Category: The Dish

He’s obviously an extremely talented writer and editor, and I guess some naked partisanship on the right is necessary to balance out Krugman. But ideologically, having both David Brooks and Bill Kristol as the sole representatives of the right-of-center is to focus on a very small neocon niche in a conservative world that is currently exploding with intellectual diversity and new currents of thought. There are about five "national greatness" conservatives out there. Four of them now have columns in the WaPo or NYT: Kristol, Brooks, Krauthammer and Gerson. Thank God, I guess, for the blogosphere. We have no restrictions here, do we?

(Update: a reader asked me who the other national greatness conservative was. Bob Kagan. And, of course, he does have a column in the WaPo. So it’s five for five.)

"What you’re saying is I haven’t taken a congressional delegation. I have not made an official trip. I’ve traveled through Europe extensively, and in fact, on my way back from Russia met with Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street… I think that you’re seeing renewed vitality in Europe and it has a desire to flex its muscles a lot more in terms of foreign policy. But there’s a big world out there. And I think that my familiarity with Asia and Africa, not just in an official capacity, but in a very intimate way, my knowledge of the Muslim world, is part of the experience that informed my judgment when I opposed the war in Iraq. It’s part of why I’ve called for negotiations with Iran. When I first said this it was considered to be bucking the conventional wisdom. But now the intelligence estimates have said it’s something we need to do. It’s the same knowledge base that allowed me to insist that we shouldn’t have put all our eggs in Musharraf when it came to Pakistan policy. All these things I think inform my foreign policy vision, one that says we can keep ourselves safe by maintaining the strongest military in the world, but also by reinvigorating our diplomacy and our efforts to affect public opinion around the world, and that’s something I think I could do better than anybody." – Barack Obama.

This is actually something like the consensus among most of the GOP candidates:

"Our most basic civil liberty is the right to be kept alive."

It’s a very, very, very long way from "Give me liberty or give me death, as Mark Thompson notes. " The "culture of life" as the theocons call it does not, alas, mean merely a deep respect for human life, from cradle to grave, with prudence as the guide to the grayest areas at the very beginning and very end of life. It has come to mean for many an absolutism with respect to maintaining life and survival – even to the point of absurdity, as in the Terri Schiavo case or opposition to RU486. And on the other wing of today’s conservatism – the authoritarian wing – it means sacrificing basic liberties (such as habeas corpus) and basic moral principles (such as the prohibition on torture). I deal with this in The Conservative Soul at length. But it remains a staggering sign of how conservatism has abandoned its core principles – out of fear of terrorism and out of adherence to religious fundamentalism.

Tom Edsall looks at the evidence. Money quote:

Since January 1, 2007, the former Massachusetts governor has spent well in excess of $80 million, including at least $17.4 million of his own money, paying media fees in excess of $30 million, salaries of roughly $16 million, and consulting payments of more than $15 million.

Among Romney’s costly innovations this year has been putting more than 80 local conservative leaders in key states on his campaign payroll, in what amounts to a 21st Century revival of "walk-around money."

And still he struggles.

Thomas Barnett counsels against believing that the assassination changes that much:

Bhutto, despite our mythologizing of her past rule and future potential, was not going to fix Pakistan. As such, her passing matters only to the extent it creates short-term instability. But, in the end, I don’t expect to change much about the correlation of forces right now in Pakistan.

Obama’s final pitch. Text here.

LaPorte, Indiana, 11 am.

A reader writes:

You called it:

"[T]he biggest self-inflicted wound since — well John Kerry and Harry Reid." 

Your vision is much too narrow. The worst self inflicted wound since McGovern, when a weak, spineless candidates allowed a hated war time president to remain in the White House and cemented the historic "southern shift" strategy that prevailed for a generation. 

Obama is an historic opportunity for the Dems of FDR proportions, a chance to remake the political landscape for a generation or more. And people like Krugman and his proxy Hillary, who want only political war, narrow short term score settling, are the alternative. If the Dems don’t nominate Obama, and go for Hillary or Edwards, they will have shown themselves to be as corrupt, opportunistic, hypocritical, and small minded as the Republicans. 

I say this as a life long Democrat who in 40 years of voting has only voted once for a Republican (who was running against Phil Gramm for congress). This really is potentially an historic turning point. To blow it will be just too awful to contemplate. Sometimes political decisions have long lasting and significant consequences. It doesn’t happen very often, but this really is one of those times.

Indelicately but accurately put:

More Hannity-style braggadocio here.

And not all are mourning.