Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Foreign Affairs

Guantanamo

It's now almost certain that Guantanamo will not be closed as promised.  "White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig, who initially guided the effort to close the prison and who was an advocate of setting the deadline, is no longer in charge of the project, two senior administration officials said this week."  He will, of course, be promoted: "he is on the short list for a seat on the bench or a diplomatic position."  The President will stay where he is.
Categories > Foreign Affairs

Elections

Dem fund raising

While Obama's poll numbers are still down, he and his party have a new concern, one that has a way of focusing politicians' attention, a drop in fundraising, huge drop, actually.  "The pair of Democratic committees tasked with raising money for House and Senate candidates -- and doing so at a time when the party holds its strongest position on Capitol Hill in a generation -- have watched their receipts plummet by a combined 20 percent."  Also, "While donations from special interest political action committees have increased, individual donors are disappearing at a rate that has alarmed party leaders: The DSCC's contributions from individuals was $18.5 million through August, a drop of $12.6 million, or nearly 40 percent, from two years earlier..."

Categories > Elections

Environment

The Enviros Reach Beyond Their Grasp

Now it's a war on soft toilet paper.
Categories > Environment

Foreign Affairs

Missile Shields for Peanuts

Rebeccah Heinrichs gives us a concise overview of the thinking--or lack of thinking, as the case may be--behind the Obama Administration's recent decision to abandon "Third Site" ground missile defense capabilities in Europe and replace them with mobile missile interceptors on Aegis ships.  She makes the case that the arguments advanced in favor of this move are disingenuous and, what is worse, based on a dangerous and misleading understanding of America's purposes in the world.  While disputing claims that the move could be considered a modernizing upgrade combined with cost-savings, she also argues that Obama's is making a dangerous gamble from a strategic point of view.  If our objective was to appear less threatening and, thereby, to invite a less threatening posture from potential adversaries, events do not suggest that our invitation has been accepted.  
Categories > Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs

The President's Radical Idealism

Several people have already commented on President Obama's speech at the United Nations yesterday.  Reading over his speech, I was struck by his comment that "No balance of power among nations will hold."  Well, duh!  That is, and has always been true.  But, and here's where I suspect my analysis parts company with the President's, there still is no better way to maintain peace.  Balance of power, however imperfect, is the best tool available in the world we're given.  For over two centuries, radicals have disliked that solution, and sought to find another answer.  Perhaps some day they'll find it. Color me skeptical.

Wherefore this quest for a new and different world?  I think it might be connected to science. The President noted that "The technology we harness can light the path to peace, or forever darken it. The energy we use can sustain our planet, or destroy it. What happens to the hope of a single child - anywhere - can enrich our world, or impoverish it."  Modern science has made life easier (and longer) in countless ways.  But it has also increased the power of our arms exponentially.

If war is, like death and disease, an inescapable part of the human condition, then science is a mixed blessing at best.  Perhaps Thomas Jefferson put it best in an 1812 letter to John Adams: "if science produces no better fruits than tyranny, murder, rapine and destitution of national morality, I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable, as our neighboring savages are."  The presumption that deep progress, progress that fundamentally changes what it is to be human, is possible, is, perhaps, essential to modern liberalism.  The alternative, of balance of power as much as possibe and war sometimes, is, for many, too terrible to contemplate.

Categories > Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs

The Tools of Evil

In the spirit of President Barack Obama's address before the United Nations yesterday, in which he called for a "world without nuclear weapons," and in the same spirit that calls for a nation without hand guns, I ask:   When will we commit ourselves to the cause of a world without the scourge of fingernail polish remover?   
Categories > Foreign Affairs

Environment

Watered With Good Intentions

Pardon the excessively local character of this particular story now capturing my imagination, but I cannot help but note it for the larger moral it brings us regarding environmental "experts" and their good intentions.  It turns out that the month of September has brought with it a record number of water-main breaks in Los Angeles County.  City engineers now openly speculate that the aging infrastructure cannot handle the watering restrictions imposed in the name of water conservation.  Lawn and garden watering is now restricted to two specific days of the week.  It does not take an active imagination to think through what has been the result.  Water pressure is massively intensified on those two particular days as everyone rushes to water at the same time.   Sink holes, disrupted water service, wasted water, and massive repair bills now plague an already over-taxed and under-served people.  Yes, liberals . . . it's always a very good idea to trust the wisdom of bureaucrats to regulate the minute details of your life. 
Categories > Environment

Ashbrook Center

Constitution Day Lecture Now On-Line

Colleen Sheehan's Constitution Day lecture at the Ashbrook Center on James Madison is now available here.  It was an excellent talk that covered many of the topics central to her latest book, James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self-Government.  Thanks to Colleen for joining us last week.
Categories > Ashbrook Center

Shameless Self-Promotion

Me in the WSJ

Totally forgot to plug my pro-con article in the Wall Street Journal on Monday with Rob Stavins of Harvard on the economics of greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

I'm "con" of course.

Politics

Asian Uh-ohs, and It's not Just Sarah

NY Times headline:  "General Denies Rift With Obama Over Afghan Strategy"  That would be General McChrystal of course.  These stories denying resignation talk don't look good.

Sarah speaks before an international business group in Hong Kong.  A couple Americans stomped out, a European praised the speech as "brilliant."  Here's one account, here anotherExcerpts.  She delivered a 75-minute defense of "common sense conservatism," for example:  "We engage with a hope that Beijing becomes a responsible stakeholder, but we must take steps in the event that it goes in a different direction."

Today I heard Francis Fukuyama (of SAIS and "end of history" fame) present the second of a four-part series summarizing his most recent tour d'horizon book, to be published next year.  In a little over an hour he presented an extraordinary summary of the origins of the modern state in China and India, and how they reflect religion (or its absence) and kinship groups.  The first lecture, on evolutionary biology, can be found here.  Later ones will be posted as well.

Categories > Politics

Ashbrook Center

Award for Ashbrook Web Site

Kudos to Capital Idea Ventures, the company that designs the Ashbrook Center's web sites, for winning an award from the Web Marketing Association for their work on lesson plans that the Ashbrook Center wrote for the National Endowment for the Humanities. They developed an interactive timeline to accompany one of the lessons titled: A Word Fitly Spoken: Abraham Lincoln on the American Union. This particular lesson plan, which is posted on the NEH's EDSITEment web site, was written by Lucas Morel of Washington & Lee University and Constance Murray of Grace Christian High School in Staunton, Virginia. A complete list of the lessons we developed, as well as other interactives like this timeline, is available on our TeachingAmericanHistory.org web site.
Categories > Ashbrook Center

Education

Happiness

A friend sent me this lovely piece by Simon Critchley (from a May issue of the NYT) on happiness.  I pass it along not because I am in full agreement with it, or with Rousseau's feeling his own existence, and so on, but rather because the piece is thoughtful and because it reminds of a moment in which time meant nothing, a place out of time, a moment--what else can we call it?--that was just so, in and of itself, for no other purpose external to it.  Somehow a timeless good in itself.

My freshman class is broken up into study groups, and each group meets (outside of class) at least once a week to talk about Xenophon's Education of Cyrus.  I try to attend each group's meeting once or twice a semester, just to get a feel for what they are talking about, and how they are doing it.  I met with two groups yesterday, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, both at my house, over coffee and cookies.  During one of the conversations about justice, or the lack of, in the text, the talk got especially good and serious.  Everyone was interested, seven students on the point, and thinking.  The conversation was textually based, so focused.  I sensed that some things were becoming clear in a way they had not yet revealed themselves.  All seemed aware of this, so we pushed the thing around a bit, even shoved at it.  We played with it.  It felt very good.  Eventually I became conscious of time and noted that we should stop for now, a couple said we should go on, another said it's too bad we had to stop.  It's hard to leave eternity, I thought. I was tempted to stay with it, but an hour and a half seemed good enough.  A good long moment.  We were grateful for it. They walked out into the setting sun and I went back to Xenophon, lit up a stogie, poured another cup of coffee while listening to a Bach Cello Suite.
Categories > Education

Education

Back to School Defense Tips

On a visit to Johns Hopkins University today I learned how a student defended himself and his housemates and killed the intruder with a Samurai sword, hacking off his hand.  Better than savoring a John Belushi skit.  Given that Maryland authorities had considered prosecuting the exposers of ACORN antics, it is not surprising that they are still considering charges against the undergraduate student. 

Here's a sample Belushi Samurai clip.

Categories > Education

Political Parties

Democrats and their Ponzi Scheme

I had never heard of Charles Ponzi or the Ponzi scheme when I met my husband.  What can I say?  I was young, idealistic, and I did not believe in alchemy.  But the news of the last several years has forced me to confront the dubious distinction associated with my surname and see it used in connection with a host of shameful efforts to deceive people out of their money with the promise of untold (and unrealized) riches.  Still, of all the embarrassing connections--from Madoff to Social Security--it is hard to say that any of them tops this one.  Hassan Nemazee is indicted for stealing over $290 million--much of it used to promote the election efforts of prominent Democrats (he was the national finance chairman for Hillary Clinton's run for the Presidency in 2008) and other charitable causes.

On the other hand, Hassan Nemazee is a true portrait in  the modern permutation of the virtue of liberality.  That is, he took other people's money and, in his infinite and inscrutable wisdom, he used it to support causes (like the campaigns of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama) that he believed were worthy.  And if he made himself a very prominent Democrat in the process, he differs very little from his counterparts who hold elected office.  Except . . . well, he doesn't hold any elected office.  He's just a former finance chairman . . . so he doesn't get any cover from saying that he persuaded people to hand over their money voluntarily or that he thought the things he longed to finance were too important to bother about actually having the collateral to back up his debt.  In exchange for all of Nemazee's trouble, he will not be re-elected so as to be ensconced within the grand confines of the Capitol building or the White House.  Instead, he will very likely have a chance to become intimate with the confines of a prison cell. 
Categories > Political Parties

Politics

Obama

Even the Washington Post admits that President Obama has confused himself on Afghanistan, and is putting off important decisions.  Yet he is able to call global warming an urgent problem, and also be willing to interfere in state politics (and not only in New York).  While he does have Rahm Emmanuel's help with this, so he has McChrystal's help with Afghanistan.  While Rahm Emmanuel is not likely to resign if he doesn't get his way, McChrystal might.  Both were appointed by Obama.  I also note that he has been talking in public for almost a week, and yet hasn't been able to move the football down field regarding health care, never mind being less than straighforward on ACORN matters, just to cite one example.  If I were advising him, I would tell him that this is dangerous stuff.  My point is merely this: While perception is not everything in politics, it does mean something.  He is starting to be perceived as indecisive and ineffectual, and even somewhat disingenious.  If public opinion moves this way what is left of his authority will dissappear.
Categories > Politics

Politics

John Judis Carries Coals to Newcastle

"Obama should turn a deaf ear to those who are calling for fiscal responsibility," he advises.  It just might happen.
Categories > Politics

Politics

The Left's Impulse to Shut Down and Tune Out Debate

Michael Barone gives a good summary view of recent events to demonstrate the propensity of left-leaning pols, activists, academics and media mavens to shut down or tune out opinions and facts that make them uncomfortable.  
Categories > Politics

Presidency

Hypocrite-in-Chief calls for civility

The President wants a civil tone on healthcare and other issues.  But, for the umpteenth time, I ask when has a President, addressing Congress, ever called his political opponents liars?  This is unprecedented, I believe, and has demeaned the presidency and coarsened the debate.  Obama's genius, displayed in The Audacity of Hope, is making himself look moderate when in fact he is a radical.

Categories > Presidency

Presidency

The White House Logos

I've been reading books on gnosticism so these commentaries by a former Bush speechwriter named Matt Latimer struck me as more than wise-guy talk.  One observation from his WaPo piece

The crumbling of the conservative movement, though, is not merely a story of past events to be dissected. Thousands marched in Washington last weekend to protest the Obama administration's expansion of the role of the federal government. This is an important debate. But the message on such serious issues is undercut when conservatives are lumped together with those bashing Obama as a secret Muslim and questioning his citizenship. Indeed, one of the organizers of the "birther" movement is a former personnel vetter at the Pentagon.

He also has this book excerpt, which seems naive in some respects but telling in others.  You decide.

The last Administration did not treat speechwriting with the seriousness it deserves, as this current Administration thinks that speech is all (a gnostic heresy).  Just try reading former head speechwriter Michael Gerson's columns in the WaPo, and you'll get the picture.  But such bigotry of low expectations starts from the top.  Whether they were Bush's rhetorical shortcomings or Cheney's impolitic manner, both undermined the Administration's ability to lead and thus its obligation to govern by consent.  Both men have many virtues, but it is wrong to overlook the weaknesses that paved the way for the incumbent.

UPDATE:  See Ross Douthat's NYT column for another take on Latimer and, more important, Bush's presidency; some obvious points on Bush as master of his own disasters but worth keeping in mind. 

UPDATE #2:  Latimer's former boss, WSJ columnist Bill McGurn, strikes back

Categories > Presidency