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Computers and Culture
Just to add to what Kevin says here someone should tell Harold Bloom that computers, especially when connected to this Interweb thingy, are actually an excellent resource for high culture. Check out Project Gutenberg if huge quantities of free books is something you'd be interested in, or Bibliomania if you'd like somewhat fewer free books but with more bells and whistles. If you've got access to a good university library, this stuff probably isn't going to be so useful to you, but for the rest of us this stuff can be quite cool. And some technophilic literature lovers put together neat stuff with annotations like this hypertext "The Waste Land" which would be even better if someone put it together with contemporary web design standards.
And, of course, it's not just literature. The other day I came across Pre-Raphaelites.com which isn't as good as a visit to your local museum, but is a lot more comprehensive than any particular one. Magritte.com, dedicated to my favorite painter, used to be one of my most-beloved web sites until the intellectual property police made them take down all the art, but the same folks still run a good Renoir page, among others. So if Bloom's really concerned about boosting America's cultural literacy, he should stop bashing-computers and get to work. The Western Canon is just begging to be transformed into a free, public domain hypertext document with links to the works under discussion and so forth.
One Way
Wes Pruden lays it out: Kerry and Edwards are a couple of pansies, picking up a meme I've also seen on The Corner and Drudge. Somehow I don't think this is the way to pull Andrew Sullivan back into the fold. Speaking of which, and of Jacob Levy's recent conversion, I've noticed that all the converting lately seems to be going in the same direction. A few weeks back The Note wrote that there seemed to be a lot of people who voted for Bush in 2000 but wouldn't vote for him in 2004, and no one who backed Gore in 2000 who was backing Bush in 2004. Hugh Hewitt had a good time kicking that assertion around -- there's Zell Miller, for one -- there are actually quite a lot of Democrat-leaners who decided they were supporting Bush based on his perceived national security creds in late-2001 and (especially) 2002. Over the past twelve months, though, all the motion's been in the opposite direction.
Pressure
I've been trying to think of a clever way to say this, but my failure to do so should not prevent the obvious from being pointed out. When the President of the United States orders a review of intelligence regarding a country and then, while that process is underway, proceeds to have himself, his subordinates in the administration, and his administration's allies in the press repeatedly make a public case for invading that country, that is political pressure on the intelligence analysts all by itself. You don't need to call up John Doe in Langley and say, "look, the president really thinks it's important that we invade Iraq, so analyses that tend to support his view will be rewarded, whereas those that would tend to embarass him will not." The CIA isn't populated by idiots.
And that's leaving all the shenanigans by Feith, Scooter, et. al. out of things. And it isn't to say that the CIA should be absolved of blame, either. They're not supposed to give in to that sort of pressure, and it now looks clear that some of their WMD work had been off-base for years.
Who Watches The Forgers?
Laura Rozen, that's who, with further information on the Rome forgeries I discussed here. She also raises a good purely analytical point, namely that the origin, handling, and motivation of the forgeries is an interesting story irrespective of whether or not the British have some independent reason to think Iraq was trying to buy Nigerien uranium. This is something we're going to hear more about....
Either A Defense Or Else An Attack On Barbara Ehrenreich
Henry Farrell and Kevin Drum defend Barbara Ehrenreich against Brad Delong's attacks. I'm not sure whether my thoughts on this controversy constitute a defense or an attack, but here they are. The 2000 Nation piece Brad quotes from is by far the most coherent case for Ralph Nader that I've ever read.
Continue reading "Either A Defense Or Else An Attack On Barbara Ehrenreich" »
Under Pressure
Sometimes it's useful to read things for yourself. You know that media accounts of the SSCI report say it exonerates the Bush administration of allegations that they pressured analysts. As I've emphasized before, this conclusion is at odds with a very large number of press accounts, so I'd be interested to know what the evidence is for the conclusion that all these reporters got things wrong. Turn to page 284 and you'll see that the case is airtight:
Conclusion 83. The Committee did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or presssure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.[Redacted paragraph] [Redacted paragraph] [Redacted paragraph] [Page break] [Redacted paragraph] [Redacted paragraph] Conclusion 84. The Committee found no evidence that the Vice President's visits to the Central Intelligence Agency were attempts to pressure analysts, were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, or did pressure analysts to change their assessments. [Redacted paragraph] [Redacted paragraph] [End of pressure discussion] That's good enough for me!
Ledeen's Theories
I've got a post on one aspect of this Michael Ledeen piece going up on Tapped, but the whole thing is a rather intriguing look into the fever swamp that is his view of national security policy. The blame for the whole thing turns out to lie on the head of . . . Robert Toricelli, without whose meddling we would have had the whole thing cleared up. But the intelligence was right! It's just that the weapons were smuggled to Syria and Iran. This last bit is consistent with his seeming claim that the forged Niger documents (which "prove" as you'll recall, that Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Niger are all planning joint operations against the major power) were not, in fact, forged. He even seems to think that the SSIC Report backs him up on this last claim when, in fact, it plainly does the reverse. But somehow the Torch, evidently in league with Josh Marshall is to blame.
I do agree, though, that many liberals have been a bit too harsh with regard to his daughter, who is distinguished among unqualified CPA staff only by having a father who's a well-known crank. It's hardly her fault.
Officially Official
This has been in the works for some time, but today I officially leave my writing fellowship at the Prospect to adopt the loftier title (and salary) of staff writer, so good for me. And thanks to the various blogospheric figures (you know who you are) who've given me encouragement, advice, and assistance over the past couple of years as I've tried to secure employment in this field.
Rescheduling
A quick thought on the question of rescheduling elections after a terrorist attack. A lot of people are invoking the example of the 1864 election to demonstrate that there's no need for such a dramatic step. I think it does establish that -- it's very unlikely that we'd see anything of the sort of magnitude that would make it impossible to hold an election. On the other hand, part of the reason they didn't delay the '64 election is that delaying it a week or two (or three, or...) would have actually accomplished anything -- you'd still be in the middle of a civil war. In the terrorism case, it's easy to imagine circumstances where a two week delay really would alleviate a logistical problem.
At any rate, I'm sympathetic to the view that there should be a process which can be invoked under any sort of circumstances that might arise. In the aftermath of an attack would it really be a good idea to delay an election? I don't know. My gut says "no." But the day after an attack isn't the best time for the congress to start figuring out how such a thing would be done, were it to be done. Vesting Tom Ridge with discretionary power over this seems like a terrible idea but there's probably a better solution we can come up with. [And, yes, the subtext here is that the Bush administration has a secret plot to destroy democracy, but I'm trying to stay level-headed. If the time comes to mount the barricades, I'll be there. Until then, the blog comment on the substantive policy issues.]
Some Sand In Which to Bury Your Head
If you're a rightwinger who wants to stay firmly entrenched in his objectively pro-Iran cocoon and believe that all is well in the Bush administration, you won't want to miss Dan Darling's tendentious summary of the SSCI Report over at Winds of Change. Any contrary information you've read in the press is bias, bias, bias, damnit. Read Dan, he'll give to to you straight. Why, he manages to go into a lengthy discussion of the interagency dispute over Qaeda-Saddam ties and not mention the part of the Report where they conclude that the skeptics were right. Good work! How to dismiss the part of the report where they say all efforts to build connections to terrorist groups had failed? Good question: "All the same, had the Iraqi efforts in this regard been successful Saddam Hussein would have put together quite a formidable terrorist coalition to aim at the US." That's a sharp one. And had Stalin's plan to boost agricultural production through the inheretance of acquired characteristics worked, we would have been in one tough jam in the Cold War. He joins Michael Ledeen in offering the bizarre theory that the report exonerates Doug Feith via a method which I myself should use. The press hasn't picked up on the fact that pages 411-67 of the report clearly states that unless you vote for John Kerry terrorists will kill your mother -- you can look it up for yourself.
Kerry's Offers Nothing
I tried to be fair to Nader voters in this post on Barbara Ehrenreich, treating them as serious, if wrongheaded people rather than high-handedly dismissing them, but after reading through the comments I'm just not sure. One consistent theme running through the Naderite remarks was that John Kerry has "nothing" to offer the Left, and that he won't take the Left's views into consideration. Boo fucking hoo.
Continue reading "Kerry's Offers Nothing" »
Bush Hatin'
Why do I hate George W. Bush? Let me count the ways. Or, rather, let me just count one. In response to the SSCI Report which clearly establishes that the reasons the president gave us for going to war involved several key factual claims that turn out to be false, the president had two viable options. One would be to concede that the reason offered (a direct, short-term military threat posed by Iraq) reflected the imperatives of Security Council politics rather than the administration's real thinking and instead offer up one of the two dozen or so "right reasons" for war that various pundits have offered over the past several years. Another would be to say that the stated reason was the real reason and that the factual judgments underlying it were reasonable ex ante, though ex post we can see that they were wrong. This is the William F. Buckley position: "if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have supported that."
Instead of picking one of these two alternatives, however, the president (once again) make shit up and the press (once again) didn't cover it properly. The headling out of Oak Ridge should have been: "President Defends Iraq War By Making Shit Up." Under these circumstances, it's just not possible to engage in a rational dialogue.
Ashcroft, Resign!
Influential insiders say I should be linking to the Alliance for Justice's Ashcroft, Resign! campaign, so I shall. But when you think about it, it would probably be better for Ashcroft not to resign. He's bad, but he's hated out of proportion to his actual badness (because he's also weird -- really weird), which means that on balance he's a good motivator. If he resigned, he would just be replaced by someone as bad (or maybe worse, like his friend Viet Dinh) but who wouldn't have the same motivational impact. At the same time, though, the AFJ people must be aware that it's unlikely that Ashcroft will listen to them. The point of this campaign is to use Ashcroft's hatedness in order to get people more involved in activism on civil liberties and other AFJ topics. And that would be a good thing. So head over to the site and sign the thing (but secretly hope he doesn't resign) and let yourself get sucked into the many wonders of allianceforjustice.org -- it's also worth checking out their nominations site, IndependentJudiciary.org, where you can read about all the people who are getting on the bench while you're reading what that nice Eugene Volokh has to say about things.
In Re: Wilson
Much to-doing about Joe Wilson's treatment in the SSCI Report which establishes pretty clearly that the dude has a serious credibility problem. I think that if you look back through my writings you will see me having stated from the get-go that Wilson's credibility is not really the issue here. Burning CIA operatives is illegal, and the allegation that the burning was done in no way depends on Wilson's credibility. It's too bad, though, that a lot of liberals took the fact that Wilson really hated George W. Bush as grounds for believing that he should be treated as a serious source of information and critique of the Bush administration. Read his book, for example, and you'll that it's quite awful and the man himself doesn't have a great deal to contribute to our understanding of anything.
Wilson's discrediting should have one beneficial effect, though, which is to get people off of his pet theory that the Plame leak was an effort to "punish" him. I never believed this. The Plame leak was an attempt to discredit him. What's interesting about this is that the mere fact that Wilson was someone with close personal ties to the CIA was believed by the leaker to by information that tended to discredit him. That, in turn, is an artifact of the pre-war hawk line that the CIA was a hotbed of anti-war agitors deliberately downplaying the Iraqi threat. Now, of course, we know the truth.
Blacks In College, Blacks In Jail
In light of how it's not true and all, John Kerry should probably stop telling people that "We've got more African Americans in jail than we do in college." I think the factoid he's looking for is that there are more African-American men incarcerated than in college. Alternatively, I'm pretty sure that there are more African-Americans "in the system" (i.e., in jail, in prison, on parole, or on probation) than there are in college.
UPDATE: I see that the Gadflyer was on the case with the correct males-only factoid a while back.
Technological Issues
Via Josh Marshall comes a copy of the SSCI Report featuring searchable text. Which leads to the question, why did we need some folks at MIT to put this together? Why didn't the committee release it this way? The document in question, pretty clearly, was typed up on a computer and the technological process for turning a word processor file into a searchable PDF is neither difficult to master, nor some kind of high-level secret. Instead, though, the committee had someone print out a copy of the report, literally black out the redactions (instead of doing virtual redaction ont he computer), and then scan the whole thing to create a non-searchable image file. This procedure seems to be both less useful to the public, and more logistically complicated than the alternative. Maybe it was just done by morons, but I can't help but think that the staff was deliberately trying to create a hard-to-use public version of the text so as to leave reporters maximally dependent on spin briefings from the staff rather than on the primary document. And as I've previously stated, an awful lot of stuff has been redacted -- I think there are people who don't really want us to know what this thing says.
Outrage
There's been a call for more outrage around here, so let me share my outrage about the Federal Marriage Amendment. Or, rather, let me share my outrage about the goodly number of conservatives here in town who know perfectly well that this is a absurd, bigoted piece of political posturing and are holding their silence anyway. Andrew Sullivan wrings his hands over some recent outings of closeted staffers working for pro-FMA members, and while I sympathize with his concerns, the moral cesspool in which the staffers in question are choosing to dwell is really what sticks in my craw. Sure, sure, sure you can tell yourself, I can vote for -- even work for -- a pro-FMA Member knowing perfectly well that it will never become law. But still: What kind of a person are you if you choose to participate in such a shoddy, sordid little endeavor as pretending to try and pass a totally unnecessary constitutional amendment in order to whip up a little public hysteria about the totally illusory threat that gay marriage poses to this sacred institution? There's some deeply, deeply troubled people lurking about.
Making Shit Up
In my latest column I continue to wonder whether anyone has actually read the SSCI Report or paid any attention to what it says. "True Lies: Why pressure analysts when making stuff up is so much easier?"
But what did that have to do with Iraq? "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year," said the president.We had good reason, in other words, to put other priorities on hold: We were less than a year away from the date on which Iraq would explode a nuclear weapon on our soil. Leave aside the fact that even were such a weapon to be constructed, Iraq would have no means of delivering it -- even still, this is a pretty good rationale. But it's not what the intelligence said. Or, rather, as is often the case with this president, he said something that was technically true, but utterly misleading. Saying that Iraq could build a bomb if it had highly enriched uranium is like saying, "If I had $2 million, I could buy a really nice house." All that's missing is the two million bucks. Iraq didn't have any highly enriched uranium -- it's hard to get! -- and had no prospects for getting any. And unlike my ephemeral millions, you can't win HEU in the lottery. And so on. Although I think a highly-enriched uranium lottery might be fun.
Fafnir and the Parable of the Washing Machine
Once again, only Fafnir is up to the task of explicating current events.
Uh Oh!
When you scroll way down the RNC oppo research on John Edwards you get the really damning stuff:
Edwards Believes In Right To Privacy When It Comes To State Sodomy Laws. ABC's GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: "Here in the state of South Carolina, it's a felony for two gay men to have sex in their own home. Senator Edwards, do you support the right of the people of South Carolina to keep that law on the books, or do you think that under the Constitution there’s a fundamental right to privacy that protects that right?" EDWARDS: "I believe there is a fundamental right to privacy. I do not believe the government belongs in people's bedrooms. I think that applies to both gay and lesbian couples and heterosexual couples." (Sen. John Edwards, Remarks At Democrat Presidential Candidates Debate, Columbia, SC, 5/3/03) God forbid. It seems to me, though, that the GOP's been pretty slow on the ball in terms of actually locking up fags instead of just talking a big game about how it's constitutional for them to do it if they feel like.
Who's Helped By A Terrorist Attack
Dan Drezner asks the question of the hour -- who wins politically from a terrorist attack? One thing that's interesting about this question is that it sort of encourages each side's partisans to say it will help the other guy. After all, if it becomes entrenched conventional wisdom that an attack will help Bush, then if an attack happens it will seem like it was partially designed to help re-elect Bush, which would hurt Bush. This is why GOP partisans have been running around town darkly implying that an attack may be in the works aimed at influencing the election "just like in Madrid." In other words, terrorists love John Kerry.
Continue reading "Who's Helped By A Terrorist Attack" »
What Might Have Been
Kevin Drum makes the important point that however bad the intelligence may have been in October 2002, by March 2003 inspectors were on the ground and it was obvious that it had some serious problems. We went to war because Bush decided it would be better to go to war, not because any sort of bad intelligence forced it (a point that can also be made by looking at the chronology). It should also be pointed out that some similar considerations apply to the humanitarian elements of the case for war. The Kurds, as you'll recall, had a pretty decent deal in the until March 2003 -- technically they were subjects of Saddam's regime, but they were de facto independent; protected by Anglo-American airpower and their own lightly armed pesh merga. We could have done what Michael Walzer proposed and simply push for the creation of a similar situation in the Shia south. Then we probably would have found a much more cooperative local population than the one we got, and, in other words, reap most of the humanitarian benefits that the real world had for a fraction of the cost.
Things I find amusing
There is so much joy out here on the inter-web:
- Andrew McCarthy's contention that The New Republic is not only "liberal" but part of "the Left." Yes, left with a capital "L." That's Peter Beinart for you.
- Steven den Beste's failure to adequately sum up "the contrast between form and substance in all its many manifestations." That's a budding Aristotle they've got up there.
That said, I think it might be fair to say that TNR tends to be liberal in substance, but not in form. Something to ponder.
Pataki's Future
The notion that George Pataki could win the GOP presidential nomination is just abusrd. After all, in recent years pro-choice, pro-gay, anti-gun moderates haven't been able to win Republican primaries in New Jersey and he's supposed to take that to Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina? Rudy Giuliani, also mentioned in the article, ain't gonna happen either. Pataki's political future is either to run for reelection, lose to Eliot Spitzer, and fade away, retire and fade away, or run against Hillary Clinton, lose, and fade away. Maybe he'll get made EPA chief in a second Bush term like Christie Whitman. The dude is screwed.
The crazy thing about it is that moderate Republicans are very successful in California, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, and (when they win the nomination) New Jersey. That -- not the far left -- is where a market niche for a third party exists. You'd never win the White House, but you'd hold the balance of power in both houses of congress and could probably get every president to appoint one or two of your guys to the cabinet as a gesture of nonpartisanship. Giuliani could become the first national chairman and Pataki can be their sacrificial lamb presidential candidate. Then we'll revive the Dixiecrat Party led by Mark Pryor and Inez Tannenbaum.
The UK on Niger
Given that most of the countries whose intelligence services thought Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger were working off the same set of forged documents, one key issue is what was the United Kingdom basing their assessment that this happened on. Today we get the British version of the Senate intelligence inquiry which has this rather unenlightening summary of the situation (paragraph 503):
From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that:a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible. c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this. d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it. So that doesn't tell us anything as to what the basis of this intelligence was. Since Iraq did not, in fact, acquire any uranium from Niger, if they did seek it, it would be nice to know why they didn't wind up getting it. Depending on what this story is, that could be something that tends to make us more fearful of the Iraqi threat (if they failed for reasons that seem highly contingent or that were likely to change in the near future) or it might make us less fearful (if they failed for fundamental reasons that were unlikely to change, and would thus give us confidence that irrespective of what Saddam wanted, he couldn't get it).
Continue reading "The UK on Niger" »
Democracy, Whiskey, Sexy
David Ignatius is psyched:
Talk about stabilizing Iraq has mostly been just that -- a wish list that has melted in the furnace of the Iraqi insurgency. The practical steps Allawi described Tuesday are just a beginning. But I feel confident, after many visits to this country since the war began, that this is a direction most Iraqis want to move. And what are these steps that nice Mr. Allawi is taking? The conversation was his clearest public explanation yet of how he hopes to work with the internal opposition, and with neighboring governments such as Syria and Iran, to reduce the chaos plaguing his country. Since becoming prime minister last month, Allawi has projected an image of a burly ex-Baathist who is tough enough to manage this unruly country. Among the dozen or so Iraqis I've queried about him, most expressed the hope that, as one man put it, "he's not going to be intimidated by anyone." Allawi said his secret contacts with "fringes of the resistance" took place at various locations outside the protected Green Zone in Baghdad, including at his own house. He said the meetings had included some former officers of the Special Republican Guard, some hard-line supporters of Saddam Hussein and some Islamist radicals. Ah yes, the ex-Baath CIA asset works together with Syria, Iran, the Special Republican Guard, and "some Islamist radicals" to bring democracy to Iraq. Sounds like a neat buddy movie. And what happened to Kenan Makiya, the Great Brown Hope of Middle East liberalization? Well, let's not talk about that. . . . UPDATE: Aha, Eli Lake makes the case more substantively. And I think it was his birthday recently.
Bastille Day
Allons enfants de la Patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé. And so forth. It's sad that contemporary France has edited out the bloodthirsty verses two through five. Number two, I think, is crucial:
Que veut cette horde d'esclaves
De traîtres, de rois conjurés ?
Pour qui ces ignobles entraves
Ces fers dès longtemps préparés ? (bis)
Français, pour nous, ah ! quel outrage
Quels transports il doit exciter ?
C'est nous qu'on ose méditer
De rendre à l'antique esclavage ! Roughly speaking, it says a horde of traitors and conspiring kinds is plotting to throw us back into slavery, so we need to kill them. Let impure blood water our fields!
Possibilities
Brutal hugs notes in regard to my most recent anti-Nader post that Kerry won't actually be able to do all the progressive things I listed him as favoring. Quite true. It's impossible to know how many of them he'll do, but it will certainly be less than all, and possibly quite a bit less, depending on congressional circumstances. But this is another reason the Naderite critique of Bill Clinton makes so little sense. "But what do the Democrats actually do for the left," they whine. But Clinton didn't fail to achieve universal health care because he was too rightwing, he failed to do it because of a combination of Republican obstructionism and tactical failures on his part. Those tactical failures are, indeed, serious failures, but there's no reason to think that a Ralph Nader or a Dennis Kucinich would be a better wheeler and dealer than a Clinton or a Kerry and, indeed, a great deal of reason to think they would do worse. One can find many more examples from the minimum wage to welfare policy to the environment where, again, Clinton wanted to do more progressive things than he could get through the congress, especially after 1995, but before the '94 debacle as well.
Which is just a way of pointing out the obvious: The prime obstacle to progressive politics in America is the Republican Party. The Democrats are not as progressive as I might like on some issues (and others will feel this way about different issues, or all the issues, or to a different degree) but even if they were more progressive it wouldn't make much of a difference as long as the GOP controlled one or more of the branches of government. President Nader would not actually create single payer health care or a living wage any more than President Kerry would.
Mmm...policy
The article keeps insinuating that this will be some kind of political problem for the Kerry campaign, and maybe it will be (I'm unconvinced), but this is what policymaking looks like when it's done by people who are genuinely motivated by a desire to use political power to accomplish something useful. The politics and the opportunism aren't absent -- you need to get power to wield it. But someone's eye is always watching the ball. There's a purpose here and, dare I say it, some hope.
Rasmussen Reports, You Decide
Has anyone noticed that John Kerry's opened up the longest-lasting statistically significant tracking poll lead that we've seen for ages? Or that the Democrats have held a consistent edge in the generic ballot survey for a long time? The second point, really, is the more interesting one. Obviously, to make inferences from generic ballot surveys to control of the House is not really valid, but if I recall correctly the GOP has consistently gotten a 1-3 percent larger share of the House membership than they get of the House vote. The Texas re-redistricting may improve that margin somewhat, but if they're really down nine in generic ballotting I don't see how they can maintain control. Indeed, it seems to me that the Bush campaign's very heavy reliance on the notion that John Kerry simply can't be trusted as a wartime leader may be hurting his downballot adversaries. It's just not an issue that works in House and Senate races, and it leaves the GOP implicitly conceding that the Democrats would be better on other issues.
Kaplan on the NIE Summary
This is (yet another) great piece from Fred Kaplan, but it's got an error:
A National Intelligence Estimate is not an ordinary report. It marks the one occasion when the Central Intelligence Agency warrants its name, acting as a central entity that pulls together the assessments of all the myriad intelligence departments, noting where they agree and where they differ. Most NIEs are produced on an annual basis. Occasionally, the CIA is asked to produce what used to be called a "special" NIE. The 2002 estimate in question, titled "Iraq's Continuing Program for Weapons of Mass Destruction," was such a document. It was ordered so that the president could decide, in an informed manner, whether to go to war. The president is the main consumer of the NIE; it is written entirely for his benefit. To shrink the thing into a single page--to remove all distinctions between certainty and guesswork--is to evade the whole point. As I was noting yesterday that's not what happened. After a bunch of hinting around in August, the president started pushing for war in early September. Then Carl Levin asked the CIA to do an NIE and Langley agreed. The president then officially asked the congress for a use of force resolution before the NIE was completed and released. Now it would still be nice to know what the president thought the NIE said, but it can hardly be said that the NIE was driving the decision-making process here.
Flip/Flop!
Oh he's so nuanced, just like one of them fruity french froggies.
Pro And Con
Jonathan Chait outlines part two of The New Republic's case against George W. Bush: he's weakening our democracy. A pretty serious charge. Meanwhile, Dan Drezner has apparently decided that becoming the blogosphere's most prominent "on the fence" swing voter will get him a lot of attention (or, perhaps, a sub rosa promise of a job) because his latest reservation about John Kerry is so transparently silly that he's obviously already made up his mind to back him. Kerry, it turns out, missed a lot of votes while on the campaign trail:
One could plausibly argue that Kerry's full-time job since early 2003 was running for president -- but he could have resigned if that were the case. Bam! Come now, Dan's a professor of political science, surely he's aware that the "missed votes" issue is entirely bogus (first ginned up, I believe, by Joe Lieberman in his campaign against Lowell Weicker) that says nothing whatsoever about a legislator's performance. Besides which, voting for Bush on the theory that his opponent isn't hard working doesn't even pass the laugh test.
A Disturbing Development
I spent this morning at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace attending a conference on the future of American foreign policy co-sponsored by CEIP and the New America Foundation. It was, in short, a serious gathering of serious people. Until, that is, one panelist said that one good way to think about the Euro-American divide was to consider the rise of "transnational progressivism," a term he first heard "on the Internet," in recent years. Someone call Harold Bloom!
The Next Attack
Kevin Drum wonders what, exactly, it is that hawks are afraid John Kerry won't be tough enough to do. On a related point, I'm wondering what either man would do if we face another major terrorist attack. After 9-11 we had a fortunate confluence of a public desire for some retaliating with a logic means of retaliation -- topple the Taliban. I imagine that after another attack people will still feel, on a gut level, like we ought to retaliate, but there really won't be anything to be done. Just as Australia and Indonesia didn't respond after Bali, and Spain didn't respond after the Madrid attacks, if someone blows up Grand Central Station there's not really going to be much of anything we can do in response. A lot of people, myself included, would find that pretty unsatisfying on an emotional level, but it's hard to see any reasonable policy options.
You're going to have, meanwhile, a certain group of people trying to blame Iran for anything that happens, but they're not actually going to have been responsible, and no president who gives a damn about his re-election (or his brother's presidential campaign) would get us embroiled in something like that. At least I think they wouldn't.
Pressing Questions
Does anyone know why the city fathers of Washington decided to make the city a 10 square mile diamond centered on the White House and then divide it into four "quadrants" centered not on the center of the diamond, but on the Capitol, which is well southeast of the White House? And why was Arlington Country retroceeded to Virginia? The upshot is to make the Northwest "quandrant" much bigger than the Northeast and Southeast ones, while the Southwest "quandrant" is positively tiny. If they'd stuck with the original shape and centered the grid on the middle of the city, you'd have four actual quandrants of equal size.
Armed Liberal Replies
To my question here essentially stating that my post sums up everything that's wrong with the modern left. Two strange things about AL's post. One, I don't disagree with anything he said. Two, nothing in it contains an answer to the question "what would/should our response be to a new major terrorist attack." Now the post does refer to "states that are willing to shelter and succor" terrorists. I quite agree that America should overthrow the governments of states that shelter and succor groups that plan terrorist attacks against the United States. The trouble is that I don't see any states like that on my map. If you had to pick one as the closest candidate, I guess you come up with Pakistan, which kinda sorta fits the bill, but the reasons not to invade Pakistan are simply overwhelming. So if we are attacked again, what do we do? Law enforcement and intelligence work, AL suggests, which I think is right. But the current tenor of the political campaign strongly suggests that hawks are afraid John Kerry will offer a merely law enforcement and intelligence oriented response to future attacks. See what I'm getting at?
Wittgenstein References In Everything
Jordan Ellenberg takes on the big issue of the day: Are math competitions sports? Perhaps a more fruitful way of approaching this than quoting Wittgenstein is simply to point out that jocks are much more likely to beat up the math team than invite them to the big party.
Shadow Cabinet
Dan Drezner and Bruce Bartlett both say it would be a good idea for challengers to run with "shadow cabinets" of future appointees to key positions. I've been advocating that Kerry do that for quite a while now. My preferred method would be to roll people out in dribs and drabs rather than one "big bang" since that would generate a stead drip, drip, drip of basically positive media coverage. There are, however, two downsides besides the ones Dan mentions. The first is simply that the vetting and decision-making process would distract key campaign staff at a moment when they have the non-trivial task of running a presidential campaign. The other is that presumably anyone you would appoint would be expected to participate in the campaign, complete with harsh denunciations of the other guys, which could make the confirmation process much harder down the road.
On balance, though, it still sounds like a pretty good idea to me, and Bartlett's specific suggestions don't seem bad either, except for the notion that Felix Rohatyn is a serious contender for Secretary of State, which is just weird. Nor would I write Gene Sperling off at Treasury, seeing as how he's officially in charge of the Kerry economics team.
Actual Democracy Promotion
After much foot-dragging, the Bush administration decided to make the right call and not give Uzbekistan a pass on its human rights violations. The lion's share of credit goes to the congressional leaders who got the certification procedure inserted into the aid package in the first place, and who seem to have kept up the pressure for the past year, but obviously the administration could have resisted that pressure pretty easily if they'd wanted to. As the Post editorial suggests, Egypt would be a nice next stop for the rights/aid linkage train. . . .
Gotta Have Faith
Part one of a debate between yours truly and my faith-based colleague Ayelish McGarvey is now up on the Prospect site. I'm trying to throw some cold water on the recent Kerry must be more religious meme. Paul Waldman recently had a good article defending my POV that went up on the Gadflyer site while McG and I were working on our slice which makes some good points near the end that I didn't get around to about who, exactly the attendance gap is supposed to be a problem for.
In what I regard as a related development, a new Democracy Corps poll shows plummetting support for Bush among under-30 whites (although let me register my official upset at DC's habit of referring to this group as "young voters" -- a big part of the real young voters story is that relatively few young people are white) and among single whites. The postmodern coalition of single whites, African-Americans, and Latinos isn't a majority in America, but all three groups are growing, while GOP support is growing only among shrinking demographic categories.
The End of Sullivan
Now you can tell Andrew Sullivan's really off the reservation:
The fact is: the GOP is using an attack on members of their own families to get a few votes in rural parts of swing states. They've used race in the past to achieve this kind of effect. Now gays are the new blacks. And then: Yes: but it has long been a tactic of those who oppose civil rights to argue that they don't. Those opposed to education integration denied that they were against black civil rights - they just wanted separate but equal education for both blacks and whites. Those who opposed inter-racial marriage said exactly the same thing - since blacks and whites were equally constrained by the anti-miscegenation laws, there was no discrimination, etc. It wasn't that Bull Connor opposed civil rights. It's just that he had a different conception of civil rights than his opponents! The Republican Party really is a fairly big tent in a lot of respects, but you're certainly not allowed to state that the GOP has been known to win elections by pandering to racism, hint that Saint Barry's opposition to the Civil Rights Act might have been anything other than a pure case of constitutional scruples, or acknowledge that present-day cultural conservatism is the lineal descendent of the Dixiecrat apartheid politics of yesteryear. That'd be like admitting that the New Deal was largely misguided regulatory schemes . . . well, I won't say it.
What About Rumsfeld
The 9/11 Commission looks set to recommend creating a director of national intelligence who would oversee all the current intelligence agencies, thus ending the situation where everyone thinks the CIA director is in charge, but the Secretary of Defense actually handles much of the money. A different, but essentially the same, idea that's been kicking around for a while was just to actually put the CIA director in charge of things. As I say, this is an idea that's been kicking around for quite some time. Bush asked Brent Scowcroft to come up with some ideas about intelligence reform, and this is what he came up with, but instead of doing it the administration classified the report.
Why do that? Well it certainly wasn't because he was blinded by some kind of dogmatic rightwing hatred of rationalizing the intelligence bureacracy. No. The reason is one man: Don Rumsfeld. The reform plan is bad for the Secretary of Defense, so the SecDef didn't like it. So far, so good. But the question remains, why would Bush listen to Rumsfeld on this? The answer, or so it seems to me, is that Rumsfeld is buddies with Cheney, and the president simply doesn't have the strength, intelligence, or wherewithal to understand when his erstwhile advisors are giving him advice that is purely self-interested and neither in the interests of the country, nor the Bush administration.
A Subtle Shift
Fred Kaplan catches Bush's latest semantic games:
On Iraq, Bush—as usual—was very careful with his language. Three years ago, he told the Oak Ridge scientists, Iraq was ruled by "a proven mass murderer who refused to account for weapons of mass murder." (Note: "weapons of mass murder," not "weapons of mass destruction"; and "refused to account for," not "refused to disarm.") Bill Clinton, of course, was widely excoriated for his belief that the truth-value of a sentence depends on the tense of its verb.
The Plot Thickens
Now that sounds to me like a regime with "ties" to al-Qaeda. And the CFR Iran task force is set to make some recommendations tomorrow, pointing in the direction of engagement. Shit and fan should be making contact in the near future.
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