Kristol To The NYT

He’s obviously an extremely talented writer and editor, and I guess some naked partisanship on the right is necessary to balance out Krugman. But ideologically, having both David Brooks and Bill Kristol as the sole representatives of the right-of-center is to focus on a very small neocon niche in a conservative world that is currently exploding with intellectual diversity and new currents of thought. There are about five "national greatness" conservatives out there. Four of them now have columns in the WaPo or NYT: Kristol, Brooks, Krauthammer and Gerson. Thank God, I guess, for the blogosphere. We have no restrictions here, do we?

(Update: a reader asked me who the other national greatness conservative was. Bob Kagan. And, of course, he does have a column in the WaPo. So it’s five for five.)

Quote For The Day

"What you’re saying is I haven’t taken a congressional delegation. I have not made an official trip. I’ve traveled through Europe extensively, and in fact, on my way back from Russia met with Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street… I think that you’re seeing renewed vitality in Europe and it has a desire to flex its muscles a lot more in terms of foreign policy. But there’s a big world out there. And I think that my familiarity with Asia and Africa, not just in an official capacity, but in a very intimate way, my knowledge of the Muslim world, is part of the experience that informed my judgment when I opposed the war in Iraq. It’s part of why I’ve called for negotiations with Iran. When I first said this it was considered to be bucking the conventional wisdom. But now the intelligence estimates have said it’s something we need to do. It’s the same knowledge base that allowed me to insist that we shouldn’t have put all our eggs in Musharraf when it came to Pakistan policy. All these things I think inform my foreign policy vision, one that says we can keep ourselves safe by maintaining the strongest military in the world, but also by reinvigorating our diplomacy and our efforts to affect public opinion around the world, and that’s something I think I could do better than anybody." – Barack Obama.

The Creepy Logic Of Romney

This is actually something like the consensus among most of the GOP candidates:

"Our most basic civil liberty is the right to be kept alive."

It’s a very, very, very long way from "Give me liberty or give me death, as Mark Thompson notes. " The "culture of life" as the theocons call it does not, alas, mean merely a deep respect for human life, from cradle to grave, with prudence as the guide to the grayest areas at the very beginning and very end of life. It has come to mean for many an absolutism with respect to maintaining life and survival – even to the point of absurdity, as in the Terri Schiavo case or opposition to RU486. And on the other wing of today’s conservatism – the authoritarian wing – it means sacrificing basic liberties (such as habeas corpus) and basic moral principles (such as the prohibition on torture). I deal with this in The Conservative Soul at length. But it remains a staggering sign of how conservatism has abandoned its core principles – out of fear of terrorism and out of adherence to religious fundamentalism.

The Envelope, Please …

After thousands of votes, the results are now in.

The Malkin Award for 2007 goes to … Michael Savage for this:

"You know, the Gore-leone crime family is now the number one crime family in the world, when you think about it. He’s about to pull off the biggest scam in the history of the world. It’s bigger than any bank heist, bigger than any drug deal. It’s bigger than any counterfeiting scheme, and he’s doing it all nice and natural with a little help from the socialist perverts in Norway, who gave him a Nobel Prize. Why do I call them socialist perverts? Answer: because they are. By and large, 90 percent of the people on the Nobel Committee are into child pornography and molestation, according to the latest scientific studies."

The Moore Award for 2007 goes to … Keith Olbermann for this:

"Al Qaeda really hurt us, but not as much as Rupert Murdoch has hurt us, particularly in the case of Fox News. Fox News is worse than Al Qaeda — worse for our society. It’s as dangerous as the Ku Klux Klan ever was."

The Yglesias Award for 2007 goes to … Peggy Noonan for this:

"Christian conservatives have been rising, most recently, for 30 years in national politics, since they helped elect Jimmy Carter. They care about the religious faith of their leaders, and their interest is legitimate. Faith is a shaping force. Lincoln got grilled on it. But there is a sense in Iowa now that faith has been heightened as a determining factor in how to vote, that such things as executive ability, professional history, temperament, character, political philosophy and professed stands are secondary, tertiary. But they are not, and cannot be. They are central. Things seem to be getting out of kilter, with the emphasis shifting too far."

And the Poseur Of The Year 2007 is … Michael Ledeen for this:

"Barbara and I went to Indianapolis for a Toby Keith concert, where we partied with something like 25,000 happy rednecks, most of them young, most of them wearing boots and cowboy hats (and cheering Keith’s great song "I Should Have Been a Cowboy"). It’s a great show, and he’s a wonderful performer, not least because of his deeply moving patriotic songs like "American Soldier," "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue," and " The Taliban," etc.

It’s great to get out of the Washington culture of narcissism and spend some time with the rednecks, a.k.a. real Americans."

Thanks to Jessie Roberts, my outgoing Dish-prepper, for setting all of this up. Thanks to all of you who send in these items and to all of you who voted. And congrats to all the winners. I decided to keep the awards named as they are for 2008. A glossary – with the criteria for each – can be read here.

Is Romney Down For The Count?

Tom Edsall looks at the evidence. Money quote:

Since January 1, 2007, the former Massachusetts governor has spent well in excess of $80 million, including at least $17.4 million of his own money, paying media fees in excess of $30 million, salaries of roughly $16 million, and consulting payments of more than $15 million.

Among Romney’s costly innovations this year has been putting more than 80 local conservative leaders in key states on his campaign payroll, in what amounts to a 21st Century revival of "walk-around money."

And still he struggles.

Over-Estimating Bhutto

Thomas Barnett counsels against believing that the assassination changes that much:

Bhutto, despite our mythologizing of her past rule and future potential, was not going to fix Pakistan. As such, her passing matters only to the extent it creates short-term instability. But, in the end, I don’t expect to change much about the correlation of forces right now in Pakistan.