Month: March 2012

Cameronomics vs Obamanomics

On the economy, James Blitz says “the UK and US have taken sharply different approaches, with Britain opting for fiscal austerity and the US for stimulus.” Bagehot downplays the difference:

On the economic front, the apparent ideological gap between British austerity and American stimulus is more rhetorical than real. Though George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, talks loudly of spending cuts and pain, he is still running a roughly 8% budget deficit: a hefty stimulus even if he would never call it that. America’s zest for spending can also be exaggerated, senior figures add. An American vote to extend unemployment benefits was described as a fiscal stimulus. Britain was never going to slash jobless benefits, austerity or no.

And there’s also a crucial difference: the US has a reserve currency and so is much more immune to the speculation of currency traders. The UK is much more vulnerable to a run on its currency and higher interest rates, which would make debt even harder to pay off, and so has a premium on insisting on clear and unshakable austerity.

Fighting Gitmo Only Made It Stronger?

Jack Goldsmith notices an ironic consequence of lawsuits attempting to limit executive power in the war on terror:

[T]here is no doubt that [Guantanamo, detention, etc.] are now lawful and legitimate practices within the American constitutional system. This is partly a result of the lawsuits. And it is partly because Congress often sided with the president (albeit with restrictions) when it was forced to exercise its national security responsibilities. The presidency was empowered to exercise its military prerogatives because the other branches of government considered the matter and, with caveats, told the President he could. Crucially, and in part as a result of deliberations in Congress and the courts, the executive branch’s prosecution of the war on terror today enjoys the widespread support of the American people.

Obama’s Spending Record: More Conservative Than Reagan’s

AoIlA-NCMAESV2s

[Re-posted from last night.]

This is the kind of reality that makes Sean Hannity's head explodes. So far, the GOP candidates have been running against a fictional president with a fictional record. Obama didn't campaign to increase government spending, but inheriting what was in the final quarter of 2008 an annualized contraction of 9 percent of GDP, he opted for a stimulus. That accounts for much of the spending.

I know we are supposed – along with Fox News – to have total amnesia about the spending record of George W. Bush, who had nothing like the recession Obama inherited to counter. But there it is. Along with the fact that of the last seven presidents, the top three spenders are all Republicans.

One worry I have about a president Romney is exactly such a scenario. He has proposed to slash all taxes and increase defense spending by a stupendous amount. He has yet to identify the massive cuts in discretionary and entitlement spending he would need not to explode the debt as his GOP predecessors have done in the modern era.

But if you're going by the records, and want fiscal restraint, you'd be crazy at this point to back a Republican, without examining the fine print in extreme detail. Pity there isn't any for Romney yet. Which tells you something in itself. 

Could A War With Iran Ever Be Won?

Ron Rosenbaum doesn't believe so:

I thought of the term “Cuba Syndrome” when I read an otherwise unsurprising op-ed in the Times by Dennis Ross in which the veteran Mideast diplomat, among other things, declared Iran “must not have nuclear weapons.” There was something in his imperious tone that made me feel that if I were an Iranian person on the street—not some apocalyptic-minded mullah, perhaps even a participant in the Green Revolution—-hearing this, I would feel my sense of dignity denigrated. It made me think of Cuba, whose people have endured a half century of privations and immiseration because of U.S sanctions and yet have clung to an oppressive police state regime. Why? Because of emotion, the emotion of dignity. Because they didn’t want to be told who should rule them by the United States and be forced to act subserviently. 

These things are often more important to people than new American cars. The connection: Iran would likely continue its bomb program even if a raid left its current facilities in smoking ruins. If only because of the Cuba Syndrome. Even if it took another half century, they would get one nuclear weapon built, or buy one from North Korea or Pakistan. And Israel—which has been called a “one-bomb state,” in the sense that a one-megaton bomb airburst over Tel Aviv would annihilate the country—will never escape that shadow.

Attacking the prospect from an American perspective, Jason Kuznicki is saddened by the fact that many young people in America have a totally different conception of what war is:

In the old wars, there were clear-cut enemies, legal declarations, and expectations on both sides regarding surrender and the return to normalcy. It worked sort of like this: Two sides, each consisting of nation-states or groups thereof, declared war on each other. The side that got the most badly beat up eventually surrendered, and the winner dictated the terms of the peace.

In new wars, no one ever declares anything. We just beat up on a country that did not and cannot attack us. Then we stay there, playing havoc with its domestic politics, spurring nationalist resentment, and getting blown up by IEDs — until the poll numbers drop and we decide it’s time to go home.

Hathos Alert

A reader writes:

You MUST post this truly bizarre music video done by Invisible Children in 2006, purportedly to raise awareness of war in Uganda (the real fun begins at the 1:50 mark). It is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen, and also more of an epic fail as a music video than Rebecca Black's "Friday".  People need to realise how genuinely unhinged these three men really are, and also to see what all the donations are being spent on.

The blonde chap, Jason Russell, has apparently now been sectioned for public acts of indecency, as I'm sure you're aware. I'm not at all surprised, as when I first saw the Kony 2012 video, everything about it screamed unhinged narcissist, from his careful hair, the staring eyes (reminding me a lot of Tommy Davis, the Scientology spokesman), the manic smile, the blinding teeth.  I suspect the whole Uganda thing is a front for these guys just to indulge their narcissistic fantasies. There is something very odd going on in this organisation, beyond dodgy financing. These men are the epitome of weird. There is a story behind all this waiting to be uncovered. 

Romney Reigns In Puerto Rico

Mitt won all 20 of the island's delegates on Sunday. The landslide victory in context: 

Puerto Rico usually supports the well-known national frontrunner in primaries and caucuses by enormous margins. George Bush won 99 percent of the vote there in 1992, Bob Dole 98 percent in 1996, George W. Bush 94 percent in 2000, and John McCain 90 percent in 2000. Romney characteristically underperformed a bit but still won by a large landslide. Romney also enjoyed the support of Gov. Gov. Luis Fortuno, the commonwealth's most prominent Republican and a rising conservative star. 

No doubt Catholics, as elsewhere, also found Santorum's prissy puritanism repellent. Michael Barone questions Santorum's island strategy: 

Why did Rick Santorum spend precious campaign time in Puerto Rico rather than Illinois? And why was he unprepared when he did so, to the point that he got into trouble by suggesting that if Puerto Rico becomes a state (as Fortuño and the PNP advocate) it would have to adopt English as its primary language. English is already one of Puerto Rico’s two official languages (the other of course being Spanish), but Puerto Ricans bristle at the thought that they would have to give up their everyday use of Spanish if the island became a state. … And anyone familiar with Puerto Rico politics could have told Santorum that island voters tend toward unanimity in these things and that his chances of winning delegates by holding Romney below 50% were negligible.

Hathos Red Alert

Torturer Lynndie England gets a fawning profile in The Daily. Most repulsive bit:

“Their lives are better. They got the better end of the deal,” England said. “They weren’t innocent. They’re trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It’s like saying sorry to the enemy.”