Category: The Dish

Jeff Dinelli wants to know.

A Clintonista vents.

It reminds me of what Republicans used to be like:

The Economist peers down its very British nose:

"The mother of all tax reforms" was how Charles Rangel, the Democrats’ top tax-writer in Congress, described his new plans for revamping America’s tax code. "The mother of all tax hikes" was the response from many Republicans. Both the creator and the critics are wrong. Mr Rangel’s proposal is "revenue-neutral", raising taxes in some places while cutting them elsewhere. But it is not a bold reform; more a tweak than a transformation of America’s absurdly complex tax code.

Not a bimbo eruption on Ron Burkle’s plane, but a car.

Obsidian Wings’ Publius dissents from my Obama essay thus:

Frankly, I disagree that Obama is free from these demons. But still, Sullivan is on to something larger here. And that larger point is that liberals over the past two generations have been afraid to express their real views.

I’m not sure where it comes from. Maybe Nixon’s victories. Maybe Reagan’s. Maybe Bush’s. Maybe from 1994. Maybe from the Latina union-supporting, ERA activist who dumped Mickey Kaus in college. I’m not sure. But somewhere along the way, liberals got it in their heads (not always wrongly) that showing their true colors risked professional and political harm.

A small pitch: the print magazine is arriving in mailboxes now. We put the essay up online first to join the debate more fully after the last Democratic debate. But obviously the online appearance can cut into subscription and newsstand sales. If you appreciate accessing material for free online, one way to support places like the Atlantic who are doing that more and more is to subscribe to the print edition. Much of what’s great in the mag is, to my mind, more pleasantly and easily read in print. Dish readers get a great deal on the mag here. Subscribe! Or give it as a Christmas gift.

Scott Horton:

With the disclosures about Daniel Levin’s dismissal from OLC, it becomes increasingly apparent that Steven Bradbury was picked for one reason: to provide continuing OLC cover for the torture conspirators.

John Bolton talks about the Senate confirmation process as a kind of torture. It’s funny how they are so persnickety with the reality and so expansive with the metaphor.

I’m with Larison:

Despite the fact that he has explicitly and repeatedly ruled out an independent run, the fear of his impact on the general election is real enough.  Dismissing and insulting Paul’s supporters are the defensive responses of a crumbling, dying party, as if to say, "Yes, most Americans may despise us and everything we have done, but at least we’re not a bunch of kooks who talk about the Constitution!"  If things were like they were in 2002 and the GOP was still dominant, this arrogant dismissal of a small but noticeable group of Republican and independent voters might make more sense, but under the present circumstances it is baffling why anyone interested in GOP victory next year would go out of their way to insult and denigrate a relatively small but extremely active segment of the electorate.

And Weigel:

The "Paulites=Naderites" bit is too silly to address, but comparing $8m over one year with $4.3m in one day‹that’s not apples and oranges, it’s apples and nuclear submarines. And if you start from January 2007, Paul has raised $15.5m. He’s probably going to triple Nader’s haul by the end of the campaign. And Nader was an internationally famous consumer activist with 40 years in the spotlight. When this campaign started Paul was an obscure congressman who’d occasionally light up the House floor at 11 p.m.

The Republican party is just panicked that there may still be some actual conservatives in their midst. It kind of shows them up.

(Photo: Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty.)

The decline in violence in Iraq has been reflected in a shift in public opinion since July. Charles Franklin looks at the data here. Jay Reding concludes:

The diminishing importance of Iraq actually benefits the Democrats. For one, even if we do achieve something close to victory in Iraq the media narrative will be that it was in spite of Bush rather than because it. (Even though it was Bush who stuck it through while the Democrats wanted to bug out.) We’ll see the Democrats return to their 2004 message of "we’ll do it smarter" which is a much more tenable position for them to be in than "let’s get the hell out of here." Hillary Clinton’s votes to start the war will seem less consequential if it turns out well. Even more importantly, it lets the Democrats focus on domestic issues where they have greater strength.

Surely this gets well ahead of what we actually know. The causes of the current lull are, by most accounts, tactical success against "AQI" or some of the worst Islamist and Sunni terrorists, some Iranian restraint, Sadr’s cease-fire, increased ethnic separation, Sunni abhorrence of al Qaeda, and exhaustion from chaos. But all of this is undergirded by a more solid US "surge" presence, which will depart next spring. After that? We just don’t know. We do know that national political reconciliation hasn’t happened, and may be further away than ever. We do know that this was the actual point of the surge. And there are ominous indicators that any declaration of "Mission Accomplished" is premature:

Though Sunni extremist groups could revive and “reinfest very quickly,” General Fil said, Iraq’s leaders should now have the peace they need to build a trusted, cross-sectarian government. But progress toward that, he said, has been “disappointing.”

Soon, General Fil said, there will be fewer troops for the Iraqis to rely on. “Already we are at a point where we’ll see that as the surge forces depart the city, we’ll see a natural decline in numbers, and I’m very comfortable where that comes to,” he said.

Violence in Iraq may also be merely shifting geographically as in the past:

Violence, meanwhile, despite recent declines in some areas, has moved to some degree to rural villages and towns from major cities, American and Iraqi commanders said. On Wednesday, two children were killed when a roadside bomb exploded on a farm road in Wasit Province. South of Baquba, Iraqi army patrols found 17 bodies, blindfolded, handcuffed and decayed. Four were found headless about 200 yards away. It was the second mass grave discovered in a rural area this week.

American troops have recently focused more operations on the farm towns and dusty villages of the country, with the latest coming this week outside Kirkuk in the north.

We have stabilized the patient, not brought him out of critical condition. And the doctors leave next spring. Iraq could well not just be in the next campaign; it could well be the biggest issue.