State of the Arsenal

I haven't updated this blog with any football (soccer) commentary for a while. For a moment it looked as though my football team was looking much better than my political party, but for the last two months of the season Arsenal FC went on a tailspin to make Alan Keyes proud. From first in the League and sitting in the catbird seat, the Gunners went on a stretch where the earned a whole eight out of 24 League table points (and got dumped out of the FA Cup and the Champions League for good measure). Even so, their eventual third place finish was higher than most pundits predicted before the start of the season, so some supporters see the glass half full on that score.

I personally am less optimistic, at least as with respect to the team as it currently stands. If I thought last year's relative success was a stepping stone to bigger and better things, the disappointment at the end would be tempered. But, the team's current needs are such that addressing them will require team management to do things which are outside their comfort zone. We are about to enter the summer transfer season, and the events that occur then will determine, to a substantial extent, the competitiveness of the team for next season and probably longer. For the 11 years that Frenchman Arsene Wenger has been manager, the team has preferred to buy exceptional, young, raw largely foreign talents and mold them into all-around players over the course of a couple seasons. The current squad has too few players for number of games that the team is expected to play over a season, therefore they need to acquire more immediate contributors and fewer prospects.

This is to say nothing of putting a group of individual talents together as cohesive team, or the difficulties any new acquisitions may face, in some cases adjusting to a new team, new League, new country, and new language. My fear is that Arsenal's unofficial motto will be the reverse of the Chicago Cubs', "Wait till last year."

You can't stop him.......

.........you can only hope to contain him.

Among the various things that came out of the basketball career of Michael Jordan, one of them was the introduction of this particular cliche to the sporting world. As it happens, it also describes the current oil market. The important point is that oil prices are high because of a real supply-demand imbalance that has been coming for five years or so and is likely to continue for at least another few years more. This isn't to say that there aren't lots of oil speculators around, but in the end they are not responsible for $135/bbl oil.

I've changed my my mind on this a little bit, largely because of two things.

1. The political sclerosis, NIMBYism, anti-Americanism and other bugaboos surrounding energy production are very real, to the point where we might as well consider them just as real as geological survey results. Oil exploration demands a great deal of energy _and_ time. If we had done certain things differently five or ten years ago, things would be different.

2. The limiting factor in oil production isn't the amount of oil available, but the rate at which it can be extracted. This is obvious in context, but has important consequences for time frame. A new oil field might have X billion bbls of oil there, and as technology improves the percentage that is recoverable goes up. But, the amount that can satisfy the immediate demand in the market might be marginal and in any case is determined by the extraction rate.

The world oil market won't be in equilibrium until we know the point where the price is too high for China and other countries in the early stages of industrialization to continue on that road. If we can look into the future far enough there is reason to be optimistic. Unlike the rest of the developed world, America likes to solve its problems instead of pretending that they don't exist. There's no reason why this has to be an exception. But for that to happen, the American people have to come to full appreciation of the scope of the problem and that hasn't happened yet, though it probably will soon.

Barack's supporters would like.....

.....to thank all the little people.....

.....for getting out of his way.

For the moment let's stipulate that, by now, Barack Obama has the Democratic nomination. It's been clear for a while that this race would be a victory for somebody's identity politics, it was just a matter of whose. And in Obama's case, I don't think it's exclusively, or even primarily, a racial thing. It's more that Obama represents the ever-burgeoning army of lawyers, traders, academics, and other manipulators of information that characterize the New Economy. In particular, he represents them in an identity politics, class-interest way, Presidential affirmative action for those who could care less about which NASCAR driver is switching his racing team.

A few years ago Minneapolis attorney David Lebedoff wrote a short book called _The Uncivil War_. He calls such people the New Elite, and contrasts them to the Left Behinds. The Left Behinds aren't necessarily the present-day Joads, (though clearly Obama is having big problems with those people as well). No, the Left Behinds are those who, no matter how successful they are, have allowed themselves to be defined in the context of family and local community, with all the constraints that come with it. The New Elites, in their own minds, trandscend all of that, which IMO is why so many of them are genuinely angry that to find out that the controversy over some circus clown like Rev. Jeremiah Wright is actually important to voters.

I don't intend to support Obama for President, but I'd like to have some sympathy for him on that score. The problem is, in the United States the President is the head of state as well as the head of government. Obama is just fine as head of state but is woefully unprepared as head of government. I think a fair number of Obama's supporters would see that for themselves if they willing to take a critical look at him, which unfortunately they're not.

Barack Obama just came out in favor of the most recent Farm Bill, now headed for a veto by President Bush. Even by Washington standards this was bloated, special-interest serving don't-look-at-the-sausage-making legislation. I don't think there are too many disinterested people who support this bill with a straight face. Apparently Barack Obama is one of them. There's at least a decent chance we'll have a President Obama in our future, and for me at least, the reality of a President Obama is much less appealing than the fairy tales of the Obama campaign.

Whistling Past the Graveyard, pt. II

For reasons I don't completely understand, the Democratic race is thought by many to be effectively over as of yesterday's primaries. I don't know if I believe that or not, but for the moment let's take that as a given, and that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee.

Barack Obama has had a bad month, but we shouldn't view this as a revival of the GOP. Jeremiah Wright, Bittergate, Rezko, and lapel pins might be reasons not to vote for Obama, but they will never be positive reasons to support the GOP. The GOP is in urgent need of rebranding, and this isn't it. You could say there isn't much to do right now anyway, but the first thing to do is regain credibility on domestic spending. The GOP has prominent figures who have fought the good fight on this, especially Sen. McCain and Sen. Coburn.

If I had to choose the between a GOP Congress and a Democratic President or the other way around, I'd rather have the Republicans hold Congress. Unfortunately, that's a total pipe dream at this point. Even if John McCain does win in November, the GOP will still have to clean out its stables to be a viable party going forward. We might as well start now.

Not that I'm bitter or anything

I think it's safe to say that now, the bloom is off the Barack Obama rose. Barack Obama Before was the fresh face that could break through the partisan sclerosis of American politics, but Barack Obama After simply seems remote and out of touch. The Great Man himself assures us that we're simply misinterpreting his thoughts or placing his life experience out of context. But as Jim Geraghty points out he's gone to that well too often. After Jeremiah Wright, Michelle Obama's lack of "pride in America", the "bitter" controversy, NAFTA, et al, there comes a point where we have to assume that what you see is what you get.

He's still the frontrunner for the nomination, of course, but at this point I'm genuinely undecided regarding who the stronger candidate for the general election is. Hillary Clinton is a figure of enormous antipathy and would help downticket Republicans, but at least she brings some compensation in the form of her burning ambition. She fully intends to "leave it all on the field", as the football-coach cliche has it. I just don't see that in Barack Obama, and the veneer of Untouchability is gone. God may or may not love the Republican party, but He certainly seems to have a soft spot for John McCain.

Wright and Rong in Chicago

The latest episode of our Presidential election sitcom is about Rev. Jeremiah Wright, spiritual mentor to Barack Obama, and the various stupid and incendiary things he was spoken from the pulpit. In political terms, we all want to know, did Obama successfully evade substantial negative consequences of his association with Rev. Wright with today's speech in Philadelphia? Will anyone even care about this three weeks from now? Frankly, I don't know.

But I do want to write a little bit about how we got here, especially as how it relates to the ways race relations have changed in America over the last fifteen years or so in ways that have largely fallen under radar. Essentially, ethnic relations in America are less a matter of black vs. white than at any time in my memory, and perhaps any time in the history of our country. All the constituents of our national race narrative (slavery, busing, affirmative action, segregated schools, the one-drop rule, etc) are still with us, but they are less important now. Other things have taken their place. The cultural profile of Muslims is obviously much higher in the wake of 9/11. The center of gravity of international finance has shifted away from Western Europe toward the BRIC nations. The demographics of Mexican immigration have registered on the public consciousness. In this context, black grievances against white America seem a lot more parochial than they used to.

We see this at the local level in Chicago, where the cultural life is a lot less polarized now. The political voice of the black community is spoken through the churches (and to a lesser extent black radio), but the sermons of Rev Wright sound like a time warp. Today's politically active preacher is more likely to work toward closing a liquor store that's a nuisance to the community or fixing the potholes on Stony Island.

Where does Barack Obama fit in here? A culturally prominent black man with substantial white crossover appeal, like Obama, is vulnerable to the accusation of sellout. His association with Wright inoculates him against this. It may not be a coincidence that Oprah Winfrey apparently belongs to the same church.

That said, I don't think his motivations are quite as crass or Machiavellian as that. Let's also realize that Obama holds himself out to be a figure of racial reconciliation, to himself as well as others. That Obama transcends race requires we live in a vortex of racial animosities that Obama can transcend us out of, and that requires racially polarizing figures like Rev Wright. In a weird way, Wright's racial radicalism doesn't threaten Obama, it comforts him.

It's a shame really, because even if we don't need an Obama figure to transcend our racial grievances, we emphatically _do_ need one for our partisan bitterness, and Barack Obama is as good as any. If I were going to vote in this year's Democratic Presidential primaries (and I'm not), I'd vote for Obama in a heartbeat. Even though I do think the rap on Obama as a lightweight solipsist has some merit. But even allowing for that, I'd still like to think that the Democratic Party can stand for something other than hardened antagonism towards the bourgeios, and right now the face of _that_ party is Barack Obama.

Comeback

It's interesting to me that Jonah's book has generated a great deal of heat in the blogosphere, whereas _Comeback_ by his NRO colleague David Frum has largely flown below radar.

To me, _Comeback_ is a more topical book and probably better written besides. It is about the current misfortunes of the current GOP and conservative movement and what is required to turn them around. Frum's most important contribution is his insistence on describing the lay of the land. Intellectually and politically, the Republican party and the conservative movement are losing. Which is to emphasize that it's incorrect to suppose that they're winning, or that they've lost.

Once we understand that this is where we are, we'll be in a better position to get where we want to go. Terrorism, immigration, health care, and energy have a much higher profile now than in Reagan's time. If we want to be taken seriously by today's voters, we have to talk about today's issues. This is especially important with respect to something like health care. Even if, especially if, we are forced to argue that the sort of the cheap, adequate, collective, universal-like
health care desired by the popular imagination doesn't in reality exist, we still have to play it straight. If we just rail on about how we don't like socialized medicine, it only sounds like we're not paying attention.

Liberal Fascism, pt II

I thumbed through some of Jonah's book at the bookstore today. Supposedly it is very successful commercially, top ten in Amazon in this category, top ten in the New York Times in that. Frankly, it's a little surprising to me, why so many people would be interested in this subject, and in particular Jonah's treatment of it. I'm reminded a little bit of Allan Bloom's surpise at the success of _The Closing of the American Mind_ , paraphrasing,

"I thought the book would sell at most five thousand copies, almost all of
them to my personal acquaintances."

The point is, I gather, that there are a large number of Americans of some moderate or conservative persuasion who are manifestly tired of the other team using "fascist" as a cheap epithet, and want a full understanding fascism and American culture instead.

For me, the book is somewhat disappointing. I have no quarrel with Jonah's research or any of his arguments, but I think his critics are correct to say that it is disjointed and has no real point. There so many disparate threads that it's not clear, to me at least, what conclusions Jonah wants us to make regarding the nexus between fascism and liberal American thought. And that's a substantial shortcoming because it represents the the raison d'etre of the book in the first place.

It's plausible to argue, for example, that nationalism is fascism, that fascism is socialism, and socialism is communism. But clearly, all of these things are not interchangeable with each other. Fascism has several models, and each model has several aspects, so that any number of things could plausibly be held to be fascist. In that case, we should take care that we are just as ready to argue that this or that is not fascist (in comparison to the affirmative case), or else fascism becomes an empty tautology.

Specifically, student radicalism at Cornell was very similar in appearance to the radicalization of German universities in the 30s, but has no fascist political connections. Whole Foods is a total fascist red herring, as I mentioned in my prior post. There is a substantial amount of fascist-inspired eugenics underlying liberal thought on abortion, stem cells, euthanasia, etc. But the demand for individual autonomy, mostly sexual autonomy, motivates liberal thought at least as much, a profoundly unfascist premise.

On the other hand, the nanny state in general and the interference of the nanny state into child rearing and family matters has real fascist roots, historically, intellectually, and politically.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced Ledeen's review is misguided. Clarity is at a premium, not chewy analysis. This is a subject where conclusions must be stated, and judiciously. The train of thought leading up to them is much less controversial.

Let McCain be McCain

This election cycle has the undertone of a real-life soap opera, lots of sound and fury, signifying nothing (very frustrating, btw). So why do I still care about the Presidential race, especially on the Republican side? Frankly, there is no real great answer for that, let's just say that the liberal/Democratic establishment represents very bad things for the future of America, and it's very likely that by this time next year they will control the entire federal government unless a Republican wins the Presidency.

Ok, so in the latest episode, John McCain won South Carolina and has to be figured as the favorite for the nomination at this point. At the same time, this is likely to be an uneasy marriage built upon mutual distrust. Jonah Goldberg suggests that McCain ought to give a speech reassuring the base about this or that, cooling the misgivings and ill will towards McCain.

I see his point, and ordinarily that would be the right move, but this isn't an ordinary election season. Let's note that a substantial part of McCain's support comes from his "maverickness," but the actual constituents of his independence aren't necessarily that popular. In particular, McCain is known for support for the war, campaign finance reform, liberalized immigration, and is quite shaky on taxes besides. Those really don't get McCain anywhere.

Instead, there widespread perception that Washington politics are way too cozy for the common good. In particular, that George W Bush has had stupid ideas and done stupid things, and people who should have fought the good fight against the President went into the tank instead. For good or ill, John McCain is an exception. This point of view applies to liberal Democrats obviously, but also marginal Republicans, independents, liberatarians, green-eyeshade beancounters, and former-Republicans-turned-independent-or-Democrat. For these people, the fact that McCain is a professional pain in the ass doesn't disqualify him as a potential President, it's the best thing about him.

The idea that the base is going to bring McCain to heel, like Lieberman in 2000, doesn't work on two counts. First of all, he likely won't do it, or if he does there will be all sorts of finger-crossing and under-his-breath snickering. And to the extent he will do it, it will come at the expense of support from voters who want in independent-minded guy in charge.

Instead, the GOP and McCain need to negotiate some kind of peace treaty. And the key item that the Republicans need to get is the ability to maintain an independent voice under the McCain Administration. Sometimes we (the GOP base) will agree with President McCain, sometimes we won't, but we can't afford to take responsibility for policies that we don't believe in. It's hurt us too much under President Bush.

Liberal Fascism

Jonah Goldberg has recently written a new book, _Liberal Fascism_. Predictably enough, he has kicked a hornet's nest. In just the last week or so, he's received a bunch of negative emails and reviews from liberals who don't want to be associated with fascism. He's had a contentious appearance on _The Daily Show_ with Jon Stewart. He's also had a surprisingly hostile review from Michael Ledeen.

I haven't read the book yet, I'm sure I'll get around to it sooner or later, but nonetheless I'll endorse the thesis if not the book itself. First of all, let's understand that here in the United States we've had "liberalism" and "progressivism", alternating according to one fashion or another to describe the broad "moderate" Left, since say 1910 until today.

So what if anything is the connection between Leftism in the United States and fascism? Well, the United States has never been a fascist country. Nonetheless, there were substantial connections between pre-war progressives here in America and fascists overseas, primarily Italy but also Germany. Michael Ledeen is a smart guy, but this is where he is plain wrong. It's not that American liberals did the same things over here that the various fascists did over there or even tried to, but the intellectual lines of influence are clearly there. Recall, Jonah's thesis is about _Liberal_ Fascism, not fascism in general.

It's also important not to oversell the case. The connections between fascism and liberalism were not death-grip strong (and certainly there have been other influences on modern liberalism as well), but again they did exist. Jon Stewart asked Jonah if he were trying to establish paternity for liberalism. I forgot exactly what Jonah said in reply, but he might have suggested it was a matter of grandpaternity instead.

Jonah defines fascism as follows:

“Fascism, at its core, is the view that every nook and cranny of society should work together in spiritual union toward the same goals overseen by the state.”

Ledeen objects to this definition, though it seems ok to me. I would add a couple things for emphasis. First of all, the essence of fascism is an odd self-contradiction. On the one hand the nature of community is traditional, a group of people tied together by blood and soil. This is how fascism is typically associated with the Right.

But there's a twist. In contrast to traditional societies, in fascism there is an emphasis on efficiency and common purpose, "spiritual union" as Jonah puts it. This has some very important consequences. First of all, the ethical center of society is moved upward, away from the individual and the family and toward the state, or in any case the bigger institutions of society. Decision making power over industrial organization, social status, or child-rearing is also moved upward, because those decision makers are best available to organize society around a common purpose.

This is why traditional blood-and-soil societies tend to be agrarian, whereas fascism tends toward the industrial. Let's bear in mind that this train of thought was substantially motivated by the need for efficiency. In this historical context, the nineteenth century had just ended. And it was the nineteenth century more than any other, which revolutionized economic production in the world, as well as the way everybody thought about it. Big industrial organizations were efficient, rinky-dink rural craftsmen were not. Whoever didn't get with the program of high-level planned organization, like the Confederacy, lost out to those who did.

This, I'd gather, is largely the point of Jonah's book. The prewar progressives here in the US asked themselves what's the best path for security and prosperity for America? And the answer was pretty simple. Let's get some of that industrial organization they've got in Italy and Germany and bring it over here. All we have to do is sacrifice a little bit of individual and family autonomy. Jonah's liberal critics are correct to point out that this has very little if anything to do with the Final Solution. But, even if it doesn't rise to that level of total horror, it is still pretty bad on its own terms. It's still an artifact of the idea that big, centrally planned things are necessarily the most efficient. That's a mistake, of course, but it was a plausible one in 1915, because in the 19th century economic development did coincide with centralized planning. Now, we have a century's worth of experience to show that, unless there is some massive gap in technology or property rights, _decentralization_ is far more efficient.

So, Jonah is correct to emphasize that the Hillary-Clinton-It-Takes-A-Village nanny state has substantial fascist roots, and if implemented will likely fail because of it. If this embarrasses some liberals, too bad for them.

Let me finish by scoring one definitive point for Jonah's critics. The prevalence of vegetarianism, environmentalism, Whole Foods, whatever, has nothing to do with fascism. It is true that Nazi Germany and the modern environmental movement share this back-to-nature ethos, but that's just happenstance. In both cases, this is the result of amorphous, pagan, quasireligious spirituality prevalent in both contexts. But there were no Paul Ehrlich, Rachel Carson, Sierra Club types who had any meaningful connection with Nazi Germany or were influenced by them at all. Vegetarians and environmentalists in America are right to complain if Jonah tries to associate them.

Whistling past the graveyard

John O'Sullivan has a new piece out on NRO today, wherein he asserts that things aren't so bad for the GOP and its Presidential candidates.

I have no particular beef against O'Sullivan, but I don't think this particular stance does anybody any favors. On this score, I am definitely a glass-half-empty kinda guy.

Take a look at two recent pieces from the other team, taken more or less at random, here and here. The former is probably the only thing that Jack Balkin has written that I agree with. As for Obama, the thing to notice there is that his message of hope is not so much intended to transcend racial bitterness in America (my anecdotal observation is that's gotten quite a bit better over the last 15 years or so) as much as _partisan_ bitterness.

The fact that our candidates are men of real substance and accomplishment whereas theirs are a big joke just highlights the fact that strategically they are in a much stronger position than we are. Here's one particular ominous fact to come out of the Michigan primary, counterintuitive to some. McCain won a substantial majority of those opposed to the war. Why would such people vote for McCain, a stalwart supporter of the war since the beginning? They want to twist the knife into George W. Bush, and that was the only way to do it. There's no way the GOP will recover those voters until they've had the chance to vent their spleen at the party, and a fair number of their gripes are legit so we've got to listen and talk turkey with them. There may not be that many of them, but frankly the GOP majority didn't have that many votes to spare in the first place.

Mitt wins a round

Mitt won the Michigan primary tonight, so he will be a viable candidate for the nomination for a while now. Of course, even if he gets it, his chances of winning the general election are pretty slim, as I wrote yesterday.

Every election cycle, some pundit claims this will finally be the year we'll see a brokered convention, and it never comes off. This time might really be it, especially because so many of the candidates with substantial support in the primaries so far are completely unacceptable to various factions of the party, who will make substantial efforts to stop Mitt, or Huck, or Rudy, or McCain.

In contrast to the conventional wisdom about getty the divisiveness out early and unifying around the nominee, I think it's good for the GOP to work this one out for a while longer still. As Republicans we don't know what we want the President to do, how should be know which guy we want to do it. The GOP has had a tendency toward complacency and anti-intellectualism in it for a while now. It has rarely served the party well, but most of them has been a minor irritation. Now things are different. Things are up for grabs at a more fundamental level than at any time since, say 1980. And, the party has associations with many unpopular things that need to be cleared away. There's no point in pretending that everything is just ducky when it's plainly not.

The New Reagan

Forgive as I take the windy road to get to the point of this post.

Why does there seem to be such a visceral dislike of Mitt Romney? Let's leave aside the personal considerations and consider this: Mitt is the guy who has tried to make himself the candidate of the conservative base, and the base itself is unpopular. IMO, this is down to two things. First is the war, which is a fair rap. Second is the sense of corruption in the party and staleness in conservatism in general. This is a bad rap, but our hands aren't completely clean there either.

So where do we go from here? As I see it, there's only two prominent conservatives who have thought about this and have an answer. The first is Presidential candidate Fred Thompson, who thinks we need a new Reagan and is auditioning for that job. The second is David Frum, who thinks the Reagan frame of mind is now just a matter of nostalgia, and conservatives need to come up with topical answers to _today's_ problems asap. Oddly enough, I think they're both right which is something of an accomplishment since these two are a little bit contradictory.

The first lesson to relearn from the Reagan era is to reject despair. One of Reagan's better lines is from his campaign against Jimmy Carter. "A recession is when a neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. A recovery is when the President loses his." Considering that so many of our problems are the same ones that we saw in the 70s, the good news is that we can use the same solutions: support for the military, support for the nuclear family, low taxes, taking away easy energy revenue from our enemies, etc.

But for many of today's problems, we haven't seen before. These are health care, demographics, energy, and most importantly, the inability to build financial security in today's global economy, even for smart and industrious people. The responsible political class doesn't want to touch these issues, because there at the moment there are no good answers for them. But nonetheless they need to anyway, if only to generate conversation and realistic expectations amongst the citizens, or else the various demagogues and doomsayers will carry the day.

The falling stock of Mitt Romney

At this point, I think it's fair to say that the Great White Hope of Mitt Romney has failed to materialize. It's still plausible that he will be the Republican nominee for President. But if he is, then he won't win, and cannot reestablish the GOP as a competitive conservative vehicle after he's gone.

The reasons for this are pretty simple really. There's just too many people who smell him as a snake-oil salesman. This compounds his structural problems of Massachusetts and Mormonism. Add it all up and it's just too much headwind to overcome. But to a substantial extent even the reasons don't really matter. Mitt Romney has run a hard, disciplined, energetic campaign, with the best organization of any of the candidates. Nonetheless, a substantial number of base conservatives have rejected him, even to the point of selecting hairshirt John McCain over him.

At this point, there are only two decent outcomes for the GOP, and both of them are only barely plausible. The first is nominate Fred Thompson, whose candidacy is on life support, but who is campaigning in South Carolina and is said to have some momentum there. The other one is to nominate John McCain, _with_ the stipulation that he governs as an independent and does not attempt to control or speak for the conservative movement or GOP apparatus. Sorta like if the GOP nominated nobody but endorsed John McCain running as an independent.

But what's at least as bad is that the GOP lacks for ideas at least as much as it does for candidates. More on that soon.

Everton 1 - Arsenal 4

Arsenal was very fortunate to defeat Everton 4-1 at Goodison Park earlier today. As lopsided as the score was, Arsenal looked to be the better team for an astonishingly small fraction of the game time. In the Boxing Day fixture at Portsmouth, the Gunners ran into an athletic, motivated side. Arsenal looked to be the better team, but embarrassingly toothless in a nil-nil draw.

Here, Arsenal were outphysicalled and surprisingly outskilled by Everton, but poured in the goals. Arsenal have not played their best football for about a month now, but the holiday fixture congestion ends on New Year's Day home to West Ham and as I write the Gunners are top of the table by two points. If Arsenal play their best game they are the best team in the League. If they can recover Cesc, Hleb and Robin Van Persie to their best form while continue winning until then, they will win the title. If I had to guess now, I think they will.

Are you really ready to be President, Mr Huckabee,

.......if it takes you two weeks to get ready to talk to Tim Russert for a half hour?

The Fog Lifts

It's primary time for the GOP, and this season is the most disjointed that I can ever recall. One thing that has happened over the last ten days or so is that I've decided, at least one for one GOP supporter, the optimal preference order for the major GOP candidates. Drum roll please:

1. Thompson/Romney
2. McCain
3. Ron Paul
4. Huckabee/Giuliani

I'd put McCain on the same level as Romney and Fred if it weren't for the partisan aspect of the Presidency. That is, the President is de facto the leader of the party as well. I could live with McCain's apostasies on campaign finance reform or immigration, except for the fact that his leadership of the party will undercut the ability of Republicans or other conservatives to oppose him on those issues. I'm afraid, at the end of the day we're going to end up with someone a lot worse than him anyway.

Ten days or so the situation looked pretty bleak, for me at least. The two very worst candidates from the whole field were the national polls frontrunner and the hot candidate. But now at least there's a scenario brewing that has at least a decent chance of coming off. Giuliani is falling in the polls, both the nationals and in the important states. He's weak in both Iowa and New Hampshire. If both trends continue, we can hope he gets knocked to the canvas on New Hampshire primary night and doesn't get up. His support will forced to find another home. At the end of the day, Huckabee is not going to win the nomination, so it's not as bad if he wins a couple of early ones. Then the party and the gods get to pick from Mitt, Fred and John McCain, and truth be told that's not so bad.

Only slightly an exaggeration

.....is this. There's a difference between cheering your horse, and mindless fan-boyism. Unfortunately, Hugh Hewitt is too often on the wrong side of that line.

The Speech

By now, the political world is atwitter that Mitt Romney will reprise the JFK in Houston speech, being a member of a religious minority running for President.

It's a good thing as far as I'm concerned. The public at large will finally get to see how Romney wants the rest of us to perceive his Mormonism. And if we're lucky, we might get a chance to see the "real" Romney in such a way as to discredit the "cardboard cutout" rap.

This primary season has been very frustrating for a GOP base conservative, not least because the whole thing has turned into a Chinese fire drill. But worse than that, this primary campaign season is miserably failing at the things that primaries are supposed to accomplish.

We _still_ don't know who out of these candidates can take some heat. Rudy Giuliani is transvestite New Yorker with a short fuse. Mitt is a Ken-doll flip-flopper. The Ron Paul campaign has attracted more flakes and quackjobs than Area 51. Mike Huckabee is a Jimmy Swaggart who got elected governor and likes to raise taxes. These guys have all earned their labels, to some extent they're legit. Who out there, can melt away his oppo-research facade and show us that there's something underneath that's worth our support? I for one am hoping that with this speech at College Station, Mitt Romney is going to be the first to try and get a bite of out of that apple.

Two Cheers for Frum

There's a certain small segment of people for whom David Frum inspires a great deal of bitterness, mostly paleolibertarians and cranks. At bottom, the bitterness amounts to the fact that throughout his career, Frum has been willing to write in the mainstream press and work for mainstream pols, and deal with the notoriety and compromise goes along with that.

It is true that he unfairly criticized columnist Robert Novak for some supposedly unsavory antiwar associations in an article he wrote in National Review back in 2003. For that he ought to apologize, something I very much doubt will be forthcoming.

But in the main it's a bad rap. Frum is one of the most perceptive figures on the Right today, precisely because of his appreciation for what certain political figures can (or can't) do, with the constraints they operate under. For example, in the current issue of National Review Frum reviews _Heroic Conservatism_, by former Presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson. Frum is correct to emphasize that the gap between President Bush's lofty words and faltering actions have resulted in the unfortunately reality that most Americans just mentally tune him out.

I thought of this because, in the latest twist in the Republican Presidential race, Mitt Romney has decided to reprise JFK's speech to the ministers in Houston. I was going to write something about this but Frum beat me to it, and to a substantial extent has already put to pixels what I was going to say anyway.

Frum is correct that nobody is afraid that Romney will be beholden to some elder in Salt Lake City in the same way that people were legitimately afraid that JFK would be conscience-bound to take direct orders from the pope. On the other hand, some of the doctrines of Mormonism are just really weird. And, I differ with Frum to the extent that I think it's perfectly reasonable for voters to hope that Romney can stipulate that they are irrelevant to the performance of duties in public office.

It's a fool's errand in American politics to pretend that voters care about something which they don't, or that they shouldn't care about something which they do. If a substantial enough number of them care about Romney's Mormonism to the extent that it hurts his candidacy, he has to address it. And Kudos to Romney for doing it.

Living in Interesting Times

According to the latest round of polls, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is gaining in Iowa at the expense of Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson. This is just the latest twist of a primary season that has been as unpredictable as anything except college football.

For a while now, I've disagreed with the conventional wisdom that the Republicans have an especially weak field. In many ways, they are very accomplished men. McCain, Romney, Ron Paul, Fred Thompson, and Giuliani are all first tier talents in their own way.

I've tried to recollect some of the various worthies and not-so-worthies who have tried to get the GOP nomination over the last few cycles. And basically, there's been two kinds. First are the establishment candidates who have tried to position themselves in way or another inside the GOP base as it's developed since Reagan. Then there are the insurgent candidates, sometimes one-issue guys, who maybe aren't trying to win so much as to influence debate within the party or within the country. Of the former, there's Pete DuPont, Jack Kemp, Lamar Alexander, Bob Dole, Phil Gramm, Steve Forbes, John McCain, Dan Quayle, Richard Lugar and maybe some others I've forgotten. Of the latter, I can think of Pat Buchanan, Alan Keyes, Pat Robertson, Bob Dornan offhand. The point being is that it's the mainstream guys are the ones who define the center of gravity for the party. There's more of them, they have all the support and the money, and the others attempted to define themselves in relation to that center of gravity.

This year's field isn't weak so much as it is unconventional. For Romney, McCain, Giuliani, and Ron Paul (among others), there's just too much mental gymnastics required to get to the point where we can say, "Well, I guess _____ is okay."

And this was before the rise of Mike Huckabee, and I gotta admit I'm at a loss for this one. I'm not a huge fan of Rudy Giuliani, but the logic behind his candidacy makes perfect sense to me. But what is it exactly, that would make somebody want to call on the leadership of Mike Huckabee, either for the party or the country at large? He's a glad-handing, smooth talking, sticky-fingered Republican Bill Clinton nanny-state exemplar. As far as principled social conservatives go, Senator Sam Brownback is a much better.

I suppose there's just enough interesting narrative behind the story of losing 100 lbs. to hope that Huck can escape the Bible-thumping ghetto. And assuming he gets that far, that he's ready to compete on the big stage of American politics. It seems like a vain hope to me.

Aston Villa 1 - Arsenal 2

The Gunners picked up a crucial three points at Aston Villa today, in circumstances that bode well for their title chances in come May. The opponents were a good team (among the Premier League also-rans at least), playing well, and at home. Arsenal, OTOH, were struggling to get some players back from injury and have sometimes in years past have lost form in December, just when the fixture congestion starts. From a pessimist's point of view, this game had "dropped points" written all over it.

But it didn't happen that way. It's especially auspicious that the goals were not the typical Arsenal scores either, Mathieu Flamini with a drive from the edge of the box and Adebayor with a header. This is significant because the defense had lots of players in their area at the time (Adebayor was marked twice). Scoring goals like this will defeat the fortress mentality of many opponents.

The second half was scoreless. Truth be told Villa had the better of the game at that time. But as Arsenal fans know well, the winner of a football match is the team that scores the most goals, not necessarily the one that looks like the better side.

This is make or break time for the Gunners. A third of the season is in the books now. Another third of the season finishes in February. Arsenal will have to carry through the middle part of the season at less than full strength, due to injury and the African Nations Cup. If Arsenal can carry through this stretch with a bigger lead than they have now, they will win the League. We know that Arsenal have the talent to win, but do they have the perserverance?

The Bush Doctrine Wins One

According to this blogpost from the Weekly Standard, the North Korean regime is now in existential jeopardy. This is the sort of thing to be taken with many grains of salt. Nonetheless, it illustrates the bankruptcy of the "realist" school of foreign policy, one of my favorite whipping boys.

The realists are correct to emphasize that success in foreign policy demands competent execution. That notwithstanding, it is always a mistake to concentrate on means to such an extent that their ends are forgotten. In the case of North Korea, our ends are the demolition of their nuclear program, and preferably regime change too. The reason for this is very simple, though it's one of the more controversial elements of the Bush Doctrine. The nature of the North Korean regime is simply evil and cannot be dealt with.

Even if we cannot accomplish these goals directly, they cannot be forsaken either. With hope comes opportunity, which might be manifested in unexpected ways. Without it, you give up on the whole loaf for sure, and the half loaf you thought you were settling for, well you might not get that either.

Grover Norquist is Useless

This cheeses me off a little bit, not because he's picking on my quasi-supported candidate (HT to The Corner).

First of all, it ought to be pretty clear by now that the level of communication between the Washtington Republican establishment and the conservative base is atrocious. Several times over Bush's second term, either the President or the Republicans have been caught completely flatfooted at the overwhelmingly negative response to their initiatives, eg, immigration, Harriet Miers, William Jefferson's money in the freezer, etc. I've wondered what actually happens in his Wednesday morning meetings. Whatever it is, somebody is not getting the memo.

About this particular incident, it just seems like Norquist hasn't updated his playbook since 1990. Right now, the most likely scenario after the next election is that the D's will control the Presidency and both houses of Congress. I'd give the GOP a better chance to defend the Maginot Line than to successfully prevent tax increases in that scenario. We all know that fetishizing a balanced budget is a green eyeshade trap. But somewhere over the rainbowsome kind of ballpark relationship to outlays. If there's no pressure at all to discipline spending (and I can never recall an instance of Norquist applying any), holding the line on taxes is increasingly implausible.

The Lives of Others, pt II

In _The Lives of Others_, the conduct of the Stasi was petty and cruel, but never barbarous. I suspect this was done by design, but even if it was by accident, the effect is the same.

The viewer is never revolted by the events in the movie to the point where he must turn away from the screen to recover his own bearing. Because we, the audience, can safely pay our attention to the story in front of us, we can appreciate the content at a deeper, less abstract level. It's not just that most of us are fully capable of the various cruelties of the Stasi, but actually more hopeful than that. We are also capable of the heroic subterfuge of Herr Wiesler as well, which we feel all the more acutely because we feel the same dread at the risk of discovery that he did. To that end, we can forgive the producers some historical inaccuracies.

The Lives of Others

As I've written before, the history and drama of the Cold War is surprisingly obscure today. As recent as it is, it seems to have slipped away from our collective memory. This is unfortunate, not simply for the sake of historical remembrance, but also because during that era, we were forced to strengthen and use spiritual resources which, since then, seem to have gotten collectively weaker among us.

With these things in mind I was very keen to seem _The Lives of Others_, a German film about life under the shadow of the Stasi, the East German secret police. The subject of the surveillance is Georg Dreyman, a prominent Socialist playwright who heretofore had been thought to be above suspicion. But the real protagonist is his Stasi minder, Wiesler, a distant, meticulous man, even among the Germans.

But it's important to realize that those facts of his nature and his past describe Herr Wiesler, they don't define him. He can still see the reality of the world outside himself, he can still choose his actions, and informed by his own conscience, he can still choose the good and reject evil. He can choose these things at his own personal cost even. In his own way, he can stand for the freedom of the playwright to write and the integrity of the relationship between the playwright and his girlfriend. But, notwithstanding these choices, and the spiritual awakening that came with them, Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler is still the same meticulous distant German that he was before. By the end of the movie, even though Dreyman is able to appreciate and acknowledge the sacrifice that Wiesler made for him, they never actually speak face to face.

As a final note, Wikipedia claims that this movie cost $2M to make yet has grossed $73M so far. This conforms to a pet theory of mine, that the audience hungers for real drama at the heart of the person and his ability to perservere in diverse or adverse circumstances. If Hollywood, or artists in general could write this drama, they would be more successful, both financially and artistically.

Rudy and Abortion

Hadley Arkes writes about the connection between the Giuliani campaign and the abortion issue here. Frankly, Rudy has been a lot more durable than I thought. If Rudy is nominated I'd probably even vote for him but his candidacy is very disconcerting nonetheless.

First, I personally oppose abortion but even if I didn't, it's important to realize that the presence of the pro-life movement as part of the Republican party is a good thing. It's a matter of simple arithmetic. Demographically speaking, it's the presence of the Religious Right that separates the United States from the UK or Canada or the major Continental nations. Those who don't like Ralph Reed or whoever should decide how much they like paying a marginal tax rate of 70% or whatever it is in Germany because that's the alternative.

Second, if Giuliani is elected, the pro-life movement is in for some bleak times. For the rest of us, even if he upholds his promises regarding judges, or at least intends to, we'll be living a colder, less friendly place nonetheless. There's a certain warmth and enthusiasm that comes from the realization that we can take some inconvenience when somebody else really needs us, and heck, the extra burden isn't that heavy anyway. That, I fear, is what President Rudy Guiliani will cut us off from.

The contrast with Mitt Romney is palpable. Mitt seems to believe the "right" things, except that he hasn't been able to convey why he believes them except for political expediency. If ever he can, I suspect his candidacy will be a lot stronger than it is now. In any case, I'd still take him over Rudy as it is.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Before the Iraq war, some antiwar advocates polemically argued that we were the ones who gave Saddam Hussein his weapons in the first place. Though it's not exactly clear why that train of thought should determine whether or not we invade Iraq, it obviously was intended to be a moral rebuke to America.

In any case it isn't so, here's a useful link. We supplied very few of Saddam's armaments, and those that we did were supposed to be a counterweight against the regime of the Ayatollahs in Iran who were fighting against Iraq at the time. You don't hear very much about this any more. Saddam has had his date with the hangman and frankly nobody misses him very much, so as practical matter it's not that big a deal. But, it is indicative of several important things.

It's been a theory, prominently but not exclusively of the paleolibertarians, that we can solve our Middle East problems if we just take the ball and go home. Mostly, this is insinuated rather than directly argued, and the above is a good clue why. We are never told what level of disengagement by America is supposed to work. Those disposed to oppose America are not especially fastidious. We are blamed for the things we are doing, but the things we did ages ago, things we only thought of, things the British did in the '20s, or in the above case, things we did very little of.

Most importantly, the hatreds and the rivalries in the Middle East are part of the cultural fabric there, and are substantially not created by us. In this particular case, Saddam Hussein was going to get his weapons from anyone who would sell them to him. This is why, even if we'd left Iraq a year ago and the violence there stayed at its grotesque nadir, it's still not our fault. This isn't to deny that the stubbornness and smugness of the Administration, and the state of denial in important quarters of the American Right, were not serious mistakes, mistakes that we're still paying for today. Nonetheless, they are not the real cause of our problems.

The biggest problem we have, is that almost all the major players there are immediately and opportunisticly willing to resort to violence to achieve their political ends. One very important upside to winning the Iraq war is that we can show to the players there, ourselves, and anyone else who's watching, that it doesn't have to be that way. Something else is actually possible, smack dab in the middle of the Middle East, at the end of the Persian Gulf. Thus there is another way for the actors there to achieve their political ends. Who knows, some of them may even try it.

It is the realist thesis that we have to rely on the powers that be, Saddam Hussein, Assads, the Saudi princes, etc. to keep a lid on the violence in the areas they have control over and quarantine it away from us. And truth be told, on many occasions we may have to do exactly that. But that should always be a tactical decision and never a strategic one. First of all, we have to rely on the control that those rulers have over their societies which may not be sufficient for us (and are probably maintained with very brutal methods). Second, it's not clear why these rulers, who have clawed their way up the greasy pole, should be looking to do favors for us. In some cases, like Osama, that's obviously a nonstarter since his raison d'etre is to commit acts of violence against us.

Ultimately, with the advance of globalization and technology, we live in the same world as the Middle East. At the end of the rainbow, their world is our world. To a substantial degree, we can insulate ourselves against the problems there. But, if we have no hope of those problems actually being resolved, we're just living on borrowed time.

The Organization Man

As the cliche goes, he who pays the piper calls the tune. Sometimes the world is governed by what's best, and sometimes by what's the most popular. That's just a fact of life that we all accept, even if we don't like it some of the time. As it pertains to politics or cultural affairs, that means whoever gets the most votes wins the election. Whoever sells the most records gets played on the radio, et cetera, et cetera.

But public effectiveness also requires more than mere popularity. It requires energy for promotion and the ability to harness that energy toward concrete ends. In short, organization.

I was thinking about this in the context of (what else?) Ron Paul's campaign. It's worth mentioning that heretofore, nothing associated with the paleolibertarians has ever been worth a tinker's dam when it comes to organization. The paleocons are essentially professional pains in the ass. They would much rather argue with the mainstream Right (or themselves) to organize anything useful. The libertarians on the other hand, disdain organization. Organization is about putting common purpose ahead of individual autonomy and that reminds them of the government, which they hate. There is always a decent amount of libertarian sentiment wafting around America, but the Libertarian Party has always been a joke.

I don't criticize Ron Paul's campaign on this account. Again, it is by far the best anything associated with the paleolibertarians have ever done. It's just that their enthusiasm is of a piece with an eight-year-old boy who finds a cool new toy under the tree on Christmas. "Wait, you mean we can get together around stuff we all agree on, get more done _and_ have more fun than if we were all by our lonesome? Wow, I didn't know you could do that." The Sierra Club and the NRA (and the major parties and the unions and umpteen other groups) have been playing this game for a long time now. RP's campaign has a lot of catching up to do. A lot of RP's supporters would like to think that he polls at 2% because The Man is Keeping Him Down. I think the real answer is a lot more prosaic than that.

Reading 1 - Arsenal 3

The Gunners were back in action today with a comfortable 3-1 win at Reading. As a practical matter, the upshot is that Arsenal earned three League points and returned to the top of the table. But the game also illustrated a few things that are worth mentioning in their own right.

First of all, some Arsenal fans have deluded themselves for a couple of years now that the Premier League alsorans have to put "eleven men behind the ball" in order to keep from being dominated by the Arsenal attack. This is just plain wrong on many levels.

First of all most teams, even the ones just trying to hang on a scrape out a nil-nil draw, don't play eleven behind the ball, because that's a terrible defensive formation. It just about guarantees that your team will be under constant pressure the whole game. There's not enough guys who can get forward to catch the opponent on a counterattack. And furthermore, there's often times nowhere to outlet the ball to maintain possession if you're lucky enough to get it. Today's game was actually an exception. For the first half, while the game was scoreless, Reading was completely negative. And during that half, they barely touched the ball. Most importantly, it's not the other team's responsibility to play in a way that makes Arsenal comfortable. It's Arsenal's responsibility to figure out how to beat the other team no matter how they line up.

Related to that, for as succesful a season as Arsenal has had, I still worry about the team's ability to generate chances from possession. If the opposition tries to pack the penalty area, there are at least two things to do. First is to send in crosses from the wing for headers. Second is to blast the ball at the goal from 25 yards or so and poach rebounds. But so far, Arsenal hasn't shown the desire or aptitude for either one.

I believe this is mostly down to coaching and training methods, but it also at least a little bit related to personnel. Emmanuel Adebayor either needs to play better or the team has to find some other options at forward. This is a bit of a hidden problem. As a team, Arsenal leads the League in goals scored and Ade is second among players with seven. But of those, only one from open play either tied the game or gave Arsenal the lead (another was a penalty). Most of his goals come when Arsenal already has the lead, and those are worth a lot less. Fortunately for the Gunners, the midfield is pouring them in. But I'd like to rely on that a lot less.

Finally, Reading's consolation goal essentially served as comic relief for both teams. As a rule of thumb, 90 minutes is long enough and the skill level in the Premier League is high enough to figure that you might give up one goal against the run of play. Therefore, the typical strategy of trying to score a goal first and then go back to the castle and pull up the drawbridge doesn't work in must-win games. And for a team like Arsenal, that's almost all of them. Therefore, Arsenal has generate enough chances to get at least two a game. When you're up three-nil, you don't have to sweat a bad bounce here or there too hard.

Can I get on the CIA payroll too?

Is this guy representative of Ron Paul's support base? I'd feel better if he weren't, but I fear that he is.

The lazy man's candidate

Fred D. Thompson entered the race a while ago, and it's safe to say he's nestled comfortably within the first tier of candidates without doing anything exciting. He's taken the lead on immigration, but otherwise done very little to dispel the rap that he's a candidate whose heart really isn't in it.

It's a thin line really. We want to have a President with some energy, aggression and passion, but at the same time has enough humility to deploy them in the service of a higher purpose, not merely his own ego. I think it's fair to say that our last two Presidents have been better on the campaign trail than on the job. It's especially sad in the case of Mr. Clinton, who was notoriously protective of his place in history. Nonetheless, he was more or less a bystander to the major events of his era. After all the turmoil associated with him, his substantive accomplishments are more or less nil. He would be better off if he were Coolidge, who operated that way on purpose.

That aside, back to Fred Thompson. The essence of his candidacy, IMO, is that he uniquely is positioned to restore the Republican party as the majority in America. That's a big job, since the GOP is has less credibility now (more precisely, in the aftermath of the 2006 election) than at any time since 1974. Observers within the party and outside of it are skeptical that it can be done.

The Republicans are caught in a bad pincer. President Bush is regarded as stupid, and the Republicans in Congress are regarded as venal. Put the two together and Republicans in general are stupid _and_ venal, and that's a deadly combination. A well-adjusted person might, under some circumstances, have respect for a person (on in this case, an institution) that is one or the both, but to be venal and stupid together is to invite contempt with a flashing neon sign.

This is the hole that Fred Thompson can dig us out of. More so than most of the other candidates, he has the opportunity to clearly and aggressively define what the party stands for, away from the cul-de-sac that it's currently in. But that will take more energy that we've seen from him so far.

Keepin' it real

Among those who oppose the Iraq war there's four main schools of thought:

1. Haters of President Bush and the bourgeois America that he represents.
2. Dogmatic pacifists of any stripe.
3. Paleolibertarians
4. "Realists"

The first is something that respectable people simply ought to shun, though unfortunately sometimes they don't. The second is a little too abstract, so I'll pass on that for the moment at least. The third and fourth are pretty similar to each other. The paleolibertarians are those such as Presidential candidate Ron Paul who are essentially isolationist with respect to the Middle East for one reason or another, though it's difficult to see exactly what level of disengagement would isolate us from the turmoil there. The realists are those exemplified by Henry Kissinger, James Baker or Brent Snowcroft who suppose that we ought to rely more on good execution of the nuts and bolts of diplomacy. The realists and the paleolibertarians are IMO the most interesting of the opponents of the war among other reasons because it's only in the context of plausible alternatives that we can make intelligent choices.

I mention this because there's an interesting editorial in the LA Times today. Professor Bacevich is a realist, as he mentions in the article. Most of it is unobjectionable, uncontroversial even. Certainly now, I think both the military and civilian leadership have a better understanding of how many military resouces it takes to accomplish something, and would like to get a better bang for the buck than we've gotten in Iraq so far.

The fly in the realist ointment, of course, is 9/11. The professor writes,

"Reinvent containment. The process of negotiating that accommodation will
produce unwelcome fallout: anger, alienation, scapegoating and violence. In
collaboration with its allies, the United States must insulate itself against
Islamic radicalism. The imperative is not to wage global war, whether real or
metaphorical, but to erect effective defenses, as the West did during the Cold
War."

Unfortunately, 9/11 proved we couldn't isolate ourselves from radical Islam with Realpolitik. If those dysfunctional societies are left to their own devices, they will be represented by Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden or the ayatollahs, because they are the ones strong enough or vicious enough to end up on top.

We should know that most of the tribal societies of the Middle East are not necessarily our close friends. But, it seems that there's a legitimate chance that we could live in reasonable peace with them if we could interact directly with them. If we are smart, we might figure out a way to do that with less cost in life and treasure than we have seen so far. It seems that there is an opening for our scholars and politicians to look for it. I hope somebody finds it, but frankly I don't know where to look.

The Dog That Didn't Bark

Given the unpopularity of the war in Iraq, it seems that there ought to be an opening for a Republican antiwar candidate for President. But if there is, then the Ron Paul campaign is a dog that is manifestly not barking. Heck, it's not even whimpering or wagging its tail. The fact that Ron Paul raised $4M in a day doesn't change this in the slightest.

The fact is, there is no reputable poll where Ron Paul consistency gets at least 5% support, either nationwide or in any topical state. Furthermore, over the past 10 months or so, 2 additional GOP candidates have plausibly entered the first tier, Huckabee and Fred Thompson.

The Ron Paul supporters seems to have to carry a "hidden juggernaut" mentality that seems to me to be historically myopic and frankly inexplicable. If The Man would just quit stepping on his neck, we would all be rallying around him. But we've seen this movie before. Howard Dean, Ross Perot, and Ralph Nader all failed as Presidential candidates, and Ron Paul has a long way to go to get to where they were.

But what has he really accomplished so far? Lyndon LaRouche ran, several times, for the Democratic Presidential nomination with campaigns that were both nuts and incoherent. If nothing else, Ron Paul has proved that he's not incoherent. So he's not the Republican Lyndon LaRouche. Faint praise, I'd guess.

Politics by Other Means

This is one of the most fascinating pieces I have ever read, regarding immigration or any other subject for that matter (Hat tip: Derbyshire, who circulated this in the Corner a few months ago). Immigration is a multifaceted thing, of course, but IMO the most volatile part of it is the intent to undermine popular sovereignty in the effort to liberalize immigration. And this is not distaste for some imaginged knee-jerk reaction against the brown hordes crossing the border, but the attempt to create a permanent ruling class against the interest of the citizens. See also here.

The Fallout

I had a friend in college who was a member of a fraternity and their house a specialty drink, the PhiNuke. I forget exactly what God-awful ingredients were mixed to make a PhiNuke, but the joke was "It's not the impact, it's the fallout."

So it is for the Republicans. 2006 was the impact, and 2008 is the fallout. In 2006 the GOP bubble burst. The staleness of incumbency, corruption, and the Iraq War combined to perfect storm that swept away majority in both houses of Congress. The only good news that is Democratic party never closed the sale as anything other than as a vehicle for frustration with the Republicans. Frankly they didn't really try even.

So that leaves an opening. The GOP still has issues that ought to command some support from the voters, eg abortion, national security, immigration. But first they have to survive the fallout. The Republicans have lost their political sinew: party identifcation, candidate recruitment, fundraising, message discipline. These are areas where the Republicans have had an edge for a while, but are now swimming upstream*. If one party is dominating the battle of ideas none of this matters. But that is a dim hope. If the GOP wants to materialize that hope, it needs to get its house in gear quickly.


* Ramesh Ponnuru and Rich Lowry have an article in National Review laying out just how much trouble the Republicans are in. Unfortunately the link is one of those lame-ass teaser things. If they ever fix it, I'll update.

Why I never thought of that

After the usual sturm und drang, the Democrats in the Senate acquiesce to the nomination of Michael Mukasey as United States Attorney General. This, combined with the continuation of the Iraq War under a Democratic Congress and a couple of other things, has fueled frustration on the part of the Democratic base and their anti-war supporters. The anti-war majority in the country at large is not getting very much mileage out of their electoral success in the 2006 election, and they are none too happy about it. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Unfortunately for them, this is the result of the cynical mentality of the Democratic Establishment, which heretofore had been somewhat hidden. Truth be told, most Democrats in Congress are motivated by bitterness and opposition to the President than anything else. What the President is for, they are against. But that game works a lot better in the minority than the majority, where they have real responsibility for what happens and the voters are watching a lot closer. And so now we find out what the Congressional Democrats really think about Iraq and the other big ticket terror-related issues. And the answer is, not much of anything really.

We Win, They Lose

More from O'Sullivan:

"My theory of the Cold War is that we win and they lose." - Ronald Reagan

What can we apply from our victory in the Cold War to the War on Terror? Well, we can adapt Reagan's theory of the Cold War for starters. And contrary to the naysayers then and now it is not merely an expression of mindless belligerence. It is a statement of intent. Sometimes it can be advanced with violence, sometimes without, but the intent is the same regardless.

Btw, this is why the Ron Paul campaign is now and forever shall be a joke, no matter how popular or unpopular the Iraq war is. Ron Paul does not particularly care about winning the War on Terror, if he even believes such a thing exists. That puts him outside the mainstream of the American people and even further outside the mainstream of the Republican party. Even then, he still might be a plausible candidate except for the fact that he makes no effort to persuade those who might disagree or even acknowledge they exist. Great job for someone who wants to be the chief executive of a constitutional republic.

Okay that aside, let's get the lay of the land in the Middle East and see who the main players are. In general, there are three sorts: the nation states, the terror groups, and the underlying tribal societies. Here the analog to the Cold War gets murky. First of all, the terror groups weren't nearly as significant. But most importantly, we have no real idea what civil society in Middle East might be like if we ever got the opportunity to engage it directly. In the Cold War, the people were our friends. To this day, America is in no place more popular than among the people of former Soviet satellites. Now, it's a grab bag. We have seen, in the space of 18 months or so, a change from bitter enmity to something approaching real friendship, at least among some of the Sunni Iraqi tribes. All in all, we shouldn't expect something like a real victory in the War on Terror to happen quickly.

But whether it's quick, or slow, or never happens at all, our intent is still the same.

Glory Days

The other day I bought the latest book by John O'Sullivan, _The President, The Pope, and The Prime Minister_, about Reagan, John Paul II, and Thatcher of course. To the extent I update this blog, I'm sure that I'll have several go-rounds about it. But while the subject material of the book is near and dear to my heart, it fills me some dread anyway. The problem is, most of the Reagan hero-worship comes off as the political-cultural version of 80s nostalgia, like Members Only jackets and A Flock of Seagulls for those who watch the McLaughlin Group. Jonah Goldberg makes a similar point here.

Nonetheless, this first impression is wrong in the final analysis. The lessons of the 80s are still topical today, especially for those of us who would in some way be considered part of the American Right.

Let's start with simple political demographics. The electoral success of Ronald Reagan as President of the United States is the finest fruit of the Buckley Renaissance of American conservatism which started a few decades earlier. As a coalition it was pretty simple: anti-Communist in foreign policy, low taxes and pro-family domestically. This has been pretty stable since then. Now, the Communists are gone and the terrorists are here, so we can substitute anti-terrorism for anti-Communism and not miss a beat. Furthermore, this was also more or less a winning coalition until 2006.

Now, this is in a state of flux. 2006 was a bad year, not just for the GOP, but also for the coalition animating it. The scale of the losses were large enough, and the prospect of further losses in future elections plausible enough, to the point where the whole viability of the Reagan coalition is in question. But at the risk of sitting aroun' telling boring stories about the old days, that is still the best option for the GOP.

This is true for three reasons. First, the things that the voters rightfully blame us for (largely the Iraq war), we can't do anything about. Second, the other core conservative issues are still popular: there's no point in abandoning the base on guns, abortion, immigration or defense. Those are going to be the elements of the GOP resurrection if there's going to be one. Finally, we will never outbid the Democrats on domestic butter issues so it's futile to try.

What's left? Well, we can do our best to get rid of GOP negatives that the conservative base never wanted in the first place, ie, fiscal and sexual corruption in Congress and the cronyism of the Bush43 administration.

There's also one final point to be made about Reagan and principle, contrary to Jonah's article above. It is true, as Jonah asserts, that Reagan as President made all sorts of compromises and sellouts, some of which were apparent at the time, and some of which weren't. But Jonah is wrong to suggest that he was less a man of principle because of them. In Reagan's case, it precisely because he held a few basic principles so firmly that he could make compromises while still in steadfast pursuit of them. This is especially topical of the GOP Presidential field today. We as mainstream conservatives have real reason to think that Giuliani, McCain (and maybe Romney too) don't share the same principles as the GOP base. I suspect that nominating any of them will cause substantial unforseen problems.

Psychic Pathology of Energy Production

The other day I was playing cards with a guy who sells security systems for a living. For $1500 or some other amount of money you could buy something with motion detectors, window sensors, passive notifications to police, etc. I mention this not because this business is in any way extraordinary but actually because it isn't. A producer offers some sort of product or service and the consumer decides if he wants it or not.

This is the way most business works, but there are exceptions and energy production is one (health care is another). In the modern bourgeois world, the consumer must purchase energy from those who have it to sell, and both parties know it. And this reality has very important psychological consequences. The equality between the producer and consumer is disturbed. The consumer (that is, you and me) has lost the ability to say no to the oilman or the power company and therefore feels in some unspoken way subservient and inferior. And frankly, we don't like it very much.

Most of us, most of the time, don't carry a thief mentality. If we want a bedroom set, or a blender, or a big screen TV, we understand that those things cost money and we have internalized that we have to pay whatever that cost is. But in a weird twist, energy is so valuable that we expect to get it for free. That isn't as strange as it sounds. As the cliche has it, the best things in life are free. The love of our families, the ability to enjoy yourself whereever you stand, friends who will cut you a little slack when you screw up, these things are priceless and free at the same time. But energy is not one of these things. The factors that produce energy are the same ones that produce a blender: rent on land, labor, industrial organization, return on capital, raw materials, etc. Simply put, all those factors must be compensated or else the end product goes away.

From here, the bourgeois energy consumer demonstrates a special case of what the psychologists call projection. We don't want to come to grips with the high cost of energy and our vulnerability to its scarcity. Instead, we try to take it out on the energy companies. They are routinely demonized for environmental insensitivity, price gouging, global warming, etc. No doubt some people really believe energy companies are really guilty of these things, but nonetheless the whole thing has an air of ritual theater. Oil company CEOs can be hauled before Congress and be made to grovel and power companies will make television ads extolling their environmental virtue. But the oil and power companies are going to get paid anyway. Recall, the factors of production must be compensated or the end product goes away, and we as bourgeois consumers will not accept the loss of our access to energy.

But even though oil companies still make money, the consumer's projection of energy production as "dirty" still has very important consequences. Mostly, we try to get by with as little energy production as we possibly can. Right now, some of the world's biggest problems (Iraq, "peak oil", etc) have roots in our unwillingness to compensate energy production just as we would any other business.

A feature not a bug

http://frum.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWRiZGUzMDNhOGRkN2RkZmQ1NGQ1ZjRhYzE0Y2Y4ZWI=

David Frum's correspondent hits on two essential facets of Fred's candidacy.

1. The Goldwater-Reagan GOP is a winning coalition. That is a lot more questionable now that at any time I can ever recall. Nonetheless I believe it is true, in 2012 if not now. My fear is that all of the other major candidates alienate significant chunks of this coalition. And given its tenuous state at the moment, there's a good chance that the GOP in its current form won't recover. And I can't see any other coalition that wins.

2. I think it's a good thing that Fred does not see himself as some kind of titanic figure on the world stage. Every serious candidate in today's world sees himself as the reincarnation of Reagan or FDR, depending on the party. These were men who combined the circumstances of their times, the vague yearings of the American people, and their own exceptional personalities to change the course of history.

But for most pols, this is a trap. In particular, Clinton and Bush fils are more or less ordinary men. And they would have been far more successful Presidents if they had come to grips with that instead of shooting for their "one sentence in history."