Politics
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Libby
As you might could guess, I’m a bit let down by this whole Libby business. While it does involve perjury, (yay irony!) I don’t think it’s got the potential let us have prosperous gridlock and partisanship for the next few years.
It’s still surprising that people are taking what Joe Wilson said at face value, particularly the “it was impossible for uranium to get out of Niger (a third world country) because corporate safeguards were in place” bit. Also, the indictment would seem to make clear that no original crime (i.e. outing a covert CIA agent) was committed.
Also unmentioned by most commentators is the fact that Libby was the lawyer of fugitive billionaire Marc Rich, who was pardoned by Bill Clinton but still remains wanted for other crimes elsewhere. He was also mentioned in the UN Oil for Food scandal.
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Victory!
Miers withdraws!
Now Janice Rogers Brown perhaps?
Curiously this was not buried during the weekend.
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Baby Boomer nostalgia
Rather than focusing on the good, though moot, objections to invading Iraq, or useful strategies for withdrawal, Anna Qunindlen writes her variant of the standard column comparing Iraq to Vietnam. Needless to say she doesn’t mention the American occupation of the Philippines as another, more accurate comparison.
There’s no need to read the column, it’s just like all the other baby boomer nostalgia pieces. One telling part was
They should remember one of the most powerful men the party ever produced, Lyndon B. Johnson, and how he was destroyed by opposition to the war in Vietnam and bested by those brave enough to speak against it.
At least Johnson had the good sense to be heartbroken by the body bags. Bush appears merely peevish at being criticized. Someone with a trumpet should play taps outside the White House for the edification of a president who has not attended a single funeral for the Iraqi war dead.
Two Comments
- If Johnson was destroyed by opposition to the war in Vietnam, then how was he followed by two terms of Richard Nixon? Wouldn’t a peacenik have been elected instead?
- Funerals are for family, friends, and people who knew the deceased. They are not photo ops, political opportunities or anything else. Were Bush to attend one it would be dominated by the media and Secret Service and ruin a special sad moment.
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Grudgingly
I’m starting to like Tom Delay. An example of all is wrong and unlibertarian about the Republican party, yes (except maybe on guns). He is giving us entertainment value for our tax dollars, which is more than you can say about most politicians.For those of you who aren’t aware, this is his recent mug shot.
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Interesting
One of Bush’s more useful qualities (for him) is the ability to draw the right enemies. Just as Clinton excelled at drawing out the right wing crazies, Bush draws out the left, and internationally to boot. This CNN article, Mugabe, Chavez slam U.S. at U.N. event came as no surprise. While it is not necessarily a good thing to be hated by people recreating Stalin’s Ukrainian horror from the 30s, it certainly SEEMS like a good thing.
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Similarities
I think I’m the only one to see the similarities between Barack Obama and Paris Hilton, namely they’re famous solely because commentators and not reporters talk about them.
This is a correlation of no significance mind you, it is odd though. I think I’ll create the term “Media Famous” to describe it.
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Good analysis from Barone
In his latest column in US News, Barone has some interesting thoughts on the current state of the Republican and Democratic parties, to wit, there are more conservatives than liberals, but the Dems have been effectively captured by the left (in primaries) which does not bode well for them, or American really.
It’s well worth reading.
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Pithy quote
From an old article by Jesse Walker
But if I had to speak in terms of that map, I’d say the most successful culture warriors come from the blue states. The authoritarian conservative wants to maintain the old taboos. The authoritarian liberal wants to introduce some new ones, and he’s had a lot more success. The religious right may despise homosexuality and pornography, but the gay movement is thriving, despite last week’s losses, and porn is more freely available than ever before.
The liberal puritans, by contrast, are riding high in the media and in the courts. For many Americans, the Democrats are the party that hates their guns, cigarettes, and fatty foods (which is worse: to rename a french fry or to take it away?); that wants to impose low speed limits on near-abandoned highways; that wants to tell local schools what they can or can’t teach. There is no party of tolerance in Washington — just a party that wages its crusades in the name of Christ and a party that wages its crusades in the name of Four Out Of Five Experts Agree.
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Before anyone asks
Before anyone asks, I’m very fine with DeLay being indicted. Particularly after his “no more fat to cut” statement.
Further on that thread, see the Franklin Delano Bush by David Boaz of Cato and this column by Mark Steyn, money quote:
Big-time Republicans tell me Bush’s profligacy is doing a great job of neutralizing the Dem advantage in the spending-is-caring stakes. This may have been true initially — in the same sense as undercover cops neutralize a massive heroin-smuggling operation by infiltrating it. But, if they’re still running the heroin operation five years later, it looks less like neutralization and more like a change of management.
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Well put by Kaus
The ever-readable Mickey Kaus has some good insight
Escape from TimesSelect: The NYT’s Tom Friedman, in an exceptionally blowhardish appearance on Meet the Press, laments the effect of massive U.S. borrowing from China:
I think we have–we are now in a position where China has– they’re heading for $1 trillion, OK, of our–in reserves that they’re going to be holding, basically. And the leverage that is going to give China over the United States in the coming years, God knows where– how that’s going to play out.
Hmm. If you lend a trillion dollars to someone, does that give you leverage over them or them leverage over you? I’d always thought it was the latter, especially when the debtor is a sovereign nation. (Keynes: “Owe your banker 1000 [pounds] and you are at his mercy; owe him 1 million [pounds] and the position is reversed.”)
It’s worth noting that the Chinese (and whoever) are gambling on the US Government keeping it’s word and paying back all of their debts, which seems a bit iffy.