Month: March 2010

James Joyner is against putting further sanctions on Iran. He argues that "sanctions make those enacting them feel like they're doing something but wind up hurting the very people we're ostensibly trying to help, the ordinary citizens suffering under repressive regimes." They are also hard to repeal:

As [Kenneth Katzman] explained in his talk, some sanctions fade easily.  He gave the example of those that come with being listed as a state sponsor of terrorism by the State Department.  The president can simply take a country off the list if its government changes.  Otherwise, as was the case after Libya agreed to abandon its WMD pursuit, the president can order the removal pending a 45 day response period.  Conversely, sanctions put on by the Congress or the United Nations can take years to untangle.

Room For Debate argues over the Israeli-American relationship. Amjad Atallah's take:

The United States has been sending its messages with carrots and great diplomatic restraint. The current Israeli government, in stark contrast, has been responding like a petulant child, outraged that it hasn’t been able to get U.S. acquiescence to its own short-term political strategy.

There is a great deal at stake in this public and private dispute between Israel and the United States. President Obama should consider responding in a similar manner, by creating his own facts on the ground, and ending all forms of U.S. cover and support of the settlement enterprise and other policies that sustain the occupation.

Amen. Cut off loan guarantees, suspend aid, threaten to remove the UN veto. But none of this has a chance to happening except the latter. The Congress won't allow it – because the GOP's Christianist wing wants a greater Israel to hasten Armeggedon and because the Democrats are so scared of AIPAC.

Gallup finds that American satisfaction has dipped:

Gallup has tracked Americans' satisfaction with national conditions since 1979. Since that time, there have been three other periods of sub-20% satisfaction ratings, all during difficult economic times for the United States. These include 1979 to 1981, when the nation dealt first with an energy crisis during the latter part of the Carter presidency and high unemployment in the early part of the Reagan presidency; 1992, as the U.S. was coming out of a recession; and 2008 to early 2009, during the economic downturn and the financial crisis, including a record-low 7% reading in October 2008.

Alex Koppelman looks at the legislative accomplishments of the far-left hero who wants to kill healthcare reform:

[A]ccording to the Web site GovTrack, of the 97 bills Kucinich has sponsored since taking office in 1997, only three have become law. Ninety-three didn't even make it out of committee.

The three that were enacted are, in chronological order from first to last: A bill "to make available to the Ukranian Museum and Archives the USIA television program 'Window on America,'" a bill "to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 14500 Lorain Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio as the 'John P. Gallagher Post Office Building" and a bill "proclaiming Casimir Pulaski to be an honorary citizen of the United States posthumously."

A reader writes:

Don’t forget the President is still following the script from Doris Kearns-Goodwin’s A Team of Rivals, along with all his other readings on Lincoln.  President Lincoln calmly, deliberately, and with a lot of mistakes and few successes for several years led us to victory in the Civil War.  Oftentimes he was at odds with his own party, at least the “Radical Republican” wing.  Lincoln, and much of the North, even believed he would lose the election for a second term until Sherman took Atlanta. That’s the model Obama is following with regard to the Republican insurgency, slow, steady, smart, and ultimately, successful (we still hope). 

Trust me. I have not forgotten. It informs every judgment I make on the guy. I remain absolutely convinced we are beyond lucky to have him st thi moment in history – and he deserves far more grass-roots support from his supporters than he’s currently getting.

Ezra makes an essential point:

Over the past hundred or so years, the health-care system has gone from a very small portion of our economy to about a fifth of it. That's a remarkable rise. And it has been accompanied by a similar rise in the political power of the health-care industry. I've previously argued that the history of health-care reform is a history of decreasing ambition: FDR and Harry Truman propose something like single-payer, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson ratchet back to single-payer for seniors and poor people, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton offer national systems that rely on private providers, and now President Obama is building a private system that's initially limited to small businesses and individuals.

There are a lot of reasons for that. One is that political defeat engenders future timidity. But another is that the gaps between proposals give the health-care industry time to grow even larger and more politically powerful, which means that the next president who takes up the issue is faced with a more daunting task and pulls back his ambitions accordingly.

Haaretz:

Rather than making conciliatory gestures toward the Palestinians and promoting an end to the conflict, the prime minister is sabotaging any chance of an agreement on the issue of Jerusalem. His construction and settlement ventures do not contribute to Israel's security or economic prosperity. Instead, they render the chances of a diplomatic solution more remote, fuel greater frustration among the Palestinians, and degrade Israel's international standing. This campaign to consolidate control over East Jerusalem must be stopped.

Gideon Levy:

The timing, which everyone is complaining about, was brilliant. It was exactly the time to call a spade a spade. As always, we need Yishai (and occasionally Avigdor Lieberman) to expose our true face, without the mask and lies, and play the enfant terrible who shouts that the emperor has no clothes. For the emperor indeed has no clothes. Thank you, Yishai, for exposing it. Thank you for ripping the disguise off the revelers in the great ongoing peace-process masquerade in which nobody means anything or believes in anything. 

Jerusalem Post:

The expansion of Ramat Shlomo accords with broad government policy.

Differently timed, and ideally quietly explained to Washington ahead of time, it might have prompted public displeasure from the United States – that the administration had tried and failed to persuade Netanyahu to extend the settlement-building moratorium to east Jerusalem – but likely no more than that.

Instead, because of sheer ineptitude, the timing of the announcement immediately threatened the “proximity talks” in which Netanyahu has stressed Israel has a profound interest. It united the Palestinians, the Arab world and much of the international community in a chorus of anti-Israel condemnation. And most unhappily of all, it embarrassed our most important ally at a time when this ally, as represented by Biden, was making a heartfelt effort to improve relations and assure Israel of its abiding support.

Marty Peretz:

I believe that the great rabbi in the skies has not instructed Israel to force history to stand still. So let me be direct: The Palestinians have only themselves to blame on Jerusalem, as on other disputed matters.

A reader writes:

The video of the child who says…"that means you love each other…" made me smile.

My nine year old boy came home days after Valentine Day and reported with no hint of irony or malice (and kids can be vicious at this age…the expression "gay lord" for someone who is not cool, is a favorite expression in my son's class) that a classmate over lunch told him that he is gay, "he really likes boys." But that was not the issue. The topic over lunch was how sad that this boy could not send out Valentine Cards to other boys for fear of offending them or be misunderstood. My son was very taken by the fact that being in a minority, this classmate may have to wait a while to find boys like him.

And I have to say, as a mother who works very hard at teaching right from wrong, this issue of gay and straight…effortless…it has been effortless on my part. I have had to explain very little.

You are right the new generations get it.

I have my own story on these lines with my own beloved niece and nephew.

They were nine and eleven at the time and no one – their mum and dad or me – had told them about my being "gay." Because of the travel ban, my ability to see them was restricted so they came to see me and Aaron in Provincetown one summer. On their first visit to our little one-room, 250 foot condo on the beach was: "Where does Aaron sleep?" I said we slept in the same bed. They didn't ask anything more about that.

But after being with us a few days, my niece unprompted asked, "Where's Uncle Aaron?" She can still recount our marriage vows by heart. They get it.