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WSJ takes a look at the war on drugs and Mexico.
In the 40 years since U.S. President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” the supply and use of drugs has not changed in any fundamental way. The only difference: a taxpayer bill of more than $1 trillion.
A senior Mexican official who has spent more than two decades helping fight the government’s war on drugs summed up recently what he’s learned from his long career: “This war is not winnable.” …
Christopher Hitchens wonders what new travel horror the public safety goobers are going to dream up for us.
It’s getting to the point where the twin news stories more or less write themselves. No sooner is the fanatical and homicidal Muslim arrested than it turns out that he (it won’t be long until it is also she) has been known to the authorities for a long time. But somehow the watch list, the tipoff, the many worried reports from colleagues and relatives, the placing of the name on a “central repository of information” don’t prevent the suspect from boarding a plane, changing planes, or bringing whatever he cares to bring onto a plane. This is now a tradition that stretches back to several of the murderers who boarded civilian aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001, having called attention to themselves by either a) being on watch lists already or b) weird behavior at heartland American flight schools. They didn’t even bother to change their names.
So that’s now more or less the routine for the guilty. (I am not making any presumption of innocence concerning Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.) But flick your eye across the page, or down it, and you will instantly see a different imperative for the innocent. …
Power Line’s Paul Mirengoff posts twice on the problems Obama has communicating with his generals.
… Lawyers sometimes write deliberately ambiguous passages. Their purpose is to avoid being pinned.
This may well be Obama’s purpose when it comes to Afghanistan. Like many politicians, Obama likes to tell people what they want to hear. Constituencies important to Obama want to hear divergent things about Afghanistan. His base wants to hear, at a minimum, that we will be out of that country soon. A critical mass of mainstream voters wants to hear that he we won’t be there for a lengthy period of time. The military wants to hear that we will fight to win.
After Obama’s West Point speech announcing that some sort of a drawdown would begin no later than July 2010, various administration officials articulated (in some cases through leaks) various glosses on the speech that seemed designed to placate the various constituencies mentioned above. I assumed that Obama was responsible for the resulting ambiguity, which not only appeases competing viewpoints but leaves him with flexibility as July 2010 approaches.
I did not assume that the competing pronouncements about what will happen in July 2010 (and what will dictate what happens then) were standing in the way of clear instructions to the military about how to fight in Afghanistan now. Yet, the Washington Post’s reporting indicates that this has, in fact, become a problem.
If so, it is is inexcusable. It is one thing (though not desirable) for a president to confuse the public; it’s another thing for a president to confuse his generals. One cannot wordsmith one’s way around the difficult decisions associated with conducting a war. I suspect only a lawyer would think of trying.
John Steele Gordon in Contentions tips us to Michael Barone’s piece on population shifts.
The Census Bureau has come out with its annual state-by-state head count and it makes for interesting reading. There is no one better than Michael Barone at the art of looking at numbers and bringing them to life. He notes that Texas had the highest population gain (and third highest in percentage terms) and thinks he knows why: …
And here’s Mr. Barone. He thinks the big winner is Texas.
… No. 3 in percentage population growth in 2008-09 was giant Texas, the nation’s second-most-populous state. Its population grew by almost half a million and accounted for 18 percent of the nation’s total population growth. Texas had above-average immigrant growth, but domestic in-migration was nearly twice as high.
There may be lessons for public policy here. Texas over the decades has had low taxes (and no state income tax), low public spending and regulations that encourage job growth. It didn’t have much of a housing bubble or a housing price bust.
Under Govs. George W. Bush and Rick Perry, it has placed tight limits on tort lawsuits and has seen an influx of both corporate headquarters and medical doctors.
Bush’s late job ratings may have been low, and Perry may be a wine that doesn’t travel. But their approach to governing may not be lost even in Washington.
Polidata Inc. projects from the 2009 estimates that the reapportionment following the 2010 Census will produce four new House seats for Texas, one for Florida, Arizona, Utah and Nevada, and none for California for the first time since 1850. Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois are projected to lose one each and Ohio two. Americans have been moving, even in recession, away from Democratic strongholds and toward Republican turf.