Author: Andrew Sullivan

Glibertarian Glenn Reynolds proclaims that the Tea Party “is now the single most powerful political force in the nation.” It’s certainly an influential force in the 2010 midterms. As yet, however, it hasn’t actually accomplished anything. And few of its candidates have offered specific proposals for cutting spending, while most of them backing extremist Christianism to the hilt.

One exception worth noting is Rand Paul, who said this, to his credit, in a recent debate:

Mr. Paul said he would raise the retirement age for Social Security and Medicare — he did not say to what age — and the deductibles for Medicare, casting these steps as the responsible approach.

Not exactly up to the standards of the British Tories, but much better than most. And if there is no specific mandate for actual cuts – especially the brutal kind necessary tobalance the budget without any tax increases – what hope on earth is there for these people to actually do what they abstractly say they want to do?

It’s probably wise to postpone the victory parade for small government, just as it was wise not to celebrate “victory” in Iraq as that country now descends toward another dictatorship – this one, closely allied with Iran.

The Washington Post has a moving multimedia package on the 180,000 plus American soldiers who've sustained brain damage while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The West Bank settlements are at the center of the Obama administration’s heroic effort to keep the Israel-Palestine talks going. And this week is crucial. Netanyahu has to extend the moratorium on new construction for two more months, it seems to me, or this whole thing will unravel. Regardless of his internal coalition politics, these settlements are illegal, those outside the near vicinity of Jersualem are going to have to go under any deal, and the Arab and Muslim worlds are looking to Obama to see if his Cairo speech meant anything. Washington has offered all sorts of sweeteners to the Israelis … and yet.

The picture above is of a mosque torched today by radical settlers trying to stop the deal:

Arsonists torched a mosque in a Palestinian village in the West Bank on Monday, scrawling “revenge” on a wall in Hebrew and charring copies of the Muslim holy book in a blaze that threatened to stoke new tensions over deadlocked Mideast peacemaking.

No Israel worth saving should appease this kind of bigotry and violence. And it is not rare on the West Bank, conducted by religious fanatics who do not and must not represent the soul of Israel or of the West.

And yet, we have the usual neocon excuses for the peace process to fail yet again. Here, Commentary’s Rick Richman takes the Israeli hard right’s position against the president of the US; Jennifer Rubin calls the Obama administration “the most anti-Israel administration in history”; elsewhere,  at this critical moment, a crashing silence.

American Jewish pressure on Netanyahu may, of course, be taking place behind the scenes. Netanyahu has indeed shown some signs of pragmatism and good will lately, to his credit, despite the fulminations of his neo-fascist foreign minister. I sure hope so. But we’ll see, won’t we?

(Photo: A Palestinian Muslim man prays at a partially burnt mosque in the West Bank village of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem, which was allegedly vandalized by Jewish settlers overnight on October 04, 2010. By Musa Al-Shaer/AFP/Getty.)

Larison says I'm twisting words:

It is interesting how uncomfortable the word assassination makes supporters of the President’s supposed power to order the assassination of U.S. citizens. It’s actually not that different from the contortions defenders of torture engaged in to avoid admitting that they were defending torture. Aggressive interrogation methods? Well, sure, that was all right, but torture is clearly wrong. The same meaningless distinction seems to be at work here. As long as we don’t call the assassination of U.S. citizens assassination or execution, but refer to it in some other way, it becomes a bit easier to rationalize and defend.

The word I have used is "killing" – not exactly a euphemism along the lines of "enhanced interrogation."

I regard "assassination" as the deliberate murder of a leader or individual for political purposes, not the targeted killing of a member of al Qaeda at war with the US, whom it is impossible or extremely difficult to capture. An "execution" is something I take to occur when someone is already under the physical control of another, and is usually associated with a legal or civil process, not an act of war. None of these words quite works with the very difficult case we are discussing and, to be quite frank, Daniel's attempt to equate my wrestling with this dilemma with the Orwellianisms I have done all I can to expose over the last several years is deeply, deeply offensive and unfair. I am genuinely trying to figure this out and deserve better than this.

An uplifting story of the true American spirit – from Idaho. It helps one balance the despair from the recent demagoguery on the Park51 project in New York City.

A reader sent this in, and it really does say it all:

Scott Horton's contribution to the debate (which I cited before here) focuses on whether a sufficient effort has been made to capture Awlaki rather than kill him, a point I did not address in my original post and which is certainly worth a response from the administration:

No doubt the government has concluded that al-Awlaki is a heinous figure who has committed serious crimes and should be made to pay for it. But for all of the massive operations recently undertaken in Yemen, I see no evidence yet that the government is trying to apprehend him and charge him for any criminal acts–even though it has spelled out facts suggesting that it could easily do just that. Is the rationale that a bullet to the head or a bomb dropped on his house would be far more expedient than an indictment and a trial? That sends a chill down my spine.

It seems increasingly that the Obama White House is using the al-Awlaki case to establish a new principle: the president’s power to order extrajudicial executions of American citizens. I don’t for a second question the principle established in Quirin, and I believe that the president can in some circumstances target and remove figures in a command-and-control position over hostile forces even if they are removed from a conventional battlefield. But I am deeply suspicious of the need to add to the president’s theoretical powers by killing a U.S. citizen in Yemen who could certainly be captured, brought back to the United States and put on trial.

David Wolman urges small start-ups to tap into the third world market:

The Tata Group, India’s version of Acme and maker of the supercheap Nano automobile, recently introduced a $22 water purifier that works without electricity or running water. (Every few months it needs a new $6 filter.) A big-hearted, philanthropic, and important effort? You bet—cue the somber stats about preventable waterborne diseases. But check out the size of the market for a product like that: Some 900 million people worldwide lack access to clean water, 200 million of them in India alone. Tata is saving lives and making a killing.

Why aren’t more American companies doing the same?