Month: October 2011

Question? askandrew@thedailybeast.com

Matt Duss hits back at Robert Spencer and David Horowitz – in National Review:

Spencer’s group, the Anti-Defamation League wrote, “seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy ‘American’ values.” Should the Anti-Defamation League also be lumped with the “jihadist apologists”? 

Rather than addressing such charges, however, the authors spend the majority of their response listing reasons why Islamic extremist terrorism represents a genuine threat to American security. But they are rebutting an argument we have not made. As evidenced by the considerable amount of work [the Center for American Progress] has produced on the subject, we take the issue of national security extremely seriously — far more seriously than Horowitz and Spencer’s selective, inflammatory, and unscholarly rendering of the Islamic peril suggests that they themselves do.

 

I was supposed to be on Bill Maher tomorrow night but have had to cancel because of the broken elbow. It's healing but it isn't in a cast (elbows get too stiff, apparently), is still pretty painful and traveling across the country with luggage would be unwise. Also: it might be more fun if I were on live TV on Vicodin, but usually one tends to get high after Bill's show, not before or during it. Apologies.

A useful primer. Next February, basically.

Greece's anti-austerity riots claim their first fatality.

Michael Totten:

I figured it would probably end this way.

Joshua Goldstein:

Reports of Muammar Gaddafi's death, if accurate, deprive the Libyan people of the chance to see him held to account in a fair trial at the ICC [international criminal court] for the egregious crimes he allegedly committed while suppressing peaceful demonstrations in February 2011.

However, his demise does not extinguish the need to bring to trial those most responsible for serious crimes against humanity and war crimes in Libya to fair trial in The Hague. There are outstanding arrest warrants for two other suspects.

Richard Spencer:

Gaddafi was also wrong about one thing. Like many dictators, he reassured himself, when he was under attack from western democratic leaders, that the political system they promoted ensured their own political demise. Whatever they said about him didn't matter since their electors would kick them out shortly anyway.

Kyle Scott:

While the context of the Arab Spring is entirely different from that of the invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan, the thought that democracy could be forced upon a nation has been avoided by the Obama administration in a post-Mubarak Egypt and a post-Gaddafi Libya. With Qaddafi’s death today, the challenge now is to continue taking this view while helping Libya move toward democracy. Working towards a successful transition requires adherence to two rules:

1. A bottom-up system will be much more successful than a top-down one.
2. The system that works in the U.S. may not work in these countries.

Jonathan Kay: 

Gaddafi’s death shows that the United States, Canada and the major nations of Europe are not powerless spectators in the ongoing drama of Arab political modernization: But not for our bombing campaign, the rebels would, at best, be locked in a stalemate with Gaddafi’s loyalists. At worst, they’d all be locked away in torture chambers. Nevertheless, the event should not encourage the idea that we can dictate the flow of history in Libya or anywhere else. From the Hindu Kush, to the Balkans, to North Africa, the lessons of the post-Cold War period show that all politics — including the politics of revolution — remain local.

Dan Drezner:

The more serious effect might be in how this kind of outcome affects the behavior of other autocrats.  As Giacomo Chiozza and Hein Goemans observe in Leaders and International Conflict, the private incentives of leaders profoundly affect their use of force.  Simply put, when leaders have expectations of a violent demise if they lose power, they have a more powerful incentive to use force to stay in power.  So, congrats to Libya, but this is simply going to harden the hearts of Bashir Assad and others out there determined to stay in power through any means necessary — including instigating cross-border conflicts. 

Steve Benen:

There’s still a worthwhile debate to be had over whether U.S. intervention in Libya was a wise move, a terrible tragedy, or something in between, but the White House can credibly claim quite a bit of success: the Arab League endorsed intervention from the West; the administration assembled an international coalition with surprising speed; the mission gained approval from the United Nations; and as of this morning, it appears the Gaddafi regime is no more.

Annie Lowrey offers a simple explanation: 

Plenty of financiers loathed the president before their profits turned south, back when their only complaint was that he kept calling them fat cats and wanted to regulate them. But Wall Street has gone from seeming cautiously ungrateful to angrily opposed. Some of that may actually be their renewed strength and the president’s increasing weakness. But some of it is doubtlessly that Wall Street is, all of a sudden, suffering a bit, and like so many Americans, they blame the president.

On Tuesday Goldman Sachs posted a quarterly loss for only the second time since going public in 1999. Gary Rivlin has more.

Nonetheless, there's no sign that Wall Street has pulled the fundraising for Obama. In fact, Obama is even beating Romney among donations from Bain and Company, and has more money from Wall Street than all the GOP candidates combined! Some of them finally understand that their fate is tied up with the country's as a whole.

I have a feeling that, like the news stories about the Jewish vote flocking to the Christianists, there is less to this than meets the eye. But fuck them anyway. I'll leave my sympathy for the vultures at Goldman Sachs for the millions of unemployed Goldman's recklessness and greed helped spawn.

Who says they're not supportive? The ossified right still keeps thinking that cultural dissonance will trump economic solidarity. They may – finally – be wrong.

Ezra Klein asks:

Perhaps more Republicans would have run if Obama had looked this weak eight months ago. But Obama’s numbers have been sinking for awhile now. Entering the race late makes it tougher to win, but it doesn’t make it impossible. And it’s hard to believe that Romney had such an imposing head start that he scared off a larger field. His dominance has come as a surprise to everyone. So help me out. What’s the answer here?

Christie isn't ready. Daniels didn't have the charisma or balls. Jeb's last name is Bush. The new crop of governors – Rubio, Scott, Walker – is too green. Barbour is too Southern. Palin couldn't handle more scrutiny of her actual life. Sometimes, no grand theory is needed. Events and timing matter. It reminds me of the Dems in 1991. But they had a Clinton in the pack of cards. A rogue card, but better than any that the GOP now has.