Author: Andrew Sullivan

Beinart yawns while reading Wikileaks’ latest. A surprising number of writers have been taking this position:

When journalists gather information that genuinely changes the way we see some aspect of American foreign policy, or exposes government folly or abuse, they should move heaven and earth to make sure it sees the light of day. But that’s a far cry from publishing documents that sabotage American foreign policy without adding much, if anything, to the public debate. The latest WikiLeaks dump is to American foreign policy what the Starr Report was to presidential politics—fun, in a voyeuristic sort of way, revealing, but not about important things, and ultimately, more trouble than it is worth.

I have not yet plumbed the depths of all these documents, but I agree with Peter that we have learned nothing new in terms of generalities here, merely in terms of specifics. I guess to the member of the American public who has better things to do than analyze foreign policy, it may indeed seem news that Saudi Arabia wants war. But to anyone else: meh. I favor greater public scrutiny of government actions. But it also seems quite clear that it is impossible to conduct international relations in total transparency. The world does not operate that way – from corporate or office decision-making to statecraft. There will have to be times in which certain views and policies will need to remain secret, and the ability of foreign ambassadors and analysts to give candid, clear advice to policy-makers without having them published in the global media, is vital to a successful foreign policy. The Wikileaks model is therefore a step backwards in many practical respects. But there may be very little we can do about it. The simple technological ease with which masses of data can now be downloaded and disseminated is a fact of modern life.

The Starr Report is an interesting precedent for Peter to cite because it was the first time I remember ever actually downloading a document before reading about it in the next day’s paper. Now, of course, this is routine. Keeping things secret is therefore simply going to be much harder as technology facilitates this kind of global dispersion. Note that the risks are shared among several global papers, meaning that no individual government can truly prevent dissemination by pressuring its own press. Note that it appears that all of this was made possible by one lone government worker. Secrecy was hard when preventing transmission or release of discrete paper documents to a single source. Now? A running and losing battle.

I doubt that this means a new era of perpetual peace and harmony in a newly transparent world, as Julian Assange apparently believes in his more utopian moments. It may make governing as we have known it close to impossible. At the same time, I think it’s useful for Americans to see more clearly the hypocrisy and lies and manipulation and deception and flattery and embarrassment that are required by any great power trying to run the world. Why? Because it will perhaps reveal more clearly that America cannot both be the liberal, honest city on a hill while also running a de facto global empire. Grappling with that truth, as America’s global over-reach has brought the hegemon to bankruptcy, is not a fruitless endeavor.

His American, Muslim father. Just as the Muslim father of the undie-bomber did as well. What would we do without Muslim tips on fighting the war on Jihadism? That's a question I doubt we'll be seeing raised any time soon on Fox News.

Enjoy:

Inexplicable: I recently won in court to stop my book "America by Heart" from being leaked,but US Govt can't stop Wikileaks' treasonous act?

Er, some of it was leaked. I read parts of it online before it was published. She simply managed to get the websites to remove the leaks subsequently. But any desperate weapon to hand, right?

Ben Smith has the story:

Las Vegas gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson is a significant figure in Republican politics — the 13th richest man in America and one of the GOP's biggest donors. But he's an even bigger player in Israel, where he's a key backer of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet Adelson's sharpest transformation of the political landscape may be through his ownership of Israel Hayom ("Israel Today”), a three-year-old free daily newspaper that quietly became the most widely distributed daily in the country this summer. It stirs passions strong enough that legislators have sought to hobble it with laws banning foreign ownership and selling below cost.

Adelson's paper is an assault on the media status quo in the model of Fox News in a country where newspapers still litigate the political conversation. The echoes aren't subtle: One of the five principles printed on the tabloid's dense second page translates as "fair and balanced."

It was a debate on religion in Toronto. I remain in awe of Hitch’s energy. A BBC summary of the debate can be listened to here. The videos continue here: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8.

And here is Hitch again on the subject of the Washington novel. In chemotherapy at 61, he has the tenacity of most healthy people in their twenties.

Obama pre-empts the GOP on short-term debt. Now to embrace the gist of Bowles-Simpson to call their bluff altogether.

Calculated Risk's current assessment:

The data is still mixed and fits with my general view of a sluggish and choppy recovery (my view since the spring of 2009). Although I don't see a sharp increase in growth, I think the pace of recovery will probably pick up a little bit in 2011, and I'll take the over on the consensus view of 2.5% GDP growth in 2011. My guess is 3%+ GDP growth in 2011 – still not a strong recovery given the amount of slack in the economy, but an improvement over 2010.

Courtesy of Gregg Easterbrook:

This year, the United States will spend at least $700 billion on defense and security. Adjusting for inflation, that's more than America has spent on defense in any year since World War II — more than during the Korean war, the Vietnam war, or the Reagan military buildup. Much of that enormous sum results from spending increases under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Since 2001, military and security expenditures have soared by 119 percent.

Various pundits have accused the GOP of intentionally sabotaging the economy in order to diminish Obama's re-election chances. Brendan Nyhan sighs:

There's undeniably an element of partisanship in GOP opposition to Obama's economic policies, but that's how politics works. Democrats also reflexively opposed many of President Bush's proposals, including his initiatives for Iraq, but that doesn't mean they were sabotaging US foreign policy to ensure his defeat. Moreover, the increasingly routine nature of these accusations hinders open debate. In a democracy, it's crucial that political leaders can publicly oppose the executive branch without being accused of hurting the country. That principle is no less true today than it was during President Bush's time in office.

I don't doubt that the most hardcore Republican partisans long for this recession to continue indefinitely – or until the minute before they win back the presidency. But on one big issue, the GOP seems eager to prop up Keynesian demand by keeping the unaffordable Bush tax cuts in place for the remainder of Obama's first term. They have no serious plans for reducing spending either. This is, from my point of view, fiscally reckless in the medium and long-term – but it cannot be spun as trying to depress the economy next year.