Category: Old Dish

I’ve been chiding myself for not writing more about Iraq and Iran these past couple of weeks. The news strikes me as decidedly mixed. In Iran, it’s got to be good news that sit-ins have forced a trivial retreat by the ruling Islamo-fascist elite. But reinstating 200 candidates out of 3600 disqualified reformers can hardly count as a victory for the democratic forces. In Iraq, I found the massive demonstrations by Shiites earlier this week to be somewhat good news. The demos were peaceful; they were pro-democracy; they’re a small sign that democracy is possible in that blighted country. At the same time, David Ignatius’ troubling report from Baghdad shows the faultlines ahead. The vicious cycle of security breakdown preventing economic revival fomenting more unrest has yet to be broken. The possibility of the much-predicted civil war is now higher than in the recent past. The fact that we now desperately need the U.N. to achieve a stable transition shows how tough this has turned out to be. No. I still support the effort. The chance for a stable non-dictatorship in the Middle East would be a huge and transformative event. I just hope the White House still understands this; and won’t take its eye off the ball. We need the U.N.’s help to persuade Sistani of the impracticality of a direct election by the end of June. Just as obviously, we shouldn’t attempt to delay the transfer of power to a provisional Iraqi government. It’s going to take skill and some luck to thread this needle. But we cannot afford to botch it.

Donald Sensing takes issue with me. I take his points as well. Maybe I should clarify: what I meant is not that pre-emption isn’t necessary. I think it is, in a post 9/11 world. And I also don’t buy the argument that you have to have proof of actual ready-to-go weapons in order to take action. As Donald points out, all you really need is componentry. And the preliminary Kay report convinced me – and still convinces me – that the war was worthwhile, that Saddam had been lying, that he couldn’t be trusted, that we had no viable future alternative to war (sanctions were becoming grotesquely immoral and porous), and that the future threat was absolutely real. But – and it’s a big but – we made the case on the existence of actual, operational WMDs and stockpiles of the same. We did so publicly, openly, clearly to as big a global audience as we could find. We said: trust us. We know. But we didn’t. I cannot see how a single ally will support us in future in a similar circumstance because of that. Certainly, Britain won’t be able to. And I think a large swathe of American public opinion will be more skeptical than ever. It’s not exactly a case of crying wolf. The wolf was there all right. It’s a function of exaggerating a threat. I believe it was an honest mistake. I was prepared to give the inspection teams months and months to find something. But so far … no actual weaponry. I hope we still find some. Or that we can get some plausible explanation for why we were so wrong. But we’re deluding ourselves if we think it doesn’t matter, won’t count in the future and hasn’t done us a great deal of damage in the court of world opinion. And if the president cannot take responsibility for that, who should?

THE EDWARDS RECORD: The scrutiny is beginning. Check out Overlawyered.com for Wally Olson’s take on Edwards’ suing obstetricians for allegedly giving kids cerebral palsy. I don’t see how it should affect one’s views about Edwards as a potential president, but worth a look.

“I recognize the political problem of Abbott’s raising the price of its inhibitor drug, and the poor timing. But are either ignoring production economics or you have gone wobbly on your own argument. The Sullivan Pharmaceutical Development Incentive Thesis (as I understand it): If we want the pharmaceutical industry to invest in more new drugs, we must support pricing necessary to attract the capital required. This applies to pricing adjustments as well. The amount that Abbott had invested in this drug did not change just because the dosage changed. the only thing that changed were the dosage and (therefore) the required production quantity. So Abbott had to amortize their fixed investment over a smaller production opportunity. Therefore the price goes up.
The dosage dropped by a factor of ten and the price only rose by a factor of four. Suppose the profit margin on the product before the change was 20%. Then the pricing change is a break-even proposition for Abbott if the fixed costs were somewhere between 30% and 35% of total revenue. If the fixed costs were more than that range, then profits drop. Less and profits rise.
If you have evidence that Abbott’s fixed costs before the price change were under 30% of projected lifetime revenues, then your charge of gouging has substance. Otherwise, your critique works only as a commentary on the bad public relations dynamics of the change.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

It seems I’m not the only one refusing to buy the administration’s spin on its spending binge. Money quote:

The bottom line is truly shocking. Passage of the omnibus bill would raise total discretionary spending to more than $900 billion in 2004. By contrast, the eight Clinton-era budgets produced discretionary spending growth from $541 billion 1994 to $649 billion in 2001. Nor can recent increases be blamed on the war. At 18.6%, the increase in non-defense discretionary spending under the 107th Congress (2002-2003) is far and away the biggest in decades. In 2003, total federal spending topped an inflation-adjusted $20,000 per household for the first time since World War II.

Good for the Journal. The pork in all this excess resembles a hog-farm.

Rich Meislin, the NYT’s editor for News Surveys and Election Analysis, defends himself:

I’m not sure where your seasoned Republican analyst is getting his numbers, but they seem to be incorrect.
The latest Gallup poll, taken Jan. 12-15, has this party ID breakdown:

Republicans 32
Democrats 34
Independents 33

The latest NYT/CBS News poll, taken Jan. 12-15, has this party ID breakdown:

Republicans 28
Democrats 32
Independents 31

They’re pretty similar. We also ask a followup question to the independents on whether they lean Democratic or Republican, which – in our polls and everyone else’s – moves around a great deal from poll to poll. By its nature, asking independents how they lean results in fluid answers depending on the circumstances. I’d also note that the Gallup poll released today shows Bush’s approval rating at 53 percent, which is statistically the same as the 50 percent we found in our poll during the same period.

Hmm. So the leaners skewed Dem. Hence the somewhat anti-Bush results.

Front Page Magazine has an interview with yours truly, if you’re interested.

Just check out both David Brooks’ and Paul Krugman’s columns in the NYT this morning. One actually tries to look at the opposing party empathetically, attempting to understand what’s going on, hoping for the best. The other is pure, demonizing, personal bile. One tries to give others’ motives the benefit of every doubt. The other refuses to do anything but impugn the other side’s motives. Revealing, I’d say.

The hard left has every reason to despise Tom Friedman. He can bring himself to praise the Bush administration from time to time; he’s pro-Israel; he’s an optimist about progress in the Middle East that can accommodate the Jewish state. But this diatribe from Cynthia Cotts at the Village Voice is particularly vicious. She’s offended that Friedman is … religious. A recent prize was donated to … a synagogue! The horror:

In Israel, religion and politics are inseparable. Orthodox Jews have considerable power, and Reform and Conservative groups fight for leverage. While Friedman does not usually identify his arguments as religious ones, he has exhorted moderate Jews to be as passionate as extremists, and he endorsed the war in Iraq, which he casts as a moral imperative… Friedman’s religious beliefs are relevant because they shed light on his political ideology, which he espouses with tremendous authority. In a New York Times column published shortly before Yom Kippur 1997, Friedman called on moderate U.S. Jews to give money to Israel “in a very targeted way,” so that it would not end up in the hands of “ultra-Orthodox elements.” In the same column, Friedman wrote that he had recently turned down an invitation to talk about Arab-Israeli affairs to an “American-Israeli educational institution,” because he was required to end his speech “on an uplifting note.” These days, Friedman routinely bills himself as an optimist. In a recent column addressed to Israeli moderates, he wrote, “We have nothing to lose but our pessimism.” In a speech he gave last fall, he declared, “I am an optimist by nature.” And upon accepting the award last week, he recalled how his editor at the Israeli newspaper Haaretz had praised him, saying, “You’re the only optimist we have.” Asked whether he had ever agreed to give a speech on the condition that he take an optimistic stance, Friedman declined to comment.

What on earth does this have to do with anything? All it amounts to is an attempt to dismiss or undermine Friedman’s views because he’s a religious Jew. Some on the left really are bigots, aren’t they?

If Howard Dean cannot win the anti-war vote, he’s a goner. It’s clear, however, that he has performed a great service for the Democrats. He was the vehicle for their rage; and he helped vent and dissipate it. That’s not to say Bush-hatred has died. The latest WaPo poll shows a higher number of strongly anti-Bush voters – 30 percent – than ever. But the Dems have obviously decided that it’s better to get even rather than mad. Dean’s implosion also strikes me as bad news for Wesley Clark. He was supposed to be the anti-Dean, but adopted Deanish rhetoric. Both positions are now somewhat redundant. The Iowa voters – not exactly centrists – picked Kerry and Edwards to be the anti-Dean candidate, and the shrillness of the Dean-Clark message (the shrillness that so appealed to Paul Krugman) was just as soundly rejected. Good news for the Dems – and the country.

HOW VIABLE IS KERRY? I’m still unpersuaded by John Kerry, although it seems his campaigning has improved markedly. For me, the big winner is Edwards. He’s always struck me as a Tony Blair figure – telegenic, personally appealing, centrist. His speech was the best of the bunch last night – and he exudes decency. That’s enormously important against Bush because the president’s most under-rated political virtue is his general likeability. If Edwards can pick off even a couple of Southern states, he has a critical advantage over his rivals. National security is obviously a huge problem. Maybe he can find a way to innoculate himself on the issue. How does a Kerry-Edwards or Edwards-Kerry ticket sound? In a word: Credible. The Dems don’t want to commit suicide after all. For the record, I’d back Edwards against any of the others currently running.

THAT NYT POLL: A seasoned Republican analyst emailed me this to explain the somewhat dismal polling for the president in Sunday’s NYT poll:

In the most recent Gallup poll, the party ID was 37 percent GOP and 37 percent Democratic. In the AP/Ipsos poll, the party ID was 42 percent GOP and 45 percent Democratic. And in the CBS/NYT poll on Sunday, the party ID was 34 percent GOP and 47 percent Democratic. Is it any wonder the numbers were what they were? This is more evidence, in my judgment, why you shouldn’t trust the NYT polls. (In their last poll, the NYT had a ten-point advantage for Democrats in the party ID.)

That strikes me as a pretty devastating indictment of the polling at the New York Times. Is the skewing deliberate? The Washington Post poll today shows some similar down-draft on domestic policies, but is far more favorable to Bush than the NYT’s analysis. Can we even trust the NYT polls any more? Over to you, Dan Okrent.

IN A PICTURE: Why he lost. Watching his concession speech last night was actually a little disturbing. His sore throat made his voice sound even more like a growl. And he was aggressive beyond belief. Compared to John Edwards’ moving tribute to Dick Gephardt, it was a disgrace.

ANOTHER FALSE ALARM: No blister gas bombs in Iraq. The absence of any WMDs in any usable form in Iraq is, to my mind, staggering. I’m still passionately pro-war, but you cannot sugar-coat this intelligence debacle. The pre-emption doctrine is practically speaking dead.

FIFTH COLUMN WATCH: An Anti-War.com writer pleaded guilty to federal weapons and explosives charges. He was planning to fight for “Muslim causes.”

NOT A DEAD PARROT: Churchill’s pet is still alive – and still using the f-word.

Another boo-boo.

THE DISCREPANCY: Dan Mitchell from the Heritage Foundation explains how the White House numbers for spending conflict with, er, reality:

The Bush Administration is measuring annual changes in budget authority (a form of hypothetical money that indicates how much a certain department or agency has in its hypothetical checkbook) while Heritage – and everyone else – measures annual changes in budget outlays (how much money actually is being spent).
Budget authority, I should mention, is not a fraudulent concept, but it does allow for fraudulent game-playing. You can shift budget authority between fiscal years. You can deliberately reduce budget authority in the short run even though you realize that your outlay trendline makes that untenable. etc, etc.
Outlays are where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. I will gladly defend the WH’s tax policy, but their spending policy is obscene.

Obscenity covered with obfuscation. Tax and spend is bad enough. Spend, borrow and spin is worse.

KERRY ON THE UPSWING: Now, the Concord Monitor is endorsing him.