Month: July 2010

Somewhere around $100,000, according to the New York Post.

Making my way through the WaPo piece on our massive national security police and surveillance state, the following quote from retired Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines leaps out:

“I’m not aware of any agency with the authority, responsibility or a process in place to coordinate all these interagency and commercial activities. The complexity of this system defies description.”

The result, he added, is that it’s impossible to tell whether the country is safer because of all this spending and all these activities. “Because it lacks a synchronizing process, it inevitably results in message dissonance, reduced effectiveness and waste,” Vines said. “We consequently can’t effectively assess whether it is making us more safe.”

And couldn’t we also say the same of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Jonathan Cohn imagines a world where Obama gave up on his domestic agenda:

Insofar as policy decisions really have hurt this administration, I would argue (as have others) that the rescue packages for Wall Street and the auto industry were the biggest liabilities. People got "bailout" fatigue pretty quickly and came to associate the administration with handing money to people and companies that didn't deserve it, which is a sure-fire way to destroy faith in government.

But the alternative universe in which the government doesn't take these steps is, most likely, an alternative universe in which the economy is worse. Maybe a lot worse. It's hard to see how, in that universe, the political situation for Obama and the Democrats is better than it is today.

From her blog from last week:

I do wish you guys would take a little more time with this decision, and I certainly do not understand why you are rushing things. Unless of course there is some reason for the hurry.

My italics. Isn't it odd that someone would announce an engagement in Us before telling his own sister and mother?

Vaughan Bell laughs at reporting on the subject.

Gallup reminds Washington's journalist class of the bleeding obvious:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the best known and most positively rated of five possible contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Her 76% favorable rating among Republicans is higher than those for Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Bobby Jindal… Palin has the strongest name identification and positives among Republicans at this juncture. Only 4% say they don't know enough about her to have an opinion, and, by more than 3-to-1, those opinions are positive rather than negative.

It's her party now.

Virgina Postrel, picking up one of her old hobby-horses, compares feeling and being glamorous:

Real glamour requires a receptive audience. You can only be glamorous if others perceive you that way. Feeling glamorous, on the other hand, means that your mental picture of yourself is one that you would find glamorous. You become the audience for your own glamour, creating a image of yourself that veils your flaws. Defying the ultimate intimacy, you somehow manage to turn yourself into an alluring Other. As for actual others, they may see something different.

Two small points in response to a couple of guest-posts. First, I heartily endorse David's suggestion for a one-sentence summary of where conservatism should now be headed:

A reality-based, culturally modern, socially inclusive and environmentally responsible politics that supports free markets, limited government and a peaceful American-led world order.

My only quibble is somewhat with the last phrase. A "peaceful American-led world order" should not be interpreted as a policy of constant war in pursuit of an unattainable peace imposed unilaterally by a paranoid hegemon. That's what the last ten years have taught me. American global power should be calibrated to the relative strengths of other powers (right now, it seems to me to be almost absurdly over-developed) and to America's economic resources. I believe that will require a severe downsizing in the near-future, and that this will be a critical faultline between Obama's realism and the return of an utterly unreconstructed Bush-Cheney foreign policy under a president Palin or Romney.

And insisting on total US hegemony (with its comcomitant delusions) while barring the natural rise of other great powers with zones of regional influence is a recipe for more conflict – not less. In my view, there should be no project for a new American century, just a pragmatic attempt to defend America's interests within sustainable resources. I think Obama has done a good job of dialing back Bush's massive and unsustainable polarization and over-reach. But I think future GOP nominee Palin could reverse all this in an instant – and will, if she continues to ride her mendacious media-enabled ride to the White House.

And last week seemed to me to confirm that she is deadly serious, that the media is too afraid to tackle her, and that the last real way to get at the truth about her has been effectively silenced and bribed.

Yes, Levi, you caved.

And wasn't it staggering that much of the MSM simply reiterated the Palin line without any scrutiny whatever? Actually, not staggering. Utterly predictable. Take it away, Mark Halperin:

This week Johnston and Palin's daughter Bristol reannounced their engagement after months of estrangement, removing — with apparent serendipity — a blemish from her wholesome narrative.

"Apparent serendipity." The words of a weasel, not a journalist. At least the NYT managed this critical quote:

Michelle Church, who was active in local politics with Sarah Palin, said of the young pair: “They both learned from the best on how to be an opportunist. Everything’s a farce with this family.”

How much money did Jann Wenner pay them for this piece of Palin propaganda? Don't expect the "press" to find out.

More here. Money quote from LGF:

It should be pointed out (again) that the “Ground Zero mosque” these idiots are ranting about is actually a proposed community center with an auditorium, swimming pool, and restaurants, in addition to a mosque. It would be housed in an existing 13-story building that’s two blocks away from Ground Zero and has no view of the area; there are two very big buildings in between the proposed community center and Ground Zero. Here is an embedded Google Map in which you can clearly see that the idea of this being a “Ground Zero mosque” is a ridiculous paranoid fantasy.

This kind of deception really needs to be refudiated.

Chris Blattman worries:

The 1960s were a decade of hope for Africa. The 1970s were a decade of coups. The 1980s a decade of financial collapse. The 1990s a decade of civil war. The last ten years, hope has come back. Peace and prosperity are returning, and one easily envisions, twenty years from now, a host of nations with four times their current wealth.

Unfortunately, I fear the next decade could be remembered as the one derailed by the drug trade. West Africa is Europe’s foyer to South America’s drug trade.