Month: April 2011

A reader writes:

If Gabrielle Giffords is considered a Senate contender only because she was shot, Balko would have a point. But she was considered a contender for the Arizona Senate seat before she was shot. See, for example, this piece from Real Clear Politics, hailing her as the most fearsome Democrat in Arizona and a possible Senate contender. RCP considered her more likely to make a run for governor than senator, but she was certainly being talked about for the Senate.

Steve Coll advises against it:

[T]he rebels have as yet no command and control; they serve a political entity (if that is not too generous a way to describe the councils that have been set up in eastern Libya) that is recognized as legitimate by France alone. There is no way to police the rebels’ conduct or to hold them accountable for their actions on the battlefield. It is not clear what the rebels are fighting for, other than survival and the possible opportunity to take power in a country loaded with oil.

Gulliver worries about loose weapons:

Guns aren't a policy. Guns are just guns. What that means is that once they're out there, you can't readjust. You can't recalibrate. You can't ask for all your weapons to be returned so that they can be redistributed to the faction that's better aligned with your strategic intent. You can only hope what you've done ends up accomplishing what you want. And I'll be the one millionth guy to say it: hope is not a plan.

(Photo: Libyan rebels return from battle some 30 kilometers before the eastern town of Brega on March 31, 2011, as rebel fighters fought running street battles for the oil town, about 800 kilometres (500 miles) from the capital Tripoli, with forces loyal to Moamer Kadhafi driving around and shooting at people. By Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images)

Erica Grieder is disheartened by Pawlenty's flip:

It's not so much that his new views are outside the mainstream as that they are so patently disingenuous. The thing is that as governor Mr Pawlenty was apparently concerned about the environment. He signed legislation that set renewable energy standards for Minnesota, and increased energy efficiency goals. He incurred some political risk for his views on the need to reduce carbon emissions; pundits thought it was a liability in his quest for the 2008 vice-presidential nomination. Are we to believe that Mr Pawlenty, having been interested in these issues for at least the better part of a decade, only recently realised that there are costs to cap-and-trade legislation? 

Bernstein continues to think a government shutdown is likely:

Basically, for two reasons: one is because it seems fairly likely that quite a few Republicans in the House want at least a brief shutdown in order to show Tea Partiers they're tough, but more importantly because the policy riders, and to some extent the location of spending cuts, are very difficult to compromise. 

Douthat grows ever-weary in the face of increased US entrenchment:

[T]he best case scenario for the United States might be (and perhaps has always been) not an outright rebel victory but a palace coup within Qaddafi’s regime — which could lead in turn to a negotiated cease-fire, amnesty for the rebels, and a “new Libya” in which the dictator slips into exile but some of his lieutenants remain in charge, stage-managing a transition to quasi-democracy.

I’m not sure whether yesterday’s high-profile defections make a soft coup much more likely (if they persuade the remaining leadership that the writing is on the wall) or much less so (if they strip the Tripoli government of all but the hardest-core Qaddafi loyalists). But either way, it seems like a better scenario than the only obvious alternative, which is to funnel American armaments and money into a fluid, chaotic situation …

In other defection news, several more officials within Qaddafi's inner circle ditched the dictator yesterday, including his newly chosen ambassador to the UN.