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The Future
Glenn Reynolds and Ramesh Ponnuru speculate about the future:
I certainly agree with this statement by Ramesh Ponnuru: "There is a serious possibility that the libertarian wing of the conservative movement goes off in its own direction, either breaking off or allying with the Democrats." The Democratic party, in its current configuration, is in decline. But the split between libertarians and social conservatives is likely to determine the shape of politics over the next decades.
That strikes me as deeply misguided. To regard a political party which has won the popular vote in the past three presidential elections and whose current nominee is, despite a widely noted lack of charisma, holding a narrow lead in most polls strikes me as a bit odd. More broadly, there are all kinds of median voter theorum sort of reasons to think that neither party will ever decline. Perhaps more importantly, the notion that the future will be determined by a split between libertarians and social conservatives seems to imply that the small government philosophy they both share is going to become a part of the conventional wisdom. Now I suppose that
might happen, but there's precious little evidence for it. George Bush, Tom DeLay, and Bill Frist, after all, are the ones who've recently brought us the largest expansion of entitlement spending since Lyndon Johnson. And they lead the party that's suppose to represent the two wings of small government politics. That sounds to me like public support for small government has sort of jumped the shark.
What's more, while the current battles over gay rights have brough about a lot of lib/con contentiousness, I think it's wrong to see that as a lasting feature of the landscape. Once social conservatives lose the battle over gay equality (as they've already lost the battles for gender equality and racial equality) it's not clear to me that any issue of comparable emotional weight will emerge to take its place. The "culture wars" are extremely fierce right now, which makes it hard to believe that they'll ever end, but it's worth considering the possibility that the current ferocity reflects the fact that we're seeing the final campaign of a decades-long struggle. The futue may (and, I think, probably will) look quite a bit different from the present.
The Rational, The Reasonable, and the Robots
As Kevin Drum says, Chris Suellentrop's remarks on Isaac Asimov's robots don't really do justice to the way he developed the theme over the course of all his work. Still, I think it's fair to say that "humans bad, robots good" is a pretty accurate summary of the theme of I, Robot. Where Suellentrop really goes off the mark is in suggesting that the robots are good because they're rational. That there is a kind of Kantian reverie where rationality leads to goodness or, as Rawls would put it, we can derive the reasonable from the rational. Asimov, however, hews pretty closely to a purely instrumental account of rationality -- pure reason could be good, evil, or otherwise, all depending on what it serves. The point about the robots isn't that they're good because they're rational, they're good because they're rational and they all feature factory-installed morality. The Three Laws of Robots and, especially, the First Law saying that no robot may harm a human, are what's doing all the moral heavy lifting. Rationality only comes into play because it ensures that robots will execute the First Law's dictates properly.
It's interesting to note, though, that in the later novels Daneel begins to elaborate a more sophisticated moral vision. This involves moving from a deontological framework with heavy reliance on the doing/allowing distinction to a much more consequentialist worldview. The books in question are, in my humble opinion, far far far worse than the earlier ones, but I think they express a superior moral philosophy. Meanwhile, as John Holbo eloquently illustrates if smart people spent less time thinking about this crap and more time focusing on important things, we might get a lot done.
Sanity
Brad D describes Barbara Ehrenreich's latest, an anti-Nader piece, as a return to sanity. If this is sanity, I'm a famous consumer advocate:
So, Ralph, sit down. Pour yourself a Diet Pepsi and rejoice in the fact that -- post-Enron and post-Iraq war -- millions have absorbed your message. You're entitled to a little time out now, a few weeks on the beach catching up on back issues of The Congressional Record. Meanwhile, I've thrown my mighty weight behind Dennis Kucinich, who, unnoticed by the media, is still soldiering along on the campaign trail. In the event that he fails to get the Democratic nomination, I'll have to consider my options.
I'm detecting no signs of sanity here. Millions have absorbed Ralph's message that it fundamentally doesn't matter whether the donkeys are the elephants are in power? The reverse seems to have happened; isn't that why Ehrenreich doesn't want him to run? And speaking of elephants -- there's a huge, whopping, insane element in this room named "Dennis Kucinich." Her return to political sanity is to throw her "mighty weight behind Dennis Kucinich" and if "he fails to get the Democratic nomination, [she]'ll have to consider [her] options." That's not sanity, and unlike the 2000 Nader endorsement it's not even radicalism. That's madness.
Why Oh Why Can't We Have A Better Press Corps?
Richard Stevenson and David Johnston need to pay closer attention:
The other report came from the Senate Intelligence Committee. It generally found extensive problems with the prewar intelligence assessments about Iraq's weapons programs and in particular documented a long chain of problems in the way the intelligence agencies dealt with suspicions about Iraq's interest in acquiring uranium.But it also contained some information that tended to bolster the view that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium from Niger and possibly one or two other African nations. It cited a statement by a French official to the State Department in late 2002 that France, which was resisting Mr. Bush's efforts to make an urgent case for war, "believed the reporting was true that Iraq had made a procurement attempt for uranium from Niger." Neither report, however, found evidence that Iraq had actually purchased any uranium from Niger.
Now if I were writing this story, I would think it might be relevant to point out that the French official's statement was
based on the same forged documents from Italy. The French report, the Italian report, the American report, and
half of the British report were all based on the same forgery. The UK claims to have a second source of information that's not fruit of the poisoned tree, but they won't tell anyone what it is and US intelligence doesn't seem to believe them.
Preaching To The Converted
Delivering messages that make your own supporters like you even more is an oft-maligned political activity. Nevertheless, there's a real value to it. The New York Times describes the way John Edwards is making hard-core Democrats actually like John Kerry, instead of supporting him on ABB grounds. I think that's an important thing to do, especially in this last month or so before the campaign reaches its final stretch, because your swing voters tend not to be people who pay a great deal of attention to politics themselves. Like everyone else, though, they have friends and know people. And if they get the impression that their Republican friends are all really excited about George Bush while their Democratic friends are holding their noses and voting for Kerry, that can't help but hurt Kerry. Certainly Al Gore was hurt during the 2000 election by the fact that Democrats clearly didn't like him very much. At the end of the day, almost all of those people would up voting for Gore, but at cast his campaign in a poor light throughout the year. Positive vibes for Kerry, even from Kerry supporters, will wind up helping him in the end.
Competence Matters
I hadn't been following the ins-and-outs of the FMA debate in the Senate, but I saw some Capital Gang late afternoon yesterday and the whole gang seemed agreed that the GOP leadership had screwed up the tactics and mechanics on these votes. What none of them were willing to say is that there's a reason this happened. Traditionally, you become Majority Leader of the Senate at least in part because your colleagues think you would be good at the Leader's substantive job -- greasing the legislative machinery. Other factors go into it, of course, but ability to do the job has always played an important role. Important, that is, until Bill Frist got the job. But the Senate GOP caucus has not only taken the unprecedented step of letting Karl Rove choose their Leader for them, but let him pick someone wholly on the basis of his political appeal -- telegenicness plus biography -- rather than any actual ability to do the job. The results, predictably, have not been good. The parallel to the Republican Party's sense in 2000 that they could nominate someone because he was "likeable" and a good fundraiser to be president -- competence and qualification be damned -- is rather obvious. But this stuff is hard. Competence matters.
That's What I Want
A colleague alerts me to this intriguing headline: "Money Buys Happiness, But Not Sex", a write-up of some new econometric research. The good professors have obviously never been to Georgia Avenue.
On Kansas And Populism
Writing on the LA Times op-ed page, Tom Frank gives us a précis of his new book, What's The Matter With Kansas. The general theme is that the working class no longer stands with the Democratic Party in part because it's so enthralled by cultural conservatism, but also because the Democratic Party no longer really stands for working class economics.
Continue reading "On Kansas And Populism" »
USA: Lebanese Stooge?
Abu Aardvark notes "a particular complaint that I've heard a lot - the Lebanese, and especially allegedly Lebanese Christian - quality and tone of the programming. The editor in chief of a major Arab newspaper told me something very similar over the phone the other day - that Al Hurra [America's new Arab-language sattelite channel] was poorly served by the Arabs running it." That's certainly not a claim I can evaluate, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time America was ill-served by seemingly friendly Middle Eastern exile groups. Just saying.
Continue reading "USA: Lebanese Stooge?" »
The Case For Nader
Max Sawicky threatens "to make a case for Nader, for whom I will not be voting." Restricting myself to foreign policy, I think I can make a pretty good one.
Continue reading "The Case For Nader" »
Assault This
Even the not-so-liberal-anymore Washington Post editorial page wants the assault weapons ban renewed. A couple of salient points their pitch makes is that criminals almost never use weapons of this sort (they're relatively big and expensive; crooks don't actually fight pitched fire-fights in the streets where this sort of thing would be useful) or that the point of the second amendment is to protect the right to "military-style" weapons, it's not some kind of hunter protection act.
Continue reading "Assault This" »
O.G.
Speaking of crime control, Mark Kleiman may have learned a lot about gang violence, but he has a thing or two left to learn about slang:
Sometimes indirect pressure is effective: in Lowell, Massachusetts, a wave of violence by Asian youth gangs was controlled by telling older figures linked with, but no longer active in, the gangs that if a gang engaged in deadly violence the gambling interests of that gang's OGs ("older guys") would be shut down.
Those are
original gangstas where I come from.
Um...
So far, we've known that the Niger-uranium claim was based on (a) forged documents, (b) an Italian summary of the forged documents, (c) a French analysis of the forged documents, and (d) UK intelligence's conviction that the claim was true. The UK was, in turn, basing its analysis on (a) forged documents, and (b) a mysterious second source. Today, via Laura Rozen the Guardian reports that the second UK source "almost certainly" came from France. Does that mean the second source was really the same forgery passed around again through a different route? Hard to say. It would be nice to hear from UK intelligence why, if Iraq tried to get the yellowcake, it didn't succeed in getting the yellowcake. Assuming the attempt was made, knowing why it failed is pretty crucial to knowing what to think about it.
CFR Report
This sounds pretty convincing to me. It seems to me that a harder line policy vis-à-vis Iran probably would have been desirable at one time, but the upshot of the Iraq War has been to increase our need to secure Iranian cooperation on some regional issues while drastically reducing our "hard power" leverage relative to Teheran. Under the circumstances, though an engagement policy is unlikely to produce any really fantastic outcomes it seems preferable to the alternatives of drift or conflict. I'm open to persuasion on this front, though, not someone with really firm Iran-related convictions. Mostly I have deep suspicions about the motives and methods of the Iran hawks, though I'll admit to the possibility that they've somehow stumbled on the right idea through an unsound method if someone can make that case.
More On Assault Weapons
If I may revise and extend my earlier remarks, Mark Kleiman has some further remarks on the subject. I'll happily that I'll happily endorse his first two points. On the relative importance of crime control vis-à-vis other domestic policy issues things get a bit airy and metaphysical. Substantively, there's no actual trade-off between controlling crime and improving education or health care (indeed, with regard to the former there's positive feedback between the two) so there's sort of nothing to disagree about here. The point I would like to make is simply that the crime crisis that began in the late 1960s is largely over. It would be good -- very good -- to see further reductions in the incidence of crime, but the situation is no longer "out of control" with rates seeming to go ever-upwards. The health care glide path, on the other hand, has us pointed toward a total fiasco, so I think there's a certain urgency there that's missing on the crime front. That said, if people care to disagree, I couldn't be happier. Better crime control policies would have a much bigger impact on my life than progress on the other two fronts, and will continue to do so for the near future. Now what I'd really like is for someone to pony up the cash for more frequent Green Line service on Metro. (Incidentally, in both DC and Boston the Red Line provides the best service and the Green Line the worst -- coincidence or conspiracy?)
Fuck Giant
Will Wilkinson is right about this, very wrong about that, and lying when he describes Whole Foods as "nearby" to his house. I made essentially the same walk yesterday afternoon, and while going to the grocery store is fine, there are sharp limits on the quantity of food one wants to carry that distance.
Factual Clarity
This much we know:
- Joe Wilson's credibility: Not so hot, but not totally destroyed.
- Niger Claim, strong version (Iraq got uranium): Dead.*
- Niger Claim, intermediate version (Iraq was likely to get uranium): Dead.
- Niger Claim, weak version (Iraq sought uranium, but couldn't get it): Not so hot, but not totally destroyed.
- Exposing the identity of a covert CIA operative for partisan purposes: Still illegal.**
We do not know, however, the answer to some very interesting questions.
Continue reading "Factual Clarity" »
Focus!
The well-meaning David Adesnik writes:
Frankly, I'm still confused as to why top-ranking administration officials were so eager to distance themselves from the 16 words if Wilson's accusations were so exaggerated.
Okay. This is the thing everyone really, really, really needs to understand. The statements of Wilson's that now seem to be untrue pertain to things like
Wilson's role in exposing the bogosity of the Niger claims, and
how Wilson got the job that put him in a position to play a role. The reason top officials have been eager to distance themselves from the 16 words is that Wilson's op-ed helped bring to light the fact that the Intelligence Community believed, for a variety of reasons that don't have a great deal to do with Wilson, that the claim should not be made. What the SSCI Report debunks about Wilson is the notion that he personally played some sort of grand heroic role here, it
confirms that US intelligence does not believe and has not believed for some time that there was sufficient evidence for thinking that Saddam sought uranium in Niger. Of all the different sources for that claim, all but one -- maybe, a British source that the Brits won't tell us about and that appears to have come from French intelligence that the French intelligence agencies don't believe in -- have been debunked. As a result, American intelligence, while not able to categorically state that this never happened, doesn't believe there's a real evidentiary basis for thinking it did happen. This is why the administration distanced itself from the claim. Joe Wilson just isn't very relevant.
Articles
Round two of Yglesias versus McGarvey on religion (based on the names it seems that one of us should be Catholic) is up, as is today's column which takes a look at what happens when you elect a president who's too dumb to know when he's getting played by his Secretary of Defense. The results just might get you killed.
Why Propaganda Is Good For You
I missed it last week, but Wonkette quotes a Fox News internal memo:
The President and the PM of Canada meet today and will make remarks at midday. Take the remarks, even if Jacko is singing on top of a truck with no pants on at the time.
Funny, eh? This is what I like about Fox.
Continue reading "Why Propaganda Is Good For You" »
NEA vs. AFT?
I suppose this is something I should know, but I don't, so does anyone out there know what the difference between the NEA and the AFT are? And if the Democrats are in hock to the teachers' unions, which union are they in hock to? Etc.
The Case for Engagement
Everyone should read Greg Djerjian's take on Iran policy. I think it's quite right. To add a bit of emphasis, it's something of a delusion to think that our problems with Iranian behavior on the nuke front, on the Iraq front, and on the Hezbollah front are somehow 100 percent an outgrowth of the problematic nature of the theocratic regime. In reality, there are plenty of reformers who are also Iranian nationalists and like to see things like a stronger Iran more capable of throwing its weight around the nation. There is nothing the Mullahs would like to see better than for the US to explicitly link the regime change issue with these other issues of Iranian behavior. Then they get to turn around and say to the population, "see -- getting rid of us is part of an American plot to keep Iran weak, even the US president says so himself!"
We need to disaggragate these issues. It seems to me that Iran's legitimate regional interests can be met in a way that does not involve in Iranian nuclear arsenal or fomenting instability in Iraq, provided these interests are discussed frankly by the parties concerned rather covertly and through back channels. At least it might be possible. Maybe if we start a dialogue on these topics it things won't wind up getting worked out and then something bad might happen. But it's worth a shot -- the other options aren't very appealing.
Berger
Well, taking classified documents out of the archives is illegal whether it was done intentionall or not, so I guess Sandy Berger's not going to come out of this looking to good. But none of the news coverage I've seen of this is clear on what I take to be a very important issue here -- were the documents Berger lost (generous interpretation) or destroyed (ungenerous interpretation) unique copies of something, or just one set of papers among many. If it's the latter, then it seems we can rule out any of the nefarious intent that Andrew Sullivan insinuates here. You don't cover something up by eliminating one copy of the documents. Now my guess is that this isn't what happened, because if it had we would have heard about it earlier from the 9/11 Commission as they complained about their inability to assemble a complete record. But that's just a guess. If the documents were unique, Berger looks a good deal worse.
Like others, I'm pretty puzzled by this whole thing, which seems motiveless and self-destructive. Maybe Dick Holbrooke set him up. Who knows?
UPDATE: Thanks to commenter Keef, I see the 9-11 Commission saying that whatever Berger did it in no way impacted their investigation so either this was not a cover-up, or else it was an uncommonly stupid cover-up that involved leaving the original documents in the archives. To be clear, though, mucking around like this with classified documents is illegal even if there's no malicious intent. Just as John Deutsch. Meanwhile, no one seems to have appreciated my Holbrooke set-up joke, even though he seems to be the only one who's benefitting from all this.
UPDATE II: In all seriousness, Holbrooke really is the big beneficiary here and that's a good thing. He'd be the better Secretary of State. Now the only thing standing between him and the job is Joe Biden and the question is what can Holbrooke do to get the nation more focused on the problem of stamping out plagiarism. . . .
Me Too!
I agree with Atrios and Tom Tomorrow that more people should be inviting me to hot A-list convention parties. I also feel that since I'm (a) a blogger, (b) going to the convention, (c) going to be blogging from the convention that I should get mentioned in more of these articles popping up everywhere about bloggers at the convention, even though I'm not technically going as a blogger, but rather as an American Prospect writer. The lines, they blur! More importantly -- invite me to cool parties. (Also -- is there anything convention-related the people, you know, want to read about? I don't totally get what's supposed to be interesting about a convention so I'm happy to take requests.)
Oliphant on Kerry
I mentioned the other day that I thought the Kerry campaign's efforts to court swing voters were being hampered by the fact that loyal Democrats don't seem especially enthusiastic about Kerry (as opposed to beating Bush) and it would be helpful to him if there was some more positive enthusiasm. I had the subject on my mind because I was eagerly awaiting the release of Tom Oliphant's cover story in The American Prospect making the case for enthusiasm. Oliphant's known Kerry a long time and argues that he has the right guts, brains, and work ethic to be president of the United States. Check it out.
Cringe
A big Tom Daschle speech that's supposed to start in a couple of minutes will allegedly contain the phrase "Doing Right by America . . . means paying as much attention to Middle America as we are paying to the Middle East." I wish I shared the child-like faith of some of my liberal hawk acquaintances that sentiments like this are not only bad policy, but bad politics as well. In reality, however, I think this is probably a useful element of a winning message, at least in Daschle's traditionally isolationist Plains stomping grounds.
How To Lose Kansas
Good example from Max Sawicky. But of course it would be very odd for the California Democratic Party to adopt a strategy designed to win votes in Kansas. Gray Davis' particular problems aside, postmodern California is a hot-bed of contemporary liberalism grounded in the politics of gender and ethnicity. On the other hand, one of the mainstays of left-wing criticism of Bill Clinton is his signing of the 1996 welfare reform bill. Do we really think that standing more rigorously in favor of transfer payments to unemployed black women is the way to gain the votes of white working class men? Or is it possible that, as I said in my previous post on the subject, the formula pioneered by DLC politicians who needed to run in the red states actually may know a thing or two about how to keep progressive politics viable in red America?
Irresponsible Speculation
So what if there were a Senator who wants to be Secretary of State and also sits on the Judiciary Committee. What that be the sort of person who might know about a Justice Department investigation into misconduct by another prominent member of the Democratic national security establishment . . . ?
Contrary to what a lot of liberals are saying, the timing of this is all wrong to be a Republican plot. You would want to leak it the day after the 9-11 report came out to try and bump that story off the front pages. This way you just ensure that Berger gets bumped by the report and then the convention. Besides which, the story would have been more damaging to the Kerry campaign if they held onto it until October or so -- the closer to the election, the more awkward it is to dump one of your top foreign policy advisors. I smell an inside job.
At any rate, leaving soon for a TAP retreat to some godforesaken place from which I may or may not be blogging. Enjoy!
I'm Back!
Oy -- no news for 24 hours. So, quick bleg: Does the 9/11 Commission Report demonstrate the correctness of all my political opinions, or does it's failure to do so indicate that it was a piece of partisan hackwork?
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