Tag: Premium

The Battle Lines Of The Culture Wars

Ramesh Ponnuru makes plain how they have and haven’t shifted:

On same-sex marriage and legalized marijuana, public attitudes have, in fact, changed. A majority has gone from opposing to supporting both of them. That doesn’t necessarily mean that opposing them is going to hurt Republicans: It depends on, among other things, whether there’s a large pool of voters who would be open to Republican candidates if only they supported gay marriage. It does, however, mean that Republicans are going to talk less about these issues.

On the other hand, the public has not shifted on abortion, which has been a politically important social issue for much longer than same-sex marriage or legal pot have been. When pollsters for CBS ask people whether abortion should be “generally available,” or Gallup asks whether it should be “legal only under certain circumstances,” the answers look nearly identical to what they were a decade ago. The same is true when Gallup asks whether people consider themselves “pro-life” or “pro-choice.”

Isn’t it obvious why? Marriage equality and legal cannabis cannot plausibly be described as harming anyone. They’re both classically libertarian, live-and-let-live initiatives. But abortion touches on something very different. Many people believe (and I am one of them) that abortion doesn’t just affect another human life, but ends it. The individual liberty argument – so potent with marriage and cannabis – is checked by a legitimate concern for the unborn child. That’s why the younger generation is close to unanimous on cannabis and marriage but still divided over abortion. Kevin Williamson is in agreement:

What conservatives often fail to emphasize, I think, is that abortion is simply in a different category of issues than is gay marriage or marijuana legalization.

Not that those latter issues are not important — they certainly are — but they are not life-and-death issues. The marijuana debate is about how much we think it is worth intervening in other people’s lives to police the use of a relatively mild intoxicant; the abortion debate is about what it means to be a human being. To that extent, the entire idea of “the social issues” is probably more harmful than helpful. Abortion and gay marriage are not even roughly comparable.

Putting abortion aside, Reihan argues “that Republicans are, in theory at least, in a stronger position than Democrats on a variety of other social issues.” For instance, he urges conservatives to take the lead on drug policy:

One can easily imagine conservatives arguing that the chief federal concern in regulating cannabis and other controlled substances is in containing the negative interstate spillovers associated with their use, and so if states succeed in containing these spillovers, they ought to be given wide berth to craft their own regulatory regimes — an argument I’ve gleaned from Mark Kleiman of UCLA and Will Baude of the University of Chicago Law School, in somewhat different forms. Similarly, conservatives might try experimenting with, say, empowering states to lower the drinking age, provided (again) they make a convincing case that they can contain negative spillovers. For example, a state might lower its drinking age while also increasing its taxes on alcohol in an effort to control binge use.

I can’t confidently say that being the first mover on one of these issues would necessarily redound to the GOP’s advantage. But it would certainly change the conversation, and break the GOP out of its defensive crouch.

I can’t say I’m very hopeful on that score. The Puritans remain very strong in the base of that party.

A Lesbian Genius To Watch Out For

After the travesty of Jo Becker’s alleged history of the marriage equality movement, and after Chad Griffin’s PR attempt to portray himself as Rosa Parks, and after Ted Olson and David Boies’ grandiloquent credit-hogging in their recent book, it comes as something of a massive relief to see one of the true architects of marriage equality finally getting her due. Mary Bonauto was fighting for gay marriage rights as a lawyer and organizer when very few others were. She started at the state level – because that’s where civil marriage is rooted in American politics and law. And she critically understood that it was vital to get a foothold somewhere, to prove we were not just fringe weirdos, and she saw Massachusetts and New England as the most favorable terrain.

And they were. One aspect of marriage equality in America that is sometimes missed is the role New England played. The gay and lesbian community in Boston in the 1980s and 1990s was remarkably advanced and organized. It was a community I was immensely lucky to grow up in. The self-confidence and self-esteem that this community helped spawn in its members broke through the fear and doubt and squabbling that cursed us elsewhere. It was a gay community big enough to make a splash, but small enough not to splinter. And Mary was a central component of that with her remarkably successful group, Gay And Lesbian Advocates And Defenders.

Let’s be clear: there would be no national surge in support of marriage equality without ten years of civil marriage equality in one state, and then several others. There would be none without Mary Bonauto.

Federalism was essential in helping us prove that, with this reform, the sky wouldn’t fall, that lives would actually be immensely improved, that families would be strengthened, and that all the scare tactics of the reactionary right were unfounded. Bonauto – along with Evan Wolfson – was absolutely integral to that strategy.

Both of them also understood that one state would not be enough, that if this issue rose up to the federal courts, it was vital that we would not merely be talking about one lone and allegedly rogue state. Bonauto made that happen. You can see her mild-mannered affect in the above video, but don’t be fooled. She was extraordinarily persistent and a ruthlessly methodical lawyer. She also helped dispel the myth that somehow marriage equality was a function of white male elitists (a charge so often leveled at me in the community at large). Of course it wasn’t. Lesbians had a huge amount at stake – especially in the safety and custody of their children and families – in ensuring that civil marriage could protect them. And lesbians – from Edie Windsor to Robbie Kaplan to Bonauto herself – were absolutely indispensable and central in this fight.

I’m in awe of Mary and the work she did. While some of us were busy writing and speaking and debating the issues, she gave us the actual empirical and legal progress that kept our arguments alive and relevant. Without her, we would be in an utterly different and darker world.

(Thumbnail image: MacArthur Foundation)

Busted With An Eggcorn, Ctd

A classic Dish thread continues:

I used to think people were saying they need to “make a piss stop” when going to the restroom at work, instead of pitt stop. One day I earnestly asked a female colleague, “Are they saying ‘piss stop’ or is it ‘pitt stop’??” And so she spit out her water and broke out on laughter, and then, you know how a woman will look at you like you’ve totally lost your mind again. But I really didn’t know.

Another eggcorn:

From a student paper, several years back: “It’s a doggie-dog world.”

Another:

My wife had, for the past 20+ years, always said “connipshit” instead of “conniption.”  I finally made her repeat it to me after she said it two-three times in a day and verified she thought the word was “connipshit.”  But I can’t say I blame her; people in a conniption are usually in a connipshit as well.

Another:

I recently wrote an email to a client where I said that allowing something to happen would set a “very bad president.” (For the record, it was not a Freudian slip; I’m an Obama supporter.)

That’s actually a malapropism, which many readers are still confusing for an eggcorn (though often the distinction can be tricky). Here’s Wiki again:

The unintentionally incorrect use of similar-sounding words or phrases in speaking is a malapropism. If there is a connection in meaning, it can be called an eggcorn.

Or:

I had a friend in college that swore up and down that it was a “greatfruit”. But in his defense, they are nothing like a grape and they are pretty great.

Another:

My wife likes to tell how when she was younger and watched Star Wars, they said the Jedi used a “Life Saver” instead of a Light Saber. They were trying to save people, after all.

And here’s a “gem of an eggcorn from my father, a reporter at a local newspaper”:

One of our writers on Tuesday was reporting on a homicide near a brothel. Or as he inadvertently put it, “a house of proposition.” (It did not get into print.)

Another paper doesn’t seem as diligent:

Here’s another eggcorn from yesterday’s WaPo: “Now, North Korea has decided to take a different tact.”

Another reader:

When I was a precocious youth, I thought that “&” was called a “standsforand” rather than an “ampersand”.

Another:

I hear this one often “This doesn’t jive with what he was saying” rather than “jibe”.  I admit I prefer jive.

On a more colloquial note, when I was a child and asked for something that my mother thought I should get for myself, she would say “What are you?  Lady Cement?”.  Years later I realized she was saying “Laid in cement”.   I never thought to question her use of “what” instead of “who”.  Maybe I just liked being a “Lady”.

Another:

I grew up Catholic, when I was making my First Holy Communion and learning the prayers associated with the rosary.  I asked my mother why we would say “Hell, Mary full of grace.”  What can I say, I grew up in West Texas and “hell” sounded like “hail” to me.

Another:

I hear “butt naked” for “buck naked” all the time here in Utah.

Another:

I’m a marine biologist, and I was at a curriculum meeting last Friday where I said that we didn’t want students to be “floundering” in a poorly organized course.  My colleague, a fish biologist, got a little smile on his face. He told me that I shouldn’t malign the flounders like that.  I still didn’t get it until he and another colleague clarified that the word is “foundering”, like a ship founders (apparently, I haven’t read enough Horatio Hornblower…).  Well, I won’t embarrass myself or insult the Pleuronectiformes again!

Update from a reader:

Your writer who was corrected by his colleagues actually used the word “flounder” appropriately.  It’s definition (as a verb) is “to struggle clumsily or helplessly (e.g. “He floundered helplessly on the first day of his new job.”)” So his statement that “we didn’t want students to be ‘floundering’ in a poorly organized course” works just fine.

Another:

Until the day I die I’ll remember Archie Bunker from “All in the Family” saying “Groin Ecologist” when referring to Edith’s gynecologist.

Dish editor Chris chimes in:

I used to say “lacks-adaisical” instead of “lackadaisical” until my girlfriend corrected me one day. I guess I subconsciously made a connection between the similar meanings of “lax” and “lackadaisical”.

Several more eggcorns:

I’m sure at least one other reader has written to you about the affable British comedy duo Adam & Joe, who used to have a radio show on BBC 6 Music. They got a lot of mileage out of eggcorns from their listeners, ranging from funny but understandable: “the pot calling the kettle back” and “curled up in the feeble position” to the quite bizarre: “this room looks like a bombsy tit.”

Check out the above video for more. Another reader:

One of my favorite eggcorns (at least I think it is) was from my days at a large telecom company.  An account manager wrote in an e-mail that went to several folks, including directors:  “We expect our customers to pay us in the rears! [not ‘arrears’]”  Heh.  I knew our sales people were pains in the butt, but I had no idea they thought of our customers that way! (BTW: please withhold my name if you include this in your list)

Also, thanks for all you do and thanks for having this post.  The news is killing me these days and this added a touch of sanity to the week.

If you need another mental health break in the future, check out the Eggcorn Database. Update from a reader:

Don’t you think the most fitting eggcorn for today is “Will Scotland succeed?”

See you in the morning, succession or not.

An ISIS Plot Down Under?

Australian police today arrested 15 people in connection with a terror plot, allegedly ordered by an Australian member of ISIS, to behead random citizens on video in the manner of Foley, Sotloff, and Haines. Some 800 police officers reportedly took part in the raid, the largest anti-terrorist operation in the country’s history:

Mohammad Ali Baryalei, a former Kings Cross bouncer and part-time actor, is understood to have made the instruction to kidnap people in Brisbane and Sydney and have them executed on camera. That video was then to be sent back to IS’s media unit, where it would be publicly released. Omarjan Azari, 22, from the western Sydney suburb of Guildford, was one of 15 people detained during the operation in Sydney and is accused of conspiring with Baryalei and others to act in preparation or plan a terrorist act or acts, court documents show. Commonwealth prosecutor Michael Allnutt told Sydney’s Central Local Court the alleged offence was “clearly designed to shock, horrify and terrify the community”.

Ishaan Tharoor puts the news in context:

The Soufan Group, a terrorism monitor, estimates that roughly 250 Australian nationals have joined the conflict in Syria. That number may be on the high end, though. Whatever the figure, a considerable proportion of the Australians jihadists are likely in the ranks of the Islamic State. The Herald Sun “unmasks” the identity of more than a dozen of them, including a former kickboxer and TV star. There are half a million Muslims in Australia and only the tiniest of minorities have anything to do with the networks connecting disaffected Muslims in the Antipodes to jihadist causes in the Middle East. Terror experts say the “jihadist scene” in the country is still very small. The worst attack suffered by Australia was in 2002: a set of coordinated bombings in the Indonesian island of Bali, linked to al-Qaeda, that killed hundreds, including 88 Australians.

Ed Morrissey reacts:

This is one reason why the rise of a terrorist state is not just a local issue, or a regional issue. Terrorist states do not want to just be “left alone,” but will spread their terror and destruction until stopped. There is plenty of room for rational and legitimate debate on the most effective way to deal with ISIS and its genocidal army, but ignoring it or shrugging it off as a problem for the Arabs to solve won’t do anything but make our options much more limited and much more costly when we finally do deal with the problem.

Jon Emont takes a look at ISIS’s recruitment efforts in nearby Indonesia:

As IS battles for territory in the Middle East, the group is also fighting for hearts and minds in Indonesia. In recent months, IS propaganda, urging Indonesians to support the militants’ cause in the Middle East, has spread throughout the archipelago via social media and local radical groups. The government has responded decisively. In early August, Jakarta enlisted Indonesia’s most respected Muslim authorities to denounce the organization, and has banned Youtube videos that endorse the jihadis. Outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been outspoken in rejecting the group — he banned it, called it “embarrassing” to Islam, and arrested Indonesians suspected of providing support for IS.

In late August, the government tightened security around Borobudur, the world’s largest Buddhist monument, after intelligence suggested that militants linked to IS were targeting it. On Sept. 13, Indonesian police arrested seven suspected militants, including four foreigners, on suspicion that they were linked to IS. So far, the government’s efforts seem to have been surprisingly effective: Jakarta estimates that there are only 60 Indonesian fighters for IS.

Iraqi Militias Don’t Want To Be Our Frenemies

A day after Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi ruled out allowing the US to re-station ground forces in his country, Juan Cole observes that the country’s Shiite militias, widely considered proxies of Iran, are also warning against American intervention:

Hamza Mustafa reports from Baghdad that Hadi al-Amiri, head of the Iran-backed Badr Corps, warned that the American plan is to take credit for the victories of the Iraqi armed forces and the popular militias. He called for a rejection of the plan and dependence solely on Iraqi military and paramilitary to defeat ISIL. … The Bloc of the Free (al-Ahrar) led by Shiite cleric Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr called on al-Abadi to reject the US plan. Muqtada al-Sadr warned the US against trying to reoccupy Iraq and threatened, “If you return, we will return.” This was a reference to his Mahdi Army, which had subsided in importance after the US withdrawal. Muqtada boasted that the militia had inflicted heavy casualties on US troops and forced the US out. He also said that if the Mahdi Army “Peace Brigades” discovered an American presence in any province where they were fighting ISIL, they should immediately withdraw from the fight.

His conclusion:

It is difficult to tell how serious these militia leaders’ pronouncements are, since they might be attempting to save face with their followers even as they benefit from the US air cover. On the other hand, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq actually did in the past kidnap US troops, and the Mahdi Army fought them tooth and nail in spring of 2004, inflicting high casualties on them. Since President Obama’s air campaign requires Special Ops forces like Navy Seals or Green Berets to be on the ground with the Iraqi Army, they should apparently watch their backs. The people they are trying to help against ISIL don’t seem to appreciate their being there. And many of them seem to prefer Iran’s help.

So there are indigenous forces against ISIS that are telling us: we’ve got this. And we’re over-ruling them. Eli Lake, on the other hand, interprets these statements as evidence that Iran is working against us, noting that Tehran itself opposes US involvement in the conflict on the ground:

[Mohammad] Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations on Wednesday evening that Iran provides the militias with help organizing, some weapons, and military advisers. He also stressed they were disorganized. Nonetheless, Zarif said that any U.S. ground presence in Iraq would likely spur opposition. “The problem also when it comes to the United States is that the presence of foreign forces in any setting creates domestic opposition and domestic resentment,” he said. “And it is best, whether we support this or not—and we certainly do not support anybody engaging in anything that would complicate the situation—is to allow the Iraqis to fight this.”

Phillip Smyth profiles the resurgent Shiite militias, which he calls “highly ideological, anti-American, and rabidly sectarian organizations” and nearly as much of a security problem as ISIS itself:

Shiite militias have embedded themselves within the structures of the Iraqi government, which has become far too reliant on their power to contemplate cracking down on them. Together, they have committed horrifying human rights abuses: In early June, Shiite militias along with Iraqi security forces reportedly executed around 255 prisoners, including children. An Amnesty International report from June detailed how Shiite militias regularly carried out extrajudicial summary executions, and reported that dozens of Sunni prisoners were killed in government buildings. …

The growing power of these militias is a sign that, despite Maliki’s removal as prime minister, the Iraqi government remains beholden to deeply sectarian forces. These militias have generally retained their operational independence from Baghdad, even as they exploit the country’s nascent democratic system to gain support through their domination of official bodies. They are not simply addendums to the state — they are the state, and do not answer to any authority in Baghdad, but only to their own clerical leaders or Tehran.

All the same, Ben Fernandes argues that cooperating with Iran against ISIS carries fewer risks than not cooperating with Iran:

The current U.S. strategy to defeat ISIS unintentionally incentivizes Iran to build a nuclear weapon by increasing Iran’s perception of external threats and a need for the protection afforded by the possession of nuclear weaponry.  The U.S. intent to arm “moderate” Sunni groups in Syria to fight ISIS will simultaneously (if inadvertently) increase the “Sunni threat” to Iran and Iranian allies like the Assad regime.  Iran perceives all Sunni groups in the Levant as threatening regardless of a Sunni group’s views of the United States as the enemy.  Just as Saddam Hussein prioritized potential threats from Iran and internal dissidents far above the threat of external attack from the United States, Iran acts similarly towards internal dissidents, Saudi Arabia, and other Sunni groups vis-à-vis the United States.

ISIS credibly threatens regional stability, Iranian interests, U.S. interests, Iraq, and many others.  As such, there may be a way to find common ground with Iran in the fight against ISIS.  Iran will not become a reliable U.S. partner, but can be a transactional partner for specific issues of mutual interest just as the U.S. partnered with the Soviets in World War II.  A grand U.S.-Iran bargain over Syrian governance, ISIS, Iranian nuclear weapons, and sanctions may be more practical than dealing with each of these issues in sequence, per the current “ISIS first” approach discussed in GEN Dempsey’s testimony.

Back To The Bush Years … ?

Bush Asks Congress For $74.7 Billion In War Aid

My own dismay (even bewilderment) at the current mood in America may well be because I was largely off-grid in August. But it’s still a truly remarkable shift. In a month, the entire political landscape has reverted to Bush-Cheneyism again. I honestly thought that would never happen, that the grisly experience of two failed, endless wars had shifted Americans’ understanding of what is possible in the world, that the panic and terror that flooded our frontal cortexes from 9/12 onward would not be able to come back with such a vengeance. I was clearly wrong. Terrorism does not seem to have lost any of its capacity to promote total panic among Americans. The trauma bin Laden inflicted is still overwhelming rationality. It would be harder to imagine a more stunning success for such a foul mass murder.

The party that was primarily responsible for the years of grinding, bankrupting war, a descent into torture, and an evisceration of many core liberties is now regarded as superior to the man originally tasked with trying to recover from that experience. The political winds unleashed by a few disgusting videos and a blitzkrieg in the desert have swept all before them. And we now hear rhetoric from Democratic party leaders that sounds close to indistinguishable from Bush or Cheney.

Is it merely panic? I doubt it. I think what’s also coursing through the collective psyche is the thought that Obama told us we were finally out of Iraq – and events have shown that assurance to be shaky at best. A core part of his legacy has had the bottom fall out of it. I don’t think most people – outside the Tea Party – really believe that all would be well if we’d just kept more troops in country the last couple of years. But the resurgence of the Sunni insurgency – now tinged with the most fanatical of theocratic barbarisms – is nonetheless blamed on Obama. Maybe it could have been contained without the beheadings. But they touched so many visceral chords that the Jacksonian temperament, always twitching beneath the surface of American life, simply bulldozed away every conceivable objection and doubt.

But will this last? I have my doubts. The Republicans are actually ambivalent about this war – largely because Obama is the president. For a while, they’ll bash him for not being “tough” enough – as if toughness has been shown to be the critical virtue in the fight against Jihadist terrorism. But when and if it actually comes to ground troops, my guess is that they’ll get cold feet. Apart from the unhinged McCain and Butters, few of them are so delusional to think we should re-occupy the place indefinitely. Maybe ISIS can  do the neocons a favor and engage in some domestic terrorism to ratchet up the global stakes once again – in which case, we will very much be back where we started, our collective memory erased like those lab rats we covered earlier today.

My point is this: when they actually have to choose to go back to Bush-Cheneyism, and an endless, global civilizational war, Americans will not be as gung-ho as they now appear to be, in the wake of ISIS’ propaganda coups and the Beltway’s hysteria.

If the air-strikes do manage to contain the threat, and they don’t provoke another terror attack, Obama’s anti-terror minimalism might even appear the least worst option over time, and his caution admirable in retrospect. My worry, of course, is that the demonization of the president by the Fox News echo-chamber has rendered any sober judgment about his anti-terror policies moot. You can see the deep currents at work here: paranoia about border security, a bigoted belief that Obama actually favors Islamism, and the memes of racism, otherness and barbarism that ISIS both triggers and, in part, is designed to trigger. It doesn’t help that he is at the moment in a two term presidency when we are looking past him to the future, when discontent is inevitable, and in a time when the economy continues to pummel the working poor and the middle class.

Like me, Peter Beinart is alarmed by the change in the national mood:

The GOP’s advantage on “dealing with foreign policy,” which was seven points last September, is now 18. And the shift toward Republicans has been strongest among women. In August, women were 14 points more likely to support Obama’s foreign policy than men, according to a Wall Street Journal poll. Now the gap is down to two points. In August, white women favored a Democratic Congress by four points. Now they favor a Republican Congress by eight. As in 2002, Democrats are responding by becoming more hawkish. In October 2002, most Democrats in competitive Senate races voted to authorize the Iraq War. Last week, Obama announced a multi-year air campaign against ISIS.

But it doesn’t work. Almost all the imperiled Democrats in 2002 lost anyway. And there’s no evidence that Obama’s new hawkishness is helping him politically either.

The great error was Obama’s effective endorsement of the panic. Maybe if he hadn’t done so, the Democrats would be wiped out this fall. Maybe any president would have had to appear to do something as Americans are beheaded in a desert and the images flood the web. But maybe a determined stoicism and refusal to panic might have undergirded Obama’s core appeal, shored up his base, and in time, seemed far more responsible than Butters’ vapors.

No one said it’s an easy job. But I fear Obama’s pragmatism may have just made it even harder.

(Photo: U.S. President George W. Bush speaks next to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz during a visit at the Pentagon on March 25, 2003. Bush asked Congress for a wartime supplemental appropriations of $74.7 billion to fund needs directly arising from the war in Iraq and the global war against terror.  By Alex Wong/Getty Images.)

Email Of The Day

Jack09162014

The “newest member of Club Tripod in DC” will cheer you up:

The last few weeks have been so depressing news-wise, I thought I’d pass along something upbeat. Jack came back from Sierra Leone with me two years ago with a limp and arthritis due to an injury that had healed poorly (there’s only one vet in the entire country). When it got worse this summer, I visited an orthopedic surgeon who suggested a range of options, from physical therapy to arthroscopy. She didn’t mention amputation, but when I asked about it, she said that this was the best option, though pet owners tend to react poorly to the suggestion.

It’s been just three weeks since the surgery and she already moves as if her leg were never there. Dogs are amazingly resilient. On our walk this morning, a little boy pointed to her and told his mom to “look at how fast that dog is!”

When people see little Bowie charging like a bullet down the beach after her favorite yellow tennis ball (as seen below), they gawk in wonder:

bowie-running

Bowie remains utterly indifferent to the missing leg. It’s all about the ball. Even when she sometimes wipes out (it happens on stairs), she immediately tries again, and almost always succeeds.

And yes, when the world seems too grim, these are the things you live for. I can’t imagine getting through the day without her untrammeled joy at being alive.

Update from a reader:

If you aren’t familiar with it, you should check out the moving, beautiful story of Haatchi and Little B.  Haatchi was abandoned on railroad tracks, hit by a train, and left for dead.  He lost one of his rear legs and most of his tail.  After being rescued, he was adopted by Little B.’s family, and he really helped Little B., a disabled boy with a rare genetic disorder, come of his shell.

If you can watch this video without crying, you’re made of stone:

This Is What Passes For A War Authorization These Days

Yesterday, the House voted 273-156 to let the president arm the “moderate” Syrian rebels to help fight ISIS:

The administration’s request was an amendment to a must-pass, stopgap measure to keep the government running through mid-December. Although the amendment had the early support of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi D-Calif., a number of lawmakers in both parties began defecting, prompting a last-minute push by party leaders to build support.

New York’s Steve Israel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said a range of top Democrats worked to the last minute to gather votes for the president’s plan, which would train some 5,000 Syrian rebels in the first year at facilities in Saudi Arabia. … Having secured approval in the House, the bill now moves to the Senate, where it may receive a skeptical reception. In testimony Wednesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State John Kerry came under intense questioning about the White House’s plan to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels.

The idea is as doomed now as it long has been. The US trained the entire Iraqi army in country for years – and they still scarpered. The problem is political; almost certainly unsolvable except in the long run by the parties themselves; and made utterly solvable by US intervention. The Senate is set to vote on the measure today. Weigel notes who voted “aye”:

Everybody in competitive races. Georgia Rep. John Barrow, Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, and West Virginia Rep. Nick Rahall are among the very last Democrats in districts that voted for the Romney-Ryan ticket in 2012. They went “aye.” So did Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley and Michigan Rep. Gary Peters, both Senate candidates in tough races. On the Republican side, Senate candidates Tom Cotton and Steve Daines voted “aye,” as did Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman and Florida Rep. Steve Southerland. They’re the only two Republicans in seats that appear now to be toss-ups, with strong Democratic challengers cutting through the headwind.

Most Democratic leaders. The top three Democrats in the House — Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Jim Clyburn — were ayes, as was DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The only leadership figure to break with the president was Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen.

Every Republican leader. From John Boehner to the deputy whip team, the GOP was on board.

And Alex Rogers relays what the “nays” had to say:

Lawmakers who opposed the bill said the President’s strategy to arm so-called moderate Syrian rebels is misguided. The Obama Administration is hoping these fighters can help beat back the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). “I’ve never been satisfied that we’re not going to end up fighting people that we’ve armed at some point in the future,” Representative Mick Mulvaney, Republican of South Caroline, said. “No one ever defined victory to me that made any sense whatsoever.”

The bill even lost the support of Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, a top Democratic leader. “I support the President’s overall strategy; I support what he’s doing in providing air support for the Iraqi forces and the Kurdish rebels,” Van Hollen said. “I have misgivings about this piece because the priority of the so-called Syrian rebels is to defeat [Syrian strongman Bashar] Assad. And I understand that, but it’s hard at this point to see how defeating Assad strengthens the mission against ISIS.”

To Allahpundit, the vote doesn’t look like such a ringing endorsement:

Here’s the roll. Obama ended up getting many more Republican votes than Democratic ones (159 versus 114), including Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and Paul Ryan. It was tea partiers like Justin Amash, Michele Bachmann, and Louie Gohmert who ended up in the opposition. Truth be told, though, no faction within the House is keen on O’s train-the-rebels strategy; this resolution, in fact, will expire on December 11th, the same day that the new continuing resolution would expire. What the two sides are doing here is simply punting the issue until after the midterms, when the GOP won’t have to worry about any electoral blowback if they try to block O on a war effort that’s surprisingly popular for the moment.

Ryan Grim and Sam Stein pick up chatter in Washington that the CIA, which already tried arming the rebels, is not too sanguine about trying again:

One Democratic member of Congress said that the CIA has made it clear that it doubts the possibility that the administration’s strategy could succeed. “I have heard it expressed, outside of classified contexts, that what you heard from your intelligence sources is correct, because the CIA regards the effort as doomed to failure,” the congressman said in an email. “Specifically (again without referring to classified information), the CIA thinks that it is impossible to train and equip a force of pro-Western Syrian nationals that can fight and defeat Assad, al-Nusra and ISIS, regardless of whatever air support that force may receive.”

He added that, as the CIA sees it, the ramped-up backing of rebels is an expansion of a strategy that is already not working. “The CIA also believes that its previous assignment to accomplish this was basically a fool’s errand, and they are well aware of the fact that many of the arms that they provided ended up in the wrong hands,” the congressman said, echoing intelligence sources.

Francine Kiefer notes that the procedure the House followed allowed a fair amount of debate over the amendment:

For surer passage, the White House wanted the Syria authorization and the spending bill, known as continuing resolution, to be one piece of legislation. No one would want to shut down the government, and so Syria would pass. But House members strenuously objected: Because of its seriousness, Syria deserved to be debated and voted on separately. Leadership listened. Members got six hours of debate and a vote, passing the amendment 273 to 156. Then the amendment was attached to the spending bill and voted on as a package. It passed 319 to 108.

Alas, for procedural reasons, senators will not have that option and will have to vote on the welded package sent from the House. Some senators plan to vote no, but it is expected to pass.

By the way, Senator Tim Kaine has drafted an actual war authorization, but Waldman doubts it will go anywhere:

[E]verything Obama says he is committed to is incorporated in Kaine’s proposal. It even leaves the 2001 AUMF in place, which is either a sensible choice allowing for flexibility in fighting terrorism or a loophole you could drive a truck through, so long as the White House maintains that ISIS and al Qaeda are allied. Will it go anywhere? It may be too soon to know, but I’m guessing that the White House will say, privately if not publicly, that they don’t want to “tie the president’s hands.” Democrats will be responsive to that pressure (if it comes) from the White House, while Republicans will probably be uneasy about anything that could constrain the war-making ability of this president or a future one.

And the beat goes on …

Is Scottish Independence Irrational?

People Of Scotland Take To The Polls To Decide Their Country's Fate In Historic Vote

Adam Gopnik addresses the question:

Irrationalities are as essential to dissolving unions as they are to maintaining them. Scotland, which is just now voting on independence, is also, we’re told, acting against its self-evident economic interests—or, at the very least, acting with huge, unfunded optimism. Once again, as is so often the case in the twentieth century, the atavistic thrill of nationalism is ballooned up by the blithe certainty that it will somehow magically lead to a progressive paradise. As Canadians alone remember, the province of Quebec, in two referendums, did, or came close to doing, the same thing with the same unfounded belief.

It is easy to say that such a move makes no sense, but nationalism is almost always a more powerful drug than is the promise of continued prosperity. The irony is that many Scottish nationalists see the larger European Union as their alternative to the apparently stifling British one, though E.U. membership for an independent Scotland would be far from guaranteed, and would affect everything from the politics of emigration to the price of scotch. Nationalists in Quebec believed something similar, holding out the dubious hope that the United States would be a welcoming market for and partner with a monolingual French Quebec in ways that Canada somehow was not.

Michael Brendan Dougherty blames the EU for the increasing nationalism across Europe:

By creating a federated superstate with its own defense policies, currency, and central bank, the EU takes off the table some of the hardest questions a separatist or secessionist movement has to answer. The EU does a lot of the work of a nation-state for them. To some degree, extant and aspiring nationalisms are free-riding on an official internationalism.

The EU tends to be extremely generous in dignifying minority languages, regions, and even political movements with some kind of official status. Latvian, Irish, and Maltese are all recognized European languages, but good luck finding four million people who speak any of these fluently. Still, this kind of recognition is important to nationalists looking to maintain some kind of identity in the face of an overwhelming, powerful neighbor, or globalism more generally.

But Nicholas Shackel refuses to label Scotland’s Yes voters irrational:

It is certainly true that a lot of the time for a lot of people acting rationally does amount to acting prudently. But it is not generally true. Rationality requires acting in accord with what one care’s about. If you care most about your best interest it would be irrational to act against it, but when that isn’t what you care most about then it isn’t irrational to act against it.

So then the question of the rationality of voting for Scottish independence comes down to what the person voting most cares about. They may care more about freedom of association than about their self interest, and if for them not being ruled by the British state but being ruled by a Scottish state instead satisfied what they value in freedom of association, then voting for independence could be perfectly rational despite it being against their best interest.

Jonathan Tobin argues along the same lines:

Whether it is true or not, a great many Scots believe themselves to have been oppressed by the English and to have had their nation stolen from them. They may not be mad enough to wish to bring back a descendant of the Stuarts, but the longing for the return of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the last Stuart Pretender who led the Scots to disaster at Culloden in 1746 and then was forced to flee to European exile, left its mark on the country’s national consciousness. That fueled the romance of a separate Scots identity that was never entirely extinguished even during the heyday of Scottish involvement in the enterprise of the British Empire. So long as these myths are influential and can be buttressed by modern grievances, however insubstantial, independence will always have a constituency that will consider it worth a great deal of inconvenience if not hardship.

(Photo: An independence supporter sports a Scottish Saltire tie, badge and rosette as he stands outside a polling station on September 18, 2014 in Strichen, Scotland. By Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

The Fed Is Getting Back To Normal

Ylan Mui has the details of yesterday’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting, in which Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen laid out a plan to draw down the Fed’s massive stimulus program in light of the economic recovery and the upward trajectory of the job market:

The improving outlook means that the recovery no longer needs as much support from the nation’s central bank.

Since the start of this year, the Fed has been slowly reducing the amount of money it is pumping into the economy. The central bank said Wednesday it will reduce its purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities to $15 billion in October, down from $85 billion a month last year. The Fed expects to end the program altogether when it meets next month.

Still, the Fed said it will maintain the size of its balance sheet for now –which stands at $4.4 trillion — by reinvesting maturing securities. The Fed holds more than four times as many assets as it did before the 2008 financial crisis. Though the central bank said Wednesday it is committed to shrinking the balance sheet to a more normal size, it formally announced it does not plan to sell any of its assets, a reversal of the plan laid out three years ago. Instead, the Fed said it will eventually stop reinvesting maturing securities and let them run off. However, the central bank said Wednesday that process will not start until after it has successfully raised its benchmark interest rate.

Neil Irwin rejoices at the prospect of a return to boring monetary policy:

For the last six years, Federal Reserve policy has been sexy, or at least as sexy as monetary policy can ever be. Leaders of the central bank have had to improvise answers to tremendously consequential questions. What should the Fed do to combat a severe financial crisis? (Pretty much anything they could think of, and then some, was the answer.) What should the Fed do to stimulate a depressed economy when interest rates are already near zero? (Buy trillions of dollars in securities and pledge to keep interest rates at zero for a really long time.) Should it consider more radical measures like lifting its target for inflation? (No.)

But now, the big questions of Fed policy have mostly been answered, all the more so after this week’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee and the news conference on Wednesday by Janet L. Yellen, its chairwoman. And that is terrific news.

Michael Grunwald is on the same page:

It’s true that our recovery from the Great Recession has been slower than previous recoveries from ordinary recessions. But it has been much stronger than previous recoveries in nations that endured major financial crises—and much stronger than Europe’s current recovery. The euro zone’s output has not yet reached pre-crisis levels; it’s still struggling with 12% unemployment and a risk of deflation.

We’re doing a lot better than that. We had more effective bank bailouts, more generous fiscal stimulus—until Republicans took over the House after the 2010 midterms and began demanding austerity—and much more accommodative monetary policy. It’s all worked remarkably well. We’ve faced some headwinds—the contagion from the near-collapse of Greece in 2010, the turmoil after we nearly defaulted on our debt in 2011—but the economy has continued its path of slow but steady growth. That’s why Yellen was able to discuss those mind-numbing “policy normalization principles,” the guidelines the Fed will follow as it starts raising rates and reining in its bloated balance sheet in 2015. We’re approaching normal. And the Fed’s forecast for the next few years also looks pretty decent.

But the Bloomberg View editors oppose ending the Fed’s extraordinary measures:

[T]he Fed has better tools than monetary policy to mitigate financial threats to the broader economy. It can require banks to fund themselves with more loss-absorbing equity, and it can pressure them to steer clear of obvious trouble spots. As a member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, it can also push for better monitoring of risks that might be building outside the regulated banking system. For monetary policy, the biggest question is whether the Fed can get employment back to pre-recession levels without generating too much inflation. The concern is that structural changes such as shrinking labor-force participation and decelerating productivity might have made that goal impossible. If so, and without government action to combat stagnation, central bankers might have to write off the livelihoods of millions of people as a permanent loss.

So far, there’s little evidence that the Fed has reached the limit of what it can do. Giving up too soon would be a tragedy, even if inflation temporarily overshoots the Fed’s target. Hence, the central bank would do well to maintain room for maneuver.

And Andrew Flowers notes that the debate over the effectiveness of the third round of “quantitative easing” is not settled:

The latest Survey of Consumer Finances showed that the typical household’s income fell by 5 percent (after adjusting for inflation) from 2010 to 2013 — which covers all of QE2 and the bulk of QE3. And economic inequality rose. Because the rich tend to hold a greater percentage of their assets in stocks, and stock prices rose, 2013 saw a widening disparity in wealth.

Critics of QE3 have also worried about inflation. With the Fed effectively printing money to buy $1.6 trillion in bonds, and all this money sloshing around, the prices of all sorts of goods and services could increase, and nullify whatever stimulative effect the program was supposed to have. However, inflation rates have barely budged and remain below the Fed’s 2 percent target, and inflation expectations are stable. This “inflation hysteria” has not materialized, QE3 supporters say; not yet, say the critics.

He also observes that the Fed’s long-term growth projections are pessimistic:

Specifically, the midpoint forecast for real gross domestic product growth in the longer run was lowered to 2.15 percent, down from 2.20 percent in June. In early 2009, when the Fed first began releasing projections, the longer-run midpoint forecast was 2.60 percent. That’s a huge drop. … This “longer run” growth projection is equivalent to potential growth — defined as the economy’s growth rate when using all available resources but without leading to debilitating inflation. And the Fed is not alone in revising down its views of long-run growth: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office also revised down potential GDP this year.