blue Man Group HD on Vimeo.

(Hat tip: VIBE)

God just announced a surprise resignation.

Here's the latest diarrhea of the mouth:

The reality is the Russians are where they are. They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they're in a situation where the world is changing before them and they're clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable.

Daniel Drezner shakes his head:

If Biden was just shooting the breeze off the record, I'd be hard-pressed to disagree with anything in the quotes. I'm pretty sure, however, that part of "smart power" is not being gratuitously insulting to fellow members of the nuclear club. Maybe, just maybe, they'll take this kind of dumbass statement personally. Don't take my word for it, though — take Joe Biden's:

It is never smart to embarrass an individual or a country when they're dealing with significant loss of face. My dad used to put it another way: Never put another man in a corner where the only way out is over you. It just is not smart.

The word "stupid" has been thrown around a lot this week, but I think it applies pretty well to Biden's language.

The sad truth is: Biden cannot shut up. But his job as veep requires him to shut up. Dan is right: on the merits, Biden isn't wrong here. Just completely unprofessional and unable to maintain the discipline to perform his job without constantly undermining his boss. I'd say someone needs to tell him to shut up. But it hasn't worked for the last thirty years of his bloviation. So why would it work now?

A snapshot of globalization. The makers of this video are bitter about the loss of Irish culture. I see the multi-racial, multi-cultural diversity as something much more positive, however reckless the push for economic modernization was in the go-go 1990s and beyond: