I had another conversation with David Tucker on the terror wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and then the domestic form.  Tough stuff, this, never fully in one's grasp, pretending to understand this is like trusting in the tameness of a wolf.  We will talk again.  Thanks, David.

Time to give Obama props when props are due.  He really turned the tables on those Norwegian bedwetters by embracing classical just war theory and standing beside George W. Bush in noting that evil in the world exists and will not yield to honeyed words or resolutions from Brussells.  Yes, there was still a lot of hooey-gooey stuff in the speech, but it was a definite break from previous Obama speeches.  It seemed a clever way of acknowledging that not only did he not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, but that the audience didn't deserve to have their nihilist prejudices flattered.  I suspect the real audience for Obama's remarks wasn't the folks assembled in the room in Oslo.  More on this in a moment.

The Sermon on the Mount is the last word in Christian ethics.  Everyone respects the Quakers.  Still, it is not on these terms that Ministers assume their responsibilities of guiding states.  Their duty is first so to deal with other nations as to avoid strife and war and to eschew aggression in all its forms, whether for nationalistic or ideological objects.  But the safety of the State, the lives and freedom of their own fellow countrymen, to whom they owe their position, make it right and imperative in the last resort, or when a final and definite conviction has been reached, that the use of force should not be excluded.

No, not in the legal sense - but the gourmet!

This is sufficiently funny that I actually hope it was intentional.

P.S. Does this count as a "tasteless" joke?

Science has discovered what everybody always knew:

Dogs are better than cats.

The full text of President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech is here.

The White House admitted that Obama approached the speech with two particularly troublesome issues in mind. The less interesting was his obvious undeservedness of the award, an issue which Obama swiftly and concisely swept aside - as he had done in his first speech on the topic in America - by simply agreeing with the criticism and promising to attempt to live up to an honor prematurely bestowed upon him. For those who find ample evidence for scrutinizing Obama's narcissism, this was an occasion of public humility which served him well.

The second issue was the seeming paradox of a war-time president, in the midst of a troop build-up, receiving a prize for peace. On this front, Obama was far more surprising. If not downright hawkish, Obama was at least far from pacifistic. Midpoint through the speech, NRO's Daniel Foster noted: "This is starting to sound pretty....neoconservative. With a nod, of course, to multilateralism."

Naturally, Obama's speech was not perfect and provided moments of liberal prejudice. By way of omission, he specifically excluded the present war in Iraq from his list of just wars. And while praising the "great religion" of Islam, he equates Christian crusaders to terrorists and claims that "no Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint - no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or even a person of one's own faith." Rather unwarranted assertions, I think. 

Nevertheless, the substance of the speech was serious and direct. Obama spoke of human nature, Just War Theory, humanitarian intervention, realism vs. idealism, the limits of discourse and his role as a political leader. With a few minor tweaks, this oration could have been spoken by Dick Chaney at a Tea Party rally.

In fact, the speech proved far more aggressive and assertive than has been the actual conduct of this administration. Obama has been criticized even from the left for his docility in foreign policy - until the "surge" in Afghanistan, of course. Perhaps this defining speech provides an insight into a disconnect between Obama's logical thinking and instinctual reflexes on foreign conflicts - as well as which of the two most commonly determines his ultimate course of action.

Charles Kesler's lead editorial in the new issue of the Claremont Review of Books appears today on Real Clear Politics.  In it, Kesler takes up the question of what conservatives must do if some version of Obamacare does manage to pass through the Senate.  Though not a foregone conclusion, it seems likely that something called "Health Care Reform" will be put into force with the most partisan majority ever to advance a major piece of social legislation.  The notion that such a thing, once passed, must be accepted as the new reality is--as Kesler ably demonstrates--preposterous.

While it is a fair to point out that new entitlement legislation, once enacted, has proven near impossible to retract or even scale back, Kesler shows why the situation in this case may be very different.  The first point has to do with the extreme partisan nature of the thing--which makes this move unprecedented.  The second point has to do with the fact that "battles to reverse public policy considered unfair, unwise, and unconstitutional are a storied part of American history" and have often proved successful.  Finally, our fiscal woes have forced even the most spend-thrift of Democrats to concede that there must be some show of an attempt to pay for these reforms.  This means that there is likely to be a significant delay between the time of new taxing and the doling out of new benefits.  This last piece of information ought to be especially heartening to conservatives and a cause for bolstering their courage to rise up against an already unpopular plan.  It is not likely to become more popular as we spend more and get less . . .

Einstein defined insanity as repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting different results.

President Obama announced yesterday that he will propose a second (or third, fourth, for those who have been counting) stimulus package targeted at job creation. Obama outlined the multi-billion dollar spending proposal by explaining that the nation must continue to "spend our way out of this recession." According to the Washington Post, the plan's "job-creation ideas build largely on elements of the $787 billion economic stimulus package passed this year."

Though it is quite probable that Obama's new (or, recurring) stimulus plan falls squarely within Einstein's criteria, at least a few emphases of the plan contain a kernel of potential optimism. It will, of necessity, carry a much lower price tag, small businesses will be targeted for tax relief and there seems to be an intention to reigning in debt accumulation. Yet there is sure to be plenty of the sort of unsupervised spending (i.e., waste) which has defined the former stimulus, and there is little chance the bill will even be considered in Congress until next year.

Again, Obama and the democrats are likely to "own" this stimulus package, as Republicans have indicated shock at the administration's obsession with continuing down this rabbit hole. Thus far, such ownership has not benefitted the Dems. Rassmusen polls indicate that Americans oppose this stimulus bill by a 56%-33% margin, with an equal numbers believing the last stimulus either helped or hurt the economy. Further, by 53%-29%, voters believe "the U.S. economy will be helped more by decisions made by business leaders to help their own businesses grow rather than by decisions made by government officials. 59% to 24% believe that an increase in government spending will hurt the economy.

Obama is now facing an uphill battle on economic policy in the face of a American populace which still seems to cling to the traditional, rugged-individualist idea of free-market capitalism - but it doesn't seem that he's taken any notice.

The feature-film-worthy drama surrounding the global warming debate may be reaching it's crescendo at the Copenhagen Summit. In the wake of the still-developing British "climate-gate" scandal, the global summit opened on Monday with typical doomsday predictions (to include an Apocalypse-themed movie aimed at today's children) and a dogmatic recitation from the UN (perhaps in the vein of Big Lie theory) that there is, unequivocally, no doubt that humans are the cause of accelerating global warming - a claim contradicted by a New York Times article released the previous day citing persistent and renewed skepticism. (See Ronald Rychlak's revealing policy study on the manipulation of visual evidence. Hat tip: Prof. Robert Destro.)  

A major issues at Copenhagen is whether developed nations will subsidize the carbon-reduction procedures of developing nations. That is, will rich nations pay for poor nations to remain poorer than they would otherwise need, in an effort to curb carbon emissions from those nations. The summit was thrown into turmoil yesterday by the leak of a secret draft agreement (here) by rich nations which would relocate decision making power from the UN to the World Bank (i.e., rich countries), repudiate the Kyoto protocols by enforcing stricter carbon-emission levels on poor nations than rich nations, and heavily condition grants to poor countries.

In the days leading to the summit, an article published in 45 countries (56 newspapers) criticized American "obstructionism" and lamented that Obama was bound by a reluctant, domestically-oriented Congress (which has refused to seriously debate the politically suicidal cap-and-trade legislation). Ever anxious to appease the global community, Obama yesterday announced a counter-intuitive strategy - dubbed by the Powerline boys as "Democracy 2.0" - by which the EPA declared greenhouse gasses (as a source of global warming) to be a health hazard and is thus enabled to regulate U.S. industry without the hassle of bothersome legislation.

Like the Nobel Prize he will soon accept, any laurels placed upon Obama by the UN and Copenhagen attendees will not be perceived by Americans as a success for the U.S.  However, whereas the Nobel was of no consequence to our national interest, domestic greenhouse gas regulations and any Copenhagen agreement (including the much maligned, and hence sensible, Danish text) will have potentially sever repercussions on the U.S. economy (a NYT article today prices any Copenhagen accord at "trillions of dollars over the next few decades"). Trading the resuscitation of America's foremost national concern for international progress on an issue of very little importance to most Americans will not improve Obama's abysmal approval rating. One can only hope that a self-preservation instinct will prod Obama into continuing America's proud tradition of "obstructing" the policies of global warming madness.

UPDATE #1: Sarah Palin weighs in here, going so far as to call for Obama to boycott Copenhagen.

UPDATE #2: Powerline has a must read post on the EPA's CO2 finding (fronting a Cato article by Patrick Michaels and Paul Knapenberger).  Scott Johnson concludes:

The architects of the modern administrative state with its vast array of administrative agencies combining legislative, executive, and judicial powers have sought to displace the system of self-government imagined under limited powers into being by the American Constitution. As we see in the case of the EPA endangerment finding, they have achieved extraordinary success.

Rebecca Teti writes a beautiful column calling on Christians to eschew the temptation to grouse about all the extra effort and expense of the Christmas season.  She also takes to task one of my biggest pet peeves . . . the self-serving finger-wagging of those who are inclined to be less than generous by nature but disguise it with the tired, "Christmas is too commercial" lament.  Yes, it is . . . but so what?  It's also a time for true liberality and joy.  As Mrs. Teti says, "moderate your moderation"!   

Post-modern public intellectual Stanley Fish has long bedeviled conservatives (as well as conventional liberals), but I've found him entertaining and sometimes instructive.  One suspects he enjoys being contrarian just for the sake of it.  Consider his review of Sarah Palin's autobiography.  The last paragraph: 

      The message is clear. America can't be stopped. I can't be stopped. I've stumbled and fallen, but I always get up and run again. Her political opponents, especially those who dismissed Ronald Reagan before he was elected, should take note. Wherever you are, you better watch out. Sarah Palin is coming to town.

David Margolick gives a fair review of Terry Teachout's Pops, but a very fine review is to be found in the Dec. 14 edition of The New Yorker (not available on line).  It is by John McWhorter and he explains both Satchmo's "joyous exuberance" and "loud dignity."  Very much worth reading, as you listen to West End Blues.

When I saw the teaser headline on Yahoo for this story I was only glancing at the screen and I thought it said, "Obama Plan to Spur Jokes" but, on closer examination, I see that "Jokes" actually reads "Jobs."  Yeah . . . that's the ticket!  Though I guess "comedian" IS a job of sorts . . .

Links to the "always impressive" Mr. Hayward resulting from his ruminations on the Climategate scandal abound.  I am sure there are more that I am missing, but here are a couple that you should certainly check out. 

The Claremont Institute offers a reading list for Christmas with contributions from 28 different writers and scholars (including ME) and ranging from biography, philosophy and history to novels, children's books and even television programs and CDs.  (Perhaps "reading list" is a misnomer in this digital age and it should be replaced with "intellectual stimulation list"?)  In any event, have a look at the offerings and the descriptions therein and enjoy!  My contribution includes two wonderful books I have enjoyed reading aloud to my children during the last year along with an explanation of why I think you will have similar experiences with them if you have children about who are in want of good stories--as, of course, they all are.   Happy reading and Merry Christmas!

William McGurn writes in today's Wall Street Journal:  "As someone who worked inside a White House, I say you really believe government should be small when you see your friends running it."  What a great line.  The whole article is worth a read, but I'd also offer a quibble.  Where McGurn says, "[C]onservatives believe that even our smartest friend is no match for the collective wisdom of the marketplace," I would scratch the notion that the market is, in fact, wise. 

It seems to me that this is one area where conservatives tend to get in trouble with liberals and even with non-ideological normal people who, quite sensibly, long for good government as opposed to chaos.  Conservatives should give it up.  There is no special "wisdom" in the marketplace--but there is, perhaps, more justice.  And this is where we need to make our stand.  In the first place, the "chaos" that the market produces cannot be distinguished from the "chaos" produced by modern-day wise men--except in the relative justice of it.  We are bound to have some measure of chaos in government and in markets.  Perfect justice is impossible.  So the question is not whether we will have chaos or whether or not some people will end up getting the shaft, but who or what should be controlling that inevitability.  Do we trust that the intentions of our would-be Magi are more selfless and pure than chance?  Or are we wise enough to recognize that they are every bit as flawed as our own friends would be if they were controlling it?

UPDATE:  Wheat and Wheeds makes an important amendment to my points above in noting that one big reason people tend to distrust what we call "free markets" today is that so few of these markets actually are free.  Government intervention, in the form of over-regulation and cronyism, has undermined the freedom of too many markets and it (along with nascent class envy) has contributed to the cynicism about them . . . which is, of course, convenient for those who want argue that markets are inherently unjust.  But that IS the way of the Left: take power, create a problem, complain about the problem you've created, promise that THIS time you will fix it, take more power, make the problem worse . . . and so on.  Just look at health care.   

Ken Thomas brought my attention to this article (nicely written for one so young, I'd add) about a strange phenomenon now consuming the college-searching set.  It seems that top colleges are marketing themselves in ways that will appeal to students looking for the "Hogwarts Experience" and seeking to compare colleges based on how close they come to the ambiance presented in the Harry Potter series.  Of course, students are more apt to be looking for a place to study chemistry than potions . . . but some do also seek to play a non-flying version of Quidditch and to divide themselves into "houses" based on the fictional divisions at Hogwarts.  The young author of this article will have none of it and very sensibly argues that this is an all-too-transparent marketing effort to manipulate nervous applicants with reassuring and favorable comparisons to the literature and images of their youth.  This particular young woman wants to put aside childish things and study the real world rather than pretend to inhabit a magical one--which is, as I say, sensible.  But marketers these days--cynical though they are--don't come upon ideas this ubiquitous and, apparently, effective by cynicism alone.  They must be tapping into something deeper.

What might that be?  I'm listening just now to the old P.G. Wodehouse classic, Mike:  A Public School Story which, to untutored American ears, sounds remarkably more like Mike:  A Fancy Boarding School Story.  It sounds like a jolly good place . . . a serious place but also a place full of proper levity.  Mike is a boy who excels in cricket, so this necessarily consumes a good bit of his attention and efforts, but as with his "house," his team is a kind of  vehicle for pride and excellence.  Much like Harry Potter, Mike is a part of things larger than himself and is engaged in activities that give him ample opportunity to shine--in large measure because of the honor he can bring to his house, his team and his school . . . and, many speculate, someday to his country. 

I think young people long for the kind of transformative meaningfulness they imagine a Hogwarts education--or an English style boarding experience--might give them.  I think they also long for the kind of order and routine that seems to predominate in such a world . . . that being a part of something larger than oneself and a kind of school spirit that popular culture once thought to be corny--in the 70s and 80s for instance.  Maybe this is a kind of over-reaction to the massive lack of guidance and order that tends now to predominate in many schools.  The lack of core curriculum?  The tearing down of Greek fraternities and sororities?  The lack of rules and order?  Perhaps there's more to this marketing ploy than a simple lifting of a popular meme . . . 

Remember Michael Bellesiles?  Back in 2000 he published a book entitled Arming America, which claimed that, contrary to myth, very few Americans of the Early Republic actually owned firearms.  Early reviews were fulsome in their praise as academics, excited to see a work that confirmed their antigun prejudices, rushed to promote the book and its conclusions.  The author was even awarded a Bancroft Prize, perhaps the most prestigious award in the profession.

Then came Clayton Cramer to spoil the party.  Although a published historian, Cramer lacked a university affiliation, and was employed as a software engineer.  Nevertheless he picked apart Arming America, finding that the author had misrepresented some of his evidence, took some of it out of context, and made some up out of whole cloth.

Among academic historians the initial response to Cramer's findings was to circle the wagons.  Cramer was dismissed as a crank, a rank amateur lacking a PhD, and--worst of all--a member of the NRA.  But his discoveries could not be dismissed so easily, and as the weeks went on it became impossible to deny that Bellesiles's work was a fraud.  A number of academics broke ranks and joined the rising chorus of criticism.  When pressed to turn over his research notes, Bellesiles stonewalled, then claimed that they had been destroyed in a flood.  Garry Wills, who had originally written a glowing review in the New York Times, confessed, "I was took. The book is a hoax."  The Trustees of Columbia University voted to revoke his Bancroft Prize, and the author was pressured into resigning from his tenured position at Emory University.

Am I alone in seeing strong similarities between the Bellesiles case and Climategate?  In the case of global warm...er, climate change, we see the manufacture of a spurious consensus, backed by evidence that researchers have proven unwilling to submit to public scrutiny.  We have a number of educated outsiders (as well as some climatologists) challenging the thesis. Meanwhile the climate change alarmists react defensively, furiously denouncing dissenters ad hominem, accusing them of ties to right-wing organizations and business interests. 

Is Climategate the functional equivalent of the Bellesiles scandal?  I can't answer this; I'm an historian, not a scientist.  All I know is that the truth has a way of getting out eventually; let's hope it does before Congress votes on Cap and Tax.

UPDATE: Apparently I'm not the first to draw this parallel.

To recall the line from The Third Man, this time Switzerland may gain distinction by alerting Europe to save itself.  Ross Douthat goes behind the Swiss referendum banning the construction of mosques.  "The European elites assumed that the divide between Islam and the West was as antiquated as scimitars and broadswords, and that a liberal, multicultural, post-Christian federation would have no difficulty absorbing new arrivals from more traditional societies."  Just as Californians and other Americans have used the referendum to do what cowardly legislators failed to do on hot issues such as bilingual education and affirmative action, so the Swiss have acted. 

Millions of Muslims have accepted European norms. But millions have not. This means polygamy in Sweden; radical mosques in Britain's fading industrial cities; riots over affronts to the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark; and religiously inspired murder in the Netherlands. It means terrorism, and the threat of terrorism, from London to Madrid.

Today the Swiss live more than ever under the fear of Islamic terrorism, because the secular European elites didn't recognize the threat before them. Post-nationalist elites won't be of any help here in America either. 

What America thinks about Congress: "One telling moment came after Hart asked each voter to write the name that comes to mind when they think of Congress. Bill, a 62-year-old retired automobile-industry executive and independent who backed Obama, wrote 'Satan.' When Hart asked why, Bill answered, 'Because I wasn't sure of the correct spelling of 'Beelzebub.' Now that's intensity."

The late Roberta Wohlstetter's Pearl Harbor (google excerpt) is the must-read book, not only for Pearl Harbor but for 9/11 as well.  She explains the difference between background "noise" and the actual events, and how difficult it can be to determine which is what--especially when our own objectives are unclear.  She is particuarly acute on technological change and political will in shaping strategy.  Here is the Albert Wohlstetter website.  I was recently reminded that venerable American historian Edmund Morgan is her brother; here is her obituary, which refers to the work of her husband Albert, who was an important figure in the Cold War and the teacher of many a Washington DC defense intellectual and policy maker. 

My Friday lunch companion, who had helped devise the surge strategy in Iraq, despaired of our Afghanistan policy.  Somewhat dispersing my gloom comes now Eliot Cohen, author of the indispensable Supreme Command.  He argues for an Afghan strategy that necessarily differs from the successful Iraq surge.  Cohen maintains that Petraeus et al. still fight within the conventions of conventional warfare.  While that works to an extent, a successful anti-Taliban strategy requires a "special kind of soldier" and a "special kind of civilian."  The "greatest weakness of the [counterinsurgency] literature:  It often lacks deep knowledge of the other side."  Furthermore,

In every such war, the counterinsurgents learn the need for local knowlege: language first, and from it, all they can discover about authority structures, grievances, customs and local politics. The broad principles melt away because, as one colonel told me in 2008 while flying over eastern Afghanistan, the counterinsurgent soon realizes that "it's a valley-by-valley war."

       The kind of specific knowledge needed does not lend itself to treatises, much less best sellers....

       Making [counterinsurgency] work in real time, therefore, requires the right kinds of practioner, vast patience and local knowledge of a kind that is difficult to build up and easily perishable in large organizations. As Obama will discover, even setting the strategy seems easy by comparison. 

Some other thoughts in this companion WaPo article, on a village by village strategy.  There is no substitute for prudence:  "reflective, patient, creative" soldiers and civilians. 

Okay folks, here comes a new e-mail from the climate community yesterday that I did not hack (I was copied on it), and it is a case study in not getting it.  Back story: Ever since Chris Horner and I were at a conference together with warmenist Michael Schlesinger of the University of Illinois a couple years ago, Chris and I have been included on Prof. Schesingler's e-mail distribution list, which usually consist of flagging climate news stories.  Yesterday we got copied on this message Schlesinger sent to science reporter Andy Revkin:

Andy:
Copenhagen prostitutes?
Climate prostitutes?
Shame on you for this gutter reportage. [Emphasis added.]
This is the second time this week I have written you thereon, the first about giving space in your blog to the Pielkes.
The vibe that I am getting from here, there and everywhere is that your reportage is very worrisome to most climate scientists.
Of course, your blog is your blog.
But, I sense that you are about to experience the 'Big Cutoff' from those of us who believe we can no longer trust you, me included. [Emphasis added.]
Copenhagen prostitutes?
Unbelievable and unacceptable.
What are you doing and why?
Michael

So what so annoyed Schlesinger? Here's Revkin's offending blog post, which among other things passes along the amusing story of Copenhagen prostitutes offering free sex to climate campaigners (I'll leave to Mark Steyn the suitable lip gloss on this story), along with some other news items that the climate campaigners don't want reported. Judge for yourself if this constitutes "gutter reportage" and deserves censure from the climate science community. I'll add that one of the CRU e-mails I read mentioned that Revkin is not always reliable from their point of view; I can't now find it, but recall it vividly for the presumption that reporters are supposed to serve as mere transcribers for the climate campaign.

This raises another small but perhaps significant point that I didn't have room to comment on in my Weekly Standard article: How is it possible for a group of smart people to write over 1,000 e-mails over the course of a decade without a single shred of wit or humor in any of them? There isn't the tiniest hint anywhere that any of these guys ever grin.  It jives with my experience of environmentalists for 20 years now that they are the single most humorless slice of humanity on the planet. (My favorite: I had a top greenie lawyer for the Audubon Society once say at a conference that "I regard the National Association of Home Builders to be every bit as evil as the National Rifle Association." My comeback was: "I can understand why you'd think that about the home builders, but what's your problem with the NRA?" The guy didn't even crack a smile.) And here we see Andy Revkin threatened with a "cutoff" because he writes--on a blog--something mildly amusing about Copenhagen.

Since my attention had turned to the Vatican for my last post, I should also mention the passing today of William A. Wilson, the first ambassador to the Vatican. 

Wilson was appointed to the post by his close friend Ronald Reagan in 1981. However, he first arrived in Rome as a personal representative, or presidential envoy, as an anti-papist law from 1867 prohibited the U.S. from establishing formal ties with the Vatican. This shameful reflection of lingering anti-Catholic sentiment was repealed only as recently as 1984, when Wilson assumed full status as an ambassador (under Pope John Paul II's watch). 

As a statesman, it was said of Wilson that he was "a delightful, gentlemanly like man of the old school and he was the perfect diplomat." Georgetown University maintains a collection of his papers. He was known as a rancher and horse lover, ham radio operator and successful oil man. One wonders whether his class of political men pass from the world stage with greater frequency than they are succeeded by men of equal measure.