Poseur Alert

"You know, my dad took me out behind the cottage that my grandfather built on a little lake called Lake Winola outside of Scranton and taught me how to shoot when I was a little girl. You know, some people now continue to teach their children and their grandchildren. It’s part of culture. It’s part of a way of life. People enjoy hunting and shooting because it’s an important part of who they are. Not because they are bitter," – Senator Clinton, squeezing every last drop out of bitter-gate. Varmints, if you will.

Douthat vs Kagan

A point worth making:

If America is by its very nature prone to foreign misadventures – and I think [Bob] Kagan somewhat overstates this case, but for the sake of argument let’s concede the point – then surely the task of policymakers and intellectuals, in the wake of one such misadventure, is to draw lessons from What Went Wrong that might be profitably applied to future debates and crises, and that might strengthen the (weak) hand of the anti-interventionist camp the next time war fever grips the nation.

I find the idea that non-interventionism has a permanently weak hand in American politics an odd one. Until the second Iraq war, my entire adult lifetime in America was defined in part by the "Vietnam Syndrome." And you can’t understand American foreign policy since 1974 without seeing the "Powell Doctrine" front and center. America, moreover, has not attempted an actual, permanent empire in the Arab Middle East until now. If any region can cure a great power of the imperial temptation, it is Arabia.

The Lesson Of Iraq

William Polk’s 1958 article seems appropriate for this week:

If we regard our essential aim in Iraq to have been the preservation of the status quo, as our government statements suggest, then we have lost utterly and completely. But surely we can recognize that this was not in itself an aim, but rather a tactical means toward a larger aim. The Iraqi government under Nuri was no more akin to our political ideals than any other dictatorship. Our reasons for identifying ourselves with it were three: it existed, it was prepared to agree to join our side in the Cold War, and it was able to assure the flow of oil. Other governments could conceivably do the latter as well or better (indeed, the flow of oil has increased since the fall of Nuri’s government); the new government is at least as akin to us ideologically and seems to be a movement which might accomplish many of the sorts of reforms we would advocate; and the new government is not founded on a single, aging personality but is representative of a whole generation of those we may rightly regard as our intellectual foster children.

If we accept these conclusions and act accordingly, we could gain from the Iraqi revolt; if, on the contrary, we continue to treat the new regime with hostility, giving color to reports that we would like to overturn it, we will find ourselves opposed by more able adversaries using our own intellectual weapons against us. And we must face up to the fact that even if we had sent in our Marines, or if King Hussein’s Arab Legion had invaded and conquered Iraq, we would have been forced to come to terms with Iraq’s present rulers, for they are not just individuals but representatives of a new generation and a new class.

Here is a breakdown of the article.

American Storyteller

Hemingway on symbolism:

"No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in," says Hemingway. "That kind of symbol sticks out like raisins in raisin bread. Raisin bread is all right, but plain bread is better." He opens two bottles of beer and continues: "I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things. The hardest thing is to make something really true and sometimes truer than true."

(Hat tip: Kottke)

Brown Derangement Syndrome

Matthew Parris explains why he can’t stand the current British prime minister:

What is unforgivable is the empty space in Mr Brown’s head where an idea ought to be. One big idea, one bold, brave, all-consuming purpose, one gripping sense of political direction, would outweigh all the carping criticisms we may have of Brown the man.

But where there should be thought, there is only calculation.

Why else hire Mark Penn?

Malkin Award Nominee

"I now feel fully vindicated in my suspicion that Obama’s attendance at Wright’s church was entirely political and expedient. No one who has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ — or even moderate respect for other people’s religious views — thinks in these terms about why working class people might believe in God," – Lisa Schiffren, asserting that Obama’s professed and practiced faith is a sham.