Month: January 2012

"Put aside your own view of libertarianism or of [Ron] Paul himself. I see libertarianism as an important critique of the Leviathan state, not a governing philosophy. As for Paul himself, I find him a principled, somewhat wacky, highly engaging eccentric. But regardless of my feelings or yours, the plain fact is that Paul is nurturing his movement toward visibility and legitimacy," – Charles Krauthammer.

A reader writes:

Just wanted to share a video I made last night of the new Shins track "Simple Song" using old school animated GIFS.

Romney has repeatedly claimed that Bain helped create 100,000 jobs. Ryan Lizza says that "Romney’s success depends on whether that job-creation statement withstands scrutiny":

Romney has made a similar mistake to the one the Obama Administration made in early 2009, when two of Obama’s economists released a study with overly optimistic unemployment projections. Ever since then, critics have been able to point to that study as evidence that, if judged by Obama’s own standard, his stimulus has been a failure. We could end up with a race that pits Obama’s stimulus record against Romney’s Bain record. Judging from the gleeful reaction of Democrats this week, it’s a debate Obama would welcome.

Chait explains how a Romney-Obama matchup would fuel a debate about class:

The GOP Establishment’s deepest and most recurrent fear is an open debate over economic class. This is not a debate they feel they can win even among Republican voters, a majority of whom actually favor higher taxes on the rich. Romney’s assertion … that economic inequality should not be discussed, or should only be mentioned in "quiet rooms," is a too-frank expression of the GOP elite’s actual belief that the issue must be kept out of political debate.

The meme is pretty played out at this point, but here's an inspired twist:

We all know why Romney won't release his tax returns, don't we?

Romney's wealth makes him one of the 3,140 wealthiest people in the country — that's the richest 0.001 percent of Americans.

Nate Silver suggests that the Bain controversy is potentially far more damaging for Romney than Reverend Wright was for Obama:

In the case of Mr. Wright, there were videos of certain sermons, and there were questions about how close Mr. Obama was to him personally and to his church. But the supply of new information was soon exhausted. By contrast, the transactions that a company like Bain Capital engages in are complicated, and it made dozens of investments. Each investment might constitute its own compelling story, some of which might reflect favorably on Mr. Romney, others less so.

The longer that investments made by Bain Capital are deemed to be salient to the presidential campaign, the more effort financial and political reporters will make in pursuing leads about them, hoping to uncover a "scoop." It is true that the public might develop a level of exhaustion with these stories, but they would be a target-rich environment for reporters, and Mr. Romney’s campaign would have to spend resources in making sure it manages the news coverage as well as it can.

Like the Dish, William Galston thinks Romney must address his Bain tenure head on and in detail:

His campaign is wrestling with (some reports suggest divided over) how best to respond. There’s an understandable reluctance to open up to public scrutiny the nearly one hundred deals in which he participated as the head of Bain Capital. But there’s really no choice. Romney has to present a counter-narrative, and he can’t do that without talking about individual cases. If he doesn’t release details on his own terms, they’ll dribble out anyway, prolonging the pain. And besides, in a public culture now suffused with anti-elite suspicion, a rich man running for president can’t just say "Trust me"—especially if the skills that enabled him to become rich are the heart of the case he’s making for replacing an incumbent president.

Reihan says this isn't as easy as it sounds:

Mitt Romney can’t simply force Bain Capital to divulge details that may or may not be governed by non-disclosure agreements, etc., and the details may or may not be available (not just not readily available). But the folk understanding of the world is that Romney could snap his fingers and get the firm he founded to do his bidding.

Jonathan Tobin claims that the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists doesn't count as terrorism because Iran = Nazi Germany 2.0:

[Y]ou need a particular form of moral myopia not to see that heading off a potential second Holocaust in the form of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel or the nuclear blackmail of the rest of the Middle East is not a form of terrorism. Anyone who believes Iran should be allowed to proceed toward the building of a nuclear bomb has either lost their moral compass or is so steeped in the belief that American and Israeli interests are inherently unjustified they have reversed the moral equation in this case. Rather than the alleged U.S. and Israeli covert operators being called terrorists, it is the Iranian scientists who are the criminals. They must be stopped before they kill.

How do you unpack this? Only one country in the Middle East has nukes and the ability thereby to act with impunity: Israel. Israel has not signed the non-proliferation treaty and has already bombed two other states attempting to get a nuclear deterrent to rival its, Iraq and Syria. And to ascribe genocidal motives to civilian scientists is to look inside a person's soul and know something we cannot know. Maybe the assassinated scientist believed, as the Green Movement does, that the nuclear program should be pursued out of patriotism and national pride – rather than genocide. The nuclear program was actually started by Green Movement hero, Mousavi. But David Frum knows better:

These scientists were actively engaged in developing instrumentalities for genocide.

Really? Larison provides a reality check:

Israel has a nuclear deterrent of hundreds of warheads that would keep Iran from attacking it even if Iran had a nuclear weapon. There is still no evidence that the Iranian leadership has decided to develop a nuclear weapon. The Iranian leadership is intent on the self-preservation of their regime rather than mass suicide, and the official Iranian position is that the use of nuclear weapons is forbidden by Islamic law. On the basis of this total fantasy of an Iranian nuclear first-strike attack on Israel, Tobin sanctions the murder of people who may be involved in nothing more than legitimate scientific research. "They must be stopped before they kill," he says, but there is no reason to think that "they" are going to do the killing he fears. It goes without saying that these acts have nothing to do with American or Israeli self-defense.

Are we not back at the One Percent Doctrine? And have we learned nothing from its application in the Bush-Cheney years?

It's perfectly understandable why Israel doesn't want Iran to have a single nuclear weapon to counter-balance the hundreds of warheads that Israel has pointed at Iranians. But unless you believe that the Iranian regime is completely irrational about its own self-interests or even its own survival – something belied by its entire history – the notion that it represents an existential threat is a leap. Yes, it's a leap fueled by the completely understandable Israeli and Jewish paranoia that another Hitler is always a Chamberlain away. And it is fueled by vile eliminationist and anti-Semitic rhetoric in Tehran. But if the West could live with Mao's nuclear weapons, and his public threat to destroy the planet to make it safe for communism, then surely we can live with Iran's much punier deterrent against Israel's nuclear arsenal.

This is doubly true because any attempt by Israel to attack Iran would create a "day after" of assured danger to Israel, rather than a vague future amorphous threat of Iranian nuclear power. In former Mossad head, Meir Dagan's words:

Even if Israel attacked immediately, Dagan argued, it wouldn't halt Iran's nuclear program. On the contrary, the Iranians would be more motivated than ever to arm themselves and pursue a military course, while Israel would undoubtedly "pay a terrible, unbearable price." He said that Iran and Syria, along with Hamas and Hezbollah, the terror militias they financially back, would rain missiles on the country from north to south, killing thousands. "How can we defend ourselves against such an attack?" Dagan asked, adding: "I have no answer to that."

And if we are serious about non-proliferation, and want to retain even a semblance of even-handedness, the US should seek nuclear disarmament on all sides, including Israel. But I know that's so outside Washington's mainstream that I will be accused of insanity. Personally, I think Israel, given its vulnerability, has every reason to have a nuclear deterrent. But once it has assembled one, it seems odd to argue that none of its foes should have a deterrent in return.

Last night, Stephen announced that he is exploring a run. Alas, he can't:

Colbert could not get on the ballot in South Carolina – the November 1 deadline for doing so has come and gone – and the state does not provide a space for write-in votes in primaries. "South Carolina state law does not allow any write-in ballots in presidential primaries. There is no blank space on voting machines to write in a candidate," said Matt Moore, executive director of the South Carolina GOP.

Not great internals from South Carolina for Mitt.

Gingrich leads among evangelical Christians with 40%, followed by Perry with 15%, Romney with 13%, Santorum with 12%, and Paul with 10%.

I suspect this is a sectarian gap. I mean: Romney losing this vital constituency to Perry? Among non evangelicals, Romney has a commanding 48 percent lead, with Paul second. The difference between 48 and 13 seems to me to be too big a gap to ignore. Then there are op-eds from a Reagan Republican like this one. Money quote:

I am not a conspiracy theorist. I do not believe for one moment that if a Mormon like Mitt Romney were elected president he would be a puppet controlled by the Mormon hierarchy. But even if he kept his faith completely private, the election of a Mormon president would, ipso facto, swathe Mormonism in a respectability that it has long coveted. Such respectability would aid the church in making converts, particularly among the less-educated people of the developing world, where Mormonism is winning most of its new adherents these days. Thus, to vote for a Mormon for president would be, however unwittingly or indirectly, to assist in the propagation of a religion which, whatever good works it may be doing along the way, is still disturbingly like a cult.