Month: December 2009

by Patrick Appel

Brad DeLong fumes at faux deficit hawks:

I am–in normal times–a deficit hawk. I think the right target for the deficit in normal times is zero, with the added provision that when there are foreseeable future increases in spending shares of GDP we should run a surplus to pay for those foreseeable increases in an actuarially-sound manner. I think this because I know that there will come abnormal times when spending increases are appropriate. And I think that the combination of (a) actuarially-sound provision for future increases in spending shares and (b) nominal balance for the operating budget in normal times will create the headroom for (c) deficit spending in emergencies when it is advisable while (d) maintaining a non-explosive path for the debt as a whole.

Kwak seconds.

by Conor Friedersdorf

Eternally impressed by the quality of feedback offered by Andrew's audience, I'm eager to solicit some reader e-mails on specific topics that I can share in subsequent posts. I thought that this week, I'd try posing all the questions in one Monday post, and curate the best answers to share this Tuesday through Friday, one topic a day. Responses to this post or any other can be sent to conor.friedersdorf@gmail.com — please use my headlines or subheads as subject lines. Hopefully there is something for everyone in what follows.

1) BELOW THE MASON DIXON

Insofar as it is stereotyped, I always suspect that The South is misunderstood by folks who've never lived there, myself among them. Alternately romanticized and denigrated, its stature as an influential region in politics ensures it will remain a subject of interest, and its stubborn poverty makes it a matter of ongoing concern. What I'd like to know, as someone eager to travel its highways for the first time, is what Southerners in fact or in exile would advise an outsider intent on immersion. Were De Tocqueville or Michener or Steinbeck surveying it today — and I realize those writers suggest different itineraries — what cities beyond the obvious should he visited? What landmarks or museums or local color shouldn't be missed? What highways should he drive? Where should he eat, drink and sleep? Small towns and obscure suggestions are especially welcome. I'll share the best responses so that Dish readers intent on a future road trip can pick and choose.

2) THE BEST JOURNALISM OF 2009

Newspapers and magazines all over the country are busy preparing entries for the Pulitzer Prizes and the National Magazine Awards. I'm picking my own list of year end favorites and checking it twice. But I bet Dish readers can best us all. Any exceptional non-fiction is fair game from the lengthiest magazine feature to the pithiest blog post. Audio and video are fine too as long as they can be linked. All entries must have been published this calendar year.

3) READER ASSIGNMENT DESK

What does the media miss? What stories ought to be covered but aren't? Here's your chance to play assigning editor — tell us the story, the writer to whom you're assigning it, and the publication where it should appear. Bonus points to anyone who inspires a story to be written and published (even if by an author or publication other than the one they suggested). Assignments to bloggers are fair game too.

4) THE BEST JOKES

As a guest blogger, I am going to be slightly more conservative than Andrew might be, so exercise some discretion, but with luck, we'll have a bunch of great punch lines to get us through the day on Friday. Anything from one liners to long, narrative story jokes (my favorite kind) are fair game.

by Patrick Appel

William Poundstone explains the Balthazar's:

The main role of that $115 platter—the only three-digit thing on the menu—is to make everything else near it look like a relative bargain…The restaurant’s high-profit dishes tend to cluster near the anchor. Here, it’s more seafood at prices that seem comparatively modest.

(Hat tip: MR)

by Chris Bodenner

Rowan Williams, head of the Anglican Church, on the Uganda bill:

“Overall, the proposed legislation is of shocking severity and I can’t see how it could be supported by any Anglican who is committed to what the Communion has said in recent decades,” says Dr Williams. “Apart from invoking the death penalty, it makes pastoral care impossible – it seeks to turn pastors into informers.”

Still silence from the head of the Catholic Church.

by Andrew Sprung

Two newswire-based briefs that ran on the same day last week in Pakistan's English language Daily Times online capture the ambivalent, not to say schizophrenic, nature of U.S. dealings with Pakistan. First, an AFP digest of what had been a front-page New York Times expose:

US threatens to chase Taliban into Pakistan

WASHINGTON: The US has warned the government that its forces will chase Taliban forces into Pakistan if Islamabad does not get tough with the insurgents, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. Citing unnamed US and Pakistani officials, the newspaper said the blunt message was delivered in November when national security adviser James Jones and White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan met with the heads of the military and intelligence. “Jones’s message was if that Pakistani help wasn’t forthcoming, the United States would have to do it themselves,” an unnamed official told the Times. That could mean the US expanding drone attacks beyond the Tribal Areas and special forces raids in Pakistan against Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, the officials said. “I think they read our intentions accurately,” a senior US administration official said. US officials said the message was intended to press the Pakistani military to pursue Taliban insurgents.

Next, from unidentified wire reports, the same message delivered with the exquisite tact of Robert Gates:

US to extend more help if Pakistan wants, says Gates

KABUL: US Defence Secretary Robert Gates says the United States is prepared to give Pakistan more help fighting Al Qaeda forces if its government wants it. Gates, who arrived in Afghanistan late on Monday, said it is Pakistan’s “foot on the accelerator” when it comes to fighting terrorists. But he said the US could provide more assistance “at any pace they are prepared to accept”. While Pakistan is considered one of the closest US allies in the war on terrorism, it is also accused of giving anti-US forces a safe haven. The Obama administration has looked for new ways to expand cooperation while considering widening missile attacks on Al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan. Gates also said the US was prepared to work more closely with Pakistan as soon as the government there showed a willingness. “The more they get attacked internally . . . the more open they may be to additional help from us,” he said.

This is, shall we say, not a new tack for Gates. Here he is in January '08:

The US would consider conducting joint military operations against extremists inside Pakistan if requested by Islamabad, Robert Gates, US defence secretary, said on Thursday.

“We remain ready, willing and able to assist the Pakistanis and to partner with them to provide additional training, to conduct joint operations, should they desire to do so,” Mr Gates said….

Asked whether he would be concerned about Pakistani public reaction to US forces conducting military operations inside Pakistan, Mr Gates said: “I think that they have to evaluate the reaction of public opinion in Pakistan and how they would react to such co-operation. And I think we would take very seriously and clearly defer to their judgment about what works for them.”

Finally, from the same interview, note this mirror image of the current U.S. "threat" referenced in the first brief to conduct unilateral operations in Pakistan:

Mr Gates stressed that the US was not considering undertaking large military operations inside the country, saying “we’re talking about a very small number of troops, should that happen”

Just a wee little deadly commando raid there, Mr. Zadari.  Pay no mind.

As Michael Crowley noted last month in a long profile of Gates, the former CIA director is apparently haunted by U.S. neglect of both Afghanistan and Pakistan in the wake of the Soviet pullout in 1989 and the cutoff of all aid by both sides in 1991.  Not to probe the man's psychology, his public response to this recognition has been to go to extraordinary lengths to view the battle with the Taliban from the  Pakistani leadership's point of  view. Speaking to CNN this past April, he refused to be drawn into a Hillary Clinton-like condemnation of what's often viewed as Pakistani double-dealing:

Q But you do think that the [Pakistani] leadership gets it? Because I look at what's happened, Mr. Secretary. They have these Taliban forces, insurgency, 60 miles from the capital, 100 miles from the capital. And what they've done so far is move 6,000 troops from the eastern border to the western border out of an army of about a half-million.

This does not strike one as a full-throated response at every level that mobilizes the nation and its defense forces. Do you think that there is still a way to go for the Pakistani military in terms of focusing on this threat?

SEC. GATES: Well, I think what you have to do is look at it in some historical context. For 60 years Pakistan has regarded India as its existential threat, as the main enemy. And its forces are trained to deal with that threat. That's where it has the bulk of its army and the bulk of its military capability.

And historically, the far western part of Pakistan has generally been ungoverned. And the Pakistani governments going back decades would do deals with the tribes and the Pashtuns and would play the tribes against one another, and occasionally, when necessary, use the army to put down a serious challenge.

I think that – and partly it's because the Punjabis so outnumber the Pashtuns that they've always felt that if it really got serious, it was a problem they could take care of. I think the – that's why I think the movement of the Taliban so close to Islamabad was a real wake-up call for them.

Now, how long it takes them to build the capabilities, the additional military capabilities and the training that goes into counterinsurgency and so on and to develop the civilian programs that begins to push back in that part of the country, I think, is still a period ahead of us.

But I would just remind that, you know, the first al Qaeda attack on the United States was in 1993. We really didn't change much of anything we did until after we were hit on September 11th, 2001. So al Qaeda was at war with us for eight years, at least eight years, before we acknowledged that we were at war with them as well. And I think a little bit of the same denial has been going on in Pakistan. But I think that the recent developments have certainly got their attention.

Q Do you think they have the counterinsurgency capacity? Because at some level armies don't like to fight these kind of wars, as you well know. What armies like to do is have a big enemy so they can have a big budget and never have to fight a war. And that is, in effect, what has happened with Pakistan with India, which is they have this big enemy. It justifies a very large budget for the Pakistani military. But they don't actually have to fight, whereas this one, the insurgency, is one which they have to fight. They could lose. And so they worry, I think, that they even have the capacity. Do they have the capacity for real counterinsurgency?

SEC. GATES: Well, I think that they are at the beginning of the process of developing that capacity. But again, to provide some perspective, in 2003, when we went into Iraq, or even in 2001 and '02, when we went into Afghanistan, our Army didn't have that capacity either. We had forgotten everything we learned about counterinsurgency in Vietnam. And it took us several years to change our tactics and to get ourselves into a position where we could effectively fight a counterinsurgency.

So institutions are slow to change even in the face of a real threat. And I think that the Pakistanis are beginning to open up to others, to get additional help. I certainly hope that's the case. But I don't – it's not something where I would sort of blame the Pakistani army, because we went through the same process ourselves as we confronted a building insurgency in Iraq.

We had to learn all over again how to do this, and we had to acquire the equipment to do it effectively, completely outside the normal Pentagon bureaucracy, for the most part. So perhaps I have a little more understanding of the challenges that our Pakistani counterparts face than perhaps others.

 "Institutions slow to change" is something of an obsession with Gates. To apply that prism to continued Pakistani reluctance to view all major Taliban factions as enemies bespeaks a degree of forbearance that perhaps only an old guard Cold Warrior can get away with.

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

Portland is a lovely city, but please. Houston may not be known, loved or respected by many, but we are the 4th largest city in the nation (Portland is merely 29th). Our metropolitan area is the 6th largest, with 5.7 million people. When Katrina hit New Orleans, we took in 150,000 refugees, about one third of Portland's entire population. Houston may not win many beauty prizes, but we are a MAJOR city, and any city with less than a million people should just acknowledge that and shut it.

This is important, because I don't think most people throughout the country know how powerful Annise Parker has become, and how excited gay rights activists should be about that. Houston has a very strong mayorship.

There is no deference to a city manager, or much opposition from council members. The city agenda is controlled 100% by the mayor. Annise Parker has an enormous platform to make her mark and show the country that a gay mayor can be successful and popular. And since she is now mayor of a relatively (compared to Portland) conservative and pro-business city, she can show that a gay politician can do a great job without causing anyone to be afraid of her ramming a liberal "agenda" down anyone's throats.

And though Texas remains very conservative – who knows? The demographics are changing in favor of democrats. Bill White, Annise Parker's predecessor, is running hard for governor against Perry and Hutchinson. He has something of a chance because of how well he did in Houston (and how much of a goofball Perry is). Who knows how far Annise Parker could rise?

by Conor Friedersdorf

Awhile back, I published an open letter to Jonah Goldberg asking him why he believes that if the right returns to power things will turn out better than last time. Contra the conservative base, I argued, the ills of the Bush Administration weren't due to moderate Republicans like Olympia Snowe or Arlen Specter, but to the folks actually pushing the reckless spending and corrupt culture — partisan conservatives like Karl Rove and Tom Delay who are never called RINOs or fake conservatives, despite crafting and passing the agenda that the Tea Party right is now furious about.

I wrote as someone who wants to vote for a resurgent, functional conservatism, but I think the only way you get there is by routing out intellectual and financial corruption within the movement, developing a successful strategy for actually governing if you’re elected, tempering ideology with pragmatism, and obliterating the impulse to sycophantic partisan loyalty that did so much harm during the Bush Administration. For this reason, even as President Obama pushes a domestic agenda that I'd like to temper, I see dissidents on the right as key to its future.

All this is brought back to mind by this post. In a complaint about The Week magazine, Mr. Goldberg writes:

I generally like the magazine. But it has a very annoying bullpen of columnists. This is not to say all the columnists are annoying, merely the line-up. Bob Shrum is the worst of the bunch — by far. He is relentlessly hackish. Nearly every column is a tendentious spin job (See today's, for example), that is better suited as a posting at the DNC if not the Democratic Underground. Democrats are always right, facts be damned. Republicans are always stupid and/or evil, facts be damned.

They often seem to pair Shrum with David Frum. The problem is that, whatever your disagreements with David may be, he is no right-wing version of Bob Shrum. Not even close. David is an unpredictable pundit. Of late, he has made it his project to go after the GOP and the conservative base of the party. Often — quite often — his arguments score more legitimate points against the Right than Shrum's ever could.

What bothers me is that this strikes me as a classic example of the elite liberal media's idea of "balance." PBS's Newshour is another such example: One unapologetic lefty — say, Mark Shields — versus something of an apologetic righty, say David Gergen or David Brooks. The thinking seems to be: Highly partisan liberals are insightful and so are conservatives who think the highly partisan liberals have a point.

Then there's the rest of the bullpen. Will Wilkinson is in there and I think that's good, because smart libertarians deserve more mainstream venues. But Will loathes partisan politics and has a what I think is fair to say an unhealthy contempt for the GOP and conservatism proper. For even more "balance," they include Daniel Larison. I don't read his columns often and — surprise — I hear much, much less about the guy now that Bush is out of office. But he is hardly a defender of mainstream conservatism or the GOP.

Interesting that Mr. Goldberg seems to assume that this disadvantages the right. I've never read a Bob Shrum column, but presuming for the sake of argument that his writing is "tendentious spin" suited to the Democratic Underground, it doesn't sound very convincing! Having read a lot of David Frum's writing, I can attest that it is often insightful, and conducive to the sort of robust discourse political movements require if they're to test assumptions, generate new ideas, etc. When Mr. Goldberg says that Mr. Frum's arguments score points against the right, he sees it as a handicap, but isn't it actually the case that "points scored against the right" presumes that the right had something wrong? Aren't those points that we should be eager to see scored?

"What bothers me is that this strikes me as a classic example of the elite liberal media's idea of 'balance,'" Mr. Goldberg writes. "The thinking seems to be: Highly partisan liberals are insightful and so are conservatives who think the highly partisan liberals have a point." That seems like a weird way to characterize Daniel Larison or Will Wilkinson or David Frum, whose critiques of the right spring from their own political convictions, and seldom share any but the most obvious criticisms with highly partisan liberal propagandists. 

And as it happens, I am far more bothered — and the right is far more disadvantaged — when the opposite situation arises: when, for example, The New York Times chooses as its conservative voice Bill Kristol, who phones in unpersuasive partisan talking points for the duration of his tenure, or when the Washington Post has Sarah Palin as the right's representative on climate change, though her piece couldn't possibly persuade anyone who didn't already agree with it, rather than Jim Manzi, who concedes points to liberal interlocutors when facts justify doing so, and persuasively offers counterarguments and alternative perspectives that benefit from actually being logically sound.

Perhaps Mr. Goldberg's post was actually a call for The Week to keep on David Frum, Will Wilkinson, and Daniel Larison, and to pair them with more intellectually honest folks from the left — let them square off against Kevin Drum, Brad Plumber and Kerry Howley. I'd certainly welcome the change, since I am ultimately interested in good journalism and a robust public discourse than short term partisan advantages, but it sure seems like Mr. Goldberg was bemoaning the absence of a right-wing version of Bob Shrum. Am I wrong?

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 8.15 pm

by Patrick Appel

Larison says no:

[T]here is something of a backlash against aggressive interventionism, but it is not as powerful as I would have expected it to be after the last eight years and it does not mean that America is turning inward…When 63% from the same [Pew] survey say that America is justified in using force against Iran in the event that it acquires a nuclear weapon, we can pretty safely say that this is not a nation attracted to policies of neutrality and non-intervention.

by Andrew Sprung

Really bad news for the Democrats' health care reform efforts on Sunday – specifically, for the compromises worked out over the last week:

In a surprise setback for Democratic leaders, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, said on Sunday that he would vote against the health care legislation in its current form.

The bill's supporters had said earlier that they thought they had secured Mr. Lieberman's agreement to go along with a compromise they worked out to overcome an impasse within the party.

But on Sunday, Mr. Lieberman told the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, to scrap the idea of expanding Medicare and to abandon the idea of any new government insurance plan, or lose his vote.

Since Olympia Snowe has also come out against the Medicare expansion, it would appear that the Gang of 10's compromise is dead and that a bill can't get through the Senate with either a public option or Medicare expansion. Unless Lieberman makes one more grandstanding reversal. Or all of Barack Obama's courting of Snowe pays off somehow.  Or Susan Collins has an epiphany. Or someone resigns abruptly and Santa is appointed to the Senate.  Perhaps there's a glimmer of hope that a good CBO score would give one 'moderate' cover to reverse course on the Medicare expansion.

Personally, I'd rather the Democrats cave to Snowe's conditions than Lieberman's. With regard to Holy Joe, there's really nothing to say that Steve Benan and Ezra Klein haven't reiterated and documented  about his intellectually dishonest, factually inaccurate, self-contradictory, self-serving, grandstanding opposition to the public option and his faux fiscal rectitude (see Benan here, Klein here and here ). This morning, Jonathan Cohn traces Lieberman's double-dealing and personal reversal specifically on the Medicare buy-in.

For the record, Jonathan Chait called  Lieberman's brewing betrayal back on Oct. 27.