Month: August 2011

Last week Obama's Gallup approval rating hit 39 before reverting to the mean. Larry Sabato puts this in historical context:

The current White House certainly wouldn’t claim that President Obama is riding a crest of popularity just now. And there’s no guarantee that his wave will ever return. Nonetheless, it’s worth noting that three predecessors — Truman, Reagan, and Clinton — were reelected after having suffered the dirty 30s in the first term. Three others were not reelected — Ford, Carter, and Bush 41 (and arguably LBJ as well, though he withdrew before facing the voters in 1968).

Thus, there are precedents to be cited for and against Obama’s reelection. The only thing we’re sure of is that Republicans and Democrats will choose a different set.

Escondido, California, 10.12 am

Perry is greeted by some jeers, sharp questions and heckles in New Hampshire. I loved this question:

One questioner of Perry, who identified himself as a state representative — there are 400 members of the state House — pressed the Texas governor on how he could deny the existence of global warming when a number of companies in Texas are benefiting by manufacturing clean energy technology. "The record's still out on whether global warming is manmade. I'm a skeptic about the science so far," Perry responded.

And this one from a previous event:

If both "observed scientific data" and the National Academy of Sciences are wrong on the issue, Rubens asked Perry, "doesn't that call into question the entire science discovery process that is the basis for America's status as an advanced technological society?"

It sure does. But when you are a fundamentalist religious party, science is a threat, not an asset. Perry's claim to skepticism, of course, is belied by his own book:

In his book, "Fed Up," Mr. Perry described global-warming science as “one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight” and a “secular carbon cult” led by false prophets like Al Gore.

As the Tories in Britain have embraced climate change as a priority, the Republican candidates are vying to demonize the EPA. Bachmann is the most extreme:

“I guarantee you the E.P.A. will have doors locked and lights turned off, and they will only be about conservation. It will be a new day and a new sheriff in Washington, D.C.”

The Republican suicide shows no sign of any need for assistance.

Bachmann refused to go into her record or beliefs on the matter after winning the Iowa straw poll. Christine O'Donnell now says the same to Piers Morgan. It seems to me that a tipping point has been reached in which Christianists understand that their desire to take us back to the 1950s on the matter of homosexuality is not going to fly. But they do not retract it; they just refuse to discuss it, even when dealing with their own comments in their own book or past:

"I wonder if there’s any financing behind [Israel's Tent protests] … look to see if there’s any leftist global financing in Tel Aviv…And don’t look to see if there’s any Islamist group that’s joining them. Well, the National Socialists [Nazis] got together with [Islamists] but that's completely … OK, the communists and the Islamists got together, but that's completely isolated … well, it's happening in Egypt and in Libya, but there's nothing to look into there," – Glenn Beck.

Had a Muslim staffer with a similar history:

The evangelical organizer who helped Michele Bachmann win the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa Saturday was previously charged with terrorism in Uganda after being arrested for possession of assault rifles and ammunition in February 2006, just days before Uganda's first multi-party elections in 20 years.

Peter E. Waldron spent 37 days in the Luriza Prison outside Kampala, where he says he was tortured, after being arrested along with six Congolese and Ugandan nationals for the weapons, which were described variously in news reports as having been found in his bedroom or a closet in his home. The charges, which could have led to life in prison, were dropped in March 2006 after a pressure campaign by Waldron's friends and colleagues and what Waldron says was the intervention of the Bush administration. He was released and deported from the east African nation, along with the Congolese.

Jim Burroway worries about the company Wardron keeps, namely Martin Ssempa, a major supporter of Uganda's "Kill The Gays" bill. Such worries, when it comes to Bachmann, are surely warranted. She uses eliminationist language about homosexuals, claiming that even the word "gay" is from Satan, she endorses homosexuality as a psychological disorder (against all mainstream psychology), is the owner of a business that allegedly "cures" gays, and forged her career by targeting this minority.

Any other minority – think of someone with a record like this of demonizing Jews or running a business to convert them to Christianity – and it's disqualifying. The gays? Background noise.

Pareene gleefully summarizes this account of the Tea Party's toxic brand:

There is a shadowy group of malcontents in America today, plotting a grand takeover of our political institutions in order to completely remake the country according to their wishes. Despite the fact the members of this group are a small minority of the population, and an unpopular one at that, they seek to infiltrate the courts and the government at every level, in order to replace our long-standing system of law with their own extremist, undemocratic religious code. These true believers are especially dangerous because they think they're doing God's work, and you ignore them, or play down the threat they pose to America, at your own risk. This tiny band of fanatics is largely distrusted and despised by regular Americans, but a terrified media coddles them and pretends they're harmless. I am speaking, of course, of the Tea Parties, a group now officially less popular among Americans than Muslims.

Reihan, who has a different view of the "terrified media," isn't fazed. He highlights this section of the article:

The strange thing is that over the last five years, Americans have moved in an economically conservative direction: they are more likely to favor smaller government, to oppose redistribution of income and to favor private charities over government to aid the poor.

 Making the case that the op-ed misses "the forest for the trees," adds Joseph Lawler:

It was never expected that the Tea Party wouldn't be divisive. If they're winning people over to a small-government point of view, though, that is news.

Obama calls for Assad to step down in a way calculated not to seem like internal meddling:

The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. His calls for dialogue and reform have rung hollow while he is imprisoning, torturing, and slaughtering his own people. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.

Clinton announces new sanctions. Sarko, Merkel and Cameron follow:

Our three countries believe that President Assad, who is resorting to brutal military force against his own people and who is responsible for the situation, has lost all legitimacy and can no longer claim to lead the country. We call on him to face the reality of the complete rejection of his regime by the Syrian people and to step aside in the best interests of Syria and the unity of its people.

Violence in Syria must stop now.

And don’t miss this revelatory piece of reporting from Homs. Money quote:

“We’re millions of martyrs, heading to heaven,” they chanted together, as they marched down Al-Malaab al-Baladi Street, a thoroughfare in the city. A young woman in her 20s, wearing a white veil, called to people standing on their balconies. “What are you waiting for?” she asked them. “Don’t you want to join? There is no one left at home except you!” Boys ran toward the protest, and more cars headed in its direction.

A half-hour later, whistles sounded, alerting people to the approach of the security forces. So did car horns. “Security!” young men shouted. As shots rang out, a man ran down the street, chanting.

“God is great,” women replied from their balconies.

I think the impact of Iran’s Green Revolution remains central to these new protests and this new defense of human dignity in the Middle East. I know the dangers. But if something doesn’t glow in your heart to see such courage in the face of such cruelty, then you have a stronger strain of realism than I can sometimes muster.

(Photo: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leaves after making a statement to the press on US sanctions on Syrian oil, at the State Department in Washington, DC, on August 18, 2011. Clinton said Thursday that US sanctions on Syrian oil ‘strike at the heart of the Syrian regime’ of President Bashar al-Assad, backing Washington’s demand he step down. Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama demanded Thursday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ‘step aside’ and imposed tough sanctions on Damascus including an asset freeze and ban on US investments in Syria.  By Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images.)

Penn Jillette, responding to Piers Morgan's on-air badgering, thinks the two positions are connected in their Socratic acknowledgement of human ignorance:

What makes me libertarian is what makes me an atheist — I don't know. If I don't know, I don't believe. I don't know exactly how we got here, and I don't think anyone else does, either. We have some of the pieces of the puzzle and we'll get more, but I'm not going to use faith to fill in the gaps. I'm not going to believe things that TV hosts state without proof. I'll wait for real evidence and then I'll believe.

And I don't think anyone really knows how to help everyone. I don't even know what's best for me. Take my uncertainty about what's best for me and multiply that by every combination of the over 300 million people in the United States and I have no idea what the government should do.

But wouldn't that lead to mere agnosticism? Or the conservatism of doubt?

The U.N.'s Special Tribunal For Lebanon issued warrants for four Hezbollah members yesterday for the assasination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Even though Hezbollah will almost assuredly block the arrests, David Crane and Carla Del Ponte are psyched by the Tribunal's efforts:

Although Lebanon is no stranger to extreme violence, Hariri’s assassination rekindled the tension between Lebanon’s various factions that had been seething just under the surface. Lebanon sought to recover by turning a corner from political violence to the rule of law. It established a tribunal based in Lebanese law, with judges from Lebanon and other countries, that operates with a U.N. mandate. Knowing how perilous this project would be, the government signed on to an internationally sanctioned court that could transcend taint or accusations of sectarian partiality.

As the tribunal’s president, the noted Italian jurist Antonio Cassese, pointed out in a column last month, Lebanon’s government has aimed “to uphold and to practice the principle of judicial accountability for those who grossly deviated from the rules of human decency” and “to entrench the notion that democracy cannot survive without the rule of law, justice and respect for fundamental human rights.”

Elias Muhanna, by contrast, is underwhelmed. Frum tries to draw some lessons from the affair.