Disaffected Convservatives

Andrew Sullivan points to this article by Jonah Goldberg. Goldberg's point? Well, as Sully succintly puts it, "McCain = Bush." As Goldberg points out, "most of the criticisms aimed at McCain can be directed at President Bush himself. " Bush signed McCain-Feingold, after all, and backed amnesty for illegal immigration, both supposedly reasons conservatives have a problem with McCain. If you wanted to add to the list, you could observe that Bush expanded the federal role in education through No Child Left Behind and not only supported by actively pushed for the creation of a new entitlement program.

Goldberg thinks that a lot of the animosity toward McCain is really anti-Bush animosity:

According to many pundits, McCain won the Republican Party's "anti-Bush" wing, made up of moderates and independents. But this is largely a media-driven narrative imposed on a somewhat different reality. There is, in fact, a much broader anti-Bush sentiment in the party. The "right wing" of the GOP is suffering from a deep buyer's remorse of its own.

All I can say is: about goddamn time. Seriously, I understand why many conservatives thought that Bush was a real conservative back in 2000 -- I thought the "compassionate conservative" crap was election-year hooey. Well, I was wrong, much to my regret. Jonah is wrong when he implies that conservatives haven't jumped ship -- in fact, quite a few conservatives have turned on Bush. (As a libertarian, I don't really count, but I've certainly turned on him.) By any objective measure, George W. Bush is not a conservative, and his presidency has erased nearly all the gains of the conservative movement for the last thirty or so years. Democrats are going to be running against George W. Bush for the rest of my lifetime. Conservative should be attacking George W. Bush at every opportunity, not backing the guy up.

So why haven't conservatives jumped ship in greater numbers? Well, I think that there are a number of overlapping reasons.

First, many conservatives remained honestly convinced that the Iraq war, while possibly mishandled, was a necessary step in the War on Terror. Now, I think, in retrospect, that the war was a huge mistake which has cost both lives and treasure, and which has been tactically counterproductive. Now, if you believe that the war wasn't a mistake, you are far more likely to see Bush as a source of steadfast leadership.

Second, there is the issue of judges. While the Harriet Miers nomination garnered a lot of conservative pushback, most conservatives are pretty happy with Roberts and Allito, as well as the bulk of the lower court judges. This is important to conservatives, because they fear -- with some validity -- that lunatic far left judges will attempt to advance the leftist agenda through the courts if allowed to do so.

Third, Bush has the right enemies. Goldberg discuses this particular point in contrasting Bush and McCain. As he puts it:

In terms of body language, the contrast with McCain couldn't be more stark. Bush has always been the sort of politician who relishes being loathed by The New York Times. McCain simply loves being loved by the Times and the national media generally. It's his base.

Add to that the folks over at DailyKos, Moveon.org, the 9/11 Truthers, the people from that town in Vermont who want Bush arrested. Whatever his other faults, Bush pisses off the right people. I think many conservative have a feeling that since the left hates Bush with such passion, he cannot possibly be all bad.

Fourth point -- related to the third -- is that support for Bush is part of being on "our team." Conservatives have historically found themselves at home in the Republican Party. They've come to identify with the Republican Team, they way some folks like the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees. Democrats, of course, have similar propensities: they identify with members of the Democratic Team, regardless of policy. If Bush had done all the same things but been a Democrat, lots of "convservatives" would hate his guts. Likewise, if Bill Clinton had been a Republican, many conservatives would love him.

Finally, I will add a factor I wouldn't have even considered before this primary season. Bush is an Evangelical Christian. I think the success of Huckabee shows that quite a few Evangelicals aren't "conservatives" in the William F. Buckley sense of the term -- they're not principled adherents to conservative ideology. They're cultural conservatives on things like the Ten Commandments, gays, porn, abortion, and other hot button cultural issues. But, they're not so big on limited government and free markets. For that kind of "conservative," well, Bush is great. He's an apostate on the stuff they don't care about, but he stands firm on the culture war issues. Evangelical Christians care a about a candidate's overt and stated faith. Because Bush claims to pray all the time and imbues his speeches with God Talk, they think he's doing the right thing. He's got faith, after all! He could do the opposite of what he's done on most issues, and if he talked about God enough, that would be enough for the Evangelicals. They support Huckabee for the same reason: he's one of them. He has faith.

McCain as the nominee will get the support of many conservatives, despite his apostasy on some issues, for some of the same reasons Bush has. Certainly many conservatives will back him on War-On-Terror issues, and he will probably appoint pretty good judges (from a conservative viewpoint). And as the election nears, the whole "our team" thing will kick in. Paradoxically, if his love affair with the media ends before the election rolls around, many conservatives will probably like him better, because he will have at least some of the right enemies.

What he will never get, though, are the solid core of Evangelicals who still support Bush and who now support Huckabee. They are identity politics voters, and McCain just isn't one of them.

More Lefty Self-Congratulation

"What''s the matter with Kansas?" asks Mark Kleiman. His answer: witchcraft. Kleiman purports to think that Democrats need to stop treating Republican voters with contempt if they want to, you know, win elections. And so he commends a blog post from Tim Burke at Easily Distracted which does exactly that, at some length.

Burke starts with the classic telling but not necessarily representative anecdote: an NPR interview with a woman who works as an assistant manager at a store in Texas, a woman who (according to Burke) sounded "bone-weary about both politics and life." Apparently this particular woman has a bug up her ass about illegal immigration, and -- if the NPR interview accurately depicted her views, a possibly-dubious assumption -- she blames all her woes on illegal immigrants.

According to Burke, she is like the dirt-poor African peasant in Zimbabwe who believes that witchcraft is the cause of all his woes. Seriously, he says that -- I'm going to quote at length because my summary simply cannot capture the man's arrogance:

In the early 1990s in Zimbabwe, one part of my research concerned how the visible ownership of commodities performed or communicated wealth, and therefore aroused the dangerous jealousies of neighbors. This is a different kind of “mystery of capital” than what Hernando de Soto discusses. I am completely sympathetic to how southern Africans invoke ideas about witchcraft to explain how some people obtain wealth. Obviously it isn’t my own explanation, but there’s a sense in which it’s a completely reasonable attempt to connect the visible surface of material and economic life with the largely invisible mechanisms that move resources and capital around beneath the surface. How did your neighbor get a hold of bricks to complete one wall of his township house when you can’t get any? Where did the family next door get those new shoes, when you know that they don’t have any more access to wage earnings than you do? How did that man keep his job when you lost yours?

One story struck me as particularly potent. I was curious about zvidhoma, spirit beings who are basically the same as the tokoloshe that South Africans talk about. They’re said to be the tools of witches, able to exact invisible revenge on their victims by beating, wounding or causing illness in their targets. But on a number of occasions, I was also told cautionary tales about why you should never pick up what seems to be abandoned or unowned wealth or goods (like a bag of money or a wandering goat) because often these will have zvidhoma “stuck” to them who will then infest the unlucky soul who picks them up. Money and wealth circulate mysteriously, and carry hidden dangers. The people who get rich, in this worldview, are those who’ve learned to manage malevolent spiritual powers. If you’re not one of those people, you’ll just end up a victim if you chase after phantoms.

. . . .

That woman in Texas is probably not a Democratic voter regardless of whom the candidate is. Her key issue maybe ought to be health care reform, but she’s enmeshed in another kind of narrative, one where racial resentment, among other things, is lurking very powerfully just underneath the surface. But even that is a layer covering the real depths. What I heard listening to her was someone who basically thinks that she’s in a hopeless place because some great engine is churning mysteriously in the depths of history, that life is just bad now.

Right. That's the way to win over Red-State voters: tell them they're all a bunch of ignorant savages who believe in witchcraft. Condescend to them while claiming to do the opposite.

This post could only have been written by an intellectual. Ordinary people can believe dumb things, but this level of concentrated stupidity requires a very intelligent mind. Seriously, where to start?

To begin with, there's the blithe assumption that the typical "Red State" Republican voter is so badly off that the Zimbabwe analogy makes sense. Now, I don't deny that there are some people in the United States who struggle economically, or who are economically insecure in various ways. But still, the notion that this assistant manager's plight is analogous to the most destitute resident of Zimbabwe is a bit much. As is his assumption that she is typical.

As it happens, I live in a blue portion of a red state, but I do get out of the house from time to time -- attending state fairs and country music concerts and the like. Places where I meet and see likely Republican voters of the sort that Kleiman and Burke would like to attract. And you know, in the parking lot I see plenty of $40,000 SUVs and pickup trucks. Some of them even have indoor plumbing and electricity. Yes, there are people who have real economic problems. But there are plenty doing just fine, thank you.

Nor do I deny that there are plenty of people who believe screwy things. Not all of whom are Republicans -- I once had a conversation with a retired union member and lifelong Democrat who was utterly convinced that the oil companies had suppressed an engine which runs on sea water. Heck, John Edwards is trying to convince primary voters that a free trade agreement with tiny Peru will be an economic disaster for the United States. And he's one of these "competent" Democrats who presumably believes stuff based on evidence.

This assistant manager's concerns about illegal immigrants are not analogous to the belief in zvidhoma because, unlike zvidhoma, illegal immigrants actually exist. Moreover, it's not irrational for a person with fewer job skills to think that his or her wages and benefits are driven down, at least to some small degree, by illegal immigrants. The assistant manager may well exaggerate the size of this effect, but her view that competition from illegal immigrants affects those, like herself, who are in a more precarious economic position isn't obviously superstitious or irrational.

But all this is just a warmup. Because after comparing ordinary red-state Americans to destitute African peasants who blame their bad fortune on evil spirits, Burke goes on to assert that "competence" is a cultural value of unique importance to blue state intellectuals. Competence is not something that the poor benighted folks in red states care about, you see.

He really said that. I'm not making it up. Here's the paragraph I skipped in the block quote above:

I’ve written before in my blog about how “blue state” elites in the United States continue to walk into the trap of blandly assuming that competency, skill and experience are sufficient and universally appealing attributes for a political candidate in national elections, as long as that candidate also has generally liberal views. Following the Iowa caucuses, I’m returning to this theme, because it’s one claim that seems to rub a lot of my readers the wrong way and I’m desperately hoping that this time, the message gets across to Democratic voters.

He is saying that "'blue state' elites" who assume that competency, skill, and experience are desirable attributes are wrong in so believing. He values competence, of course, because he can see its importance, unlike the red state rubes:

Competency is something I value. I believe in it, I vote for it. It is what makes a leader (institutional, national, local) both legitimate and charismatic in my eyes. But that’s significantly because I inhabit social and economic worlds where competency has a very immediate and obvious impact on whether those worlds function well or not.

Are there social and economic worlds where competency isn't important? Burke inhabits an academic world, a world of words and ideas, and so he sees "competency" as a function of one's ability to manipulate words and idea. I have no doubt that, if asked to research a historical topic and write an essay about it, he would exhibit competence.

People from working-class backgrounds may be competent at different things, but it's profoundly condescending and demeaning to suggest they don't value competence like he (and his fellow blue-state elites) do. For example, I could be wrong, but I'm guessing that if the pipe under his sink develops a leak, Burke, like me, would call a plumber. I'm guessing he takes his car to Jiffy Lube when the oil needs changing. Odds are he has no clue as to how to safely clean a gun. A man who changes his own oil, does his own home repairs, and hunts regularly might consider Professor Timothy Burke to be profoundly incompetent at a whole range of important activities.

I hate to tell Professor Burke this, (well, actually, I don't) but I cannot, offhand, think of any social or economic worlds in which competency isn't important. From the local dry cleaner to the farm, to the grocery store, smooth operations require competence.

Now, I am a frequent critic of President Bush, and I certainly believe he's been incompetent in executing his duties as President. But it's not as if he ran for President in 2000 on a platform of incompetence. In fact, hearkening back to his father and advisors such as Dick Cheney and Colin Powell, he depicted himself as the more competent candidate. Going back to 1980, Ronald Reagan sold himself as the antidote to the feckless and, yes, incompetent Jimmy Carter. If there's anything close to a universal American value, it is respect for competence -- the ability to do things well.

I have a thought: maybe "red state" voters don't vote against the preferred candidates of "blue state" intellectuals because they believe in witchcraft or don't care about competence. Maybe they vote against them because they believe that blue state intellectuals like Timothy Burke look down on them. And maybe they are right about that.

More On Gerson

In my last post, I talked about the way Michael Gerson is getting hammered by conservatives, but, predictably, he has a few defenders. Ross Douthat links to this Josh Patashnik defense of Gerson, over at The Plank. Patashnik thinks that conservatives are being unfair to Gerson by characterizing him as a statist big-government leftist. In fact, according to Patashnik, Gerson's actual policy proposals are pretty small-bore, despite his highfalutin' rhetoric:

Gerson doesn't want a massive new federal effort to combat social injustice; he wants a modest effort, but one imbued with an awesome new sense of moral purpose. It's Tommy Thompson's ideology wrapped in RFK's rhetoric. One can question whether this is really a unique political philosophy meriting a big book deal, but Great Society liberalism it ain't. To me--and I mean this in a good way--it seems more or less like run-of-the-mill centrism; he probably could have just joined the Republican Main Street Partnership or the DLC and been done with it, though that wouldn't have earned him very much money.

So what exactly is the difference between a small-bore government program with a modest budget that gets implemented because people kinda sorta think it might do some good and exactly the same program "imbued with an awesome new sense of moral purpose"? Does the grandiose rhetoric have any independent value?

I think that the reason for the conservative reaction to Gerson has a lot of roots. To start with, small government types are often tarred from the left with the "you don't care about the poor" brush. Most of the time, it's a stupid, irrelevant distraction from the real policy question about whether big government programs actually achieve their stated goal, but it is a quite common rhetorical strategy. To have that idiotic leftist mantra repeated verbatim by one who is supposed to be one of our own is infuriating.

Further, when Gersonian rhetoric is accepted by folks who are supposed to be conservative, it leaves fiscal conservatives and libertarians rhetorically disarmed when somebody comes along and employs the grandiose rhetoric in support of grandiose programs. Gerson and his ilk may not support massive big-government programs (although I am unconvinced that they don't), but they redefine the terms of the debate in a manner favorable to statist big-government liberalism.

There's also something else going on as well, I think. Quite a few conservatives and libertarian-leaners who have tended to vote Republican have already broken with George W. Bush. And yet, quite a few conservatives still have some residual loyalty to President George W. Bush and the Republican Party. Let's face it: Gerson's philosophy isn't that far from that of is former boss. Attacking Gersonism is a way of attacking Bushism without going after Bush.

I've already recommended Matt Kibbe's review of Gerson's book, and again, it is well worth reading in full. Kibbe thinks that Gerson is being stupid when tries to read small government types out of the movement:

It’s true that there has always been some tension on the Right between traditionalists and small-government proponents, but the coalition has also been conservatism’s greatest strength. By arguing that one must pick one or the other, Gerson is indicating a willingness to hack off a huge chunk of the conservative coalition — all the while claiming that this is the way to save it.

True. But isn't that equally true of Bush? Sure, Bush managed to win two terms in the Oval Office for himself, but he's managed to burn down the house Reagan built.

Consider the following passage, from a post by left-leaning blogger Publius at Obsidian Wings:

But 2008 is a new world. The modern conservative movement is both intellectually and practically exhausted. It’s still a powerful force, but the fires ain’t burnin’ like they were 20 years ago. There’s a window here to shift the course of the river – to enact not only a stable progressive majority, but to chart a lasting progressive course on the big issues of our day (health care, climate change, foreign policy).

Can you even imagine a paragraph like that being written tweny years ago? And why is the conservative movement in such shambles? Well, the reason is pretty obvious: the rise of "compassionate conervatism" and the presidency of George W. Bush, along with the Gersonian rhetoric Bush has embraced.

Which makes it all the more ironic that Gerson couches so many of his arguments in terms of what Republicans need to do to wine. Because Gersonism -- or Bushism -- is a sure fire way to get that "stable progressive majority" that Publius yearns for.

UPDATE: Minor editing glitch fixed.

Gersonism and Conservatives

I confess: I am going to break one of my own rules. In general, I make it a practice to refrain from criticizing books I have not read. But after perusing Michael Gerson's column archives at the Washington Post, well, readings of Heroic Conservatism are starting to look like a viable alternative to waterboarding. Still, the world doesn't need me to read the book and criticize it, because Gerson is absolutely getting hammered.

Start with the personal stuff: The Atlantic published an article by Gerson's former White House colleague Matthew Scully which accuses Gerson of self-aggrandizement and exaggeration of his own role in various matters. And of taking credit for other people's work. David Frum weighs in, saying:

I worked closely with Gerson and Scully, and I know both men well, as I do the third member of that once-intimate band, John McConnell. I witnessed the events Scully chronicled, and I can attest to the accuracy of Scully's account.

Frum then goes on to accuse Michael Gerson of plagiarism, which is a pretty serious charge. I mean, you've got to be pretty desperate to plagiarize David Frum.

While this bickering among former Bush Administration insiders is undoubtedly amusing, it isn't of great import. Of course Gerson is a climber who exaggerates his own importance and shades accounts to make himself look good. This distinguishes him not at all from his fellow members of the political caste.

In addition to the nasty, vindictive personal stuff, the book has attracted a lot of substantive criticism as well, particularly from conservatives. George Neumayr at Human Events referred to Gerson's "Heroic Liberalism," and characterized the whole Gersonian enterprise as a "cowardly retreat from conservatism." Jonah Goldberg asked "Why is This Man Called a Conservative"? Even Ross Douthat, who is the sort of squish who might be susceptible to Gerson's style of argument, penned a negative review for Slate, and he's had a couple of blog posts following up on it.

So what, exactly, is Gerson's philosophy? What is "Heroic Conservatism"? Well, as I said, I haven't read the guy's book, and I have no intention of doing so. But it's not clear that such exertion is really necessary. Gerson is the sort of intellectual who would only be so-classed because he's a member of the political caste. Gerson's "Heroic Conservatism" is a warmed-over version of Bush's "Compassionate Conservatism." In his column, he tells us that he cares a lot about the poor, and that people who disagree with him on this or that are uncaring.

In this column, for example, he goes after Dick Armey and Phil Gramm, before going after his real target: the libertarian-leaning wing of the Republican Party. Typical Gersonian rhetoric:

But the moral stakes are even higher. What does a narrow, anti-government conservatism have to offer to urban neighborhoods where violence is common and intact families are rare? Very little. What hope does it provide to children in foreign lands dying of diseases that can be treated or prevented for the cost of American small change? No hope. What achievement would it contribute to the racial healing and unity of our country? No achievement at all.

Ross Douthat quotes him as saying fiscal conservatives are "small minded, cold and uninspired," and Gerson's columns are imbued with this sort of rhetoric. Gerson is very comfortable sitting astride his moral high horse.

Gerson takes pains to distance himself from traditional big-government statist liberals, but, in practice, his arguments has exactly the same form as do theirs: I care about the poor and dispossessed, while you small-government types don't. He doesn't seem overly concerned about whether his favored nostrums actually achieve their stated goals, whether they have unintended consequences, or whether market solutions are indeed a superior alternative. But, for Gerson, it's not about that. Matt Kibbe's scathing review is worth reading in full, but he absolutely nails it, when he says of Gerson:

But what’s important to note is that it’s indicative of Gerson’s worrisome approach to governing. In his world, it’s not just about creating policy that works, but policy that makes him feel good. He doesn’t want government to get out of the way; he wants to use it to help him find meaning.

The urge to find meaning through politics is one of the most pernicious and destructive urges in human history. At its worst, it leads to atrocities: the Killing Fields of Cambodia, Gulags, death camps. In its most mundane form it leads to bad policies. It's what is wrong with liberalism in its modern sense, and, for that matter, a lot of what's wrong with the Presidency of George W. Bush.

Presidential Candidates Lie, and It Is (Sometimes) a Good Thing

Over at PowerLine, Paul Mirengoff says that he thinks Bush was lying back in 1999, when he started spouting on about "compassionate conservatism:"

When I first heard George W. Bush talking about "compassionate conservatism" in 1999, I figured (and certainly hoped) that it was at least 80 percent ad campaign and no more than 20 percent policy guide. Eight years later, it seems to me that, in practice, the Bush administration probably hasn't strayed too far to the wrong side of that proportion.

I must confess that I too thought it was PR: I thought that Bush was a straight-up Reagan conservative, and that the "compassionate conservative" crap was about getting votes from the soccer moms.

Unlike Mirengoff, however, I wish that Bush had been lying when he talked about being a compassionate conservative. But he wasn't! Bush managed to ram the prescription drug entitlement program through a Republican Congress at just the time when the "spoiled generation" -- the Baby Boomers -- are about to start retiring and getting sick and bankrupting us all. Bush gleefully signed the "No Child Left Behind Act," a bill with no real benefits that massively increases the role of the federal government in education -- something real conservatives have been trying for decades to reduce. And of course we have the near-miss of the Bush amnesty for illegals. He's gotten his way on plenty of those "compassionate" policies -- enough to do real damage.

And, worst of all, he's gotten Christian Conservatives -- who might have been a lost cause anyway -- used to the idea that big government is their friend, thereby fracturing the Republican coalition. And bringing us "serious" candidates like Mike Huckabee, who, despite having hilarious ads with Chuck Norris, manage to combine the worst elements of nanny-state big government tax-and-spend liberalism with know-nothing Christianist moralizing. Thanks, Bush!

So yeah, I too hoped he was lying back in '99. I was right, but it turned out that he was lying about the "conservative" part.

Mona over at Unqualified Offerings is outraged by Mirengoff's post, but for quite different reasons. She's mad that Mirengoff approves of the lying in the first place. As she puts it, "the point is, Power Line is not just conceding, but approving that a Republican presidential candidate lied to get elected." (Emphasis in original.)

I would be terrified at the thought of having a President who didn't lie, repeatedly and well, in order to get into the Oval Office. Because any Presidential candidate who isn't a good liar would have to actually believe all the nonsense that any person who wants to be President has to say.

What do we want in a President? We want a person who is reasonably intelligent, with an IQ of between, say, 125 and 150 -- no higher because super-geniuses tend to be erratic, but no lower, either. We want somebody who is intellectually curious about the world, well-informed on major issues, who has at least some substantive knowledge of economics and statistics and political theory. We want somebody who is a good manager, and who is good at picking people and evaluating their performance. We want somebody whose world-view is evidence-based rather than faith-based. We want somebody who can think for him or herself, who makes independent judgments about matters.

Note that this is very generic -- it's not about ideology, but about the general intellectual characteristics we would seek in a President.

It's my thesis that any person who meets these criteria will have views that will render the candidate unelectable if expressed openly. Consider the following propositions:

Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme designed to ensure support for big government, but we are stuck with it for the present. America's farmers are a bunch of welfare queens and farm subsidies should be abolished. Evolution is true, and creationists are a bunch of know-nothings. DARE is a waste of money and it should be defunded. Worse, the whole War on Drugs is pernicious. The attack on Iraq was a huge tactical blunder, but having gotten into the war, we need to do anything possible to avoid ignominious defeat. Free trade is a good thing, and the United States should unilaterally abolish all trade barriers. We shouldn't worry about opium being grown in Afghanistan.

All of these propositions are totally defensible in reasoned argument, but, if espoused bluntly, any one could render a candidate totally unelectable. I'm not saying that a qualified candidate would have to believe any or all of these claims, but most independent thinkers of requisite intelligence are likely to believe at least something that renders him or her unelectable.

And so we have a choice: we can insist on total honesty, and we can select a candidate so stupid, dull, or unimaginative that the candidate has no heterodox views. Or we can accept the fact that presidential candidates, like all politicians, lie. They lie frequently, openly, and with great skill. If they didn't, they couldn't get elected.

Live From VRWC Central

Always on the lookout for his readers, the intrepid Cheerful Iconoclast penetrated the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy last night, attending a black-tie dinner at a convention of the dreaded Federalist Society. The dinner, which celebrated this secret cabal's 25th anniversary, featured speeches from quite a few notables, including three Supreme Court Justices and President George W. Bush. It got covered by the AP and Washington Post, and undoubtedly by other outlets as well.

I loved this bit from the AP:

Inside the historic Union Station, crowd gave Bush a standing ovation complete with cheers and hollering. Supreme Court justices and members of the nation's judiciary and legal communities sipped wine and ate beef and veal medallions. Outside, a small group of protesters shouted "War criminal Bush" and "Stop waterboarding." The latter was a reference to a controversial interrogation technique that simulates drowning.

This is a great example of writing that's factually accurate but utterly misleading. It makes it sound as if the convention featured a sybaritic feast worthy of an Iron Chef. In fact, if the audience "sipped" its wine, because drinking it normally would have meant tasting it. The wine was a step or two above Thunderbird, but nothing I would buy myself. The Viognier tasted like Kool-Aid, and the Cab harsh and tannic. You can get better wines at the $5.00 bin at your local grocery store (if you live in a state that allows local grocery stores to sell wine, that is). As for the veal and beef medallions, it was difficult to tell whether the minute portion size was a blessing or a curse. Yes, they were described as gourmet tidbits in the printed menu, but they might as well have been mystery meat: overcooked nuggets of meat smothered in sauce. As it was, upon returning home, the Main Squeeze and I shed our formalwear and warmed up some leftover pasta, which I assure you far surpassed the night's repast.

It was banquet food. Better than your old school lunch, but certainly in the same genre. And not enough of it!

As for President Bush's welcome, members of the Federalist Society are nothing if not polite to their guests. It is certainly true that a poll taken in that room would probably make President Bush seem more popular than a poll of, say, the American People. But you would expect him to be more popular among self-identified conservatives. It is hardly news that a group of conservative lawyers gave a sitting Republican President a warm welcome.

However, Federalist Society members can and do differ among themselves about President Bush's policies. In particular, any number of libertarian-leaning Federalist Society members are harshly critical of some aspects of the Bush administration. Of course, in order to find that out, the reporters would have had to, you know, actually talk to people, rather than listening to the President's speech and dashing from the room when he finished. If one had approached me, I would even have been happy to express my candid views. I might even have shared a bite of beef medallion, and a sip of wine.

Tough Talkin' Tancredo

Andrew Sullivan doesn't like this Tom Tancredo advertisement:



He compares Tancredo to Rudy, characterizing this tactic as one favored by "small men in search of a balcony," his favorite tag for Rudy. Sorry, but this ad actually has a couple of things going for it. The first is honesty: it uses the phrase "Islamic terrorists," identifying the likely source and motivation for a major terrorist attack. Give Tancredo credit for that, at least.

The second is that Tancredo's proposed security measure -- better border security -- actually has some likelihood of achieving beneficial results. Unlike, say, harassing innocent photographers, or the idiotic security theater at airports, it is actually possible that potential terrorists might seep through our lax border security and commit terrorists acts.

Of course, there's no particular reason for likely Islamic terrorists to go to the trouble of swimming the Rio Grande, or risk heat stroke in the Arizona desert, when they can just get a student visa, like the 9/11 terrorists did. The Bush administration has done all sorts of really stupid things in response to the 9/11 attacks -- undermining the liberty of millions of Americans. Denying student visas to Saudi and Egyptian nationals would have been both simple and effective, and it would neither have expanded government power nor invaded the rights of Americans. So of course the Bush Administration didn't even consider it.

A Frightening Thought

Matthew Yglesias doesn't think that any of the potential Republican nominees have a chance at the nomination. This leads to a problem, since the Republicans have to nominate somebody.

And then he had a nightmare epiphany: "Brokered convention leads to Jeb Bush nomination."

All I can say is that if that happens, I will vote for the Democratic nominee, whoever it might be. Kucinich, Gravel, Clinton, Obama -- it just doesn't matter.

No. More. Bushes.

EVER.

Why Does Sully Do This?

On Friday, Andrew Sullivan graced his readers with a snarky one-line post: "Glenn Reynolds vs a real libertarian on torture." The "real libertarian" is the author of Glenn's stalker-site, Instaputz, and the post to which Andrew linked is here.

One reason I am not the biggest fan of blogwars is that if you come in in the middle of one, it's hard to untangle who said what, when, and who is misrepresenting whose statements, etc. And often it seems like it's not worth the trouble. But here goes, anyway:

Glenn's original post is here. Glenn links to this Andy McCarthy piece from The Corner which shows that Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Charles Schumer and Bill Clinton have all, at various times, admitted to the necessity of coercive interrogation (or even torture). Glenn then points out that there is a double standard at work: "Somehow, they are fit to lead the Democratic Party but the suitability of Mukasey — who has taken a more measured stance — to be attorney general is in doubt? What am I missing here?"

From this double standard he concludes that "the 'torture' debate is a political tool, and otherwise unserious." Taken in context, he's not arguing that we ought to have torture, or that the debate is unimportant, or anything of the sort. He is taking isssue with hypocrisy and double standards. He's saying that if you condemn Mukasey you should logically also condemn Clinton, Clinton, Obama, and Schumer. Failing that, he contends, that the torture debate is primarily political.

Now, it is possible to make logical arguments against Glenn's position. One could track down the original statements by Clinton, Clinton, Obama and Schumer, for example, and argue that they are, in fact, less sanguine about torture than McCarthy suggested. One could argue that the Attorney General should be held to a higher standard. One could even contend that both parties are hopelessly corrupt and that all of these people should be condemned.

Does Instaputz do any of those? Does he take issue with any of Glenn's facts and reasoning? No. He simply quotes the sentence where Glenn says that the "The torture debate is a political tool, and otherwise unserious." But he gives no hint as to the chain of reasoning that led up to that conclusion. He's followed up on it, but again, he makes no attempt to come to grips with Glenn's reasoning or argument.

So why does Andrew Sullivan give an uncritical link to this snarky little jab? Note that it's not the first time -- Sullivan is a repeat offender.

Well, if Sullivan can put words in people's mouths, I can psychoanalyze the guy from a distance. Particularly since I am being clear that this is utterly speculative, although it is based on my observation of Sullivan's blogging over the past few years. Let me suggest a theory. Sullivan likes to accuse his opponents (particularly Bush) of having a Manichean world-view.

He may well be right about Bush, but the same is true of Sullivan himself. He seems to think that people are all good or all bad -- there's no in-between, there are no good-faith differences among well-meaning people, not even really any hard issues. Now that he sees Reynolds as a bad guy, well, he must be pro-torture, even though he's never said anything that one could plausibly interpret as being pro-torture. It's enough that Reynolds hasn't worked himself into a high dudgeon about it.

We saw this dynamic in Sullivan's attitude toward President Bush. the immediate aftermath of 9/11. At first, Sullivan saw George W. Bush as our mighty-thewed leader in the War Against Islamo-Fascism. But then, something happened, and Sullivan turned against Bush. Now he writes about Bush like he's a jilted lover. Don't get me wrong, I'm a harsh critic of President Bush myself. But at the same time, I don't feel any great sense of personal betrayal, because I never expected that much from Bush to start with.

And the same is true, though to a lesser extent, of Reynolds. Back in 2001 and 2002, they were fellow warriors in the war against Islamo-fasicism, but not that Sullivan has turned against the Iraq war and President Bush, Reynolds is a doulbe-plus ungood enemy. And he has always been an enemy!

You see the same dynamic now, with Sullivan's blossoming man-crush on Barack Obama. I finally made it through Sullivan's essay on why he wuvs Obama, and it is Andrew Sullivan at his self-indulgent worst. It is nearly as bereft of rational argument as his exchange with Sam Harris on religion. Sullivan admits that Obama's policy views are bog-standard left liberal views, but Obama will unite us all and heal our divisions because he's young, and handsome, and black. Did I mention handsome? Now maybe Sully's crush on Obama will last forever, but I suspect that, this year or next, Obama will dissapoint, and then Sullivan will give him the same sort of spurned lover treatment he now gives to President Bush and Glenn Reynolds.

Still More on Torture

This is a continuation of my ongoing dialogue with a conservative Catholic friend, whom I have dubbed "CC" for purposes of this discussion. In my first post on this matter, I outlined my basic anti-torture position. My second post was a reply to CC's emailed response. CC has taken the time to e-mail additional thoughts, and this post continues our dialogue. I am here quoting both some of my own prior statements and CC's response to them:

Well, as a religious believer it seems to me that you probably ought to apply a categorical command against torture. You do, after all, believe that Christ (whom you consider to be a manifestation of God, right?) was tortured by the Romans. This ought to lead you to a certain sympathy for the victims of torture, regardless of whether it works.

Response: There you go again. The word "torture" is inherently ambiguous. I agree that the Romans inflicted pain on Jesus of Nazareth and killed him. Christ's suffering serves as inspiration to me inspires a "certain sympathy" for all persons who suffer pain at the hands of any government, including our own. Jesus taught us to love our enemies and to turn the other cheek, and so, as a Christian, I try to live up to these ideals. It is not easy, however, to love terrorists who, if they could, would kill every man, woman, and child in the United States. But, Jesus calls us to do so, so those of us who are Christians must strive to do so. On the other hand, Jesus did not call anyone to be suicidal, nor did he suggest that worldly notions of justice should be abolished with his dying on the cross.

I agree that there is some inherent ambiguity in the term "torture," but I also think that the tactics which appear to have been utilized by the United States government fall well outside of any possible grey area.

As for the religious implications, my only point is that it seems odd to me that Christian conservatives appear to have so enthusiastically embraced harsh interrogation techniques, when in fact their theology cuts in the opposite direction. As a non-believer, I feel no particular obligation to even try to love terrorists. I'd be all in favor of torturing terrorists were it not for two things. The first is the risk of error, of torturing people who are not, in fact, terrorists. This isn't just a fantasy, it appears to have actually happened to a man named Khalid El-Masri, who was kidnapped by the CIA, flown to Afghanistan, and tortured. Or at least he so alleges. (He recently lost in his attempt to sue the United States, but not on the merits of his claim.) On TV, they always get the right guy, but life isn't a TV show, and we are talking about fallible government agents, here.

The other reason is that I don't trust the government to have the power to torture people. I think that if the 20th century shows anything, that power will be expanded, abused, and applied against the innocent. It's not about them -- it's about us.

That said, I agree that torture ought to be subjected to a largely utilitarian calculation. However, I think that the resolution of those calculations is actually pretty easy. Torture is an information-gathering technique which may or may not even work, and if it does work produces information which may or may not be particularly reliable. Its benefits are dubious and relatively short-term.

Response: Again, if one eliminates all forms of ineffective coercive interrogation techniques, what is left? Anything? Your position seems to be this: certain effective coercive interrogation techniques are should be permitted -- so long as the coercion does not exceed your "mild discomfort" standard; but other effective coercion techniques should be prohibited because they involved "torture," which apparently is more excessive coercion than "mild discomfort."

To begin with, "mild discomfort" was probably a poor choice of words. As I have tried to explain, my use of that language was intended to convey the fact that I'm not one of those who believe that any distress or discomfort constitutes torture. Nor do I believe that people captured on the battlefield need to be given Miranda warnings or the like. In my first post of this conversation, I cited this article about a study which says there's no evidence harsh interrogation techniqes work and these reports which suggest the same. I propose we use the techniques that past interrogators claim actually worked: learn their culture and language and talk to them. It's not as satisfying as waterboarding, but it may be more effective in actually protecting our loved ones.

But let me be clear on this: even if torture worked, I would be against it, for all of the Libertarian reasons I've outlined. I think that letting agents of the state get used to having this power is a Bad Idea. And that the state is far more dangerous, in the long run, than terrorists could ever be.

The immediate cost is a loss of credibility of the United States, a massively-reduced level of soft-power and ability to exercise moral leadership. It means we have a far more difficult time complaining if our own people or our allies' people are mistreated by an enemy. I'm not a huge fan of the Bush/Clinton notion of war as social work, but if the idea is to remake Afghanistan and Iraq into liberal democracies, might not our own conduct have a certain teaching function? "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" isn't exactly the lesson we were trying to impart. In addition, while you may not think that the pain inflicted on terrorists or their sympathizers ought to count, the torture inflicted upon innocent people tortured by mistake certainly ought to count. And then there is the psychological cost borne by the torturers who have to live with what they've done in subsequent years.

Response: I agree that the reasons cited above weigh against "torture." But your analysis assumes that there are no benefits to aggressive interrogation techniques, and continues to avoid defining exactly what is "torture."

Given the lack of evidence that there is any up-side that cannot be achieved through other means, I think it more than weighs against it -- I think it's dispositive. As for the definition issue: "the deliberate infliction of severe physical or psychological distress."

CC and I actually agree at this point that that nuclear terrorism is fairly unlikely:

First, the danger of terrorists getting a nuke, "suitcase" or otherwise, is pretty small, for the reasons articulated by Gregory Cochran in his 2 Blowhards interview. And if we are worried about that, the best way to prevent it is not to go around torturing terrorists; it's to work with the Russians and the Chinese to keep the supply of nuclear weapons bottled up tight.

Response: I thought I sent a follow-up e-mail that acknowledged that the chances of terrorists obtaining a nuke is pretty small.

CC did indeed send such a follow-up, and I was in error to not acknowledge it.

That leaves "conventional" suicide terrorism. And he's right that terrorists can indeed kill a lot of people if they are so inclined. In fact, we can imagine all sorts of low-tech things that terrorists could do that are almost impossible to stop -- drive around medium-sized cities lobbing Molotov cocktails out the window of their vehicle, for example. But the number of people who are actually willing to do that seems to be fairly small. The chances of CC's kids, or my Main Squeeze being killed by conventional criminals is a lot greater than the chances they'll be killed by terrorists. The off-chance that a terror plot that would kill a lot of people will be foiled by torture isn't worth the very real costs associated with institutionalizing the practice.

Response: I generally agree, but the difficulty with making a risk assessment here is that we are not privy to confidential information in the hands of the government.

We agree? What's the fun in that.

I do agree it would be nice to have information now in the hands of the government. But the problem with relying on "trust us, we know what we are doing" is that government officials always have an incentive to increase their own power and cover up mistakes. At the end of the day, I don't trust the government to have this power, and that applies regardless of which party or person happens to be in office.

More Thoughts on Torture

In my last post on this topic, I argued that the government ought not be given the power to torture people because, if the 20th century has shown us nothing, it is that giving the state the power to torture people is just a really bad idea.

In that post, I discussed a dinner conversation with an old friend, whom I will refer to as "CC" for "Conservative Catholic, regarding this issue, and I used that conversation as a springboard to my discussion. Well, CC has since e-mailed me to clarify his position, and he has suggested that I misquoted him. Of course I misquoted him! I was too busy swilling down a really nice wine to take notes.

In any case, his position is probably more nuanced than I gave it credit for being--- more nuanced than mine, for that matter -- and in his e-mail he raised some interesting points. Here's what he said:

I am generally against "torture," but, frankly, the label "torture" fails to capture the issue. The challenge the government faces is to obtain most effectively critical intelligence information as rapidly as possible. I recall that you endorse the notion that the government may inflict "mild discomfort" but not "torture" in order to accomplish this goal. There are not, however, bright lines between what some may call "mild discomfort" and "torture." Let's take an example: sleep deprivation. Women of infants are sleep deprived typically because they are taking care of their children. Are they tortured? Mildly discomforted?

The reference to "mild discomfort" is, I think, the result of CC's misunderstanding of my position, or perhaps my own lack of clarity. The point which I was making to him when I used those words is that I don't consider some of the things I've read about to be "torture" as that word is used in English. For example, I don't think it's "torture" to smear somebody with menstrual blood, or to make them watch you pee on the Koran, or for a female interrogator to strip off her shirt and parade around in a bra. Some folks on the left claim this kind of thing is tortue, and I think they're nuts. There are people who if you put detainees up in the Ritz will insist that only the Four Seasons would be good enough. I'm not one of them.

I can even agree with CC that it can be difficult to draw bright lines -- there are indeed grey areas. But techniques like waterboarding, forcing people to stand in "stress positions" for hours, sensory deprivation and waterboarding aren't in any gray area -- they're torture. Sure, to some extent women caring for children are slightly sleep deprived. But those women are allowed to take naps between feedings, and to get some sleep some of the time. Likewise, some people work standing for hours on end. But they aren't forced to work standing in a "stress position" designed to produce agony. Here's a hint: most of these techniques were pioneered by totalitarian regimes. Maybe that tells us something.

As CC sees it, there are actually two issues:

The "torture" issue presents two real sub-issues: (a) whether "torture" is an effective means of obtaining intelligence; and (b) whether "torture" violates some human right against cruel or inhumane treatment. As to (a), I offer no opinion. I agree that the governments hould not use any interrogation or intelligence-gathering technique that is not effective, but, then, only sadistic people would suggest otherwise.

Even sadistic people won't say otherwise overtly, but that doesn't rule out sadism as a potential motive. I certainly can't prove this, but to a great extent I think that the Cheney/Addington/Yoo/Tenet position on torture is indeed motivated by sadism. Oh, not sexual sadism of the whips-and-chains variety, but a desire to hurt people, or a callous indifference to their suffering. The desire to inflict suffering is strong enough that it predisposes the advocates of harsh measures to believe that those measures are necessary and effective. This may explain the popularity of TV shows like 24, as well as the ubiquitous ticking time bomb scenario. And this is why I will never, ever vote for Rudy: at the end of the day I think he wants to hurt people.

The human rights question is more difficult and depends upon a variety of factors: the gravity and imminence of the harm; the information sought; the type of interrogation technique being considered; and a reasonable likelihood for success. There may be other considerations. But I do not believe there is a bright line, especially in times of war when, as now, the national security is threatened. This may come down to a largely utilitarian calculation of choosing among a variety of bad options.

Well, as a religious believer it seems to me that you probably ought to apply a categorical command against torture. You do, after all, believe that Christ (whom you consider to be a manifestation of God, right?) was tortured by the Romans. This ought to lead you to a certain sympathy for the victims of torture, regardless of whether it works.

That said, I agree that torture ought to be subjected to a largely utilitarian calculation. However, I think that the resolution of those calculations is actually pretty easy. Torture is an information-gathering technique which may or may not even work, and if it does work produces information which may or may not be particularly reliable. Its benefits are dubious and relatively short-term.

The immediate cost is a loss of credibility of the United States, a massively-reduced level of soft-power and ability to exercise moral leadership. It means we have a far more difficult time complaining if our own people or our allies' people are mistreated by an enemy. I'm not a huge fan of the Bush/Clinton notion of war as social work, but if the idea is to remake Afghanistan and Iraq into liberal democracies, might not our own conduct have a certain teaching function? "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" isn't exactly the lesson we were trying to impart. In addition, while you may not think that the pain inflicted on terrorists or their sympathizers ought to count, the torture inflicted upon innocent people tortured by mistake certainly ought to count. And then there is the psychological cost borne by the torturers who have to live with what they've done in subsequent years.

And you have the huge potential down-side of people who work for your security services getting used to the idea that they are allowed to torture people. While terrorism is indeed a danger, a state with security services acclimated to the idea of torturing people is a far greater danger in the long term. If you say that "terrorists" can be tortured, it's a pretty easy step to define one's political opponents as being terrorists.

My friend CC, however, doesn't see it that way. He seems to think that I underestimate the danger associated with Islamic terrorists:

The notion that the "terrorists" are weak is generally accurate in the conventional military sense, but there is the possibility, at least reported, of suitcase nukes obtained via the black market, suicide bombers, and the like that could result in large numbers of casualties. The real danger with Islamic terrorism is that (1) the terrorists seek to kill as many Americans as possible, including all men, women, and children (including my wife and children and you and [the Main Squeeze]; and (2) the terrorists are willing to carry out their murderous schemes by suicidal means. This presents almost unimaginable possibilities for mass murder and must, unfortunately, affect the analysis of the types of interrogation techniques that are possible, at least with respect to those that are effective.

First, the danger of terrorists getting a nuke, "suitcase" or otherwise, is pretty small, for the reasons articulated by Gregory Cochran in his 2 Blowhards interview. And if we are worried about that, the best way to prevent it is not to go around torturing terrorists; it's to work with the Russians and the Chinese to keep the supply of nuclear weapons bottled up tight.

That leaves "conventional" suicide terrorism. And he's right that terrorists can indeed kill a lot of people if they are so inclined. In fact, we can imagine all sorts of low-tech things that terrorists could do that are almost impossible to stop -- drive around medium-sized cities lobbing Molotov cocktails out the window of their vehicle, for example. But the number of people who are actually willing to do that seems to be fairly small. The chances of CC's kids, or my Main Squeeze being killed by conventional criminals is a lot greater than the chances they'll be killed by terrorists. The off-chance that a terror plot that would kill a lot of people will be foiled by torture isn't worth the very real costs associated with institutionalizing the practice.

On Torture

No, I'm not talking about the sight of Rudy in pantyhose; I'm talking about actual, physical torture. As used for interrogation.

A while ago, the Main Squeeze and I had dinner with an old friend, and that topic came up. I took the position then, as I have here, that torture is bad, and that it ought to be rejected as a tactic in the Global War on Terror. My friend -- a decent, humane guy, an old-fashioned Church-going Catholic -- expressed some disagreement. Referring to his children, he said "I would be inclined to agree with you were it not for the fact that really bad people want very badly to hurt my two kids." He admitted that torture was brutal, and that it inflicted suffering. But then, so too does war, and war is sometimes necessary as well. I understand his desire to protect his children, friends, family, loved ones, and fellow Americans from harm, but he's dead wrong about the desirability of torture.

To begin with, I'm not convinced that torture is actually likely to be an effective way of extracting information. Bill O'Reilly (via Balloon Juice and Flopping Aces) thinks it does, because, well, the torturers told him it did:

Both former CIA chief George Tenet and former CIA official Michael Scheuer, once the head of the bin Laden unit, told me that coerced interrogation methods often provided accurate intelligence that potentially saved thousands of lives.

Well, there you have it. It works -- case closed.

Seriously, of course George Tenet says "enhanced interrogation" works. He was the guy in charge at the CIA when a lot of this stuff was goig on. Of course he wants to claim that it was necessary, that it saved lives. In order to really evaluate his claim, a disinterested observer would have to have full access to all of the Super Top Secret burn-before-reading files and see what was gleaned. Unitl that happens, Tenet is saying "trust me." Has George Tenet done anything to earn that trust?

Publicly-available information does not suggest that torture or "enhanced interrogation" is particularly effective. At least one government study by the Intelligence Science Board found that there's no scientific evidence that torture works. Anecdotal evidence suggests that less coercive methods can be very effective indeed. A recent report of the reunion of World War II veterans of a unit known then as "P.O. Box 1142" has caused a bit of stir. The members of that unit extracted information from people, and they did it without torturing them. Likewise, this Anne Applebaum column from 2005 notes that the French used torture in their (losing) war in Algeria, and there's no real evidence it actually, you know, worked. She also quote quite a few past and present interrogators who concluded that harsh methods aren't all that effective. I'm sorry, but I trust these guys over George Tenet.

But let's suppose that it turns out that torture or "enhanced interrogation" really is effective, at least when done properly in some cases. It's still a bad idea. Glen Greenwald is right when he points out that small-government conservatives are often inconsistent with their own stated values when they support expansion of state power in the War on Terror.

Terrorists are indeed bad people intent on hurting us. But there are limits on what terrorists can do. They succeeded in killing several thousand Americans on September 11, 2001, and it's possible they will launch another attack that will be equally murderous. Even so, there is a reason why they had to use hijacked airliners rather than their own. At the end of the day, terrorism is a technique used by groups that are fundamentally weak. It is tragic for the people who are killed and their loved ones, but it's not an existential threat.

There is, by contrast, no limit to the amount of damage that can be done by an oppressive government. Murder by millions. Industrial scale torture. Seizure of property. Imprisonment without a fair hearing.

I don't want the government to have the power to torture people for one simple reason: I don't want to the government to have the power to torture people. I am, reluctantly, forced to admit that we need to have some government, but there is ample reason to not trust the government or its agents to not abuse their power. If the 20th Century taught any lesson at all, it ought to be that you don't want to live under a government where the agents of the state are given the power to torture people. Conservatives ought to understand that, and before President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney took office, they did.

Graeme Frost and the Oprahfication of American Political Discourse

There's been quite the kerfluffle about young Graeme Frost, and his family's financial situation. A couple of weeks ago, the Democrats had Graeme Frost -- age 12 -- deliver their response to President Bush's radio address. Not surprisingly, the folks at Thing Progress are delighted with this little stunt -- the Democrats, you see, are "daring to put a human face on the SCHIP program at a time when Bush was proposing a 'diminishment of the number of children covered.'”

How daring of them.

Apparently the folks at Thing Progress think our politics aren't emotional enough. If there is one thing we are not short on, it's human faces. If anything, we need fewer human faces, and more cold, hard analytical reasoning. Putting a twelve-year-old on the radio like one of Jerry's Kids is emotional and manipulative, a way of bypassing reasoned debate and argument. It's all part of the Oprahfication of American political discourse, and it is, in general, a Bad Thing.

I'm old enough to remember when people were discerning enough to ridicule Jimmy Carter for seeking his daughter Amy's advice on arms control. We really ought to ridicule the Democrats for sending twelve-year-olds to respond to the President. And it's incredibly hypocritical for the Democrats to become outraged when people decided to check the anecdote they were using and began questioning whether the Frost family is needy enough that it "deserves" government aid. Here's a hint for our friends on the left: if you don't want people to check your anecdotal claims about the necessity of government programs, then stop using anecdotes. But if you put the poster kid in the wheelchair up on stage, don't act all outraged if somebody decides to check if the kid can walk. (I'm using that in a metaphorical way, since Graeme does seem to be ambulatory.)

As Mark Steyn put it:

Over the weekend, I posted a couple of things re Graeme Frost, the Democratic Party's 12-year old healthcare spokesman. Michelle Malkin reports that the blogospheric lefties are all steamed about the wingnuts' Swiftboating of sick kids, etc.

Sorry, no sale. The Democrats chose to outsource their airtime to a Seventh Grader. If a political party is desperate enough to send a boy to do a man's job, then the boy is fair game. As it is, the Dems do enough cynical and opportunist hiding behind biography and identity, and it's incredibly tedious. And anytime I send my seven-year-old out to argue policy you're welcome to clobber him, too. The alternative is a world in which genuine debate is ended and, as happened with Master Frost, politics dwindles down to professional staffers writing scripts to be mouthed by Equity moppets.

Now, all that said, I do think that hilzoy over at Obsidian Wings has a point: get the facts right. As it turns out, Graeme's family owns a nice house, but they bought it years ago when it was dirt cheap because it was in a bad neighborhood. Graeme attends a pricey private school, but he does so on a scholarship. From what I can tell he does seem to be the sort of lower-middle-class kid for whom the program appears to be intended. But there's no reason, in principle, why people shouldn't check the telling anecdotes used to advance certain policies.

"Your Agonizer, Please."

I have a bad feeling about this. Courtesy of Radley Balko, this article about a new weapon with an appropriately Orwellian name: Silent Guardian. Made by Raytheon, it's a ray-gun. Really -- it works by emitting "an invisible, focused beam of radiation - similar to the microwaves in a domestic cooker - that are tuned to a precise frequency to stimulate human nerve endings." And it's supposed to hurt like hell.

Here's the kicker: the beam from the Silent Guardian barely pentrates the skin -- just far enough to cause pain, but not far enough to cause permanent damage. Or leave marks. Silent Guardian is being billed as a humane, non-lethal weapon which can be used to disperse crowds and the like. But as the Daily Mail article points out, it's the perfect torture weapon:

Perhaps the most alarming prospect is that such machines would make efficient torture instruments.


They are quick, clean, cheap, easy to use and, most importantly, leave no marks. What would happen if they fell into the hands of unscrupulous nations where torture is not unknown?


The agony the Raytheon gun inflicts is probably equal to anything in a torture chamber - these waves are tuned to a frequency exactly designed to stimulate the pain nerves.


I couldn't hold my finger next to the device for more than a fraction of a second. I could make the pain stop, but what if my finger had been strapped to the machine?


Dr John Wood, a biologist at UCL and an expert in the way the brain perceives pain, is horrified by the new pain weapons.

"They are so obviously useful as torture instruments," he says.


"It is ethically dubious to say they are useful for crowd control when they will obviously be used by unscrupulous people for torture."

Unscrupulous people? You mean like Bush, Cheney, Yoo, and the whole "enhanced interrogation" crowd? This thing is barbaric, and it's going to be used. This thing is going to cause a lot of pain to a lot of people, and decent people everywhere will curse those who invented it.

Somebody was bound to invent something like this one of these days. Did it really have to be an American company working for the United States military?

Thank You Sir, May I Have Another?

In the past, I have been critical of President George W. Bush, but I do try to be fair. For example, just this morning I went after some people who criticized President Bush in a particularly stupid way. But this latest report is deeply weird, and even a bit creepy. Creepy in the "Oh my God, this man controls nuclear weapons," way.

It's based on something in the book Dead Certain, which I own but have yet to read. According to Hilzoy at Obisidian Wings, Sid Blumenthal's review in Salon takes note a very odd practice: Josh Bolton, White House Chief of Staff, greets President Bush with the phrase "Thank you for the privilege of serving today." Every. Morning.

I honestly have trouble believing this. It has to be another plastic turkey, doesn't it? I am willing to believe that this is a bizarre hoax, or that Draper just made it up. Or even that Blumenthal read it wrong -- maybe he said it once, and that got transmuted into saying it every day. I would suggest it was some kind of ironic inside joke, but somehow I get the feeling that Bush doesn't do irony.

Because the alternative is even worse. The alternative is believing that Bolton really does this every day, and that Bush lets him do it. Likes it, even.

Now if Josh Bolton were really poor, and he had to engage in this kind of obsequious display in order to feed his kids, I would understand. But I'm pretty sure he could find lucrative private sector employment. So, what kind of man is willing to do this sort of belly-crawling on a daily basis? Possibly even thinking it is appropriate to do so. Is that the kind of person we want as one of the President's principal advisors?

That's a rhetorical question, by the way. The answer is "no."

Letting somebody do this us really bad management. One problem in Washington D.C. is that "you are wrong" is not a phrase that powerful people are accustomed to hearing. But, from time to time, it's a phrase they need to hear. One of the worst choices that any political leader can make it to hire flatterers and yes-men. Anybody who greets his boss like that deserves to have his face in the dictionary under the word brown-noser. If I were President (stop laughing) and my Chief of Staff said that to me, I'd bust out laughing and tell him to get a hold of himself. If he did it for three days in a row, I would tell him that the pressure of the job was just too much, and he ought to spend some more time with his family.

Worse: what kind of man accepts that sort of obsequious display on a daily basis? As Hilzoy says:

Stop and think for a moment: if your assistant greeted you every morning with the words "Thank you for the privilege of serving today", how would you respond? I think I'd make light of it the first day, but if it continued, I'd say: I appreciate the compliment, but it's really not necessary. If, God forbid, my assistant went on saying it, I would at some point have to sit him or her down and explain that it made me uncomfortable. The one thing I really can't imagine is letting someone go on saying that day after day. It's just too crazy.

No shit.

The fact -- if it really is a fact -- that President Bush accepts this degrading ritual is most disturbing. What kind of man allows that? Even likes it? It sounds like something a meglomaniac would demand, or a Third World dictator. Not the President of the United States.

This is just psychotic.

UPDATE: Rising Hegemon says something I thought but didn't quite have the guts put into words: "You can literally see Bolten already in the next room masturbating." As one of his commenters says, "Eeeeeeewwwwww."

Another Stupid Attack On George W. Bush

I am a frequent and harsh critic of President George W. Bush -- I think he's screwed up in so many ways I won't even try to name them all. Nor is he particularly eloquent.

But Ann Althouse is right -- "you have to will yourself into idiocy not to understand what he means here." The folks at Think Progress are hacking away to George W. Bush for supposedly asserting that Saddam Hussein killed Nelson Mendela, when in fact Mandela remains very much alive.

For the literal-minded, let me explain it. He's saying that people who might play a role in Iraq similar to the role Mandela played in South Africa are dead, because Saddam Hussein killed them. Not Mandela himself, but Iraqis like Mandela. This is what is known as a "metaphor." The tipoff, maybe, was when he "Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas" referring to more than one possible Mandela. If you don't understand he's being metaphorical, the statement makes no sense at all. Unless, that is, you imagine that George W. Bush thinks that South Africa has a clone army of Mandelas, which Saddam Hussein wiped out.

There are all sorts of really good things to criticize George W. Bush about. Why do people waste their time on idiocy like this?

UPDATE: Opinionjournal links to this Reuters article which makes the same dumbass mistake.

Mark Kleiman, Soccer, Snark, and "Bush Voters"

Mark Klieman links to these two reports regarding injuries in youth soccer. It turns out that "heading" the ball may result in permanent cognitive impairment. It's nice to see a card-carrying liberal noticing that IQ is actually important. Given the growing popularity of soccer in the United States, this raises important issues.

The real problem is that soccer forces its players to ignore their instincts. When a ball or other object is thrown in the direction of one's head, the natural instinct is to either duck or use one's hands to block the object. The instinctive reaction is not to use one's head to bat the object away. Soccer coaches have to train neophyte players to not put up their hands to stop the oncoming ball. Might I suggest that this instinct evolved for a reason? Maybe our cave-man ancestors who had the instinct to block the oncoming rock with their heads didn't manage to reproduce.

The obvious solution is a simple rule change: ban heading. If one wanted, one could allow players to strike the ball with an open hand. Perhaps if they made the ball oblong rather than round, let players catch it and advance it, tackle the ball-carrier, throw forward passes, and score by crossing the goal line, soccer might evolve into a sport worth watching.

But I digress. If soccer costs youth soccer participants one or two IQ points, it may not have noticeable effect on any one player, but the cumulative impact is costing our country millions of IQ points. And this type of injury is virtually invisible, unless it is really serious. Any sport can result in injury, and I'm certainly not a believer in the quest for the risk-free society. If somebody were bleating on about knee or ankle injuries, I'd probably say it was a known risk that people reasonably assume. But brain injuries are in a different category, and it is reasonable to ask whether the rules of the game couldn't be modified to make them less likely.

Banning heading is a no-brainer.

But, being Mark Kleiman, he couldn't make this point without a bit of gratuitous political snark. He just had to introduce it by saying the soccer moms were "breeding Bush voters." Bush has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with his underlying point, which is well worth addressing. But any chance to bash bush is worth taking, right?

It is this same propensity for self-congratulation that led to the Red-States-are-dumb IQ hoax, and to Howell Raines' confident prediction that Kerry would outscore Bush by a mile when in fact his test scores and grades were slightly worse than Bush's. Now, it could be that this self-congratulation is merely annoying. But it could also have real consequences. Maybe it is was a part of the reason they thought John Kerry was going to be a great challenger to President George W. Bush in 2004. Think about it: he's a thin-skinned liberal from Massachusetts who looks like Lurch. He can't order a hot dog without seeming awkward. He finds it impossible to utter a simple declarative sentence with a noun, a verb, an object, and, most importantly, a period at the end. He spent four months in the damn boat in Vietnam, but he nullified that by talking about it all the time. Not to mention his questionable record as an antiwar activist.

If folks on the left weren't so full of themselves, they might have noticed that this man was not a strong candidate. And 2004 was no throwaway year, like '96 for the Republicans. They had a real shot, and they blew it.

It's also just generally bad political strategy to talk down to people. I mean, Reagan won twice, by pretty comfortable margins, and he did it by getting "Reagan Democrats" to vote for him. Don't the Democrats want the votes of people who voted for Bush? Is it really useful or productive to tell such people "hey, we think you are brain-damaged"?

What Arrogance! Part 2

Back at the height of the "comprehensive reform"/amnesty debate, I blogged about an Op-Ed by former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Casteneda about American immigration policy. It was an incredibly arrogant editorial, the thesis of which was that the then-proposed "comprehensive" reform -- the one voted down because American stood up and rejected amnesty in on very loud voice -- was too harsh on illegal immigrants in general and Mexicans in particular. The gall was just amazing -- a former Foreign Minister dictating immigration policy to the United States. As if he gets a vote on that issue.

Now, via Rightwing Nuthouse, I find that that former Foreign Minister Castenada has been one-upped in his arrogance -- by none other than the President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon. This Houston Chronicle article reports a recent speech made by none other than the President of Mexico -- a speech that blasted American illegal immigration policies while at the same time challenging American sovereignty:

President Felipe Calderon blasted U.S. immigration policies on Sunday and promised to fight harder to protect the rights of Mexicans in the U.S., saying "Mexico does not end at its borders."

The criticism earned Calderon a standing ovation during his first state-of-the nation address.

"We strongly protest the unilateral measures taken by the U.S. Congress and government that have only persecuted and exacerbated the mistreatment of Mexican undocumented workers," he said. "The insensitivity toward those who support the U.S. economy and society has only served as an impetus to reinforce the battle ... for their rights."

He also reached out to the millions of Mexicans living in the United States, many illegally, saying: "Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico."

"Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico."

So let me get this straight. The United States of America isn't free to protect its own physical borders. But Mexico's sovereignty extends to wherever there are Mexicans. What an incredible double standard. I think that the United States ought to have tougher enforcement against illegal aliens, but I don't seek to dictate Mexico's policy toward American illegal aliens in Mexico (if there are any). Cut off their feet and send 'em back in a shipping container, for all I care. If people are in Mexico illegally, do what you want with 'em. But don't seek to dictate American treatment of illegals within our own territory.

Just to be clear, I don't think that a bunch of Mexicans are sitting around in a room cleverly plotting the Reconquista. But here we have the President of Mexico asserting Mexican sovereignty over those portions of the United States which contain Mexicans. I'm flabbergasted -- why does the President of Mexico think he can dictate American immigration policy to America? And why has the President of the United States, George W. Bush, not (to my knowledge) protested this insult to America's sovereignty?

Purely as a Matter of national security, this claim by Mexico makes it imperative for the United States to expell as many ilegal aliens of Mexiican ancestry as possible, and to keep new Mexican illegals from entering. And, further, the US should require any naturalized Americans of Mexican descent to renounce and abjure their Mexican citizenship. To make it abundantly clear that they do not claim the protection of Mexico.

[Editing glitch now fixed.]

On the Supposed "Hack Gap"

Mathew Yglesias is an A-list lefty blogger for good reason. He's smart. He writes clearly. Perhaps most importantly, while he is definitely a partisan of the left and the Democratic Party, he's not totally immune to rational argument from people with whom he disagrees. And he pretty much sticks to civil discourse, disagreeing with people but not insulting them. So there's a lot to like about Yglesias.

Nonetheless, he does share some of the faults of his comrades on the left side of the opinion-sphere, the most notable of which is a pronounced tendency toward self-congratulation. In my experience, folks on the left have a decided propensity to view themselves as being smarter, more noble, and more virtuous than their opponents.

This propensity toward self-congratulation is why many liberals fell so hard for the chart purporting to show that states which went for Kerry had a higher average IQ than those that went for Bush -- which of course turned out to be a hoax. Likewise, it's why former New York Times editor Howell Raines insisted that John Kerry must have a higher IQ than Bush, and that his standardized test scores and grades would leave Bush's in the dust. And yet, when blogger Steve Sailer dug into the matter, he found that Kerry and Bush had scored about the same on tests they took when joining the military -- with Bush having a very slight lead. It later turned out that their grades at Yale were nearly identical, again with Bush having a very slight lead.

This characteristic is on full display in this post, where he discusses the Mark Klieman post which I referenced earlier this week. To recapitulate: an idiot columnist named Stu "We Need Another 9/11" Byofsky wrote a column arguing that, well, we need another 9/11. Mark Kleiman wondered aloud why no A-List right blogger had bothered to denounce this justifiably-obscure columnist. Along the way, he used this as an opportunity cast aspersions on "our wingnut opponents."

Yglesias takes this theme and runs with it. You see, according to Yglesias, Kleiman has observed a real problem: the supposed "hack gap." The right (according to Yglesias) has "an army of people" willing to pretend that something like John Edwards' haircut "is the most important thing in the world." As opposed to the left, which, by implication, is unarmed in the hack-war. Which means that the right can create "pseudo-issues" that decide elections, while the left is stuck earnestly advancing good policy arguments.

I don't know how you would measure which side has more "hacks," but I think it's fair to note that the folks on the left certainly manage to gin up their share of absurd, stupid, trivial, exaggerated, or distorted stories. Remember the 2004 debates, when a bunch of lefty bloggers claimed, based on a wrinkle in Bush's suit, that he was "wired" to receive radio transmissions -- presumably from Karl Rove. One wonders why he didn't do a better job in the debate if he was being coached.

Or what about the whole "plastic turkey" controversy? Remember? Bush flew to Iraq and had Thanksgiving with the troops. At one point, he held up a turkey for all to see. But soon epople were saying it was a FAKE turkey, made of PLASTIC. The actual Washington Post report indicates it was a "display turkey" made of turkey, not plastic. What I get from reading the report is that it's not practical to serve three hundred troops a "family style" Thanksgiving dinner, so they serve real turkey from steam trays but prepare a decorative turkey for people to admire. Bush picked it up and smiled for the cameras. He probably didn't even know at the time that the turkey was for display. But even if he did, so what? The soldiers ate a turkey dinner. Why does it matter if they ate that particular turkey? (See more here if you care.)

Or consider CBS News and the "fake but accurate" documents. Think about it: a major television network -- supposedly staffed with serious journalists -- put obviously-forged documents on the air with the likely purpose of swinging a presidential election. And the truth is that, in the pre-internet era, they would have gotten away with it, because none of their fellow journalists would have been inclined to check.

Ironically, as Al, one of Yglesias' commenters, noted, Mark Kleiman -- you know, the guy who referred to "our wingnut opponents" and whose comments sparked Yglesias' meditation on the "hack gap -- had himself posted just the day before on whether Rudy Guiliani had used the Emergency Command Post at World Trade Center 7 as his "love shack." As Al succinctly put it: "Hack gap closed, Matthew!"

I honestly don't know whether the "left wing noise machine" is more powerful than the "right wing noise machine," or whether there are more hacks on the left or the right. Nor do I have any idea how, in principle, such a determination could be made. Both sides seem to believe that there is a "hack gap," but in precisely the opposite direction. Conservatives rail against left wing media bias, and folks like Matthew worry about the "hack gap" and "right wing noise machine."

I think that there are three reasons for that.

First, we all have a view of the world, and, no matter how hard we might try to be objective, that view is going to color how we evaluate factual claims. Somebody who already opposed John Kerry would be more likely to credit claims that he had fudged on his war record, while his supporters would be more skeptical. If I read an article about a government program which supposedly works, I am likely to be skeptical, while somebody who thinks government is great, like Mark Kleiman or Mathew Yglesias, is more likely to accept it at face value.

Second, our perspective can affect our judgment about whether something constitutes a real issue or a pseudo issue. Somebody who believes that President Bush was illegitimately elected and that the war in Iraq is illegal is more likely to be concered about Bush's National Guard record than a war supporter. Likewise, a skeptic of John Edwards' populist message is more likely to believe that his spending a lot on a haircut or a lavish house reveals a telling hypocrisy.

Finally, it is not unusual to exaggerate the importance of particularly egregious bombthrowers on the other side. Lefties love to rail on about Ann Coulter, for example. She says some pretty outrageous things, but she's not a conservative elected official like Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan, or even Newt Gingrich; she's not a legal scholar like Richard Epstein or Justice Scalia, and she is not a conservative intellectual like William F. Buckley. Sure, she sells a lot of books and gets on TV a lot, but she is actually not particularly important to the conservative movement as a whole. Yet many on the left want to make her an important figure, largely because she is so outrageous. Or consider Kleiman's demand that A-list conservative bloggers condemn Stu "We Need Another 9/11" Byofsky. Maybe they didn't bother to condemn him because, like me, they had never even heard of him before.

Our friends on the left seem to become fixated on the least reasonable conservatives and to see them as representative. And of course people on the right sometimes do the same -- acting as if mainstream Democrats are all members of ANSWER, or demanding that everybody vaguely to the left of Hillary Clinton condemn obscure college professors.

The truth is that there are hacks on all sides, people who make bad arguments from time to time, who are careless with the facts, who lose criticial detachment. And such people span the political spectrum.