Continuous commentary from The American Prospect Online.
--Matthew Yglesias
--Jeffrey Dubner
--Jeffrey Dubner
That really is up for grabs, but it really, really, really, really doesn't make sense for Democrats to decide to put this issue front and center. Much better cases where O'Connor was the swing vote include Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation v. EPA, which is about whether the EPA can step in when state environmental agencies don't do their jobs; Rush Prudential HMO, Inc. v. Moran, about HMOs that screw over their clients; or Tennessee v. Lane about the Americans with Disabilities Act.
--Matthew Yglesias
--Jeffrey Dubner
Some lunatic winger will get nominated -- maybe even Jance Rogers Brown -- the Democrats in the Senate will say, "Oh hell no" and launch a filibuster. So the battle will rage on for a while, Bush's "base" will get riled up and motivated to send in lots and lots of money, conservative judicial activists will blast their opponents with fairly superior firepower, and bobbing heads in the media will start carping on those "obstructionist" Democrats (bonus carping here if the nominee is a woman, minority, and/or Catholic).Then the path forks a little. One possibility is that Democrats will put up the fight Brad predicts but begin to believe that they're losing the PR war, in which case Democrats (led by 2006ers like Ben Nelson and Robert Byrd) fold and lose. Or, Harry Reid musters all his powers of persuasion (quite possibly reluctantly) to hold Democrats in line, in which case Republicans will hammer Democrats with cloture votes or similar showy challenges until they decide it's time to deploy the nuclear option. Or, just maybe, the nominee is so egregious that the Republican "moderates" realize how ashamed they should be of themselves and vote no.
But this president will not allow himself to appear to be defeated on something so important. He certainly won't set himself up for failure, as Brad predicts, even if such a failure is deemed to be a PR victory that results in an ultra-conservative justice anyway. Just not, as his father might say, gonna do it.
--Jeffrey Dubner
The Republican Party has done an excellent job of obscuring this fact, but a huge element of the conservative judicial agenda concerns economics. Near as I can tell there's absolutely no public outcry demanding that the courts prevent Congress or state legislatures from enacting popular regulatory measures pertaining to labor, the environment, product safety, etc. Nevertheless, various rightwingers to various extents want to do just that. Sandra Day O'Connor's always had some sympathy for that agenda, but hasn't pushed it nearly as far as she could have, or as far as many conservatives (and, perhaps more to the point, the wealthy businessmen who finance them) would have liked. These questions need to be put on the table. I don't think the American people are looking for any dramatic departures from the constitutional status quo or efforts to undo the past 100 years of jurisprudence.
--Matthew Yglesias
If the president wants to get news organizations out from the behind the ball here, the right thing for him to do is what he should have done in the first place: order the leaker or leakers to come forward and fire them. Having chosen to kick the matter over to a special prosecutor, the White House, at a minimum, needs to cooperate with him. Now of course if Bush really is his father's son, then using the pardon power to facilitate a cover-up of official wrongdoing is exactly what he'll do, and considering the curiously large number of Iran-Contra veterans he's seen fit to employ it's not all that realistic to think the administration particularly cares about lawbreaking or the Constitution and what have you. Nevertheless, the corporate self-interest of the journalism trade can only go so far -- freedom of the press is for bringing information to light, not keeping it bottled up.
--Matthew Yglesias
From the moment that Baghdad fell in April 2003 and much of the public infrastructure was systematically destroyed, the United States failed to fulfill the first overriding obligation of an occupying power: to establish and maintain order. Coalition (mainly American) forces failed to secure Iraq's cities, roads, electricity grids, oil pipelines and borders. The tenacious insurgency, fed and emboldened by an escalating influx of foreign jihadist terrorists, sabotaged roads and crucial facilities as rapidly as they were repaired.Add to this central error epic hubris:Not surprising, Iraqis quickly lost confidence in the Americans. They now had to face, instead of Saddam, a new but still paralyzing fear _ of chaos, and of various possible forms of violent assault and sudden death.
The coalition government relied heavily on a revolving door of diplomats and other personnel who would leave just as they had begun to develop local knowledge and ties, and on a large cadre of eager young neophytes whose brashness often gave offense in a very age- and status-conscious society. One young political appointee (a 24-year-old Ivy League graduate) argued that Iraq should not enshrine judicial review in its constitution because it might lead to the legalization of abortion. A much more senior Iraqi interlocutor (a widely experienced Iraqi-American lawyer) became so exasperated with the young man's audacity that he finally challenged him:Such are the wages of sending junior Heritage Institute staffers abroad. Add to that the creation of mass unemployment and political dislocation:"You must have thoroughly studied the history of the British occupation of Iraq."
"Yes, I did," the young American replied proudly. "I thought so," said the Iraqi, "because you seem determined to repeat every one of their mistakes."
And then there were major policy miscalculations, the most serious of which were the decisions in May 2003, upon the arrival of the American head of the occupation, L. Paul Bremer III, to disband the 400,000-member Iraqi army and disqualify from public employment a wide swath of Baath Party members. Both of these decisions flew in the face of numerous expert warnings that moving too precipitously in these ways would humiliate many Iraqis, alienate the Sunnis and destabilize the country, providing political fuel _ and a large number of recruits with weapons _ for an insurgency.Some of these errors have since been partially rectified. Diamond’s two major recommendations now? More dialogue with the Sunni rebels and attempts to bring them into the political process, as per below. And, just as importantly, an “explicit commitment not to seek permanent military bases in Iraq.”
Perhaps no issue in the coming years will more clearly expose the real purpose of the Bush administration's postwar mission in Iraq: to build democracy or to obtain a new, regional military platform in the heart of the Arab world.This is going to be a big debate. Consider yourselves duly warned.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
BAGHDAD — A massive generator outside the Ministry of the Environment belches smoke, drips oil and roars above the noise of traffic, glaring testimony to the low priority given to protecting air quality in the warravaged Iraqi capital.Sobering.Gas flare-offs from oil fields, smoldering fires along sabotaged pipelines, groaning generators on every street corner have spread a gray haze over much of Iraq, aggravating respiratory problems and threatening caustic inversions as people brace for the dreaded heat of summer when temperatures climb past the 120-degree mark.
Electricity Minister Muhsin Shalash warned recently that the ad hoc gasoline-run electricity generators already blighting Baghdad would continue to proliferate as the mercury climbs between now and September and residents rely on them to run air conditioners and appliances.
"The situation is dire, and it won't improve for years," Shalash said, recalling that Iraq had the best electricity system in the Middle East before two decades of war and international sanctions derailed maintenance and investment....
With the nation's power plants producing about 65% of pre-invasion output, according to Shalash, tens of thousands of Iraqis have taken matters into their own hands by buying gas-powered generators or tapping into miniature electric stations set up illegally in their neighborhoods....
"You find at least two large generators in every street, and most homes have their own small one," said Hifa Abed Kareem Nosaif, a physicist and senior analyst at the Environment Ministry.
Nosaif estimates that the number of gas-fired generators has increased 50-fold in the capital, where wealthy and middle-class Iraqis can augment the paltry public power supply to run air conditioning and televisions, two services many consider vital now that traditional pastimes such as strolling and cafe visits are unsafe because of the ongoing insurgency....
In addition to the smog, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are being polluted by new and old industries that dump their wastes into the waterways, Nosaif said. The thriving cement and brick factories turning out construction supplies for the post-invasion repair boom are the worst culprits, he said....
Infectious diseases such as typhoid and hepatitis are on the rise from sewer-system damage that allows wastewater to mix with drinking water and from oil spills into the rivers caused by insurgent attacks on pipelines, he added.
Little progress has been made in repairing leaks and breakages, Nosaif said, because neither Iraqi technicians nor U.S.-led forces can work safely at the sites that, like the rest of the country, are vulnerable to insurgent bombings and drive-by shootings.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
U.S.-led forces detained more than a dozen suspected militants in a counterinsurgency sweep through western Anbar province as part of a sustained effort to disrupt the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq, the military said Thursday.I wish the president had explained on Tuesday how targeting the foreign terrorists undermines the Sunni insurgency that's pushing Iraq towards civil war. Because they kind of seem like two separate, if interrelated, problems, which we are, in point of fact, approaching from two different angles. Quoth the story:Separately, a Sunni Arab politician who brokered secret talks between American officials and insurgents said he has formed a group to give political voice to Iraqi fighters, and he demanded a timetable for a U.S. troop withdrawal.
Former Cabinet member Ayham al-Samarie announced the creation of the National Council for Unity and Construction of Iraq on Wednesday to give representation to Iraqi fighters. Al-Samarie, a dual Iraq-U.S. citizen, is believed to have strong tribal links in the so-called Sunni Triangle in central Iraq, where the Sunni branch of the insurgency is concentrated.
He was the target of a death threat issued Thursday on an Islamic Web site, claiming he was spreading lies.
The developments came amid growing violence that has killed more than 1,370 people - mostly civilians and Iraqi forces - since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his Shiite-led government April 28. With the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency targeting the Shiite majority, the wave of killings has slowly been pushing the country toward civil war.
There have been several U.S.-led military campaigns trying to quell the sectarian bloodshed by taking aim at foreign fighter networks. (emphasis added)
The new political front is representing "resistance" fighters who have not targeted civilians, al-Samarie said. Nearly all car bomb and suicide attacks targeting Iraqis are believed to be the work of Islamic extremist groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq.It's also worth noting that the broker of the talks between insurgents and the United States, Ayham al-Samarie, was none other than the electricity minister in the interim government.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
As this debate is so spring 2004, I’ll just invite readers to take a journey back in time with me to those halcyon days when we had only just learned that Ahmed Chalabi might be an Iranian spy and when deputy defense secretaries still took hits off the Laurie Mylroie pipe. Reread Peter Bergen's and Judith Yaphe's comments from the transcript of a June 2004 AEI event promoting Hayes' book on the supposed connection (also discussed in our pages by Matt). You'll notice that Hayes neglects to offer a plausible explanation of why the administration would remain intent on keeping “evidence” of this explosive information so close to its chest.
--Mark Leon Goldberg
--Mark Leon Goldberg
The Army needs 80,000 recruits per year. That's 6,666 or so recruits per month. The June target was set at 5,650, and they exceeded the target by enlisting 6,150 soldiers in June. That's still 500 fewer than they need. Or, rather, 500 fewer than they would have needed had there not been shortfalls in earlier months and were the summer not prime recruting time. On one level, I would caution liberals against making too much out of this. The plan is to try and meet the target by lowering recruiting standards and increasing enlistment bonuses, and there's no reason to think that's inherently unworkable. But it could take a lot of money and there's every reason to think the costs will keep accelerating as time goes on. Asking the public to send greeting cards to soldiers over the July 4 weekend isn't going to get the job done.
--Matthew Yglesias
The first is that the open Syrian border is a deliberate policy, the fly-trap theory, if you will. According to this theory, we want the Jihadists from Saudi Arabia, Syria and elsewhere to come to Iraq so we can deal with them there.One sees reasoning of this sort on display more and more nowadays. The key premise is that Bush never makes mistakes, so proponents need to undertake valiant efforts to prove that apparently disastrous goings-on are, in fact, part of a brilliant plan. This is what Imre Lakatos called a degenerative research program. Some of Sullivan's other correspondents propose a better answer to the question of why the border isn't sealed: We can't seal it. As readers may be aware, fairly huge quantities of people and illegal drugs manage to make their way into the United States each and every year. Iraq's borders are smaller, but then again it's a foreign country and a war zone, so it's harder to get things done.
This is a big part of the reason why it's so crucial to define the mission in Iraq in some more sensible way than "killing the bad people." If we insist on doing that, the war will never end. There's something to the "failure is not an option" cliché, but doing the impossible isn't an option, either. We should set some goals we can achieve, achieve them, and then go.
--Matthew Yglesias
According to a May story in the online news service The New Standard:
At the Al-Dora power station in Baghdad on May 3, the deputy manager of the plant, Bashir Khalaf Omair, said that electricity output in Iraq prior to the March, 2003 invasion was around 5,000 Megawatts (MW) a day.Can't the United States provide security for or airlift in the necessary parts? Furthermore, if the security situation is making it too difficult to rely on foreign companies and foreign engineers, why not train more Iraqis to do it themselves?Currently, even in the best neighbourhoods of Baghdad there is only twelve hours of electricity per day, and this only intermittently. Most areas of the city have between six and eight hours of power per 24 hours. ...
Baghdad resident Salam Obidy is frustrated by the unreliability of the electrical grid. "I have three hours on, and four hours off," he said. "Mostly it is completely unscheduled. Yesterday I spent all night not sleeping because it was so hot."
And it is only getting hotter. The temperature during the day in Baghdad is beginning to approach 100 degrees now. It consistently climbs to 110-120 degrees in July and August.
According to deputy manager Omair, Iraq has suffered from a shortage of electricity since the 1991 Gulf War during which American pilots bombed power plants. He added that prior to the 1991 war, Iraq was producing 9,500 MW of electricity per day.
"The parts we need come from Italy and Germany," Omair said, "and the security situation has made it more difficult to get these imported."
In addition to sabotage of gas and transmission lines in Iraq, as well a shortage of supplies, the reconstruction problems in Iraq have been underscored by the mass exodus of foreign contractors.
"Bechtel is responsible for the rehabilitation here," Omair explained. "The companies they subcontracted to, Siemens and Babcock, have pulled out their engineers. Without their presence, the Iraqi companies Al-Marjal and United Company, have been unable to do as much work."
Companies that were working on many of the electricity projects include U.S.-based Seimens-Westinghouse, Bechtel, and General Electric, along with two Russian companies, Tekhnopromexport and Inter Energo Servis (IES), according to the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity.
Yet, according to Al-Haris, the acting electricity minister, many of these companies began departing Iraq prior to the invasion in March, 2003 -- well before the most recent round of exits caused by the deteriorating security situation under the U.S. occupation.
"The work in these stations was started during the past regime," Al-Haris said, "but it was stopped before the war when the companies left Iraq, and the work is still stopped." Al-Haris added, "There are tens of trucks stopped on the border of Turkey, Jordan, and Syria, and they cannot enter because of the bad security situation. All the equipment in the trucks is very important to continue our work."
He reported that another problem is the huge consumption of electricity in Iraq and the huge quantity of electrical consumer goods people are buying. He said, "The annual increase of the consumption of the electricity in the entire world is about 3-5 percent, but in Iraq it is 30 percent."...
"Even if the German engineers who were working in the Al-Dora power plant returned tomorrow," said assistant plant manager Omair, "they would need four to five months to get our remaining two generators online."
Certainly that is something the United States can ask its allies in Europe to provide assistance on. Maybe we're not willing to allow Iraqi police or military to train abroad. But surely it wouldn't be a problem to have technical experts trained overseas. Why not create an international fellowship program of some kind to train a new generation of Iraqi engineers abroad and bring the world together around the project of Iraqi recovery and Iraqi technical independence? Take people who are already somewhat expert, bring them to the United States and Europe for six months to a year or however long it takes, then send them back to Iraq to fix the electricity problems.
Furthermore, if German engineers are going to be targets and German or American companies are too frightened by the security situation to work in Iraq, can't they be encouraged to create some kind of Iraqi subidiaries where they provide technical advice and support from abroad but allow the on-the-ground work and management to be done entirely by Iraqis?
The same goes for the oil companies. Along with the failing power grid, the inability to restart the Iraqi oil industry has been a major hindrance to reconstruction and to the stabilization of life in Iraq (not to mention the greater financial burden it's put on the United States). Can't there be some kind of public-private partnerships arranged with the U.S. oil industry to train Iraqi experts to manage the oil extraction industry? (With appropriate safeguards to insure that there's no appearance or risk of it being an American oil-company power grab.) And/or an international drive to donate needed parts?
Finally, if the oil and electrity problems are the two biggest issues in reconstruction, and the security situation is the obstacle to getting them up and running again, why not create an on-the-ground Iraqi security force that does nothing but defend oil and power installations? Even the United States has myriad types of police and military power it uses for specific tasks. Creating an Iraqi force to fight other Iraqis has been a big challenge for the United States. Might not a force that doesn't go after insurgents, police neighborhoods, or fight crime but instead only defends the electric grid and oil installations be a more popular job -- and one easier to train people for? Certainly these individuals would become targets for the insurgents, just like American-trained Iraqi police and army recruits have been. But I suspect people might fight more aggressively to defend their neighborhoods' power supplies than to capture and/or kill their anti-American neighbors.
Perhaps these are naive questions or ideas. But in the spirit of constructive criticism, as per James Taranto, there they are. Indeed, the idea of international fellowships and short-term trips has been totally underexplored as a method of buying goodwill in Iraq. Lobbyists and nations have successfully used such cultural and technical exchanges for generations (think Rhodes scholarships or Jack Abramoff's junkets) to buy goodwill and fellowship. And yet I know of none for Iraqis in the United States. How expensive could it be for Congress to create a series of two-week fellowships for Iraqi legislators to come see democracy in action in D.C.? For oil companies to invite Iraqi engineers on month-long residencies at their headquarters? For the New York City police department to create three-week fellowships in anti-terrorist strategy (certainly New York, of all places, would have an interest in preventing the growth of terrorist networks in Iraq)? Transportation security into and out of Iraq assured by the U.S. military, in all instances.
It's time for everybody to start thinking outside the box. What we've been doing hasn't been working. But that's no reason to think that there is nothing more -- and nothing positive -- that can be done.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
However that may be, this clearly isn't anything that anyone wanted to see flushed out into the open. Given public opinion in Europe, politicians are probably going to feel a lot of pressure to start reducing their level of counterterrorism cooperation with the American government.
--Matthew Yglesias
It's worth mentioning that over the course of the entire struggle over ethics procedures in the House, Democrats have managed to win, completely, every fight they've picked, forcing the Republicans to back off of every single endeavor they've attempted to water the rules down. Republicans retreated on the party rule change shielding indicted leaders; then they retreated on the proposed ethics committee change revoking the 30-year-old rule requiring that House members behave in a manner that "reflects creditably" on the institution; they passed and then reversed the rule changes allowing for legal counsel to represent multiple targets of an ethics investigation and requiring a committee majority, or both the chairman and ranking member, to greenlight an investigation. Now they're backing off their attempt to politicize the committee's staff. This kind of victory is one Democrats will want to savor.
And now that they've successfully defended the long-standing independence and procedural integrity of the ethics committee, maybe now it's time to see that the panel actually carries out its job when necessary. The Tom DeLay investigation will begin gearing up in the coming months as this new agreement is worked out and new staff attorneys are hired. And, as a Hill piece mentions today, the panel "may also launch an investigation of Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.), who engaged in a real-estate transaction with a lobbyist who lost nearly $700,000 in the deal." Of course, the efforts of at least one House member to introduce this case to the committee would be a big help.
--Sam Rosenfeld
BAGHDAD, Iraq - For engineering professor Moayad Yasin al-Samaraie, President Bush's pledge to keep U.S. troops in Iraq until their mission is complete was the promise of order over chaos. But the assurance rang hollow for Mona Hussein, who woke up Wednesday without electricity or running water after spending the night on her roof trying to escape Baghdad's sweltering heat.There's got to be some way of fixing the electricity problem. There just has to be. Indeed, this seems like a pretty good time for a congressional hearing on Iraqi reconstruction.Iraqis on the street and the country's politicians seemed divided over Bush's refusal to provide a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops, along with his promises for a better life in this country of 26 million people.
"Iraq cannot be stable if the American and coalition forces leave," al-Samaraie said.
The 55-year-old said chaos could result "because Iraqi forces don't have the required level of training to protect the country."
But Hussein, also an engineer, said withdrawing foreign troops might restore the security their presence has so far failed to establish.
"The terrorists will continue to attack the Americans as long as they're here. They should leave so that there will be less explosions and more security," she said. "As long as they're here, we'll remain an occupied country, just like Palestine."
Many Iraqis said they didn't see the speech, which was broadcast just before dawn, and some who viewed excerpts of it considered it tailored to an American audience.
"It will make no difference. (Bush) has given speeches before, but we have not seen any results," said Hussein, a 25-year-old mother of two. "A discussion on electricity or oil would have been better than the Bush speech. Maybe more people would have paid attention then."...
In Baghdad, before the U.S.-led invasion, residents had about 20 hours of electricity a day. Today, they get about 9.4 hours daily, usually broken into two-hour chunks. There are also frequent fuel and drinking water shortages, and only 37 percent of the population has a working sewage system.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
That’s down 41 percent from the 32.75 million who watched Bush on the Big Four during a primetime press conference in April... .It may have been a smaller audience, but the legendary Bush smirk seemed to be gone, finally. The president appeared more sober than he has in some time. Unfortunately, he did not lay out for the American public what's really going on in Iraq or provide his listeners with a realistic sense of what lies ahead, except to say that America should expect more of the same, with no end in sight. I can only hope that his rhetoric was a work of (badly targeted) political stagecraft designed for a domestic audience, rather than an actual expression of U.S. operational strategy in Iraq.
The biggest problem with the speech was the president's attempt to promote the idea that U.S. forces are at war with Al-Qaeda terrorists and foreign fighters in Iraq, when in fact such individuals likely make up only 5 to 10 percent of the insurgents. The bulk of the insurgents are Iraqi Sunni Arabs, and their activities are concentrated largely in three of Iraq's 16 provinces. Collapsing the two groups -- foreign terrorists and Sunni Iraqis -- is a strategic mistake, as the Sunni insurgency is likely aggravated by the U.S. presence on the ground, which Bush last night justified as a response to the foreign terrorists in Iraq, and may well require a totally different strategy to quash. Separating out the two distinct insurgencies that U.S. and Iraqi forces are fighting -- and the distinct strategies needed to vanquish each -- would seem like a logical first step in explaining to the public the work that remains to be done in Iraq before the bulk of U.S. forces can leave. Already the United States has successfully rebuffed an earlier insurgency, that of the Shiite forces led by Moqtada al-Sadr, through a combination of military force and negotiation. And it scored a tactical victory against Sunni rebels at Fallujah last fall, though at a high price to the city and U.S. forces.
Indeed, it would seem that there are currently three major security problems in Iraq, each requiring a different approach and presenting different opportunities for international alliances, and each with different implications for the U.S. tenure in Iraq: an out-of-control crime wave; foreign terrorists; and Sunni rebels. Had the president addressed these seperate, but overlapping, problems, and laid out cleanly and clearly what the United States is doing about each of them, I suspect he'd have found a bigger audience than he got for his obfuscations last night. People don't want to hear about September 11 any more -- they want to hear, "We're going to win this thing and this is how." By refusing to get into specifics, the president deprived the American people of a narrative for what's happening in Iraq and failed to appeal to their pragmatism. As long as the situation in Iraq is described in vague and ill-defined terms, as it was last night, it cannot but seem a mess.
I actually think it's possible for Bush to win back the support of the American public for continuing involvement in Iraq (if not for the entry into the war). The fact that support for immediate withdrawal is so low (only 13 percent) is likely a testament to the seriousness with which the public takes the specter of failure, among other things. But to win back the public, Bush will have to first break free of his own stale rhetoric and obfuscations. He didn't do that last night.
The president needs to re-engage the American public in the war effort. One way to do that would be for him or Don Rumsfeld to give monthly progress reports full of specifics and short-term achievable goals. Make the American people get to know Iraq -- all 16 provinces -- and its people. Give them characters and give them a narrative. Bring Condi Rice and the State Department before the public to talk about reconstruction. Set public deadlines for restoring electricity in Baghdad and other rebuilding efforts. Give the Iraqi people and the American public something they can look forward to and the opportunity to feel a sense of achievement. If U.S. forces are going to stay in Iraq (and everything administration figures have said suggests that they are going to be there in large numbers for at least another year -- if not 12), then it would behoove the administration to give the public a renewed stake in what is happening, rather than leaving them to watch helplessly from the sidelines as the situation appears to spiral out of control.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
Freshman Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) made phone calls to at least two North Carolina College Republicans asking them to change their votes in the recent acrimonious College Republican national election, and the young people McHenry contacted said they felt pressured by the calls.You'll really want to read the whole thing to get the flavor of this, but basically McHenry owed his extremely narrow primary victory last year to the network of College Republican volunteers who aided him, and wanted both to repay Gourley for his help and retaliate against College Republicans who had criticized that help.McHenry is a former College Republican National Conference (CRNC) treasurer whom the House GOP leadership has called on to speak on several high-priority issues this session. His office employs several CRNC alumni, and College Republicans worked together on McHenry's primary campaign in 2004 despite a plank in the group's constitution that bars the CRNC from endorsing a candidate running opposed in a primary.
The College Republicans' allegations against McHenry come in the midst of a public-relations firestorm for the group, which incorporated as a 527 for fundraising purposes in 2001. Among nearly $8 million in direct-mail solicitations the CRNC sent last year were letters targeting the elderly, using misleading language that made donors believe they were giving to the national GOP. The CRNC also transferred $10,000 in 2002 to former National Chairman Jack Abramoff, now under investigation for lobbying abuses.
...
Elizabeth Beck, the 24-year-old former regional director for the NCFCR, said McHenry was a crucial part of the Gourley campaign's whip strategy. Beck, who worked on McHenry's primary in the spring of 2004, said the lawmaker called her cell phone last month.
"He said, 'Elizabeth, I thought we were friends, that you cared about getting me elected,'" Beck said. Then, she added, McHenry warned her that he would not help her or her school's College Republicans in the future unless she voted for Gourley for CRNC chairman.
"It was requested from Gourley to McHenry. McHenry told me [that]," Beck said. "Basically, he said, 'Y'all are screwed.' It was one of the worst days of my life because I do like McHenry." She felt threatened and disappointed because "before that, I felt like I had a relationship, like I had connections, a career."
Another College Republican, who declined to be identified, was standing next to Beck during her conversation with McHenry and recalled that she was intimidated. "It was very pointed - if you don't do this, there will be consequences," she said, summarizing McHenry's words. "If you don't do this, it will be bad for your political career."
That a United States congressman would become so involved in this race (going so far as to call bewildered kids on their cell phones out of the blue to intimidate them into changing their votes) is a nice reminder of the CRNC's institutional significance as a personnel feeder and launching pad for the big-boy GOP. (It's hard to imagine such dramatics accompanying a national race among the College Democrats, for instance.) Tactical ruthlessness combined with intellectual bankruptcy -- it's what the CRNC has inculcated in ambitious up-and-comers, and bestowed upon the Republican Party and the country, for decades.
--Sam Rosenfeld
Now, citizens of these countries are pushing for reform; take the Arab media's new steps to criticize dictatorships. But blithe applause lines aside, the courage of journalists has not translated into government tolerance, as this Christian Science Monitor story explains. Nor are reformers any more warmly received; look at Egypt, just for starters. As the Times reports today, Ayman Nour, the 40-year-old opposition candidate to president-for-life Hosni Mubarak, has pleaded "not guilty" to what seem to be trumped-up charges of forgery. Mubarak's government has consistently attempted to discredit Nour's Tomorrow Party.
To be sure, it's not like the administration hasn't noticed; Condoleezza Rice protested Nour's arrest in January, canceled her March visit to Egypt, and in Cairo earlier this month cautiously chided Mubarak. "President Mubarak has unlocked the door for change. Now, the Egyptian government must put its faith in its own people," Rice said. "The Egyptian government must fulfill the promise it has made to its people and to the entire world by giving its citizens the freedom to choose." But just a month before Rice's speech Laura Bush was calling Mubarak's stance "bold and wise."
It seems to me that the adminstration is trying to have it both ways -- putting Egypt in the column of democracy-spreading wins, while still claiming the option of chiding them into an actual embracing of democracy. I keep coming back to something French Islamic scholar Gilles Kepel said to me a few months ago. The Bush administration, he said, "mistook Baghdad for East Berlin." It's a useful image. It's hard to fake civil society; Kabuki democracy isn't democracy.
--Sarah Wildman
--Jeffrey Dubner
It tells you a lot about Europe today: all the innovation is happening on the periphery by those countries embracing globalization in their own ways - Ireland, Britain, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe - while those following the French-German social model are suffering high unemployment and low growth. ...This observation about the geographical location of European economic growth is roughly accurate but it doesn't tell us anything about why France and Germany have grown so slowly. The implication of deriding the "French-German social model" while praising Ireland is to suggest that laissez faire is the key to riches. But look at the top five EU members by GDP per capita (with PPP adjustments): Luxembourg, Ireland, Denmark, Austria, Belgium. Alternatively, the top five in Europe the geographical region are (in order) Luxembourg, Norway, Ireland, Iceland, Denmark. Switzerland, Finland, and the Netherlands are also all richer than the more free market United Kingdom. Sweden is substantially poorer than the other Scandinavian countries. Italians are slightly richer than French people, but that masks sharp regional disparities; southern Italy is much poorer than France and northern Italy much richer.Ireland's advice is very simple: Make high school and college education free; make your corporate taxes low, simple and transparent; actively seek out global companies; open your economy to competition; speak English; keep your fiscal house in order; and build a consensus around the whole package with labor and management - then hang in there, because there will be bumps in the road - and you, too, can become one of the richest countries in Europe.
The moral of the story is ... well, that it's not clear what the moral of the story is. Comparing Ireland to France seems to have a clear lesson, but the broader picture is extremely murky. Certainly, the specific lessons Friedman draws don't make much sense. American higher education is way less free than it is anywhere in Europe, and we're super rich. What's more, if you've been to France you'll know that French people take very long vacations and don't put in very many hours on the job compared to Americans. If they worked the same number of hours annually as we do, they'd be way richer in the sense of owning more stuff. On the other hand, they'd have a lot less leisure time. These divergent choices have far-reaching consequences, and I wouldn't want to adopt the French lifestyle, but it's not obvious that there's an objectively correct way to judge this tradeoff.
--Matthew Yglesias
--Matthew Yglesias
Should Bolton be given a recess appointment, which now seems the only route through which he could take up the UN post, he will enter his new role not just as the only such ambassador in U.S. history not confirmed by the Senate, but he will be entering after a period of significant public controversy that has seriously eroded the credibility and respect he will likely be able to wield as an individual negotiator in the UN environment. Instead of sending a well-respected and powerful representative to the UN, the United States would be sending seriously damaged goods. Can such an individual negotiate the critical relationships and alliances that the United States will need in the coming months as it attempts to find an exit strategy in Iraq? Already, the Times of London has noted that "if [Bolton] does win confirmation, he will do so limping." And regardless of what anyone thinks of Bolton himself, that can't be good for America.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
"Over and over again in the last few months, Democrats have had initiative after initiative to fund veterans' health care. Just yesterday, Congressman Chet Edwards sought to offer an amendment to add $1 billion to VA health care. But as has happened over and over again, these increases in VA health care were rejected right down party lines.Of course, Pelosi's expressed sentiment here is both principled and, from the perspective of her party's political interests, totally futile. The same Republicans who now profess shock and horror at the revelation of a funding shortfall knew all about that shortfall yesterday when they blocked Edwards' proposal; quite obviously, what matters to them above all else is ensuring that Democrats cannot, under any circumstances, take any part of the credit for restoring funding for the troops."Now that all of a sudden the issue is too hot for the Republicans to handle, they are saying they didn't know about the shortfall. We want to be sure that they know about it; we want to be sure that they act upon it; and we want to be sure that our veterans have the services that they need and that we promised them. That is the least we can do to honor their service, their courage, their patriotism, and the sacrifice they are willing to make for our country.
--Sam Rosenfeld
OK, fair point. I didn’t mean to impugn the established liberal blogs, which I explained to Duncan Black when I ran into him just a few hours after seeing Markos. My list of bloggers to whom I was definitely not referring includes but is by no means limited to: Josh Marshall, Mark Schmitt, Matt (and all his cohorts, at Tapped of course and at TPMCafe), Markos, Duncan, Kevin Drum (and guests), Jerome Armstrong, Arianna Huffington et alia, Ezra Klein, &c; &c; &c.;
My point, which I think remains valid, was that the blogosphere in general is a milieu that is somewhat more likely than the milieu of traditional journalism to produce reckless error. On the other hand, the gist of the column was about traditional “journalist” Ed Klein using a quote from my book, duly footnoting it, but changing it to suit his purposes. That’s never happened to me in the blogosphere, I must say.
--Michael Tomasky
--Jeffrey Dubner
The most useful thing the United States can do, counterinsurgency-wise, is to build the new Iraqi government's international legitimacy and put pressure on neighboring countries to stem the flow of men, money, and materiel to the insurgency. None of that, however, requires us to have tens of thousands of soldiers on the ground in Iraq. Indeed, even here the presence is somewhat counterproductive. Arab governments acknowledge that a total breakdown in Iraq would be bad for them, but they're reluctant to take action and strong public stances because doing so is unpopular. They'd rather shift the responsbility to the United States. Again, the only way to change this dynamic is to stop undertaking a limitless commitment to the cause. Saying we're willing to singlehandedly make this all come out alright would be fine if we really could single-handedly make it all come out alright, but we can't. Given a realistic view of our capacities, forcing the issue is the strategy most likely to bring about a decent outcome.
--Matthew Yglesias
To save the administration you need to invoke the concept of backward causation -- the metaphysical view that causes need not precede their effects, chronologically speaking. Unlike many philosophical controversies, this one actually has a very brief history. Its first prominent exponent was Michael Dummett, an elderly British philosopher (coalition of the willing) who's still its most effective advocate. See, for example, his paper "Bringing About the Past." Sadly for Bush, though, even in defending the view that backwards causation is logically coherent Dummett still maintains it still never happens in the real world.
--Matthew Yglesias
[SCOTT MCCLELLAN]: Tomorrow, the President will also talk about the strategy for success. He will talk in a very specific way about the way forward. There is a clear path to victory. It is a two-track strategy: there is the military and political track. ...So, yeah, looks like the speech will be heavier on mentioning he has a strategy than on having a strategy. Then again, far be it from me to second guess the president's speechwriters. They put in a lot of hard work. They probably even think about it every day -- every single day. So I'm sure they'll have a strategy for success here.Q Scott, are there new details in the strategy for success? Is there a new direction, or is the President basically summing up what he has said before?
MR. McCLELLAN: As I said, this is a new speech. And the President will be talking in a very specific way about the strategy for succeeding in Iraq. And he will talk about the two-track strategy that we have in place. ...
Q The question is, is there a new direction, though, or not?
MR. McCLELLAN: You're going to hear from the President tomorrow night. I think we have a clear strategy for success. He's going to be talking in a very specific way about what that strategy is. It's an opportunity for the American people to hear about the strategy. ...
Q I guess my question is, beyond discussing, perhaps in great detail, what's already going on right now, is he going to offer new ideas, new initiatives, either from the U.S. -- joint initiatives with the U.S. and other countries -- in order to make what he says the goal -- is possible?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think I would describe it the way I did. You're going to hear him talk about the strategy we have for succeeding in Iraq, the strategy we have for victory, and where we are in terms of implementing that strategy.
--Jeffrey Dubner
"The work in Iraq is difficult and dangerous. Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed. Every picture is horrifying – and the suffering is real. Amid all this violence, I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country. And tonight I will explain the reasons why."According to the Associated Press, "for the first time, more North Carolinians think the war is not worthwhile than think it is." The speech is being given in North Carolina.While acknowledging that the new Iraqi government and coalition forces have experienced tough fighting and suicide bombings, the President will explain why the terrorists are failing:
"The terrorists can kill the innocent – but they cannot stop the advance of freedom. The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11 … if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi … and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like Bin Laden."
After detailing both our military and political strategy in Iraq, the President will provide the American people with a broader, strategic understanding of the stakes in Iraq, the enemy we face, and why he’s optimistic the Iraqi people and coalition forces will prevail:
"We have more work to do, and there will be tough moments that test America’s resolve. We are fighting against men with blind hatred – and armed with lethal weapons – who are capable of any atrocity. They wear no uniform; they respect no laws of warfare or morality. They take innocent lives to create chaos for the cameras. They are trying to shake our will in Iraq – just as they tried to shake our will on September 11, 2001. They will fail. The terrorists do not understand America. The American people do not falter under threat – and we will not allow our future to be determined by car bombers and assassins." (emphasis added)
--Garance Franke-Ruta
Once upon a time, having an approval rating of below 50 percent signaled that a candidate was in an electoral danger zone or had lost touch with public opinion. Republican strategist Matthew Dowd persuasively argued in April 2003 that this number no longer applied. The reelection of his candidate a year and a half later only adds greater weight to those contentions:
[I]n 2002, every major statewide candidate with a re-elect of 45% or higher --- won! The average actual result on election day 2002 showed incumbents finishing 5 to 10 points above their re-elect numbers. It is no longer accurate to suggest that a candidate is vulnerable based solely on an incumbent having a re-elect number under 50%.In the June 2005 SurveyUSA figures, Bush has a weighted average job approval rating of 43 percent, and an unweighted approval rating of 45 percent. I parceled out those numbers between the red states and the blue states, and found that what's really going on in this SurveyUSA state-by-state break out is that Bush is doing considerably worse in the states that voted for Kerry than he is nationwide.
While the unweighted sample shows Bush with a 45-percent approval and 51-percent disapproval rating, dividing this out by 2004 voting patterns shows Bush with a higher-than-average unweighted approval rating of 49 percent in the states he won, but much lower-than-average approval of only 39 percent in the states he did not. Bush is only 4 points higher than the national average in the red states, but he's 6 points lower in the blue ones. I'm sure if I had the capacity to weight those states for population, you would see an even more significant gap.
Significantly, the only state Bush won where his approval rating in the SurveyUSA sample is now below 40 percent is Nevada. In short, though Bush appears to be viewed with increasing public disfavor nationwide, that disfavor may be of questionable relevance in Bush's base states, and, hence, to Republican strategists looking to determine whether Bush ought to change course in response to shifts in public opinion.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
--Jeffrey Dubner
