The limits of pressure

The Economist and I have long seen the situation with Iran very differently.

They have favored efforts to pressure Iran, convinced that enough pressure would halt a nuclear weapons program. I have been skeptical, at best, that pressure would resolve this situation in the direction the West preferred, and concerned, at worst, that such efforts had been counterproductive and, in fact - the NIE conclusions not in the least resolving either my concerns or the concerns of the Economist and other observers - accelerated Iran's ambitions to get the bomb. Meaning, my concern has long been that the more the West pressures, the more defiant Iran becomes, and the more they pursue the bomb in their own bizarre and half-witted paranoia and desire for attention and rogue prestige.

Today, the Economist publishes the best case that they or any other publication I have read has made for a likely nuclear program and the closest I have ever read them come to conceding that perhaps pressure is not working.

As the enrichment machines spin on

It is difficult to acknowledge that a favored policy is failing. It is difficult for anyone to admit failure. And it is the sign of wisdom when one is able to do so and correct course accordingly rather than stubbornly clinging to a failed strategy. It is wisdom I have come to expect from the Economist.

It could be that I am wrong and the basis for much of my thought about the world is wrong too. In which case, it would be up to me to admit the same. I'm not convinced of that, yet. And the Economist seems to be conceding that perhaps I am right. But I still may be wrong. And the Economist and others who favor pressure as a political strategy may turn out to be right on this question. In which case I am a kindly young fool who needs to stay in a classroom and out of the way of those real men and women leveraging our way to progress.

As you can see, I'm somewhat skeptical of that notion.

And the fact that the Economist, a long-time advocate of this policy, is skeptical of it, too, should give all of us pause to really consider if, perhaps, such skepticism can yield wiser policy.

Either way, we should all hope that the world community, including Iran, takes the commitments to peace and security that the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty embodies is taken seriously by all of its member countries. And that we do not return to a world of nuclear brinksmanship that was the norm of the Cold War and too much of the 20th century.

And that is a commitment that none of us should blink from.

That's what I'm talking about

Mohammed Yunus is my homey. He and I are very much on the same page.

We can improve capitalism

I highly recommend this interview. This is the future of both addressing wealth inequities, markets, and the future politics of such issues. The American Democratic party doesn't see it quite yet. But they will.

Power follows great ideas. Not the other way around.

The good news

The world's silver lining

The Economist notes our progress at a time when many economies are feeling a little under the weather.

What guts really look like

This is what heroism looks like in the face of force as a governing philosophy.

'I Little Slave': An Interview With Bounsang Khamkeo

Thank you, Bounsang Khamkeo, for your courage.

Why humility matters in foreign policy and in life

Because you really never know.

Interrogator: Invasion surprised Saddam

George Piro, an FBI interrogator who questioned Saddam Hussein after his capture reports on 60 minutes that Saddam intentionally allowed the world to think that he might have weapons of mass destruction to deter another Iranian invasion, believing that his country would experience an attack similar to the 4-day aerial attack the United States inflicted in 1998.

You really never know. That's why it is best to keep communication lines as open as much as possible, so you can always know better than when you shut them down, say when you threaten aggressive action.

It's better to have the lines of communication open, to have access to as much information as possible, because your guessing and conjecture and suspicion and cynical pondering will never, ever come as close to the truth as the truth itself.

Take it from an FBI interrogator.

Maybe it's matters more to play it smarter than tougher?

Generally.

Because a bluff or even the use of blunt force is never as good as knowing for real what you're doing, better. And knowing when and how to use force and what presumptions we have on its use are what make liberal democracies great. So knowing better only makes us greater. And far more effective, generally, while we're at it.

If you doubt that, go talk with Saddam Hussein.

Underwhelmed by kids, these days, and MLK

I never thought I'd hear myself say this.

But, kids, these days.

We studied Martin Luther King in all of my classes, yesterday and some today. King has a lot to do with who I am, today, and the work I do. My school specializes in kids with the most serious behavior and academic issues because I care about the kids and people who are easy to write off, a commitment inspired by King as much as anyone else.

And while some kids showed interest, a lot of kids, both this year and last year - my first two years teaching - have been both underwhelming and often just downright nasty and unbearable in their responses.

One of the responses of my more thuggish children last year to a discussion about Dr. King was "Fuck Martin Luther King."

Thankfully, I've been spared that particular response, this year. But I still faced enough apathy and could-give-two-shits attitude about Martin Luther King and the holiday and the legacy that it honors that I found myself pretty infuriated about it yesterday and still somewhat discouraged today (that and a couple of knuckleheads who just don't seem to ever be able to take responsibility for their behavior).

A lot of it is the particular kids I teach. I teach kids who have the most serious behavior issues. Many of these kids are thugs trying to impress their friends by how cold and hard they can be. And being cold and hard about MLK has got to be a perverse thrill for a lot of kids. I've told my share of Holocaust and dead baby and otherwise un-PC humor to understand this impulse. But it's a pretty shitty impulse to have when you're having a discussion about the serious risks people took and sacrafices people made in that civil rights movement, and King, in particular. And anyone who spends their visit to the Holocaust Museum making Holocaust jokes is kind of a sick puppy and really missing the point in a serious way.

Maybe they're young. Maybe they just don't give a shit. That latter reason is more likely, really, given my experience with them.

It's just discouraging to see people not give a shit about something as important as King's legacy. I imagine attending a funeral with the Phelps' would be worse, so I suppose I should have some perspective.

But it does make me yearn for the days I spent sharing African American seders and engaging in race dialogues with people who gave a shit about such things. It's just nice, knowing how little some people give a shit, to hang out with people who do, every once in awhile.

I gotta go find me an MLK celebration. Or maybe just a decent political discussion. Or maybe just a church. Or maybe take a class.

Wherever decent people congregate.

The pretensions of intellectuals (or why I'm happy to know that my shit stinks)

This is what I cannot abide in the scholarly world.

On the cusp of economic history

It's an interesting article discussing some novel ideas for dealing with equity issues and globablization. The proposal by Nicolas Sarkozy, a conservative politician, commissioning Amartya Sen, the most important liberal economist in the world that I have studied, and Joseph Stiglitz, another recognized liberal economist, to develop a better indicator of economic progress than gross domestic product, is particularly intriguing.

Stiglitz's analysis of economic and policy matters concerns me since he and I work from different assumptions. Stiglitz assumes in much of his analysis that politicians and policymakers can better correct for market failures than participants in markets themselves.

I don't doubt that government can do good at times, and believe in active government efforts that are consistent with free trade principles and the principles of a free economy, generally. Federal Reserve efforts to improve economic growth with interest rate cuts to stimulate investment or tax cuts as economic stimulus for investment and spending are measures that make an immeasurable amount of sense to me to preserve the integrity of free markets and to provide some relief from political pressures for government to "do something" while offering some moderate and temporary stimulus which does moderate good within the market.

I believe government efforts to, for instance, regulate environmental issues would be better cast as collaborative efforts between government, business, non-profit, and other actors to solve environmental problems with freedom for participants to find approaches that best address various issues and accounting for different interests and concerns that parties might have, with coercion as an option only when death or serious health issues are certain and imminent and parties are not in good faith (and with an understanding that such measures will, generally, be far from as successful as genuinely collaborative efforts, no matter how much coercion or incentives are used).

Meaning, I think people work together better when they are free to do so without presuming, generally, that one party knows best, especially since, generally, no one party, no matter how smart they are, does know best, and, as such, parties shouldn't coerce, as much as possible, because it interrupts and corrupts this process and it can never, in any of its best case scenarios, be as successful as genuine, honest, voluntary collaboration. Efforts by Bruce Babbit and Bill Clinton to bring together logging interests and environmentalists to discuss ways to address issues of nature preserve and logging in the 1990's were a model that closer approximates what I think constructive activity would look like on this front than the current liberal obsession with regulation.

I guess my concern with Stiglitz's work and with the tone of this article is that it seems to presume that people in government have sufficiently better understanding of markets and other issues impacted and that impact markets than those who participate in markets themselves that, of course, we should presume in favor of government intervention because markets are just never perfect and economists like Joseph Stiglitz, on the other hand, are just overflowing with unchallengeable economic wisdom to make those markets operate more efficiently.

As someone who has spent much time in scholarly and policy circles at this point in my life, I just think that's a load of shit, no offense to scholars like Joseph Stiglitz who spend their lives studying such matters.

While I have been a liberal more of Stiglitz's breed, in the past - although I must restate; I am an independent, today and have no such liberal attachments, these days - I have never shared that level of faith in scholars and academics, nevertheless in politicians and policymakers who often employ their skills.

I remember reading Plato's Republic my freshman year of college and thinking, "What an arrogant and dangerous worldview." I shared Plato's concern that government was often not intelligent enough. I still share it. I shared his view that thoughtful, wiser people needed to be making decisions, if we were going to have a representative democracy, than more rash and less thoughtful people.

But I never shared Plato's faith that intellectuals, philosopher kings, could be trusted to govern for the rest of us without a liberal democratic discussion and marketplace of ideas that was always a better barometer of better ideas and policies and the freedom of individual conscience taken more seriously than any of it.

It is why I like Twain and Mencken so much and why I aspire to write in their vein, as well. Because they just didn't swallow the bullshit that academics fed themselves that they knew more than they did. And it is obvious, really, to anyone who is not being defensive of academics or anyone, for that matter. That's why I like Twain and Mencken and humorists and comedians, of all stripes, to parody the flaws that all of us and each of us have, no matter how smart we think we are.

That's why I am much more seriously skeptical of Stiglitz's worldview and the standpoint of this International Herald Tribune article than I am of the market and its failures. Because anyone whose perspective starts from, "I am smarter and therefore know what is best for others" reeks of arrogance and smugness to me. And my nose for bullshit is stronger for those who reek of that kind of smugness much more than my nose for perhaps any other kind of people. It is the fact that they are so intelligent that makes them so dangerous, in this regard, and which gives such a bad name to intellectuals and institutions of education, for those for whom such people and institutions have a bad name, than any other kind of people.

I'm plenty arrogant, at times, I'm sure. I try to be as humble as I know how. But I carry with me more humility than that line of reasoning offers, and, in the case of folks like Joseph Stiglitz, seems to offer at every corner where someone might defend the right of people to make their own decisions, even when Joseph Stiglitz doesn't think it's good for them and even when he might be right.

I have many friends who smoke, for instance. But if Stiglitz takes after their right to smoke, on the grounds of "inequitable market information," one of the funniest and most foolish arguments that could made against smoking and one of the best reasons to presume that people should be able to do even bad things to themselves without others meddling, even if those arguing for "corrections for market inefficiences" don't approve, you can be sure that I will be protesting such a move with the whole of my passionately free-thinking being, even as my smoking friends, as with many bad things in the world, would have to concede that smoking isn't good for you.

This is what concerns me most about the current political period. This assumption that so many people carry with them that they are smarter than everyone else therefore they know better. And if you don't like it, you can sit in jail for awhile while they help you sort it out for yourself better.

It smacks of Ahmadinejad, in more stylish clothing. But I'm not convinced, in the least, that such emperors wear enough clothing to cover for their hubris.

This inspires me to write.

That's why he's the master

From David Mamet's recent New York Magazine interview. Brilliant stuff.

So what made you decide to write a comedy set in the Oval Office?
Like a lot of other Americans, I’ve gotten very interested in politics lately.

And what do you make of the primaries?
I was shocked, after Iowa, to find myself thinking, Well, you know, if there were the two candidates, McCain and Obama, either of them would probably make a hell of a president.

And what about Hillary’s tearful turnaround?
Well, I only heard something on the radio. I don’t think I’m misquoting her. She said, “I have so many opportunities for America.”* [Long pause.] That’s kind of wonderfully revelatory. It’s not that there are so many opportunities for America, but she has so many opportunities for America.

"[From his newest play, November]'People say we’re a country divided, but we’re not a country divided, what we are is a democracy.' And I think that is the meeting ground of the two positions. That the only country that’s not divided is totalitarian.

The good news is it’s a spectacular country. We’ve been around for 230 years in spite of human nature, because that’s what the Constitution is all about. It’s saying, of course everyone’s gonna try and take control. Of course they’re gonna subvert every law that’s supposed to keep them in line. Of course the president is gonna want to be imperial, of course Congress is gonna want to become obstructionist, of course the judges are gonna be activist. Duh. They figured this out in 1787 and drew up a few sheets of paper that have kept the country in line. It’s a great place to live."

What is this world coming to?

Romney wins quiet Nevada caucuses

This just in: Kucinich takes Utah and West Virginia.

Wild ass shit.

Jimmy Carter tells it like it is

I Got What America Needs Right Here

Some of the funniest fucking shit I have a read a long goddamn time.

Bill Clinton looks like a goddamn fool

Bill Clinton just looks foolish, right now.

Bill Clinton paints Obama as 'establishment' candidate

What kind of desperate and dishonest argument is this? Now I see why Republicans hated this guy.

I used to find this stuff cute in debate. When people would argue every position from every angle, no matter how ridiculous, as a matter of getting the win.

But it's dishonest in real life. And it reeks of the central thing that drove me crazy about speech and debate: people more concerned about winning than about being more thoughtful and, in policy speeches, adopting better policy.

I hated it. It was what motivated me to want to study policy, in the first place. I wanted to be a part of more honest conversations about politics which is constantly muddled, distorted, and undermined by the persistent dishonest positioning for a win. I hated it about speech and debate and I hate it about politics. It drives me up a wall. And too many people, just like Bill Clinton, persistently act like it doesn't matter, in the least, no matter how much policies fail and self-centered politics like this is, by my lights, the largest contributor to the neverending, fruitless, futile, and foolish defenses of failed policies.

How refreshing it would be to have honest policy discussions that didn't involve defending the failures as well as acknowledging the successes of the Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge, Harding, Wilson, Taft, Roosevelt, McKinley, or any other administration. Wouldn't it be nice to have honest, empirical, thoughtful discussions about policy that weren't centered around defending the flaws and failures of our favorite presidents rather than just being open, ready, and willing to acknowledge whatever failures of policy of whatever President, Congress, Supreme Court, political party, ideology, or whatever ever individual or group that might have been responsible for failures in the past?

Those discussions happen more regularly, though far from ideally, in scholarly policy, economics, history, and other social science circles. And that is why I prefer them. That and the fact that the participants are generally more sober, honest, knowledgeable, and seriously responsible for the world and the cultural, economic, social, and policy events, failures and successes that occur within it.

When we favor particular candidates and Presidents, we are more want to overlook those failures and flaws. God knows I was more willing to do so when Bill Clinton was playing on the team I rooted for. But it's grating in the extreme to watch him throw bullshit arguments at the wall just to see what sticks and act like the bullshit really has no consequence in discussion and the level of faith or not that people have in the political process.

If there is one thing I would most want to see in my lifetime more than any other it would be an honest and sober discussion of policy matters in formal political circles and not just in the universities and the marketplace of ideas around those circles.

If you have a self-righteous political identification and you think what matters is your side wins, then you probably won't be interested in those kinds of discussions. Then again, that really is the problem.

But I care enough about that process to expect something more honest than Bill Clinton's remarks yesterday.

Otherwise, who really cares?

The end of lawlessness

Marion Jones is Sentenced to 6 Months

I guess we can all breathe a deep sigh of relief as the plague of steroids is finally behind us.

From that article:

"Jones had hoped to avoid prison, but U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas said he was giving her six months the maximum called for under her plea deal 'because of the need for general deterrence and the need to promote respect for the law.'

As she pleaded for mercy, Jones talked at length about her children, including the infant son she is still nursing.

'My passion in life has always been my family,' she said. 'I know the day is quickly approaching when my boys ask me about these current events. I intend to be honest and forthright ... and guide them into not making the same mistakes.'"

I want this scofflaw off the streets. A nursing mother, no less. What a foul, filthy, unhallowed recreant. Thank goodness Marion Jones is finally behind bars and this dangerous influence is not in the general vicinity of children and crippled persons.

What do we want in America? A bunch of hoodlums ignoring and scorning laws around illegal drugs? What would this world come to if average people regularly transgressed our sacred legal frameworks around illegal drug use? How could we live with such a parody of the law?

All I can say is thank goodness this harlot is finally behind bars where she clearly belongs. Marion Jones down, 88 professional baseball players to go. We'll start with Roger Clemens and finally end this scourge of wickedness and corruption.

It's enough to drive a man to drink. Forcing people to clean up their lives and clean up the world is a tough business.

But as Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani will tell you, somebody's got to do it.

Real strength lies in our deepest values

Madeleine Albright writes a column, today, that has needed to be written for more than 6 years, now.

Confidence in America

"America's standing in the world has been in free fall these past few years because our country is perceived as trying to impose its own reality -- to fashion a world that is safe and comfortable for us with little regard for the views of anyone else.

I love America deeply and I believe our country is still the best in the world, but I also believe we have developed a dangerous lack of self-awareness. No nukes, we say, while possessing the world's largest arsenal. Respect the law, we demand, while disregarding the Geneva Conventions. You're with us or against us, we declare, while ignoring the impact of our actions on Turkey and the Middle East. Hands off Iraq, we warn, while our troops occupy Baghdad. Beware China's military, we cry, while spending as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. Honor the future, we preach, while going AWOL on climate change.

We need to do a better job of seeing ourselves as others do. It strikes the world as ludicrous that we -- with all our wealth and power -- seem so afraid of terrorists, rogue states, illegal immigrants and foreign economic competition. People put themselves in our shoes and expect us to act with confidence, and so we should, but true confidence is shown by a willingness to enter into difficult debates, answer criticism, treat others with respect and do our share or more in tackling global problems. Confidence harnessed to purpose is what America at its best has been all about.

We are 4 percent of a planet that is half Asian, half poor, one-third Muslim and by and large far more familiar with recent American actions than with our country's past accomplishments. To many, the Bush administration is America. Our reputation is in disrepair. We will not recover by acting out of fear but by educating ourselves about the world around us, learning foreign languages, appreciating other faiths, studying the many dimensions of historical truth, harnessing modern technology to constructive ends and looking beyond simplistic notions of evil and good.

I pray that the next president, when taking the oath of office, will have uppermost in mind not the need to scare us but, rather, the need restore our faith in the American idea. That idea is based on our sense of unity and our commitment to one another. That idea is grounded in belief in democracy and burnished by our sense of responsibility to generations past and still to come. This is the glue that enabled us to overcome partisan political differences in earlier decades and to keep our nerve in the face of adversaries far more potent than those we face today. Combine faith in our traditions with the confidence to search for value in others, and we will have a far stronger platform for American leadership than any appeal to fear."

It is living up to our most profound liberal values that offer ourselves and the world the kind of confident leadership that we all need. It always has been. It always will be.

I say that as someone who has failed on this course many times. And it is only by facing up to our failures that we can find the more genuine success and strength we seek. And I say that as someone who has had to face up to an awful lot of failure.

And it's nice to see people take our most genuine liberal values seriously as the source of our strength in liberal democracies, and not confuse it with our most serious weakness: our propensity to confuse aggression with wisdom out of our insecurity in our liberal values and to fail to more honestly face our failures. It is our wisdom - the product and the source of our liberal values - that offers us - liberal and illiberal peoples, alike - real strength.

Now it is up to us to recognize and develop it. And to build a better world out of that strength.

"The dumbest opening column ever penned"

I want to laugh at the hyperbole of contemporary politics. "The worst Administration in American history." "The most tragic mistake in American foreign policy." I love how lost everyone gets in both the moment and in their own bullshit to announce "the greatest tragedies and victories ever conceived in the history of humanity right at this very moment in time."

Having said that, Bill Krisol's column endorsing Mike Huckabee is pretty dumb.

President Mike Huckabee

This is where I appreciate George Will and think Bill Kristol needs to go the church and pray to God that his yearning for a Christ-like Presidential savior doesn't come true.

Luckily, I have absolutely zero to worry about. Because if it were an Obama-Huckabee race, Huckabee gets his ass handed to him in a serious way.

There's a reason why George Will is the most respected conservative columnist in the country and Bill Kristol is not. And this column - which essentially argues that Bill might just be willing to take an uneducated and foolish hick from Arkansas as long as he opposes abortion and gay marriage just like Bill - is about the dumbest thing I have ever seen Bill Kristol write.

And I have to say that if America was dumb enough to elect a President Mike Huckabee - about the only prospect other than a President Mitt Romney or a President Dennis Kucinich and perhaps a few other of the loons running for President these days that would give me no other best option than to vote for a President Hillary Clinton (shudder the thought) - we would deserve him.

And a President Mike Huckabee would epitomize the most serious vanity that Americans have of themselves: that being dumb or being smart doesn't matter. What matters is in their own sweet, confused, and easily misled hearts.

Mike Huckabee is a boob. And he would be an embarrasment as President. I like him, personally. But I'd be seriously embarrassed to have him as leader of the free world. And the only good to come from that prospect would be a serious humbling of American power in front of a befuddled world wondering what dumbasses populate this bountiful land of ours. And I would have to turn to them and say, "A whole lot of them. Just like every one of your countries. Dumbasses are the rule, rather than the exception, after all. Go figure."

Gladly, my country is not quite that fuckin' stupid.

And I can thank a liberal democracy initiated by some very thoughtful founding fathers for that. And God bless America for that.

Winning for the right reasons

George Will endorses Obama's ambitions in the Democratic party for all the right reasons.

Iowa's Histrionic Hucksters

Obama's not perfect. His commitments in Iraq are shaky. His commitments to the market are far from reassuring.

And, like me, George Will has to overlook Obama's strong advocacy, as with Bill Bradley, on one of his signature issues: campaign finance regulation.

But I think George's instincts are similar to mine. For all of Obama's weaknesses, he comes by his liabilities as well as his strengths honestly and thoughtfully and rather exploiting or inventing boogeymen that do not, in fact, exist. He also, and most importantly, happens to be thinking bigger and more constructively about how to resolve many of our most serious international policy messes, today, without having to defend our poor handling of such messes in the past.

Every Presidential race, I'm beginning to discover, is one long choice between less than ideal options.

This race is no different. But it would be nice to have candidates who genuinely have faith in the American people and their ability to resolve many of their own problems and keep their eye on issues that only the President can be responsible for and handling them better than in the past.

Obama's not my ideal candidate, in that respect. But he is better, I think, than his Democratic rivals. And George sees that for all the right reasons.

Bill Bradley looks set to endorse Obama, by the way. And any candidate that gets endorsements from Bill Bradley and George Will should be taken seriously if just as a matter of respect for thoughtful reflections of people who care about politics but have some perspective on its role, or lack thereof, in our lives.

Looking for quality thought? Keep an eye on conservatives, these days.

Charles Krauthammer has a really interesting column in today's Post.

Anytime that a credentialed conservative like Charles says, "How many decades will it take before we acknowledge that the axiom that economic liberalization leads to political liberalization may not be axiomatic?" you should sit up and pay attention.

Crooked Roads to Democracy

It is Charles' first line that impresses me.

"'My mother always said, democracy is the best revenge.'

-- Bilawal Bhutto Zardari,

son of the late Benazir Bhutto

Of all the understandings of the democratic idea, none could be more wrong than this one. Democracy at its very core is an antidote to the kind of dynastic revenge young Bhutto was suggesting."

Now, I'm about to say something personal that I hope doesn't hurt Charles' feelings, too much, but I'm going to say it anyway because it's the only way I can explain why I was so impressed with this line and Mr. Krauthammer lately, in general.

I've always respected Charles Krauthammer. His intelligence. His secular outlook. His willingness to marshall secular thought to make cases for otherwise religiously-associated ideas (Charles' opposition to creating stem cells for research, for instance; he makes a really interesting case for why researchers and the market makes the discussion moot for all kinds of reasons that he thinks are good, although I'm not quite sure, frankly, what I think of the concern for not creating human embryos to destroy them. Something tells me we're not going to be seeing embryos protesting about it anytime soon).

But there has always been one thing about Charles that has stood out for me that has always meant that I never really quite trusted him, no matter how intelligent his analysis.

He always seemed like kind of a snotty and vindictive prick. He just had that air about him. Like Hannibal Lector without all the canibalism and serial killing. Really smart. And kind of creepy.

But I have to say that Charles has really impressed me, lately. And this column really kind of takes the cake.

It is a solid analysis of American strategic interests vis a vis democracy promotion with a much stronger appreciation for the need of local populations to determine their own destinies.

I would add a very important caveat: ultimately, no matter what we think, every individual, local population and sovereign authority for that population will and must be free to determine their own destinies. They will look backwards. They will be illiberal, often. But liberal values are best upheld by our example which respect the choices, learning, and free and voluntary adoption of liberal democracy and the values that sustain it out of the free will of individuals and self-governing populations alike. Everything else is a serious distortion of liberal values and even illiberal folks hostile to those values can sense it and are rightly hostile to our hypocrisy when it involves running rough-shot over their priorities, choices, and governance. We can and must criticize illiberal practices, in ourselves as much as in others. But when we defend our own illiberal practices, especially against the interests of other populations, cultures, or governments, and criticize or strong-arm the illiberal practices of others, we don't just get "branded" as hypocrits, we are hypocrits. And we need our behavior, including our talk and thinking, to live up to our liberal ideals.

Charles' piece is an excellent example of that, today, and I, for one, appreciate reading his insight and that kind of growth on the part of one of our brainier national columnists.

You know what I really appreciate, today? People of all ideological credentials, these days, willing to challenge the dogma of their own ideological stripes and searching deep for the principles and the liberal democratic values in those ideologies - the ideas in those ideologies - that are really worth valuing.

What I like about the smarter political folks out there is that you can see them doing just that, right now. At least conservatives, as they watch the frenzy of progressive piety sweeping the country, these days. It would be nice to see the same from liberals, these days. If only so I wouldn't have to be so ashamed that I come from roots in liberal political circles with folks who cannot live up to the true meaning of that name - liberal - and be willing to give more open-minded, open-hearted, open-ended, engaged thought to what in progressive ideology is just ideology - meaning a more temporary and less valuable political idea associated with a group and its political practices more than a sustainable idea which supports the learning and growth of people for whom those ideas are meant to serve - and what ideas are genuinely better ideas. Liberals will have to get off their high horses to do that. And that is exactly why I like watching the ideological pondering of those out of popular fashion, because it is then that most people do their best thinking.

Someone like me

I'm about to write about something that I know I'm not supposed to but I don't care.

If you haven't seen Reign Over Me, by the way, you really need to. It's really powerful.

So I'm watching it because last night, I can't sleep. And for awhile, all I can think about is Brandi. It's so weird. I haven't thought about her like that - with all kinds of pain still to work through; I think about her every day, of course, that's how fucked up I still am 6 years after we broke up - in a long time.

So it's on my heart in the morning. I'm about to take a shower and I'm trying to get my apartment cleaned up and I try to listen to some Feist. 1-2-3-4 has this line that is so wierd, because I'm never had a pop song make me want to cry every time I hear it. She says, "1-2-3-4-5-6-9 and 10. Money can't buy you back the love that you had then."

And every time I heard that goddamn line I want to cry. And I'm trying to unpack my boxes and clean up my apartment and after awhile I have this haunting feeling on my heart that I'm trying to let go or to ignore or to get some comfort for in the music. And nothing's working.

It really sucks. I don't pine to get back together with Brandi. I'm happy for her. She's married. I heard rumor she had a child. I want her to have a happy life. I just miss my friend and not being able to talk and reminisce with her about old times. And I guess I'm still working through pain, obviously. I work on it every chance I get. It's just been a lot to work through. I've had pain, now, for longer than we even knew each other. We were friends for 5 or so years before we broke up and it's been 6 years since that time. It's ridiculous, I know.

So I turned on Reign Over Me because of the scene where Charlie finally opens up and talks about his wife and three girls dying in one of the 9/11 planes that was used to take down the World Trade towers. And I'm watching it and I'm balling like a little bitch and I'm thinking, this guy lost 3 daughters and a wife. What's a fuckin' girlfriend in the scheme of things.

I know. It's so fuckin' pathetic, ain't it. That's why I tell it to my blog and not to my friends who I am quite sure will tell me in no uncertain terms what a fuckin' loser I am for still pining for some girl I haven't seen in years and who I haven't dated in 6 years. So I blog it and forgo my friends that hassle. That's the irony. That's why Brandi was my best friend for all that time. Because she was the first person to just listen to me about my break-up with Jenny and not try to get me to shut up for her own convenience. It meant a lot to me. So she became my best friend.

Anyway. I haven't had these feelings in a long time. I need some Vietnamese from the Orient and a new girlfriend. I want family and kids, honestly. I gotta get down to Dallas and Wichita and see family and my sister's kids before they're all grown up. They really do grow up so quickly. But, really I just need a friend that close, again. I have lots of friends. I love them all dearly. But I've never had a friend that close again. Someone like me.

Leslie Feist looks like she'd be cool to hang out with. I'd love to pick her brain and heart, sometime. Adam Sandler looks like he'd be a cool guy to hang with, at some point, though I don't see a future for us. Natalie Portman and I should talk about FINCA, sometime (John Hatch was one of the greatest guys I ever met when I was a kid). I have to admit, there are no academics that I just want to hang with, these days, that I can think of. Scholars are kind of dry, much of the time, is the truth. And they like to pretend that they don't really have time for real people feelings for fear that it might interfere with their presumed omniscience. And policy scholars are too often the same way but with pointy teeth. It's about the dumbest goddamn attitude about life that I've ever encountered. Too many people trying to prove that they're tougher and smarter than they really are. And almost every single one of would just about fuckin' wilt if they were ever in a real fight. And, in the meantime, who wants to fuckin' hang with someone who knows it all all the fuckin' time.

Maybe that's why Brandi didn't want to hang out with me, anymore. I completely understand if that or if literally a million other explanations I've come up with for why Brandi won't talk with me (the most likely, of course, being that she's afraid for her marriage; it just leaves me in a bind and it's one of those weak-ass things that I know would have driven me up a fuckin' wall had we stayed together).

I need some Taco Bell. And I've got work to do. And to keep an eye out for someone like me.

Love,
Ben

George Will gives me hope

I love George Will, these days, because he says bold and smart-minded things like this:

Mr. Ways and Means

"Ronald Reagan opposed using the tax code 'as a means of achieving changes in our social structure.' [U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles] Rangel -- in his 19th term, a man of House proprieties -- says, 'I don't think the tax code should be a substitute for the appropriations process in making social change.' Social policy should be, he thinks, the province of 'the standing committees.' The question for tax writers 'is not just what is fair and equitable but what is good for the economy.'

Furthermore, Rangel proposes reducing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 30.5 percent, a rate that still would be higher than the average corporate rate among major industrialized countries. Rangel would entertain arguments for an even lower rate if compensatory revenue could be found.

The rate actually should be zero, for three reasons: Corporate taxation discourages investment by reducing the return on capital; it is a hidden tax passed along to corporations' customers; it is double taxation because corporate earnings are taxed again as dividends. Still, it is heartening that the Democratic chairman of the tax-writing committee favors reducing corporate America's tax burden."

George Will gives me hope that this world has not gone completely mad amidst the progressive zeitgeist.

Man of the Year

Bill Kristol and I have agreed on more over the course of this war than I ever would have expected. I do think Bill needs to be thinking seriously about the mistakes involved with a military campaign of liberation on behalf of a population that is not on board, is likely to view their liberators as aggressors, invaders, and occupiers, and who do not trust their liberators' motives.

Gen. David Petraeus: Man of the Year

But, on this matter, I think Bill gets it right and Time Magazine is both obtuse in its pick of Vladimir Putin and too squeamish to support our noble efforts in Iraq.

5 Questions

Gustav Niebuhr asks several good questions of candidates, today, that caught my eye.

In Assessing Morality, I'll Start with 5 Questions

He writes:

"Based on the experience of having lived through the past seven years, I think I can boil down to five the questions I consider important in trying to assess a presidential candidate's moral grounding. Sure, these overlap with broad religious principles, but they work from a secular standpoint, as well.

'First, are you able to admit a mistake and, as a chief executive, take responsibility for it and work humbly to undo any damage resulting from it?

Second, will you listen to others and give thoughtful weight to reasonable arguments with which you may be inclined to disagree?

Third, will you show sufficient curiosity about the world to believe that you can learn from and respond with care to changing global circumstances that affect your fellow citizens?

Fourth, will you demonstrate enough respect to other human beings to be truthful with them, even if that costs you politically?

And finally, will you state categorically that you will not start a war?'"

I responded thusly:

"All of those sound reasonable, though the fourth question, and all of them, really, will, realistically, depend our own behavior as citizens, journalists, colleauges, activists, scholars, and others involved in the democratic process. If we continue with our leveraging, strong-arming, tough-guy ways, we can expect that last answer to be the same as it is ever been: "Yes," when asked the question, and "No, not really" when leaders face real challenges. It's the most consistent and ridiculous exercise we engage in as an electorate: let our politicians have it when they tell the truth and then sit around complaining that they never tell the truth. The truth is that I can't think of a real exception to that much more realistic rule of life and I have no confidence that we will be facing it soon and even less confidence that things will get significantly better until we do.

On the fifth question, I would vote against any candidate who answered that question yes. What this country needs is a public debate and discussion about when and how military action is engaged. Wars and military action should be avoided as much as possible. But they are necessary for purposes of defending ourselves and defending others when that defense is welcomed and warranted. Iraq is a complicated case where defense was warranted but not completely welcomed. And we must think and engage seriously in the future about how we might support or defend people, like the Iraqi people, who need it but who do not trust us.

There are ways to do that, I think, that can respect the self-determination of the Iraqi people. Peaceful means should be preferred, when possible. But military means may be necessary when peaceful means cannot realistically achieve genuinely democratic ends. Iraq was likely a case of a country where peaceful efforts to introduce democracy were not likely to work absent some kind of internal revolution, at which point, the Iraqis would likely need the overwhelming force of a country like America or other countries in the West, to support them in order to avoid being slaughtered. But we did not ask them if they wanted our help. And many of them were not on board with our effort to liberate them. And we are dealing with the consequences, as we did in Vietnam, for that decision.

Having said that, neither committing to never starting a war nor leaving the chaotic mess that we helped create in Iraq are adequate answers to that original mistake. A full and substantive discussion and debate that assumes good faith about this matter of policy and all matters of policy need to take place so we can discuss them in their totality.

But we are a lazy and cynical lot, too often, who will settle for politicians solving such problems for us, even if they clearly do not have the answers we seek, and avoiding those discussions, no matter how critical, in this case, life-and-death, they might be, and settling for this cynical election process and a larger democratic debate and discussion that is woefully lacking in substantial disagreement and discussion that assumes good faith of those we disagree with because so many people have decided that either they have more answers than they really do or that those they disagree with cannot possibly offer more to their understanding of the world and policy than they really do.

That is our most serious failing and the most serious failing on the part of candidates and failing of integrity in our democracy.

If I were asking the candidates similar questions, I might ask, "Do you take your job and all matters of policy seriously enough that you will lead, initiate, engage, follow, listen to, learn from, and otherwise improve democratic life in America with the most substantive discussions and debates about American and international political life possible? And will you take those discussions and debates more seriously than your job, your ego, your next election, your friends in Washington, or how much it flatters or upsets those who want life to be simpler than it is or can be?"

"Will you lead America in the direction that it and those near power in Washington so often resists being led - by engaging it in serious, rigorous, thoughtful, good faith reflections and discussions about policy with others who care about such matters, even when people get bored of it, overwhelmed by the complexity of the problems we face and the need to engage that complexity, when they call for government to solve more problems than it can really solve, and even when doing so would mean challenging America and the world to fix the godawful mess that is democratic politics in absence of a more serious, respectful, civil, thoughtful substance and respect for liberal values at its core and front and center in its discussions?"

"And after all of that, will you learn to have a sense of humor about what a incredibly dysfunctional lot we are - human beings, in general, and the political class, in particular - and perhaps lead and teach by example that sense of humor about ourselves so that we can, perhaps, learn some humility about our place in the world and how seriously many if not most of our opinions should be taken, by ourselves, nevertheless by others? Could you maybe be a real human being as well as a leader, no matter the impossible expectations and pressures from the American electorate, and teach us how to be at ease with being real human beings, for all of our failings, ourselves, so we are not constantly scurrying around using politics to prove just how genius, superhuman, moral-beyond-belief, righteous members of the human race we are and that we expect you to be? Could you maybe teach us to look at ourselves and one another and the world more honestly and not always defending ourselves and our foolish notions and unrealistic outlooks on ourselves and one another?"

That's a lot to ask of a President. But that's what we need. From someone, if not the President.

Because no matter what we do, this process is going to go on being a seriously tragic, perplexing, and entertaining little mess until we can face up to our failures in that process and those in our lives which make American and democratic politics so amusing and sad all at the same time.

I don't know if one President or Presidential candidate can fix that. All I know is that it won't be fixed until those questions get addressed, in our lives as much as in our elections. And I'd rather those problems be fixed than be so entertained."

A vision of democratic change

Amar Bakshi, of the Washington Post's PostGlobal section, offers a really touching and telling story of desperation and courage from Kwang Soo, the daughter of a professor and a party administrator, made her journey from a privileged family of status in North Korea to poverty and near-starvation and finally to escape to neighboring China.

Dear (American) Leader

It is a very moving personal story of the harrowing realities of the threat of starvation in a closed, centrally-planned economy, and her suggestions for the U.S. to help the people of the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea.

Here is my reply to the article and one of its respondents.

"'The fact of the matter is that the only way to deal with the North Korean problem is to force Kim Jong Il to bring about significant economic reforms (like China). Failing that, we will have to stomach the continued suffering of many innocent civilians until someone decides that enough is enough dispatches Kim and his haircut once and for all.'

That's funny, anonymous. I don't remember the U.S. forcing economic reforms on China. Quite to the contrary, what I remember was China, like Vietnam and other Communist states, reforming their economic systems with greater freedom of trade and more open economies after years of economic decay, and, much later, a diplomatic tour by then-President Bill Clinton to open up diplomatic relations and economic ties. In fact, what I remember is a China that was highly suspicious of U.S. efforts to pressure it, leverage it, or otherwise act "imperially" in any direction, that made such reforms only after many years of poor results from Maoist central planning and force as a governing philosophy.

This author makes clear in no uncertain terms the consequences of U.S. hegemony and aggressive dominance of the Korean peninsula and generally in world affairs - namely that is makes peoples we wish to persuade to make liberal democratic reforms wary of us and our motives - and yet people still rally for the very kinds of policies that are clearly responsible for that mistrust.

How foolish could we possibly be to repeat all of those same mistakes in this arena trying to validate some backwards and clearly counterproductive notion of progress in our own country?

The beauty of a democracy is that when one leader or group is celebrating a bad governing philosophy, that I can vote for another, no matter how self-righteous the first group might be.

The commenter who noted that Koreans will, eventually, either wait for the U.S. and the international community to open North Korea up to economic reforms a la China or Vietnam, or, given the foolish directions that our own leaders, liberal and conservative, are taking us in, these days, North Koreans will have to make the sacrifices that are prerequisites to freedom, is essentially right.

Either wait for the slow and unpredictable pace of gradual reforms that may one day occur that free up the Korean economy, some, and open it up to the outside world. Or revolt, which would be a perfectly legitimate, and, given enough courage on the part of the Korean people, perhaps a better option, given no movement in the a more liberal or democratic direction, given a realistic possibility of success.

Personally, if I were a North Korean citizen, knowing what I know today, I would try to escape to somewhere where freedom and democracy are taken more seriously and the fruits of those commitments and the opportunities that make them available are more plentiful. And I would work for as peaceful a transition to a free and open democracy and market in North Korea as I could possible witness in my own lifetime. But if North Koreans chose to revolt, I would fight with them, if I were still living with my homeland, and support them morally and materially, if I had escaped abroad.

Having said all of that, Americans and Europeans should stave off the humanitarian crisis in North Korea, given the awful and ugly state of affairs in that country, until Koreans are able to determine their own fates, for political as well as for humanitarian reasons, as a matter of leadership as much as a matter of compassion (and as a matter of making clear that the two go hand in hand in the real world of 21st century democratic politics).

But the readers who are concerned about what North Koreans do for themselves and what the American government is expected to do for them may have a point in the sense that what North Koreans and Americans have in common is that both need to learn to be responsible better both for their own fates and for the fates of others in need on their own accord, more, and less from the largess of their governments. We might question whether the U.S. government should be relied upon to provide such aid not because it is not needed or because Americans shouldn't provide it, but because Americans need to learn such generosity of their own accord and not always rely upon their government to provide such aid when Americans are perfectly capable of helping out with or without their government. Americans, as much if not more than North Koreans, need a lesson in self-sufficiency, in dealing with international aid and times when others are in need of our assistance, learning to be responsible for such problems because it is the right thing to do and not because their government makes them help others by taxing its citizens.

That's a lesson for the whole world to learn, not just Americans or North Koreans.

And that is a lesson that will be learned with greater freedom and the responsibility that comes with that freedom rather than anyone forcing anyone to do anything."

Obama vs. Clinton: Living the Experience

Funny and insightful commentary on Obama and Clinton.

From Mark Wanner of Daily Kos:

"Barack Obama shocked his loyal liberal supporters today when he used the word "the". "The" is a common right-wing talking point used to smear Democrats like Al Gore, who wrote a movie called "An" Inconvenient Truth. "An" is a left-wing indefinite article and a progressive article. Progressives do not believe in black or white, so they use "a" and "an". When Obama uses the definite article "the", it is an endorsement of the Bush black or white philosophy, and it is a direct attack on Al Gore, who used the progressive friendly indefinite article in his movie title...

...Obama's use of the right-wing talking point 'the' is a clear endorsement of all of Bush's 'The' War on Terror policies like waterboarding and blowing stuff up in other countries for no good reason.

The use of this right-wing talking point, 'the', is proof that Obama is evil, his supporters are hysterical, and all of the other candidates are totally awesome.

I just call them like I see them. I'm not blinded by loyalty to any candidate. That's why this analysis is so clear eyed and easy to follow, without any ridiculous spin. Obama, on the other hand, is a liar and a shuckster. He uses Rovian tactics. He even tried to spread a rumor in South Carolina that he had fathered a black child. This is racism at it's worst. And it's sexist too, because it just is.

'The' is the latest in a pattern of right-wing media frames used by Obama to destroy the Democratic party and liberalism forever. Once he's done destroying the Democratic party from within, he will invade Middle Eastern countries for their oil and then maybe even Italy for their olive oil. This guy is not a progressive. He is a neocon. He's an arch-conservative. Look at his voting record: it reminds me of fascism. It's makes me sick."

From Dayo Olopade of the New Republic:

"The breaking news of Hillary Clinton’s unrepentant stumbles on the subject of Pakistan hasn't shocked me. It's an old story. During interviews in the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto’s killing Thursday, Clinton had suggested she was a familiar hand at Pakistani politics and a close acquaintance of Bhutto (which is apparently due more to Bhutto’s outreach in Washington than to HRC’s globetrotting). In the process, she got a few details of her friend’s life wrong—the number of children, the manner of her father’s death—but the worst was yet to come. Candidate Clinton said on CNN Friday:

If President Musharraf wishes to stand for election, then he should abide by the same rules that every other candidate will have to follow.

And on ABC’s This Week two days later:

[Musharraf] could be the only person on the ballot. I don't think that's a real election.

The issue, of course, is that the now-postponed elections were parliamentary. And Musharraf, as president, will most certainly not be on the ballot.

Again, it’s not that Hillary’s experience blanket is looking slightly holey—though it is. (Joe Biden dished a zinger on the subject today.) I’m willing to bet that she doesn’t and needn’t have endless reserves of information on Pakistan handy; most of the major candidates (even Saint Biden) are likely prepping—on issues from guns to farm subsidies—from index cards managed by aides. The best candidates, however, posess a mixture of genuine curiosity, a solid base of understanding and a sharp learning curve that allows them to appear superhumanly knowledgeable on the fly. Clinton is usually very good. But at this point any candidate should get more than the gist of what’s going on in Pakistan. And as one running on her wonkishness and fo-po experience, Hillary is doubly on the hook for this one.

I’ll leave it to the imagination what might happen if another candidate, Democratic or Republican, had made this error. But once again, the issue at hand is one of character. Which to me is not about perfection, but the handling of its opposite (I never thought I’d side with Giuliani on this one). And as I noted a few weeks back, it character doesn’t often change.

The real story is the cynical, egotistic response to Hillary's rare but clear blunder. Handler Howard Wolfson immediately rephrased Clinton's two statements as referring to a political party rather than the “President Musharraf” she spoke of four days after the Bhutto news blitz (if only Mike Huckabee had had that time to catch the NIE). The mind trick captures the instinctive bunker mentality that would pervade a Hillary Clinton administration. She could probably just say she misspoke, and put an end to a story that—if the MSM is working hard enough—should have legs for more than a few days. But she won’t. She can’t. It’s not in her blood. (Bill Clinton’s showiness, I think, is also self-serving but different in kind from Hillary’s defensive crouch)."

Andrew Sullivan sums it up pretty well:

"If you think Bush admits mistakes too easily, vote Clinton."

Progress only force can offer

It sometimes floors me that people cannot see what is right in front of their eyes.

The bloodshed in Pakistan and Kenya are the most recent progress created by the good and decent advocates of force as a political philosophy.

Romantics, boobs, and fools who believe that ideas, decency, compassion, humanity, freedom and other such liberal values are central to liberal democracy and decent life persistently resist the progress offered by impositions of advocates of repressive political philosophies and the causes they force upon the public imagination out of their naivete about the long and forceful road of progress.

How can we be so blind to ignore the clear improvements to the international political order by the aggressive and forceful efforts of these brave men and women who make martyrs of others for their progressive causes?

Are we really so naive that we cannot see just how much better life has become with this kind of political pressure applied upon the political processes of these countries, countries that take force seriously and not as just some kind of sideline to their respective democracies?

Are we really so wide-eyed and simple that we cannot possibly recognize just how much healthier, stronger, more advanced and sophisticated the world is for all of this use of force? Are we really such airheads and goons that we would deny such a clear and present reality?

Terrorism, mob violence, and other forms of bullying and political pressure are progress, you see.

If we would only open our eyes.

Proof

...that even smart people can be remarkably stupid at times.

Beauty and success: to those that have shall be given

What is so fuckin' tough about saying I find this girl hot though I know it is completely irrelevant to matters of her merits as a human being? Why do smart people perpetually feel like they have to go through intellectual gymnastics to rationalize instincts that the rest of us would regard as quite natural?

And they did empirical studies on this shit. Smart people can be such fuckin' morons, sometimes.

I am one of them. So I should know. God bless us.

The benefits of experience

I used to think that the major advantage of Hillary Clinton's experience in foreign policy matters was her stateswoman-like and whiny failure to take responsibility for her vote for the war in Iraq.

But as it turns out, the benefits of experience just never stop.

Clinton errs on Pakistan

I don't mind people screwing up. I mind people condescending those who think about foreign policy matters more deeply than they do when their understanding of those matters is so shaky. I mind people pretending to have more to offer than they really do and looking their noses down on others who do actually have more to offer because they want the job so much. I don't trust that kind of person with authority. And neither should any of us.

The more I watch it, the clearer it becomes that Hillary Clinton is a poseur. She fakes serious foreign policy thought like she fakes that forced laugh of hers.

I've had quite enough of the Hillary Clinton Experience. I just hope that America wisens up from its patronizing forceful ways. And if not, the Hillary Clinton Experience will surely be a lesson in hubris.

For all of us.