You Win-Lose Some
- Indochina vs. Iraq: Andrew Sullivan reads today’s New York Times op-ed by Peter Rodman and William Shawcross and concedes that he is “caught short” by the humanitarian case for staying in Iraq: “Will we condemn more innocents to death by staying or by leaving? Would the short term costs of leaving be high but the long-term costs of staying higher? These are largely questions not susceptible to definitive answers.” But in the end Sullivan concludes that withdrawal is the worst option, except for all the others. He writes:
On the morale front, it’s increasingly clear that whatever propaganda advantage al Qaeda gets from US withdrawal (and we’d be fools not to acknowledge they’d get a big lift) must be balanced against the massive propaganda disadvantage we sustain by continuing a doomed occupation. My sense is that al Qaeda has more to gain in the short-term from a US withdrawal; but in the long term, al Qaeda is better served by a continuing and doomed American occupation. Strategically, the balance seems to me to favor withdrawal to the Gulf states and the Kurdish-Turkey border.
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Politics imitates “Family Circus”: The new No. 4 candidate in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, according to the rankings done by Marc Ambinder and Chuck Todd for National Journal is No One. (OK, it’s not Not Me, but it’s close enough.)
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During the war in Iraq, can presidential candidates still be “insurgents” who “surge”? The American Prospect’s Garance Franke-Ruta writes of the word “insurgent” at Tapped, “Every time I write that word I feel uncomfortable, because I hate using the same word to describe American political contenders, especially a Democrat who is already being appallingly confused for a terrorist, and the people attacking American forces in Iraq.”
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Only some laws were meant to be broken, apparently: “Note that most of the folks who are so furious about ‘amnesty’ when it comes to peasants who broke the law to escape poverty and oppression have no problem forgiving rich Washington lawyers who broke it to cover up for their political cronies,” writes UCLA public policy professor Mark Kleiman at The Reality-Based Community, an academic group blog.
You Win-Lose Some
- Indochina vs. Iraq: Andrew Sullivan reads today’s New York Times op-ed by Peter Rodman and William Shawcross and concedes that he is “caught short” by the humanitarian case for staying in Iraq: “Will we condemn more innocents to death by staying or by leaving? Would the short term costs of leaving be high but the long-term costs of staying higher? These are largely questions not susceptible to definitive answers.” But in the end Sullivan concludes that withdrawal is the worst option, except for all the others. He writes:
On the morale front, it’s increasingly clear that whatever propaganda advantage al Qaeda gets from US withdrawal (and we’d be fools not to acknowledge they’d get a big lift) must be balanced against the massive propaganda disadvantage we sustain by continuing a doomed occupation. My sense is that al Qaeda has more to gain in the short-term from a US withdrawal; but in the long term, al Qaeda is better served by a continuing and doomed American occupation. Strategically, the balance seems to me to favor withdrawal to the Gulf states and the Kurdish-Turkey border.
-
Politics imitates “Family Circus”: The new No. 4 candidate in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, according to the rankings done by Marc Ambinder and Chuck Todd for National Journal is No One. (OK, it’s not Not Me, but it’s close enough.)
-
During the war in Iraq, can presidential candidates still be “insurgents” who “surge”? The American Prospect’s Garance Franke-Ruta writes of the word “insurgent” at Tapped, “Every time I write that word I feel uncomfortable, because I hate using the same word to describe American political contenders, especially a Democrat who is already being appallingly confused for a terrorist, and the people attacking American forces in Iraq.”
-
Only some laws were meant to be broken, apparently: “Note that most of the folks who are so furious about ‘amnesty’ when it comes to peasants who broke the law to escape poverty and oppression have no problem forgiving rich Washington lawyers who broke it to cover up for their political cronies,” writes UCLA public policy professor Mark Kleiman at The Reality-Based Community, an academic group blog.
Down by the Dumpster
Drew Cline, the editorial page editor of New Hampshire’s Union Leader, files an on-the-scene report from the “activists’ corral” outside last night’s Republican presidential debate, where the turnout by Brownback supporters was, to put it politely, unimpressive. Cline writes on his Union Leader blog:
Waaaaay back in the back, between a large green Dumpster and the row of port-a-potties, was a small contingent of Sam Brownback supporters. The Huckabee supporters were in front of the Dumpster. I asked some of the Brownback folks what they were doing back there, and they said they guessed they didn’t get there early enough. When I said that no one could see them from the road, they shrugged and mumbled something about not wanting to jostle for a spot up front. If that’s the sort of effort they’re going to put into this campaign, Brownback will drop out before Mike Gravel.
Not only did Mike Huckabee manage, savvily, to position his supporters in front of the Brownback-blocking Dumpster, but the former Arkansas governor has also turned in three consecutive debate performances that impressed the pundits. But charm and wit aren’t enough to mount a serious presidential campaign. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, at his The Fix blog, provides a post-debate anecdote that helps explain why most political reporters think Huckabee, despite his supporters’ smart Dumpster positioning, hasn’t built a credible campaign organization.
“Can Huckabee capitalize on his strong showings? We’re skeptical,” Cillizza writes. “Why? A colleague pointed out that as our e-mail inboxes were being flooded by cherry picked positive reviews for the Big 3, there was nothing from Huckabee. Nuff said.”
Huckabee did manage to make Cline’s cut of serious candidates, however. After the debate, Cline proposed voting four of the 10 Republican candidates off the island, and Huckabee wasn’t one of them. (Brownback was.) Cline writes in another post on his blog:
Gilmore, Brownback, Paul and Thompson simply did not deserve to be there. You can be as conservative as Reagan, but if you don’t have the charisma, charm or leadership skills to compete on the world stage, then you will not make an effective President, much less presidential candidate. These guys failed to show that they have any ability to lead the nation. It would’ve been a better debate without them.
– Chris Suellentrop
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Down by the Dumpster
Drew Cline, the editorial page editor of New Hampshire’s Union Leader, files an on-the-scene report from the “activists’ corral” outside last night’s Republican presidential debate, where the turnout by Brownback supporters was, to put it politely, unimpressive. Cline writes on his Union Leader blog:
Waaaaay back in the back, between a large green Dumpster and the row of port-a-potties, was a small contingent of Sam Brownback supporters. The Huckabee supporters were in front of the Dumpster. I asked some of the Brownback folks what they were doing back there, and they said they guessed they didn’t get there early enough. When I said that no one could see them from the road, they shrugged and mumbled something about not wanting to jostle for a spot up front. If that’s the sort of effort they’re going to put into this campaign, Brownback will drop out before Mike Gravel.
Not only did Mike Huckabee manage, savvily, to position his supporters in front of the Brownback-blocking Dumpster, but the former Arkansas governor has also turned in three consecutive debate performances that impressed the pundits. But charm and wit aren’t enough to mount a serious presidential campaign. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, at his The Fix blog, provides a post-debate anecdote that helps explain why most political reporters think Huckabee, despite his supporters’ smart Dumpster positioning, hasn’t built a credible campaign organization.
“Can Huckabee capitalize on his strong showings? We’re skeptical,” Cillizza writes. “Why? A colleague pointed out that as our e-mail inboxes were being flooded by cherry picked positive reviews for the Big 3, there was nothing from Huckabee. Nuff said.”
Huckabee did manage to make Cline’s cut of serious candidates, however. After the debate, Cline proposed voting four of the 10 Republican candidates off the island, and Huckabee wasn’t one of them. (Brownback was.) Cline writes in another post on his blog:
Gilmore, Brownback, Paul and Thompson simply did not deserve to be there. You can be as conservative as Reagan, but if you don’t have the charisma, charm or leadership skills to compete on the world stage, then you will not make an effective President, much less presidential candidate. These guys failed to show that they have any ability to lead the nation. It would’ve been a better debate without them.
– Chris Suellentrop
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Dawn of the B-List Republicans
Blitzed again? The Republicans debated last night, and Wolf Blitzer won again, suggests another “Talk Clock” infographic from Chris Dodd’s campaign.
Among the non-moderators on the stage, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney received roughly twice as much time as each of the other candidates. But Atlantic blogger Matthew Yglesias thinks the “B List” comported itself well, despite the paucity of air time. “To me, a shockingly large and diverse group of B List Republicans — Huckabee, Brownback, Tancredo, and even in their ways Paul and Thompson — are more impressive than the official ‘big three,’ ” Yglesias writes. “They all seemed to me to come much closer than Giuliani, McCain, or Romney to be coming at things from a principle[d], coherent point of view. The top contenders are all ‘Reagan! Terror! Bush! Terror! Reagan! Terreagan!’ and weirdly busy running away from their actual records.”
Among the so-called “B List,” former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee seems to be the candidate with the most potential for garnering, if not an A-minus, then maybe a B-plus from political-theater critics. Marc Ambinder, an associate editor at The Atlantic who has a new blog with the oddly descriptive title “A Reported Blog on Politics,” has caught Huckabee Fever: “Three debates, three worthy performances for Huckabee,” Ambinder writes. “Unfortunately, none of these debates have been widely broadcast in Iowa, and Huckabee’s organization seems [incapable], as of yet, of harnessing his hard work during the debates.”
Another “second-tier” candidate, Rep. Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, said during the debate that immigrants should cut all ties with their country of origin when they come to the United States. Time magazine’s Ana Marie Cox deduces, “Tancredo wants to outlaw St. Patrick’s Day.”
What about the A list? Former House majority leader Dick Armey still doesn’t like any of them. “I’m of the same opinion now that I was before the debate,” writes Armey, who is guest-blogging at Swampland. “The eventual winner of the Republican nomination is probably not in the field right now, and sadly, neither are many of the issues.” Unanswered in Armey’s post: Which non-candidate does he support, Fred Thompson or Newt Gingrich?
— Chris Suellentrop
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Hillary’s Iowa Problem
Is Iowa a more sexist place than the rest of America? Linda Lantor Fandel, the deputy editorial page editor of The Des Moines Register, fears that it is, and that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is suffering because of it.
A Des Moines Register poll conducted in January “found that only 55 percent of Iowans think the country is open to choosing a woman as president,” she notes. (Polls that ask what your neighbor thinks are considered a more reliable indicator of prejudice than a direct question, because people are presumed to be reluctant to confess their own chauvinism.)
In the May 20 Des Moines Register poll of likely caucus-goers, Clinton places third in Iowa, after John Edwards and Barack Obama. “Maybe Clinton’s standing here has nothing to do with sexism,” she writes. “But maybe it does. After all, what does explain why Iowa has never elected a woman governor, why Iowa has never sent a woman to Congress, or how Clinton is faring? In interviews with women in the Iowa Legislature for an essay I wrote earlier this year, many had run into outright gender discrimination in their campaigns.”
She concludes, “[M]y gut feeling, based on living in Iowa more than 20 years, is that there’s a lingering prejudice that women should not stake out too high a profile.”
On the other hand, too much can be made of a state’s historic prejudices. After all, no woman had won a statewide election in New York before Hillary Clinton’s victory in her 2000 Senate race.
– Chris Suellentrop
Creation Differences
Robert T. Miller, an assistant professor at the Villanova University School of Law, says that part of Sam Brownback’s New York Times op-ed on evolution is “obviously wrong.” But Miller does not object to Brownback’s evaluation of the science. Instead, he opposes the Kansas senator’s “general observations on the relationship between faith and reason,” which Miller believes are “worrying.” Miller writes at On the Square, the First Things blog:
For some people, of course, it’s a matter of faith that God created the world in six days about six thousand years ago; but it’s nevertheless knowable by natural science that this is not the case. Similarly, many people believe in faith that God exists, but Catholics hold (and Senator Brownback is a Catholic) that this proposition can be known by reason in philosophy. Hence, the subject matters of faith and reason in part overlap.
The distinction between faith and reason, correctly understood, is based not on a difference in subject matter but on a difference in epistemological warrant, that is, on the kinds of reasons a person may have for assenting to a particular proposition.
Miller adds, “Senator Brownback, as I said, is a Roman Catholic, but his view of faith and reason is not the one generally upheld in the Catholic tradition.” He explains:
It’s right that natural science doesn’t tell us anything about values, meaning, and purpose, but philosophy surely can, and it’s just ridiculous to think that human reason, as in Shakespeare, doesn’t teach us about suffering or love. To relegate normative questions to the realm of faith would be to deny the existence of an objective morality knowable by human reason — and in this way the virtues, natural law, and human rights become indistinguishable from whatever putative divine commands any crackpot may say he has lately received. This is not a view that anyone, especially someone involved in public life, should want to defend.
Last week, U.C.L.A. law professor Eugene Volokh, writing at The Volokh Conspiracy, examined (but did not answer) the question, “Does it matter that Sam Brownback doesn’t accept the theory of evolution?”
– Chris Suellentrop
