LFTC - Letter From The Capitol

Index 1/31/08

3 posts: (1) Explorer Turns Fifty--Cyber-Serendip; (2) Obama's Ohio Omen--The Home Front; (3) After Florida: Bet On Barack v. Big Mac--The Home Front.   Also, an extra today: I have an op-ed in the Washington Times, "Dial '08 for Terrorism", that explains why it is vital that telecom companies be protected from lawsuits arising out of the administration's Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Explorer Turns Fifty

January 31, 50 years ago, saw the launch of America's first satellite, Explorer I.  Unlike Sputnik I, launched October 4, 1957, our space bird did real science research: discovering the Van Allen radiation belts.  This yesterday LA Times op-ed tells the story.  The other part of the tale is that Werner von Braun and his Army team put the Explorer launch together in 56 days, after the December 6, 1957 2-second fizzle of the Navy's Vanguard rocket.

Obama's Ohio Omen

On Wednesday, the day after Florida, a freight train was blown literally off a bridge by extreme weather gusts, falling 30 feet into Sandusky Bay in Ohio.  The town to which the train was nearest when derailed, located near Lake Erie, is named...Port Clinton.  An omen for the "Billary Express?"  Another historical nugget may serve as a precursor omen for the scandalous couple: An LFTC reader informs me that the town, a half century ago, was notorious for prostitution.  During the Clinton White House years, selling access to anyone who paid the freight (including agents of a hostile foreign power, China) was political prostitution beyond what any previous administration had dared.  The "Billary Express" may, at long last, have finally been derailed.

After Florida: Bet On Barack v. Big Mac

McCain 36, Romney 31, Rudy 15, Huckabee 13, Paul 3.  Rudy's withdrawal and his endorsement of McCain should boost McCain hugely, in key large states.  Huckabee having been marginalized, it is now, officially, a two-man race.  Rudy's stealth January campaign may well go down in history as the biggest blunder in the history of presidential primary campaigns.  As Dick Morris puts it: "A triumphant career and a mass of great potential has been obliterated by political malpractice on the part of his motley crew of advisers. If there were such a thing as a product-liability suit against political consultants, Rudy would have a hell of a case."  The Washington Post's "The Fix" column points out another factor: McCain overcame a 10:1 Romney spending advantage in the Sunshine State.  Add into this that Romney skipped the last week in South Carolina, to campaign in Florida.  Lesson: McCain's name recognition means he doesn't need as much ad time as Romney does.

Economist Brian Wesbury, always worth reading, argues that "It's the not-so-bad economy, stupid!  Were that perceived as true by voters it could help Romney--alas, 61 percent believe that the economy is in recession (wrong: a recession is official with two negative growth quarters, but this is a definition voters do not know and, if they did, they would ignore).  Black voters are now crying "financial apartheid" over the subprime loan mess.  This will hurt the GOP candidate, despite the fact that the subprime mess had its germination in Democratic attacks on financial institutions in the 1990s, for--you guessed it, alleged "redline lending" practices--failing to make enough loans on easy enough terms to poor borrowers.  These are precisely the loans now in default.  Heads they win, tails we lose.  JFK's "life is unfair" comes to mind.

Speaking of JFK, Amity Shlaes reminds us that JFK's prime economic achievement was his famous tax cut, actually passed in two stages under LBJ: from 91% to 77% in 1964, then from 77% to 70% in 1965.  Obama, crowned JFK's Camelot heir by Teddy, is having none of this.  A Wall Street Journal piece notes that McCain edged Romney among voters who called economics their top issue.  While Romney won voters most concerned about immigration, too few voters made this their voting priority, leading the WSJ to call immigration "the fool's gold of American politics."

Re health care, the Wall Street Journal editorializes that the collapse of The Governator's HillaryCare (akin, says another WSJ op-ed, to RomneyCare and HillaryCare, in its coercive character) clone in California holds lessons for the election debate.  Seems that the plan cratered for the same reason comprehensive health care plans often crater: skyrocketing cost projections.  Hispanics on the GOP side went 51-25-15 for McCain - Rudy - Romney.  McCain got a huge kick from popular Florida Governor Charlie Crist's late endorsement, with 42 percent of GOP primary voters citing that as a factor.

Pundit Jay Cost offers interesting numbers.  Perhaps most interesting are two.  On the economy, McCain led among voters who think the economy is bad, while Romney led among voters who think the economy is OK.  Re best qualified to command the military, McCain beat Romney by 18 points and, incredibly, beat Rudy--he of the Churchillian post-9/11 mayoral performance--by 30 points.

George Will impales John McCain as Clintonian, and says that Romney has "found his voice."  Will's case against Long John is two remarks: (1) McCain claimed that Mitt Romney once advised surrender in Iraq, when in fact MR had merely suggested that in private, President Bush and Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki set timelines and milestones; (2) Romney's statement that he is better qualified, by virtue of his real-world experience, to address economic issues, was transformed by McCain into an assertion by MR that a military career is not "a real job."

Fair enough: Long John did indeed distort Romney's remarks.  Both this is still a long way from Clintonism ("I didn't inhale" - "It depends upon what the meaning of 'is' is" - "Then we just have to win" - "I did not have sex with that woman...." - "oral sex is not having sex," etc.).  McCain's fibs reflect to dark side of his southern honor culture: personalizing disagreements, refusing to recognize strong criticism as legitimate.  In Andrew Jackson's day, Long John, like Andy, would have embraced, in real life, the code duello.  Message from LFTC to Long John: Save your saber for the jihadists.

Investigative reporter Kenneth Timmerman argues that the next President will face the most daunting first-term foreign policy challenges since Thomas Jefferson took office in 1801.  New York Sun columnist Daniel Johnson picks McCain as the only candidate who realizes that the prime issue is the war, and not the economy.  To which I add: We will lose the economic debate and the health care debate, despite sound proposals floated by the leading GOP candidates.  Market-based programs simply lose appeal to voters during parlous economic times; insecure voters will turn instead to the government state.  (On the lighter side, I am reminded of Ronald Reagan's handling of the economic issue when running against Jimmy Carter in 1980: "A recession is when your neighbor loses his job; a depression is when you lose you job; and a recovery is when President Carter loses his.")

One possible sleeper economic issue untouched by any candidate to date: eminent domain.  A WSJ op-ed notes that since the Supreme Court's egregious Kelo v. New London (2005) ruling allowing open season eminent domain abuses by governments on behalf of favored private parties, 42 states have passed restrictions on the practice.  A study refutes the notion that eminent domain fosters economic development; all it does is obviate the need for developers to negotiate a fair market price.  The eminent domain issue is a natural for Republicans: Democrats love broad eminent domain power, but voters hate it.

Bill Kristol judges McCain's conservative problem less than thought; Mac does reasonably well with moderate conservatives.  Hudson Institute scholar Diana Furchtgott-Roth makes a solid case that McCain is fairly conservative economically.  Mac opposed the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts becauseiheyt lacked matching spending cuts; he has never voted for a tax increase, and is a stalwart opponent of taxing the Internet.  Mac opposed the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, on small government grounds.  As Diana F-R also notes, Mac's immigration and campaign-finance stands, opposed by many conservatives, were supported in the past by Romney.  Another major issue for Mac, WSJ editorialist Collin Levy details, is judicial nominations, Mac having supported John Roberts but not, in private, Samuel Alito; McCain-Feingold also sticks in the craw of most conservatives.  WSJ ace political reporter John Fund writes that Mac must mend fences with conservatives by, among other things, touting his health care plan, one very attractive to conservatives.  NRO has an online symposium on how Mac can woo conservatives.  Today's WSJ has an editorial urging Mac to reach out more forcefully to alienated conservatives, especially on the economy, health care and judges.  Robert Novak mines his sources and concludes that Mac, contrary to his public statements, did, once, at an off-the-record meeting, call Justice Samuel Alito too conservative for his judicial taste.  Novak says that Mac must reassure conservatives in two key points: judges and holding the line against any tax increases.

Apropos of the upcoming election, the American Enterprise Institute's January 2008 Political Report (private e-circulated, later in print) has some major nuggets:

(1) "Makes a real difference to me who is elected president":  60% in Jan. '92, 57% in May '96, 54% in Jan. 2000; 90% in Dec. '07.

(2) "Yes, there is a candidate who would make a good president":  40% in Jan. '92, 57% in May '96; 75% in Jan. 2000, 83% in Dec. '07.

(3) Young African-American voters are less likely to identify with the Democrats, but equally as their elders do not identify with Republicans.  (Sept./Oct. '07)

(4) Trustworthiness.  Most honorable: 38% military leaders, 34% clergy, 9% journalists, 4% political leaders; least honorable - 5% military leaders, 6% clergy, 28% journalists, 48% political leaders.  (Dec. '07)

My takeaways from these numbers: (1) 2008 is a Big Election in the eyes of most voters, making high turnout likely; (2) voters strongly desire a break from the past; (3) African-Americans will be Democratic for a long time, barring a severe shock; (4) trust is more likely to be placed in new leaders than old, established types.

Which means: (1) Hillary is a far weaker candidate than Obama; (2) McCain's military heroism makes him the only Republican who might pass muster, and win; (3) Obama, if nominated, will very likely win, with a good chance of winning by a landslide (greater than 55-45 popular vote margin).  Only a Republican with sterling national security credentials has a chance to beat Obama, and only if he can make national security a big issue come November.

Dick Morris notes that Hill carried Florida 50-33, and 59-29 over Obama among voters who decided in the last month, but only tied Barack 35-35 among those who decided since South Carolina.  Hill won whites 53-23 and Hispanics 2-1, but lost blacks 70-27.  New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin says Hill needs a "magic moment."

The decision of John Edwards to drop out also boosts Obama, who is the likely beneficiary.  Maryland's ex-Lt. Governor, Michael Steele, now chairman of GOPAC, observes that Edwards always referred to Hillary as the Establishment Candidate, and positioned himself as a "change" candidate, which is Obama's constant mantra.  Democratic strategist Bob Beckel (who managed Walter Mondale's 1984 campaign), said that Edwards figured he could not surmount the 15 percent threshold in Tsunami Tuesday states, to win delegates (of which Edwards had won only 26).

Newsweek's Howard Fineman explains persuasively why endorsements matter more than ever in 2008: voters are too "busy, distracted and ideologically confused" to focus on politics; they need "character witnesses" in the form of endorsements by politicians whose judgment they trust.  The massive rush of primaries on Tsunami Tuesday, and the mere one week period between these primaries and Florida's,  precludes retail politics, and thus heightens the desire of voters to look for quick guides as to how to vote.  The contrast between Iowa and New Hampshire is especially great, as voters there meet and greet candidates for more than a year before the first vote is cast.  McCain already has Rudy's enthusiastic endorsement, and reports are that today Governator Arnold will add his heft to McCain's California campaign by following suit.

A new Rasmussen national poll shows McCain beating Hill 48-40 and Barack 47-41.  Such "leads" mean, objectively, zero.  But subjectively, they suggests that McCain starts, in the public perception, from a substantially better position than any other Republican still standing.  David Broder sees a Barack - Big Mac race shaping up, as party pros see Obama their best November bet, and Clinton fatigue spreads.  WSJ pundit Dan Henninger calls Mac a "retail politics powerhouse" (in stark contrast to Romney and Rudy); DH's description of a McCain appearance at a seniors center in Florida is a great read.  Ace politics maven Michael Barone discerns a flip dynamic in both parties: the Republican race a few weeks ago was fluid and fractious, while the Democrats appeared unified; now the GOP is unifying behind McCain, while the Hill-Barack meltdown sunders the Democrats.  Barone also notes that every single candidate's original strategy, save Barack's, failed.  Mac bounced back because he backed the surge after his immigration meltdown, and because the Bhutto assassination vaulted national security back into the forefront of GOP issues, with Mac the Big War Kahuna.

Karl Rove applies his new rules for politics to the race: (1) the "big bounce" is gone--momentum lasts but a few days; (2) TV ads matter far less, with many voters shunning ads in favor of new media or social networks for information; (3) the Internet enables near-instant fundraising; (4) debates can be used to effectively sway audiences.  But some old rules still apply, says Rove: (1) broad-base appeals win; (2) adapt of die--Mac did, and survived; (3) bad exit polls shape coverage on election days; (4) win early or run close--Rudy learned the hard way; (5) late joiners lose--Fred Thompson's mistake; (6) money cannot substitute for other factors--message, personality; (7) ideas still matter.

The smart money says that there will not be a brokered convention on the Democratic side.  Unless the super delegates decide to pledge their votes before the convention, which they may well do, there will be such a convention.  Here's why.  Three huge factors suggest a brokered convention: (1) the Democratic vote rules--district by district in each state, with all 30 percent vote-getters--Hill and Barack in most districts--winning some proportional delegates; (2) the insanely capricious front-loading of primaries, which denies candidates a chance to gradually build up bandwagon momentum; (3) the reservation of 20 percent of convention votera as super-delegates, unpledged before the convention, which makes it almost impossible, under the primary vote apportionment rules, for either Barack or Hill to get a majority of the combined total of pledged and unpledged votes.  Do the math: With only 80 percent of votes eligible for pledging, to get 50 percent of all votes--of the full 100 percent, which includes counting the unpledged votes--requires 5/8 of the 80 percent pledged, plus one.  Neither Hill nor Barack figure, under the counting rules, to win 62.5+ percent of the pledged votes.  Which suggests a brokered convention in Miami in August, unless one or the other has a big plurality lead, which could tip the supers en masse this spring..

Now, if Barack goes in with even a few more delegates, African-American voters will be enraged if Hill gets the nod, and many will stay home in the fall, as will non-minority youth enthused by Obama.  A smoke-filled room deal giving Hill the nod would require Barack as Veep.  But Barack won't take Veep, for three reasons: (1) he cannot stand Hill; (2) he would permanently damage his idealist "new kind of politician" brand name, thus impairing his future Presidential prospects; (3) only someone truly desperate would want to be Tsarina Hillary's Veep--who will have no more authority than the White House janitorial staff.  Hill without Barack might squeak in.  But Barack's bargaining ace in the hole is that he alone has the potential to win by a landslide, and have coat-tails carrying in extra Senate and House seats.  In which event, a successful Obama Presidency could bring about generational political realignment.  If Hill leads in delegates going in, she will likely get the nod, but she will not likely be leading going in.  So she likely loses the nomination.

So, Barack, get ready for big Mac.

Index 1/30/08

4 posts: (1) America: A Fragile Superpower?--Us v. Them; (2) Rebate Debate: Taxes and the Free-Rider Forty--The Home Front; (3) Economy: A Dose of (Asset) Reality--The Home Front; (4) Racial Politics: A Liberal's Lament--The Home Front.  An analysis of the 2008 race after Florida will be posted tomorrow.

America: A "Fragile" Superpower?

An op-ed in the Australian sees America as powerful but fragile.  Well worth a read (3 pages), here is the money quote: "The historial critique of Bush will be that he misread the limits to US power and, as a result, is leaving the nation weaker than he found it. A damning legacy."

Rebate Debate: Taxes and The Free-Rider Forty

NRO's Rich Lowry exposes the flim-flam behind the bipartisan rebate proposal.  Rebates go not only to those who actually pay federal income tax, but to the 40 percent of household tax filers (everyone files) who pay no federal income levy at all; half of these households also get the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).  The Democrats insisted on this, and Republicans caved, fearing (rightly) that they would be accused of making war on the "poor," and that adverse media coverage would prevent the truth from coming out.  According to the Tax Foundation, in 2004 the top 40 percent of filers paid 99.1 percent of all federal income taxes, leaving less than one percent for the bottom 60 percent.

Further, the bottom 20 percent of filers received $8.21 in spending for every tax dollar paid (includes state and local), while the top 40 percent paid more in taxes than they received in spending.  The top one percent of filers paid nearly 40 percent of federal income taxes, while earning about 20 percent of national income.   As for the regressive Social Security tax, the top 20 percent of F.I.C.A. filers paid 44 percent of all F.I.C.A. taxes.

Thus, real tax cuts, that might stimulate the economy, must go to those actually paying taxes, whose incentives to invest are thus improved.  Wall Street Journal editor Kimberley Strassel aptly calls the deal an "economic surrender" by the administration.  Supply-side guru Arthur Laffer fears that high taxes will threaten prosperity.  Laffer makes the politically incorrect point that the rich respond more vigorously to changes in tax incentives, than those of lesser economic means.  The rich pay taxes not only at the top rate, but also at lower "inframarginal" rates, which do not affect their incentive to invest.  Thus, while 99 percent of tax filers paid tax at the 10 percent rate, only 25 percent paid that as their top rate, and thus for 74 percent there was no change in incentive.  For the 74 percent, the tax cut was a "deadweight loss" for the government.  Laffer's article is replete with amazing numbers, all politically incorrect.

A Wall Street Journal editorial shows decisively that the Bush capital gains tax cut more than paid for itself in boosting federal tax receipts.  A new CG cut would give a much-needed boost to the stock market and to employment-friendly investment.  Congress, naturally, ignores this.

Republicans could be excused for accepting the farce of rebates to non-payers, if the package also included genuine pro-growth measures.  All they got was that Nancy Pelosi dropped her effort to extend unemployment insurance and increase food stamp funds, plus some small accelerated depreciation.  Extending unemployment insurance, which targets those hit hardest, makes a lot more sense than freebies to non-payers.  To be fair, investment superstar Steven Rattner praises the stimulus package, and he has vastly greater qualifications--and assets--than me.

But I still don't like it.  Fiscal policy is way out of whack.

Economy: A Dose of (Asset) Reality

Begin with some Big Numbers--all measured in TRILLIONS.  As of  the end of 3Q2007, total; US tangible and intangible assets were around $195T (source: private blog from economics maven John Rutledge).  Currently, the US housing stock is about $23T (source: AEI scholar John Makin, print newsletter).  Economist Brian Wesbury observes that a $100 billion hit in subprime mortgage losses is but 0.1%--yes, one tenth of one percent--of the country's $100T combined total for household + non-financial = non-farm corporations.  American corporations are sitting on $1.1T in corporate cash.  But as Steven Rattner points out the government estimates $50T of unfunded obligations, mostly, for entitlement programs.

Wesbury argues persuasively that many ec0nomic numbers were worse a year ago.  Credit troubles hardly presage a new depression, unless government policy creates one.  In 1931, credit collapsed when the Federal Reserve cut the money supply 25 percent, causing a severe deflation.  Monetary policy today is easy--many think, too easy.  This can cause inflation; coupled with dumb fiscal policy (over-spending, stimulus packages) and soaring commodity prices, this can well lead to a replay of 1970s stagflation.  Not fun, but not a new Great Depression.

What could cause a new GD?  A series of catastrophic decisions by policymakers.  Or a terrorist nuclear detonation.

Racial Politics: A Liberal's Lament

National Journal's superb legal affairs writer, Stuart Taylor, offers in his Jan. 28 column the views of Stanford law professor Richard Thompson Ford, a moderate liberal, on racial politics.  It is an excellent read I shall not attempt to summarize.  I find myself agreeing with most of it, albeit I regard affirmative action as more harmful than does Ford (Taylor agrees).

Index 1/29/08

2 posts: (1) The Administration's P.C. Purges--The Home Front; (2) Tsunami Tuesday: A Democratic Krakatoa?--The Home Front.

The Administration's P.C. Purges

Two truthful voices within the Administration have been silenced.  Ace journalist and UN nemesis Claudia Rosett slaps the Pentagon for firing its top analyst on radical Islam; she flags them for removing material pertinent to the firing from its website.  It seems that Gordon England, who succeeded Paul Wolfowitz as Deputy Secretary of Defense, brought in with him  a Navy veteran who was born in Cairo, and who serves in part as the Pentagon's liaison with domestic Islamic groups.  Terror expert Steven Emerson calls Hesham Islam “an Islamist with a pro-Muslim Brotherhood bent who has brought in groups to the Pentagon who have been unindicted co-conspirators.”  Enter Stephen Coughlin, a lawyer at the Pentagon, with a thesis (333 pages: your move) that Islam's legal tenets promote jihad.   Hesham Islam allegedly arranged for the sacking.

Meanwhile, at Foggy Bottom, an assistant secretary, one Jay Lefkowitz, blew the whistle on State's sucking up to North Korea.  Lefkowitz recently told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute that "it is increasingly clear that North Korea will remain in its present nuclear status when the Administration leaves office in one year."  The six-party talks have foundered, due to the unwillingness of South Korea or China to exert meaningful leverage against the North, and human rights concerns are now back-burner.  State even wants to take the North off the terror-sponsor list.  Condi has told off JL, preferring to pursue accommodation with the North in hopes of securing more cooperation.

Looks like danger ahead.

Tsunami Tuesday: A Democratic Krakatoa?

Let's have political-junkie fun, as Floridians go to the polls, and look one week ahead for the Democrats, who are not running today in Florida.  Who will emerge victorious, Obama or Hillary, come Tsunami Tuesday?  I will go for it and say Obama wins more delegates than Hill, in a political tsunami reminiscent of the August 26, 1883 monster tsunami generated by the explosion of Krakatoa, which generated a wave estimated at 120 feet high (other estimates place it at 135 feet).  On February 5 the political surf will surely be way up.

The New York Times reports that complex rules make delegate projections precarious, and that the popular vote winner in some states may not wind up with the most delegates, as each Congressional district is winner-take-all.  But special rules on the Democratic side assign delegates to candidates who top 30 percent in a district.  Thus in most even-numbered delegate districts Hill & Barack will split, with odd-number delegates targeted by both campaigns.  After Feb. 5, 41 percent of Republican and 52 percent of Democratic delegates will have been chosen.

Hillary's national poll lead is now 41-33, a measly 8 points, based upon a moving average sample taken between 1/11 & 1/22.  N.B., the shift in the final three days, among white S.C. Democratic voters, is not reflected in these numbers; the shift elsewhere in the country, if similar, could bode ill for Hill.  Assign Edwards's S.C. white vote to Hill and Barack equally, and Barack would have received 45 percent of the white vote.  George Will, on ABC, said that Edwards's majority among whites reflects growing disgust with the Clintons' tactics, and with Bill's stepping in front of his wife, who is supposed to be center stage, as the candidate.  Cokie Roberts, on ABC, noted that Obama's 83 percent black vote total was, unlike Jesse Jackson's votes, turned out in a new kind of campaign: one without dispensing "walking around money" to black local leaders (often preachers), to encourage them to get their flock to vote.

Apply Tsunami Tuesday demographics to look at February 5's 22 states, with 1,678 delegates at stake (proportional among Ds, winner-take-all among Rs), of which 862 delegates are in four states (CA 370, NY 232, IL 153, NJ 103).  The 22-state combined electorate is 66.2% white, 10.8% black and 13.7% Hispanic.  Of the bottom 18, only New Mexico has a minority white (44%) number (Hispanics are 42% in NM).  So view those states as Hillary's edge.  Now look an the top four.  CA's 370 are 47% white, 6% black, 32% Hispanic; NY's 232 are 62% white, 15% black, 15% Hispanic; IL's 153 are 68% white, 16% black, 12% Hispanic; NJ's 107 are 66% white, 13% black, 13% Hispanic.  N.B., that Asian & other ethnics are thus 15% in CA, 8% in NY, 4% in IL and 8% in NJ.  These will be younger and higher income, both of which factors tilt towards Obama.

Now, weight the 862 delegate total for the Big Four by their ethnic composition (which works given the Democrats' proportional delegate system--it would not work for winner-take-all tallies): 493 white, 96 black, 185 Hispanic, 88 Asian.  Give Obama 30% of whites (easily achievable if Edwards fades), 80% of blacks, 20% of Hispanics and 60% of Asians.  This works out to 315 votes for Obama.  If Hillary wins 2-1 over Edwards for the 547 remaining delegates, she gets 365 & Edwards 182. Now, eyeballing the 18 smaller states, with 816 delegates, and applying a rough average of 75% white, 11% black and 14% Hispanic, yields 612 white, 90 black and 114 Hispanic delegates.  Weighting these totals as is done for the larger states (the Asian population is negligible compared to their share in the largest states, and thus not included), and assuming that Hillary beats Edwards 2-1 for the non-Obama total, yields 278 delegates for Obama, vs. 360 for Hillary and 178 for Edwards.

Sum the two breakdowns up, and the totals are: Obama 593, Hillary 735 and Edwards 360.  Now, adjust these, by assuming that Edwards fades, for lack of funds and thus lack of media.  Assume Obama and Hillary split the votes Edwards loses, evenly.  Give Edwards half the 360 = 180 votes.  Obama and Hill each pick up 90.  Obama thus gets 683 and Hillary 825.  But now look to other factors.  Obama needs a swing of 71 votes (4.2%) to tie Hill at 754.  (Edwards, says Bill Kristol, may drop out; given an even split this is a wash, but if Edwards voters prefer Barack he wins.)

Factor in, as well, that the upcoming primaries, starting with Florida Jan. 29, shift the campaign from retail (in person, small groups) politics to wholesale (before large crowds, TV & radio ads) politics.  Obama is the most talented retail politician, after Bill Clinton, since Ronald Reagan.  Hill has the retail charm of Richard Nixon.  Obama and Hillary both have huge war chests. Obama got a boost from Senator Teddy and from Caroline Kennedy too.  Obama has regained Big Mo after S.C., as the Clintons were banking on a margin below 10 points (polls showed Obama up 12 points before Saturday's vote).  Obama's Mo, and the Clinton's racial backfire, figure to change numbers.

So where might Barack get 71 more delegates?  I used conservative numbers for his white vote.  Give him 35% of whites, instead of my 30%, and of my estimated 1,105 white delegate votes at stake on Tsunami Tuesday, Barack wins not 332, but 387, a gain of 55 votes = a 110-vote swing from Hill to Barack, that would make the race all but even.  This would leave Hill ahead by 32 delegates, 770 to 738.  Swinging 16 ties at 754.  With 1,678 delegates at stake, a one percent swing is needed.

Now, run Obama at 40% of white voters--exactly his split with Hillary in South Carolina (she won 36-24, with Edwards taking 40).  This adds 55 more delegates to Obama, takes 55 from Hill, another 110 delegate swing.  Obama goes to 442 white votes.  His total jumps to 793, while Hill's falls to 715.  Obama wins 47% of Tsunami Tuesday's 22 state delegations in this scenario, Hill 43% and Edwards 10%.  Is 40 percent unachievable?  The Obama team's exit poll estimate for the first four contests combined show Obama with 262,000 white votes, vs. 291,000 for Hill, a 47-53 split.  These races include crossover and caucus votes, though, and Obama has far more crossover appeal than does Hill.

All the above calculations assume equal turnout of various blocs, as projecting turnout numbers is simply impossible.  (Also ignored is the district by district winner-take-all rule, which cannot be easily factored in.)  Robert Novak sees HIspanic turnout as Hill's "firewall" in CA.  Subtract Hispanics, and Hill is no better than even in CA.  Obama can count on a record black turnout everywhere.  Hispanic turnout has historically been a big question mark.  Novak suggests that the Clintons may happily acquiesce in their "brown" supporters fanning of growing friction between the two ethnic minority groups (after S.C. the Clintons cannot leave fingerprints), as a tool to bring Hispanics to the polls.  Another CA wild card: registered independents can vote in the Democratic primary, but not in the Republican one.  Polls taken in the week preceding S.C. show Hill up 12, but six months ago she was up 40 in CA.  One Clinton Hispanic operative put it bluntly: The Hispanic voter -- and I want to say this very carefully -- has not shown a lot of willingness to support black candidates."  Asked by Tim Russert if the statement was her campaign's view, Hill answered: "No, he was making a historical statement."  Yet the operative was, tellingly, not fired.

The New York Times reports that complicating matters are 796 so-called "super-delegates": party leaders who go to the convention (Miami in August) with unpledged votes (there are 386 supers in the 22 states voting Feb. 5).  To win the Democratic nod requires winning at least 2,025 of the 4,049 total delegate count (for the GOP,the magic number is 1,191 out of 2,380).  Supers are thus a whisker under 20 percent of all delegates.  The fact that all Democratic races are proportional increases the chance--still regarded as slim by political pros--that there will be a brokered convention for the first time since 1952, when Adlai Stevenson won the Democratic nomination on the third ballot.  Some supers have announced that they will follow the primary vote result in their states.  The Times called supers and estimates that 1/3 are uncommitted, 1/4 back Hill and 1/10 back Obama.  These numbers could--likely will--change, especially if disgust with the Clintons takes deeper root.  One Republican ex-campaign operative suggests that supers may band together to stop Obama.  If Obama is short of a majority at the Convention, but if he has the most delegates going in, it is inconceivable to me that the supers would risk alienating the African-American community, their most loyal constituency, by handing the nomination prize to Hillary.

Ted Kennedy's endorsement sparked a blast from the National Organization of Women--NOWs paean to identity politics above all--calling Ted's act "the ultimate betrayal."  It bears full quotation, as it presages the P.C. Furies swirling around the core of the Democratic Party:

“Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.

“And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not “this” one). ‘They’ are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). They are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women’s money, say they’ll do feminist and women’s rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America’s future or whatever.

“This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation - to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who ‘know what’s best for us.’”

The Rasumussen Report captures what may be happening since the Saturday S.C. vote: "The numbers still favor Clinton. But, as every sports fan knows, sometimes the numbers don’t matter. Sometimes things just fall into place for an upset. More often than not, the underdog comes up a bit short—but not always."

Just a feeling: Democratic voters may well decide that they have "had it" with the Clintons and
scorched-earth politics.  George Will elegantly impales the Clintons' coarseness.  (Will also impales McCain as Clintonian, a charge that is overdone--more on this after Florida.)  One clue: Public calls for Bill to back off, including choice words from Al Sharpton, who--literally--told Clinton to "shut up."  But, is it too late now for "Billary" to make nice-nice?  Perhaps Nicely-Nicely Johnson of "Guys and Dolls" fame will give us the real odds?  Stay tuned!

Index 1/28/08

Index: 3 posts: (1) Florida Eve: McCain's "Mensch Moment" & Mama's "Mom Moment"--The Home Front; (2) 2008: Both Parties Push the "Destruct" Button--The Home Front; (3)  2008: Democrats' Twin "Faustian Bargain" Bills Fall Due--The Home Front.

Florida Eve: McCain's "Mensch Moment" & Mama's "Mom Moment"

Florida looms large tomorrow.  Last week the Wall Street Journal kept tabs on what it called the "Panhandle Pander": Republican candidates confronted with whether federal disaster relief should be augment for hurricane-caused property losses.  Florida's governor, Republican (of sorts) Charlie Christ, socialized state insurance last year.  So what did the four surviving GOP candidates do?  Huckabee and Rudy, who now is running third in Florida, jumped on the pander-wagon; Romney, true to his reputation, straddled.  And John McCain?  The man who rolled around America last year on his "no surrender" tour, when Iraq looked like death with voters, and who in Michigan, where a Romney loss would have destroyed Mitt's chances, told Michigan's voters that many jobs in the nation's worst state economy would never come back, stepped up, once again, to the plate.  McCain rejected increasing federal programs for hurricane relief, saying that plenty already exist.  BTW, McCain has lots of friends Down Under who are rooting for him, on both sides of the Australian aisle.  Canberra is very discreet, but it is clear that all over the world America's election is big news.

Take a bow, Long John.  Mama McCain, 95 years young, take a bow too, for saying of the Republican base: "Yes, I think holding their nose they're going to have to take him."

2008: Both Parties Push the "Destruct" Button

Peggy Noonan is in fine fettle as she blames the parallel sunderings of the two major parties on two Presidents: Bill & Dubya.  She sees liberals finally realizing that the Clintons are destroying everything in their path, including an attractive African-American candidate, in pursuit of the prize.  Call the Clintons F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tom and Daisy Buchanan of the Democrats: they are rich, crude and break things.  As for the GOP, Bush 43's Iraq war, immigration and spendthrift ways have destroyed the Reagan coalition.  Come the fall, it will be easier for the GOP nominee to distance himself from Bush 43, than for one of the Democratic nominee prospects to distance herself from Bill.  Wouldn't a "Bill Who?" tour by Hill liven the campaign?

The Wall Street Journal added other Democrat comments against the Clintons.  Earlier in the week, the Journal recounted an oldie: Bob Dole complaining to Clinton after his 1996 defeat, about fibs at his expense, to which Bill replied: "You gotta do what yo gotta do."  For his part, pundit Wesley Pruden chuckles at all the talk about how rough and tumble this campaign is; he says that only in today's "Gelded Age" would folks be fainting over the "fun" stuff in this campaign.  New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, whose mordant pen sketched out the sociology of the Clintons in the 1990s, repeats that gig, plinking Hillary for leaning on hubby whilst trying to remain uber-feminist.  Eleanor Clift calls the Clinton tag-team act "rollerball politics" and says that the Clintons will make any mess necessary to win the primaries, and worry about the general election later.

David Frum offers a dialogue among the GOP's three segments: economic, social and national security conservatives.  Frum sees 2008 as a domestic election, with 9/11 ancient history, Iraq taken off the table by the surge and Iran taken away by the NIE.  He proposes that Republicans run on an economic agenda targeting lower-income GOP voters.  Frum is right that the GOP must address economic vulnerability among their base, but wrong re national security.  If Republicans cannot make national security an election issue, and frame it in a compelling way, they can kiss the White House goodbye.

David Brooks sees a split among two narratives about Wall Street: the Greed Narrative and the Ecology Narrative.  The GN sees megabuck financial buccaneers ripping off huge profits even when investors are left holding the bag; the EN sees the process as self-correcting excesses via periodic shakeouts.  Brooks accepts the EN.  I accept both.  There simply is no excuse, ever, for allowing platinum parachutes for failing financiers.  Such actions undermine the workings of the market, by rewarding, instead of penalizing, failure.  Worse, they undermine the public trust necessary for markets to function well.  In an earlier column Brooks, who tosses out ideas like most people toss frisbees, perceives a "voters' revolt" among Republicans: the two GOPers disdained by the conservative commentariat have done better with the voters in the early primaries.  In Florida, Huckabee's lack of funds suggests that two may become one (McCain).

Charles Krauthammer adds thoughts on Huckabee and Thompson (positive) and John Edwards (negative).  He eviscerates Mr. Plaintiff's Counsel for countless flip-flops and a faux populism.  William Buckley casts his dislike of Edwards and his calculated envy politics as "personal."  So why does Edwards stay in the running, with no chance to get the nod?  Because the Democrats follow proportional representation in choosing delegates.  Edwards may wind up with 10 percent.  If Hill and Obama fall short of 50, splitting the 90 percent 45-45, guess who becomes a potential power broker at the Miami convention this summer?

2008: Democrats' Twin "Faustian Bargain" Bills Fall Due

Begin with the astonishing tally in the South Carolina primary: Obama 55, Clinton 27, Edwards 18; Obama won 78 or 79 percent of blacks and 24 percent of whites (Hill and Edwards nearly evenly divided the rest of the white vote--Edwards 40, Hill 36; Edwards got only one percent of the black vote).  Obama, incredibly, won as many total votes as the entire S.C. turnout in the 2004 Democratic primary.  (Much is made of race in S.C. as thwarting Clinton, but Bill Kristol notes that S.C.'s Democratic electorate is 61 percent female, so in pure identity voting gender trumps race.)

Here are the exit poll data complete with a primer on how to read them.  Nuggets that I thought of special note: (1) Obama won the identical share--54 percent--of male and female voters; (2) Obama won majorities, ranging from 67 to 51 percent as age brackets increase, in every age group under 65, plus he won blacks over 60; (3) Obama won among regular church-goers (many of whom are black).  The Weekly Standard's Jonathan Last offers added insights, most interestingly, that identity politics resonates more strongly among African-Americans than among whites.  This suggests that John Edwards's "two Americas" theme, based upon economics (as was Mario Cuomo's 1984 Democratic Convention "tale of two cities" speech) may be less apt, given economic mobility in America, than two Americas divided by racial attitudes.  The non-P.C. truth is that African-Americans are far more race-conscious than whites.  It is this dynamic that the Clintons are trying to change, not by making black voters less race conscious (the high road), but by making white voters more so (the gutter).

Fox News showed a stunning three-day late-deciding white voter breakdown of Obama 52, Edwards 27, Hillary 21--this compares abysmally to her 36 share among all S.C. white voters.  This rebuts Joe Klein's attribution of Hill's calamitous result to a "moral reprimand" by black voters.  It was, on the fair evidence, a moral reprimand indeed, but by white voters, who resented appeals to their worst instincts.  The verdict prompted an even more astonishing race-baiting reaction from Bill Clinton: "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign.  And Obama ran a good campaign here."  Jackson won only 5 to 10 percent of the white vote.  (In 2004, Edwards carried S.C., and won more black votes than did Al Sharpton.)  While the Clintons tossed barbs Obama couched his appeal in broad terms, per his soaring victory speech Saturday night.

As Hillary takes the cake for most earmarks (261) inserted by any member of Congress, in the latest appropriations bill, thus making hash of her attempt to inject Obama's cozy relations with a Chicago slumlord, simmering tensions between the Obama family and "Billary" boiled over.  Said Michelle: "The one thing that is clear is that when power is confronted with real change, they will say anything."  Columnist Stanley Couch penned a lovely tribute to Michelle--take it as a break in the brickbats.  Newsweek reports that Michelle is quietly making the race issue hers, in appearances below the radar screen, and also adding personal touches about her hubby's foibles, to connect with voters.  Here is a brief interview with Barack's half-sister, with her thoughts on Islam and race.  Black leaders complain that "black issues" (e.g., high incarceration rates) have been pushed aside by the Clinton-Obama feud.

Blll accused Barack of doing a political "hit job."  Bill said "Shame on you!" when, last year, an Obama campaign memo linked Hillary to fund-raising by Indian-Americans, calling Hill "the senator from Punjab."  (Quick query: How many voters have heard of the Punjab, let alone can locate it on a map?)  A Clinton campaign ad twists an Obama theme about Republican ideas driving policy, into an Obama endorsement of those ideas. 

Pundit Lisa Schiffren also sees a race-based strategy behind the Clinton campaign, and the contest as inevitably one based upon race and gender, because the candidates are twins on the issues and have little in the way of genuine accomplishment in the Senate to argue over.  One Washington Post article recounts how blacks are "stunned" by the Clinton tactics.  African-American columnist Colbert King blasts "Billary" for hypocrisy and arrogance in attacking Obama.  Another Washington Post article notes that tensions between Hispanic and African-American constituencies played a role in Hill's Nevada caucus win, as Hispanics ignored their culinary union's endorsement of Obama, and mostly voted for Hill.

An Obama ad assails Hill over supporting Bill on NAFTA, and says tartly: "She'll say anything, and change nothing. It's time to turn the page."  Obama himself, wooing voters in South Carolina, tried humor: When I was 20 points down, I was a fine young man. The Clintons couldn’t say enough nice things about me.  Suddenly you win Iowa, and the knives come out. Ha, ha, ha, ha.

New York Times reporter Robin Toner contrasts Obama's campaign with the 1984 run of Jesse Jackson, who ran and explicitly racial campaign, seeking a seat at the table for blacks, within the Democratic party.  Blacks gave 91 percent of their votes to Walter Mondale in the 1984 election.  In the fall, especially if Obama is the Democratic nominee, look for at least 95 percent, perhaps even more, to vote for the Democrat.  As to manipulating racial feelings, a remarkable article by Charlotte Allen details (about 10 pages printed out) how a bogus hate crime crisis was created in Jena, Louisiana, and the truth hushed up.  This is essential reading, to understand today's political climate.

Michael Barone supplies telling numbers for: Nevada and nationwide.  In Nevada, Obama carried blacks 83-14, but lost Latinos 64-26 and Jews 67-25.  Nationally, Obama has blacks by 62-19 but loses whites 43-23.  Manhattan Institute scholar Steven Malanga has a 10-pager that details the black-Hispanic divide which has fractured Jesse Jackson's "Rainbow Coalition" dream.  The New Republic's Michael Crowley juxtaposes two CNN polls: an October '07 poll showing Hill up 57-31 among blacks, and a mid-January '08 poll showing Barack up 59-31, a stunning 52-point swing.

And who would be the major beneficiaries of Obama's downfall?  Not Republicans.  Try black leaders like Jackson and Al Sharpton and members of the Congressional Black Caucus.  How so?  The current crop of racialist African-American leaders stands to lose titular entitlement to represent black voters if Obama wins.  They will thus have far more power with Hillary in the Oval Office than with Obama.  The other big losers--if the Clintons prevail: hopes of millions of whites and non-whites--that seemed so bright with passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (despite major urban riots in both years--NYC in 1964 and LA in 1965)--for growing racial reconciliation and societal harmony in the United States of America.

This came about via two Fasutian Bargains made by the Democrats.  The first, made a generation ago, was to support racial preferences, in return for rock-solid black support.  The second, made in 1992 and renewed in 1996, was to ride the Clinton Machine to the White House, in return for accepting the corruption and vindictiveness the Clintons practiced as a political team.  Both bills now have been presented.  The intersection of identity politics and "Billary" campaign politics (which includes the racialist black leaders going public) is aimed at destroying the first genuinely viable African-American candidate by undermining his crossover appeal.

There is another racial dimension.  George Will looks at five racial-preference referenda on the ballot in November: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma.  All will pass--IF they can get on the state ballot.  Racial preference advocates are waging their usual gutter campaign, augmented by huge spending advantages.  As Will notes, California (1996), Washington state (1998) and Michigan (2006) passed no-preference measures.  The margins were 55-45 in CA vs. 13-1 spending, 58-42 in WA vs. 10-1 spending and 58-42 MI vs. 5-1 spending.  A standard tactic has been court challenges to remove such initiatives, alleging lack of clarity, as if clarity were a virtue of initiative opponents.  Will eloquently sums up, referring to the heroic Ward Connerly, the most prominent supporter of non-preference initiatives:

The conventions that govern America's racial discourse derive from the odious "one drop" rule. According to it, anyone with any admixture of black ancestry -- one drop of black "blood" -- is black. So, Connerly is an African-American. One of his grandparents was of African descent, one was Irish, a third was Irish and American Indian, the fourth was French Canadian. Two of the grandchildren of Connerly and his Irish wife have a Vietnamese mother. Are these grandchildren African-Americans?

Maureen Dowd, on Tim Russert's NBC Meet the Press, had the best comment on Sunday, as to the Clinton gutter tactics.  Dowd said that the Clintons went negative against the Founding Fathers during the 1998-1999 impeachment imbroglio, citing Alexander Hamilton's philandering!  Two other funnies in an unfunny week: Letterman mussing up John Edwards's Immaculate Coifception, and John McCain answering Huckabee supporter, martial-arts superstar Chuck Norris's assertion that because he (Norris) at 67 doesn't feel vigorous enough to be President, McCain at 72 is not; McCain answered that he will send Sly Stallone, who endorsed McCain, over to take care of Norris.  But the week ended Saturday night with the ultimate "no-class" gesture by Hill: blowing town before the polls closed, and having no "after" event in S.C., all so she could campaign in Tennessee.

South Carolina may well prove to be the turning point that revived Obama's campaign and marked the end-game for the Clintons.  It would be an irony rich indeed: White voters from the Cradle of the Confederacy repudiate an unholy alliance of a power-hungry white couple and their black racialist co-assassins, who sought to stir up racial animus against an African-American candidate for President --in Abraham Lincoln's re-United States of America.

Index 1/25/08

3 posts: (1) Peacemaker bin Laden?--Us v. Them; (2) Mideast & Gaza: A Tale of Two Peace Models--Weenie Watch; (3) Bobby Fischer: Death of a Wayward Boy Genius--Cyber-Serendip.

Peacemaker Bin Laden?

No, not Osama.  Omar.  One of Osama's sons (4th of 19), married to an English lady.  The New York Sun reports that Omar, age 26, wants to serve as an "ambassador for peace" between the West and militant Islam.  Dad has yet to comment on this, and has not talked to his son, who said: "He doesn't have email.  He doesn't take a telephone ... if he had something like this, they will find him through satellites."  Omar actually trained at an al-Qaeda camp in 2000, but dropped out.  Said Omar:  "It's about changing the ideas of the Western mind. A lot of people think Arabs — especially the bin Ladens, especially the sons of Osama — are all terrorists. This is not the truth."

Actually, virtually no one thinks all Arabs, or all Muslims, are terrorists.  And virtually no one expects that peace with the likes of al-Qaeda is possible.  Perhaps Omar could profit from a chat with the sheiks of Iraq's Anbar province.

Mideast & Gaza: A Tale of Two Peace Models

There are, broadly speaking, two models for an Arab-Israeli peace: (1) Israel First, which has failed thrice; and (2) Arabs First, which has succeeded twice.  So which one does the Bush administration, Foggy Bottom, the Quartet (add UN, EU & Russia, and stir slowly over medium heat, forever), choose?  The former.  The Gaza electric power episode explains this perfectly.

Begin with the historical record.  Arabs First was the model for the Camp David (1978) and Jordan (1994) peace accords.  Camp David began with Sadat's grand gesture, a visit to Jerusalem in November 1977 (prompted by Jimmy Carter's imbecilic idea of a Geneva conference including the PLO, floated in October 1977); Jordan began with quiet below-the-radar performance by the Jordanians, working with Israel over a forty year period (with two exceptions: Jordan's rash entry into the 1967 War, and its backing of Saddam in 1991, the latter especially understandable, given that Saddam was next door and had just swallowed Kuwait).

Israel First was the model for the Oslo Accords (1993), Israel's unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon (2000) and Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza (2005).  Each time, the response of the Palestinians was violence.  In 1996, Israel had begun architectural digging under Temple Mount, with the full knowledge and consent of the Muslim Waqf (the authority that administers the site).  Nearly a year after the project begun, Arafat "discovered" it, and promptly unleashed his terror apparatus.  The Palestinian police, armed by Israel as part of Oslo to keep peace, joined the terrorists in shooting at Israelis.  The Clinton Administration's response?  Strong-arm the Israelis into ceding Hebron, in 1997.

It was after Israel exited southern Lebanon in May 2000, that Arafat decided to launch the Second Intifada.  thus he went to Camp David in the summer of 2000, and turned down a deal offered by Clinton and Ehud Barak, that offered Arafat the West Bank, shared sovereignty over Jerusalem and aid.  Arafat insisted on an open-ended right of return for refugees of the 1948 War (started by the Arabs), including descendants, a right (a) without precedent and (b) that would enable Arabs to swamp Israel with a demographic tide that would eventually result in Jews becoming a minority within Israel, and thus end the Jewish state once and for all.  Arafat used the pretext of Ariel Sharon's September 29, 2000 visit to Temple Mount, a visit negotiated by Sharon with the Palestinians two days earlier, and on September 30, upon agitation at Friday prayers (at al-Aqsa Mosque), Arafat's mobs launched Intifada II, which soon featured suicide bomber attacks.

Then came Israel's August 2005 evacuation of Gaza.  Had the Palestinians responded by starting to build roads, the Israelis would have been pushed by US and international pressure into West Bank talks immediately, without even a short probationary period.  Instead, Israel got, for its unilateral gesture, rockets, and the election in early 2006 of Hamas, a terrorist organization whose leaders do not even fake a desire to make peace with Israel.  The "take out the trash" theory of Islamist democracy--elect radicals, and the voters will say: "OK, revolution's over; now start taking out the trash and building roads!"--was tested, and failed.

Israel First failed because the Arabs interpret tangible, irrevocable concessions as a sign of weakness.  The Arabs, like Oscar Wilde, can resist anything but temptation.  Even with Israel First not asking in two out of three cases, for anything--even intangible, revocable promises--from the Palestinians, the model failed.  So Foggy Bottom, true to Arabist form, proposed the Israel First model yet a fourth time, and spurns the Arabs First model that has failed miserably three times.

Gaza shows why the Israel First model fails: Because Israel is expected to make conciliatory moves first, any firm moves it makes against terror are regarded by the international community as obstacles to peace.  Thus Israel cuts off electricity to Gaza, to stop rockets from smashing into Siderot, and cries of inhumanity issue from the usual suspects, lest a single Palestinian child die on the operating table because a Palestinian hospital loses electric power.  (Twice, apparently, Hamas staged "candle" sessions to convince foreign journalists that they were blacked out--once drawing curtains during daylight hours and lighting candles!)  Cries of inhumanity do not issue from the same quarters, with demand for immediate cessation, when Arab rockets kill Jewish children.  This is because the Arab performance is to come at the end of the process, and therefore Jewish children will continue to die, until a final accord is signed and sealed.

Meanwhile (link unavailable), the Jerusalem Post's Michael Freund reports that 75 percent of children in Siderot suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; here is a related article with some detail.  So what does the UN's human rights body do?  Predictably, they pass a resolution sponsored by Arab and Muslim states condemning Israel but ignoring Palestinian rockets; commendably, the Europeans abstained, because rocket attacks were ignored--a surprise step in the right direction.

Gaza exemplifies other flaws in the Israel First peace model: (1) on all the evidence to date, the Palestinians are not ready for self-governance prime-time; (2) the two-segment state, linked by a conduit bisecting Israel, impairs Israel's security; and (3) asymmetrical international pressure ultimately undermines peace prospects.

What peace recipe might work?  Begin with Gaza and the West Bank being radically different economically, and thus a poor match together.  Add in the inability of Palestinians to govern themselves responsibly.  Stir in the common sense of not bisecting Israel.  Now: (1) give Egypt trusteeship authority over Gaza, and give Jordan the same over the West Bank, with no physical link between the two territories; (2) require a probationary period of Palestinian peaceful performance, as a predicate for asking Israel to make concrete, irreversible concessions; (3) condition aid to the Palestinians on such performance.

Egypt refused to take responsibility, after an estimated 300,000 Palestinians poured into Egypt at the Rafah crossing, opened by Palestinian dynamite; this time, commendably, Foggy Bottom insists that the terror be stopped, and asks that Egypt step in.  Merely asking won't work; conditioning US aid to Egypt ($1.8 billion per year) might do the trick.  As this New York Sun editorial points out, many Gazan residents are Egyptian, not Palestinian, speaking Egyptian Arabic; many have never visited the West Bank.  Prior to the June 1967 War, Gaza was under Egyptian suzerainty.  (Egypt refused to take Gaza in 1982, when per the 1978 Camp David Accords, the Sinai was fulyl reteurned to them by Israel.)  A Jerusalem Post piece argues that Egypt has completed the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza, by showing that it can support Gaza's residents, and thus Israel is not needed to do so.  A New York Times article echoes that theme, but contains a nugget that shows how much outside aid has helped in Gaza: the streets in Rafah are paved on the Gaza side but not in the Egyptian part, while a driver in Gaza makes $27 per day, versus just under $1.50 per day in Egypt.

Instead, the international community subsidizes (rewards) Palestinian terror.  Foreign economic aid to the Palestinians since the beginning of Rocket Diplomacy and the election of an explicitly terrorist government has, after temporary cessation, actually increased.  Already, Palestinians have gotten more than the Marshall Plan sent to Europe, on a per capita basis.  Like the results?  Our Secretary of State publicly compares Israel's security barrier, denying Palestinians access to jobs in Israel, to the 1960s civil rights struggle in the American south.  As if the Palestinians merely wanted to sit at lunch counters alongside Jews, use the same restrooms and ride in the front of buses.  Gunfire and bombs in that era came from white racists; today, they come from Palestinian terrorists.

Out of such policy and perceptual incoherence came Annapolis, and in the end it can come to only one end: chaos and failure.  Four strikes for the Israel First model.  Perhaps new leaders in Washington and Jerusalem will return to Arabs First, and give peace a chance.  Remember: Every party that has sincerely sought peace with Israel has gotten it.  That is why the Arabs First model works.  Israelis are so desperate for peace that they will make painful sacrifices, even those they think manifestly unfair, if peace will result.  It would help if the US leans not on Israel, but on Egypt and Jordan, to pitch in.

Even the Arabs First model will not produce a "just and lasting" peace.  For a peace to be accepted by the Arabs, they must get more than that to which justice would entitle them.  And they can get it from Israel, because Israel desperately desires a final peace settlement, and will concede more than justice requires to get it.  Harking back to Golda Meir's famous quip that there would be peace in the Mideast if and when the Arabs decide they love their children more than they hate the Jews, the fundamental underlying Mideast dynamic is one of parallel hatreds: The Jews hate war above all; the Arabs hate the Jews above all.  Thus, only an unjust (to Israel) peace settlement is a peace that can last.

Bobby Fischer: Death of a Wayward Boy Genius

Chess legend Bobby Fischer's passing evoked memories of his magical chess prowess, and his subsequent tragic descent into paranoid, anti-Semitic madness.  A column by the New York Sun's Daniel Johnson, himself a serious chess player in his youth, suggests that Fischer was kept from madness by his passion for chess and his equally passionate desire to destroy the Russian (Soviet) chess machine during the Cold War.  Fischer's anti-Semitism surfaced in his youth, when he expressed admiration for Hitler, because the Nazi racialist genocidist had imposed his will upon the world.  Yet, Johnson writes, he couldn't have been mad then, else he could not have won the world chess championship.

Edward Rothstein's New York Times appreciation explores the intersection of child genius and abstraction, and the terrible price it can extract.  Child prodigies excel in mathematics, music and chess.  Rothstein writes:

There may be only three human activities in which miraculous accomplishment is possible before adulthood: mathematics, music and chess. These are abstract, almost invented realms, closed systems bounded by rules of custom or principle. Here, the child learns, is how elements combine and transform; here are the laws that govern their interactions; and here are the possibilities that emerge as you play with signs, symbols, sounds or pieces. Nothing else need be known or understood — at least at first. A child’s gifts in such realms can seem otherworldly, the achievements effortlessly magical. But as Bobby Fischer’s death on Thursday might remind us, even abstract gifts can exact a terrible price.

Books have been written, and movies made, about mad geniuses in mathematics and music.  I regard the late, legendary Russian piano virtuoso, Vladimir Horowitz, as a person whose volatile temperament placed him close to, but not over the line of, madness, having attended two of his concerts.  His eccentricities were legendary.  Horowitz excelled at the physical and emotional extremes of pianism, ranging from the exquisite tenderness of a child to the demonic onslaught of mythology's Furies.  Yet in mid-career (long before I heard him), Horowitz walked off the concert stage for twelve years (1953 - 1965), at the height of his artistic prowess.  Fortunately for me and other enthralled listeners, Horowitz returned, and even, in later life, became more comfortable as an elder statesman of his storied artistic generation.  It is easy to imagine that if compositions with extreme emotional extension can drive a performer over the edge, so can efforts to master bewildering, exponentially expanding permutations in grandmaster level chess.

I was traveling in Scandinavia when Fischer's epic world title match against Boris Spassky, in the summer of 1972, began.  Spassky, interestingly, was an attractive, youthful champion, not at all like the aged, impassive Russian champs of yore; in the West, he'd have been more popular than the reclusive, paranoid, grouchy Fischer.  In the event, Fischer, who once won 20 games in a row in grandmaster competition, a feat unheard of ever and unmatched since, stumbled early against Spassky, but recovered and eventually steamrollered him.

Fischer made chess, briefly, at least, an "in" pastime in the US.  But chess is far too cerebral a game to be truly widespread in popularity in a physical sports-crazy country like America.  It will remain a Russian obsession.  But for a brief shining moment, nearly 36 years ago, a troubled genius held the chess world, and much of the wider world, in the palm of his hand, as he became not only America's first world chess champion, but the game's first true international superstar.  And that singular honor no one can ever take away from him.

Index 1/24/08

3 posts: (1) Sound Money: AWOL at the Fed--"It's the Earth Stupid!"; (2) New Republican Capitalism?--The Home Front; (3) Concerts: Should Audiences Participate?--Class v. Crass.

Sound Money: AWOL at the Fed

Bear Stearns chief economist David Malpass presents a powerful case that the Achilles Heel in American economic policy is the Federal Reserve's cheap dollar policy.  Malpass cites historical evidence that markets do not set currency policy in accord with economic fundamentals, and thus active intervention by monetary authorities is necessary to stabilize currencies.  Well worth a read.  Also worth a look is a Wall Street Journal editorial excoriating Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke for pushing stimulus in the form of federal spending, an echo of the 1970s.  While a tax cut would help, former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas explains that Congress never passes tax relief fast enough to make a quick difference--this Congress surely won't do.

New Republican Capitalism?

Pundit David Brooks discerns a trend among Republican candidates: a shift away from supply-side economics (low taxes, less regulation) towards what he terms "middle-class capitalism": a potpourri of targeted tax incentives and cost controls that bolster voters who feel economically vulnerable.  This idea has four pillars: (1) tax credits for education; (2)  health care cost control; (3) a "resiliency agenda" that helps those economically hurt bounce back; and (4) replacing tax cutting with fiscal restraint.  The Wall Street Journal editors caution Republicans not to sound like Democrats on taxes.  The best tax plan offered, say the WSJ editors, is the two-tiered elective near-flat tax plan floated by Fred Thompson (now out of the Presidential race).

Concerts: Should Audiences Participate?

New York Times music critic Barnard Holland wrote a superb column asking why classical audiences sit silent during performance, whereas jazz and rock audiences participate, cheering on their heroes.  Holland notes that in the 19th century it was common for audiences to cheer flourishes by the artist, and that Franz Liszt, the acknowledged supreme virtuoso of the 19th century, mingled with the audience right up to concert time.  Liszt was the first true modern superstar--women fought over his snuff box during a concert, and he attracted crowds as he strolled the streets of Paris.

Begin with this, as to today.  Jazz pianists or other soloists face silent audiences, too.  Only with groups ensembles do classical and jazz diverge.  Chamber concert-goers sit silent, while jazz soloists in ensemble play get applause for their solos.  This is not because classical artists unanimously wish for silent audiences.  The late Artur Rubinstein (1887-1982), legendary as a pianist and for his rapport with audiences (having heard him play in person seven times, I can attest to the validity of both legends), said he would accept applause at any time: before, during or after, or all three.  On the other hand, the famously temperamental Vladimir Horowitz (1903-1989, whom I heard play twice) surely would have stalked off the stage were an outburst to have occurred during his performance.  Rubinstein was an extraordinarily confident performer, who said that his famed wrong notes mattered less to him than those he struck right (most), because the latter mattered more in making for great music.  Rubinstein was right, but also rare, and such insouciance would never be tolerated today by critics (who are wrong, but try to tell them that).

Certainly, mingling with the audience would improve the feel at classical recitals.  Few artists have Rubinstein's gift for turning a concert hall into his living room, by making everyone feel that they sat cross-legged on the floor by the piano in his home.  In December I got a taste of this in attending a recital by Venezuelan pianist Gabriella Montero, who ends her concerts by asking the audience to suggest tunes for her to improvise upon, this also a feature of concerts from Bach through Liszt.  After playing three sonatas (by Chopin, Schubert & Schumann) Montero asked for tunes.  The first tune offered was "Nessun Dorma," but the requester couldn't sing it (Montero drew a blank on the melody, although she knew the title--probably a tad of concert fatigue).  So yours truly stood up in row 16 and chirped out: "da da da da da da da da," and Montero, mercifully for me, recognized my a capella offering--which got scattered applause from the audience, knowing me to be no threat to Placido.

In the end, I come down to the individual choice made by each of today's artists.  If someone feels like Rubinstein, invite the audience to chime in.  Absent an invitation, the audience default position must be silence at classical concerts.  Custom holds sway.  Now, if only we can find someone who can play like Rubinstein....

Index 1/23/08

2 posts: (1) The Marines: A Commandant's Assessment--Us v. Them; (2) Anti-Semitism Trumps Feminism--The Home Front.

The Marines: Commandant's Assessment

Marine Commandant James T. Conway's WSJ interview presents a valuable perspective on where the Marines stand now.  Simply put, the Iraq mission has shifted Marine needs from light and mobile to heavy and blast-resistant.  This, Commandant Conway says, undermines the core mission of the service whose very name signifies amphibious operations.  Worse, the training officers need in conducting such operations, whose complexity dwarfs land-alone missions, is being eroded by the focus in Iraq.  Well worth a close read.

Anti-Semitism Trumps Feminism

Feminist icon Phyllis Chesler assails a blatant example of left-wing feminist anti-Semitism: the refusal of Ms. Magazine to carry an ad featuring Israel's three top female leaders (foreign minister, head of the Knesset and chief justice of the Supreme Court).  Her jeremiad is blistering and well worth a full read.

Index 1/22/08

2 posts: (1) Afghanistan NATO Agonistes--Weenie Watch; (2) Iran's Threat: A Scary Naval War Game + More--Us v. Them.

Afghanistan NATO Agonistes

American and NATO leaders (and troops) are embroiled in disputes over relative contribution levels, strategy and tactics.  A Washington Post 3-pager details the various disputes.  No one appears fully in the right, and there is much potential for simmering tensions to boil over.  Worth a read.

Iran's Threat: A Scary 2002 War Game + More

A New York Times front-pager recounts a 2002 US military war game that yielded chilling results: A Red Team comprised of  Iranian speedboats using machine guns and rockets, plus a fusillade of  ground-based and air-launched missiles, created a "swarm" effect that overwhelmed the Blue Team fleet, resulting in the sinking of 16 warships, including one aircraft carrier.  Like ants killing vastly larger prey, numbers plus mass sacrifice carried the day.

Michael Ledeen, as ever, offers anew, more evidence that Iran works with Sunnis in Iraq and Syria, refuting yet again the notion that Sunni and Shia never cooperate due to religious differences.  Ledeen singles out Treasury Department Undersecretary Stuart Levey for special praise, in pursuing terror financing.  He is right on both counts.  One example illustrates how Treasury is acting, pursuant to a July 2007 Presidential Executive Order (E.O. 13438).  More detail is provided in this posting at the Counterterrorism Blog.  N.B. that Iran's mullahs follow a "pay for performance" policy that calibrates support level to actual results from the field, thus encouraging subsidized groups to carry out terror operations.  Not all is well inside Iran, however, with new ethnic unrest underway.  A Wall Street Journal piece details how President Bush lost a major battle with Iran--inside the State Department bureaucracy.

Writing for Commentary Online, Norman Podhoretz follows up on his print magazine article of 2007, arguing that the case for military action against Iran still stands.  It's a full-length article but, like all NP's writings, is definitely worth reading.

Index 1/21/08

4 posts: (1) Surveillance Consortium?--9/11, 3/11 & N11; (2) Terror Funding--Us v. Them; (3) The European Terror Threat Rises--Weenie Watch; (4) "Lawfare": Strike Four--The Home Front.

Surveillance Consortium?

The Guardian reports that the FBI has asked the Anglosphere governments--UK + ANZAC (Australia, New Zealand, Canada) to join in their "Server in the Sky" program, which uses biometrics, irises, palm prints, fingerprints and other data--watch lists and situational evidence--to seek to spot terrorists.  In the interim, US Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell plans a universal Internet monitoring program, which he realizes will spark ferocious civil liberties attacks.

Terror Funding

American efforts to target terror financing are misdirected, argues Rachel Ehrenfeld, and worse, sovereign wealth funds that are Sharia-compliant pose financial risk to the West.

The European Terror Threat Rises

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Cherthoff warns that terrorists from Europe pose a rising threat to the United States.  As if to emphasize the Secretary's point, a Muslim al-Qaeda geek who is now in jail has been identified as the organization's top cyber-terrorist.

"Lawfare": Strike Four

"Lawfare" is a term coined to describe the use of the legal system to wage war.  President Bush's administration has faced many legal assaults since 9/11.  Here, now, are four examples of what can only reasonably be termed legal warfare.

One.  Yale Law School, whose Dean, Harold Koh, is a prominent legal lefty and former senior official in the Clinton Justice Department, underwrites a meritless lawsuit filed by a terrorist against a former Bush Justice Department official, John Yoo, who authored memos detailing permissible interrogation methods, which since have been repudiated by successor attorneys at Justice.  Yoo is being sued by guess whom?  None other than would-be radiological bomber Jose Padilla, who already has a legal scalp in the form of a Supreme Court win (in 2004 the Court held that although Padilla was detained at Gitmo, the Court had jurisdiction to hear his habeas corpus appeal, because the commander of Gitmo resided in the US).  Having upset one apple cart, Padilla now wants to harass a senior official, aided by the pro bono legal eagle students at Yale.  The suit is an outrage, and one hopes legal sanity will rapidly prevail.  Even so, future officials will keep this case in mind, in writing memos.  (in a related matter, Senator Sandinista, Chris Dodd, continues to bottle up legislation extending the Protect America Act; Dodd wants an 18-month extension, so that in 2009 the new President--likely a Democrat--has a chance to write a successor bill from scratch.  President Bush so far is standing firm against a time-limit to the extension.)

Two.  Islamist groups are increasing using lawfare to sue critics and silence them, with some success.  On prominent Saudi has filed 30 suits, usually overseas, choosing English courts because of the stringent libel laws there, where the author must prove allegations true.  American author Rachel Ehrenfeld, who has published in Commentary magazine, lost a default judgment to the Saudi prince in England, whose courts took jurisdiction based upon 23 English buyers purchasing Ehrenfeld's book on Amazon.  Ehrenfeld challenged the suit in a New York court, alleging lack of jurisdiction and that thus the judgment against her was unenforceable.  Incredibly, she lost, with the court holding that the Saudi had insufficient contact with the US to be brought before the court.  Courts here are asleep at the switch.  Enough suits have been filed so that some planned books are being turned down by publishers.  Canadian blogger-author Mark Steyn has been haled before the country's human rights commission on charges of being "flagrantly Islamophobic."  One staffer at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) openly acknowledged that lawsuits are an "instrument" the group uses.  More detail shows how CAIR thinks.  Also endangered are films like "The Making of a Martyr" by Brooke Goldstein, a chilling one-hour film about Palestinian suicide bomber recruitment.  I have seen the film, which you can download or buy outright at the site above. 

Remedies: (1) Congress should end this by passing a statute giving American courts jurisdiction over libel tourists, and explicitly providing federal statutory protection against such suits.  Standing in the way of passage are Democrats who accept identity politics, which has given us hate crimes statutes, designed to protect blacks and gays from violence, that Islamists can now use.  (2) The administration should negotiate with foreign countries and secure changes in laws that can subject Americans to libel suits for books or films.  (3) Alternatively, Congress can provide by statute that US courts must not enforce foreign judgments that attempt to suppress free speech via spurious libel verdicts.  If Nazis can march in Illinois in 1977, and if Andres Serrano's hideous "Piss Christ" could be exhibited in Cincinnati in 1995, Islamist groups can be made to swallow free speech they dislike, and wish to suppress.

Three.  A class action lawsuit filed after Katrina seeks $3 quadrillion, to be precise, $3,014,170,389,176,410.  Total Gross World Product is all of $65.96 trillion for 2006 (that and much more is in this database), and these guys want 45 times GWP.  Well, take 2007's projected $69T figure, assuming 5 percent growth, and they are only seeking 43 times GWP..  And by the time the lawsuit is thrown out, it will amount to--let's have a ship's pool on the final GWP multiple.  And this is not the only lawsuit!  The Army Corps of Engineers tallies 247 suits seeking at least $1 billion, and 489,000 total claims.  In the words of the Fred Astaire "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" tune, tweaked by yours truly to fit this context: "Billion, trillion, quadrillion, gazillion, let's call the whole thing off...."

Four.  A federal court has ruled that an anesthesiologist who wishes to renege on her contract with the Army, on conscientious objector grounds, is entitled to a hearing (set for Oct. 5).   May Hanna, 30, attended Tufts School of Medicine, for which the Army paid $184,000, expected that she would become an Army medic.  Hanna was to serve in the states, and was promised by the Army that she would not be deployed in combat.  The Army currently has 75 practitioners in her specialty, and needs to fill 20 open slots.  The plaintiff claims that as a devout Coptic Christian she became a conscientious objector (the religion is not a pacifist one); she promises to refund the money.  Testimony from priests, and others who know her, conflict as to her probable sincerity, and she claims a life crisis after the 2003 death of her dad.  The Army finds her timing, on the eve of her graduation, suspicious.

Why she is getting a day in court is a mystery to me.  She doesn't face combat.  Her life crisis is her problem, not the Army's.  In serving, she would get excellent professional training for her civilian medical career.  Simply put, she took a slot from someone else.  The army needs her.  How she can object to tending wounded soldiers is beyond me.  In the event, compare her tale to the exploits of Desmond Doss, who, as a conscientious objector, enlisted in World War II, went to Iwo Jima, and carried the wounded to safety, under fire, for which he received the Congressional Medal of Honor.  No one expects her to be the next Doss, and task well beyond most of us,myself included.  but asking her to honor a contract, in light of the military's urgent medical needs, is not beyond her capacity.  The courts should never have intervened, but perhaps they will do the right thing.
 

Index 1/18/08

One post: (1) 2008 Race: After Michigan--The Home Front.

2008 Race: After Michigan

First, the Democrats.  Hillary's win, with Obama & Edwards passing the state up, means nothing.  But one number is sobering for her prospects: Hill got 25 percent of the black vote, running against uncommitted.  It stands to reason that she'd have done even worse had Obama campaigned.  George Will, already in mid-season form, impales Hill's encounter with what he calls "the indignation industry" of race.  Will, who shares my schadenfreude over Hill's racial train-wreck, is at his witty best in a must-read column.  Charles Krauthammer echoes Will, but focuses on the persistence of white liberals' self-assigned role as conduits for black progress, as the prime source of the identity politics dust-up.

The real action was, of course, on the Republican side.  At 39-30-16 over McCain & Huckabee, Romney goes up solidly, and McCain takes a solid hit.  Put simply, McCain needed a close second to keep his momentum; his 8-point loss hurts his chances in South Carolina, and impairs his ability to raise funds.  Romney may run badly in South Carolina, which further hurts McCain, by giving the state to Mike Huckabee.  Were Romney and Huckabee to split the right-side vote, McCain could get a big win.   This doesn't look to be in the cards, although Real Clear Politics shows a composite poll average giving McCain a 4.4 percent lead (Obama is up 9.5 percent).

Pundit Fred Barnes attributes Romney's big win to his superior appeal on economic issues, where Romney, a hugely successful investor and businessman, has far deeper grounding than does fighter-jock McCain.  McCain also touches conservative nerves on taxes, where he has been, and continues to be, wobbly.  Barnes notes also that reporters loathe Romney and like McCain:

Anyway, this allows McCain to call reporters "jerks" and other playful names. They know he's joking. On Fox News yesterday, McCain said he needs not only "Republican, Democratic, libertarian, vegetarian" votes, but also "Trotskyites. I know there's still Trotskyites around because I travel with the media on the bus."

NRO's Byron York writes that Romney's win reflected his promise-all to Michigan's economically distressed voters.  McCain paid a price for saying that some jobs will never return, a statement Romney branded as "baloney."  McCain is probably correct, but he simply does not have Romney's economic heft.  Romney can thank Michigan's Democratic Governor, the photogenic Jennifer Granholm, whose dismal economic policies have laid Michigan low, for an unintended assist.  Romney is not actively campaigning in South Carolina, to focus on the Jan. 29 Florida primary.  One problem he has is the perception of many voters that he is phony; this op-ed by a former chauffeur of MR offers clues as to why he comes across as inauthentic.  As for Huckabee, Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel notes that Huckabee is not dominating the religious votes, and must appeal as well to other parts of the Republican base.

Because I am traveling into mid-next week, I will not cover South Carolina until Monday, January 28, after the Democratic primary on the 26th.  As to Nevada's Saturday primary, WSJ's John Fund details how Hillary's troops tried to suppress hostile union voter turnout by closing down caucus sites, ostensibly to reduce the risk of voter fraud; the Clinton camp went to court, and lost yesterday.  Perhaps this explains why Obama, for the first time, attacked Hillary's (lack of) character.  On the plus side, a New York Sun editorial informs us that this week Obama explicitly disavowed his home church's giving an award to Louis Farrakhan and expressed support for Israel.

Index 1/17/08

2 posts: (1) Terrible Trio: Bill, Hill & Al--The Home Front; (2) Jose Padilla: Legalism's Poster Boy--The Home Front.

Terrible Trio: Bill, Hill & Al

Essayist Noemie Emery has a catchy 8-pager on the unholy trio of Bill, Hillary & Al.  Emery has, for nearly a decade, consistently written insightful essays on politics.  This one is worth a read.

Jose Padilla: Legalism's Poster Boy

A Rutgers law professor, John Farmer, compellingly argues that the Jose Padilla case (Padilla was arrested in 2002, for allegedly planning to carry off a radiological bomb plot) signifies the corruption of criminal law, because the law is being bent in two ways: (1) "material support," which used to mean lots of aid to a crime's commission, has been debased to merely offering one's personal services; (2) conspiracy law, which traditionally has required (a) a planned crime and (b) an overt act in furtherance of the plan, has been debased to mere planning alone, which amounts to punishing thoughts.  The professor recommends that a special preventive detention law for terror suspects be passed.  He notes that had Padilla set off a bomb and killed a carload of people, and had the government's suspicions not been acted upon, the result would have been public rage.  The article is an excellent one.

Index 1/16/08

2 Posts: (1) President Bush's Abu Dhabi Speech--The Home Front; (2) Global Warming: Cooling Off?-"It's the Earth Stupid!".

President Bush's Abu Dhabi Speech

President Bush gave a tour d'horizon speech last Sunday, in Abu Dhabi.  LFTC has frequently expressed views on all topics 43 covered, so this offering of his is posted without comment.  Reporter Judy Miller has a nice 6-pager on Abu Dhabi, and its place within the Gulf emirates.  But a president's foreign policy depends in no small measure on its execution, which involves the State Department.  AEI scholar Michael Rubin offers samples of diplomats' thinking from Foggy Bottom's in-house publications.  They make fun reading, alas, much of it is beyond mere parody.

Global Warming: Cooling Off?

An astrophysicist writes in The New Statesman that the globe may once again actually have begun a cycle of cooling.  Since 2001, temperature has remained steady, not rising as it did during the previous quarter-century.  Were carbon emissions the cause of warming, the rise in global temperatures would have been 0.3 degrees higher.  His short piece is well worth a look.  Meanwhile, Baghdad saw, for the first time in decades...snow.  OK, a day's snow is hardly evidence, but global warmers cite the hottest days in summer, so turnabout is fair play. 

Meanwhile, a monster 16,000-foot high volcano, Tungurahua in Ecuador, has been rumbling for months; scientists expect a major eruption soon--which will if large enough, lower global temperature (as Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines did in 1991: causing an 0.5 degree drop in worldwide temperatures for 1992 and 1993).  BTW, snow brought zero violence to Baghdad.

Index 1/15/08

4 posts: (1) Race in the 2008 Race--The Home Front; (2) Baghdad: "Normalcy" Returns--Us v. Them; (3) North Korea: Consistent--Us v. Them; (4) China's Space Threat Metastasizes--Us v. Them.

Race in the 2008 Race

A Rasmussen national poll shows Obama ahead of Hill 66-16 among blacks and Hillary 41-27 ahead among whites, in South Carolina.  A Time article sees race potentially deep-sixing Democratic unity and hurting them in the fall campaign.  Such an assessment seems premature, but that race is a major factor in the Democratic primary is now a fact, one that may be irreversible.  Yesterday, Hillary's staff contacted the Obama staff and sought a truce; the candidates called upon supporters to cool off.  In South Carolina, where among all Democrats Rasmussen's ranking is Obama 38, Hill 33 & Edwards 17, Obama leads Hill by 23 points among blacks, and trails Hill by 19 and Edwards by 10 points among whites.  Urban historian Fred Siegel calls the debate one of "competitive victimization" that reminds voters why the Democratic party spent "so many years in the wilderness."  (An extra nugget: journalist Christopher Hitchens wittily nails Hill over her--and her husband's history of mendacity, including Hill's 1995 whopper, upon meeting Sir Edmund Hillary in Nepal, that she had been named after the Mt. Everest conqueror-hero who passed away last week; in fact, when Hill was born in 1948 no one had yet heard of the beekeeper from New Zealand who in 1953, when Hill turned 5, rose to well-earned fame.)

The controversy over race has pushed discussion of issues off the charts.  Echoing Fred Seigel, pundit David Brooks sees an "identity trap" in the politics of victimization and group sensitivity:.  Brooks rightly sees the Democrats hoist by their own petard: "All the habits of verbal thuggery that have long been used against critics of affirmative action, like Ward Churchill and Thomas Sowell, and critics of the radical feminism, like Christina Hoff Summers, are now being turned inward by the Democratic front-runners."

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, a prominent liberal voice, calls upon Obama to disavow the pro-Farrakhan views of his spiritual adviser at his church, the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.  There is a real ethnic issue--anti-Semitism--one Obama dodges on the rare occasions that he is asked about it.  Cohen expresses confidence that Obama is no anti-Semite, and there is no reason to think Obama is.  But disavowals of extreme supporters are routine fare for many candidates, and Obama doesn't deserve a pass, in Cohen's (and my) view.  Another development of note, presented in an amazing article in today's Washington Post, is that establishment civil rights leaders are not rallying to Obama, because his candidacy is displacing them as lead spokesmen for African-Americans.  The article is a riveting read.

It is easy to feel considerable schadenfreude at the identity politics maelstrom engulfing the Democrats, but in truth, the persistence of the phenomenon bodes ill for the 2008 race, and for governance thereafter.  Its poisons will infect the body politic for generations.

Ending this post on a brighter note, Pete Dupont, former Delaware Governor, provides WSJ readers with a look at how the candidates shape up on five key issues.  As a practical matter, issues will mean more in the general election, or when primary races narrow to two candidates, because voters (myself included) cannot keep track of five candidates' positions on ten issues; the matrix is too complex.

Baghdad: "Normalcy" Returns

A Washington Times article presents a welcome picture of activity returning to normal in one of Baghdad's formerly most dangerous neighborhoods.  Notable is the growth of a non-corrupt, relatively efficient national Iraqi police force, the longtime Achilles heel of security efforts since the fall of Baghdad nearly five years ago.  One National Police official told Sunnis and Shia at a meeting: "We are all one people.  All of us are responsible to God for the blood of the innocent people."  A terrific Washington Post front-pager informs us that Baghdad University is back in full swing.  Al-Qaeda ordered the campus shut down in 2003, and thug-cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has his minions distribute flyers designed to intimidate dissenters from his orthodoxy.  But the 80,000 students persevere, through hardships vividly recounted in this article, one that is a must-read.

Bill Kristol shows how deeply in denial Democrats are about progress in Iraq.  They attribute the turnaround to the November 2006 election result, when, in fact, the Anbar sheiks came to us in September 2006, driven by al-Qaeda's atrocities to throw their lot in with us.  Also, Iraq's government has now passed a de-Baathification law, meeting one benchmark established in 2007 by Congress.  Pete Hegseth, founder of Vets for Freedom, a group supporting veterans of the Afghan and Iraq wars, demolishes the last vestige of the argument that November 2006 voters swung the sheiks.  Army Reserve Captain David French gives us a nice snapshot of counter-insurgency operations in Diyala Province.  A Marine officer discusses valuable lessons learned from the Iraq conflict.

North Korea: Consistent

Former UN Ambassador and proliferation star John Bolton assesses North Korea's latest deadline missed and finds no surprise.  Bolton considers this positive, as further evidence proving North Korea's malign intentions.  Examination of melted tubes given inspectors showed traces of highly-enriched uranium (HEU).  This is significant because North Korea's first bomb-producer, the Yongbyon facility, is a plutonium reactor--i.e., it uses reprocessing to separate plutonium from spent fuel rods.  HEU is an alternate road, more complex, by which thousands of centrifuges are spun at twice the speed of sound, to separate HEU out via gaseous diffusion.

Bolton adds that on February 25, Lee Myung-bak will bring a harder line on the North than South Korea has had in the President's office in the past decade, and that Yasuo Fukuda in Japan--whose government has, the WSJ editors report, rejoined the fight by sending, once again, ships to the Indian ocean in support of NATO operations in Afghanistan--will also support a harder line.  (To which we can but say, per Paul Henreid to Humphrey Bogart in "Casablanca," "And welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win.")  Bolton recommends that the South join the Proliferation Security Initiative (which Bolton fathered when at the State Department in Bush 43's first term).  Then, he hopes that US-ROK-Japan will pressure China to exert economic leverage against the North, which it has been unwilling to do.

China's Space Threat Metastasizes

Washington Times defense reporter Bill Gertz filed a scary story last week.  The least scary part is that debris from China's January 11, 2007 destruction of an old satellite endangers 20 percent of orbiting satellites (400 of the 800 put at risk are American).  The threat from debris will persist for--get this--a century.  Yes, that was 100 years.  So what did Congress do last year, when a Pentagon general asked Congress to fund a program to arm Trident submarine-launched missiles, formerly nuclear, with conventional munitions, to enable rapid launch to destroy Chinese ASAT (anti-satellite) rockets before they get far off the launch pad?  Congress refused to fund the program.  Congress did this despite estimates that China will be able to destroy all American low-orbit satellites, which are absolutely essential for military reconnaissance and precise targeting, by 2010.

Index 1/14/08

2 posts: (1) Afghanistan: Our Ace in the Hole--Us v. Them; (2) Election Reflection: Deflection?--The Home Front.

Afghanistan: Our Ace in the Hole

Terror expert Gary Anderson finds our ace in the hole: al-Qaeda's primitivist brutality.  As he puts it: "Simply stated, to know al-Qaeda closely is not to love it."  Anderson's op-ed proposes that we skip the charm offensive form of public diplomacy, and instead publicize al-Qaeda's brutality to Muslims, and thus undermine its reputation in the Islamic world.  Worth a shot, and worth a read.