Monday, March 10, 2008
Abort! Abort!
Hillary Clinton's campaign honcho Terry McAuliffe abruptly terminates an interview with Bill Maher, moments after taunting Maher for not being "tough":
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Eschewing pork versus merely chewing it
Even Robert Novak seems to acknowledge that the GOP can no longer claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility, suggesting that the Democrats may well be the ones to clamp down on earmark spending:
The GOP may be falling behind the Democrats, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moving toward a moratorium. In the Senate, courageous freshman Democrat Claire McCaskill of Missouri supports the DeMint amendment. She could be joined by her choice for president, Barack Obama. These developments encouraged Flake to say: "If Democrats actually move ahead with an earmark moratorium before Republicans, the Democrats will get the credit for eliminating earmarks, and, frankly, they'll deserve it."
Thorny rejoinders
Charlotte Allen's dumb article has provoked lots of delicious reactions (besides my own). See here, here, and especially here if interested.
This is the sound of a political ad backfiring
It turns out that the little sleeping girl in Clinton's now-infamous "3 a.m. ad" is today an 18-year-old precinct captain for the Obama campaign:
The file footage was originally shot for a railroad company advertisement. The Clinton campaign bought it from Getty Images.Knowles, a senior at Bonney Lake High School who turns 18 next month, has been campaigning for Obama. She attended his rally at Seattle's KeyArena on Feb. 8. Her mother, Pam, told The News Tribune of Tacoma that Casey cried and trembled after shaking the candidate's hand.
The next day, she was a Democratic precinct captain for the state's caucuses. If she plays her cards right, she could go to the national convention.
Here's the CNN story (which, I might add, has an inscrutable--and awesome--graphic at the end that patriotically implores you to rate the video... presumably it is designed by "PatriotsMaxim" himself):
A shocking philosophical discovery
A libertarian discovers in the wisdom of his old age that there's actually a subtle downside to libertarianism:
Many of us have had a change of heart about government action when we encounter unexpected and otherwise insurmountable challenges. Consider the value that my friend, Dennis Sanders, found in Minnesota’s Medicaid program when he needed its assistance back in 1996. Or my experience, when I realized that had it not been for government action, our only child, who suffers from a severe case of Tourette Syndrome, might never have had access to the medications that help him lead a reasonably normal, productive life.These cases and others suggest that “pure” libertarian conservatives are comprised of those who have not yet hit the brick wall of non-solutions; have not yet needed (nor had an opportunity to appreciate) just how valuable government “interference” can sometimes be.
This strikes me as just silly. It's as if a life-long vegetarian were to realize that a crucial trade off of vegetarianism is that you must forgo the enjoyment of meat.
God is a fuddy-duddy
There have been a few hysterical editorials about Harvard's decision to close off its gym to men for a few hours a week in order to accommodate Muslim women who are forbidden from being viewed by male eyes whilst in workout clothes.
Personally, I think it's probably not that big a deal one way or another whether Harvard extends this special favor to the Muslims on campus. If everyone's fine with it, then, fine, do your thing. However, if lots of people are being inconvenienced by the women's-only hours, then I think that the Muslim women will just have to figure something else out. If you want to practice a religion with all sorts of crazy restrictions, you're free to do so--and you're certainly free to ask communities and institutions to make special exceptions for you to accomodate your lifestyle.
But those communities and institutions are also free to decline making special exceptions to accomodate your religious idiosyncrasies.
Personally, I think it's probably not that big a deal one way or another whether Harvard extends this special favor to the Muslims on campus. If everyone's fine with it, then, fine, do your thing. However, if lots of people are being inconvenienced by the women's-only hours, then I think that the Muslim women will just have to figure something else out. If you want to practice a religion with all sorts of crazy restrictions, you're free to do so--and you're certainly free to ask communities and institutions to make special exceptions for you to accomodate your lifestyle.
But those communities and institutions are also free to decline making special exceptions to accomodate your religious idiosyncrasies.
Opportunity cost: the details
This AP article gives a good run-down of all of the various estimates for the cost of the wars. The so-called money-quote:
In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the "burn" rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book.It's a lot of money--what I think about it here.Beyond 2008, working with "best-case" and "realistic-moderate" scenarios, they project the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion — or more — by 2017.
Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say.
Not a whole lot else she can do at this point
Hillary Clinton's latest tack: keep suggesting that Obama would make a great vice-presidential candidate.
It makes a certain kind of insidious sense: it at once bolsters her argument that Obama isn't quite ready to assume the responsibility of the Oval Office while at the same complimenting him and easing the risk of alienating his supporters. Moreover, it puts in the voters' mind an image that works well with her it's-my-turn/Obama-needs-to-wait-his-turn rationale.
But it won't work. The reason is because the only people who are paying attention to any of this at this point are sophisticated enough to understand exactly what her cynical motives are. Indeed, some prominent Obama supporters have had a few good quips already. Says Tom Daschle:
It makes a certain kind of insidious sense: it at once bolsters her argument that Obama isn't quite ready to assume the responsibility of the Oval Office while at the same complimenting him and easing the risk of alienating his supporters. Moreover, it puts in the voters' mind an image that works well with her it's-my-turn/Obama-needs-to-wait-his-turn rationale.
But it won't work. The reason is because the only people who are paying attention to any of this at this point are sophisticated enough to understand exactly what her cynical motives are. Indeed, some prominent Obama supporters have had a few good quips already. Says Tom Daschle:
"It may be the first time in history that the person who is running number two would offer the person running number one the number two position."Says John Kerry:
"The first threshold question about a vice president is, are you prepared to be president?"Ouch. Still, though, it's better than her fratricidal implication that McCain is better suited to the Presidency than Obama."So on the one end, they are saying he's not prepared to be president. On the other hand, they're saying maybe he ought to be vice president."
A very special parcel of land
I was reading about Obama's recent victory in Wyoming, and was struck by this:
People have all sorts of arguments as to why I should be thrilled that Americans in the boondocks should arbitrarily be rewarded with super-representation in the federal government while I, a lowly Californian, must make due with my small fraction thereof. They say that there needs to be a regional balance of power, and that if representation were made strictly proportional by population, than states like Wyoming would be virtually voiceless.
But this is bunk. If representation were proportional, states like Wyoming would have precisely as much representation as they should have--which is no more and no less than any other set of half million Americans. Arbitrarily granting more representation for rural areas does nothing but distort politics to favor their agenda, so that everyone ends up having to pay lots of taxes for farm subsidies and endure politicians' lauding of ethanol as the savior of humanity against global warming.
It is not as if there must be some undemocratically imposed balance of power between urban and rural regions. Urban concerns should be regarded as more important precisely because that's where all the people are--it's where more resources are used, where more money is made and spent, where more tax revenue is collected, etc.
In the United States, power should track with the individual, and should not be affected by vagaries such as that person's current state of residence.
Wyoming, with its half-million residents, is the least populated state. It will award 12 delegates based on the results of the caucuses, with 6 others who could go to the convention uncommitted.There are more than double the amount of people in my native San Fernando Valley than there are in that entire state--and yet, not only does that state get to send 18 delegates to the Democratic convention, it also gets three votes in the electoral college and two US Senators. That's a lot of representation for half a million people.
People have all sorts of arguments as to why I should be thrilled that Americans in the boondocks should arbitrarily be rewarded with super-representation in the federal government while I, a lowly Californian, must make due with my small fraction thereof. They say that there needs to be a regional balance of power, and that if representation were made strictly proportional by population, than states like Wyoming would be virtually voiceless.
But this is bunk. If representation were proportional, states like Wyoming would have precisely as much representation as they should have--which is no more and no less than any other set of half million Americans. Arbitrarily granting more representation for rural areas does nothing but distort politics to favor their agenda, so that everyone ends up having to pay lots of taxes for farm subsidies and endure politicians' lauding of ethanol as the savior of humanity against global warming.
It is not as if there must be some undemocratically imposed balance of power between urban and rural regions. Urban concerns should be regarded as more important precisely because that's where all the people are--it's where more resources are used, where more money is made and spent, where more tax revenue is collected, etc.
In the United States, power should track with the individual, and should not be affected by vagaries such as that person's current state of residence.
Slice of life
I have to say, I've never been much impressed with the substance of Maureen Dowd's columns, or even her flippant writing style, particularly. She doesn't have anything original to say, and she's just not that funny.
However, I've always enjoyed the sort of slice-of-life anecdotes that she sometimes relates about her encounters with the powerful. Her latest has a good one featuring Obama:
However, I've always enjoyed the sort of slice-of-life anecdotes that she sometimes relates about her encounters with the powerful. Her latest has a good one featuring Obama:
I hadn’t yet come to grips with the notion of giving up Popeyes when Obama — slender, chewing Nicorette and perfectly groomed in his crisp white shirt — came upon me. I was splattered with so much red sauce it could have been a scene from “Saw IV.” Not only on my face and hands but all over the candidate’s picture in the U.S. News & World Report I was reading.Flyin' around, eatin' barbecue, hangin' with Presidential candidates...like you do.“It’s on my ear,” he complained, looking down at the magazine.
Feeling cocky after 11 straight wins, he called me “MoDowd” and tweaked me for my many columns suggesting he would need to toughen up to beat the Clinton machine. “She’s trying to give me hair on my chest,” he said mockingly, plucking at his shirt.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Al-Qaeda Over There
The US says that a suicide bomber and roadside bomb that killed 68 in Iraq was the work of Al-Qaeda--the second deadliest attack in Iraq this year. Also, 154 were injured.
The Bush administration and other supporters of the war sometimes justify our presence there by saying that we must stay and fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Indeed, John McCain has said of withdrawal from Iraq, "They'd be taking a country, and I'm not going to allow that to happen, my friends. I will not surrender. I will not surrender to al Qaeda.'' However, before the US invaded Iraq, there was no significant Al-Qaeda presence there, and terrorist attacks were non-existent. This fact complicates the anti-withdrawal argument stated above, and puts a couple of different interpretations of it into play.
One interpretation is that, yes, it was a mistake to go into Iraq--especially as incompetently as we did--and yes, this did have the unintended consequence of attracting Al-Qaeda to Iraq. However, whatever mistakes have been made, we must face the current reality, which is that Al-Qaeda is in Iraq--and they must be engaged there. To withdraw at this point would be to surrender--if not in fact than at least in appearance--which for various reasons is completely unacceptable.
Another interpretation construes terrorist attacks as a sort of zero-sum game: there are always going to be some number of Al-Qaeda attacks, and the attacks have to be carried out somewhere. As long as we keep engaging Al-Qaeda in Iraq, those attacks will be carried out over there, instead of in, say, downtown Manhattan. If we relent in Iraq, then the terrorists will be able to refocus their resources and attention on attacking the US mainland. Seen this way, then, keeping troops in Iraq is an imperative for domestic security: our best defense is to remain on offense.
Now, it is obvious to me that--though I may not agree with it--something like the first interpretation is at least pragmatic, well-intentioned, and honorable. The second one I find to be cynical and cowardly. The first is acknowledging a tactical reality; the second regards Iraqis as mere cannon fodder and uses them essentially as human shields. It is as if to say that Iraqi civilian deaths are somehow more acceptable than American civilian deaths, or that American lives are more valuable than Iraqi lives. Not only that, but it makes the mistake of assuming, in an intuitive way, that a terrorist attack carried out abroad is one less terrorist attack that would have been carried out on US soil--an obviously false notion.
Of course, no one would openly advocate the second interpretation in the precise way that I've stated it--however, sometimes the rhetoric of the opponents to withdrawal seem to imply just this sort of reasoning. Someone who suggests that Al-Qaeda will "follow our troops home" if we withdraw is, to me, favoring the second interpretation. So is anyone who does not regard the death of an Iraqi civilian with as much heart-felt sympathy and compassion as that of an American civilian.
The Bush administration and other supporters of the war sometimes justify our presence there by saying that we must stay and fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Indeed, John McCain has said of withdrawal from Iraq, "They'd be taking a country, and I'm not going to allow that to happen, my friends. I will not surrender. I will not surrender to al Qaeda.'' However, before the US invaded Iraq, there was no significant Al-Qaeda presence there, and terrorist attacks were non-existent. This fact complicates the anti-withdrawal argument stated above, and puts a couple of different interpretations of it into play.
One interpretation is that, yes, it was a mistake to go into Iraq--especially as incompetently as we did--and yes, this did have the unintended consequence of attracting Al-Qaeda to Iraq. However, whatever mistakes have been made, we must face the current reality, which is that Al-Qaeda is in Iraq--and they must be engaged there. To withdraw at this point would be to surrender--if not in fact than at least in appearance--which for various reasons is completely unacceptable.
Another interpretation construes terrorist attacks as a sort of zero-sum game: there are always going to be some number of Al-Qaeda attacks, and the attacks have to be carried out somewhere. As long as we keep engaging Al-Qaeda in Iraq, those attacks will be carried out over there, instead of in, say, downtown Manhattan. If we relent in Iraq, then the terrorists will be able to refocus their resources and attention on attacking the US mainland. Seen this way, then, keeping troops in Iraq is an imperative for domestic security: our best defense is to remain on offense.
Now, it is obvious to me that--though I may not agree with it--something like the first interpretation is at least pragmatic, well-intentioned, and honorable. The second one I find to be cynical and cowardly. The first is acknowledging a tactical reality; the second regards Iraqis as mere cannon fodder and uses them essentially as human shields. It is as if to say that Iraqi civilian deaths are somehow more acceptable than American civilian deaths, or that American lives are more valuable than Iraqi lives. Not only that, but it makes the mistake of assuming, in an intuitive way, that a terrorist attack carried out abroad is one less terrorist attack that would have been carried out on US soil--an obviously false notion.
Of course, no one would openly advocate the second interpretation in the precise way that I've stated it--however, sometimes the rhetoric of the opponents to withdrawal seem to imply just this sort of reasoning. Someone who suggests that Al-Qaeda will "follow our troops home" if we withdraw is, to me, favoring the second interpretation. So is anyone who does not regard the death of an Iraqi civilian with as much heart-felt sympathy and compassion as that of an American civilian.
"She is a monster"
According to Reuters, Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Powers is quitting the campaign today over a remark in which she referred to Clinton as a "monster":
In any case, do we really want qualified foreign policy advisers to be axed because of one silly remark they made? Hopefully this "firing" is mostly for show and Ms. Powers will be back in the fold once this all blows over.
Now, I understand that the Obama campaign wants to be careful to portray themselves as above the fray, but I think firing her is a bit silly. She clearly thought she was speaking off the record--and the reference to Hillary as a "monster" might even be a sort of backhanded compliment of Hillary as a formidable political foe."She is a monster, too -- that is off the record -- she is stooping to anything," Power was quoted by the newspaper as saying of Clinton.
"We f***** up in Ohio," she said. "In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win."
In any case, do we really want qualified foreign policy advisers to be axed because of one silly remark they made? Hopefully this "firing" is mostly for show and Ms. Powers will be back in the fold once this all blows over.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Globalization seems to be working--for billionaires, at least
This surprised me:
In 2006, half of the top 20 billionaires came from the U.S. This year there were only four Americans.Also according to Forbes, Warren Buffet has overtaken Bill Gates as world's richest man. Shall we all make the switch to Buffet when invoking a canonical rich guy?
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
"Posts of Substance"
I realize that the overwhelming majority of my posts are of-the-moment bits of political drivel, and that these tend to bury the ones I actually put time and thought into. So, I've put a list of the good quality posts in "Posts of Substance" for easy read'ins.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
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