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Power Line reacts to Dem moves for defeat and the GOP who acquiesce.
Given the demonstrable progress made by General Petraeus and the forces under his command implementing the surge counterinsurgency strategy over the past month, I find the Democratic compulsion to mandate our defeat in Iraq incomprehensible and any Republican assistance lent to the Democrats’ effort contemptible.
The same post quotes Bill Kristol.
… Here’s what I gather is a basic lesson of tactics: When you find yourself in an ambush, attack into the ambush. Don’t twist and turn in the kill zone, looking for a way to retreat. Especially when the ambush is not a powerful one, and the Democrats’ position (to mix military metaphors) is way overextended. The Democrats are hoping the president will break and run. They will not allow him a dignified retreat or welcome him with compromise. They will spring to finish him off completely. It doesn’t matter what the president’s motives are. Some of his advisers are trying to persuade him that he needs to go for a grand bargain now so as to build bipartisan support for his policies when he’s gone. But the only way to do that is to hold firm now–and to counterattack. Those who try to convince him otherwise offer nothing but defeat, for the troops, for the mission, and for the president. …
Later Power Line posts on a Novak column.
Earlier today, Scott wrote that he finds “the Democratic compulsion to mandate our defeat in Iraq incomprehensible and any Republican assistance lent to the Democrats’ effort contemptible.” Just as contemptible, on the evidence of this column by Robert Novak, is the way certain Republican Senators are spinning the matter.
In Novak’s telling, which appears to be an uncritical transmittal of the talking points of the Republicans who intend to bail on President Bush, the president doesn’t understand that support for his position on the Republican side is eroding. Moreover, these Republicans supposedly fear “the president running out the clock until April, when a depleted U.S. military will be blamed for the fiasco.”
This is self-serving rubbish. President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and nearly everyone else in a high level position in the administration have been around long enough to understand that some Republican politicians, being politicians, are going to want to jump ship now that the war has become unpopular. It may be in the interest of these politicians to portray Bush as not understanding them. More likely, he understands them perfectly, and simply is unwilling to accede to their defeatist position. …
Power Line then posts on Steve Hayward and his efforts to clearly portray J. Carter and Al Gore.
… Carter has a long habit of engaging in what was once described as “blurt and retreat,†whereby he backs away from egregious statements when called on them. Yet circumstantial evidence suggests that this language was not mere verbal sloppiness, as Carter now wishes us to think. At the end of one of Carter’s freelance Middle East peace conferences a few years ago, he let slip a comment that ranks up there with many racially tinged remarks from his various Georgia political campaigns: “Had I been elected to a second term, with the prestige and authority and influence and reputation I had in the region, we could have moved to a final solution.†It is strange that an experienced politician would use that particular expression. Carter’s secretary of state, Cyrus Vance, incautiously wrote years after leaving office that Carter’s Middle East plan in a prospective second term was simple: Sell out Israel.
Pickings is proud to have Richard Cohen again with “They Honor Us With Their Hate.” We will forgive him for his slaps at W. The Captain will take that up next. But, you can’t beat his theme that we are honored by the hatred of the anti-Semites in the Muslim world.
… But, in a way, America has little choice about being hated in some parts of the world. The United States is never going to be truly popular as long as it insists on adhering to certain principles. Russia, which is creeping back to totalitarianism, does not have this problem. China, which is already authoritarian and obstructionist on Darfur, does not have this problem. Cuba, which is authoritarian, obstructionist and vile, also does not have this problem. Many Serbs hate America for the NATO bombing of that country, but the bombing stopped the killing in the Balkans. Tell me that was the wrong thing to do.
Alastair Campbell, a one-time spokesman for Tony Blair while he was prime minister, has published a book in Britain titled “The Blair Years: The Alastair Campbell Diaries.” In it, he recounts Sept. 12, 2001, at 10 Downing Street and the procession of briefers who came to the prime minister that day: “One of the experts . . . a total Arabist, came very close to saying the attack was justified, saying the Americans should look to their own policy on the Middle East to understand why so many people don’t like them.”
It’s always nice to have friends. Sometimes, though, it’s more honorable to have enemies.
The Captain cleans up after Mr. Cohen.
… I agree with Cohen in the first and last paragraphs above, but the middle paragraph is nothing but twaddle. George Bush did not order abuses at Abu Ghraib, and neither did Don Rumsfeld. Abu Ghraib resulted from a lack of discipline one of the units assigned there and a lack of oversight by its officers. Those responsible were court-martialed and sent to prison, and the general commanding that unit got sacked. And while it certainly did give us a black eye in terms of our image, the idea that it somehow outstripped the murders, tortures, and rapes conducted their under previous management is preposterous. …
… We make our share of mistakes, and Abu Ghraib qualifies as a big one. That isn’t what America is or where our values lie. Cohen makes a big mistake in arguing that it does under any presidency, and the swift punishment of those responsible demonstrates the fallacy of that thinking. The response showed that we take our values seriously, even in how we deal with our enemies. I will also note that we have seen how those who hate us and array themselves against us treat Americans they capture, and we can see their values clearly in how they handle themselves.
I’d rather have them as enemies than friends.
Kathleen Parker writes a good column on marijuana laws. Her jumping off point is the recent problems in the Gore family. In the normal course of events Pickings in not interested in schadenfreude. Gore’s ideas are so preposterous we can confine ourselves to the enjoyment of making fun of them. And, the possession of pot should be the least of the problems Gore triple sticks has on his plate.
… Efforts over the past few decades to relax marijuana laws have been moderately successful. Twelve states have decriminalized marijuana, which usually means no prison or criminal record for first-time possession of small amounts for personal consumption. (Those states are: Alabama, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon.)
Yet even now, federal law enforcement agents raid the homes of terminally ill patients who use marijuana for relief from suffering in states where medical marijuana use is permitted. These federal raids have become an issue in the 2008 presidential race as candidates have been asked to take a position. A summary is available on the Marijuana Policy Project Web site (mpp.org).
Beyond the medical issue is the practical question of criminalizing otherwise good citizens for consuming a nontoxic substance — described by the British medical journal Lancet as less harmful to health than alcohol or tobacco — at great economic and social cost. Each year, more than 700,000 people are arrested for marijuana-related offenses at a cost of more than $7 billion, according to the Marijuana Policy Project. …
Arnold Kling writes for Tech Central on the Dem inequality claims.
The Left is gearing up for 2008 with major proposals for government intervention to “fix” the distribution of income. For example, the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, recently proposed raising the minimum wage, giving unions more advantages in the workplace, expanding government’s role in child care, and other policies that will be harmful to economic growth, which is the one proven way to raise our standard of living.
In order to build support for this statist agenda, policy wonks and pundits are spreading a set of myths about inequality. We are hearing that incomes are stagnating in middle America, that class mobility is disappearing, and that the political process favors the wealthy. But we should not believe the myths. …
The Australian gives us the skinny on Gore’s movie.
AL Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth was launched in May last year. Its message is that global warming is going to roon us all, and the polar bears, too. Initially, the film received eulogistic – and, one might say, generally scientifically ignorant – reviews in substantial newspapers and magazines globally.
As it came to be watched by qualified persons, devastating critiques of the looseness of the film’s science began to appear on the internet. More than 20 basic errors, some of them schoolboy howlers, were identified. …
Perry de Havilland of Samizdata visits the US. to shoot guns and drink Yuengling beer. You’ll love his T shirt. It’s Margaret Thatcher dressed like Che.
A Volokh post on Johnny Carson and Jack Benny.