The Dish

Tom Ricks compares Obama's potential surge in Afghanistan to Bush's Iraq surge.

A reader writes:

As a Jew, I could not agree more with your post.  Thank you for your eloquent articulation of these points.  I assume you will be attacked as a Jew hating anti-Zionist Nazi for this, but know that you are not.  The Occupation is, in my opinion a corrupting cancer not just on the State of Israel, but on the whole of the Jewish people.  The sooner it ends, the sooner our recovery can begin.  The Shoah has made many of us paranoid, but operating from fear is a losing proposition in almost all cases, especially when it is totally irrational fear about what is without question the most powerful country in the region. 

During this Jewish High Holiday season we pray “Turn us unto You and we shall return” from the book of Lamentations.  This is my wish for Israel and the Jewish people- that we return, as you put it, “to our ancient moral values”.

I do want to say that my reference to "Jews" in the last two sentences was not meant to ignore the countless Israelis and Jews who have indeed eschewed paranoia for realism and hope. My occasional mantra "Know Hope" was written by Israelis. They inspire me. Another writes:

The latest letter from your reader, especially this quote:

It means a show of force that involves something more that just an E4E.  If the other side realizes that 100 of theirs will die for every one of ours they kill, well then that might cause them to re-think that strategy now wouldn't it?

illustrates the classic neoconservative fallacy about human nature, and particularly the nature of Arab peoples.

These people have been fighting this war for centuries. Literally centuries. Not all Arabs, of course, but the people executing these rocket attacks view this conflict as existential, apocalyptic, and commanded by God. Given that, we can't break them. If we kill their family it strengthens their resolve. If we kill a hundred for every one, it strengthens their resolve.

Oren, your reader, and various right-wing pundits arrive at this sort of calculus because they make the mistake of assuming that Arabs are JUST LIKE US! That's how WE think about things, because in our society the greatest given is that death is always the worst outcome in any situation. That's just not true for radical Muslims, death is not considered a bad outcome.

Need proof? Let's ask this way: Israel fought a massive war in Gaza and killed Palestinians all out of proportion to the losses they had suffered. Have the rockets stopped? Has Palestine admitted that Israel was right all along and moved off their land? No. We've been in Afghanistan 8 years, been in Iraq 6 years, killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. Have Afghanistan and Iraq become pacified and lain down in awe of the might and will of the USA? No. So maybe it's time to stop assuming that such a capitulation will be the outcome.

The Dish tends to cite only polls of polls as truly reliable, but the latest from Quinnipiac is very interesting. Essentially, the public opposes Obama's health insurance reform by 47 – 40 percent. But when you break this down into its component parts, you find very high support for much of what it does. On mandates, the public was against them 51 to 44 percent in the same Quinnipiac poll in July; now they favor mandates by 51 – 44 percent. That's a big swing in a few months. The public option, meanwhile, is hugely popular: supported by a majority of 61 to 34 percent. So the most popular part of the bill is the one least likely to get passed; and the one aspect the GOP is adamant about.

What the public doesn't believe is that this will save money. And I can't blame them. The CBO scoring is a big help for the Dems in this respect, but Americans are not fools, and in my view, if Obama doesn't devote his full energies to addressing spending once healthcare is passed, he will suffer. 

But the politics of all this is just as interesting. As the poll of polls shows, Obama's approval on this has actually been improving (that amazing speech helped). In a dreadful climate, this president enjoys pretty solid 50 percent support and, if anything, it's drifting upwards. Now look at the results for the Republicans:

Republicans get their lowest grades since Obama was elected on several measures:

* Voters disapprove 64 – 25 percent of the way Republicans in Congress are doing their job, with 42 percent of Republican voters disapproving;

* Only 29 percent think Republicans on Capitol Hill are acting in good faith;

* Voters trust Obama more than Republicans 47 – 31 percent to handle health care;

* Voters 53 – 25 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party.

Then public doesn't want a Democrats-only health insurance bill, but they don't like the GOP and love the public option. I think the Dems would be fools not to get a public option in the bill and brag about it. And Karl Rove, once again, is completely wrong about everything.

Gail Collins says as much:

The Republicans are […] completely right about Rangel. Whenever a powerful committee chairman has so many problems that you need a timeline to keep all the allegations straight, he is a liability. When those problems revolve around things like failure to pay taxes, it is not a good plan to have him be in charge of tax policy. I say this with great sadness because Rangel is my congressman. […] Despite my great stake in keeping Rangel in his current post of power, I’m not prepared to argue that you can have a chairman of the tax-writing committee who failed to declare $75,000 in rental income on a Caribbean villa on his tax returns. Or one who seems to think you can turn yourself into a resident of two different cities if it gets you cheaper housing — and that the House only requires its members to list their financial assets beginning with the letters F through M.

He should go.

Here's what the Republican party now is: they reward heckling the first black president with funding for the heckler close to $2.7 million. The rage out there is very, very real. They may be a minority, but their passion and volume is so great. They intend to destroy any attempt by Obama to get past the ideological faultlines of the past and seek practical solutions to profound problems; they intend to blame Obama for all he inherited from Bush and Cheney; and there is no responsible Republican leadership that will try to stop them.

Ta-Nehisi points to a Nightline exposé and writes:

Texas justice is essentially sorcery, and there will be people who say that we can perfect it, that we can close the loop-holes. They're wrong. The problem isn't with loopholes–it's with us. We are fallible. Conservatives, more than anyone, should know that–it undergirds their entire philosophy. They don't think government can perfect much of anything. What makes them think we can perfect murder? I'd have a lot more respect if they just came out and said, "Yeah, it isn't perfect, but it's a price we should be willing to pay."

Unconfirmed news out of Iran:

[Mowcamp] reported that [Mohammed Reza] Ali-Zamani “was transferred on Monday from Evin prison ward 209 to Revolutionary Court number 15, presided over by Justice Salabati and the execution verdict was communicated to him.” If confirmed, it would be the first death sentence yet in the trials of more than 100 opposition supporters for allegedly fomenting street violence following President Ahmadinejad’s disputed election victory in June.

Adam Serwer simmers over the latest developments on the torture photos:

The administration, perhaps sensing that they're not really on solid legal ground when it comes to arguing that the government should be able to hide evidence of its own wrongdoing under the rubric of national security, is getting a little cover from Congress. Yesterday, the conference summary of the current homeland security appropriations bill indicates that an amendment from Sen. Joe Lieberman that would exempt the photos from the FOIA Act has been adopted, which means that the government could legally withhold the pictures if the bill is passed. The same Sen. Lieberman, deeply concerned about the constitutionality of executive branch "czars," has inserted language into a bill allowing the government to conceal evidence of its own abuses.