“A nuclear-free world has been a 60-year dream of the Left, just like socialized health-care,” – Rudy Giuliani, NRO, 2010.
“A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And no matter how great the obstacles may seem, we must never stop our efforts to reduce the weapons of war. We must never stop at all until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of this Earth.” – Ronald Reagan, 1984, in China.
He was the new face of the pragmatic, governance-ready GOP. He gave the response to the State of the Union. But in two crucial areas, he has revealed where moderation in today's GOP ends. It ends with gay people. McDonnell specifically removed employment non-discrimination protections for gay people working in state government. His attorney-general attempted to get Virginia's universities to end their non-discrimination policies against homosexual students.
And the moderation ends with African-Americans. When Powerline is troubled by McDonnell's resurrection of Confederate History Month in Virginia, and the removal of any reference to slavery in the governor's proclamation, you begin to see how deep the extremism runs in today's Dixified, nihilist radical Republican party.
Bruce Bartlett shows – i.e. proves from the record – how the Great Communicator was also the Great Tax Raiser. This paragraph is perfect:
It may come as a surprise to some people that once upon a time in the not-too-distant past Republicans actually cared enough about budget deficits that they thought raising taxes was necessary to bring them down. Today, Republicans believe that deficits are nothing more than something to ignore when they are in power and to bludgeon Democrats with when they are out of power.
Andrew Exum says that Tom Ricks and I are wrong:
[T]here can be no denying that a space has indeed been created for a more or less peaceful political process to take place. Acts of heinous violence still take place in Baghdad, but so too does a relatively peaceful political process. If you want to argue that getting involved in Iraq in the first place was a stupid decision, fine. I agree with you. But trying to argue that the Surge "failed" at this point — even if Iraq someday descends anew into civil war — simply isn't a credible option anymore.
Larison counters Exum:
No one claims that the “surge” was ever supposed to “fix all the problems in Iraq’s political process.” However, it was supposed to facilitate political reconciliation, and by Bush’s own standards a plan that did not include political reconciliation on major points of contention would not be a successful one. It was not the critics of the plan who put these measures of success in place–it was the authors of the plan.
It is not "moving the goal-posts", as Exum puts it, to say that the surge failed by the criteria offered in advance by its advocates. No one denies the decline in violence, and the luck and military skill that it took. But the entire point of reducing the violence was to create a space for political reconciliation, which would be the proof of the surge's success, and which would allow the US to leave without a regional and sectarian bloodbath. Such proof does not exist.
Yes, we had multi-sectarian and largely secular political parties in a relatively peaceful election. And this should go into the equation of the surge's tactical successes. But we only had such an election because resolving the legitimacy of many Sunni candidates (now lawmakers) was simply postponed. And the paralysis since suggests that the sectarian divides and distrust remain as deep as ever.
In fact, yesterday in Iraq, dozens were killed by bomb attacks, the central polity seems frozen and unable to construct a government capable of running the security services, al Qaeda has shown its capacity to strike at will, Maliki is completely AWOL, and one lawmaker says of the police and army:
“The security forces have lost direction. They don’t know what will become of them. They are scared they will lose their positions if the government changes. What we need now is a kind of selflessness among all the blocs to quickly form the next government.”
And we have this from Allawi:
“We want a government of partners that is functional, not like the one now that cannot make decisions,” he said, speaking while donating blood for the wounded. “They say they are a national government, but they are not.”
My italics. In its critical criterion, providing a non-sectarian space for a non-sectarian national government capable of running the country when the US leaves, the surge has failed – so far. I remain open to the possibility it might yet show it succeeded. But to this date, those who have bet on entropy returning have no reason to withdraw their bleak prognostication. Iraq remains Iraq.
(Photo: Onlookers and rescue teams gather at the scene of a massive blast which targeted a restaurant in the center of Baghdad on April 6, 2010, two days after triple suicide car bombings killed 30 people in the Iraqi capital. Five powerful explosions killed at least five people and wounded 25 others in the Iraqi capital on April 6, a defence ministry official said. The explosions took place in mostly Shiite neighborhoods in the capital, including a suicide bombing at a popular restaurant in Allawi, near Haifa street in central Baghdad, an interior ministry official said. By Ali Al-Saadi/AFP/Getty Images.)
"It's time to end the gay cover-up once and for all," – Bill Donohue.
Their position is basically the same as the Dish's – and I think that really does represent a shift in the mainstream of American opinion, given real credibility by David Petraeus's Senate report. Money quote:
[Palestinian] blundering is not cause for the Israelis to deliver a gratuitous poke in the eye, particularly one that undercuts Palestinian moderates and damages U.S. interests.
Supporting Israel will never be costless or risk-free. But this country should expect the Israelis not to act in ways that make it even harder and more dangerous to be their friend.
Public backing for Israel is strong in the U.S. — 63% in the most recent Gallup poll. But if Americans whose own family members' lives are at risk every day in Iraq and Afghanistan come to believe that Israel's actions needlessly increase that risk, support would be jeopardized. The administration is right to warn the Israelis of that danger.
So USA Today is now a hotbed of anti-Semitism?
Britain's Tory party leader yesterday:
David Cameron has just started speaking at an event in Leeds. He calls Lady Warsi, the shadow cohesion minister, a "great Yorkshirewoman" and makes much of the fact she is the first female Muslim cabinet minister or shadow minister.
Continetti acknowledges Palin's transformation:
When Palin emerged on the scene in August 2008, she spoke as an authentic voice of non-coastal, upper-middle-class cultural conservatism. It was believable when she said, in her speech to the 2008 RNC, that she wasn't much different from your average hockey mom. Not anymore. In the years since, Palin's become something different — a global celebrity who fuses politics and entertainment in new and startling and occasionally discomfiting ways. She's also become incredibly rich. But, as her personal wealth has increased, the number of people who think she is qualified to be president has decreased. The Palin brand is more and more powerful, but for a smaller group of people.
Man, Matt is going to be embarrassed in the future given his hagiography of this crazy person for so long.
Chait wonders if today's social liberals will become tomorrow's social conservatives:
Generally speaking, social policy has grown less restrictive throughout American history. People are are currently 70 years old are far more liberal on, say, the question of women's suffrage than were people fifty years their senior. But women's suffrage is settled fact, and no longer exerts any electoral impact. Several decades from now, we may well be looking at an even more liberal or left-wing social issue landscape. Today's young voters are much less freaked out about an African-American president than are today's old voters. But what about fifty years from now when the Democrats have nominated a transgendered Presidential candidate?
The Dish 