Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Whining Quinn

Saturday, December 29th, 2007

There is not doubt that many times Congress squanders time and attention on hortatory resolutions that please narrow constituencies from comic book enthusiasts to Dutch-Americans. Although we might prefer that Congress spend its finite time more constructively, at least these resolutions do not generally diminish the treasury and may actually divert Congress from more mischievous pursuits. Of all the inconveniences we endure for a representative democracy, this represents but a small added price.

Nonetheless, if one has a fine-enough tuned sense of victimhood, it alway possible to find offense. Sally Quinn is an accomplished journalist who has spent over four decades at the center of the Washington Beltway culture and should have grown a hard crust to protect her feelings. Quinn is upset at the “bulling pulpit” of Congressional resolution 847 that:

“(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world; (2) expresses continued support for Christians in he United States and worldwide; (3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith; (4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization; (5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and (6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.”

Quinn finds this praise of Christianity a too exclusionary. What about non-Christians? Well there is no cost to sponsoring a resolution, so there is always a handy Congressional resolution for others who may ask. Out of respect to our Islamic brothers and sisters, Congress passed resolution 635 which proclaimed:

“…during this time of conflict, in order to demonstrate solidarity with and support for members of the community of Islam in the United States and throughout the world, the House of Representatives recognizes the Islamic faith as one of the great religions of the world; and (2) in observance of and out of respect for the commencement of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and spiritual renewal, the House of Representatives acknowledges the onset of Ramadan and expresses its deepest respect to Muslims in the United States and throughout the world on this significant occasion.”

It is hard to argue that Congressional has not paid appropriate to respect to all manner of religious faiths, so Quinn aim her complaint to the fact that non-believers have not be singled out for special celebration. The argument is as shallow as an inside-the-Beltway conscience. It is hard to pay tribute to a negative. For example, we might pay special thanks to veterans, it somewhat silly to argue that there ought special thanks to those that didn’t serve.

One important advantage of having children is the development of a sensitive ear to whining. Quinn’s plaintive complaints sounds to these ears like the mournful sounds of child who feels that she has not been treated fairly. Someone else has received attention an she hasn’t. Given a little time to reconsider her words, Quinn will undoubted realize the temporary foolishness of her gripe about something as trivial as a toothless Congressional resolution.

The Surge a Year Later

Sunday, December 23rd, 2007

Perhaps the greatest lesson of the Iraq War is that it is difficult to make any predictions with confidence. It is hard to imagine now the extreme pessimism on the prospects for success of the troop surge in Iraq that permeated the elites just one short year ago. The Hamilton-Baker Study Group had just been released and although the report did not totally reject the idea of a troop surge, it was definitely cool to the idea. The policy recommendation of the report essentially amounted to a phased troop withdrawal coupled with diplomatic overtures to states like Iran who would benefit from a chaotic Iraq.

Senator Joseph Biden, who represents as much as anyone, the foreign policy establishment of the Democratic Party confidently asserted in January of this year that, “We’ve tried the military surge option before and it failed. If we try it again, it will fail again.” Progress in Iraq may not be predictable, but the editorial page of the New York Times is. On the prospects of the surge they editors opined last January, “The disaster is Mr. Bush’s war, and he has already failed… There is nothing ahead but even greater disaster in Iraq.” Sidney Blumenthal, confidant of former President Bill Clinton, writing in Salon.com reported that the Pentagon was going over contingencies in case the troop surge failed and that:

“None of those who are taking part in these exercises, shielded from the public view and the immediate scrutiny of the White House, believes that the so-called surge will succeed. On the contrary, everyone thinks it will not only fail to achieve its aims but also accelerate instability by providing a glaring example of U.S. incapacity and incompetence.”

In a debate with Senator John McCain last January, Senator Barak Obama urged that we begin troop withdrawal in the middle of 2007. As it turns out in retrospect, this would have been precisely the wrong time to do so. The surge was only beginning to demonstrate a clearly measurable impact at that point.

In April 2007, before the troop surge began in earnest, US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, perhaps in a bid to appease the Left wing of the Democratic Party, infamously asserted, “I believe … that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week.” Reid’s negative assessment was premature.

It is possible to find many angry, Left-leaning blogs even more confidently predicting that the surge would fail militarily or painting a pejorative portrayal of the surge leader, General David Patraeus, but one should not grant them the credibility of citation.

The numbers are now in and they tell a different story, at least from a military standpoint. The surge began full-scale operations over the summer. The increased number of troops, critically coupled with General Patraeus’s new assertive anti-insurgency strategy pacified the Sunnis in Al Anbar province, drove Al Qaeda out of the cities where they were largely destroyed by special forces and airpower, and drove down civilian casualties by a factor of five. The number of Coalition casualties has mirrored the deep reduction in civilian losses. The graph below shows the rate of Coalition casualties per day (in blue) since the war began. The solid red line is the mean level and the dashed lines represent the plus-or-minus one standard deviation levels from this mean. Since the middle of summer the rate of Coalition casualties has plummeted and this trend has continued for months. At this point, we are close to having the lowest casualty rate for any month since the war began.



Of course, things may still go wrong. Iraqis have to step up and take advantage of the opportunity that the US military has courageously provided. We should not slide in to the same slip as surge skeptics and confidently extrapolate from the current course into the future. Iraq represents a difficult situation that will take some time to straighten out. Nonetheless, the surge has proved far more successful than even its supporters could have hoped for just months ago. If nothing else the current success of the surge should make opponents of US Administration strategy less sanguine in their embrace of defeat.

Religion and State

Sunday, December 16th, 2007

Roger Cohen was born in 1955 in London and raised with a European perspective. He can perhaps be forgiven for his profound ignorance and condescending arrogance with regard the relationship between religion and the state in the United States. In his article, “Secular Europe’s Merits,’‘ Cohen criticized Presidential candidate’s Mitt Romney sad allusion to the fact the grand cathedrals in Europe are largely empty because Europeans are too “enlightened” to go and actually fill those cathedrals. Cohen sarcastically remarks that, “Europeans still take the Enlightenment seriously enough not to put it inside quote marks.”

Here, Cohen reveals his fundamental misunderstanding. Romney placed “Enlightenment” in quotation remarks not because he disparages the authority of reason, but because too many in Europe, unlike our American Founders, have embraced the notion that reason and faith are incompatible. There is no logical reason why Europe cannot be both enlightened and have churches brimming with people. Is Cohen arguing that those who attend Church are, by definition, unenlightened?

Like many in Europe, he enjoys the blood sport of pulling President George Bush’s comments out of context to make him appear to be a religious zealot devoted to making the US a theocracy. For example, Cohen ridicules Bush’s “allusions to divine guidance — `the hand of a just and faithful God.'” The implication is that Bush feels himself as acting implicit direction of such a God.

It is kinder to assume that Cohen pulled this quotation from some blog without the knowledge of its full context than that he deliberately misquoted Bush. The phrase Cohen cites came from an annual prayer breakfast. In a full context, Bush was arguing the exact opposite of Cohen’s assertion that Bush was claiming some special knowledge of God’s will. Bush was saying that sometimes we don’t understand how God works in this world. Nonetheless, we have faith in the notion that God’s purposes will still be served.

“We can also be confident in the ways of Providence, even when they are far from our understanding. Events aren’t moved by blind change and chance. Behind all of life and all of history, there’s a dedication and purpose, set by the hand of a just and faithful God. And that hope will never be shaken.” [Emphasis added-FMM]

This is not much different in sentiment from Abraham Lincoln’s observation in his Second Inaugural Address that the Civil War was perhaps God’s way of eliminating the scourge of slavery.

“The Almighty has His own purposes. `Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’ If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time…”

And Bush remarks were certainly less suggestive of a theocracy than Presidential candidate Barak Obama’s request to be an “instrument of God” to create “a Kingdom right here on Earth.” In the immediately preceding column, Cohen was rather complimentary of “Obama’s American Ideals.” One suspects that if a Republican had made the exact same remarks about bringing a Kingdom here on Earth, Cohen would have led the legions defending the secular state against the agents of theocracy.

It is possible to both moral and secular. However, our forefathers made the observation that a free society cannot long exist without being a moral society and that religion has proven to be a key agent of morality. George Washington Farewell Address:

“And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

The First Amendment’s protections of religious freedom were designed as least much to protect religion from the state as the state from religion.

Support the Troops

Sunday, December 9th, 2007

If one notices a bumper sticker on a car that says “Support the Troops,” the unspoken assumption is that the owner of the car not only supports the troops but the policies of the Bush Administration in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is unfortunate. The two positions are not logically connected. One could certainly think well of the troops and recognize their sacrifice on our behalf and strongly disagree with Bush’s policy. However, the Liberals and the Left have left the field open for Conservatives to associate themselves with the natural American inclination to support their sons and daughters in the military.

This began in Vietnam when the Left was so angry with the war that to discredit the war they habitually lapsed into discrediting the troops by exaggerating transgressions. Even Senator John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, who might have had strong reason to be sympathetic to troops, most of them drafted, painted a disquieting and largely inaccurate picture of American troops who,

“…personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.”

The habit was renewed in the present Iraq conflict. The story of the very real abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib early after the conclusion of initial hostilities in Iraq were played and replayed on the front pages of the NY Times and other media outlets to the point that these media outlets succeeded in making that an early symbol of the war and unfortunately the war fighters.

This attack on soldiers has now become so habitual that sometimes it is impossible for certain elements of the media to support the troops in even modest ways. The FreedomWatch organization strongly supports Bush’s policies. It has tried to run some thank-the-troops television ads during the holiday season. CNN and Fox news have run the ads without a problem, but MSNBC and CNBC have refused to run the ads.

The ads are very benign and certainly not controversial. They are certainly less controversial than ads for Sicko, Michael Moore polemic masquerading as a documentary run by these and other networks including FoxNews. Click here to see the ads and make your own judgment about how controversial the ads really are. The refusal of MSNBC and CNBC to run these ads provide additional evidence that some in the media have unfortunately convinced themselves that anything positive about and for the troops should be suppressed lest they might accidentally lend support to Bush’s policies.

His Grandfather’s Son

Saturday, November 24th, 2007

Clarence Thomas has proven to be such a tall lightening rod in storms born of Supreme Court controversies that reviews of Thomas’ autobiographical book My Grandfather’s Son: A Memoir are as much a measure of the political preferences of the reviewer as the are of the quality of the book. This reviewer confesses a sympathy for Judge Thomas’s jurisprudence and I was motivated by the sympathy to read the book.

No matter what one’s political philosophy, if one views the book as the odyssey of a single man the story is quite remarkable. Thomas was abandoned by his father at an early age, and his mother, unable to cope with raising Clarence and his brother Myers, deposited her children with Thomas’s maternal grandparents. The odds against this young African-American boy from Georgia were long and only reduced by the hard oversight of his grandfather Myers “Daddy” Anderson.

Anderson was by conventional standards poor, but was able set up his own oil delivery business and provide a home for his two grandsons. Despite the fact that Daddy oversaw a disciplined household his primary influence was by example not by application of discipline. Daddy pointedly said that he would never ask anything of Clarence that he would not ask of himself. Daddy influence was born of love, but he rarely displayed affection. Daddy knew how hard it would be for Thomas and his brother and did not want any familial softness to weaken the strength he was trying to instill. Although Thomas’ grandfather’s efforts succeeded, this lack of affection estranged Thomas from his grandfather. One of Thomas’s deepest regrets is that he was not ever able to come to a reconciliation with his grandfather during his grandfather life. It obvious to even the causal reader that the book represents a penance for this failure.

Thomas’s grandparents scrimped so he and his brother could have the academic and moral education afforded in a Catholic school. Indeed, for a time Thomas seriously considered the vocation of the priesthood. Thomas’s abandonment of this pursuit is one of the first disappointments that opened an unbridged void between Thomas and his grandfather. The elder Thomas expected people to be true to their comments and Thomas’s change of heart with regard to the priesthood represented failure.

Thomas graduated from the College of the Holy Cross with Honors in 1971 and from Yale Law School in 1974. Just these accomplishments places him at the extreme statistical end of what might expected from individuals born to his circumstances.

If one believes that Thomas is using this book to serve personal vanity or vindication, he did not do so in a particularly effective way. Thomas blames himself for the failure of his first marriage and pleads guilty to excessive alcohol consumption and financial irresponsibility. He was so much in debt that as young professional he frequently took advantage of the personal generosity of friends. There is much to admire in Thomas’s ascent from a child in the Jim Crow South to the US Supreme Court, but also much, as Thomas himself would agree, to dislike.

The New Yorker magazine asks “Why Clarance Thomas is So Angry?” Other reviews had commented on the Thomas anger. However, the question represents a misunderstanding the of the book. There is a difference between soul-destroying bitterness and righteous indignation. Was Frederick Douglas who railed against the injustice of slavery bitter or justifiably angry and the treatment of his race? In his biography, Thomas does not appear embittered, despite his vicious treatment by those opposed to him but rather resolute to overcome his critics by studious adherence to his judicial philosophy. It is a steadfastness taught to him by his grandfather.

To the extent there is anger, or least frustration, in Thomas it appears to be born of his treatment after Yale Law School. Because blacks were admitted to Yale via an affirmative action program, the Yale Law degree was not worth as much to a black person as to a white person. Thomas did well at Yale on his own merits, but affirmative action tainted his degree. Because of the program, law firms had little assurance about the quality of the credential as it applied to African-American graduates. Thomas was rightly resented the injustice of this situation.

Ultimately, Thomas was hired by a Missouri Attorney General, Republican John Danforth who would prove to be an important mentor. After service for Danforth, Thomas decided to help his family financially by working as a staff attorney for Monsanto Corporation. The work was remunerative, but not a sufficient intellectual challenge. Thomas took a pay cut and became a legislative assistant for Danforth , after Danforth was elected to the Senate. Thomas registered as a Republican and voted for Ronald Reagan 1980. Ultimately, Thomas became Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He used his eight-year tenure to put the poorly-run organization on an even keel. It is here that he honed his civil rights judicial philosophy, came to the attention of senior Republicans in the Reagan and Bush Administrations, and hired Anita Thomas on the basis of a recommendation of a friend.

Impressed, President George H. W. Bush appointed Thomas to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1990. When Justice Thurgood Marshall retired in 1991, President nominated Thomas to fill Marshall’s place on the Court.

The saga of Thomas’s contentious confirmation is now almost legend. Despite a full blown “Borking” of Thomas, it appeared that Thomas’s confirmation would slide through. Then Anita Hill happened. Anita Hill claimed that Thomas had sexually harassed her. Books have been written about the charges and Thomas’s defense. In retrospect, the arguments seem quaint after the charges against President Bill Clinton which we know now to be true. The fact that feminists groups did not rally against Clinton the same way they did against Thoma provides evidence that Thomas’s real transgression was not sexual harassment but his possibility that the would to vote to uphold the Roe v. Wade abortion decision.

Thomas did not take the opportunity of his biography to focus on Hill’s charges. Actually, she occupies a fairly minor role in his book as she has turned out to be in subsequent years. Thomas reserves his indignation for the others that used Hill. The Liberal establishment opposed Thomas because of his Originalist jurisprudence and because as a black American he defied the conventional wisdom about how a black man ought to think. To keep Thomas off the Supreme Court it was not enough to say that we disagree with him, because at least at that time Presidents were usually granted their judicial choices. They had to dig into is personal life and find enough dirt to destroy him personally. There is no tactic not justified to protect the abortion decision. These people continue to poison the political atmosphere. It was Thomas’s spirited defense, when he compared his treatment to a “high-tech lynching” that played on the old canard of uncontrolled black make sexuality, that turned the tide and insured his confirmation, albeit by a slender majority.

The ultimate irony is that although Thomas had a Conservative view of constitutional interpretation there was no guarantee that he would become the stalwart pillar of Originalist jurisprudence that he did. However, the politicization of his confirmation made clear to Thomas that the Court had strayed too far into the political decisions reserved for Congress and the President. Judicial appointments only become continuously controversial when the Courts have usurped enough power from the other two branches the the confirmation process becomes the only place for the political process to play out. If the Courts had allowed abortion liberalization to happen legislatively, which was occurring at the time of the Roe v. Wade decision, the confirmation process now would not be so contentious and ugly.

Liberty and Safety

Saturday, October 27th, 2007

Benjamin Franklin is often cited as the source of the observation, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Despite the fact that there is some dispute as to the origin of the quote, it remains a marvelously malleable remark, able to assume various meanings suitable for buttressing different political points.

Civil libertarians can call upon Franklin to support the argument that government should be hobbled in its intrusiveness even if by doing so may make the life of criminals a little easier. Those in favor a military force to fight forces of oppression can use Franklin to weigh on the side of liberty as opposed to the safety of acquiescence .

Nonetheless, there really is a balance between liberty and safety that must be struck. We are constantly told by our friends on the Left that the Patriot Act is poor trade off between safety and liberty. We put this argument off to another time, but point out here that there is another liberty and safety trade off that is at the heart of Conservative political philosophy: the balance between safety and economic liberty.

Civil liberties such as the freedom of speech, freedom of association, and privacy are defining elements of a free society, however, in terms of day-to-day activities, it is through economic freedom that we exercise control over our own lives. The economic resources at our disposal allow us to decide where to live, where to travel, what to eat, and what clothing to wear. Economic resources empower us to make the myriad of small choices that define how we live our lives. I may cherish my freedom of speech, but I enjoy economic freedom daily. To understand the importance of economic freedom just ask yourself if you had 10% greater or 10% fewer economic resources at your disposal how would the scope of your personal choices increase or decrease.

What Conservatives understand intuitively and what Liberals need to learn is that when people are taxed to provide resources for the state to ameliorate social problems, they are doing so at the cost of personal economic freedom. Just as some might exaggerate external threats to argue for reductions in civil liberties, others might exaggerate social problems to make the case for the reduction of economic liberty.

This is not to conclude that there ought not be any social programs or any government spending. Rather, it is to argue that we recognize that taxation entails a very real reduction of personal liberty. For Conservatives, the balance between taxation and the government modulation of the vagaries of a dynamic economy is tipped a little more to the side of economic freedom. We can steal from Franklin and assert “They that can give up economic freedom to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither freedom nor safety.”

Party Infestation

Sunday, October 7th, 2007

Before the recent surge in troops designed to bring more stability to Iraq, many Americans were doubtful whether it would work. Given the frustration of the past few years in Iraq, perhaps a little incredulity was in order. Fortunately, at least in the near term, the military situation in Iraq has improved. In September. the number of civilians killed decreased by half and American troop casualties showed a steady four-month decline. These facts do not demonstrate conclusive victory in Iraq, but they do represent modest progress in the correct direction.

At the time the surge was under consideration, there was the disheartening poll from Fox News / Opinion Dynamics that, among Democrats, 51% wanted the surge to succeed (the loyal opposition), 34% did not, and 15% were not sure they wanted the plan to succeed. One could blame Fox News polling, but their poll results have compared favorably in the past in presidential election picks with other polls. The results of their polls are consistent with other major polling organizations. They are a reputable pollster. The only unique thing about Fox News polling is that they thought to ask this question, whereas other may not have.

A recent October 4, 2007 FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll confirms that this sad and angry minority still infest the Left of the Democratic party. When asked, “Do you personally think the world would be better off if the United States loses the war in Iraq?” 19% (nearly one-in-five) Democrats answered yes and 20% didn’t know. Only 62% of Democrats are completely convinced that the world would be better off the US succeeds in Iraq. Many Democrats and others may have critical questions as to the best route to victory or some measure of success, but there remains a core who want the US to lose.

It is important to remember that a majority of Democrats dearly love their country and wish for success in Iraq. Yet, there remains an ugly and significant minority that infest the party, who would like to see the US fail. Democrats would do well to isolate these radicals and distant themselves from this anti-American movement. They are responsible for cleaning up their own problems.

Marketplace of Ideas

Sunday, September 30th, 2007

Many times our liberal friends remind us that economic markets are not always perfect. A free economic market presumes that all the cost and benefits are born by the buyers and sellers. This is not always the case. For example, water or air pollution can impose costs on third parties not part of this transaction. In such course, the government can be called upon to remedy this “market failure.” This argument is a reasonable one.

Americans rightly justify the notion of a“free marketplace of ideas,” as the crucible that we use to filter the validity of ideas. However, it is important to recognize that this marketplace can have it failures too. For the free marketplace of ideas to work, honesty and a open willingness to subject ideas to critical evaluation are required. Because we recognize the delicate importance of free and open inquiry, we do not permit the government to step in to remedy market failures in the marketplace of ideas. We rely on the self regulation and good judgment of free people.

This issue is what makes the recent speech at Columbia Univeristy by Iranian President Ahmadinejad so problematic. Because Ahmadinejad does not subscribe to rules of open inquiry, when invited to prestigious institution like Columbia University, the hosts are sandwiched between two unappealing alternatives: appear rude by vigorous confrontation or allow Ahmadinejad to spread his propaganda with less than the most energetic rebuttal. Under pressure for the embarrassing invitation, Columbia’s president Lee Bollinger decided to confront Ahmadinejad. It is not that Ahmadinejad did not deserve Bollinger’s direct criticism, but the remarks gave Ahmadinejad an excuse to suggest that as a guest he was unfairly attacked. Ahmadinejad played the victim.

The most poignant rebuttal to Ahmadinejad was outside the hall where Ahmadinejad spoke. There was small placard topped with a photograph of Shiri Negari, a twenty-one year old young woman, tens days from her twenty-second birthday, who was killed by a suicide bomber in Israel. The placard read: “My name is Shiri Negari and I would like to speak at Columbia too, but I was murdered when Iran gave money to Hamas to blow up the bus I was on.”

At www.shiri.us, there is a memorial web site lovingly maintained by Shiri’s family. The site is populated with photographs, videos, and testimonials that paint the picture of a promising and beautiful life snuffed out by an ideology of death.

Bolllinger should have resolved his introduction dilemma by playing the short video at Shiri’s site that tells the story of her too-short life. The Bollinger could have simply asked why Iran supports a group that would deliberately and indiscriminately kill people like Shiri. There is no acceptable answer to that question, and Shiri would have been the remedy to a market failure.

The Left, Patriotism, and the Military

Saturday, September 22nd, 2007

Presumably one of the conventional lessons of the Vietnam War was not to let anger at a war spillover to mistreatment of the war fighter. This is especially true for Vietnam where many of the combatants were drafted. It is lesson that, in some quarters, seems to be misplaced during the current conflict In Iraq.

In addition, the American Left seems to feel a little too sensitive at even the slightest suggestion that it is not sufficiently patriotic. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack, President Bush called upon the world to fight terrorism, more specifically Islamo-Fascism. Too many times, erstwhile American allies and friends had turned a blind eye or even deliberately harbored terrorists. The time had pasted to straddle the fence. Countries were asked to decide whether they wanted to be counted among our friends and not acquiesce Islamic terrorism. The shorthand for this new position (which, by the way, has not really been enforced) was expressed “you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” Actually, the entire quote was, “…we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

Nonetheless, the Left continually whines about the “you’re with us or against us” phraseology, suggesting that Bush is saying that anyone who disagrees with the approach taken by the Administration is unpatriotic. It is convenient to play a victim, but to deliberately abuse a phrase from Hamlet: “The [Left] doth protest too much, methinks.” The only ways the Left could construe this phraseology as a challenge to patriotism is if it harbors an unspoken guilt or if it wants to exploit the phrase for political advantage. We do not endeavor here to decide which.

Actually, the challenge to personal patriotism generally comes more from the Left than from the Right. In 2004, General Wesley Clark, in his unsuccessful bid for the presidential nomination of the Democratic party, appealed to the party’s rabid Left by routinely claiming, “I don’t think it was a patriotic war. I think it was a mistake, a strategic mistake, and I think that the president of the United States wasn’t patriotic in going after Saddam Hussein.” Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean decried Bush’s plan to re-structure Social Security as “not an American thing to do.” Using “un-American” to describe a policy disagreement is more frequently a practice of the Left than the Right. The Left can make such allusions with nary a voice of response, while if someone on the Right suggests that someone is un-American they would be loudly and publicly rebuked in the main-stream-media.

There remains the general perception that the Left does not much care for the military or for the US and Left usually brings these aspersions upon itself. Even beyond the exercise of trumpeting every mis-step by an American solider and largely ignoring nobility and and heroism by the military, is the inability or unwillingness of some liberals and Democrats to distance themselves from the extreme elements of the Left.

Three weeks ago, Moveon.org ran a full page ad in the NY Times (where else) suggesting that General David Patraeus might “betray us.” For most, the ad was way over the line. The ad did not challenge General Patraeus’s professional assessments, but his character. The story would have died after a day, if the Democratic presidential front runners had loudly condemned the ad and disassociated themselves from it and Moveon.org. Even given a chance to condemn the ad in a Senate resolution, 25 Senators, including Senator Hillary Clinton, declined to do so. Senator Barack Obama did not register a vote.

Now Senators Clinton and Obama in their hearts do not believe that Pateous would in any sense betray his country, but they can’t say so lest the upset the Moveon.org wing of their party. The behavior of Clinton and Obama will not likely be included in a future volume of Profiles in Courage. The refusal to condemn the ad is purely a shrewd political calculation. One must ask if these Senators have difficulty in standing up to the political partisans at Moveon.org, it is hard to understand what courage they would display in confronting murderously dangerous enemies abroad.

Cheney

Sunday, September 16th, 2007

It will be many years before it is possible to dispassionately write a book or review a book about Vice-President Dick Cheney. In the near term, it is very likely that any book or review will reflect at least as much about its author as its subject. For those who object to the policies with which Cheney has been associated, nothing but a book that paints Cheney in the darkest hues will be remotely sufficient. Those who are favor or at least sympathetic to Cheney’s policies, Cheney’s decisions and influence will be buttressed with stories about his acknowledged competence and experience. Stephen F. Hayes, an senior writer for the Conservative Weekly Standard, has acknowledged as much in discussions about his recent book entitled Cheney: The Untold Story of America’s Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President.

Within the constraints of dealing with this particular contemporary subject, Hayes provides a valuable service. Because he is perceived as sympathetic to the Bush Administration’s policies, Hayes was granted an extraordinary 30 hours of face time with Cheney. Notoriously distrustful of the press, he does not generally grant interviews. The information Hayes garnered will provide for later biographies heretofore invaluable raw material from which to gain insight into Cheney’s thinking.

Although always considered bright in school, Cheney did suffer some setbacks in his late teens and early twenties. Because of poor academic performance after two years, he was asked to leave Yale and yield a scholarship he had won. Spending a year in Wyoming as a linesman, his star descended further as he was arrested two times for DWI. It was not until Lynne Vincent (later his Cheney’s wife) an academic in her own right, told Cheney that she any future husband of hers would have to behave better, that Cheney reversed his decline. He enrolled at the University of Wyoming, earning his bachelor’s and master’s in degrees political science. Indeed, he was on his way to a PhD and a quiet academic career, until he got involved in politics, serving as an intern for a Wyoming state legislator. Cheney was not particularly partisan and was assigned to Republican representative only because the other intern selected insisted on being assigned to a Democrat. Later President George W. Bush was described as the accidental president because of his close victory in 2000. However, in a very real sense, decades earlier Cheney had become an accidental Republican.

Cheney’s big break on the national political scene was to work for Donald Rumsfeld who was the Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity in the Nixon Administration. This situation is key understanding Cheney’s Conservative view of economic policy It is here that he was became disenchanted with the power of government to micromanage the economy. He and Rumsfeld led the failed wage and price control efforts of the Nixon Administration. Rumsfeld went on to become Chief of Staff in for President Gerald Ford. Later when Rumsfeld became Secretary of Defense for Ford, Cheney took his place as Ford’s Chief of Staff. In the course of a little more than a decade, Cheney had risen from a Wyoming linesman in to one of the most important positions in the Executive Branch.

After Ford lost to then Governor Jimmy Carter in 1976, Cheney returned to Wyoming and was trying to decide whether to go into business, when Wyoming’s single Congressional representative seat opened up on a retirement. Senator Alan Simpson, later one Cheney’s best friends in Washington, was running at the same time for the open Senate seat.

In Congress, Cheney rose rapidly to leadership positions, because of his reputation for fairness, competence and discreteness. Minority Leader Robert Michael, helped Cheney’s career because he judged Cheney an up-and-coming moderate voice in a Republican Party increasingly dominated by followers of Ronald Reagan. Actually, Cheney’s voting record was very Conservative, but because he worked tirelessly for Ford’s nomination in 1976 against Reagan.

When inaugurated in 1989, George H. W. Bush originally nominated John Tower as Secretary of Defense. It was soon clear that Tower’s reputation for consuming too much alcohol and chasing too many women disqualified him for such a sensitive position. Cheney’s nomination to that position was large viewed as bi-partisan selection. Cheney’s experience in Congress demonstrated that he could work comfortable across the aisle. Looking back at the comments of the time, Democrats largely could not say enough good things about Cheney.

Cheney’s major test during the administration of the first George Bush came during the first Gulf War. Cheney and then Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell proved to be a effective team. During this conflict, Cheney buttressed his reputation has a thoughtful competent leader.

Hayes reminds us Cheney’s reasoning that for not proceeding to Baghdad to after the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait. Cheney spoke of the difficulty in dealing with the different religious factions in Iraq and the door-to-door fighting that might ensue. These are all warnings that should have been more carefully considered a decade later. Hayes also reminds us of the criticism of Vice-President Gore, running with Clinton in 1992, that the Bush Administration had not done enough to deal with the threat posed by Saddam Hussein with regard to WMD and his support of terrorists.

Cheney is a person of irony. He was selected to run with George W. Bush as vice-president because he lent a certain gravitas and competence to an candidate inexperience in foreign policy. Yet he now is caricaturized as an overanxious warrior. Cheney did not have ambitions to succeed George W. Bush as president. As a consequence, he ended up having more power and influence than perhaps any other vice-president in history.

The key insight to understanding Cheney what changed the cautious Cheney into a forceful advocate for the Iraq War is September 11. The Bush Administration had to make some terrible decisions during those attacks on the United States. They knew what it was like to lead a country under attack and it colored the way Bush and Cheney subsequently viewed the world. Although United Flight 93 crashed because of a conflict between the terrorists and the passengers, according the Hayes, Cheney passed along a order to shoot down the plane. After hearing that the plane had gone down, for some horrible moments the leadership did not know if their order had actually been carried out.

Since 9/11, the United States homeland has not been directly attacked. Some believe that the original threat was overblown and that 9/11 was a terrible anomaly. Cheney is convinced that the policies that the Bush Administration has been pursued, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and aggressive anti-terror intelligence, are the reason we have not been attacked. It is this assessment by Cheney that explains Cheney’s determination to continue to pursue them despite external criticism. This single understanding is worth the purchase price of the book.