Archives,
2007

January 1, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Saddam at the gallows: video

For those with morbid curiousity about the hanging, there are probably several valid URLs, but this one seems to be among the more original versions of that grainy cell phone video clip: pandachute.com, located via Google Video. I saw it during the New Year's Eve party last night, and while the haste and partisan nature of the execution were a little disturbing, I wouldn't quibble with Iraqis doing things their own way. They have very good reasons for feeling the way they do. It was, at least, much more proper than the Christmas 1989 execution of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. As BBC editor John Simpson opines, however:

Altogether, the execution as we now see it is shown to be an ugly, degrading business, which is more reminiscent of a public hanging in the 18th Century than a considered act of 21st Century official justice.

Well! As for the hanging itself, John Krenson lays out "The moral case for Saddam's execution." He acknowledges the anti-death penalty position of the Catholic Church and others, but argues that the small possibility that Saddam could have one day escaped and resumed brutalizing his opponents justified taking extreme measures for society's own defense. He cited Jules Crittenden who writes, "The world is a better place rid of this filthy murderer," (hear, hear!) and has a roundup of blogospheric reactions. Jeff "Protein Wisdom" says the execution "provides a kind of psychological relief for the many Shia oppressed and brutalized by the thuggish Ba'athist regime." No one should underestimate how important that is. Jeff also echoes my point regarding Saddam's last-minute conversion to conciliatory politics, paraphrasing Samuel Johnson:

Depend on it, Sr, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates the mind wonderfully. (SOURCE: Oxford Dictionary of Quotations 3rd ed., 1980)

January 3, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Was Gerald Ford a "RINO"?

The funeral services for President Gerald R. Ford in Washington National Cathedral and in Grand Rapids, Michigan today raise the touchy question of what has become of the Grand Old Party. In today's Washington Post, Dan Balz and David Broder wrote, "the Republican Party that spawned Ford and his brand of Midwestern conservatism barely exists today." Indeed, the way many Republican activists talk these days, someone like Ford would be castigated as a "Republican In Name Only." Balz and Broder cite praise for Ford from former Rep. Vin Weber, a moderate and very intelligent Minnesotan who got burned by the Religious Right in the 1990s. It will be interesting to see whether the occasion of President Ford's passing away leads to the kind of "soul-searching among Republicans" that Balz and Broder wish for.

In today's News Leader, Mike Radoiu expressed similar thoughts, asking "Who'll be the new Gerald R. Ford?" Mr. Radoiu grew up in Michigan and thus had a special appreciation for President Ford's old-fashioned virtues:

I also saw in him that self-effacing and common sense style so familiar to me while growing up in the Midwest. This was a world that valued practicality over partisanship, cooperation over rancor and that always preferred to build bridges rather to burn them down. In his world, negotiation trumped gunslinging machismo and consensus building ruled the day. ... The irony is that Mr. Ford's party, having taken a sharp rightward and radical turn in the past two decades, would have pilloried him today as too moderate, too accommodating and simply not conservative enough.

It saddens me to acknowledge that quite a few Republicans today fit that description. I would like to think that it is possible to be strongly in favor of conservative policies without becoming part of the hard-edged nastiness à la Tom DeLay and Karl Rove, but such a distinction may be too subtle for most people. If so, and if the zeitgeist in America really has turned decisively toward the center of the political spectrum, the prospects for honest conservative reform may have slammed shut for the foreseeable future.

January 4, 2007 [LINK / comment]

110th Congress: open for business

More likely, it is open against business, but that remains to be seen. Senators Reid and McConnell met this morning in preparation for the opening session of the 110th Congress and announced their desire to work together in a constructive, bipartisan fashion. Kumbayah! Well, that's easier said than done. After all, it was Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin who compared U.S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo to totalitarian regimes [in June 2005]. That wasn't very nice, or truthful. Indeed, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday that "Democrats are planning to largely sideline Republicans from the first burst of lawmaking." After the Democrats' initial "100-hour" flurry of reform bills and resolutions, much will depend on whether the Republicans are disciplined enough to behave like the responsible minority party they once were. If so, the Democrats will be under heavy pressure to show to the public that they were serious about getting things done for a change. The Democratic base is ardently opposed to any backtracking, however: Activists on the Left are pushing hard to withdraw from Iraq as quickly as possible, and even begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush; see the Post. One of those activists is on my list of unmentionable wackos.

In a surprising gesture of cooperative spirit, President Bush declared he will submit a plan to balance the budget within five years. He also wants Congress to make the process of "earmarking" appropriations bills more transparent, to prevent sneaky things like Sen. Ted Stevens' infamous "bridge to nowhere." See Washington Post. Well, it's about time! Actually, such rules changes were proposed over a year ago. I suppose it's easier to call for spending cuts and restraint in pork barrel projects when your party is no longer in charge of the budget... Likewise, Bush's readiness to acquiesce is a major hike in the minimum wage is understandable politically, but from a conservative policy standpoint, it is terribly depressing.

Interestingly, wonk-blogger Josh Marshall has been too busy complaining about the execution of Saddam Hussein to devote much writing to the Democrats' first day back in legislative power. As the Republicans learned over the past decade, the responsibilities of actually making policy decisions can wear a guy out. For some folks, it's easier just to throw mud and whine about red herrings.

Will Democrats get hold of themselves and refrain from the temptation to exact maximum short-term revenge against the Republicans for the sake of their long-term interests? All those squabbles associated with Rep. Pelosi's choice of committee and caucus leaders make one skeptical. I have nothing against women in positions of power, mind you! I'm guessing it will be a few months before she really gets the hang of leadership, giving and taking as dictated by political expedience. In the meantime, the table of congressional leaders, which appears on the Politics blog page, has been updated. We should remember that South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson remains hospitalized after suffering a brain hemorrhage last month, and no one expects him to return any time soon.

Making up, too late

Rep. Virgil Goode shook hands and made up with new Rep. Keith Ellison, who used the Koran for the ceremonial oath-taking. Humble reconciliation is a good and Christian (!) thing to do. Meanwhile, however, Goode's office in Charlottesville was spray-painted with the word "BIGOT"; see TPM Cafe. The town where Thomas Jefferson used to live really doesn't belong in Rep. Goode's Fifth District, which consists mostly of rural counties in south-central Virginia. Blame that on the 1992 redistricting by the Virginia Democrats who took away then-Rep. George Allen's constituency; and the rest is history...

The Nixon Library

I've seen an old colleague (well, he was way above me) from the U.Va. Miller Center on C-SPAN a few times recently. Timothy Naftali, a Cold War historian who wrote Blind Spot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism and several other works, was named Director of the Richard Nixon Library & Museum last April. A month or so ago he appeared with former Secretary of State Al Haig in a discussion of Richard Nixon's foreign policy legacy. I must say, Gen. Haig is still on the ball after all these years, and he's not afraid of expressing criticism of the neocons around Bush who have left Iraq in such a mess. (He was kind enough to respond to my queries about the Falklands crisis while I was doing my dissertation research.) Prof. Naftali is truly both "a scholar and a gentleman," a combination that is hard to maintain these days. He grew up in Montreal and was an Expos fan from the days that they played in Jarry Park.

January 5, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Virginia blogosphere flap

Meanwhile, back in the Old Dominion... I haven't been paying much attention to the Virginia blogosphere lately, which is why it was not until yesterday that I learned of an odd controversy with a local twist. It seems that Charlottesville blogger Waldo Jaquith *, who maintains a list of Virginia political blogs, drew some heat for de-listing a right-wing graphical blog called General Grievous' Dog because of what he deemed to be inappropriate content. Frankly, I can't blame him. Each of us have our own standards of what constitutes good taste; to each his own. In response, a guy I know who does the Spank That Donkey blog (out of respect, I'll omit his name on this occasion) asked Waldo to remove his link in protest, and the polemical sparks really started flying. In response, conservative bloggers Shaun Kenney and Chad Dotson (who had "closed up shop" after the election) took time to make blog posts in support of Waldo, on principle. Kenney wrote, "Waldo Jaquith's prime metaconcern has always been with the tone of the blogosphere." Finally, Slantblog cited Daily Progress columnist Bob Gibson with regard to the recent Virgil Goode controversy and this silly tempest, asking if there is "something strange in Staunton's water supply?" Ho, ho, ho. Slantblog goes on:

It seems the Boycott Waldo movement was mostly centered in the Staunton area. I don't know how many different people it really involved, but I'm left to wonder why Republicans in that part of Virginia seem so different than others?

Methinks he doth generalize too much. Or perhaps it is just a case of selective attention. After all, the City of Staunton (where I live) is a separate political entity from Augusta County, as was made painfully clear by what recently happened to the old swacgop.org Web site. What a shame... Is it any wonder I have such a hard time taking Virginia politics seriously? Anyone who reads this blog knows that I emphatically share the concern of Waldo and Shaun about the increasingly coarse tone of political discourse these days. Those who know me personally can attest that I have taken more than my share of criticism from political colleagues for refusing to put up with nastiness and polarization. Maybe this even temperament stems from my Midwestern roots, like Gerald Ford. One lesson I have been drawing from post-election developments such as this incident is that there isn't nearly as much difference in terms of anger and bitter resentment between Right and Left as there used to be. Another lesson is that the blogosphere is becoming more and more crowded with pushy rank amateur newcomers, to the detriment of all. I have often marveled at how obsessed some bloggers are with drawing attention to themselves, as if blogging were an exercise in pure vanity. I prefer dignified modesty, thank you. In any case, I've updated my blogroll and look forward to following a broader range of commentary on Virginia politics, as time permits.

* I remember hearing Waldo on WINA radio in Charlottesville several times during the 1990s when he was a precocious teenage globe trotter of sorts. As in, "Where's Waldo?"

On a related note, there is a lot of chair-switching going on among big-time Republican bloggers (including Virginia's Jon Henke), according to Daniel Glover; via Instapundit).

"Blue Dogs" mark their turf

After the second day back in power, the Democrats seem to be reasonably well organized. For me, it's a good sign that the conservative "Blue Dog Coalition" is exerting a lot of influence, resisting the demands of the Democrat left wing. In a press conference today, co-chairs Mike Ross (AR) and Allen Boyd (FL) outlined their budget deficit reduction plans, and made it clear that they support the effort of our armed forces in Iraq. Rep. Stephanie Herseth (SD!) serves as the caucus Whip, and is a very impressive rising star in the Democratic Party. Other key members include Jane Harman (CA), who is still peeved at Speaker Nancy Pelosi for passing her over for the post of intelligence committee chair. One of the newest members is former Redskins quarterback Heath Shuler (NC). Oddly, however, there is not a single member from Virginia! In terms of national politics, nonetheless, the center is where the action is these days. I hope enough Republican leaders remember their "traditional value" of fiscal responsibility before the political tides shift decisively in the Democrats' favor.

January 8, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Conservation and Bell's Lane

In the Sunday News Leader, columnist Bruce Dorries wrote in praise of a movement by area residents who are opposed to paving over and developing the picturesque rural landscape of Bell's Lane. Mr. Dorries draws an apt comparison between slow-paced, dignified Staunton, and booming Harrisonburg to the north, where development spurred by the growth of agribusiness and James Madison University has resulted in ugly sprawl. We don't want to be like that! He interviewed several of us at the Augusta Bird Club meeting in December, when a petition calling for preservation of that scenic area was circulated. Aside from its purely aesthetic qualities, Bell's Lane boasts a unique combination of habitats -- wetlands, ponds, and rolling pastures -- attracting a wide variety of migratory birds. It was there that I saw ten different bird species for the first time, most notably the Short-eared owl. Apparently, the city of Staunton wants to build a shortcut bypass right through the middle of that precious area, which would ruin it. "McMansion"-style subdivisions are another distinct possibility. I called attention to that issue last July, and I hope enough residents of this area wake up and demand that their leaders take the necessary measures (tax breaks or whatever) to conserve the area's natural beauty before it's too late.

January 10, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Kaine's State of the State speech

Gov. Tim Kaine gave his first State of the State this evening, live from Jamestown, marking the beginning of the 400th anniversary of the founding of the first colony in Virginia in 1607. It was almost one year ago that he was inaugurated in nearby Williamsburg. In tonight's speech he tried hard to maintain a positive attitude, and he mostly succeeded. I was pleased that he acknowledged that there is a link between the transportation problem and local land use policies. The Republicans apparently convinced him on that count, at least. Unfortunately, he kept talking in terms of meeting "needs," claiming that solving the problem means finding sufficient revenues. No, Governor Kaine. It is a matter of reforming structural incentives so that localities no longer can count on getting bailed out by the government in Richmond for the traffic consequences of the sprawling development for which they themselves are responsible. No more blank checks!

For much of the rest of his speech Kaine cited a laundry list of liberal do-gooder projects, such as his beloved pre-school care proposal. His statement that the "success of our children" is a "bipartisan value" we can all agree on was, to be perfectly blunt, pure malarkey. Early childhood development is not a matter of "success" and "failure" like high school and college are. It is, rather, a matter of building social skills and imbuing youngsters with a sense of identity and self-worth. It is a task best handled at the household and neighborhood level. Are we going to subject toddlers to the same kind of regimented standardized-test criteria that older children are already forced to endure? Then there was expanded medical insurance, and of course he glossed over the fact that such entitlements do not apply to illegal immigrant workers. (In contrast, Gov. Schwarzenegger just came out with a proposal to make such benefits apply to everyone, regardless of legal status!) Immigration is one of our biggest problems, but Gov. Kaine barely touched on it, which is a gross dereliction of duty. Finally, I could not believe he actually implied that a person earning the minimum wage ought to be able to afford to purchase a home. The only place where that is possible is in Utopia -- which means "nowhere."

All in all, Kaine's speech gave little or no indication that he is familiar with the conservative critique of social engineering, or even aware of the fact that most Virginians -- and their legislators in Richmond -- subscribe to conservative principles. It would seem that his big grin is emblematic of a truly deluded view of reality. I do have to give the Governor credit, however, for emphasizing the need to provide incentives to preserve our precious heritage of natural beauty and rural tranquility. Family farms should get sufficient tax consideration so they do not have to sell off their land to make room for more subdivisions full of McMansions. On that, I think, a large majority of liberals and conservatives can at least agree.

January 12, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Hitchens on Ellison's Koran

Rep. Keith Ellison had a clever way to punctuate his high-toned response to the Virgil Goode flap last month: He took the ceremonial oath on a copy of the version of the Koran that Thomas Jefferson edited. (Most Virginians know that Jefferson published his own version of the New Testament, deleting supernatural events and other things he didn't like.) Boy, did Keith Ellison show Virgil Goode!

Or did he? Christopher Hitchens has an apt retort to the pious pleas by new Rep. Keith Ellison for more tolerance in America:

In the first place, concern over Ellison's political and religious background has little to do with his formal adherence to Islam. In his student days and subsequently, he was a supporter of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, a racist and crackpot cult organization that is in schism with the Muslim faith...

Now Rep. Goode doesn't look so bad, in relative terms. (Hat tip to Michael Oliver). Suffice it to say that Mr. Jefferson would not have looked kindly upon such a sect espousing intolerant, absolutist views. Hitchens also notes the irony that Jefferson was the first president to go to war with the Islamic world, launching punitive attacks on the Barbary states in North Africa -- as in "the shores of Tripoli." Jefferson may have been galvanized into action by hearing how Tripoli's envoy to London used the Koran to justify going to war against "infidel" nations, and taking slaves from them.

Hillary losing ground

According to the Washington Times, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's popularity has fallen in several key states. (Hat tip to Patrick Carne.) She has distinguished herself from the rest of her party by voicing clear support for fighting terrorists in the Middle East, so perhaps Bush's "surge" strategy may be dragging her down in the polls, ironically.

January 13, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Fred Thompson for president?

That's what Stephen Bainbridge wants, and it sure makes sense to me. (via Instapundit) Thompson had a cautiously upbeat take on President Bush's "surge" speech, which he thought demonstrated a "new attitude." See National Review. (It didn't strike me as very new.) Well, partisan loyalty is a virtue -- at least for those who are running for office. I don't make much of the fact that Thompson is an accomplished actor (in movies and on NBC's Law and Order), but I do think he is the kind of no-nonsense mainstream conservative who could appeal to a wide range of voters. I ranked Newt Gingrich at the top of my list of prospective GOP candidates last month, and Thompson would be a strong second at this point.

January 15, 2007 [LINK / comment]

The roots of multiculturalism

Many people are perplexed at how it came to be than so many Europeans, and even Americans, so deeply loathe their own culture that they are willing to surrender to hostile immigrants, many of whom are Islamic. (You don't have to agree with everything Pat Buchanan says to recognize that such trends are real.) Aren't the artistic and cultural heritage of Western Civilization worth defending? [At Baron Bodissey's Gates of Vienna blog, "Fjordman"] reviews the early 20th Century history of cultural Marxist "critical theory" expounded by the Frankfurt school, as well as the social theorists Antonio Gramsci (Italian), and Georg Lukacs (Hungarian), who are conventionally regarded as the source of this self-hatred. In some universities, those names are as sacrosanct as Saint Thomas Aquinas or Cardinal John Henry Newman are in the Catholic Church. Many leftists concluded that the only way to overthrow capitalism was to subvert its moral underpinnings. [Fjordman] argues convincingly, however, that multiculturalism really goes much further back, and has its origins in the writings of such Enlightenment figures as Montaigne, Voltaire, and Edward Gibbon. As he writes:

In some ways, what is going on now surpasses the downfall of the Roman Empire. It has never happened before in human history that an ethnic group voluntarily finances other ethnic groups to advance their culture on their territory to the detriment of their own people. Native Europeans are paying people who openly declare to be our enemies to eradicate our civilization and are told to celebrate this as tolerance.

I wouldn't go quite that far. Indeed, tolerance and respect for minority rights* are part and parcel of what defines our Anglo-American socio-political heritage. But no value can be taken to an extreme without impinging upon other values, and there has to be a reasonable balance struck. As the book by Richard Posner reminds us, the Lockean liberal principles that underlie our political system should not be regarded as a "suicide pact."

* an appropriate theme to recall on Martin Luther King's birthday.

UPDATE: I had intended to mention that one of the first political theorists to propound the notion that subversive, anti-Western attitudes emanated from the Enlightenment was Eric Voegelin, who wrote The New Science of Politics (1952). In his mind, Marxist revolutionary thought and action had their origins in people like Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

January 17, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Obama-mania begins!

Sen. Barack Hussein Obama -- a.k.a., "Barry," as his college friends called him -- has set up an exploratory committee for a presidential campaign in 2008, and from the way the press talks, you'd think he was a shoe-in. All of a sudden, Hillary has lost her status as most likely Democratic nominee. Only three years ago, Obama was in the Illinois state legislature; ironically, he portrays his lack of experience in national politics as an asset. When elected to the U.S. Senate just over two years ago, he promised to serve his entire six-year term. Oh well, nobody's perfect... For more on this superstar's background, see the Washington Post. Aside from vague upbeat platitudes, it's hard to pin him down on policy issues. My main concern is that his fondness for old-style Big Government solutions would drag us back to the 1970s. It would also be a big shame if the first-ever African-American president had no family roots in the African-American experience of slavery and discrimination.

Previous blog posts on Obama: Feb. 7 (2nd item) and Dec. 5 last year, and July 28, 2004 (2nd item; his speech at the Democratic convention).

Someone should write a book on famous "media darlings" in history: Mikhail Gorbachev, John McCain, ...

January 18, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Is Newt Gingrich a "RINO"?

Of course not! He does, however, exhibit a quality that is very rare in the Party of Lincoln these days: forthright, courageous candor. According to GOPUSA.com,

Gingrich blames flawed strategy for the Republicans' loss of both houses of Congress in the November election.

"A base-motivation party inherently, in the long run, drives away the non-base," Gingrich says.

He said he believes the party can build a durable governing majority but first must abandon the strategy of Karl Rove.

If anyone lacking his impeccable conservative credentials had said such words, they would have been driven out of the party. That is simply a reflection of the pathologically thick-headed way of thinking that prevails in the Republican Party at present. (See Nov. 16.) Perhaps Newt's bold words will rouse some docile (or misguided) party loyalists from their dazed stupor before it is too late.

January 19, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Goodbye Art Buchwald

I was probably the only teenager in my home town who read Art Buchwald's column. Most of the important aspects of the Watergate scandal I learned from him. After I moved to Washington, I kept up with the dizzying social intrigues behind the Reagan Revolution thanks to Art Buchwald. He had a goofy grin that concealed the severe hardships of growing up in a broken family. He was a World War II veteran, part of the Greatest Generation. He wrote in short, simple sentences in the guise of innocence that cloaked sophisticated wit. Some people initially took his deadpan satiric columns at face value, and were left utterly befuddled. Art Buchwald lived a charmed life, sharing his wit and spreading his sly wisdom about the way Washington really works. Nothing against P.J. O'Rourke or Dave Barry, but [very few humor] writers of today's cynical world match his depth of human pathos. Yesterday Art Buchwald died peacefully after spending almost a year in a hospice, and of course the Washington Post has all the details about his wonderful life of humor. I'll miss him very much.

January 22, 2007 [LINK / comment]

GOP compromise in Richmond

Will wonders never cease!? After many months of stalemate, it looks like the Republicans on either side of the Virginia General Assembly have decided to split the difference with each other over the contentious issue of transportation funding. Republicans in the House of Delegates favor a minimalist approach, loathing to subsidize congested urban areas of the state, which would only encourage more people to move there, causing more congestion, ad infinitum... Republicans in the Senate were more sensitive to deficiencies in the state's highway system, and hence were more inclined to pay for new roads and bridges. In a rational world, they would have been able to work out a compromise years ago, but instead they acted like their counterparts on the other side of the state Capitol building belonged to the other party. At long last, they have woken up to the disastrous course they have been on for the past few years and faced up to the possibility of losing power in next fall's state elections. Well, better late than never. As the Washington Post reports, "But another goal remained front and center: to save the Virginia Republican Party." All of a sudden, Gov. Kaine and the Democrats have been put on the defensive, forced to come up with a clear alternative that doesn't bust the budget. Kudos to our economy-minded legislators in Richmond.

Hillary "is in"

As everyone on Earth has been expecting for at least the past six years, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton declared she is running for president. See www.hillaryclinton.com. Even if she weren't a closet socialist, and even if she didn't have that attitude of smug superiority, she would still have a huge problem in connecting on a gut level with the average voter. What's more, her excruciatingly annoying nasal drone resonates like fingernails on a chalkboard. Can't she afford a voice coach? Unless the Republicans at the national level get their act together, however, she just might win in 2008, so conservatives had better prepare themselves for the worst case scenario.

January 23, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Mandated intellectual diversity?

Del. Steve Landes sponsored a bill that would "Require that each public institution of higher education in the Commonwealth annually report to the Council the steps the institution is taking to ensure intellectual diversity and the free exchange of ideas." The Legislative Information System has the full text, which includes specific guidelines on hiring, tenure, and promotion policies, and the creation of an "ombudsman on intellectual diversity." I'm sorry to say it, but this is a misguided effort, in my humble view. As I wrote on Dec. 27, 2005, "Like affirmative action programs, demands by conservatives for equal treatment on campus are likely to backfire." For one thing, imposing such standards would be contrary to the ideal of a free arena of intellectual interchange, and might have a chilling effect on professors. Another problem is that it would further expand the bureaucratization of universities, which has already reached extreme proportions. Finally, giving special protection to conservative scholars would undermine one of their central criticisms of the entitlement-riddled status quo in this country. That would be extremely ironic.

President Bush just began his State of the Union Address with an appropriate tribute to Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

January 24, 2007 [LINK / comment]

The State of the Union, 2007

President Bush came across as sincere and committed to his goals in his State of the Union address last night, but there wasn't much surprise in terms of what he said. This speech was in an even more somber in tone than the one last year, and it seemed shorter and more to the point than most such addresses. He made fittingly gracious gestures to Speaker Pelosi, and he acknowledged the new political realities in Washington, but then went on to make policy proposals as if nothing had changed. Given the election results and recent poll numbers, his call on Democrats in Congress to show the world that America stands united against our enemies seemed rather incongruous. What could he or his speechwriters have been thinking?* The appeal to bipartisan cooperation would have carried a lot more weight when the Republicans were still in the majority. The full text is available at whitehouse.gov.

Surging ahead in Iraq

Iraq was the main topic on the agenda, but Bush said little that might convince skeptics of his plan to send 20,000 more troops there. His warning that failure in Iraq would have "grievous and far-reaching" consequences fell on deaf ears. He must know how weak his domestic support is, so if he really believes that failure to win in Iraq would be so awful, then why in the world is he putting so much at stake? It's the same question I posed two weeks ago. A prudent regard for safeguarding the national interest would make a higher priority of minimizing potential losses, but that is not Bush's style. There is a major disconnect here.

Mideast democracy?

Bush rightly put the Iraq conflict in the broader context of Middle Eastern political trends, as the Bush Doctrine of promoting democratic reform has been thwarted and even reversed over the past year. Bush put the blame squarely on Hezbollah, which has been very busy sabotaging the moderate government in Lebanon, aided by the mullahs in Iran. What is unclear is what we are going to do about this vicious challenge to peace and freedom. In Monday's Washington Post, Jackson Diehl called attention to the abandonment of this central foreign policy goal, as Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice tours the Middle East: "Rice has made no real attempt to explain the somersault in her policy, which comes across as a feckless attempt to simplify the increasingly chaotic and dangerous situation across the region." Back in May 2005 there was room for plenty of optimism, but not now. Nevertheless, the struggle against Islamic extremists goes on, and will continue for years and years to come, no matter who occupies the White House.

Health insurance

Bush is seeking a tax hike? On the rich?? Well, he did propose a tax break for those who purchase their own medical insurance, offsetting the loss in revenue by a new tax on high-priced health-care plans that workers receive from their employers. See Washington Post. Hallelujah! On this single matter, Bush rescued the last two years of his term in office by taking a big step forward on a critical issue. I'm not sure about the specifics, but the overall goal of eliminating implicit government subsidies for health insurance is a big step in the right direction. Last month (second item), John Graham wrote a good critique of how health insurance entitlements cause medical costs to soar through the roof. This happens because government policy keeps individuals in the dark about how much their health insurance really costs. Ironically, Rep. Chris Van Hollen and other Democrats reflexively opposed this creative suggestion by Bush -- standing up for Americans in the upper tax brackets! How ironic is that?

Giving Bush credit

It's easy to ridicule Bush, and I don't mean to let him off the hook for some serious errors in military strategy and public policy. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize some of his biggest achievements, such as fighting AIDS and other diseases in Africa and other tropical regions. Likewise, his administration has moved forward on international economic issues, signing trade agreements with several Latin American countries even though their governments are left of center. Then there is the matter of leadership style. In the Washington Post, Dan Balz looked at Bush's remarkable ability to keep bouncing back from adversity. Call it stubbornness, or call it resolve; it's better than indecisive pandering. Even Bush's opponents should acknowledge that it takes a lot of guts to stand up in a room full of hostile faces, knowing that national and world opinion are stacked strongly against you, and still deliver a confident speech, sticking to his guns. How many of us could do that? "Poise" is defined as grace under pressure.

* Jules Crittenden wrote an alternative, extremely blunt speech that Bush should have given: "The State of the Union Is a Disaster." The point being that Bush would probably get more done by frankly admitting failures and setbacks, laying on the line what a dangerous world we live in, and showing a willingness to make hard bargains with Congress to get important things done. (via Instapundit)

Webb snarls back

Virginia's new senator James "Born Fighting" Webb gave the Democrats' response, which was a mixture of reasonable suggestions and caustic sarcasm about Bush's "reckless" decision to liberate Iraq. One can certainly question how the occupation was handled without such below-the-belt smears. Well, it's not like we didn't know that's what he was like before the election...

January 25, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Welcome to Virginia?

An editorial in today's News Leader made a good point about the shoddy condition of most of the rest stops along our Interstate highways. Some of the ones along I-81 are under repair right now, forcing motorists to use the porta-potties. I know of at least one or two locations of former rest stops that have been totally abandoned, even though there are no other such stops for nearly an hour in either direction. That is not the way to make visitors to the Old Dominion feel welcome. It would seem that the big tourist promotion campaign of the 1970s and 1980s -- "Virginia is for lovers" -- has been forgotten, which is very ironic given that this is the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. The state government should have made preparations for a major influx of tourists, but instead the General Assembly got itself bogged down in squabbling over the budget.

That reminds me of another point I keep making: Most of the rest stops become totally inundated at night by truckers who illegally park along the shoulders in order to catch some sleep. The state could raise a lot of money for highway and rest stop improvements if the state police were to fine those truckers.

January 29, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Happy Milton Friedman Day

This evening PBS rebroadcast a documentary on the life and ideas of Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman, who did so much to reverse the slide toward left-liberal statist economic policies as the founder of the "Chicago School" of economics. His monetarist theories had a powerful influence on Paul Volcker, who deserves much of the credit for stopping inflation while serving as Federal Reserve chairman from 1979 to 1987. (He was succeeded by Alan Greenspan.) The program showed that Friedman was not only brilliant thinker and eloquent speaker, but also a warm and caring human being who was interested in other people -- quite the opposite of the "heartless" caricature to which economic conservatives are usually subjected. Actually, Friedman considered himself a classical liberal, as in libertarian, an intellectual tradition that he did much to resurrect. (Try explaining that to a typical "movement conservative" of the present day...) The PBS program was shown on the occasion of "Milton Friedman Day," for which a Web site was created. Link via Cafe Hayek*, [where Robert Russell assails the often-slanderous Paul Krugman for accusing Friedman of intellectual dishonesty, via Michael Oliver. Actually, Krugman praises Friedman as a great man, but argued that his role as a free-market policy advocate gradually came to undermine his role as an academic. It's a fair point.]

* (as in Friedrich von Hayek, the Austrian free market economic philosopher) Coming soon: a review of Friedman's classic book Capitalism and Freedom, in the context of the recent decline of free market economics in the Western world.

January 31, 2007 [LINK / comment]

Surge sharpens divisions in GOP

As Senators Hagel and Warner, and other Republicans on Capitol Hill continue to express dissent toward the Bush administration on Iraq war policy and other issues, the Washington Post reports that a rupture is taking place within party ranks. "Every man for himself!" It is terribly sad to see a president lose the respect of his own party, and at this point I don't know what could be done to repair the damage. For whatever reason, Bush seems deaf to concerns voiced by elder statesmen within his party, and seems unaware of the consequences of ignoring them. Again, I say this as someone who strongly disagrees with Bush in several respects but who believes nevertheless that he at least deserves respect for the office he holds. Republican ultra-loyalist Hugh Hewitt interviewed GOP House deputy whip Eric Cantor, and came away with a glum assessment for the prospects for party discipline in Congress. I think Sen. Warner's call for "benchmarks" to assess military-political progress in Iraq is off base, which is uncharacteristic for him.