Month: November 2009

Ackerman gets a response from Peter Galbraith, a former United Nations official in Afghanistan:

The run off was certain to be more fraudulent than the Aug 20 vote with more ghost polling centers and the same corrupt officials in charge. We are now stuck with the same corrupt and inefficient [incumbent President Hamid] Karzai that we had for the last seven years but now he is also rightly seen as illegitimate by a large segment of the Afghan population and by public opinion in the troop contributing countries. No amount of spin can obscure the fact that we spent upwards of $200 miilion on an election that has been a total fiasco.

And if this isn't a golden opportunity to drastically scale back our commitment, what would be? A clear reversal of course by Obama would be a sign that he can make a decision that the Beltway establishment does not have the strength to make; that he really is a change agent; that preventing Iraq from imploding again is now a more serious worry than propping up an unpopular, corrupt regime in Kabul … and losing more decisively to the Taliban in the end.

It's hard to find a more sublime version of it than Laura Ingraham's email:

Conservatism is the most influential political philosophy of the past 100 years because it's built upon essential truths.

The past 100 years? I don't know any Hooverites who think the last century was a triumph for small government and individual liberty. Look at the size of government since 1909. Look at the level of taxation. Look at the welfare state. Look at racial civil rights. Look at the role of women. The West is immeasurably more statist than it was a hundred years ago, and even the most dramatic counter-revolutionaries, such as Reagan and Thatcher, did very little to alter the contours of the state. The Bush Republicans implemented the biggest expansion of government power, debt and spending since LBJ.

But, look, Ingraham isn't really thinking here. This is a statement of doctrine, not politics, and all religions require a certain mythology (the idea that a conservative movement that began in the late 1950s extends backward to the earliest part of the century is truly religious thinking). So one can forgive the thoughtless hyperbole.

What worries me is the slow transformation of what was a vital pragmatic adjustment to liberalism's policy failures in the 1980s into a kind of eternal dogma. But tax cuts are not always the solution to every emergent problem; global warfare may not be the best way to exercize American power in the multi-polar world we now live in; social change – a multi-racial society where women and gays seek and deserve full equality – should be imaginatively shaped by the right, not outright rejected on religious or nostalgic grounds.

My friend Rex Wockner is writing peerless stuff. This really is another epic battle, and the best GOTV operation will win. In some ways, this is a war of nerves, and the far right knows how to win those. But we can and must as well.

However long it takes, how many battles we have to lose before we win the war, however hard it is to put your very integrity as a human being on the line for approval by strangers: this is worth doing. This is why we're here. This is what we're supposed to do.

Everyone has been wondering just how strong or sustainable the recovery has been. The GDP number and this new report on manufacturing suggests the comeback may be stronger than recently assumed. Then this:

The National Association of Realtors' index for pending sales of previously owned homes surged 6.1% to 110.1 in September from 103.8 in August, the industry group said Monday. The increase marks the eighth consecutive rise in pending home sales. Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected pending sales would rise by 0.7%.

I'm not an expert, but neither are the experts. What are the consequences of a much stronger recovery than many expected? Meep, meep.

Mac McCallister, a friend of Tom Ricks, thinks that Abdullah is just playing politics:

The Pashtun Karzai is still the front-man in this charade…In the meantime all will send delegates to Abdullah Abdullah to talk him off the ledge…The negotiations to keep Abdullah Abdullah in the game will be interpreted by all that Abdullah Abdullah has both credibility and legitimacy. In the end Abdullah Abdullah's faction will be offered a greater share of the spoils… Karzai will be President… and the government will continue to frustrate the hell out of us.

Several readers complained that the approval graph below needs to have Rasmussen – the Republican outlier polling outfit – removed from the calculation. Rasmussen has a voter model that skews GOP because it views Republicans as likelier voters than many Democrats. Remove this bias and the result is more nuanced:

Compare with the Rasmussen data included below.

Money quote:

Hoffman is leading Scozzafava 71-15 among Republicans with 12% going to Owens. Among Democrats Owens gets 67% to 21% for Hoffman and 10% for Scozzafava. Hoffman leads Owens 52-30 with independents.

One key finding that may have ultimately scuttled Scozzafava’s candidacy: 59% of Republicans considered her to be a liberal and only 7% thought she was a conservative. By comparison 80% of them consider Hoffman to be a conservative, and that’s a good thing where nearly two thirds of GOP voters define themselves that way.

Republican voters also appear to be considerably more energized about the election than Democrats. While Barack Obama won a narrow victory in NY-23 last year, those planning to vote in this race supported John McCain by a 51-43 margin. Obama’s approval rating with likely voters is just 39%.

Full results here.

The Newest Deal relays a riveting story:

In a stunning move, Mahmoud Vahidnia (pictured right), a student from the prestigious Sharif university and winner of the International Math Olympics, directly confronted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei during the question-and-answer portion of a conference that was being held [last Wednesday]. When Khamenei asked if the audience had any questions, Vahidnia stood up and answered, "Yes, I have some words with you.”

What followed was a 20 minute critique of both Khamenei and the Islamic Republic, coupled with interruptions by some of the Basij students supportive of the regime. Vahidnia criticized the propagandist nature of state media, the security climate stifling the country, censorship of the free press, the power structure of the Islamic Republic, and the very inability to criticize the Supreme Leader himself.

Persian2English provides a summarized translation of the encounter:

“Why can’t anyone in this country criticize you? Isn’t that ignorant? Do you think that you make no mistakes? Why have they made an idol out of you that is so unreachable and that nobody can challenge? I have never read an article about your performance in any newspaper because you have shut down all the media that is against you in the country. Why does national TV show all the events untruthfully? For example all the events after the election: why do you support them [national TV shows], when everyone knows they are lying? Since the president of national television is directly selected by you, you are thus responsible for all this.”

Khamenei dodged the questions and instead called Vahidnia dishonest. He claimed that he receives (and is receptive to) criticism every day, and that he always adjusts his behavior to account for errors. Soon thereafter, Khamenei departed behind a curtain before first receiving praise from a Basiji student in attendance. The prayer that Khamenei was scheduled to lead at the end of the ceremony did not occur amid his hasty departure. Vahidnia was reportedly detained by security officials soon after the event.

The dean of the university later claimed that Khamenei had given the student permission to speak out. According to Mowjcamp, the student was arrested.

This line on Hoffman, which I've noted, may be misleading, while technically true. A reader writes:

You've made several snide references to Hoffman living outside of NY-23, even going so far as to say he's not "from there." Actually, he's lived in that area all of his life. He lived in NY-23 until 2001 until political gerrymandering resulted in a redistricting — suddenly his house in Lake Placid was a few miles outside of the new boundary lines. In other words, he didn't leave the district, the district left him. He has said that if he wins he will relocate the ten or so miles to move into the new district boundaries.

A reader suggests: from Nutt sacking to tea-bagging.