The Free Thinker

"Cameron's a lightweight" (New Statesman, 12/4/2008):

On meeting Cameron, Obama was, according to diplomatic sources, "distinctly unimpressed", contrary to some reports (excitedly spun by the Conservatives) which suggested that the two men had formed an instant "bond". Instead, I have been told, Obama exclaimed of Cameron after their meeting: "What a lightweight!" He apparently also asked officials about Tory Euroscepticism. Soon, word about the rather awkward encounter between the two self-professed candidates of change made its way quietly round the upper echelons of Whitehall.

It's pretty funny that to hear Barack Obama (no publishing record, except two memoirs, despite 12 years as a law professor, no legislative record in four years in the Senate, no ideology, won the Dem nomination as a stealth candidate with support from netroots airheads and then ran on tax cuts and 'yes we can', main qualification: a naivete so massive that he can say 'hope' and 'change' with a straight face, then reassures the country by signalling he'll try continuity instead, without seeming to realize he's switching) call anyone a lightweight.  If Obama's narcissism makes him diss foreign leaders, though, that's no laughing matter.

No End In Sight

I was surprised to find No End In Sight to be as good as it was.  It didn't get into conspiracy theories or confuse the issues by shouting about lies and stealing oil.  It just looked straight at Iraq, what people tried to do and what did happen.  Wrapped at the beginning of 2007, it had a very dismal view of Iraq's prospects (though no more dismal than mine were at the time), but neither did it really try to ask for a pullout.  In fact, the last quote in the movie was of a Marine saying, with suppressed fury, 'this is not the best we can do.'

From a personal perspective it was hard to watch, both because if I ever have to watch another soldier getting blown up it will be too soon, and because it was all so enraging.  It brought together almost every last thing that, when it happened, I said to myself, "that doesn't seem right" or "how could they make such a huge mistake?" and compressed it into a very short chronology.  There was almost nothing that was new to me, and there were certainly a few wrinkles I feel were more important than the ones they had in there, but I was astonished at its incisiveness and, insofar as a documentary would allow, erudition.  Though the director certainly had an angle and the framing of the story certainly injected somewhat tendentious drama, it did not in any sense strike me as a facile hatchet job.  Indeed, it merely brought together a bunch of things I knew already but usually didn't contemplate in such rapid succession.  That was quite sufficient to bring ears to my eyes for all the opportunities we lost.

At the end of the day, of course, it offers no solutions, just the sense that we've made very great blunders and caused a massive amount of unnecessary suffering, and now we are deep in the hole.  The surge seemed to turn this back for a while, but the recent struggles between Maliki and Sadr underline the tenuous and uncontrollale nature of improvements so far.  Iraq (excepting Kurdish areas, which have been largely independent since the mid-90s) has gone from one strong man to many strong men, orbiting an exhausted and demoralized center.  Is there a solution any more?  I don't know the answer to that, but this movie reminds me: what we are doing right now isn't a solution, it's a gamble.  Worse, it's a gamble the between bad (a detente of strong men with Iran the main external power broker) and worse (extended chaos, breeding the generations of terrorists).  Good outcomes are possible, but only, really, by chance.

I can only presume that this is Gen Petraeus' hope: if we hold the line long enough, some unforeseen configuration of currents will emerge that we can forge into a lasting peace.  This is actually somewhat plausible, but only if the blacksmiths understand Iraq clearly as it is, not as their conscience would prefer it to be, or as they find it politically expedient for it to be.  This holds no less true for Democrats than Republicans: it does Iraq no good (and some ill) to blame everything unpleasant about Iraq on Bush et al.  Something dramatic must be done.  If our next Commander in Chief chooses withdrawal, then s/he (and we) will own the consequences.  Pretending it would be easier than it will be is just repeating the same mistake over again.

--Nato

Citizens of the Borderless World

The Age of Ambition (Nicholas D. Kristof, NY Times, 1/27/2008)

With the American presidential campaign in full swing, the obvious way to change the world might seem to be through politics.

But growing numbers of young people are leaping into the fray and doing the job themselves. These are the social entrepreneurs, the 21st-century answer to the student protesters of the 1960s, and they are some of the most interesting people here at the World Economic Forum (not only because they’re half the age of everyone else).

Andrew Klaber, a 26-year-old playing hooky from Harvard Business School to come here (don’t tell his professors!), is an example of the social entrepreneur. He spent the summer after his sophomore year in college in Thailand and was aghast to see teenage girls being forced into prostitution after their parents had died of AIDS.

So he started Orphans Against AIDS (www.orphansagainstaids.org), which pays school-related expenses for hundreds of children who have been orphaned or otherwise affected by AIDS in poor countries. He and his friends volunteer their time and pay administrative costs out of their own pockets so that every penny goes to the children.

Mr. Klaber was able to expand the nonprofit organization in Africa through introductions made by Jennifer Staple, who was a year ahead of him when they were in college. When she was a sophomore, Ms. Staple founded an organization in her dorm room to collect old reading glasses in the United States and ship them to poor countries. That group, Unite for Sight, has ballooned, and last year it provided eye care to 200,000 people (www.uniteforsight.org).

In the ’60s, perhaps the most remarkable Americans were the civil rights workers and antiwar protesters who started movements that transformed the country. In the 1980s, the most fascinating people were entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who started companies and ended up revolutionizing the way we use technology.

Today the most remarkable young people are the social entrepreneurs, those who see a problem in society and roll up their sleeves to address it in new ways. Bill Drayton, the chief executive of an organization called Ashoka that supports social entrepreneurs, likes to say that such people neither hand out fish nor teach people to fish; their aim is to revolutionize the fishing industry. If that sounds insanely ambitious, it is. John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan title their new book on social entrepreneurs “The Power of Unreasonable People.”

I like to call this the "purpose-driven voluntary sector," as distinct from (a) the profit-driven voluntary sector, i.e. the private sector, and (b) the purpose-driven coercive sector, i.e., the public sector.  Its role is reminiscent of the religious orders in the Middle Ages, groups like the Franciscans and the Dominicans, or the Templars and Hospitallers who fought in the Holy Land.  It includes universities, NGOs, churches, the blogosphere, Wikipedia, and so on.  Its aims and its loyalties transcend both the self-interest of individuals and the interests of national states.  It is a major driver of innovation and progress.  It is growing in influence and power.

Ron Paul

It looks like Dec 16th will be even bigger than Nov 5th for Ron Paul.  I still don't think he has a chance nationally, but it will be instructive to see how well he does in New Hampshire, where a more libertarian/Goldwaterish candidate has a shot.  If the GOP nominates Huckabee (who would, mark my words, be crushed) I can imagine Ron Paul Republicans being critical in the GOP's recovery and reformation.

Of course, I suspect that the recent newspaper endorsements of McCain might swing dissatisfied northeastern independents back into his column.

--Nato

Court Restores Sentencing Powers of Federal Judges

This is really great news!

Sentencing has always traditionally been a huge part of being a judge, and American jurisprudence has steadily been drifting away from that model to its detriment. It's to the point where today, in the most prosperous society in the history of man, we have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. Maybe we're so prosperous because we're so strict and intolerant when it comes to prosecution and sentencing, but I have the sneaking suspicion that we're prosperous in spite of our incarceration rate, not because of it. Now, this Supreme Court ruling won't appreciably change the incarceration rate, but it could conceivably decrease our enormous prison population gradually over time as sentences are passed down by judges that are more lenient than "the guidelines" dictate.

--Tom

Why Richardson's Stumbles Don't Bother Me

Rich Lowry:

I... was appalled at Bill Richardson's utter inability to answer why he cares so much about stopping genocide in Darfur but not—prospectively—in Iraq.

Richardson sometimes falls down on direct questions, but I don't really hold that against him.  There's a good argument for Richardson's position: we're over-committed in Iraq relative to the risk of genocide (you could argue) and the reverse in Darfur; plus Darfur would reinforce the interventionist precedent of Iraq and Kosovo while putting us on the right side of liberal opinion.  Also, intervention in the Arabic world is especially difficult because of the Arabs' unique cultural propensity for suicide terrorism.  We could probably save more lives for the buck in Darfur than in Iraq at this point.  Richardson seems to have good judgment, and I don't mind if he has trouble articulating the arguments for it.  It's the same with Bush: he was always a bit incoherent about why we should go into Iraq; but he saw that it was the right thing to do, and that's what matters most.

Obama would never do the right thing, but he would always have great explanations!

Changing My Spots?

From Newsweek:

Instead we’re looking at what could be called the Wilsonization of America. Just as Wilson’s anti-immigrant policies turned California into the bluest of Blue States, the angry, racist and xenophobic rhetoric emanating from the Republican right is turning the fastest-growing voting bloc in America against the GOP. The Republican brand has taken a hit with all voters, but the strategic consequences of the disaffection among Hispanics could turn enough states Blue to shift them into the Democratic column. “The way the Republicans are handling the immigration issue is handing the Democrats the presidential election in ’08,” says Simon Rosenberg of the New Democrat Network.

I sympathize. For the past three or four years I've felt more or less like a member of the Republican team. I was strongly pro-Bush in 2004, I've supported the Iraq War throughout, I opposed the tax cuts at first but (like McCain), I've changed my mind since. I strongly support the Republican plans on Social Security reform. I sort of agree with Republicans on gay marriage (though I could do without the constitutional amendment; and, like Bush but unlike some others, I support civil unions). I agree with Republicans on free trade and despise the Democrats' growing protectionism. I endorsed the Dems for the House in '06, but I was expecting and hoping for the Republicans to take Congress back in '08. But I'm getting so disgusted with Republican resistance to immigration reform that I'm having the discombobulating experience of feeling my emotional allegiance shifting to the other guys. Bush is great. McCain is a hero. But most of the others seem like the same kind of stupid greedy bigots that the MSM has always assumed they are. How wonderful it would be if the Hispanic vote is solid Democrat in 2008 and sends a few dozen of these scum into retirement!

If immigration reform passes and the main issue changes, maybe I'll switch back. But "the Wilsonization of America" is an apt phrase.

This Dem's Not Phony

Richardson Begins to Rise (RealClearPolitics, 5/24/2007):

Bill Richardson officially kicked off his presidential campaign this week in California, but his real rise as a candidate has come this month in Iowa...

Richardson's resume is far preferable to Obama, who is just too inexperienced and too suspiciously easy to project onto, Hillary-- that ex-president's wife is a qualification for high office is a monstrosity of name-recognition-takes-all politics, and yes she's been a senator for seven years but not an especially impressive one-- or Edwards the ambulance-chaser turned one-term senator and the phony sybaritic billionaire populist. Richardson has actually governed a state. That puts him streets ahead of the other Democratic candidates in my book.

I Wasn't Crazy...

... when I wrote in July 2005 about surpluses in the mid-2010s. The context was an article about Social Security reform ("Genuine Welfare Queens"), where I supported a plan proposed by Senator Jim DeMint to create personal retirement accounts consisting, for the moment, wholly of T-bills:

What is different in the DeMint Plan is how we'll get there. Bush's plan for carve-out private accounts would have amounted, institutionally, to a sort of Great Leap Forward. DeMint's plan will set in motion incremental changes which may be compared to knocking down a row of dominoes. The first domino to fall is the payroll tax surplus in the Trust Fund. The second domino will be the excessive scheduled benefits that drive the program into long-term bankruptcy. The third domino will be the restriction of personal retirement accounts (initially created as lockboxes to stop the raid on the Trust Fund) to T-bonds. When that falls, all Bush's Social Security reform goals will have been accomplished, and we'll have a system of forced savings and private accounts...