Jonathan Bernstein finds a conservative advocating for the removal of the filibuster … when the GOP takes over the Senate. His parting shot:
I'm not sure whether Andrew Sullivan has an award for this kind of advanced hackery, but if he does this piece really deserves serious consideration.
Back to the Nineties:
"My greatest concern regarding Governor Romney is that he did not mention reforming Medicare a single time in nearly two hours, including in the five points he listed when it came to cutting the budget. This is worrisome; any individual who fails to tackle the reform of Medicare cannot claim to be in favor of limited government and fiscal responsibility," – Pete Wehner.
The upshot of Israel's decision to release a thousand criminals and terrorists to retrieve one lone prisoner is surely to strengthen Hamas and further weaken Abbas and Fayyad. Yesterday was a pretty dismal one for the PA in the West Bank, their entire rationale of dealing with Israel through non-violence and international institutions revealed as far less potent than Hamas' deployment of terrorism and war crimes. It was, in that sense, a great coup for Netanyahu. Removing and weakening the non-violent wing of the Palestinians is critical to his long term goals for Israel, hence his intransigence when offered a real window for peace by the Obama administration. Anything that empowers the PA disempowers Hamas which disempowers Netanyahu.
The Shalit deal with Hamas was caused by many factors – the resilient sense of solidarity Israelis feel toward their soldiers, the possible loss of Damascus as a base for Hamas, the canny public relations campaign of the Shalit family, the sense that Egypt's evolution might preclude a similar role as interlocutor in the future, etc. My own view, drawn from observing the far-right government in Israel, is that if the deal looks as if it is designed to undermine the PA and any possibility of renewed talks, by undermining popular support for non-violence, it probably is.
In many ways, Netanyahu needs Hamas. If he can obliterate moderate and non-violent Palestinian factions, he can justify his real goal: the annexation of the entire West Bank. Once you see the imperative of Greater Israel as the core principle of the current Israeli government, a lot of things make more sense.
Alyssa Rosenberg makes the connection:
[A]lmost 15 million people are tuning in to 2 Broke Girls every week, giving the show a pretty incredible platform. And while a lot of that platform’s been spent making jokes about horse excrement (also, last night, mouse poop) and general racism, the show’s spending more time on debt, financial literacy, and considerations of our values around money. And that’s kind of remarkable. A show that’s been remarkably square as it tries to show off its coolness has stumbled into being the closest thing we have to Occupy Wall Street popular culture.
"A system that rejects a Jon Huntsman in favor of a Herman Cain isn’t a primary process. It is a primal scream," – Dana Milbank.
Andrew Stroehlein worries about growing US ties with the Uzbek regime:
For [a] weak, and probably temporary, supply point, Washington is willing to close its eyes to the oppression and corruption of the Karimov regime, which, when it ends, will surely do so very violently precisely because of its very nature. Not only is there no post-Karimov succession plan in place for an old, and by all accounts unwell, ruler, there is a fundamental axiom at work: the more brutal the dictatorship, the more likely its end will be associated with mass violence.
Joshua Foust counters:
The case for the U.S. to not work with Uzbekistan is founded on really poor assumptions. It requires assuming the Washington-Tashkent will be equivalent to much different relationships for very different purposes. It requires assuming incompetence in an area where the U.S. military in particular is very skilled. It requires assuming something will happen that most likely will not based on a similar experience nearby. And, lastly, it requires adopting an alternative course of action that has an even smaller chance of success.
Reykjavik, Iceland, 10.49 am
I have to say that my impressions of the GOP debates this fall and of Obama's Truman strategy of running against an obstructionist Congress are beginning to gel around a strategic advantage for the president. Yes, with the sputtering of his core narrative of recovery, he ran aground after the debt ceiling fiasco and the credit rating downgrade. But his newly peppy combative stance – embraced only after post-partisanship failed on the rocks of Cantor – is beginning to yield dividends. Some provisional and early data:
An ABC/Washington Post poll this month saw Obama enjoying enormous gains across the board on the question of whether voters trust the president or Republicans in Congress more to create jobs. In September, 37 percent of independents said Obama, while 42 percent said Republicans. A month later, the poll was much better for the president, with 44 percent saying they trust Obama more and only 31 percent favoring the GOP. The new discipline is working with Democrats, too. After almost three years of begging Obama to drive home a consistent message on jobs, Democrats are starting to rally behind the president. Sixty-nine percent of Democrats in the ABC/Post poll trusted Obama on jobs in September. That number is now up to 79 percent.
I also believe that the GOP debates have only underlined how unserious the GOP currently is. Only Romney looks even close to being a credible presidential contender – and yet it is also clear that he does not represent the real soul of the party. But those who do – Perry, Cain, Bachmann – have come across as extremists or blatherers or entertainers. All you hear are stern demands for an end to Obamacare – which hasn't even been put in place yet – and vague promises to cut taxes and spending. Not too specific on jobs, are they? And while Romney is an accomplished politician, he has an obvious and huge vulnerability. In an era of populism and anti-corporate sentiment, he seems to embody what so many now suspect. If he wins, he could turn the incumbent once again into an insurgent. At least, that's the danger.
And, if you haven't noticed, Obama knows how to campaign.
Michael Hastings argues that before Libya, Obama's foreign policy decisions were based on the mistakes of the Bush era, "predicated on a foreign-policy doctrine with which he fundamentally disagreed":
[Libya] was the first war he started on his own – and the success of the Libyan rebellion is largely the result of the decisions he made at the very outset of the uprising. … Insiders say Obama laid out five guiding principles for any intervention in Libya: "that it be effective, multilateral, follow international law, put no American boots on the ground, and pursue a well-defined, achievable goal."
This interaction is illuminating:
Gates offered a last-ditch case against intervention, arguing that Libya had little strategic value. He warned that the U.S. often ended up "owning" what happened, pointing to Kosovo and the no-fly zone over Kurdistan in Iraq. He said he was wary of getting involved in a third Muslim country, and feared "a stalemate."
The president answered these arguments himself. According to one participant's summary, Obama said: Look, the question of who rules Libya is probably not a vital interest to the United States. The atrocities threatened don't compare to atrocities in other parts of the world, I hear that. But there's a big "but" here. First of all, acting would be the right thing to do, because we have an opportunity to prevent a massacre, and we've been asked to do it by the people of Libya, their Arab neighbors and the United Nations. And second, the president said, failing to intervene would be a "psychological pendulum, in terms of the Arab Spring, in favor of repression." He concluded: "Just signing on to a no-fly zone so that we have political cover isn't going to cut it. That's not how America leads." Nor, he added, is it the "image of America I believe in."
Simon Tisdall dismisses the success:
The war in Libya was a one-off. It established no new doctrine. Rather, it set a limited post-Iraq paradigm for selective, "do-able", feelgood interventionism. For the seriously oppressed peoples of Syria, Burma, Belarus, Zimbabwe and North Korea, for example, it is a meaningless exercise.
Norman Geras screams.
The Dish 