Denial is a river in Cautious Optimism

I nearly fell out of my chair last week when I read an excerpt from a Der Spiegel article (sorry, no link) covering Bush’s European charm offensive which briefly pondered whether Bush might actually be right about his Middle East policy.

In Monday’s Washington Post, Jackson Diehl wrote the following:

As thousands of Arabs demonstrated for freedom and democracy in Beirut and
Cairo last week, and the desperate dictators of Syria and Egypt squirmed under
domestic and international pressure, it was hard not to wonder whether the
regional transformation that the Bush administration hoped would be touched off
by its invasion of Iraq is, however tentatively, beginning to happen.

Why was he trying hard not to wonder about the regional transformation? Is that supposed to be unthinkable? It certainly is to Maureen Dowd who refused to answer a question posed by Tim Russert on Sunday’s Meet the Press. When asked if Bush’s policy my have actually started the chain of events, Dowd dodged and parried as best she could:

MR. RUSSERT: Maureen Dowd, "on a roll"--there were no weapons of
mass destruction, which was the primary rationale for the war, but would you now accept the fact that, because of the invasion of Iraq, there is a possibility of
democracy in Iraq and perhaps that may spread through the Middle East?

MS. DOWD: I think Bill and Tom are right. It's so 20th century to go to war because you have to. Now, we go to war because we want to. But the problem with that is that kind of moral absolutism gets you into a lot of ends-justify-the-means traps. And that's what we saw in Europe and with Putin, because Putin can also say, "Well, our ends justify our means." And look at us, and we're torturing people and we're outsourcing torture. The administration is trying to throw journalists in jail and basically trying to replace the whole press crew with ringers, including male escorts. I mean, even Nixon hated the press, but he never tried to
actually do an "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" thing with them. So as Tom
has pointed out, it's a Pandora's box. There are good spirits and evil
spirits that we've unleashed.

Sadly, that seems to be the default fall back position for much of Bush’s detractors. Not only does her response fail to cede the obvious, but it replaces an answer with a red herring. Does anyone actually buy the moral absolutism “ends-justify-the-means traps” argument that she regurgitates? Does she actually think that Putin is using our actions to form his own? He wouldn't have clamped down on the Russian press if Bush hadn't done the same here? The episode she alluded to was a recent back and forth between Bush and Putin about freedom of the press. The intercourse was remarkable because it showed just how oblivious Putin was in the Rathergate affair when the Russian president accused Bush of firing the old CBS goat. Putin’s astonishing ignorance could be the subject of a whole other post, but to someone like Dowd, who believes the administration is trying to throw journalists in jail and replacing the press pool with ringers (never miss an opportunity to point out the male escort) Putin’s charge seems perfectly natural. But I digress, the question was whether Bush’s policies have led to the recent rash of elections in the Middle East. And Dowd pleads the fifth.

There may be the rare columnist here or there that might actually admit that Bush’s detractors were wrong and that Bush was right, but on the whole, I think the kind of response we can expect from the usual suspects can be summed up by the following line from Diehl’s piece:

“It also won't be entirely Bush's creation: The tinder for ignition has been
gathering around the stagnant and corrupt autocracies of the Middle East for
years.”

And perhaps that’s even too generous for some, because it suggests that Bush had something to do with the recent events and I’m sure that we all know a few people that will simply not let such an assumption stand. I suspect every effort will be taken to shift the credit away from Bush and put it on any other possible contributing factor that presents itself. No doubt squirming will be involved as democrats and leftward pundits adapt to the new reality of an increasingly free Middle East, but it will mainly be detectable to those that supported the war from the beginning. Those that opposed it still wish to live in their remarkably durable bubble that withstood that giant prick of November 2nd and continues withstand the pricks of good news on a repeated basis.

And there’s the cautious optimism set, formerly known as the freedom-is-good-but-inaction-is-better group – like Thomas Friedman. His recent talking point of "tipping points" sounds a little more upbeat that his January 6th take on the elections, which, he thought, would pave the way for an Iraqi civil war. On October 3rd, Friedman wasn’t sure about what was salvageable there. I wish I’d saved all the gloomy columns I’d read from the NYTimes, because many of them treated any positive news with kid gloves. This was good, but….and then a litany of all the bad stuff that could still go wrong. Still, even though it’s getting harder to be pessimistic about Iraq, Friedman is duty bound to remain worried that the tipping points don’t tip the wrong way.

Indeed, in the Middle East playground - as Friday's suicide bomb in Israel
reminds us - tipping points are sometimes more like teeter-totters: one moment
you're riding high and the next minute you're slammed to the ground.

We all recognized the gamble that we took by invading Iraq (including neocons, believe it or not), but what Friedman would rather not say is that any failure puts us back in a place similar to the previous status quo. Very little can emerge out of the old Middle East that is worse than what once was. At worse, we’ll find ourselves in the same position as we did in 9/11 but with a humiliating loss to siphon off any resolve we would have to be successful in the war on terror. But, if we lose, then that resolve never existed in the first place – so what’s the difference?

That means that Americans are divided into two and a half camps. There’s the camp that is forever haunted (or emboldened) by our failures in Vietnam and who believe we can’t win this war. There’s the camp that says we can and will win it. And finally, there’s the half camp that says we need to win but were doing it all wrong. The latter stakes their tent in the “we can’t” camp but refuses to say they live there. No doubt, that explanation is too simplistic to some (like Tom Friedman, I’m sure), but it roughly breaks down that way.

Part of the shortcomings in Friedman’s worldview can be seen in the following:

Thanks to eight million Iraqis defying "you vote, you die" terrorist
threats, Iraq has been reframed from a story about Iraqi "insurgents" trying to
liberate their country from American occupiers and their Iraqi "stooges" to a
story of the overwhelming Iraqi majority trying to build a democracy, with U.S.
help, against the wishes of Iraqi Baathist-fascists and jihadists.

Whereas Friedman may have just seen the story reframed into such terms, I’m sure Iraqis saw the story in the latter terms for quite awhile now. Unbeknownst to Friedman, the big tipping point happened a while back with Bush's decision to change the face of the Middle East. It turns out that that tipping point went the right way and the only reason we are even talking about the recent outbreaks of democracy, whether Shiites will be able to reach out to Sunnis or whether Mubarak is serious about election reform is because Bush made a decision a couple of years ago.

Back in 02’ and 03’ there was one knowable tangent regarding action in Iraq and that was this: opponents to the war will never fully acknowledge it as a success. For those of us on the right who are waiting for a “I told you so” moment, we will only be frustrated because such a moment will never happen. It wouldn’t have mattered if large caches of WMDs were found or if bin Laden’s cell phone was listed in Saddam’s little black book, the dye was caste when that monkey, Bush, thought he could nation build and no amount of success will justify the death of x number of dead U.S. soldiers. That the mere question would be raised that Bush may have been right, is farther than anything I would have expected. As Noemie Emery recently quoted John Stewart:

"Here's the great fear that I have," said comedian Jon Stewart once the Iraq
elections were over. "What if Bush, the president, ours, has been right about
this all along? I feel that my world view may not sustain itself, and I may, and
again I don't know if I can physically do this, implode."

Sadly, the comedian isn't joking.

Bush fails, Egyptian President Imposes Democracy

"How is President Bush going to carry out his promise to invade dictatorships and impose freedom if they keep announcing changes like this?" said an unnamed Democrat Senator.

Curious date in history

Today is the anniversary of the 1993 WTC bombing and the 1984 Marine pullout from Lebanon (leaving it to Shi'ite militiamen).

Cute

LGF and Right Wing News on Ted Rall

I can see why Ted is so frustrated. He can't say anything anymore without it coming back on him. A case of too much free speech, I suppose.

Fascinating story about shrines in Japan

Thanks, Mr. Dzurinda

That’s funny, I was preparing to post a response to this Buchanan article when Mat made the previous post.

I’m always heartened when Buchanan is on the other side of an issue. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a smart guy, but I also think he is pretty consistently wrong.

One of the main differences I have with this particular article is his interpretation of mission creep. I’m not entirely sure how to interpret his reference to Lincoln. Is Buchanan saying that Lincoln didn’t see the Civil War as a war to save the union in the beginning? I think he did. I would have expected Buchanan to use the argument that abolition wasn’t the reason for the war until the emancipation – that would have been wrong also.

Next, Buchanan sited Wilson’s changed rhetoric from not understanding the reason for war in 1916 to proclaiming it a “war to end all wars” and “to protect democracy” in 1917. But I think Buchanan glosses over an underlying consistency in Wilson’s worldview that ran beneath both his pacifist and wartime positions that was tied to his evangelical background. The immediate catalysts for wars may have been tied to “lesser interests” but the big picture reasons for those wars was always present, even if the participants were not able to see it so defined. In other words, the contingencies that led Europe into the Great War (like the Schiefflin Plan) may be “lesser” things, but the rift between a more enlightened west and a more autocratic east (along with perpetual national interests) was the major issue that made that conflict inevitable, and it was present well before the war (and beyond, in this case). Likewise, slavery was the major issue surrounding the Civil War – and the fissure between north and south was present from the first slave ship landing in the colonies. All the other inequities between the two sides (i.e. industrial strength and economic output) were a result of this institution.

Regarding the spread of democracy: I would say that as our world becomes more intertwined, we increasingly rely on the benevolence and freedom of other parts of the world to keep trade and prosperity open for everyone. Personally, I don’t care what the 9/11 hijackers were thinking when they were recruited into al Qaeda or when they crashed into our buildings. To me, the root cause of their actions was not the humiliation they felt because of a U.S. presence on holy land (though they may think so), but rather a closed society that blamed others for its own deficiencies, causing pent up frustration and inspiring radical actions because no other method of venting was available. True, the U.S. reliance on oil has fed that problem, but it didn’t cause it. And that reliance will not disappear by our recognition of it. It will take years and years for the U.S. to “invent our way out” as Kerry liked to say. What we can do is topple regimes like Saddam’s and work with the people to form a representative government where an Arab can vote with a ballot and not a belt bomb. To do nothing is to promote endless collisions. Consider the trend of terrorist attacks that led up to 9/11. With each inaction of ours, the terrorists became increasingly bold and their attacks became more deadly.

Also, the world has changed since our forefathers espoused the virtues of isolationism (never mind that Jefferson sent our navy to N. Africa to fight Barbary piracy). Our ocean buffers are not what they once were. Maintaining old friendships (as Buchanan later brings up as a reason for non intervention) is not always in our national interest – or, so thought Washington in his second inaugural address. I think Bush picks up on Washington’s point regarding alliances when, during his recent trip, he says that they must be based on shared values. The daunting task of fighting a seemingly endless war against terrorism is not dissimilar to the argument for pursuing a missile defense. What seems unattainable now will always be so if your do not work towards a goal. However, steadfast devotion to an end will make eventually make it attainable. We are not going to directly confront every autocratic nation and force democracy on them at once, since that is impossible. But, by taking the spread of freedom off the back burner and making it a central focus of our foreign policy, we will chisel away at the tyrannies of the world. Are we going to depose Musharraf because he isn’t elected and has postponed democratic reforms? No. Should we? No. Will we be able to push reforms on Pakistan after the swamps of radical Islam are drained from Afghanistan? Very possibly.

I must admit that I don’t understand Buchanan’s pessimism about the war on terror. Where he sees a wasted $200 billion and 1,400 lost American lives, I see something else. I see a budding representative government in Iraq where Shiites have to deal with Kurds to build a coalition government, where both of those groups seem willing to include Sunnis who sat out of the voting process. I see Lebanese protestors emboldened by Iraq and the Ukraine to march against Syrian occupation. I see the dynamics of Palestinian politics in a much needed flux instead of the decades old static cesspool, which Saddam supported, under Arafat. Sharon is gaining ground on a proposed pullout of the Gaza strip. I see the Israelis willing to complete their fence, which will improve the circumstances on the ground in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Who knows, it may set up a final phase for a permanent settlement. I see where 140,000 Saudis actually picked some leaders themselves and where anti Mubarak demonstrations were allowed to happen….these all bode well for the freedom of the region and they all stem from Bush’s foreign policy.

I think Buchanan’s isolationism is a major reason that the paleo-cons are becoming less and less significant in conservative circles.

Is N. Korea getting closer to collapse?

Iowahawk has the goods on the Bush junta

The Truth is Out There: I corrected the link. Sorry.

Wead does the right thing

Bandying numbers

Rumsfeld and Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez have a back n forth. (via Mudville Gazette)

Does Deep Throat exist?

I'm sure Dude is pretty well read on this subject and can weigh in better than I can, but this Jonah Goldberg piece brought up something that I had never really considered (which isn't saying much as I'm not a Watergate affecianado), it's easy to pin the Deep Throat tag on a dead guy.

King Solomon's Mines

is an incredible film! I remember seeing it way back when on a grainy UHF print and didn't think too much of it. But after just watching the new DVD, where it's been freshly shined and polished, I fell in love with it. The photography is wonderful and it has all the components of a perfect action story - a reluctant hero, good looking heroine, a perilous quest and a big map of Africa with a huge grayed out section in the center earmarked "uncharted," where reports of a hostile tribe scare away everyone with any sense - though that's exactly where Allen Quartermain (Stewart Granger) will lead the party. There's just enough 50's hokiness to satisfy the cheese lover and enough intrigue to make you forget your watching a movie.

Next on the Netflix list: The Ipcress File, El Cid and several Ozu films, beginning with Tokyo Story and ending with the Story of Floating Reeds. Though after watching King Solomon's Mines, I'm tempted to bump up Scaramouche just to see more of Stewart Granger!

Tim Blair

identifies the parties in the vast right wing conspiracy.

Too funny

Ted Rall is bent out of shape over the blogosphere:

Bloggers are ordinary people, many of them uneducated and with nothing
interesting to say. They're sitting in their rec rooms, regurgitating and
spinning what real journalists have dug up through hard work. They don't have
sources, they don't report, and no one holds them accountable when they make
mistakes or flat out lie. Yeah, there's a new sheriff in town. Unfortunately
he's drunk, he's mean, and he works for the bad guys.

Of course, everyone and their dog has a blog, including me and at one time, my cat, but Ted is off the mark to suggest that there's no accountability, no sources or no education among bloggers. The major right wing blogs - LGF, Instapundit, Powerline, Captain's Quarters, so on and so forth, are well educated, link-rich with sources and are very accountable from their readers. The above mentioned are quick to post corrections - much faster and willing that the Washington Post, CNN, LATime, NYTimes, etc.

As for having nothing interesting to say: then why the phenomenon?

Oops!

I meant to post something during lunch but got caught up adding movies to my Netflix queue. I have searched high and low for the Pacific University debate transcript between Howard Dean & Richard Perle. If anyone comes across it (I'm not sure one is out there) you should post it!

Can someone explain the Gannon frenzy to me?

I’m not sure I understand all the hubbub over the Jeff Gannon ordeal. Many lefty bloggers, including my old friend Jay whom I linked to previously, think that they need to harp on this story for the next few news cycles. Warning: that would be a mistake. I mean, where’s the story here? The closest thing to a story is Gannon’s access to the White House briefings – but hitherto all accusations that he was somehow in the employ of the administration are completely baseless. I haven’t even seen anything that hinted at such a conncetion, but apparently the outraged left thinks that politically baited questions are proof enough that one exists. As Powerline indicated in their response to the affair (which is much more rational and thoughtful than any of the left’s attack posts that I've seen) Gannon was more or less doing the same thing that Helen Thomas has always done, except in reverse.

Another Powerline post ask some questions based on angry lefty emails that have filled their inbox that I’m curious about too:

Why are liberals obsessed with the fact that Jeff Gannon was once a gay
escort? Beats me. Why does this character think that as conservatives, we are
duty-bound to hate gay escorts? Beats me. We've done close to 10,000 posts on
this site, and I doubt that we've ever mentioned gay escorts one way or another.
Would I want my son to be one? No. Do I think that having once been a gay escort should disqualify Jeff Gannon from becoming a reporter, or entering any other
occupation? No. Why do liberals find this so hard to understand? And how on
God's green earth does this make us "hypocrites"?

Of course, what we've criticized the left-wing blogs for is posting nude photographs of Gannon. How does the twisted "logic" manifested by these
emailers justify that contemptible practice? Once again: beats me.

SS Reform

I was actually disappointed that part of Clinton's '96 run was built on not touching SS, and I'm disappointed that the Dems' Congressional leadership is bent on preserving the New Deal, rather than proposing new initiatives to draw a larger marketshare at the ballot box.

I don't ever expect to see the $15,388 that I have paid into it so far in my lifetime, not to mention the $15,388 my employers have matched.

SS is a Ponzi scheme, and is therefore only sustainable as long as you have more suckers coming into the system than are cashing in on it. It was probably a good tool in the Depression years, but with a larger economy, plus the introduction of new retirement tools, such as IRA's and 401(k)'s, it's time to do serious reform. Even if it's not yet a crisis.

Given that we can't scrap it and give employees a 6.2% raise (and employers an equal cut in payroll expenses), I would do the following:

Change the link from the rise in wages to the rise in prices, which do not inflate as quickly as wages. Basically, it would be saying the purchasing power in 2005 would be the same in 2050.
Raise the cap on income for the payroll tax (currently $87,900), so it's not so regressive and so that it generates more revenue to cover expenses.
Implement means testing, so that we're not giving Donald Trump an extra source of revenue when he retires. I could drop this one as long as the cap on payroll tax was raised.
Allow for private accounts. However, I don't understand Bush wanting to limit how you could invest private accounts. If I want to take higher risk with money from my paycheck, I should be able to do so.
Expand IRA's and 401(k)'s to raise the caps, and perhaps to encourage to contribute more to employees' accounts and accelerate the vesting period.

Of course, the transition to private accounts would have been better served by the surplus funds Bush had before tax cuts than by borrowing more money. And that is money that will come from Japan and China, our 2 largest creditors. I don't mind borrowing from Japan so much, as they have proven a consistent ally. However, going into hock to China, a country whose economy is projected to surpass ours in size in the next 20 years, isn't good financially or politically. Financially, interest rates at home will go up. Politically, we lose some of the leverage we currently have with them.

On a related note, David Brooks notes that by 2015, half of all government spending will go to those 65 or older. ("In the Midst of Budget Decadence, A Leader Will Arise", NY Times, 2.19.2005). I'm not sure where he got that number from.

The politics of Green (more)

So it's the tactical proposals, not the strategic, that you disagree with.

You suggest passing an energy bill would alleviate the situation. What specifics would you recommend?

Did I write Krugman? I meant Friedman.....My apologies to both.

I don't think either Friedman or I suggested Bush is a bonehead for not considering Friedman's proposals.

Had you noticed the oxymoron in "force democracy on them so that they can control their own destiny"?