Month: October 2009

Glad to see I'm not the only one who looks at that party and shudders. The rest of them tend to be … Democratic voters.

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 11.30 am

I said my piece about this on this blog a while back. I do not think it's professional to air the specifics of internal battles after the fact, and I take full responsibility for being the editor of the magazine that published the piece. I accepted an award for it. I stood behind it. In my view, it had many interesting points and as an intellectual exercize in contemplating the full possible consequences of Hillary Clinton's proposal, it was provocative and well worth running. But its premise that these potential consequences were indisputably in the bill in that kind of detail was simply wrong; and I failed to correct that, although all I can say is that I tried.  One key paragraph – critical to framing the piece so it was not a declaration of fact but an assertion of what might happen if worst came to worst – became a battlefield with her for days; and all I can say is, I lost. I guess I could have quit. Maybe I should have. I decided I would run the piece but follow it with as much dissent and criticism as possible. I did discover that she was completely resistant to rational give-and-take. It was her way or the highway. 

I ensured that TNR ran a long and detailed rebuttal; and I also ensured, as a conservative steward of a liberal magazine, that we editorialized in favor of the Cooper plan for universal healthcare, which we did consistently. During that period, I also commissioned and ran dozens of pieces explaining the healthcare debate from the Clinton point of view.

Again, I take responsibility.

I was the editor; I threatened to quit on another occasion; it was my call; and I took credit for its impact; and did not criticize her (and praised her tenacity) subsequently. No one else is responsible. In retrospect, it was not my finest hour. I think there was a fascinating and provocative piece in there – and I always viewed The New Republic not as a tablet of liberal stone, but as a place where liberalism should be unafraid of challenges to it, and where lazy liberalism needed to be given a work-out. I enjoyed driving many liberals a little crazy in the untraditional, experimental – and often conservative and libertarian – pieces I commissioned (although I did not originally contact or commission McCaughey). Yes, that was when I was as popular with mainstream liberals as I am with mainstream conservatives today.

But look: it was one piece in a magazine. It's being treated as if it were a turning point in history. Please. There's one reason the Clinton healthcare bill failed and it isn't Betsy McCaughey. It's Hillary Clinton.

Frum takes issue with this survey:

Can we take this report as definitive proof of how silly such surveys are? For any item about which people really care – their brand of toothpaste for example – opinion is legendarily difficult to move. If global approval of the United States can be swung so dramatically by an election return, does that not suggest (even assuming that the survey is valid) that global approval of the United States is a very shallow and fleeting attitude? That the movement in such attitudes is more like the swinging of the dials in a focus group than like a true change of mind? Anything that swings one way very fast can swing another way very fast – and that tells us that when we chase such fluctuating moods, we are chasing nebulous nothings.

Keep dreaming, David. The main reason for the dramatic swing is simply massive global relief that Bush and Cheney are now gone and some kind of rational discourse and diplomacy have replaced the "axis of evil" and "enhanced interrogation."

Some of us saw the potential for this a while back and hoped the inevitable burst of relief that torturers and debtors had left the building might re-position the US. Think of the way that deep depressions can lead to rapid recoveries. America was in a pit in 2008 not seen since 1979. Even originally unpopular presidents abroad, like Reagan, ended up respected. But not Bush and not Cheney. They still send shudders up most non-American spines (and plenty of American ones too).

I suspect even David is in denial as to how profoundly wrecked the American brand was after eight years of mounting debt, a bubble economy, withdrawal from the Geneva Conventions, denial of climate change, a pre-emptive war waged on false pretenses, and a president who was simply both out of his depth and wantonly reckless. We had the Republican equivalent of a two-term Carter presidency. Even America's best friends had been alienated and appalled.

Obama’s approval ratings on health insurance reform have been rising for a while now – ever since the Town Hall hysteria:

That's Michael Wolff's take on Rupert Murdoch's online strategy:

The more he can choke off the Internet as a free news medium, the more publishers he can get to join him, the more people he can bring back to his papers. It is not a war he can win in the long term, but a little Murdoch rearguard action might get him to his own retirement. Then it’s somebody else’s problem.

Wouldn't that be his son's?

Once again, his intellectual honesty redeems his network:

A reader writes:

A couple years ago I found that my productivity at work was declining and I was losing interest in doing just about anything in my life.  A friend of mine recommended I see a psychiatrist; I was diagnosed as having depression, and prescribed Wellbutrin. Within a month I was starting to feel a little bit better and was a little more productive, but there was a huge tradeoff: the medication was causing my heart to race and skip beats and was making my jaw clench.  I was afraid to continue Wellbutrin given its side effects, but I didn't want to give up on trying to treat my depression.

Being in California, I went to my doctor and got a recommendation for

marijuana.

 (I had only tried it twice in my life before then, and had never thought it could really be used for medicinal purposes.)  I visited the local dispensary, got some sativa (the uplifting, energetic, clear-headed kind of cannabis), and got a vaporizer.  Over the course of the next year I had some sativa once or twice a week (more than that is counterproductive); it made my depression go away completely.  Earlier this year I decided that my treatment had run its course, so I stopped using cannabis.  I've been doing fine since and have had no withdrawal issues.

While Wellbutrin was effective, it had dangerous side effects; for the same condition, it turns out that sativa was just as effective for me and had none of the negative side effects (and since I used a vaporizer I didn't have to smoke anything).  Bottom line: I was surprised to find that cannabis sativa was effective to treat my depression, but it really worked.  I also realized that what I had been taught about marijuana as a kid was wrong – it is less addictive than alcohol and its intoxicating effects are less debilitating.

I've done some research on it since then, and have found that studies show that cannabis sativa is effective in treating depression when used moderately (like I did – once or twice each week), but is counterproductive when used excessively (such as every day).

Marc Lynch wants new Afghanistan metrics:

For everyone involved in the debate — including me — what specific developments, metrics, or events would lead you to change your mind?  What are the things which, if observed over the next year, would lead you to support a different policy?  For me, it's perhaps the consolidation of a more legitimate Afghan political order and stronger evidence that Afghans and Pakistanis shared America's conception of interests.  For Steve Biddle yesterday, it was the opposite:  evidence that 12-18 months of sustained American efforts had not improved Afghan governance or political legitimacy.  For Nagl, it was Pakistan giving up its nuclear weapons (?).  Yesterday John Nagl said that we shouldn't think of the Afghanistan war having gone on 8 years, since COIN was only now being tried.  Well, the debate about the Afghan war has really only been going on for a couple of months.  Let's give that some time too.

The Dish spotlighted the great blog "Letters Of Note" last month, but this memo written by some guy named "Matt" is worth sharing:

(Hat tip: BF)