Speechless

So I'll let the commenters have a go at this.

Hillary Wins Pa.

It's been a circus around here all day. Fascinating. If you want my utterly amateur take on why Obama couldn't hope to win Pennsylvania, I figured it out weeks ago. Only today did I look up the numbers to see if my suspicion was right:

Pennsylvania's female population has a median age of 40.1, and a mean age 40.4. The U.S. female population has a median age of 36.0, and a mean age of 36.7.

Older women I know have powerful memories of how it used to be in the days before there was some sort of sea change in attitudes -- and statutes and case law -- regarding gender equality in this country. You can argue that it wasn't as bad as the feminist scare screeds of the 1960s. You can argue that we've gone too far in some regards to enforce unnatural numerical parities in, say, college sports.

But you can't tell them it didn't used to be bad. And they remember. And they feel certain words and attitudes more powerfully than some of the rest of us do.

Including younger women, who might be more inclined to choose between Obama and Hillary without a strong reference to that past. It had occurred to me that roughly 35 to 40 was the watershed age for this.

Executive Power, Again

I'm going to single out Hillary on this, but as I recall, Obama has said similar things:

She accused Bush of having expanded executive power to the detriment of the Constitution, while often operating in secrecy.

"I'll end the use of signing statements to rewrite the laws Congress has passed. I'll shut down Guantanamo, disavow torture, and restore the right of habeas corpus," she said.

"And I'll end the practice of using executive privilege as a shield against the public's right to know and Congress's duty to oversee the president."

There's a method, suggested in the Constitution and clearly evolved in the early 19th century, to resolve power struggles in the U.S. federal government. That method is not for a president, with the stroke of a pen, to undo previous policies that involved executive overreach. What Hillary is proposing is to end the problem of bloated executive power by an act of bloated executive power.

This is a crisis that a president cannot solve on her own. The office of the president is the defendant in this case, whether its incumbent is cooperating or not. The president is not his own judge.

Disavow torture and proclaim strict adherence to habeas corpus? Nothing would prevent her from undoing that decision later, or prevent the next president from picking up where Bush left off. Her proposal ignores the role of Congress in making laws, the role of the Supreme Court in interpreting how the laws apply to what the president is doing. It is dangerous in that it would create the appearance of a correction without the fact of one.

If there's one thing left and right agree in being concerned about, it's that the Bush Administration has pushed executive power into uncharted waters. Some might claim it is justified, but I don't think many are entirely happy with it: From domestic surveillance to war-making to economy-shepherding, his reach is unrivaled since Lincoln's.

The general agreement on that, I think, is easy to overlook. Bush's friends are disturbed, but they tend to discuss it privately, not blare it out. Bush's more numerous enemies tend to talk about specific cases, where there is room for vigorous disagreement over details. And they tend to force meta-narratives into the debate that can't be accepted by many who otherwise might agree with them.

Hill 4 Pres

The local office of her campaign I pass most nights just as the lights come on. "Hillary for President" is painted on one window in red, white, and blue, but they didn't block it out beforehand and the word "president" shrinks and drops dramatically between the "P" and the "T."

The rest of the windows are lined with taped-up campaign rally signs. At least three-fourths of them are union signs, with logos and acronyms as prominent as the candidate's name. AFSCME, pipefitters, electrical workers. Inside, bending over the phones, are a few lean and scrannel fellows, pale as library lights. They look like they never laid pipe in their lives.

Prediction, Warning

Camille Paglia, Taylor Marsh, Maureen Dowd, Melissa McEwan ....

Over the next two months or so, as Democratic voters sort out whether Hillary Rodham Clinton should or should not be the party's nominee, and why, I predict much evidence will accumulate against the bumper sticker sentiment that if women were in charge things would be nicer. After this, I intend to say as little as possible about it.

UPDATE: Sorta like:

Irony My Shirt

Didn't that all seem a little odd?

Not that you had to go so far as some right-side commenters, who smelled a Hillary plant and a bid to gin up sympathy for her. Not that their thinking was so out of line, either. But the Clintons would do a more slick job of it than that. That was too crude.

On the other side, people who wanted to see evidence that "Sexism is alive and well in America" took the -- er, ball, and ran with it.

They’re so worried that they won’t have anyone to look down on anymore if a woman leads the country, so worried that their merely semi-erect cocks aren’t sufficient, that they feel the need to wave them around for the whole nation to watch.

And so on.

It turns out that most in the media weren't interested in following up the story (which, after all, was a minor one on a busy day), and most in the commentariat were investing themselves in a "Hillary's phony hecklers" or "sexism is alive and well" narrative. But the few who did look into it traced it to a radio station shock-jock team from Boston's WBCN 104.1 FM.

It wasn't long before folks in the conservative blogosphere uncovered the fact that the "Iron my Shirt" guys that disrupted yesterday's Hillary campaign stop in Salem, New Hampshire are radio geeks trying to create a radio stunt. Just about every major news outlet reported the stunt as a real political protest. Only one of them bothered to look into the thing to try and track down the real motivation of the disrupters.

Now, a sexist prank could be seen as evidence of sexism, but when the intent is to get attention by shocking a large number of people with some activity, you can argue as easily that the prank is evidence of the overwhelming rejection of sexism in a time and place.

But that doesn't fit some people's notions.

My Hillary Problem

In a lot of ways, she is probably the right candidate to get my vote. I don't like the dynastic tendency, however. This would be four in a row from two families; at least the Adamses, Harrisons, and Roosevelts had the decency to spread it over several generations.

But the main objection I have is, I am willing to see her as president, but not after George W. Bush. He has been one of those presidents who pumped up executive branch powers and authority till it literally tore through its clothes like the Hulk. He did it for particular reasons and used it to particular ends, but right now the federal government is very top-heavy and very strong.

Hillary would not give back an ounce of that, no matter what she says. She, too, has the authoritarian tendency and not only is she comfortable with power, she would be looking to augment it.

We've had presidents like Bush before, who so extended the executive reach they alarmed even their own partisans. Jackson, Polk (the first 20th century president and still not appreciated), Lincoln, Wilson. And we've followed them with weak or hemmed-in men who had to let go of much of that overreach. Call it God's blessing on us or the wisdom of crowds or sheer blind luck.

After Jackson, Van Buren, crafty but not potent, and whittled down by the titans in Congress; after Polk a series of feckless one-termers; after Lincoln, Andy Johnson and Grant who frittered; after Wilson, a series of non-entities; after the dynamic Roosevelt, the weak, sick, old Roosevelt, then Truman, who had to learn it all from scratch. After Nixon, Ford.

Two in a row might be more than we could stand.

She-Ike

First, let's have some fun with the historical parallel:

Such is why President Bush has recently had some nice things to say about Hillary Clinton, leading some to speculate that Bush sees her as the Eisenhower to his Truman—a candidate from the opposing party who criticizes his foreign policy during the campaign, but will likely pursue a very similar policy should she be elected.

So, that mean she'll act stupid, play a lot of golf, and let the CIA overthrow the government of Iran, right?

OK, get it out of your system, then tell me; is this realistic? I know the netroots fear Hillary for just this reason, but I don't trust their eyesight. I know it's a neo-con's dream that she'll turn out to be the white knight who does it all right, but I think they're too punch-drunk to be trustworthy at this point. [What's the old Chinese proverb? Damsel in distress mistakes the pounding of her own heart for the hoofbeats of her rescuer.]

One reason I don't think it will be so is that the mechanism of government is different since Ike's day. The Republicans had been out of office forever by the time he took over. They literally had no one in the ideological core of the party in any real leadership positions. The Democratic administration, however, based on the wartime spirit, had taken in a few good Republicans and given them some positions of middling importance. Foster Dulles in State is a key example. He served under Acheson and was conversant in all the important policies until the summer of the election, when he hit the campaign trail as a critic of the very administration he had helped shape. Naturally, when he became Sec. of State himself, there was no radical shift in policies.

Hillary's Verbs

I read with interest Hillary Clinton's big essay in Foreign Affairs. I decided to leave aside the many quibbles I might have with her painting of things as they now stand. I'm more interested in what she proposes to do differently.

The list of goals is predictable: More multilateralism, building relations with allies, "recovering" the "respect" of the world. Less military work, more diplomacy. Talking to our enemies.

Very well, but she presents herself at the same time as a hard-nosed and experienced "realist." So when she gets around to the knotty places in the world, where her kinder-gentler vision of foreign affairs seems to gain no traction, she resorts to some interesting verbs.

On international institutions (such as the U.N.) that conspicuously fail to do anything worthwhile:

When they do not work, their procedures serve as pretexts for endless delays, as in the case of Darfur, or descend into farce, as in the case of Sudan's election to the UN Commission on Human Rights. But instead of disparaging these institutions for their failures, we should bring them in line with the power realities of the twenty-first century and the basic values embodied in such documents as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Emphasis added. How Hillary pictures "bringing (someone) in line" is perhaps an image that would make Bill wince. It doesn't seem to be encompassed in her list of tactics in this article, however.

On the al Qaida safe havens in the lawless regions of Pakistan:

We must also strengthen the national and local governments and resolve the problems along Afghanistan's border. Terrorists are increasingly finding safe havens in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Redoubling our efforts with Pakistan would not only help root out terrorist elements there; it would also signal to our NATO partners that the war in Afghanistan and the broader fight against extremism in South Asia are battles that we can and must win.

Resolving? Redoubling? These verbs kill no terrorists. They create even less of a mental picture of a policy than does "bringing them in line."

On China's challenge:

We must persuade China to join global institutions and support international rules by building on areas where our interests converge and working to narrow our differences. Although the United States must stand ready to challenge China when its conduct is at odds with U.S. vital interests, we should work for a cooperative future.

"Persuade ... building ... cooperative ..." Sure. But it seems China regards itself as a player, not just something to be acted upon and influenced by America's own policies. In fact, it seems willing to play this game itself, "persuading" us that some of our own values are not in the interest of some of our "realistic" goals.

That at least is my reading of the lede of an AP story tonight: "China is protesting U.S. honors for the Dalai Lama this week by pulling out of a planned international strategy session on Iran sought by the United States, a State Department official said Monday." I'd like to see Hillary's solution to that one. China won't let you have both: Which is the "vital U.S. interest?"

In fact, if there seems to be an overriding flaw in the thinking of the left of Hillary's generation (and it's not limited to Hillary), it's that the rest of the world simply does nothing on its own. It is either enraged and turned into terrorists by American militaristic and capitalistic policies (i.e., when a Republican is president), or else it is passively and happily following our lead when we are persuasive and intelligent (i.e. when a Democrat is president).

As when John Kerry's 2004 platform on Iraq consisted largely of getting the French and Germans involved in the country, without first asking them if they had any intention of going there, John Kerry or no John Kerry. [They didn't.]

And Hillary's contention that "Rapidly emerging countries, such as China, will not curb their own carbon emissions until the United States has demonstrated a serious commitment to reducing its own through a market-based cap-and-trade approach" is such a clear echo of the unilateral nuclear disarmament rhetoric of the late Cold War that you wonder if she didn't crib it from something she wrote in 1979.

Her Iraq plan, as far as she spells it out, is sadly contradictory. It looks at first blush like a big, noisy pull-out to finally shut up the netroots:

We must withdraw from Iraq in a way that brings our troops home safely, begins to restore stability to the region, and replaces military force with a new diplomatic initiative to engage countries around the world in securing Iraq's future. To that end, as president, I will convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the secretary of defense, and the National Security Council and direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home, starting within the first 60 days of my administration.

Which certainly advances the goal of bringing the troops home, but seems to be contrary to regional stability. Never fear: She's got that goal covered, too. But by a fig leaf:

As we leave Iraq militarily, I will replace our military force with an intensive diplomatic initiative in the region. The Bush administration has belatedly begun to engage Iran and Syria in talks about the future of Iraq. This is a step in the right direction, but much more must be done. As president, I will convene a regional stabilization group composed of key allies, other global powers, and all the states bordering Iraq. Working with the newly appointed UN special representative for Iraq, the group will be charged with developing and implementing a strategy for achieving a stable Iraq that provides incentives for Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey to stay out of the civil war.

Sure; they'd all much rather hand Hillary her diplomatic victory than continue to mess with our power and fight their proxy wars in Iraq. Sure they'd rather see Iraq as a viable and flourishing democracy than as a weak and miserable example to their own populations of what happens when you evict the strong, mustachioed man.

And exactly what "incentives" is she willing to offer to Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia? Can we get some specifics on that?

But as it turns out, she's not really taking about getting out of Iraq. We'll still hold the keys to all its doors. And we'll still be there, even after we leave. You see?

I will order specialized units to engage in targeted operations against al Qaeda in Iraq and other terrorist organizations in the region. These units will also provide security for U.S. troops and personnel in Iraq and train and equip Iraqi security services to keep order and promote stability in the country, but only to the extent that such training is actually working. I will also consider leaving some forces in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq in order to protect the fragile but real democracy and relative peace and security that have developed there, but with the clear understanding that the terrorist organization the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) must be dealt with and the Turkish border must be respected.

It's hard for me to decide whether this sketch of a policy is meant to mollify the left while continuing to nation-build in Iraq, or to "stay" in Iraq just enough so that the inevitable pyre that follows our withdrawal of commitment will seem not to be connected to it, but rather a doom of the entire operation, inevitable from the start. Probably the latter. It seems to offer no real commitment to the Iraqi people to help them sustain what they've sacrificed so much to attain with our help. If I were an Iraqi, I'd feel a chill wind on reading this.

As for "to the extent that such training is actually working," does that mean like it is now? What metric of "success" (other than "withdrawal") will the realist Democrats use to measure themselves in Iraq, having pooh-poohed, in various ways, all of the usual ones already, and all of the people capable of reporting them?

That preserved right to rush in and fight terrorists any time we choose would seem to create some problems for the image of Hillary's less aggressive, more cooperative America. "In the region?" Meaning beyond Iraq? Places such as ...?

Really, stripped of the rhetoric, Hillary's foreign policy would be remarkably interventionist. The difference between Republicans and Democrats, it seems, is no longer that one party is less interested in getting into people's lives, either at home or abroad, but that they shoot at different targets.

Hillary doesn't talk about draining swamps or spreading freedom. She does, however, say, "We must help strengthen police, prosecutorial, and judicial systems abroad; improve intelligence; and implement more stringent border controls, especially in developing countries," and "I will press for quick passage of the Education for All Act, which would provide $10 billion over a five-year period to train teachers and build schools in the developing world. This program would channel funds to those countries that provide the best plans for how to use them and rigorously measure performance to ensure that our dollars deliver results for children."

As though American direction in policing or education would be welcomed around the world. As though all this resentment piled up against the Western superpower will clear like a cloudy day once Bush is out of office. As though she really believes the world loved us before 9/11, and was our bosom buddy after it, and only the evil neo-cons drove the lovers apart. And here I can't help but note how much of its scribbling and speechifying Hillary's generation has devoted to dragging down America's historical image of itself as benign and benevolent, as a caretaker of great human liberties. The strident rhetoric probably was meant for domestic audiences -- what the '60s kids thought of as unthinking flag-wavers and ignorant enablers of corporate fascism or some such nonsense. But it had its effect around the world. Not everything that comes home to roost starts out in the top henhouse.

Her section on Iran is dizzyingly disconnected. She lays out the list of Iran's transgressions -- essentially the same list Bush has in his hand when he talks. But then she raps Bush because "The Bush administration refuses to talk to Iran about its nuclear program, preferring to ignore bad behavior rather than challenge it." Well, with some attempts at provocation, ignoring it is the right approach. Is this such a case? She doesn't say why not.

As a result, we have lost precious time. Iran must conform to its nonproliferation obligations and must not be permitted to build or acquire nuclear weapons. If Iran does not comply with its own commitments and the will of the international community, all options must remain on the table.

On the other hand, if Iran is in fact willing to end its nuclear weapons program, renounce sponsorship of terrorism, support Middle East peace, and play a constructive role in stabilizing Iraq, the United States should be prepared to offer Iran a carefully calibrated package of incentives. This will let the Iranian people know that our quarrel is not with them but with their government and show the world that the United States is prepared to pursue every diplomatic option.

And this differs from the Bush program how? It essentially involves waiting for the government of Iran to turn into the exact opposite of what has let it survive to this point, as a result, no doubt, of "talking" to it. In exchange for "incentives." Teacher training or border patrols, no doubt.

Finally, there's this:

To build the world we want, we must begin by speaking honestly about the problems we face. We will have to talk about the consequences of our invasion of Iraq for the Iraqi people and others in the region. We will have to talk about Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib.

More talk. More talk about what's already been talked to death. Is she suggesting apologies here? Exactly what sort of "talk" does she envision? I'm content to let the other side do the talking about those problems. Lord knows they won't shut up about them any time soon. In the ivory tower world where American history = slavery/genocide/imperialism, naturally, in Iraq, the only things that matter or are worth talking about are "Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib."

But if we're to do talking, it ought to be to put those problems in the context of the hopes and opportunities for the Iraqi people and others in the region, which we, and they, still have a commitment to fulfilling. Which certainly no one else is going to talk about. And which no one but the U.S., currently, is offering to help them realize.

At least until January 2009.

One More Reason Not to Vote For Her

[posted by Callimachus]

Joe Wilson endorses Hillary.

Wait, I thought his whole deal was that he was the lone voice of reason in the world in 2003, sounding the gong of warning against the president's "rush to war" on "false premises."

So howcomes he endorses someone who voted for the war, and then has been,in her party, among the least inclined to back away from it? Howcomes, huh? huh?

According to the netroots, it's all about -- natch -- the netroots:

Wilson and Plame are favorites among the leftish "net-roots." They are a favorite among many bloggers for taking them seriously and for working with them to understand the nooks and crannies of what was real and not in their David and Goliath battle with the White House. Wilson gave young political activists hope that they could get traction in their battles against an occasionally vulnerable Bush/Cheney machine.

But now Joe Wilson has endorsed someone that many in the blogosphere have been slow to love: Hillary Rodham Clinton. This will have impact and will shock some. Some lefty bloggers will not abandon Obama and not forgive Clinton for being complicit in the decisions that empowered the Bush White House to wage the Iraq War. But others will now rethink their positions.

"Rethink" there at the end is an early front-runner for "most wildly inappropriate use of a verb" in the 2007 Bloggies.

So, let's assume these pompous blowhards are right about their own massive significance in the Democratic Party. Does that mean Hillary went out and courted this lazy and erratic diplomatic functionary for his endorsement? And what was promised him in return?

No doubt, too, now we will have to endure another round of "Wilson was right about Saddam and Niger; Bush was wrong/lying," when in fact the truth appears to be quite the opposite.

No doubt people who have better things to do will have to patiently explain all this over again to those who have no intention of hearing it. The world has moved on and it's a minor matter now, but still some of us persist in the quixotic fantasy that there is such a thing as truth, and that discovering what this truth probably is does matter if you're going to be in the business of constructing narratives and influencing opinion.

And that you can still insist George W. Bush was wrong on the whole, if that's your point, without insisting that he was ALWAYS wrong about EVERY thing. Unless you're stuck at the mental age of 8.

Confluence

[Posted by reader_iam]

However coincidental, Sunday's NYT editorial sure nicely set up Sen. Clinton's and Sen. Byrd's Daily News Op-Ed calling for deauthorization of the Iraq War today. Next?

Speaking of "O's" And Diners

[Posted by reader_iam]

So, while I was out and away from the 'net and the tube, people started talking about the new Hillary spoofspot:


There's apparently some stunned backlash to this Althouse exegesis, mostly due to the connecting of onion rings with vaginas and (lengthwise-sliced) carrot sticks [to phalluses--like, you all hadn't already figured out what parallelism was missing in this sentence; still, for the record]. Well, I think that part of it is a bit of a stretch, though very funny. I think I'd be pretty safe betting that onions rings--the food, people, the food--have been one of Bill Clinton's favorites forever. After all (or should that be: on the other hand), remember the 1994 decorating of the White House's 22 Christmas trees (scroll down)? And just today, Bill's name came up in connection with onion rings in this story, "How to Eat Like a Politico in N.H." Also, saying that Bill Clinton--at least in this spoof video--is a better actor than Hillary is a distinction without a difference and I can think of LOTS of examples where he's done better--and even she, for that matter. But the areas covered in #1 and #2 bear some thinking about.

Or they might, if I weren't busy imagining Hillary taking on the role of Jack Nicholson in this famous diner scene...


... and trying very hard NOT to imagine her in this :
.

Oh, my. Please pass the onion rings.

Update: And now I'm thinking of that Psychodots song, from back in '94, which referenced a president's wife. (OT, but what a great show that was, up in Philly, when they played during an Adrian Belew solo tour.) An excerpt from "Moaner":

She’s a president’s wife
But no we’ve never met
Once I saw her get angry
Something I’ll never forget
Maybe it’s only a dream
And I don’t want to be mean
But I’ll be willing to bet
She’s a moaner
A mo-o-o-oaner
She’s a mo-o-o-o-o-oa-ner
Don’t ask me how I know (she’s a moaner)
From her head down to her toes (she’s a moaner)
She’s a moaner
A mo-o-o-oaner
She’s a mo-o-o-o-o-oa-ner
Don’t ask me how I know (she’s a moaner)
From her head down to her toes.

LOL. Dialing that one right up.