Author: Andrew Sullivan

Simon Jenkins proposes an end to Britain's entire military forces:

What do we really get from the army, the navy and the air force beyond soldiers dying in distant wars and a tingle when the band marches by? Is the tingle worth £45bn, more than the total spent on schools? Why does [Chancellor George] Osborne "ringfence" defence when everyone knows its budget is a bankruptcy waiting to happen, when Labour ministers bought the wrong kit for wars that they insisted it fight?

Osborne cannot believe the armed forces are so vital or so efficient as to be excused the star chamber's "fundamental re-evaluation of their role". He knows their management and procurement have long been an insult to the taxpayer. The reason for his timidity must be that, like David Cameron, he is a young man scared of old generals.

America has a different role, but Americans have choices too. To exempt defense from spending cuts in the next decade would be daft.

Not as many as Orly Taitz but not nothing either. You can easily mock Mickey but he's done something most bloggers don't: actually try to get votes from real people in a real election. And thereby reveal the true and enduring mass appeal of neo-post-crypto-non-paleo-pro-but-anti-Obama-liberalism.

A text-book study in the civic lessons of trials.

Alain de Botton encourages a diet of the mind:

The obsession with current events is relentless. We are made to feel that at any point, somewhere on the globe, something may occur to sweep away old certainties—something that, if we failed to learn about it instantaneously, could leave us wholly unable to comprehend ourselves or our fellows. We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t allow any one of them to assume a weight in our minds.

Or as Michael Oakeshott said to me as his face fell when I told him I was planning on a career in journalism: "Oh dear. The need to know the news every day is a nervous disorder."

You've got to be kidding. The latest deconstruction of the latest lies and flim-flam from the half-term former governor.

"There is nothing progressive about a government that consistently spends more than it can raise in taxation," – Lord Myners, the former Labour minister for the financial sector.

Those who believe that Sarah Palin has quit politics or does not have a future in elective office have some 'splaining to do. If she's irrelevant, why the following statements from last night:

"Her decision to get – and stay – involved in the race here in South Carolina was a huge boon to our campaign, because it caused a lot of South Carolinians to take a second look at a rising in the polls but once-little known state legislator who was fighting to give them back their government,” Haley spokesman Tim Pearson said of Palin. …

“Governor Palin’s endorsement was integral to the success of our campaign,” Fiorina spokeswoman Julie Soderlund told POLITICO. “She provides the ‘good housekeeping seal of approval’ for conservative, outsider candidates. After earning her endorsement we saw an immediate spike in support for Carly amongst conservatives, who represent the vast majority of Republican primary voters.” 

There was some hope that her recent endorsement misfires might signal a declining appeal with the base. Nuh-huh. She owns the GOP base. The most hopeful inference is that she wants to be a queen or king-maker – and not the queen herself. And that makes sense as long as you ignore every single thing she has ever done in her life and career.

(Photo: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speaks at RECon 2010, the International Council of Shopping Centers' annual global retail real estate convention, at the Las Vegas Convention Center May 23, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. By Ethan Miller/Getty Images.)

TNC asks:

If Obama yelled at his press conferences, kicked over the lectern and generally unfurled the Bruce Banner, the various news personalities would have more to talk about besides the fact that he refuses to do exactly that. It's not clear that such a display would, over the long term, move Obama's poll numbers a whit. I suspect the assembled personalities are concerned with numbers of their own. This is their right. It's also our right to wonder who this proposed tantrum would actually benefit.

Obama will be knocked by the partisans whatever he does. I have no issues with his handling of the oil spill so far. He's an adult, unlike many of his critics.

Josh Green notes how much leverage she now has in her righteous campaign against derivatives:

It doesn't seem like a stretch to conclude that Lincoln eeked out a win by convincing just enough voters that she was a Wall Street scourge. If her signature provision goes down in flames, she'll look toothless and weak, and almost certainly lose her seat. The bank lobby and the Obama administration (both oppose the Lincoln provision) may simply prove too strong and do the deed anyway. But their task got a whole lot harder.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research put out a new report on the fiscal burden of the American prison system (pdf):

We calculate that a reduction by one-half in the incarceration rate of non-violent offenders would lower correctional expenditures by $16.9 billion per year and return the U.S. to about the same incarceration rate we had in 1993 (which was already high by historical standards). The large majority of these savings would accrue to financially squeezed state and local governments, amounting to about one-fourth of their annual corrections budgets. As a group, state governments could save $7.6 billion, while local governments could save $7.2 billion.

(Hat tip: Economix)