The Irish Save Civilization Again!

For the second time in two years the attempt to get a constitution for the European Community has come a cropper.  That last three words is a marvelous phrase, by the way.   No one seems to know where it came from, but its first use was in 1858:

[He] "rode at an impracticable fence, and got a cropper for his pains."

The Irish people, in a popular referendum, rejected the Lisbon treaty that would have created a new constitution for Europe.  CNN describes this impracticable fence in this way:

After voters in the Netherlands and France rejected a previous EU constitution in 2005, most EU countries stopped leaving such matters to their voters, instead pushing it through their national parliaments.

   However, Irish law requires its citizens be given the chance to vote on anything affecting the Irish constitution, which in this case is the Lisbon Treaty. So Ireland's 3 million voters decided on a document representing the 490 million people in the European Union.

Eighteen EU countries have ratified the treaty so far and, with Ireland's vote in, a decision is pending in eight others.

There is something very curious about all this.  A European constitution would seem to be a bloody good idea, but surely the way to get one is to design it so that it could pass popular referendums in the various countries.  That's what the American Founders did in the late 1780's, bypassing the state legislatures in favor of popularly elected ratifying conventions. 

Instead, the European elites tried to write the people out of the picture by putting a second constitution, The "Lisbon Treaty" entirely into the hands of parliaments.  The Irish alone failed to go along, and the ratification had to be unanimous, so it's back to the drawing board again. Notice the unintentional irony of that line: "Ireland's 3 million voters decided on a document representing the 490 million people in the European Union."  Those three million were the only voters who actually got a say in the matter!

I wonder why it is that Europe's parliaments are so eager to sign a document that their peoples can be trusted to endorse.  In the U.S., to overrule the voters you have to get the Supreme Court or some state Supreme Court to do it.  But parliaments are elected, so why don't the people send the rascals packing? 

What does this mean for a United States of Europe?  Charles Moore in the British Telegraph tells us the treaty is dead. 

In the Irish language, there is no word for "no". The Irish way of getting round this is to say instead: "It isn't." Yesterday we learnt that the Irish people, confronted with the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum, have said: "It isn't."

But not so fast!  The Guardian reports that:

Refusing to take Ireland's 'no' for an answer, politicians in Berlin and Paris prepared for a crucial EU summit in Brussels this week by trying to ringfence the Irish while demanding that the treaty be ratified by the rest of the EU.

Well, so much for the rules.  I am guessing that I would not like all the reasons that the various groups of Irish voters had for rejecting the Lisbon Treaty.  But they did strike a blow for democracy.  No government can work without forming elites, but democracy means that the work of the elites must ultimately be submitted to the people.    The Irish alone, of all of Europe, seem to recognize this.  Erin go braugh!  Did I mention that my mother's maiden name is Daugherty?

Obama's Free Market Men

And now for something completely different: some encouraging news about Barack Obama.  Encouraging to conservatives, that is.  Naomi Kline, of the left-wing British Guardian (prominent on my daily checklist), is really worried about all the free market types hanging around the man. 

Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton pulled out of the race to declare, on CNBC: "Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market." Demonstrating that this is no mere spring fling, he has appointed the 37-year-old Jason Furman, one of Wal-Mart's most prominent defenders, to head his economic team. On the campaign trail, Obama blasted Clinton for sitting on the Wal-Mart board and pledged: "I won't shop there." For Furman, however, Wal-Mart's critics are the real threat: the "efforts to get Wal-Mart to raise its wages and benefits" are creating "collateral damage" that is "way too enormous and damaging to working people and the economy ... for me to sit by idly and sing Kum Ba Ya in the interests of progressive harmony".

Well, if Klein is genuinely worried, I am genuinely encouraged.  I am not yet ready to endorse, and I would like to see a few pictures of Obama advisers with pictures of Milton Friedman behind them to balance out all the Che Guevara posters, but if the New York Times can acknowledge that the surge did some good, I can acknowledge this. 

The free market is the engine of economic growth in all growing economies.  It has to be regulated, and it can be regulated too much.  But making it work well is the object of all sound economic policy.  It is encouraging to note that this might not be news to Obama, as it largely is to Naomi Klein. 

Background Noise

Tigerhawk:  "The question is, why do we keep seeing Obama supporters who revere Che Guevara?" (via Instapundit)

"I just don't think he's got yet the proven substance or experience to be president."

Jim Geraghty:

Former President Jimmy Carter, on November 30, 2006, asked about a presidential run by Barack Obama:

"I just don't think he's got yet the proven substance or experience to be president."

The RNC is showcasing that, and it's a nice quote to throw at Carter. But you know what quote goes well with that?

"Just what's he done? I mean, what's he done?"

— Congressman Bobby Rush, in a debate with then state legislator Barack Obama, when both men were competing for the Democratic primary for Rush's seat in 2000. Rush won the primary, 61 percent to 30 percent.

In other words, the voters in Chicago concurred with Rush that Obama was not experienced enough or accomplished enough to be their Congressman in 2000. Seven and a half years later, we're told he's ready to be commander-in-chief.

Facts on the Ground

Jennifer Rubin:  This is Why Facts Matter:  "Senior Brookings fellows Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack gave a report today and entertained questions at a Brookings briefing on Iraq. It was the single most illuminating presentation I have witnessed on the status of Iraq and the potential way forward."  Be sure to read the whole thing.

Conrad Taking Heat over Loan Scandal

North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad is taking some heat over a loan he received from Countrywide for his Delaware vacation home.  The New York Times has much more on the Countrywide loan scandal and Angelo Mozilo.

UPDATE:  Say Anything Blog:  "I suppose Conrad could say he was just parsing this - he called Mozilo, but never met him - but really, that level of deception is what most reasonable people call a lie."

VIP Emperors Club 2

Campaigns generate scandals like cows generate methane.  The latest flatulence to stink up Barack Obama's week concerned Jim Johnson.  From the Politico:

Barack Obama Wednesday reversed course and accepted the resignation of a Washington insider who he’d chosen to help vet potential running mates, after an ill-timed report about the vetter’s own personal finances.

James Johnson, a Democratic institution and financier who led the vetting of Sen. John F. Kerry’s potential running mates in 2004, resigned after a Wall Street Journal report that he had received loans worth $1.7 million from the troubled subprime lender, Countrywide Home Loans, through a special arrangement with the company’s CEO.

Johnson’s withdrawal stanched the campaign’s bleeding from a wound that, while minor, threatened to obscure his reformist message. But it also highlighted a coming risk. As Obama’s campaign grows to absorb much of the Democratic Party, the candidate faces a renewed challenge to present himself as an outsider bent on changing the hidebound ways of Washington.

Of course, once the scent is in the air, it may alert us to the presence of more than one bovine posterior.  Again from the Politico:

Senators Christopher Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut and chairman of the Banking Committee, and Kent Conrad, Democrat from North Dakota, chairman of the Budget Committee and a member of the Finance Committee, refinanced properties through Countrywide’s “V.I.P.” program in 2003 and 2004, according to company documents and emails and a former employee familiar with the loans.

Other participants in the V.I.P. program included former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson, former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, and former U.N. ambassador and assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke. Jackson was deputy H.U.D. secretary in the Bush administration when he received the loans in 2003. Shalala, who received two loans in 2002, had by then left the Clinton administration for her current position as president of the University of Miami. She is scheduled to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom on June 19.

But all this is mere vapor and no substance.  There is no evidence so far that Johnson, or Dodd, Conrad, and company, did anything illegal or immoral.  They are VIPs and VIPs enjoy opportunities that less important persons like you are me do not.  There has never been any society in which that is not true.  Obama probably had to cut Johnson loose.  As the Politico notes, the GOP will use this to attack him anyway.  But whatever things may have been wrong with Johnson as a member of  the VP vetting committee, the fact that he was a big roller isn't one of them. 

What this really shows is the silliness of one of the most pernicious myths in American politics: that you can be an "outsider" running against the "insiders."  Anyone elected to any office at any level is automatically an "insider."  No matter how much you care about the little guy, you can't do anything for him in politics by remaining a little guy yourself.  Obama has been part of the elite since he first built his power base in Chicago.  Since then, he has ascended the hierarchy.  Political realities have forced him to be ashamed of Johnson, but in fact he has nothing to be ashamed of. 

Tim Russert 1950-2008

Tim Russert, longest serving host at the longest running TV show, Meet the Press, is dead.  Allow me, in a spirit of piety, to submit a bit of scripture:

First of all, why should we think about death? Why should we contemplate it? Not only did the Buddha encourage us to speak about death, he encouraged us to actually think about it, contemplate it and reflect on it regularly.

On one occasion the Buddha asked several of the monks, "How often do you contemplate death?"

One of them replied, "Lord, I contemplate death every day."

"Not good enough," the Buddha said, and asked another monk, who replied,

"Lord, I contemplate death with each mouthful that I eat during the meal."

"Better, but not good enough," said the Buddha, "What about you?"

The third monk said, "Lord, I contemplate death with each inhalation and each exhalation."

That's all it takes, the inhalation comes in, it goes out, and one day it won't come in again - and that's it. That's all there is between you and death, just that inhalation, the next inhalation.

I note with some dismay that Russert was born only a few years before I was.  I wouldn't do very well at the test the Buddha gave his monks, but this is a reminder that the exit exam is coming up. 

Tim Russert came close to perfecting the art of the interview.  He was not quite as free from bias as some on the spot eulogies declare, but he came about as close to it as is humanly possible.  He was a hard man for anyone to face.  He also had an infectious love of politics, and seemed to genuinely like almost everyone he interviewed regardless of who they were or what side they were on.  He appreciated politics as it is practiced in the American Republic, and that is eulogy enough for me. 

Laptops: Die Another Day

More professors are backing out of the laptop regime:

The forbidden-laptop zone is territory into which few professors dare tread. Students have been known to protest when laptops are banned from a classroom, and even claim that they are being denied a proper education. Professors who have taken the bold step, though, sound like they've experienced an epiphany.

"Not only was I stunned by how much better the class was, the students volunteered that it was much better." says Don Herzog, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School. He tried a one-day ban as an experiment.

When Mr. Herzog returns to teaching this fall, after a sabbatical term, he plans to keep the machines out of his class for good.

I take it that the situations talked about in this article are those where students bring their own laptops to class (the story concentrates on law schools).  So what if you had a regime where students were forced to purchase or lease laptops and the curriculum was redesigned to suit the laptop?  That'd go against the experience of a growing number of schools as well as individual teachers and professors. 

Boumediene v. Bush

Like my colleague, Professor Schaff, I have not yet read all seventy pages of Justice Kennedy's opinion in Boumediene v. Bush, let alone the concurring and dissenting opinions.    But blogs are first responders, and some preliminary reflections are in order.  My comment here is based on summaries in the New York Times, and the always informative comments at The Volokh Conspiracy.  Unlike most conservatives whose comments I have seen, I am not at all certain that the 5 to 4 decision was wrong.  But I also think the Court is playing a very dangerous game here.

The Majority struck down a section of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and determined that detainees held at Guantanamo have a constitutional right to challenge their incarceration before United States courts.  As the Majority acknowledges, this is altogether without precedent.  Never before have such prisoners as these enjoyed such protections while a conflict was ongoing.  Here is a key passage quoted by Volokh:

It is true that before today the Court has never held that noncitizens detained by our Government in territory over which another country maintains de jure sovereignty have any rights under our Constitution. But the cases before us lack any precise historical parallel. They involve individuals detained by executive order for the duration of a conflict that, if measured from September 11, 2001, to the present, is already among the longest wars in American history. See Oxford Companion to American Military History 849 (1999). The detainees, moreover, are held in a territory that, while technically not part of the United States, is under the complete and total control of our Government. Under these circumstances the lack of a precedent on point is no barrier to our holding.

The Court is making it up as it goes along, but it has no other choice.  Past conflicts were of reasonably short duration, and the Court has been content to let the military have its way while hostilities continued.  But "the war on terrorism" may go on for decades, and thus prisoner of war status may become a de facto life sentence.  It does seem to me that, at some point, military incarcerations have to be subject to review by the judicial branch.

I see two problems here.  First, the Court leaves open the possibility that Congress can suspend the writ of habeas corpus for these detainees. 

We hold that Art. I, §9, cl. 2, of the Constitution has full effect at Guantanamo Bay. If the privilege of habeas corpus is to be denied to the detainees now before us, Congress must act in accordance with the requirements of the Suspension Clause. . . . The MCA does not purport to be a formal suspension of the writ; and the Government, in its submissions to us, has not argued that it is. Petitioners, therefore, are entitled to the privilege of habeas corpus to challenge the legality of their detention.

Congress can suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus

when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

Did 9/11 constitute an invasion?  I rather doubt that the Court would rule that it did not.  But if Congress were to use its war powers for this purpose, it would in effect put the United States into a permanent state of emergency and thus erase one of the most important limits on those powers. 

The second problem is that the Court's decision today may well force Congress to take such a step if something very unfortunate happens.  Suppose that this decision leads to the release of some prisoner, and that the same man later commits a major act of terror against the U.S.  The odds against that may be long, but if it did happen all bets are off.  I submit that Congress would in short order remove the Court's jurisdiction over such cases, and that would be unfortunate indeed. 

 

Dustup Between the DNC and McCain

Bill Bennett over at The Corner:  "Do they [the DNC] really want to tell a man [John McCain] who turned down early release and spent five and a half years in a POW camp that he is insensitive to the desires of returning home? Do they really want to tell a man whose father and grandfather are military heroes that the most important thing is returning home? Do they really want to tell a man whose own son has signed up and fought in Iraq about the importance of coming back home?"

Dems Backing Away from Obama

The Politico: Some Hill Dems Won't Back Obama. "The presidential race may be topic A, B and C in Washington these days, but some people are just too busy to think about it — particularly, it seems, centrist Democrats from conservative districts, who aren't exactly eager to align themselves with Sen. Barack Obama." Representative Herseth-Sandlin cannot be counted among those from conservative districts that are wary of Obama. This is the fourth story to show up about Dems backing away from him since he captured the nomination (see this, this, and this).

On Energy

My latest ruminations at the American News.  This one is on energy policy and the arguments will be familiar to loyal readers of this site. 

Court Decision

Here are my thoughts on the Supreme Court decision today granting habeas corpus rights and access to civilian courts to enemy combatants at Guantanamo. 

I have only read news accounts, so take this with a grain of salt. I think the dissenters are likely correct. This is an example of the courts stepping in to superimpose their policy preference for that of the president and Congress. While granting habeas corpus rights and access to civilian courts to enemy combatants might be good policy (emphasis on "might"), that doesn't mean that the Constitution demands it.

Why might these people not have such rights? First, terrorists have no legal rights, not even under the Geneva Accords. Why? First, they are not soldiers. They do not fight for a nation, therefore they are not signatories to the Geneva Accords and cannot claim protection. Their very method of action, not wearing uniforms and targeting civilians, violates international law. By not fighting for a nation and not wearing a uniform they do not even have the rights of POWs, rights granted to legitimate soldiers, which terrorists are not. It is precisely because the "war on terror" is asymmetrical that the Bush Administration has had to create the category of "enemy combatant," someone who makes war against the United States, so is more than a criminal, but also not falling under POW status. What this ruling does is actually give those who reject international norms more rights than your standard POW, who is, under normal circumstances, obeying international norms.

One might disagree with the policy created by Congress and the Administration. Fine. But a policy disagreement is not a legal disagreement. And while the enemy combatants are humans with rights, the question here is not their human rights, but their legal rights, which is not the same thing. Again, you might say "but the law should protect human rights." OK, but then who makes the law? The question here is who is setting military policy in a new and undefined category of war, namely an effort to fight international terrorism. By right and law I think it should be our elected leaders accountable to the people, not judges who are twisting the law to suit their own policy preferences. To that extent, this decision, even if it is good policy, is bad law.

Thune Defends McCain

John Thune and Joe Lieberman defended John McCain yesterday in the latest distortion of McCain's words regarding Iraq.  See here and Denise Ross's account here.  First it was the notion that McCain wants the Iraq war to continue for 100 years, an attack on McCain debunked by Factcheck.org.   Now it's the notion that McCain thinks it "unimportant" that troops withdraw from Iraq. Here is the video (thanks Denise).  Go to minute 5:40 for the beginning of the Iraq discussion.

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You'll see that McCain was reiterating a point he has previously made, that our presence in Iraq is less the problem than casualties in Iraq.  But you'll also note that he does say "We will be able to withdraw; Gen. Petraeus is going to tell us in July when he thinks we are."  Notice that in Badlands Blue's dishonest edit of the clip, that part gets left off. 

Here is Mark Ambinder:

The context makes it clear that McCain is reiterating his position that the presence of troops isn't the issue; instead, it's the casualties they receive. The differences between McCain and Obama are clear enough; Obama wants a bare-bones U.S. presence in Iraq, and McCain is willing to tolerate a much larger one; Obama believes that the presence of U.S. troops exacerbates the tension and gives Iraqis a crutch to delay political reconcilliation. McCain does not. One would think that those differences are a sufficient basis upon which to launch a political attack. Instead, though, in a conference call with reporters, in remarks by Democrats like Joe Biden, in a blistering statement by Rep. Rahm Emanuel, McCain is being portrayed as, inter alia, not caring one whit about casualties and deaths and chaos and certainly not about the families of troops who dealt with deployment after deployment.

Other grounds to attack McCain are his blase acceptance of American military presence around the world and his disturbing willingness to let the generals set American policy, as opposed to the actual civilian policy makers.  We do have a civilian run military, Senator.  But apparently those policy grounds are not enough.  The Obama campaign must distort McCain's argument and attack his honor.  So much for your "new" politics. 

Yes, We Live In Interesting Times

I had a long conversation with a retired school teacher a couple days ago.  In this far ranging discussion we talked of the many ills plaguing our country and the world.  He had a very interesting perspective on this.  "What exciting times we live it!"  He was enthusiastic.  "We are going through a great period in history.  We are going to see momentous change!"  Prof. Blanchard's favorite Chinese curse (and there are so many to choose from) is "may you live in interesting times."  This teacher has a different view, though.  He feels honored to be living in a great period in history. 

Are we seeing the end of freedom in Canada?  Will the good men be punished while the bad prosper?

Will we change the way we live due to high fuel prices?  Rod Dreher and Prof. Deneen see a return to thrift.    I especially commend Deneen's post.  Will our politics see the rise of real conservatives, those who are not mere cheerleaders for consumption?

We are now in the midst of a great redefinition of what it means to conserve, and the people who seem still not to have gotten the message are most of our "conservatives" who are defending nothing other than the legacy of Woodrow Wilson (including a good deal of his international dream of world democracy) - the utopian vision of Progress that requires no costs and has no consequences.

Note that by throwing "conservatives" in with Woodrow Wilson, Deenen has no special love for the left.  His argument is that both conservatives and liberals worship the god Progress, and he is a false god.

Will the end of cheap oil mean the end of the New South?  Unable to pay for the air conditioning that makes the South livable, maybe people will head north.

Maybe Cory is right and we will change the way buy food.  Maybe the era of big agriculture is over.  The Monsantos of the world will give way to local producers. For more on this, see lawyer Epp's article on intellectual property in agriculture.   My thanks to Todd for passing it along. 

Maybe we'll see the rise of nuclear Iran, sitting on the second biggest oil deposit in the world.

I don't know if all, some or any of these things will come to pass.  But it'll be interesting to see.  We do indeed live in interesting and exciting times.  Is that a blessing or a curse?      

Bush Didn't lie 2

As I drove north from the Jonesboro Arkansas Public Library, where I filed my last post, along swollen rivers under a canopy of boiling clouds, another storm brewed in the local blogosphere.  As  Professor Schaff notes, we got a lot of responses to our posts on the Rockefeller Report. 

The question is this: did Bush and his Administration lie when making the case for the invasion of Iraq?  I based my post entirely on Fred Hiatt's essay in the Washington Post.  I note that this is both an organ of liberal opinion as well as one of the most prestigious papers of record in the United States.  To put it mildly, Hiatt's piece was better vetted than anything that appears at SDP.  That doesn't mean Hiatt is right, but it does mean that his piece carries some weight. 

Hiatt makes these claims: that, according to the Rockefeller Report, the Administrations claims concerning Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs, were all "generally substantiated by intelligence information."  And there is this:

[S]tatements regarding Iraq's support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda "were substantiated by the intelligence assessments," and statements regarding Iraq's contacts with al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." The report is left to complain about "implications" and statements that "left the impression" that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation.

All that is Hiatt, not me.  But if he is right, then the Administration's case for the invasion was in fact "substantiated by intelligence information."  And that is the Rockefeller Report. Professor Schaff documents the fact that the Clinton Administration and Congressional Democrats, privy to the same information as the Bush Administration, said the same things.  Here is Hiatt on Sen. Rockefeller himself:

After all, it was not Bush, but Rockefeller, who said in October 2002: "There has been some debate over how 'imminent' a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can."

A dear friend sends me a list of "lies" uncovered in the Report. 

Ø Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.

 

Ø Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.

 

Ø Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.

 

Ø Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.

 

Ø The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.

 

Ø The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.

************

If that isn't lying, I don't know what is.

With all due respect to my friend, "not reflecting the intelligence community's uncertainties" is not lying.  What it is is pointed out by another intrepid reader, Mondak:

I read your latest post: "Bush Didn't Lie."  Respectfully, I have to take issue with this story.  Now, I believe the President may have not deliberately lied to the American People, however, I do believe he wanted to believe something that he did not have all the correct information on at the time he made his decision about Iraq.  This is actually and unfortunately something we all have to deal with at times in our lives when making decisions without all the facts and not having the time to wait on them.  I think all leaders on both sides deal with this conundrum on a daily basis.  It goes with the duty of leadership.

Yes.  The Administration believed in the case it was making.  And when you believe in something, it is easy to believe anything else that goes along with it.  There is the basis there for a serious case against the Bush Administration: their intelligence was wrong, and their confidence in it blinded them to contrary information as well as weaknesses in some of their claims.  That case may even be damning; but to make it, you have to give up the claim of intentional lying. 

It was always implausible to argue that the Administration was intentionally lying.  Maybe Bush is the idiot that all the Bush-haters believe he is, but surely it would have occurred to someone in the Adminstration that an invasion would uncover the truth. That is in fact what happened.  Bush invaded Iraq believing he would find all the evidence to back up his claims.  He was wrong.  That error is what he is guilty of.  I agree with Hiatt that the "Bush lied" myth protects the real errors that preceded the war. 

Talking to Tyrants

A thoughtful piece in the New York Sun on the prospective diplomacy of our two presidential candidates.  It's a shame that Obama has handled the question of negotiating with tyrants so poorly, because it isn't so clear that he is wrong.  His problem is that his first position was foolish, namely talking without preconditions.  He now, it seems, realizes the foolishness of that statement and is trying to back away from it without seeming to back away from it. 

But there is no reason why the President of the United States should not talk to any leader in the world as long as we negotiate from a position of strength and don't expect too much.  If Churchill and Roosevelt can talk to Stalin, Obama can talk to Chavez (recognizing important dissimilarities between the two examples).  The tyrant only gains stature if the President treats him as an equal, which he doesn't have to do.  It might do some good for a Pres. Obama to have a press conference with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and publicly denounce Ahmadinejad's antisemitism and Holocaust denial. 

Similarly, McCain's proposal for a League of Democracies is a brilliant stroke. 

Meanwhile, last month Mr. McCain addressed the fellows of the Hoover Institution, telling them he would in his first year "call a summit of the world's democracies" to "start bringing democratic peoples and nations from around the world into one common organization, a worldwide League of Democracies."

Mr. McCain's idea stems from an understanding that the utopian principles of the United Nations, forged by Franklin Roosevelt in the dying days of World War II, have been persistently betrayed by its nation members and its bureaucracy, leaving it in a state of discredited, sclerotic impotence.

The problem with the United Nations is that is does not speak for the people of the world; it speaks for the governments of the world, only some of which can legitimately claim to speak for their people.  For example, the Bush Administration is chided for not getting UN approval for the war in Iraq, perhaps rightly so.  Yet, precisely what moral legitimacy stems from getting the approval of China and Russia?  And if those authoritarian governments refuse to give approval, how does that make one's efforts less legitimate (granted, failing to get French approval is more problematic)? 

Samuelson: Vote For McBama

Robert Samuelson, who is quickly becoming a favorite here at SDP, scores another winner today.  He essentially has the flaws of each candidate down.  Obama is a naive smooth-talker, while McCain is stubborn. 

All this reflects Obama's legislative record. From 2005 to 2007, he voted with his party 97 percent of the time, reports the Politico. But Obama's clever campaign strategy would put him in a bind as president. Championing centrism would disappoint many ardent Democrats. Pleasing them would betray his conciliating image. The fact that he has so far straddled the contradiction may confirm his political skills and the quiet aid received from the media, which helped him by virtually ignoring the blatant contradictions.

And what does the straddle tell us of him? Aside from ambition -- hardly unique among presidential candidates -- I cannot detect powerful convictions in Obama. He seems merely expedient in peddling his convenient conflicts. He strikes me as a super-successful graduate student: the brightest, quickest, most articulate guy in the seminar. In his career, he has advanced mainly by talking and writing -- not doing -- and may harbor a delusion common to the well-educated: that he can argue and explain his way around any problem.

By contrast, no one can claim that McCain lacks convictions. He has often defied Republican-party orthodoxy, and his credentials to lead a centrist coalition are stronger than Obama's. According to the Politico, he sided with his party only 83 percent of the time from 2005 to 2007. Even in this election year, he has taken unpopular positions. Note his criticism of farm subsidies, which won't help him in the Midwest. The trouble with McCain is that he often mistakes stubbornness for principle.

He has a hard time changing his mind, even when the evidence overwhelmingly suggests he's wrong. He has stuck with "campaign finance reform" despite its dismal record. After three decades, it has entangled political campaigns in rules and paperwork without solving any notable problem (for example, people continue to believe that wealthy "special interests" have too much influence). On immigration, he still does not grasp what I think is the actual problem: not illegal immigration so much as too many poor and unskilled immigrants, whether legal or illegal. Like Obama, he seems oblivious to the possible unintended consequences of endorsing an anti-global warming "cap-and-trade" program.

One thing the voter can learn from this is that if one wants a bi-partisan moderate as president, John McCain's has a much stronger record. 

Well, That Stirred 'Em Up

Apparently Prof. Blanchard's and my posts on the "Bush lied" meme have struck a nerve.  Here's Doug Wiken making the unevidenced claim that we are lying about Bush lying.  How about the always thoughtful Scott Ehrisman claiming we are "drinking the kool-aid."  We also got an email from Nick.  I've edited this for decency.  The subject line is "F@#$ Republicans."

HOW FAR IS YOUR HEAD BURIED UP YOUR ASS?  MUST BE DEEP WITH ALL OF THIS S$^@ SPEWING OUT INTO YOUR AND SCHAFF'S S@#$ BLOGS.  REPUBLICANS HAVE SHOWN A NEW SIDE TO THEIR DILLUSION KNOWN AS REALITY.  EVERYTHING WITH THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN LIES, COERSION, AND DECEIT.  REPUBLICANS HAVE NO CREDIBILITY LEFT.  INTELLIGENCE? THE WORD SHOULDN'T BE ANY WHERE NEAR THE WORST ADMINISTRATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY.  BUSH HAS USED EVERY EXCUSE ( WMD'S, AL Q.'S PRESENCE, AND DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST), BLAMED AVERYONE ELSE, AND TAKEN NO RESPONSABILITY FOR HIS POLICIES THAT NOW HAVE US IN THE 2ND RECESSION DURING HIS TERM.   DUSCHE BAGS LIKE U AND BLANCH ARE SELFISH IN THAT U HAVE TO DEFEND THIS F@$#$%# UP AGENDA TO MAKE YOURSELVES FEEL BETTER ABOUT VOTING FOR THIS IDIOT TWICE, AS OPPOSED TO LEARNING TO THINK FOR YOURSELF.   ALSO HOW DOES A PROFESSOR WITH SO MUCH EDUCATION STILL BUY INTO THIS WEAK GARBAGE?

Well, there's more, but it mostly carries on in this puerile, meretricious and semi-literate manner.

What do these responses have in common?  Notably, none of them actually touch the substance of our writings.  We are treated with contempt, vulgar contempt at that in one case, but no one refutes the argument.  Here are some questions for these interlocutors, such as they are. 

-Congress had access to the same intelligence as the Bush Administration.  Why is it that many who now denounce the Administration as liars voted for the war? This includes people like Jay Rockefeller and Tim Johnson.  They believed intelligence that turned out to be wrong.  Does this make them liars, too? 

-Why did Bill Clinton and Al Gore, who presumably had very good knowledge of Iraq intelligence, originally support the war?  Here is Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002:

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to     deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is     in power."

Was Gore lying?   

-Various reports, such as the Robb-Silberman report, largely exonerate the administration from the charge that they politicized the intelligence community.  What do you know that the Robb-Silberman commission didn't? 

-If you go to Dennis Prager's Townhall site and listen to hour one from Friday, June 6, you will hear very early in the hour a tape of an interview Prager did with Phillip Bobbitt (or go to May 19 and hear the whole Bobbitt interview).  First, Bobbitt rejects the "Bush lied" argument.  He says that the Bush Administration came to the same conclusion as the governments of Great Britain, France and Germany, namely that Iraq had WMDs.  Question: Do you dispute his analysis?  Bobbitt goes on to say that the mistake Bush made was basing the war decision on intelligence, opening himself up to what actually happened, namely that the intelligence would prove false and he'd look like a fool.  I agree and said so in my earlier post.  Here's Phillip Bobbitt's Wikipedia entry.  You'll see he is a man of great learning and accomplishment.  You'll see he worked for Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.  Question: Is he a liar too?  Is he "drinking the kool-aid"?   

Let me make this clear. My point is not that Prof. Blanchard and I are right and our critics are wrong, although I believe that.  I wish to point to the manner in which the disagreement is adjudicated.  Prof. Blanchard and I provide evidence that we turn into argument.  Our opponents call names.  There are powerful arguments against the Bush Administration's Iraq policy, but these commentators are not interested in those arguments.  They are interested in being mad.  They have much invested in a particular world view, and damn anyone who questions that view. 

Dumb Intelligence

Prof. Blanchard makes a sound point below: the "Bush lied" mantra distracts from the more important lesson to be learned from the Iraq run-up: how did our intelligence agencies get so much so wrong?  In fact, I made this point almost three years ago:

The Bush team might have been wrong about the presence of massive quantities of WMDs in Iraq, but it does [not] mean it lied about it.  But to accept the "wrong" versus the "lie" version, one has to start thinking about how intelligence is gathered, how intelligence is interpreted, and how intelligence is disseminated.  But for the left, for whom hatred for George Bush looms high as their motivation for everything, these questions about intelligence are too, well, boring, and don't fit with the storyline that Bush is malicious and evil.

Yes, digging out this old post I found an egregious typo, a rather important "not" missing from the first sentence.  What seems accurate, though, is that both the president and Congress looked at the intelligence provided to them and concluded that Saddam had WMDs.  As I pointed out here in 2005, people from the Clinton administration originally supported the war, including Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Al Gore.  Unless you believe the facts changed rapidly from January 2001 to September 2002 (when Bush first started articulating his case for war), Bush had largely the same intelligence they had when they were in the White House and came to the same conclusions. 

And it even seems a bit dubious to say that no WMDs were found.  What we know from the Kay report and from statements from captured Iraqis, including Saddam Hussein, is that the WMD capabilities were there, if not the WMDs.  Saddam's strategy was to keep his programs ready for re-initiation at a moment's notice while he waited for the world to tire of watching him. While no large stockpiles existed, the capacity to quickly create those stockpiles did. 

Nonetheless, our intelligence agencies produced estimates that were widely off the mark.  This goes to show what I have argued here many times, namely that one should not base strategic decisions on intelligence.  The world of intelligence is inherently murky and uncertain.  If Bush made an error it was basing the war on intelligence  rather than a spirited defense of American strategic interests.

On a final note, what motivates Senate Democrats to release a report so obviously political in nature and false in its reporting during an election year?  In years past, the Bush administration took considerable heat for using the war to its political advantage.  Will the same happen here?  Will we remember that Tim Johnson once called the intelligence leading up to the war "obviously fabricated," a statement by Johnson that itself was obviously fabricated?  One doesn't hold out much hope.

BTW, did Bush hype the intelligence on Iraq and Al Qaeda?  Via Gateway Pundit and from the very report that claims "Bush lied."
   

An Alternative View On Alternative Fuels

I've spent considerable time on this blog attacking ethanol subsidies.  For the sake of balance, here is a well-reasoned defense of ethanol from the New Atlantis, written by one Robert Zubrin.  Zubrin, as far as I can tell, is not on the dole of the ethanol lobby, which is more than can be said for most defenders of ethanol.  Here is just a bit of the intro:

Biofuels—a class of fuels of which ethanol is the most prominent and immediately promising—can play a central part in weaning the United States from oil. But in recent months, a flood of press reports, articles in scientific journals, and statements from international bureaucrats have suggested that ethanol is starving the world’s poor, is a waste of government money, and is bad for the environment. These claims are simply not true; some are based on partial information, some on gross disinformation, but none of them can withstand close scrutiny. Many of the critics of ethanol mean well: they are worried about hungry children or big government. Others have more self-interested motivations for their criticism of biofuels—like Hugo Chávez, the preening, obstreperous dictator of oil-exporting Venezuela, who has called ethanol production a “crime.” Still others are driven by a Malthusian vision of a world with fewer people in it. No matter the motivations of these unlikeliest of bedfellows, their recent objections to ethanol could have the cumulative effect of warping U.S. and international biofuels policy—and just at the moment when exorbitant oil costs should, if anything, be leading legislators to adopt the critical technology needed to expand the role of biofuels in the world’s fuel supply.

In other energy news, Former Democratic Congressman Martin Frost tries to pin high oil prices on Pres. Bush.  Frost is correct that a weak dollar contributes mightily to high fuel prices.  In other ways he is mistaken.  Frost, writing as a partisan, pretends Democrats did not exist for the entire Bush presidency, alleviating them from any blame.  He also writes of the late nineties as if the Constitution gave Pres. Clinton the power to pass budgets by himself, rather than giving the taxing and spending power to Congress, which is where the power really lies.  Let us not forget that Pres. Clinton never proposed a balanced budget before Republicans took over Congress, and even then he wanted to take much longer to get into balance than did Republicans.  Finally, I am with Frost that the Federal Reserve is lowering interest rates when it should be raising them, but he forgets that the Fed is an independent regulatory commission, therefore the president cannot force them to raise rates.  The whole point is that the Fed is immune from political influence. 

Vampires and Personhood

I find it rather alarming that, while I was off the net, a discussion of vampire rights occurred on SDP and elsewhere.  Someone wants to freeze out my expertise, but I can't decide if it is the Draculas or the Van Helsings. 

Anyway, I think I concur with Jon Schaff.  The traditional vampire (taking the consensus of all the Hollywood authorities), is surely intelligent and sentient.  He/she reasons and feels pain at the touch of sunlight or a cross.  However, a genuine, unmodified vampire has no soul.  What exactly does that mean?  Buffy got it right: the standard vampire is controlled by his appetites, and is altogether incapable of any moral consciousness.  Such a creature can have no rights.  It is possessed of the worst kinds of passions, and is a mortal threat to every living human being.  It may have no moral responsibility for its nature or actions, and thus does not deserve punishment.  Neither does it deserve any regard.  We have not only the right but the duty to destroy it. 

Things get interesting when the vampire gains a soul.  Angel is transformed from a fun-loving, sadistic monster, into a brooding hero when he suddenly becomes conscious of what he has been doing.  I think Angel has rights. 

Spike is more interesting, because he deliberately seeks to gain a soul, after he has fallen in love with Buffy.  How can a soulless creature love?  Well, I could tell you, but that would require a long discourse in Darwinian theory.  Suffice it to say that some pre-human biological states points to love, so why should the same not be true of biothanatological [living dead] states? 

Bush Didn't Lie

I have been out of e-mail range for several days, in case anyone noticed.  The Ozarks are still beautiful, and Sylamore Creek in N. Arkansas is beautiful and deep due to a recent storm.   I went there to confirm an earlier scientific discovery: that a bottle of Corona will float if you have just the right amount of beer in it.

As I fire up Firefox, I notice this piece by Fred Hiatt in the Washington Post.

Search the Internet for "Bush Lied" products, and you will find sites that offer more than a thousand designs. The basic "Bush Lied, People Died" bumper sticker is only the beginning.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, set out to provide the official foundation for what has become not only a thriving business but, more important, an article of faith among millions of Americans...

The liberal mantra is repeated so often, it must be very easy to prove.  Well, no.

On Iraq's nuclear weapons program? The president's statements "were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates."

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president's statements "were substantiated by intelligence information."

On chemical weapons, then? "Substantiated by intelligence information."

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information." Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? "Generally substantiated by available intelligence." Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information."

Ok, so what about the Iraq/Al Qaeda thing? 

[S]tatements regarding Iraq's support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda "were substantiated by the intelligence assessments," and statements regarding Iraq's contacts with al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." The report is left to complain about "implications" and statements that "left the impression" that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation.

As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you've mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment...

The claim that Bush lied, that "the information disseminated by the Bush regime leading up to the invasion of Iraq was phony [see The Northern Valley Beacon]," is itself phony.  Most of those who make this charge give no thought at all to the evidence on which it might rest.  They just like disliking George W. 

The problem with this jaundiced view of the beginning of the war is that it blinds us to the real problems that such situations present.  As Hiatt puts it:

The phony "Bush lied" story line distracts from the biggest prewar failure: the fact that so much of the intelligence upon which Bush and Rockefeller and everyone else relied turned out to be tragically, catastrophically wrong.

And it trivializes a double dilemma that President Bill Clinton faced before Bush and that President Obama or McCain may well face after: when to act on a threat in the inevitable absence of perfect intelligence and how to mobilize popular support for such action, if deemed essential for national security, in a democracy that will always, and rightly, be reluctant.

There is no question that the intelligence services in both the U.S. and Britain were wrong about the extent of Iraq's weapons programs.  If we want to do better next time, we have to face what went wrong last time.  About one third of the American people, according to the Beacon, insist on ignoring that story. 

Energy Policy Up For Vote In Congress

The so-called Consumer First Energy Act is apparently coming up for a vote this week.  I previously blogged about this bill here.  This bill, sponsored by Tim Johnson and other Democrats, is virtually guaranteed to do nothing to lower fuel costs.  If anything, the proposed "windfall tax" will drive up the cost of gas by making it more expensive for oil companies to develop new oil fields. 

Thune Gets Aid For Standing Rock

From the Argus:

Sometime soon, an unknown number of Bureau of Indian Affairs police officers will arrive at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. They will be very welcome.

Operation Dakota Peacekeeper, championed by Sen. John Thune, will seek to end the lawlessness that apparently has overtaken the reservation.

By securing help for Standing Rock, Thune has brought real results to a cause he has championed. And his help is desperately needed.

Violent crime is six times the national average there. Nine officers cover 12 communities. People simply don't feel safe. Frankly, they shouldn't.

The current situation is nothing less than a crisis. The surge of reinforcements Thune helped deliver should serve to restore order.

Thune is not new to this issue. For some time he has been fighting in the Senate to get help for the overmatched, underfunded law enforcement on the country's Native American reservations. Thune, more than any other senator - more than any other politician, really - is attacking the problem.

Show Me This Global Warming

South Dakotans will appreciate this:

Obama's Philosophy: Progressivism

Richard Adams at NLT argues that an Obama presidency will be a failure as the absence of any governing philosophy will doom a united Democratic government.  The Democrats, he implies, have no specific theory of governance once they actually take on the responsibility of governing. 

I respectfully dissent.  The Democrats have a philosophy with a strong pedigree.  It is Progressivism and Barack Obama is straight from Progressive central casting. 

I have given my own "Progressivism in One EZ Lesson" right here.  Let me here add a couple more thoughts, especially as they pertain to Barack Obama. 

First, Obama buys whole heartedly into the notion of a "living Constitution" (see here and here).  Progressives such as Woodrow Wilson developed the idea of the "living Constitution" due to their impatience with our constitutional forms that stood in their way of remaking American politics.  Obama seems to buy into the notion that the Constitution means whatever we say it means.  Instead of advocating the elimination of the Constitution, which would have been unpopular, the Progressives advanced a theory of constitutional interpretation that accomplished the same thing while allowing them to claim that they were being faithful to this founding document.  Obama is in full acceptance of this theory. 

Wilson also believed in centralization of power and therefore explicitly rejected the separation of powers (his dislike for separation of powers is one reason Wilson opposed the Constitution). This is what first attracted him to parliamentary politics and "responsible party system" that tends to go along with it.  Ultimately Wilson would recognize that bringing parliamentary government to the United States was impractical, and so he looked to the bolster to presidency as the central locus of national power.  Progress, in Wilson's view, necessitated seeing the public as one homogeneous whole possessing a kind of general will. Congress, divided as it is into various parts, cannot bring the unity of action that such a homogeneous public desires.  Only the president can, shaping the public to his will.  Note this famous passage from Wilson's Constitutional Government.

For he is also the political leader of the nation, or has it in his choice to be. The nation as a whole has chosen him, and is conscious that it has no other political spokesman. His is the only national voice in affairs. Let him once win the admiration and confidence of the country, and no other single force can withstand him, no combination of forces will easily overpower him. His position takes the imagination of the country. He is the representative of no constituency, but of the whole people. When he speaks in his true character, he speaks for no special interest. If he rightly interpret the national thought and boldly insist upon it, he is irresistible; and the country never feels the zest of action so much as when its President is of such insight and calibre. Its instinct is for unified action, and it craves a single leader. It is for this reason that it will often prefer to choose a man rather than a party. A President whom it trusts can not only lead it, but form it to his own views.

It is not difficult to see the Obama phenomenon in this passage.  All our hopes are bound up in the personality of one man, unchecked by anything or anyone.  The problem, of course, is that this leads very easily to demagoguery.   I am not the first commentator to note that Wilson, unlike the founders, provides no antidote for demagoguery. It is inconceivable to him that mass opinion could ever work against rights and in favor of tyranny.  Again, this idealistic estimation of public opinion is at odds with the founding. In Federalist #51 Madison famously writes that dependence of the government on the people is the best way to control government, but "experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."

Wilson's theory is further faulty by assuming that there is a homogeneous "people," rather than a diverse bunch of "peoples."  Wilson had no patience with the clash of interests that the founders took for granted.  In Federalist #10 Madison notably writes about political faction, what we might call interest groups, as a natural outcome of man's self-interest.  Madison does not seek to eliminate self-interest, considering that a futile and dangerous task, but seeks to make it work for liberty rather than against it.  Wilson and the Progressives, by contrast, sought to eliminate self-interest in part by wishing it away, but also by advocating for granting more power to experts, i.e., bureaucrats who, isolated from the public and aided by social science, rule for the public benefit. 

Obama encapsulates all these Progressive tendencies.  The "living Constitution."  The candidacy based on personality.  The notion that the general will of a homogeneous people can be expressed through their choice of him.  The impatience with "special interests."  The belief that scientific government will give us "enlightened administration" and solve all of our problems.   This is a governing  philosophy, albeit one that is no friend to liberty.   

Suspending Her Campaign is a Bitter Pill

ABC News brings up a good point about why giving up the presidential race is such a tough decision for Clinton -- she finished strong as her opponent became weaker:

Another reason why her loss may be so difficult for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, to accept?

She closed strong.

Not only did she stomp on Sen. Barack Obama with more than 30-point victories in West Virginia, Kentuky and Puerto Rico, last night she won a state that Obama was predicted to win by double digits: South Dakota.

There he'd been endorsed by practically every state political icon, minus Mount Rushmore -- Daschle, McGovern, Johnson, Herseth-Sandlin.

She lost strong and he got weaker.

Still, he racked up enough points in the first 60% of the contests, it didn't matter when it came to the final score.

Delegitimizing Criticism of Obama

Glenn Reynolds:  "'The Left is very invested in both preemptively delegitimizing criticism of Obama and framing opponents as de facto bigots.'   I can think of no better reason to vote against Obama than the prospect of an administration where any criticism of the President is treated as racism."