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Mark Steyn thinks the world should give thanks for America.
… The New World (The United States) is one of the oldest settled constitutional democracies on Earth, to a degree the Old World can barely comprehend. Where it counts, Americans are traditionalists.
We know Eastern Europe was a totalitarian prison until the Nineties, but we forget that Mediterranean Europe (Greece, Spain, Portugal) has democratic roots going all the way back until, oh, the mid-Seventies; France and Germany’s constitutions date back barely half a century, Italy’s only to the 1940s, and Belgium’s goes back about 20 minutes, and currently it’s not clear whether even that latest rewrite remains operative. The U.S. Constitution is not only older than France’s, Germany’s, Italy’s or Spain’s constitution, it’s older than all of them put together.
Americans think of Europe as Goethe and Mozart and 12th century castles and 6th century churches, but the Continent’s governing mechanisms are no more ancient than the Partridge Family. Aside from the Anglophone democracies, most of the nation-states in the West have been conspicuous failures at sustaining peaceful political evolution from one generation to the next, which is why they’re so susceptible to the siren song of Big Ideas – communism, fascism, European Union. …
… on this Thanksgiving the rest of the world ought to give thanks to American national sovereignty, too. When something terrible and destructive happens – a tsunami hits Indonesia, an earthquake devastates Pakistan – the United States can project itself anywhere on the planet within hours and start saving lives, setting up hospitals and restoring the water supply.
Aside from Britain and France, the Europeans cannot project power in any meaningful way anywhere. When they sign on to an enterprise they claim to believe in – shoring up Afghanistan’s fledgling post-Taliban democracy – most of them send token forces under constrained rules of engagement that prevent them doing anything more than manning the photocopier back at the base.
If America were to follow the Europeans and maintain only shriveled attenuated residual military capacity, the world would very quickly be nastier and bloodier, and far more unstable. …
Charles Krauthammer notes the good foreign policy news for the US. Since Bush is supposed to be a moron, how is all this happening?
… France has a new president who is breaking not just with the anti-Americanism of the Chirac era but with 50 years of Fifth Republic orthodoxy that defined French greatness as operating in counterpoise to America. Nicolas Sarkozy’s trip last week to the United States was marked by a highly successful White House visit and a rousing speech to Congress in which he not only called America “the greatest nation in the world” (how many leaders of any country say that about another?) but pledged solidarity with the U.S. on Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, the Middle East and nuclear nonproliferation. This just a few months after he sent his foreign minister to Iraq to signal an openness to cooperation and an end to Chirac’s reflexive obstructionism.
That’s France. In Germany, Gerhard Schroeder is long gone, voted out of office and into a cozy retirement as Putin’s concubine at Gazprom. His successor is the decidedly pro-American Angela Merkel, who concluded an unusually warm visit with Bush this week.
All this, beyond the ken of Democrats, is duly noted by new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who in an interview with Sky News on Sunday noted “the great change that is taking place,” namely “that France and Germany and the European Union are also moving more closely with America.”
As for our other traditional alliances, relations with Australia are very close, and Canada has shown remarkable steadfastness in taking disproportionate casualties in supporting the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Eastern European nations, traditionally friendly, are taking considerable risks on behalf of their U.S. alliance — for example, cooperating with us on missile defense in the face of enormous Russian pressure. And ties with Japan have never been stronger, with Tokyo increasingly undertaking military and quasi-military obligations that it had forsworn for the last half-century. …
David Broder points out a couple of issues the Dems have to face.
As the Democratic presidential race finally gets down to brass tacks, two issues are becoming paramount. But only one of them is clearly on the table.
That is the issue of illegal immigration. A very smart Democrat, a veteran of the Clinton administration, told me that he expects it to be a key part of any Republican campaign and that he is worried about his party’s ability to respond. …
Dick Morris says, even though CNN gave her a pass, Hillary still has Iowa problems.
Under Wolf Blitzer’s gentle questioning, Hillary was able to avert another debate meltdown in the Nevada Democratic debate held last night, November 15. Asked about driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, a compliant, even subservient, Blitzer accepted Hillary’s one word answer, “No,†with no follow up. Had a better journalist been asking the questions — like Tim Russert — he would have followed up the bland negation with probing questions about why she is yet again flip flopping on the issue.
The Drudge Report today highlights that a “senior adviser to the Hillary campaign†said, earlier today, that Blitzer “was outstanding, and did not gang up like Russert did in Philadelphia. He avoided personal attacks, remained professional and ran the best debate so far.†And Blitzer checked his journalistic instincts at the door.
The debate also had a pro-Hillary bias in the amount of time allocated to Bill Richardson — who had the third longest face time in the debate. Since Richardson is auditioning for Vice President on Hillary’s ticket, using his time to plead for unity among Democrats (i.e. don’t bash Hillary), giving him the mike was the same as giving it to Hillary. …
Another grown-up from the National Journal, William Powers, writes on race-gender issues.
Race and gender are journalistic standbys, familiar old hot buttons that reliably lend themselves to news stories, though in today’s world they’re not half as newsy as they once were. To the informed news consumer, these buttons are barely warm. …
… The media are always at least a decade behind real life. …
…. In February, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that race and gender have lost much of their political relevancy. “According to voters,” the Post reported, “being over the age of 72, a Mormon, twice divorced, or a smoker all are bigger drags on a candidate’s support than is gender or race.” The same poll found that although small percentages of voters would be less likely to support a woman or a black candidate, they are offset by those who are more likely to support such candidates.
If smoking is really a bigger negative with voters than gender or race, shouldn’t Obama’s cigarette habit — which he’s been trying to kick with nicotine gum — be just as controversial, newswise, as his skin color or Clinton’s sex?
One reason the media lag society is that they rely on precedent. Smokers have been elected president before, but no woman or African-American ever has. The past sets the tune for the present, no matter how much the culture has changed. …
In a Corner post, Mark Steyn has interesting thoughts about the American electorate.
Jonah, I think Americans beat themselves up way too much over “low” voter turnout. For a start, the nature of American democracy is profoundly different: If you live in Hampshire, England, you can vote for just three offices – a local councillor, a Member of Parliament, a Euro-MP – every five years. If you live in New Hampshire, New England, you can vote for hundreds of folks – President, Governor, Senator, Congressman, State Representative all the way up to County Commissioner, Sherriff, Register of Probate, Town Clerk, School District Treasurer, Cemetery Commissioner, Library Trustee, Sexton, etc. If you factor in the multiple officers, America has the highest rate of civic participation in the developed world. …
So how’s Eliot Spitzer doing these days? WSJ Editors have some thoughts.
… The only real difference between Mr. Spitzer now and then is that as Governor he is obliged to govern, as opposed to merely bringing charges amid a PR offensive and then settling before having to prove anything in court. His heavy-handed approach to the drivers license plan shows the limits of such behavior in a job where he actually has to persuade people.
It remains far from clear whether Mr. Spitzer has drawn the right lessons from his recent failures. At Wednesday’s announcement on the licensing plan, he said that leadership was “not solely about doing what one thinks is right,” a curious formulation. There may be more damaging revelations to come out of Troopergate too. But assuming Mr. Spitzer survives that scandal, he could do worse than enroll in anger management class and take a pledge not to try to ruin everyone who disagrees with him.
Ronald Baily of Reason wants you to relax about the coming oil glut.
… Interestingly, despite a four-fold increase in the price of oil, world economic growth has been pretty robust. For example, the U.S. economy grew at 3.9 percent rate last quarter and inflation and unemployment remain low. Why? In September 2007 paper entitled, “Who’s Afraid of a Big Bad Oil Shock,” Yale University economist William Nordhaus speculates that the reaction of consumers and businesses to steep oil price increases is muted because they regard them as temporary. In addition, the cost of energy is less important to the budgets of businesses and consumers.
In 1980, when oil reached $101.70 per barrel in real terms, spending on gasoline was 4.5 percent of GDP, 7.2 percent of consumer expenditures, and 6.2 percent of personal disposable income, according to a March 2005 report by Goldman Sachs. If oil prices reach $105 per barrel, the report noted that gasoline spending would reach 3.6 percent of forecasted GDP, 5.3 percent of consumer expenditures, and 5.0 percent of personal disposable income. Prices would have to rise to $135 per barrel to equal 1970s levels. In addition, it takes only half as much energy to produce a dollar of GDP today than it did in 1980. …
Politico has the story of African Bishops who lobby congress. They don’t understand. For congress, money speaks, not moral suasion.
As domestic agriculture constituencies elbow for big chunks of federal money in the farm bill, three men made the rounds of the Senate offering a different message, from a different continent: Crop subsidies must be curbed because they are hurting African farmers.
“By subsidizing some of the most prosperous U.S. farmers, the farm bill affects the meager livelihoods of 10 million of our fellow Africans,†Bishop Thomas Kabore of Kaya, Burkina Faso, said at a news conference. …