South Dakota Politics

Thompson For Pres

John Fund profiles Fred Thompson, lawyer, actor, Senator...presidential candidate?  I say, Run, Fred, Run! 

Thune In Abedeen

John Thune was in town yesterday hearing concerns about regional airlines.  Stephanie Herseth is in Aberdeen today touring the new Tech Center at NSU, among other things.  I'd be at that event, but I am moving today. 

A Touch of Reagan in the Night

I have been getting a lot of use out of CCK lately.  No reason to stop!  My friend Chad has this to say about Ronald Reagan:

The man was a failure. 

I've never really figured out why the right has deified the man.  He delivered nothing on their agenda other than empty rhetoric.  I guess the fact that he is the lone remaining object of hero worship on the right probably says more about the state of conservativsm than anything else.

Now if I am open to the charge of hero worship, it would clearly be towards Reagan rather than Bush 43.  Not long ago a colleague of mine in the history department, a firm Democrat I might add, agreed with me on one thing: Reagan ranks as the second greatest President of the twentieth century,  FDR being the first.  If he was a failure, we should always have such failures as President.  Let me mention a few points:

First, Reagan broke the back of inflation.  For most of my early life, inflation was a persistent irritant for pretty much all Americans.  Since Reagan's presidency, it disappeared as a major issue. 

Second, Reagan ushered in the longest period of steady economic growth since the nation recovered from the depression.  Except for two shallow recessions, that growth continues to the present day. 

Third, Reagan achieved the first arms control agreement that actually reduced the stock of nuclear weapons.  He did so by holding the Western alliance together when the Soviets deployed short range nuclear missiles aimed at Western Europe.  Reagan deployed our own short range nukes, and the Ruskies were forced to cut a deal. Both sets of weapons were removed. 

Fourth, Reagan's policies brought down the Soviet Union.  He launched a military build up that the Soviets tried to match, at the very moment that their economy and social structure were nearing the breaking point.  They broke.  Reagan's letters to Soviet leaders show that he knew exactly what he was doing. 

Any one of these achievements would constitute a great legacy for a president.  All four put him at least in second place among Presidents of his century.  Chad is right to say that Reagan handed conservatives some disappointments.  He allowed government to continue growing in large measure.  That was the price to pay for his military build up.  The federal deficit grew under Reagan, but as a percentage of GDP it remained manageable.  And Bill Clinton achieved a balanced budget by following Reagan's economic policies. 

Reagan's greatness, like that of FDR, depended largely on circumstances.  FDR had the great depression and WWII to deal with.  Reagan had stagflation and a tottering USSR.  A reasonable and well-informed person can find much to criticize in both cases.  To call either man a failure would suggest a deep ignorance of recent history. 

Bill Even

The Argus Leader reports that Gov. Rounds has appointed Bill Even as the new ag secretary for South Dakota.  Excerpt:

Bill Even, who grew up on a farm near Humboldt, will replace Larry Gabriel as South Dakota's secretary of agriculture.

Gov. Mike Rounds made the announcement Thursday. Even is director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development and deputy secretary of Tourism and State Development. He previously served as state energy director and was executive director for the South Dakota Energy Infrastructure Authority.

"Bill brings a wealth of personal knowledge about the agriculture industry in South Dakota," Rounds said.

Even, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, is scheduled to take over the farm agency March 26, replacing Gabriel, a former legislative leader who earned a reputation as a hard-working and plain-speaking state official.

Gabriel's tenure in the top agriculture post includes a stint shepherding the governor's Dakota Certified Beef program and several years of difficult and often controversial decisions involving changes to try to balance the books at the State Fair.

Early Primaries

The Washington Post:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) signed legislation yesterday moving the state's presidential primary to Feb. 5, 2008, a change that could lead to the earliest and biggest single-day test of candidate strength ever.

Half a dozen other large states, including New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey, are also considering moving their primaries to the first Tuesday in February, with the possibility that nearly two dozen contests will be held that day. Together, those states could account for more than half of the total number of delegates at stake.

While the rush to move to dates earlier in the nominating process has been motivated by states' desire to have more say in selecting the Republican and Democratic nominees, analysts said it may enhance the importance of the few small states whose contests will be held in January.

The kingmaker status of Iowa and New Hampshire, which have the first caucuses and first primary, respectively, in the nation, has been under siege in recent presidential cycles as other states have sought to shift their primaries ever earlier.

Herseth's House Colleagues

From the LA Times:

WASHINGTON— Barbara Lee once called for a U.S. Department of Peace. Lynn Woolsey tried to revoke the Boy Scouts' federal charter because the group excludes gays. And Maxine Waters accused the CIA of helping import cocaine into South Los Angeles.

Their ideas made them folk heroes to the American left.

But like slightly eccentric relatives at a family reunion, Reps. Lee, Woolsey and Waters were rarely invited to sit at the head table in Washington.

Until now.

The three California Democrats — who have been waging a passionate, four-year campaign to end the war in Iraq — find themselves in the mainstream as Congress begins debate today on a crucial war spending bill. And the group they lead, the more than 80-member Out of Iraq Caucus, controls the fate of the most important war vote since the 2003 invasion.

SDP Jazz Note: The Miles Davis Quintet

I have been slowly building a jazz collection around the great work produced between 1955 and 1965.  In the year before I was born, 1956, the Miles Davis Quintet produced a marvelous series of recordings.  The titles are Cookin', Relaxin', Workin', and Steamin'.  These represent what the Quintet was doing on the road in that year.  In addition to Miles' trumpet, which might rank at the most influential piece of brass in modern jazz, John Coltrane plays his sax.  Any list of Coltrane's best recordings includes these disks.  Red Garland plays piano, Paul Chambers bass, with Philly Joe Jones on drums.  Together the four CDs make a foundation for any jazz collection.  If you have ever listened to the Guy Noir feature on A Prarie Home Companion, you have heard music that imitates this body of work. 

Firing Attorneys: Bush v. Clinton

My friend Chad at CCK urges me to be more honest about the pseudo-scandal involving the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys by the Bush Administration.  I quoted the Wall Street Journal, which compared the firing of these eight attorneys to Bill Clinton's firing of all 93 U.S. Attorneys.  Chad thinks this is dishonest.

You know that when Clinton came into office and "fired" all the U.S. Attorneys, it was quite a different situation than firing them when they were your own appointees.

It seems like only yesterday that Chad was accusing us of "hero worship" regarding Bush.

Dear Leader can do no wrong, and when he does, blame it on others because Dear Leader can do no wrong.

But apparently Chad thinks that Bill Clinton could do no wrong.  Slick Willie lied before a grand jury?  That's okay, because it was about sex, and apparently one can lie about that in court.  He fired all 93 U.S. attorneys, some of whom where actively investigating him and his political allies?  That's okay too.  Because they were appointed by someone else.  If Clinton can do no wrong, apparently Bush can do nothing right.  It is very bad, I gather, for a Republican President to fire people he has appointed.  Why?  Chad doesn't say. 

This is not an irrelevant distinction.  A President may wish to replace someone appointed by a predecessor because he wants someone else who shares his priorities.  Fine.  But that makes it just as reasonable to fire someone he himself has appointed if that person doesn't in fact serve his agenda.  If he promises to crack down on voter fraud, and an attorney he appointed refuses to do so, well, that's the whole point of the firing power, isn't it?

It is a settled matter of constitutional law that a President can remove executive branch officials for whose conduct the President is responsible.  Otherwise the President could escape responsibility for their conduct.  If they aren't enforcing civil rights law, or immigration law, he could say: "hey, I can't touch them!"  At Slate, Dahlia Lithwick and Jack Goldsmith explain why U.S. Attorneys are and ought to be removable by the President.  They note that Congress has considered and rejected, for these good reasons, the institution of an independent Justice Department. 

Contrary to Chad's principle (which I suspect would be dropped like a hot potato if it were applied to President Hillary) it doesn't matter whether the President originally nominated that official or not.  The U.S. Attorneys are part of one of the two political branches.  They are political appointees.  There was in fact nothing wrong with Bill Clinton sacking the whole 93 of them.  Likewise, there is nothing illegitimate about Bush sacking eight of them. 

And contrary to Chad's charges of hero worship, I think that the Bush administration has handled this matter in a very incompetent way.  Instead of boldly exercising his constitutional prerogative, it looks like General Gonzales lied to Congress about what he had done and was doing.  If he did, that may cost him his job.  But that is an altogether different issue from the firing itself. 

 

KSM

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has admitted his work goes back to 1993 and the first attack on the World Trade Center, and extends to planning assassination attempts against world leaders from Pope John Paul II and Jimmy Carter, another twenty-eight attacks on targets in the United States, and the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to that attack and a string of others during a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a transcript released Wednesday by the Pentagon.

"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z," Mohammed said in a statement that was read during the session, which was held last Saturday.

Mohammed claimed responsibility for planning, financing and training others for attacks ranging from the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center to the attempt by would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoes. And he also claimed that he was tortured by the CIA after his capture in 2003.

In all, Mohammed said he was responsible for planning 28 attacks, including many that were never executed. The comments were included in a 26-page transcript released by the Pentagon, which blacked out some of his remarks.

It might also be worth seeing this story about al-Qaeda's efforts to develop biological and nuclear weapons to attack America:

He offered a chilling confession to “managing and following up on the Cell for the Production of Biological Weapons, such as anthrax and others, and following up on Dirty Bomb Operations on American soil.”

These hearings prove how bad the attacks could have gotten.  That none of this occurred speaks well of our counter-terrorism units, it seems to me.

March 15, 2007

Beware! Especially if you know anyone named Cassius or Brutus. 

"Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past"

Prof. Newquist suggests taking a break from the vanity fair to read Willa Cather's My Antonia.  See the South Dakota Humanities Council page on the book here.  I believe My Antonia is among the finest novels ever written by an American.  It is certainly my favorite.  Summer of 2002 I made a pilgrimage to Red Cloud, Nebraska, Cather's childhood home and location of the Willa Cather Historical Site. I took some pictures that you can find here (and yes, I misspelled "Willa").  If I get some time today I will post more at the Photo Repository.  In a few weeks I will teach My Antonia in my American Political Thought course.  I cannot wait.  I urge everyone to pick up a copy of this great (and relatively short!) novel. 

Daschle Staffers

Denise Ross:  "Latest ex-Daschle staffer news."

War Funding

USA Today: "The Defense and State departments would get the full $142 billion Bush seeks in 2008 for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Democrats also kept Bush's proposed $481 billion defense budget, a $49 billion boost over this year."

Firing Line

From the Wall Street Journal:

Congressional Democrats are in full cry over the news this week that the Administration's decision to fire eight U.S. Attorneys originated from--gasp--the White House. Senator Hillary Clinton joined the fun yesterday, blaming President Bush for "the politicization of our prosecutorial system." Oh, my.

This is going to be fun. 

. . . [Web] Hubbell was a former partner of Mrs. Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock who later went to jail for mail fraud and tax evasion. He was also Bill and Hillary Clinton's choice as Associate Attorney General in the Justice Department when Janet Reno, his nominal superior, simultaneously fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys in March 1993. Ms. Reno--or Mr. Hubbell--gave them 10 days to move out of their offices.

At the time, President Clinton presented the move as something perfectly ordinary: "All those people are routinely replaced," he told reporters, "and I have not done anything differently." In fact, the dismissals were unprecedented: Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retained holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually as their tenures expired.

Equally extraordinary were the politics at play in the firings. At the time, Jay Stephens, then U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, was investigating then Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, and was "within 30 days" of making a decision on an indictment. Mr. Rostenkowski, who was shepherding the Clinton's economic program through Congress, eventually went to jail on mail fraud charges and was later pardoned by Mr. Clinton.

I say: let the good times roll!

US Combat Deaths Drop in Iraq

Some more positive news out of Iraq.  This would be the surge Rep. Herseth voted against:

The rate of killings of US troops in Iraq has been on the decline, down by 60 percent, since the launch of the new security measures in Baghdad, according to statistics revealed by the Multi-National Force -Iraq Combined Press Information Centre.

Only 17 members of the US military in Iraq have been killed since February 14 till March 13, compared to 42 from January 13 to February 13; the rate was on the decline during the first month of the security crackdown, compared to a month before.

Two of the 17 soldiers died at US Baghdad camps of non-combat causes.

The remarkable decrease in killings among the US troops came at a time when more of these troops were deployed in the Iraqi capital, especially in districts previously regarded as extremely hazardous for them such as Al-Sadr City, Al-Azamiyah, and Al-Doura.

Meanwhile, US attacks on insurgent strongholds north of Baghdad curbed attacks against helicopters. Before the new security plan, many such craft were downed leaving 20 soldiers dead.

The US army in Iraq had earlier said that sectarian fighting and violence in Baghdad had dropped sharply, by about 80 percent, since the launch of the plan.

The statistics excluded US troops killed in other governorates such as Al-Anbar, Diyala, and Salahiddin.

As to the latest human losses, the US army announced Wednesday that two American soldiers had been killed, one in southern Baghdad and the other northeast of the capital.

Again I advise cautious optimism, but it's hard to deny that that the reinforcements are having a positive impact.  We should have been fighting like this three years ago.

UPDATE:  Via Power Line, Iraqi officials have released data today on violence in Baghdad since the surge began a month ago.  The result has been an eighty percent reduction in fatalities in Baghdad: 

In an upbeat assessment of the first 30 days of the security plan, Iraqi military spokesman Brigadier Qassim Moussawi said the number of Iraqis killed by violence in Baghdad since February 14 was 265, down from 1,440 killed in the previous month.

The number of car bombings, a favorite weapon used by suspected Sunni Arab militants fighting the Shi'ite-led government, was down to 36 from 56, Moussawi told reporters.

Dem War Debate

From USA Today:

Tempers flared on Iraq among Democrats on Tuesday as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fielded criticism from an anti-war congresswoman over liberals' concern that the party is not doing enough to end the war.

Pelosi's behind-closed-doors exchange with Rep. Maxine Waters of California — described as heated by lawmakers and aides who asked not to be identified because of the session's private nature — came as House leaders made progress in their quest for votes on a war spending bill that would require U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq by 2008.

Several Democrats said they had been persuaded to support the measure — the party's first binding action to challenge President Bush's war policies — after last-minute changes and a weekend at home with constituents.

The bill is slated for a test vote Thursday in the Appropriations Committee. It is proving a formidable test of Democratic leaders, who are steering a tricky path between liberals who oppose any funding for the military effort and conservatives who do not want to restrict unduly the commander in chief.

Leaders said they were hopeful they could sway enough Democrats to support the $124 billion plan, but a handful of left-of-center lawmakers, including Waters, have declared they won't back it.

"I am philosophically opposed to the war," Waters told reporters after the private meeting. "We're voting to give the president of the United States almost $100 billion to continue the war. I can't support it."

Where does Stephanie Herseth stand?

Al Gore's Global Warming Hype

The New York Times has, uncharacteristically, published a piece that is critical (if very cautiously) of Al Gore's Global Warming Ministry. 

Hollywood has a thing for Al Gore and his three-alarm film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which won an Academy Award for best documentary. So do many environmentalists, who praise him as a visionary, and many scientists, who laud him for raising public awareness of climate change.

But part of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

“I don’t want to pick on Al Gore,” Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”

There are four general claims about global warming that are key to understanding its importance and that are subject to scientific analysis, as opposed to political interpretation. 

1. The global climate, over all, is gradually warming.
2. Human activity is a significant cause of that warming.
3. Global warming will be bad, on balance, for humanity.
4. Policy can significantly mitigate the degree of global warming in the short term.

I have stated the claims in order of certitude.  Number 1 is pretty certain.  I don't know of any reputable scientist who doubts that we are indeed in a warming trend.  Number 2 is less so, but now it looks like a pretty sure proposition.  Some reputable scientist do question this, but most accept it. 

Number 3, by contrast, is very much up in the air.  Climate change is bound to be bad for some people and bad for others.  Some regions will get less rain, others a lot more.  Growing seasons will be longer for many regions, with warmer nights and less evaporation.  You'd have to be a farmer to find bad news in that. 

As for Number 4, there is no way on God's green Earth that we are going to arrest global warming in the near term.  The best science says that the world will continue warming even if we halted green house emissions at their current levels.  But the nations subject to the Kyoto protocols aren't doing that, let alone China and India. 

It is with Number 3 that puts Gore's in the worst light. 

Some of Mr. Gore’s centrist detractors point to a report last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that studies global warming. The panel went further than ever before in saying that humans were the main cause of the globe’s warming since 1950, part of Mr. Gore’s message that few scientists dispute. But it also portrayed climate change as a slow-motion process.

It estimated that the world’s seas in this century would rise a maximum of 23 inches — down from earlier estimates. Mr. Gore, citing no particular time frame, envisions rises of up to 20 feet and depicts parts of New York, Florida and other heavily populated areas as sinking beneath the waves, implying, at least visually, that inundation is imminent.

What Gore is doing is not science.  Its science fiction.  It is all well and good to look for ways to bring greenhouse emissions under control, and to manipulate the global climate in so far as we can.  But in the meantime, our money is best spent preparing for the effects of global warming.  For a fraction of what the Kyoto treaty would have cost us, we could give most of the world's people safe drinking water.  That would be money well spent.

Bush Worship and Iraq

My friend Chad at CCK has a provocative post in response to one of mine on the Democrat's confusion over Iraq.  Chad argues that conservatives in general are part of a "personality cult" devoted to Bush.  I think that my colleague, Professor Schaff, makes short work of this claim here and here.  In general, conservatives have not been much prone to hero worship of any kind.  There is some of that, to be sure, with regard to Ronald Reagan.  But even there prominent conservatives are not afraid to challenge the consensus, as George Will shows. 

In this winter of their discontents, nostalgia for Ronald Reagan has become for many conservatives a substitute for thinking. This mental paralysis -- gratitude decaying into idolatry -- is sterile: Neither the man nor his moment will recur. Conservatives should face the fact that Reaganism cannot define conservatism.

The reason that conservatives are not much given to personality cults is that we have a pretty cautious, if not outright dim view of human nature.  We have our heroes-Reagan, Thatcher, Churchill-but we do not expect them to be perfect.

Chad says:

They are completely enamored with Dear Leader. If you criticize Dear Leader, you are criticizing your country, so don't do it. Or so the story goes .....

That's what Republicans have swallowed whole and those that continue to believe it (and I think I have to count Blanchard among them) are the same remaining few who think President Bush is doing a great job in Iraq and by extension the War on Terra.

I would like to see an example of a conservative who says or believes that criticizing Bush means "criticizing your country."  I have certainly never made such a claim, because I do not believe it.  Moreover, I do not think that there is anything unpatriotic about criticizing one's country.  Both conservatives and liberals have strong traditions of criticizing American society and government, and that is as it should be. 

Nor have I argued that "President Bush is doing a great job in Iraq."  Consider, for example, the current "surge" policy.  Its either working or it isn't.  If it isn't, then that's hardly to Bush's credit.  If it is, then why did we wait so long to try it?  The best that one can say about Bush's Iraq policy from the beginning is that he had a policy, which is more than one can say about President Clinton or any Democratic leader since. 

Johnson "determined and focused" to Resume Senate Duties

From the Argus Leader:

In his first public statement since suffering a brain hemorrhage in December, U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson said he's "determined and focused" to return to the Senate.

According to a statement released moments ago, Johnson said:

“I want to thank the people of South Dakota and all of our dear friends for their support and prayers," he said.

"This has been an unexpected journey and there is a long road in front of me," Johnson added. "I am determined and focused on my recovery, and I look forward to returning to the Senate on behalf of South Dakota.”

For the first time since his hospitalization, Johnson's staff today released photographs of Johnson during his recovery at an undisclosed rehabilitation center.

The senator underwent surgery Dec. 13 to repair a malformed cluster of blood vessels in his brain, called an arteriovenous malformation.

A month later, he was transferred to the hospital's rehabilitation center, where he began speech, physical and vocational therapy.

The medical staff at the rehabilitation center has informed the Johnsons that the senator continues to progress as expected, according to the statement.

Doctors are now focusing on standing and balance training, his staff said.

AHA and GWOT

Not surprisingly, the American Historical Association has voted on a resolution voicing its opposition, collectively as "Historians," to the war in Iraq. 

Now, most Americans probably don't care what AHA  has to say about the war; it's a personal and professional interest for me.  I find some parts of their resolution agreeable, such as taking the Bush administration to task for "excluding well-recognized foreign scholars; condemning as 'revisionism' the search for truth about pre-war intelligence" and "re-classifying previously unclassified government documents."  While I might disagree over some specifics in these points, I think such issues should fall under the watchful eye of a scholarly organization.  But the remaining resolution is merely partisan points masked as professional concern.  I think that former AHA President James Sheehan (who is critical of the Iraq war) says it best (via Spinning Clio):

He said that there are two problems with the resolution. First, he said, “it seems to me that people join the AHA with certain expectations, and the fact that the association will take political positions is not one of them. In a way, you are violating the conditions of membership, and I suspect a few people will leave.”

Second, he said it was important for the association to take political stands on issues “narrowly concerned with the interests of scholars in general and historians in particular.” So he said it was important for the AHA to speak out as it does against visa denials to foreign scholars or restrictions on access to presidential records. “But by taking more general stands, we weaken our moral authority and we become identified with partisan positions,” he said. “There is only a certain amount of moral capital that we have.”

Indeed.  Related thoughts by Anthony Paletta.

Daschle Discusses Hillary's Weaknesses

The Hill excerpt:

One of Obama’s allies, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), acknowledged that Clinton has a much stronger political network than the junior senator from Illinois.

“Hillary Clinton has tremendous strength in part because of the remarkable national network that [the Clintons have] been able to create over the years,” said Daschle in an interview. “That list is as extensive as any candidate for president has had in modern times. Barack doesn’t have that. No question she’s in a much stronger position than he is at this point network-wise.”

But Daschle, a consultant at Alston & Bird, suggested that Obama may use this to his advantage by portraying Clinton as a compromised Washington insider and himself as an outsider with new ideas, not beholden to D.C.’s political and business establishment.

“The longer you’re in Washington, the less capable you are of presenting yourself to the country [in a way] that articulates the need for a change in direction,” he said. “You become part of the Washington establishment. … I found that to a certain extent I had to fight that perception in my more senior years in the Senate.”

Counterinsurgency

While there is ground for cautious optimism, the new strategy developed by Gen. David Petraeus appears to be making headway in Iraq.  USA Today reports that US and Iraqi forces have captured thousands of insurgents and a large number in the Mahdi Army (and Moqtada al-Sadr has yet to show his face):

Coalition forces have detained about 700 members of the Mahdi Army, the largest Shiite militia in Baghdad, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said Monday.

The militia, which is loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and has clashed with U.S. troops in the past, has mostly avoided a direct confrontation with American and Iraqi government forces, Gen. David Petraeus said in an interview with USA TODAY.

Some of the militia's top leaders have left the capital, and Iraqi government officials are negotiating with al-Sadr's political organization in an effort to disband the militia, Petraeus said.

"I think in part one reason that al-Sadr's militia has been lying low … is due to some of the discussions being held," Petraeus said in a telephone interview from Iraq. "It's also in part due to some of the leaders leaving Baghdad" and others being arrested, he said.

More "Dear Leader" Worship

Yesterday I noted some of the conservatives who have made strong negative criticisms of George W. Bush.  Today the Wall Street Journal reprints Joseph Bottums's denunciation of Bush.  Bottums's thesis: Bush has a good heart, but is incompetent.  As the article notes, tomorrow the WSJ will reprint Michael Novak's response to Bottum.  Stay tuned. 

WaPo

The Washington Post this morning skewers the Democratic leadership for exploiting the war appropriations process and thinking about nothing but their electoral prospects in 2008:

The Democratic proposal doesn't attempt to answer the question of why August 2008 is the right moment for the Iraqi government to lose all support from U.S. combat units. It doesn't hint at what might happen if American forces were to leave at the end of this year -- a development that would be triggered by the Iraqi government's weakness. It doesn't explain how continued U.S. interests in Iraq, which holds the world's second-largest oil reserves and a substantial cadre of al-Qaeda militants, would be protected after 2008; in fact, it may prohibit U.S. forces from returning once they leave.

In short, the Democratic proposal to be taken up this week is an attempt to impose detailed management on a war without regard for the war itself. Will Iraq collapse into unrestrained civil conflict with "massive civilian casualties," as the U.S. intelligence community predicts in the event of a rapid withdrawal? Will al-Qaeda establish a powerful new base for launching attacks on the United States and its allies? Will there be a regional war that sucks in Iraqi neighbors such as Saudi Arabia or Turkey? The House legislation is indifferent: Whether or not any of those events happened, U.S. forces would be gone.

The House bill lists benchmarks for Iraqi political progress and requires that President Bush certify by July 1 that progress is being made toward them. By October, Bush would have to certify that the benchmarks all had been reached. This is something of a trick, akin to the inflexible troop readiness requirements that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) wanted to impose to "stop the surge." Everyone knows that the long list of requirements -- including constitutional changes, local elections and the completion of complex legislation -- couldn't be finished in six months. In that case a troop withdrawal would have to begin immediately. If there was no "progress" by July, it would have to begin then and be completed by the end of the year.

CAIR

Captain's Quarters:  "Is this the new focus on national security that the Democrats promised in 2006? Allowing terrorist apologists to use Capitol Hill to conduct their business hardly seems like getting tough on terrorists."  Related thoughts over at Power Line.  In somewhat related news, see this item.

Art

Kevin Woster writing in the Rapid City Journal:

I’m a reporter, not an artist. It has been said on a number of occasions that my newspaper writing rises to a level of art. Of course, that hasn’t been said since 2004 — the year my mother died.

I tend to believe that most of the rest of the world would say my newspaper work is competent and at times even entertaining. But it’s not art.

I have dabbled in artistic endeavors. I can play a few chords on the guitar and sing along. Is it art? No, it’s just haphazard, mediocre strummin’ and singin’.

If I wanted to, I could pound out enough words and meandering plot lines to fill 300 or so pages with what the kind-hearted might refer to as fiction. I could even call it a novel. But, trust me, it wouldn’t be art.

And painting? Well, I’ve sloshed oil and watercolors on canvas just enough to know there was no art there for me — or anyone else who pondered the results.

Don’t get me wrong, I think I have a limited ability to produce art — in a very narrow writing style, on certain occasions. At its best, my poetry manages to climb to an artful level. I don’t often get there, however, or remain there for long.

It’s just too hard.

That’s why I’m not a poet. That’s why Ted Kooser is. He has a gift, a type of genius that I don’t have. And he has the strength and skill and commitment to maintain it over a lifetime of hard work, and fine art.

Vomiting into a commode isn’t art. Neither is flashing your genitals. Neither is smashing a bunch of props on stage and showering the audience with chewed-up potato chips and fake feces. It’s simply reckless expression without any genius.

Real artists have done goofy things in conjunction with their artistic performances. Pete Townshend and Jeff Beck demolished some pretty nice guitars. Jimi Hendrix set a few on fire.

But those excessive antics were simply odd forms of entertainment. The genius was in the music. So was the art.

I imagine I could break or burn or jackhammer a guitar just as well as Townshend or Hendrix. But play them? Hardly. That takes a gift that most of us don’t possess.

And there’s the artistic divide.

I suppose some people are heads above the crowd at vomiting into a commode, spitting potato chips and exposing their genitals. Maybe that’s their gift.

It just isn’t art.

This story has also caught the attention of big-league blogs like Power Line and Michelle Malkin.   

The Inconvenient Truth

Our friend Chad Schuldt argues that conservatives support "dear leader" George W. Bush out of a kind of cult of personality.  I guess that's what you believe if you live in an insulated world where you never read anything but your own side's press.  Perhaps Mr. Schuldt is unaware of Richard Viguerie's book attacking Bush.  Or Bruce Bartlett's.  These books attack Bush for expanding government in violation of conservative principles.  Francis Fukuyama is a man of conservative tendencies who attacks Bush's foreign policy.  Perhaps Chad's missed conservatives lambasting Bush over the No Child Left Behind act (see, for example, Charles Murray wring in the WSJ or Michael Petrilli at NRO).  Perhaps Chad also missed the recent debate in First Things between South Dakota's own Joseph Bottum and Michael Novak where Bottum, a true blue conservative, pronounces Bush a failed president.  Bottum lists even more books by conservatives frustrated with Bush. If conservatives continue to give their general support George Bush it is because most of them are Republicans and George Bush is a Republican president.  You do tend to stick by your man.  Indeed, James Carville called it "stickin.'"  Just as liberal Democrats stood by Bill Clinton when Clinton sold them out on issues like free trade and welfare reform, conservatives have stuck by Bush even when he disappoints them.  Not because they worship the man, but because Republicans tend to support Republican presidents against Democratic attacks, just as Democrats tend to support Democratic presidents against Republican attacks.  This is not a psychological pathology.  It's common political sense.  Conservatives are not nearly as monolithic in their support of Bush as Chad suggests, and to the extent they do continue to support Bush it is because that's what you usually do with presidents of your own party. 

SDP Jazz Note

I was in Sioux Falls Saturday and picked up a few new jazz CDs.  One was Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers (Like Someone In Love), another was John Coltrane (Stellar Regions), and finally Miles Davis (Bird of Paradise).

The Blakey CD  is excellent and serves as a compliment to A Night in Tunisia.  Both albums were produced in August 1960 sessions in what was the midpoint of their history.  Drummer-leader Blakey leads a first-class ensemble that includes my favorite, Lee Morgan, and Prof. Blanchard's favorite, Wayne Shorter.  Guys like Blakey, Morgan, Hank Mobley, and Dexter Gordon recorded a series of classic bop albums in the 1950s and 1960s for Blue Note Records and the legendary Rudy Van Gelder.  Van Gelder ran the booth for the label's most famous albums, and the Rudy Van Gelder Series has some of the finest music available.  You cannot go wrong when purchasing an album in the RVG Series.

Coltrane's Stellar Regions was produced late in his career and was one of the last times he entered a studio.  All of the recordings on this disk were released in 1995 after Coltrane's wife, Alice, released the recordings.  The album features his wife on piano, Rashied Ali on drums, and Jimmy Garrison on bass. There's a big difference between this album and, say, A Love Supreme: these pieces are shorter and the melodies are more developed and longer as he moved away from his usual blues idiom and into the realm of avant-garde jazz.  He set out to experiment with new jazz styles toward the end of his life, and this album is one reflection of that.  We could have expected more of this style had Coltrane not tragically passed away in July 1967 of liver cancer.

While the previous two CDs are very good and highly recommended, the Davis CD was a bit of a disappointment.  The sound quality is rather poor, like someone was at a live performance with an audio recorder in their pocket.  Despite the sound quality, musically the album is excellent.  It's all classic bebop, which is not something you hear often from Davis.  It's mostly compiled from the Miles Davis-Charlie Parker recordings and you cannot go wrong with either performer.  If you're out to purchase a Davis album, stick with Prof. Blanchard's suggestion below.  Kind of Blue is an excellent album that usually tops any Greatest Jazz Albums list.

SDP Jazz Note: Kind of Blue

My second favorite jazz podcast, Straight No Chaser, brought it to my attention that it was forty seven years ago, March 2nd, that Miles Davis and crew went into the studio to record Kind of Blue.  It is silly to argue about what was the single best jazz record.  There are way to many jazz recordings, and too many standards of ranking for that.  It is easier to point out that Kind of Blue is the most influential and most widely loved of all jazz albums.  And it is certainly my favorite. 

The album includes my favorite jazz piano player, Bill Evans, along with John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley (Paul Chambers on bass, Jimmy Cobb on drums).  Almost all the pieces are recorded in one take, as if they were live in a jazz club.  The bluesy mood and depth of the album is perfect.  It shows all the greatness of jazz: brilliant melodies stated and then every last exquisite drop of passion squeezed out.  It is one of America's great achievements. 

Why the Democrats Can't Make Up Their Minds on Iraq

Tony Smith's piece in the Washington Post reveals a lot about the Democratic conundrum on Iraq, and a lot more than its author intended.  To begin with the obvious:

Iraq had flustered the congressional Democrats because Democrats don't have an agreed position on what America's role in the world should be. They want to change the Bush administration's policy in Iraq without discussing the underlying ideas that produced it. And although they now cast themselves as alternatives to President Bush, the fact is that prevailing Democratic doctrine is not that different from the Bush-Cheney doctrine.

Anyone who has paid attention to the deliberations of the new Congressional majority would agree.  There are strong sentiments against the Iraq war, wrapped around much stronger wrath against George W.  But thinking about the strategic situation and the policy alternatives seems altogether invisible. 

Smith has his own idea about what is wrong.  He thinks that the only coherent position among Democrats is that of the Democratic Leadership Council and the Progressive Policy Institute.  But these are the very people who endorsed the Iraq war.  They think America needs a "muscular liberalism," committed to using American power to defeat jihadism.  Their view is not really distinguishable from that of the NeoCons and the Bushies. 

The Democrats need a new foreign policy doctrine, Smith thinks.  But he does not offer one. 

It isn't easy to offer a true alternative. The challenges to world order are many, as are the influential special interests in this country that want an aggressive policy: globalizing corporations, the military-industrial complex, the pro-Israel lobbies, those who covet Middle Eastern oil.

Smith has a wishbone where his backbone ought to be.  The utterly vacuous nature of his argument is indicated by this:

[W]ithout a coherent alternative to the Bush doctrine, with its confidence in America's military preeminence and the global appeal of "free market democracy," the Democrats' midterm victory may not be repeated in November 2008. Or, if the Democrats do win in 2008, they could remain staked to a vision of a Pax Americana strikingly reminiscent of Bush's.

He wants a coherent policy so that the Democrats can win the next election.  Shouldn't it be the other way around?  Shouldn't the Democrats want to win the election so that they can implement a policy?  But Smith is quite clear on this.  The Democrats have no policy of their own.  Maybe they will come around to one.  I wouldn't hold my breath. 

Let the Sunshine In

I will be appearing tomorrow on a local panel as part of "Sunshine Week," which, as I understand it, represents an alliance between the press and libraries in favor of "open government."  The primary focus is on local government.  Here is a preview of what I will say. 

I am in favor of open government in almost all matters both at the local and at the state and national levels.  I have no quarrel with laws mandating open government on most things, though all of us recognize that privacy rights and other considerations sometimes are in conflict with this principle. 

But I quote the great Southern statesman and theorist John C. Calhoun, writing a little before the Civil War, to this effect: shouting "glorious, glorious Union!" will no more save the Union than saying "glorious, glorious health," will cure a sick man.  In either case, you need a therapy designed to treat the disease.  The greatest barrier to open government at the local level, and to good government generally, is non-partisan democracy.  Candidates for local government are not listed by party.  This drains almost all of the energy out of local politics.  It also removes the greatest incentive for open government.  It is the job of each party to find out and shine a light on what the other rascals are doing.  Non-partisan democracy shields local government from this kind of attention, and so long as that is the case sunshine laws will have only a marginal effect. 

We Need A Candidate Who Will Not Blow Smoke Up Our Skirts

And that candidate's name is Arthur Branch, aka Fred Thompson. 

The Man In The Mirror

Pot.  Kettle. 

Obama's Iowa Campaign

The Des Moines Register:

"The one thing I am mindful of is that big crowds don't guarantee big success in Iowa," Obama said.

Most polls have shown an early lead in Iowa for Edwards, who has kept in close touch with his Iowa base since his second-place finish in 2004.

Clinton and Obama have also ranked high in early surveys of likely caucusgoers.

But Obama, who has hired top aides with experience in winning caucus campaigns, said he plans to campaign hand-to-hand in Iowa as the campaign continues.

WaPo on Edwards

Here's the Washington Post on John Edwards' stop in Council Bluffs:

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa, March 10 -- When he first ran for president, then-Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) was the fresh face in the Democratic Party, a perpetually buoyant campaigner who built his candidacy around his own biography and whose success in the primaries earned him a place on the 2004 Democratic ticket.

Fast-forward to today, and there is a new John Edwards on the campaign trail. His demeanor is more serious and his elbows far sharper than four years ago. Two years after leaving the Senate, he rarely mentions his time in Washington. Nor does he talk about his experience as Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry's vice presidential running mate.

Historical Irony

John Hinderaker: "Now here is the historical irony: Peron actually was a fascist. During World War II, he openly admired and supported Adolf Hitler. Now, at left-wing rallies in Latin America, they wave Peron banners, cheer Hugh Chavez, and draw Hitler mustaches on President Bush. The convergence of the far left and the far right is complete, and they don't make any more sense together than they did separately."  Check out the whole post.

Edwards Hits Sioux City and Council Bluffs

The New York Times:

Outside the blinding glare of Hillarobama, John Edwards has been quietly building his campaign organization in the early primary and caucus states and amassing a bankroll to remain competitive in the crush of contests early next year.

He is in Iowa again this weekend on his 19th trip to the state since early 2005, far more than any of his Democratic rivals. He is investing heavily here in the belief that a victory in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 14, 2008, could make him unstoppable in the dozen or more contests from coast to coast that will quickly follow. The unspoken corollary is that a loss here could spell the end of his try for the White House.

“Iowa is important for everybody’s prospects,” Mr. Edwards said Friday in an interview between appearances in Council Bluffs and Sioux City. “It is critical for us.”

Although he has been on the road almost continuously since announcing his candidacy at the end of December, Mr. Edwards, the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee in 2004, is not getting nearly the public and news media attention of the two stars in the party, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois. That is both a blessing and a curse.

He does not have to deal with scores of reporters at every event and front-page articles detailing his personal finances or his political feuds with rivals. He can skip from town to town in his chartered jet, picking up checks from donors and meeting intimately with small groups of voters.

But his current lack of national attention also carries a price: he is in third place in most national polls, his appearances on the evening news are far between and he has to battle for standing in what now appears to some to be a two-person race.

“I’m keeping my head down and doing my work,” he said in response to a reporter’s question after an appearance before about 250 people at a center for the elderly in Council Bluffs. In the later interview he added: “This is a long campaign, and there will be ups and downs in the attention everyone gets. My plan is to focus on substance and whatever else needs to be done, including fund-raising.”