Some Republicans are interested:
"My father would be rolling in his grave if he knew I came to this rally," Meyer said. "I hope I wasn’t shmoozed but he said sometimes we have to do the right thing because it is the right thing, even if it is unpopular. It is time we had a president who did that."
She’s still the prohibitive favorite, but Iowans and New Hampshirites tend to resent being told that the race is already over.
"The need to reduce God to a person having mental states with which we are familiar — desire, anger, retribution (but seldom, alas, a sense of humor) — does God little service and ourselves even less. We would do better to stand before God in silence, allowing the Holy to open to us without our definition or direction. Only God can say what God is. We can only allow ourselves to be taught," – Nancy Mair, "A Dynamic God: Living an Unconventional Catholic Faith."
The truth is: it’s very hard to understand what is going on in what’s left of that country. I am trying to keep an open mind, and posting what slivers of good news we have. One hopes that the relatively sharp decline in violence from the insane highs of last winter means something positive. But when you take the long view, it is indeed hard to dismiss the argument of those who have seen it up-close:
Even with "the surge," we simply do not have enough soldiers and marines to meet the professed goals of clearing areas from insurgent control, holding them securely and building sustainable institutions. Though temporary reinforcing operations in places like Fallujah, An Najaf, Tal Afar, and now Baghdad may brief well on PowerPoint presentations, in practice they just push insurgents to another spot on the map and often strengthen the insurgents’ cause by harassing locals to a point of swayed allegiances. Millions of Iraqis correctly recognize these actions for what they are and vote with their feet — moving within Iraq or leaving the country entirely. Still, our colonels and generals keep holding on to flawed concepts.
Perhaps these critics will be hounded as "phony soldiers" for their insight. But I fear their analysis – let’s drop the pretense and colonize the place or get the hell out – has real bite. What is the other side?
It is that lower levels of violence will somehow lead to a national government that will somehow lead to some kind of viable state. It’s an argument that assumes an occupation of a decade or more. Phil Carter responds here. Money quote:
At the end of the day, they’re stuck wrestling with the same question that I am: "was it worth it?" Given the state of Iraq today, and all the frustrations of the mission, I’m not surprised by their conclusion. Many military professionals I talk with quietly tell me the same thing, while continuing to evince a public persona of confidence and "can do" attitude. These officers have had enough of that dualism.
James Joyner has a helpful round-up here. Are these guys latter-day Churchills? Would Winston have been called a phony soldier? Or just a "subaltern"?
Some troubling words from a new national security adviser to the Massachusetts Makeover Man.
"When I was in the officer’s basic course, one of the instructors, only half-jokingly, proclaimed, "Beatings and drugs are for fun, not for information." His point was you can get anyone to say anything you want through torture. Good information came from psychology, interpersonal skills, and long hours with your prisoner. The best interrogators I’ve worked with tended to be very good at reading people and very good at using their understanding of the person and their culture to get them to talk – no waterboarding required…
We should be developing an ideological alternative (or alternatives) to jihad and are instead alienating our allies, enraging the populations from which the terrorists arise, and most importantly, alienating our COG [center of gravity] in the form of the U.S. electorate. A liberal democracy, such as the US, operating in an environment with pervasive media cannot afford to dally in tactics that may provide some short term gains at the expense of long term success.
It is not just the US that has made this error in judgment. The Brits and French did the same in their COIN [counterinsurgency] campaigns in 20th century and suffered for it. We should learn from their mistakes – and ours," – Army Capt. Kyle Teamey, a current military intelligence officer.
Or to put it another way: President Bush has a weak person’s idea of what strength is; and a dumb person’s idea of what intelligence is.
A new line on ending the war: "immediately upon taking office"?
Pollster.com finally includes him on their New Hampshire polling chart, replacing Gingrich with the Texan constitutionalist. Now, that wasn’t that hard, was it? He’s basically at the same polling level as Huckabee, but with far more money and Internet support. Unlike Thompson and McCain, he isn’t falling. Romney and Giuliani look pretty stable in New Hampshire. The BJU endorsement of Romney will help in the South, one presumes. The problem with Giuliani is that he will split the GOP (even though he remains the candidate most are excited about). Of course, that may be part of his attraction as well. If I weren’t afraid of his hot-headed temperament, unreconstructed belligerence in foreign policy, and contempt for civil liberties, I’d be tempted. Just to rattle the GOP as it currently exists. But if he wins, his main advantage would be a Clinton candidacy. Whatever damage Giuliani does to GOP fundraising and unity, Clinton will repair it.
There is only one person who can rescue Republican fundraising, reunite the party, rally the base and win the presidency for the GOP. And you know who she is.
What do they look like? What do they believe? Here’s a first stab by one of them:
X-Cons are pragmatic idealists. They have strong faith in religion, small government, and the free market. Yet they are not Utopian and have no illusions that politics will make life much better (though they believe government can make it much worse).
That pretty closely identifies me. I might add that if this is what an X-Con looks like, they cannot be too happy with what has happened to the Republican party these past few years.
Barcelona, Spain, 7 pm.
There’s been a lively discussion of Mark Lilla’s superb book on the history of political theology over at Cato Unbound. Mark’s opening essay is here. Damon Linker responds here; Philip Jenkins here. My own contribution is here. My bottom line:
America is substantively and experientially a deeply religious country, and its political discourse has always been saturated with religious rhetoric and imagery. I don’t think Mark or I would dispute this. It is a country whose politics is experientially creedal. It doesn’t incubate the kind of high Tory pragmatism that I admire in the English experience; or even the kind of atheist secularism that helped spawn socialism in other developed countries in the twentieth century. But the power of that religious presence — I call it "Christianism" and describe it at length in The Conservative Soul — is in many ways a testament to the strength of the secular constitution that resists it. In fact, I think that without the kind of secularism that Mark detects in the founding documents and Constitution, America would long since have succumbed to some version of theocracy or another.
