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Mark Steyn reacts to the strange reaction to last week’s attack on American airmen in Germany.
According to Bismarck’s best-known maxim on Europe’s most troublesome region, the Balkans are not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier. Americans could be forgiven for harboring similar sentiments after the murder of two U.S. airmen in Germany by a Kosovar Muslim.
Remember Kosovo? Me neither. But it was big at the time, launched by Bill Clinton in the wake of his Monica difficulties: Make war, not love, as the boomers advise. So Clinton did — and without any pesky U.N. resolutions, or even the pretense of seeking them. Instead, he and Tony Blair and even Jacques Chirac just cried “Bombs away!” and got on with it. And the Left didn’t mind at all — because, for a modern Western nation, war is only legitimate if you have no conceivable national interest in whatever war you’re waging. Unlike Iraq and all its supposed “blood for oil,” in Kosovo no one remembers why we went in, what the hell the point of it was, or which side were the good guys. (Answer: Neither.) The principal rationale advanced by Clinton and Blair was that there was no rationale. This was what they called “liberal interventionism,” which boils down to: The fact that we have no reason to get into it justifies our getting into it.
A decade on, Kosovo is a sorta sovereign state, and in Frankfurt a young airport employee is so grateful for what America did for his people that he guns down U.S. servicemen while yelling “Allahu akbar!” The strange shrunken spectator who serves as president of the United States, offering what he called “a few words about the tragic event that took place,” announced that he was “saddened,” and expressed his “gratitude for the service of those who were lost” and would “spare no effort” to “work with the German authorities” but it was a “stark reminder” of the “extraordinary sacrifices that our men and women in uniform are making . . . ”
The passivity of these remarks is very telling. …
George Will takes a look at two of the GOP’s embarrassments; Huckabee and Gingrich.
… Let us not mince words. There are at most five plausible Republican presidents on the horizon – Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former Utah governor and departing ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, former Massachusetts governor Romney and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty.
So the Republican winnowing process is far advanced. But the nominee may emerge much diminished by involvement in a process cluttered with careless, delusional, egomaniacal, spotlight-chasing candidates to whom the sensible American majority would never entrust a lemonade stand, much less nuclear weapons.
Speaking of embarrassments, Paul Krugman gets a once over from the Streetwise Professor.
Paul Krugman is obsessed with Texas. He repeatedly attacks the state, primarily because it has chosen to cut spending to address its budget shortfalls, rather than raising taxes. This is an anathema to Krugman, so he lambastes the state repeatedly.
As an I-got-here-as-soon-as-I-could Texan, Krugman’s antipathy is actually a badge of honor. And he adds to the pride with his most recent column. Perhaps in anticipation of Texas Independence Day (yesterday, 2 March), on Monday Krugman launched an all-out assault. His main target was Texas schools: …
Charlie Cook looks at the race for the GOP nod.
Consider yourself clairvoyant if you can correctly predict who is going to win the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. The race is that wide open.
In most years, Republicans tap the person whose “turn” it is to be the party’s standard-bearer, and that individual’s identity is often known long before the start of the primary and caucus season. This time, the race looks different. One could argue that it is former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s turn because she was the party’s vice presidential nominee in 2008. Or former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s turn because he won the Iowa caucus last time around. Or former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s turn because he was eventual nominee John McCain’s toughest rival in 2008. But none of those arguments is particularly convincing.
In most years, current and former U.S. senators are grossly overrepresented in presidential fields. But with the announcement by Sen. John Thune of South Dakota that he isn’t going to run, it appears no sitting GOP senator will enter the race. …
Jay Cost in The Weekly Standard Blog takes a look at the unemployment rate and what it might mean for the president’s re-election – not much.
This item from Reuters caught my eye:
“With a leading Republican candidate yet to emerge, the biggest risk to President Barack Obama’s quest for a second term next year is a jobless rate that has hovered between 9 and 10 percent for months.
Friday’s jobless report is expected to show nonfarm payrolls soared in February by 185,000 jobs, but the overall unemployment rate is nonetheless expected to edge up to 9.1 percent…
Analysts say the jobless rate needs to drop below 8 percent by autumn 2012 for voters to feel optimistic about the economy — and Obama’s handling of it — when they go to the polls that November.”
This notion — that 8 percent is a magic threshold — has been making the rounds of late. It has absolutely no basis in established fact. None whatsoever. It is pure speculation. Here’s why: …
Michael Barone wants to know why taxpayers are funding the Dems.
Everyone has priorities. During the past week Barack Obama has found no time to condemn the attacks that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has launched on the Libyan people.
But he did find time to be interviewed by a Wisconsin television station and weigh in on the dispute between Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the state’s public employee unions. Walker was staging “an assault on unions,” he said, and added that “public employee unions make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens.”
Enormous contributions, yes — to the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign. Unions, most of whose members are public employees, gave Democrats some $400 million in the 2008 election cycle. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the biggest public employee union, gave Democrats $90 million in the 2010 cycle. …
Jennifer Rubin interviews Andrew Ferguson about his book on a parent’s view of the college admission process.
Andy Ferguson of the Weekly Standard has written a whimsical and fascinating book, Crazy U: One Dad’s Crash Course in Getting His Kid into College. It has received superlative reviews including one from The Post. I confess my bias since Andy is a friend, but in this case the reviews don’t quite capture Andy’s ability to combine parental angst with serious sociological analysis. It’s also, as is all of Andy’s writing, a great and funny read.
Andy was good enough to take time to do a Q and A with him. As you will see, even his answers are funny:
1. At what part in your nightmarish experience did you decide to write the book?
It happened pretty early on — early on for our family anyway. (I soon discovered that for some families “early on” in the college admissions process means “third grade.”) These voluptuous brochures began appearing in our mailbox addressed to my 16-year-old son — gorgeous albums of color photographs printed on paper as thick and slick as a leaf from a rubber plant. He was being solicited by schools as shamelessly as a sailor in dry dock. Soon we had hundreds of these “viewbooks” sloshing around the house. It was hard evidence of something I’d heard about but never seen firsthand: that college admissions had become absurdly elaborate, expensive, competitive and overthought.
And it was something that could only happen in America. You don’t see this in Canada or France or England. Here there’s a perfect storm of national traits, if you’ll forgive the cliché, that create the college madness: financial wealth, class insecurity, the promise of social mobility, unabashed commercialism, professional ambition, a kind of deep-seated utilitarianism and of course — the truly lethal ingredient — our doting love for our children. I liked the idea that the process was uniquely American in its excess and insanity, and I liked the idea that it was totally puzzling — nobody could tell me how things got so far out of hand. So I decided to find out for myself. .