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Thursday, August 25, 2005Yes, GrasshopperPreparing for a big presidential visit like the one of President Hu Jintao requires lots of intensive research. That is why, of course, I started watching last night the first season on DVD of Kung Fu. When I can walk across the rice paper without breaking it, then I will be ready for the president's visit. Wednesday, August 24, 2005President of China Visit to Seattle...could make blogging light over the next few weeks since I'm finding myself increasingly involved in the local planning of the trip. I'd blog about the trip but since info is tightly guarded (er, sort of) I'd have to kill you. But for today, suffice it to say that the leader of the largest country by population and increasingly one of the most important economically, coming to Seattle is a big deal. Mr. RobertsonBeing a religious leader is not a prerequisite for having an enfeebled mind but as Pat Robertson illustrates with his comments about assassinating the president of Venezuela, it doesn't hurt. Monday, August 22, 2005And the Answer IsDave Nelson answers my question on whether Canada will go all Yugoslavia on us. Are Conservativescoming to their senses? It's time for us conservatives to face facts. George W. Bush has pissed away the conservative moment by pursuing a war of choice via policies that border on the criminally incompetent. We control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and (more-or-less) the judiciary for one of the few times in my nearly 5 decades, but what have we really accomplished? Is government smaller? Have we hacked away at the nanny state? Are the unborn any more protected? Have we really set the stage for a durable conservative majority? . . .What really annoys me, however, are the domestic implications of all this. The conservative agenda has advanced hardly at all since the Iraq War began. Worse yet, the growing unpopularity of the war threatens to undo all the electoral gains we conservatives have achieved in this decade. Stalwarts like me are not going to vote for Birkenstock wearers no matter how bad things get in Iraq, but what about the proverbial soccer moms? Gerrymandering probably will save the House for us at least through the 2010 redistricting, but what about the Senate and the White House? It's worth repeating, Bush is the most liberal president (with, unfortunately, the exception of social issues) since the Lyndon B. Johnson. Iraqi Constitution UpdateThose of you keeping track of the Iraqis negotiating a constitution can check out some Iraqi blogs, including this one, to keep updated on what's going on. Others might be too engaged with the moral preening in Crawford for such details. Cover BoyMy old boss, Rep. John Miller, is featured in a cover story of Pacific Northwest Magazine for his work against human trafficking. Haven't read it yet but will later today. I notice, however, one of the captions is wrong, claiming he left Congress in 1988--he left in '92. Friday, August 19, 2005Protesting Bush Iraq PolicyMany folks I know say the vigils for Sheehan on Wednesday night were held in part to protest Bush's Iraq policy. Which policy? The invasion of Iraq? Okay, that's fine but at this point that's kind of like protesting the U.S. invading Mexico back in the 1800s. We can't take it back; the question is what do we do now. Or, maybe these people mean they are protesting our continued military presence in Iraq. That's fine but then they need to answer some questions. Should we immediately start withdrawing all troops? Should we withdraw a certain amount of troops now and set deadlines for additional withdrawals? What if the Kurds in the north ask for military protection if we are withdrawing all of the rest ofour troops? What would the protestors do? What if the current elected government (granted they were elected in an imperfect election) asks for the U.S. military to stay for a certain time period? What do the protestors say to them?There's dozens of other questions and here's some more the good folks at TPMCafe ask. Obviously, I would prefer that Bush had never gone into Iraq so our country wouldn't have to answer questions like these but he did and we do. Pretending otherwise while holding candles in at vigils won't change that. Thursday, August 18, 2005More Iraq AtrocitiesThe Washington Post has an interesting piece on the Shiite's outrage over the latest bombing in Baghdad: The deaths of at least 43 Iraqis in the three car bombings Wednesday brought an outpouring of grief and anger rarely shown on state television, as broadcasts for the first time focused solely on the violence and call-in shows allowed citizens to voice their sorrow and frustration. The attacks targeted a police station, a crowded bus terminal and a hospital where many of the victims had been taken. Most of the victims were civilians. Read the whole thing. Asian Leader Update, Plus Gas Shortages!I see my little secret is now out--Chinese President Hu will be in Seattle on Labor Day. For those of you worried about our high gas prices, here's what Hu (What is the Prime Minister and I Don't Know is the head of Finance) is dealing with in China. Grameen Bank AttackedIf you were busy trying to prevent gay and lesbians from having basic rights or if you were occupied going to vigils for Cindy Sheehan you may have missed that Bangladesh was bombed by Muslim extremists. This followed on bombings that targeted, among other places, Grameen Bank. I worked with Grameen Bank when I was back in Washington, D.C. It is a microenterprise bank providing small loans in the $50 range, often to women. It has been very successful in empowering women and families and creating real economic development at the impoverished level. There's a reason these are the types of organizations and people targeted by al queda and its ilk. Just thought you'd want to know. Okay, you can return to your real worries now. Visiting SeattleFYI, a certain leader of a certain very large Asian country will be in Seattle in early September. Wednesday, August 17, 2005Bye Bye the Japanese WayKazuhiro Sasaki, the great Japanese reliever who pitched for the Seattle Mariners for a few years retired this week from baseball. Japan has an intriguing and endearing way of sending off its baseball greats. The Japan Times has it covered. Tuesday, August 16, 2005Rushdie and the Crazy IslamistsSalmon Rushdie in an interview with the libertarian magazine, Reason, of all places, has some choice words for the lunatic fringe of Islam (as well might someone who was ordered dead by one of those crazies...of course, that crazy was in charge of an entire country and we didn't seem to care too much when he issued his little fatwahs): I think there is a desire, for virtuous reasons, to make this disassociation. You can respect those reasons, but there is a problem of truth. It reminds me a little bit of what Western socialists used to say during the worst excesses of the Soviet Union. They would say that that’s not really socialism. There is a real socialism that is about liberty, social justice, and so on, but that tyrannical regime over there which was actually existing socialism is not really Marxism. The problem was that that’s what there was. When that fell, in a way that whole intellectual construct of socialism fell with it. It became very difficult to ignore all these people coming out of the Soviet Union who detested the term socialism, because to them it meant tyranny. I think there is beginning to be that kind of disconnect in the discourse about Islam. There is an actually existing Islam which is not at all likeable. Monday, August 15, 2005Another Big Project
Had a big writing project deadline last night. More blogging later today.
Friday, August 12, 2005Those Were the DaysSince September 11th you hear a lot of wistfulness for the Cold War. For example from the blog, Donklephant. It turns out the Cold War amounted to an entire half century of having it all, creating nominal safety. The nothing part of M.A.D. — Armageddon — never came to pass. And so we did indeed create a playground of prosperity: Shopping malls, freeways, cheap global travel, and the Internet; the plethora of things, rock-n-roll, the rise of socialism and multiculturalism; baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet. We got very used to that. Three generations grew up in the soil of transparent global war. M.A.D. conditioned us to have our cake and eat it too. But today’s WMD perils are unlike the days of M.A.D. In the Cold War, we could depend on the rationality of our adversaries, the Soviets. We could mutually agree on something, heinous as it was. M.A.D. created a sense of certainty out of nucler parity. That certainty was: if it happens, everyone dies. That’s it. No debate necessary. If you were alive, it meant everything was normal. If you were dead, well… Weapons of mass destruction in the 9/11 era no longer represent the end of everything. The threshold to this brave new terror-nuke world is far lower than the threshold to M.A.D. Parity is no longer apparent. That makes catastrophe with a small ‘c’ far more likely to happen. This kind of thinking is great if you were American or Canadian or British or someone else living in the free world. But wishing for the so-called security of the Cold War (putting aside close calls like the Cuban Missile Crisis) is basically throwing away the lives of millions of Poles, Hungarians, Latvians, Russians and others who lived under tyranny. Great, we here in Seattle or Hoboken could live without fear of nuclear war (though I think people forget how much fear there was of just that); the rest of you can live with no freedom, very little food and the fear of totalitarian governments. Yeah, those were the days.
Since September 11th you hear a lot of wistfulness for the Cold War. From Donklephant blog (http://donklephant.com/2005/08/10/sitzkriegs-end/)
It turns out the Cold War amounted to an entire half century of having it all, creating nominal safety. The nothing part of M.A.D. — Armageddon — never came to pass. And so we did indeed create a playground of prosperity: Shopping malls, freeways, cheap global travel, and the Internet; the plethora of things, rock-n-roll, the rise of socialism and multiculturalism; baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet. We got very used to that. Three generations grew up in the soil of transparent global war. M.A.D. conditioned us to have our cake and eat it too. But today’s WMD perils are unlike the days of M.A.D. In the Cold War, we could depend on the rationality of our adversaries, the Soviets. We could mutually agree on something, heinous as it was. M.A.D. created a sense of certainty out of nucler parity. That certainty was: if it happens, everyone dies. That’s it. No debate necessary. If you were alive, it meant everything was normal. If you were dead, well… Weapons of mass destruction in the 9/11 era no longer represent the end of everything. The threshold to this brave new terror-nuke world is far lower than the threshold to M.A.D. Parity is no longer apparent. That makes catastrophe with a small ‘c’ far more likely to happen. This kind of thinking is great if you were American or Canadian or British or someone else living in the free world. But wishing for the so-called security of the Cold War (putting aside close calls like the Cuban Missile Crisis) is basically throwing away the lives of millions of Poles, Hungarians, Latvians, Russians and others who lived under tyranny. Great, we here in Seattle or Hoboken could live without fear of nuclear war (though I think people forget how much fear there was of just that); the rest of you can live with no freedom, very little food and the fear of totalitarian governments. Yeah, those were the days. Thursday, August 11, 2005Sports Guy Political WisdomIs Bill Simmons the Sports Guy spot on with this? Q: Which do you think we'll see first, a female president or a female head coach of an NBA, MLB, NFL or NHL team?--Matt Skelly, Hadley, Mass. SG: What would I rather see? That's easy -- a female NHL coach. How would she dress? What would her mullet look like? Would she end up looking like a mustache-less Jeff Foxworthy wearing Paula Poundstone's clothes? At the very least, let's dress Barry Melrose up in drag for a few games and give this idea a test run. What will we see? That's easy -- a female president. If you don't think Hillary Clinton will be running the country in four years, you're crazy. Ever been stuck in a room full of women when they decide on something ridiculous like "Andie McDowell has been the most beautiful woman in Hollywood for the past 15 years" and they will absolutely stick together until the death when you're posing counterarguments? Well, I think that's how the 2008 election is going to unfold -- Hillary is going to be Andie McDowell-ed right into the presidency. If she becomes president, that means any woman can become president. It's too important not to vote for her. So they'll vote for her. (And just for the record, I probably will, too -- I miss having Bill Clinton around. Imagine having him on tour as the First Man? How much trouble could he get into? It would be just as if he was the president again, only without any responsibility. Think about it -- even when he did have responsibility, the whole Lewinsky debacle happened. As the First Man? Anything's possible.) The Next War
Factions on the right have all along wanted to follow up on their little adventure in Iraq with forays into either Iran, Syria or both. In light of recent developments in Iran and Syria, these folks' whispers are reaching stage level. On the conservative National Review web site numerous writers are more loudly decrying Iran and Syria's role in destabilzing Iraq. For example, Andrew McCarthy in The National Review writes, "If we leave Iraq and come home with Syria and Iran still intact and still supporting the terror network with impunity after years of dedicated sponsorship, it will not matter a wit whether Iraq is secure and has a fragile government that can survive." Would the Administration, in its last three years in office, really invade another Middle East tyrant's land? There are burgeoning protest movements in both Iran and Syria. Wouldn't the administration first work to cultivate these before engaging in yet another risky war?
Split the Canadian BaconWill Canada go all Yugoslavia on us? Monday, August 08, 2005Still BreakingI'm still on break from blogging. Back a little later in the week, I hope. Wednesday, August 03, 2005Big ProjectsI'm involved in a couple of big projects so probably not much blogging until late Thursday. Tuesday, August 02, 2005ClintonesqueI've been struck by how many commentators out there are comparing Rafael Palmiero's pseudo confession of "unintentionally" using steroids to Bill Clinton's lies about sex. I have to admit that I too thought of Clinton's finger waving lies after hearing the news about Palmiero and thinking back to the left-handers Clintonesque performance before Congress five months ago. Clinton was not a half-bad president. However, although he may not have originated the strategy of telling bald face lies and hoping you don't get caught, he certainly popularized it. Thanks a lot, Bill. Monday, August 01, 2005Stirring Up CairoEarlier this year, Rice directly confronted Egypt's Mubarek on his country's democratic short comings. On Sunday, the Washington Post dubbed Condoleeza Rice's brand of foreign policy as "practical idealism." It will be interesting to see how she applies it this time to Egypt after the government beat anti-Mubarek protesters. Torture You May Have MissedOver the weekend, the Washington Post had an important story further documenting that torture as a policy is mandated from the top of the Bush Administration. On Wednesday, the former warden of Abu Ghraib, Maj. David DiNenna, testified that the use of dogs for interrogation was recommended by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the former commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison who was dispatched by the Pentagon to Abu Ghraib in August 2003 to review the handling and interrogation of prisoners. On Tuesday, a military interrogator testified that he had been trained in using dogs by a team sent to Iraq by Gen. Miller. Miller denies these allegations but as the article points out: Army investigators reported to Congress this month that, under Gen. Miller's supervision at Guantanamo, an al Qaeda suspect named Mohamed Qahtani was threatened with snarling dogs, forced to wear women's underwear on his head and led by a leash attached to his chains -- the very abuse documented in the Abu Ghraib photographs. The court evidence strongly suggests that Gen. Miller lied about his actions, and it merits further investigation by prosecutors and Congress. Further, General Miller was only taking orders from Rumsfeld: The interrogation of Mr. Qahtani, investigators found, was carried out under rules approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Dec. 2, 2002. After strong protests from military lawyers, the Rumsfeld standards -- which explicitly allowed nudity, the use of dogs and shackling -- were revised in April 2003. Yet the same practices were later adopted at Abu Ghraib, at least in part at the direct instigation of Gen. Miller. "We understood," Maj. DiNenna testified, "that [Gen. Miller] was sent over by the secretary of defense." The sad fact, however, is that most conservatives are actually in favor of torture, feeling it is justified in the "War on Terror." It is a strangely spinning world in which conservatives are so trusting of government that they freely give it the power to use torture. No Trade PolicyI was at a meeting the other day to help a group which is organizing a conference on "national trade policy." Sort of a strange topic since the US has no national trade policy. Bush is free trade in his flourish rhetoric but often in practice has been very protectionist, the most obvious example being the tariffs he put on steel a few years back in an effort to win the electoral votes of West Virginia. Now Japan if imposing tariffs on U.S. steel.
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