Palin and the Conservative Movement, Part 2

David Brooks is really shaping up to be one of my favorite columnists. He is the only conservative (albeit a moderate one) who can really challenge me and also give me hope for a better conservative movement. This column is probably one of his best. In it he laments the Republican party's decision to wage a culture war on intellectuals.

Politics in our country would be so much better if it involved more intellectuals on both sides. Now, I refuse to believe that conservative politics is incompatible with reason, intelligence, and academic study. My hope therefore is that at some point, conservatives get tired of listening to, and voting for, people like President Bush and VP candidate Sarah Palin.

I'll let Brooks take over from here:

What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole.

[Edit]

This year could have changed things. The G.O.P. had three urbane presidential candidates. But the class-warfare clichés took control. Rudy Giuliani disdained cosmopolitans at the Republican convention. Mitt Romney gave a speech attacking "eastern elites." (Mitt Romney!) John McCain picked Sarah Palin.

[Edit]

She is another step in the Republican change of personality. Once conservatives admired Churchill and Lincoln above all — men from wildly different backgrounds who prepared for leadership through constant reading, historical understanding and sophisticated thinking. Now those attributes bow down before the common touch.

What is so upsetting is how many intellectual people in the Republican party go along with this (just as too many liberals for too long allowed the Democratic party to talk down to people of faith). Hopefully this changes, and soon.

Palin and the Conservative Movement

The last time I wrote about Palin was following the GOP convention. We have learned a lot since then. What seems clear to me is that she just isn't up to the task of being President. What surprises me is that so many think she is.

It's obvious that people like her because they think she is like them. What I have trouble understanding is why people want someone like them to be president. I guess I assumed everyone wanted someone better than them to be president.

This in part is a battle of the culture wars we find ourselves in. Republicans tend to be wary of intelligence in leaders. Now, while I understand being wary of a certain kind of intelligence - one that shows the leader is not connected to the everyday lives of regular people - that doesn't mean that it's opposite, stupidity, should be favored.

Let me be clear about my terms with specific examples. John Kerry is probably a good model of the disconnected intellectual. George W. Bush and Sarah Palin to me represent the type of vapid and lack of intelligence that are sometimes favored by Republicans. On the flip side, you have someone like the Clintons (character failings aside) or Obama - people who are clearly intelligent but also grounded. I would definitely put John McCain and Joe Biden into the category of intelligent people.

I think the main misconception is that liberals think only the highly educated (read: Ivy League) are competent to run the country. But for most liberals actually, education doesn't so much matter. While Clinton and Obama were educated at Ivy League schools, McCain went to the Naval Academy and Biden to University of Delaware and Syracuse Law School. Other Republicans also fit here - like Romney, Thompson, Giuliani, and Jeb Bush. All of these people have demonstrated that they understand the main issues in our country.

I have heard many conservatives say that intelligence doesn't so much matter if the person surrounds themselves with smart people to help them make decisions. I find this to be such a cop-out. How can you make decisions on policies if you aren't smart enough to understand them and therefore wouldn't know when to oppose what your advisers are saying. We need no better example than President Bush, who seemed to be ruled by his staff (especially Cheney and Rumsfeld) instead of the other way around.

I can understand when imperfect candidates come along, sometimes you have to hold your nose. But I would prefer if people would acknowledge that instead of lying to everyone else and themselves. Let's go back to John Kerry. Clearly, he wasn't an ideal choice for President. He was smart, but he seemed to lack good ideas (not to mention a serious foreign policy). But I voted for him because I agreed with his policies far more than Republicans. What the 2004 election gave us was a contest between a rather unintelligent Republican candidate, and a smart but aloof Democrat. I still think the better bet there is someone who at least understands issues and can talk about them in depth and using complete sentences.

The point I am trying to make is that no one should be satisfied with a president (or a vice president who could easily become president) who seems dim, and yet also unaware of his or her inability to grasp so many complicated issues. Just like no one should be satisfied with a John Kerry. Instead though, people are celebrating Palin's ability to make only broad but meaningless statements like, "gosh government, you need to just get out of the way."

Both Wrong

So the debates are over - three between Obama and McCain, and the one between Biden and Palin. I'll talk about Palin another time. But for now, I want to express my one disappointment - that neither candidate was able to admit that they were wrong at least once about Iraq. John McCain, at the beginning, supported the troop levels in Iraq and believed we would be welcomed as liberators. Looking back, that was obviously an error in judgment.

As the insurgency increased without sign of end (despite "last throes" comments from the administration), McCain did become one of the first to suggest increasing troop levels significantly. And here is where Obama was wrong. He opposed the surge from the beginning and even had trouble admitting when it was working. Granted, this wouldn't have worked without the Sunni Awakening - but nor would the Sunni Awakening have worked without the Surge.

So here we see the two politicians having made errors of judgment on the war. Both can of course point out where the other had erred, but neither has admitted their mistake. We can't blame Bush for saying he hasn't made any mistakes in office if every other politician is equally incapable.

It's About Time Mr. Rosenthal

The steroids issue in baseball is one I can't look away from - particularly with Mark McGwire. Probably my best post ever was about this topic. Although I am disappointed in McGwire more than words can say, I think the press, along with the fans, pretends like they didn't enable this by wearing blinders to what was going on.

Finally, a sports columnist has written the column that I think all of them should have written already. He acknowledges, with much embarassment, how he ignored obvious signs of what was going on (he actually quotes himself from an old article looking foolish in retrospect).

Here it is, and here is the best part:

"Then there is the Hall of Fame, which leaves me similarly ambivalent. The Hall instructs voters to consider not just playing ability, but also character, integrity and sportsmanship. I do not vote for McGwire because I am not convinced he meets those subjective standards. Yet I ask myself: Am I penalizing Big Mac because I was the fool?"

I’ve been waiting for an article like this for over three years. I wish all sports writers were this self-aware.

He also does a great job of acknowledging how that summer, 1998, brought so many baseball fans back to the game. Because of that, it is hard to separate and understand our different emotions. I did fall in love with baseball again that summer, and it was because of McGwire. That can't be taken away. But I am so profoundly disappointed in how it seems he achieved it.

I wonder if I'll ever be able to reconcile these emotions.

One of Those Days

I'm having one of those days. I feel like I did during the late stages of the Democratic primary - where the campaigns and the news coverage of the campaigns just disgusts me. Let's see, we had more talk about Obama's lipstick wearing pig. And as was common in the Democratic primaries, the McCain camp feigned outrage and persuaded the public that the comment was about Palin. Then the McCain camp said that the Obama camp was acting desperate by attacking McCain. The race is insanely close right now, and there is a person who can say with a straight face that one camp is desperate.

Then I read an article about Biden's "gaffes". Now, I will be the first to criticize his real gaffes, like when he said Obama was the first articulate African-American candidate. But only in today's insane, 24-hour news coverage world is a slip of the tongue like calling his opponent George McCain or talking about the Biden Administration. These are slip-ups, and it seems like the only candidate that the press can appreciate is one who never makes a mistake.

Then we had reports of Democratic corruption and likely ethical lapses. Worse is the realization that Democrats protect their own as long as they can as much as Republicans do (ie Pelosi firing back against the Republican Minority Leader).

As I write this though, I am watching McCain speak at Columbia University (as I sit a few blocks from where he is speaking). McCain's conversation is helping my mood. His tone is civil, his points are well articulated even when I disagree. This is the person I used to respect. Unfortunately, his campaign has taken over and created a different candidate, and that is a shame. I do feel the same way about Obama. Hopefully his conversation later will also leave me feeling better.

I do wonder if maybe Obama made a mistake by not doing the town-hall meetings with McCain. Granted, that would have played to McCain's strengths more than Obama's. But maybe the tone of the campaigns would have been different. Then again, the tone is still up to the candidates, no matter what forum they choose to debate each other. So maybe it is a pipe dream to hope that somehow campaigns can somehow be civil.

Chess and South Ossetia

I've been looking to get a better description of the events that lead up to the Russian invasion of Georgia. Through these events I have realized just how much we are dependent on the media and their portrayal of events. The earliest reports suggested that Russia's invasion of Georgia was unprovoked. Now the story seems to be that the Russian response was not in proportion to Georgia's provocation. But the only way we can know which of those it was is to get an unbiased account of events. I am still not sure I have gotten that.

This article in the New York Review of Books is the best I have come across. What is amazing about the article is how it has the feel of a chess match. Basically, the article is saying that Russia has been planning to protect and recognize the independence of these regions of Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) for some time. It was a response to the US expanding NATO to former Soviet countries, including Poland and now Georgia as well as the US recognizing Kosovo's independence, which Russia fears would strengthen more secessionist movements. Apparently, this has left Russia fearing for its security while also being humiliated at how the US ignores its wishes even in cases where there could be reasonable compromise (ie Kosovo).

Russia's response recently, according to the article, was to make a point to the countries in its region. The point was that US promises of security are merely talk. Russia sees that the US is tied down in Iraq and needs Russian cooperation with Iran. Therefore, Russia can exercise power in its region without serious American intervention. This is supposed to give pause to those who feel safe by American guarantees of support.

It is no surprise that international affairs involve a lot of strategy. But since I spend so much time thinking of examples where strategy seems like less of an issue (Darfur for example, where I care less about strategy and more about seeing some real action), the extent to which both sides are calculating responses and making decisions about gains really struck me.

So the US now has to decide its next move. Our most recent move is to back out of civilian nuclear pact with Russia - which doesn't seem like a major play (not really responding "with tempo"). We need Russia's help, so the options are limited. Being tied down in Iraq further limits our response. We made a decision to invest heavily in the Middle East - with military operations as well as our national attention - which takes away from what we can do in other areas of the board.

As I think all this through, I picture a chess board. I see the US bogged down in a king side attack (Iraq). So Russia sees that it can take one of our pawns. Our only response weakens our on-going king side attack. It seems then that Russia will be able to keep our pawn.

There are two lessons here. One, chess isn't so boring after all. Two, the invasion of Iraq continues to bring out our weaknesses elsewhere. Iraq doesn't seem like it was a very strategic decision. Then again, I never really pegged Bush as a long-term strategic planner.

Budgeting and Pork Spending

Okay, as both candidates are making certain pledges about their spending and savings, I feel the need to weigh in. I have been a budget analyst for only five years now, but I have come to learn a few things on the job. Some other things I have learned just by following the news.

First, one of McCain's big messages is how he will change Washington. And one of his biggest projects will be cutting pork barrel spending. Now, pork spending does make me angry too - it is often a misuse of scarce resources and also is a factor for why it is so hard to vote out incumbent politicians from office. At the same time though, it is less than one percent of the federal budget, which means it is hardly worth the time and effort spent opposing it. Also, it's not like this is a new gripe for Presidents. Bush has long opposed pork spending, but he has so far been unable to do anything about it. So I know McCain claims he will end pork spending, but as long as Congress controls the purse strings, he is going to have trouble getting a budget through Congress without any pork in it.

Second, Obama says he is going to eliminate programs that don't work. By doing this he claims he will fund his new programs. This is nothing new either. In fact, Bush has also tried this to limited success. The fact is, many programs that seem ineffective have Congressional support for one reason or another. So as I said about McCain, Obama will have trouble getting his budget through Congress when he cuts some of their beloved programs.

Look, budgeting involves making real choices about priorities. Money, even for the federal government, is a scarce resource. You can make changes on the margins by improving efficiency, cutting ineffective programs, and eliminating pork spending. But you don't make any significant impact on the budget that way; it won't help you cut taxes or create new programs. In the end, the real choice is between the level of services you want and the amount of revenue you want to raise. If you cut taxes, at some point you are going to have to cut services. And if you want to provide more services, you are going to have to raise more revenue. Don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise.

Shame

I am becoming more upset each day at the way two politicians - the only two - who seemed capable of rising above it all take the low road and choose to distort each other's record. This graphic at the Times does a good job of showing some examples of this. You can also check out factcheck.org. Here are two of what I think are the most egregious misstatements - one from each of the presidential candidates. McCain first:

"I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them."

Reality Check: This drastically simplifies what the candidates' tax plans would do. Mr. McCain would preserve all of the Bush tax cuts, while Mr. Obama would let them expire for those making more than $250,000 a year. Mr. McCain would also double the child tax exemption to $7,000 and reduce business taxes. Mr. Obama would reduce income taxes and provide credits for people earning less than $250,000 a year. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that Mr. Obama's plan would amount to a tax cut for 81 percent of all households, or 95.5 percent of those with children. The center calculated that by 2012 the Obama plan would let middle-income taxpayers keep about 5 percent more income on average, or nearly $2,200 a year, while Mr. McCain would give them an average 3 percent break, or about $1,400. The richest 1 percent would pay an average $19,000 more in taxes each year under Mr. Obama's plan but see a tax cut of more than $125,000 under Mr. McCain.

This is just classic Republican talking points. Paint Democrats as tax and spenders, regardless of their actual revenue proposals. Now, if they were to say that Obama's plans wouldn't actually provide enough funding for all his projects, that would be a different thing.

And from Obama:

"Now, I don’t believe that Senator McCain doesn’t care what’s going on in the lives of Americans; I just think he doesn’t know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under $5 million a year?"

Reality Check: This refers to Mr. McCain’s answer at a forum last month when the Rev. Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church asked the candidate to give a specific number for the income level that divides the rich from the middle class. "How about $5 million?" Mr. McCain initially answered. The audience laughed and Mr. McCain went on to say: "But seriously, I don’t think you can” cite a number. He also foresaw how the opposition would use his answer. "I’m sure that comment will be distorted," he said. The nonpartisan FactCheck.org concluded that was what Mr. Obama did — distort what it called Mr. McCain’s "clumsy attempt at humor."

This is just absurd. Granted, McCain dodged the question on what constitutes middle class, and he did it in a stupid way. But that doesn't justify taking a joke and making people think he meant it seriously. Shame on Obama.

Our political process would be so much better if someone like FactCheck.org was given more attention by the press. Seriously, if I were running a network, I would be the first to do that - have FactCheck there during a broadcast to have them report on statements they know to be untrue.

The Message

Now that the RNC is over, McCain's message is starting to clarify. There seem to be three main points. One, McCain is a war hero and Obama is not. This tact didn't work for Kerry in 2004, nor did it work for Bush or Dole against Clinton in 1994 and 1996. We'll see how well it works this time.

Secondly, McCain is running on change. And the more I hear it, the more it irritates me. John McCain has done some important things in the Senate, definitely more so than Obama. And some of that was done by opposing his party. But since 2004, McCain has been voting with his party more and more. It is no longer accurate to suggest that his policies will be different from President Bush's policies. He wants to continue Bush's tax cuts (which he once opposed for giving too much back to the super-rich), he has no plans for withdrawing from Iraq, he is more militant towards Iran, and he supported a law that allows the CIA to use the type of torture techniques he opposed for the military. In fact, even his stance on immigration has changed and is more conservative than Bush. Reading the Republican Platform here, you can see that it opposes any amnesty and wants to deport all illegal workers.

John McCain is no longer a maverick and seems to be far from the moderate he used to be. The Republican base is starting to realize this (hence their excitement), but I don't know if independents are catching on. If McCain were the person he was between 2000 and 2004, I wouldn't be so worried. I could relax knowing we would have someone different in the White House. Unfortunately, McCain seems to be moving further and further from that person every day.

Finally, the Republican campaign is using the same talking points they always do. They say Obama will raise taxes and is weak on foreign policy. They aren't responding to particular policies of Obama's and instead are relying on reinforcing stereotypes. This worked for them in 2004, but not in 2006. Hopefully voters don't buy it this time either.

More on Palin

Governor Palin's speech at the convention was pretty good. She managed to make some sharp attacks against Obama without coming off too harsh. What is becoming more apparent is the ways in which Obama and Palin are similar. Both are young and attractive, good speakers who are able to attack yet appear clean in the press, and even though neither have a lot of experience voters seem to trust them anyway. This later point is definitely the case with Obama, and it is what has been said about Palin in Alaska. You would think that with these two so similar, some of the attacks about experience would stop. Apparently not.

On another note though, it is becoming more clear how conservative she is. The scariest thing we have heard so far: she looked into banning books when she first became mayor of Wasilla.

Bush's Legacy

I doubt this will be my only post on this topic, so bear with me. I read two really good pieces on this recently. First, there was the long piece in the Sunday Times Magazine. This paragraph seems to sum up the debate:

Bush’s place in history depends on alternate narratives that are hard to reconcile. To critics, he is the man who misled the country into a disastrous war, ruined U.S. relations around the world, wrecked the economy, squandered a budget surplus to give tax cuts to fat-cat friends, played the guitar while New Orleans drowned, politicized the Justice Department, cozied up to oil companies and betrayed American values by promoting torture, warrantless eavesdropping and a modern-day gulag at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for people never even charged with a crime. To admirers, he is the man who freed 60 million people from tyranny in Afghanistan and Iraq and planted a seed that may yet spread democracy in a vital region, while at home he reduced taxes, introduced more accountability to public schools through No Child Left Behind, expanded Medicare to cover prescription drugs, installed two new conservative Supreme Court justices and, most of all, kept America safe after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

I think in the near term, this pretty much covers it. In fact, I think there is a lot of truth to almost everything said in that paragraph. The rest of the article though was not very memorable - focusing mostly on what / whether Bush thinks about his legacy.

I don't think that paragraph though gets at long term prospects for Bush's legacy. After all, we don't tend to remember much about former Presidents. Now I think too many conservatives (I won't mention any names), including Bush himself, seem to assume history will judge Bush favorably. Those people always mention Truman. (My question, where is Bush's Marshall Plan?) Other people (again, you know who you are) refuse to even consider the legacy question, leaving it for historians to judge. I find that to be a bit of a cop-out and I imagine those same people didn't give Clinton the same consideration.

This short piece in the Atlantic (June 2008) does a great job at looking at what we do remember about our past presidents and therefore what we'll likely remember about Bush.

But when things work out in the long run—and especially when we can claim the credit—Americans tend to forgive their leaders for the crimes and errors of the moment.

That’s why—to judge by the rankings that historians and pollsters regularly churn out—we’ve forgiven Teddy Roosevelt his role in the bloody and disgraceful occupation of the Philippines. It’s why we’ve pardoned Woodrow Wilson for the part his feckless idealism played in unleashing decades of strife and tyranny in Europe. It’s why we’ve granted Harry Truman absolution for the military blundering that prolonged the Korean War and brought us to the brink of nuclear conflict.

[Edit]

But these well-respected presidents have benefited, as well, from the American tendency to overvalue activist leaders. So a bad president like Wilson is preferred, in our rankings and our hearts, to a good but undistinguished manager like Calvin Coolidge. A sometimes impressive, oft-erratic president like Truman is lionized, while the more even-keeled greatness of Dwight D. Eisenhower is persistently undervalued. John F. Kennedy is hailed for escaping the Cuban missile crisis, which his own misjudgments set in motion, while George H. W. Bush, who steered the U.S. through the fraught final moments of the Cold War with admirable caution, is caricatured as a ditherer who needed Margaret Thatcher around to keep him from going wobbly.

So it's reasonable to think that, if Iraq works out, Bush might be looked back on favorably. This thought doesn't make me as depressed as it used to. But it does make me want to learn a lot more about Truman, Teddy Roosevelt and Wilson as well as Coolidge and Eisenhower.

And the comparison between Iraq and Korea does make me think differently about Korea. In our national consciousness Korea is seen as a great success. And South Koreans are grateful that they are not under the North's control. But if these two wars are similar, and if they end similarly, does this mean that Iraq was right and just mismanaged (as Korea was, although maybe not to the same extent), or was Korea wrong?

In large part, how we view Bush will affect how we view wars like Iraq in the future. Years removed, I do think we devalue deaths in war if the war was successful. Which makes it easy to hate Iraq now, but hard to hate the Korean War. Keep this in mind when the next Bush advocates for the next Iraq ten or more years from now.

Your Prediction

This electoral map at the Times is well worth checking out. What do you think? Will it be Obama or McCain?

Alaskan Veep

The political world is buzzing about McCain's choice for Vice President. I have long thought (although I apparently didn't write about it) that McCain was in a particularly tough position when it came to selecting his running mate. If he chose someone too conservative, he would turn off some of the moderates and independents who were leaning is way. But if he chose someone moderate, he would risk watching the Republican base stay home in November.

Considering that, I think his choice makes sense. Governor Palin seems to have excited the conservative base. As for turning off independents, we'll have to see. My gut instinct though is that she won't scare them as much as a Huckabee - or someone similar - would have.

One place I think it doesn't make a whole lot of sense is in the electoral college. Alaska was going to go to McCain no matter what. Minnesota on the other hand might have been in play had McCain chosen Pawlenty. In fact, I wonder if Gephardt would have been better at delivering Missouri than Edwards was for North Carolina in 2004. Anyway, it appears that McCain believes that Palin's impact nationally will be more meaningful than Pawlenty's impact in Minnesota.

As for whether she balances his governing philosophy, I don't have much input on that at the moment. But David Brooks has an interesting take:

He really needs someone to impose a policy structure on his moral intuitions. He needs a very senior person who can organize a vast administration and insist that he tame his lone-pilot tendencies and work through the established corridors — the National Security Council, the Domestic Policy Council. He needs a near-equal who can turn his instincts, which are great, into a doctrine that everybody else can predict and understand.

This is an interesting analysis, but I wonder if Brooks is putting too much into the VP position (probably based on the Clinton and Bush models of having a powerful VP). Conceivably, McCain could find people like that fill his administration. Although I guess his choice of Palin makes one doubt whether he will.

Now let's talk about the the real issue with this choice: gender. John McCain chose a woman. My initial reaction to the choice was positive. I am glad that if McCain loses, one of the top choices to run in 2012 will be a woman (a woman who by then will have considerably more experience). And any talk about whether she should be running for VP instead of spending more time taking care of her four-month-old infant is, well, sexist. Nobody says that about a man running in the same situation.

Unfortunately though, I still find the choice to be a bit of a let-down. Gail Collins says it pretty well:

This year, Hillary Clinton took things to a whole new level. She didn’t run for president as a symbol but as the best-prepared candidate in the Democratic pack. Whether you liked her or not, she convinced the nation that women could be qualified to both run the country and be commander in chief. That was an enormous breakthrough, and Palin’s nomination feels, in comparison, like a step back.

The real question though is whether this will actually draw independent and liberal women. Are they upset enough still from the primaries that they will flock to Palin and McCain? This of course remains to be seen and I don't really have a prediction. The McCain camp is doing everything it can, including acting hurt on Clinton supporters behalf and suggesting that the Obama campaign was sexist. I have heard others say though that liberal and independent women will still vote Democrat, following issues (like abortion rights and equal pay laws) instead of symbolism. I hope so.

Obamanomics Explained

I just finished reading this piece from the Times Magazine about Obama's economic positions. It's really enlightening if you have the time to read it.

What is comforting about the article is that it shows Obama has a firm grasp of economics. He seems to understand that markets are on the whole efficient, but often not fair, and that there exist obvious market failures. The key is in balancing all of this. Here are some of his plans:

- Obama is for tax cuts for middle- and low-income wage earners,

The Tax Policy Center, a research group run by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, has done the most detailed analysis of the Obama and McCain tax plans, and it has published a series of fascinating tables. For the bottom 80 percent of the population — those households making $118,000 or less — McCain’s various tax cuts would mean a net savings of about $200 a year on average. Obama’s proposals would bring $900 a year in savings. So for most people, Obama is the tax cutter in this campaign.

and tax increases for the highest earners (partly reversing the Bush tax cuts, and then increasing the taxes further). For those of you who are concerned the increases would stifle innovation and investment, consider that the proposed increases wouldn't come close to reversing the gains upper income earners have seen over the past few decades. Also realize that, "Most families [low- and middle-income] are still making less, after accounting for inflation, than they were in 2000." This might sound like pandering, but the reality of stagnant wages for middle- and low-income earners can't be ignored and isn't good for the country.

And it seems on the surface at least that recent history supports at least some redistribution. As the article points out, the negative effects of Clinton's tax increases never materialized and the trickle-down effects of the Reagan and Bush tax cuts also never seemed to occur. Granted, showing a direct causal relationship between a president's policies and economic outcomes is imperfect to say the least, but I would be willing to increase taxes on the rich and risk losing some efficiency in the market for at least some increase in fairness.

- Obama favors an increase in government spending on infrastructure. This I think has the most promise, if done wisely. While we don't need new highways as much as we did after World War II (which by the way, I hadn't realized was a result of witnessing how easily Germans could move good during the war), we have serious unmet needs relating to energy and the environment. With significant government funding, we could increase sustainable energy and the infrastructure that supports it (ie power lines, which are unfit to meet probable changes in our production according to this article). What makes this so attractive is that it could provide jobs for the part of the workforce that is suffering from the loss of manufacturing and related industries overseas. I don't believe in protectionism and I realize that re-educating workers isn't the solution many pretend it is.

To the extent that he sticks with these policies, and manages to move on them, it seems that Obama by far represents our best hope in managing our economy.

It's Our Fault

Last summer, I hoped that the presidential race would be between two people who could rise above petty, name-calling partisanship and talk about the real issues. If you asked me the two people most likely to do that, I probably would have said Obama (or maybe Richardson) and McCain. Well, here we have a race between Obama and McCain, and neither are particularly living up to those standards. The debate isn't any more intelligent than it would have been if it had been between Clinton and Romney. I have basically tuned most of it out by now because of that.

Reading David Brooks' column, I do find it hard to blame them. The media remains fixated on covering the horse race and the insults back and forth - and the public seems to revel in that as well. It seems as though it isn't the candidates that are at fault for our system, but us. There are no transcendent candidates. None. But maybe you knew that already.

Sad News from Zambia

Reuters has reported that the President of Zambia, Levy Mwanawasa has died. What I will remember most is that he was one of the few African leaders who criticized Zimbabwe's Mugabe, realizing that a leader who blatantly ignores democracy makes not just himself look bad, but also all those who support him. But he was also the leader of a landlocked African country trying to sustain growth and escape poverty. I visited Zambia last year and it is an incredibly beautiful country with some of the most friendly people. Hopefully his successor will keep moving Zambia forward.

Worse Off?

I just saw an ad by John McCain where he says we are worse off than we were four years ago. Of course I agree, but I am surprised that McCain is willing to admit that. I mean he must realize that he is in part responsible for that, right? He is a Republican who voted with the administration those four years. And how does his party feel about him saying Bush made the country worse off?

Of course this is the line that McCain must walk. He needs to distance himself from a wildly unpopular president, while not going too far to alienate the party faithful.

More on Zimbabwe

In my last post on Zimbabwe, I wrote about Mbeki's poor leadership. Now, the talk is all about sanctions - the West is pressing for sanctions. The African Union doesn't support sanctions on Zimbabwe, and I can't say that I blame them.

Sanctions are not as effective as you would think based on how often they are trotted out as the solution to a problem. Granted, they seem to have worked in Libya (eventually), and are playing a role in Iran and North Korea, but were ineffective in Cuba and Iraq (during Saddam). In the end, in a situation like Zimbabwe, sanctions are likely to hurt the people way more than the leaders. And as long as the government has a monopoly on power and are adept at winning illegitimate elections, there is little hope of the disgruntled people tossing their leaders out.

But this is the West's only option at the moment. Criticism of Mugabe form the West has little effect because he can just dismiss the comments by saying the word "colonialism". But the African Union has much more power. If they were to refuse to recognize Mugabe's election and then isolate him, that would likely be enough to force a change. So far, they haven't officially recognized his election, but they haven't called it illegitimate and asked for a re-vote, and they have called for power sharing. Calling for power sharing between a leader that used violence to stay in power, and a reformer who "lost the run-off" isn't a workable solution.

Many of course point to Kenya. Although there was much praise of the Kenyan agreement, it remains to be seen whether it will in fact work. Besides, in Kenya you had ethnic battles between the parties. That doesn't seem to be the driving factor in Zimbabwe. Removing Mugabe is unlikely to cause the sort of disruption that would have resulted in Kenya if one side was removed from power.

In the end, the African Union isn't willing to take the big steps necessary to make meaningful change. There are some leaders who want to (like Levi Mwanawasa in Zambia), but not enough. Instead, they try to placate people like Mugabe, who ruin their country and then refuse to stand for a legitimate election. It would be much easier for the international community, and the West in particular, to allow the African Union to manage their own affairs if they actually showed strength.

A Balanced Budget?

I'll be quick on this one. McCain says he plans to have a balanced budget. While he cuts taxes. Right. Now, to be fair, one can achieve a balanced budget with tax cuts under certain circumstances - when the cuts are not significant and when costs can be contained. Neither of these seem to hold here. His tax cuts are significant, including making the Bush tax cuts permanent and repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax. On top of that, he has no chance of keeping a lid on spending. Even if he had a Republican Congress, which is unlikely, it doesn't seem reasonable to think he'll be better than Bush at keeping them from increasing his budget. On top of that, he plans to somehow, magically keep entitlement spending down. Completely absurd.

Dear Conservative

Dear Conservative Friend / Family Member,

I always hoped that my liberal postings would rile you up and force you to respond. In fact, my posts are more often than not written for / to you. But I think I was being too subtle. So now, I am going to write some posts directly to you.

On a recent road trip with two such conservatives (you know who you are) we had two lively debates. One was about urban poverty and the other about the Iraq War. My position on the war has changed to believing that being there was a mistake and that now is a good time to start withdrawing. The two conservatives disagreed, of course.

I'll admit that pulling out will be delicate. There is the possibility that violence could escalate again. I don't want to spend too much time debating this point though because whoever is President when troops begin to come home will have to watch what happens in Iraq and respond accordingly.

The main issue I want to debate is about whether we should have invaded, and when we should in the future. Each situation will be different from the one before it, but I think we can come up with reasonable guidelines while still being flexible enough to change if we have to. Our country would be much better off if we used our foreign policy to actually express our core principles. Too often in the past our foreign policy has been either morally bankrupt or completely hypocritical.

When it comes to deciding whether to invade, the primary reason has been and should remain whether the other country poses an imminent threat. Afghanistan obviously falls into this category. Iraq does not. Even if you allow for the fact that many intelligence services believed Saddam had a weapons program, nobody really thought there was an imminent danger to the US; a long term concern maybe, but not an imminent threat.

I know some would argue that you shouldn't wait until he has the weapons - which is when he will be more dangerous. I agree. But I think it is clear in retrospect that we could have waited longer. We could have given the weapons inspectors more time - given containment more time to work. Deciding when someone is an imminent threat isn't a science, but I don't think anyone believes we were at that point with Saddam.

It seems for some, a reason to continue believing the invasion was right is that we need a democratic role model in the Middle East. Granted, we need to acknowledge that this wasn't one of the main reasons for the invasion, but became the main reason when WMD's didn't materialize. Even so, the argument should be taken seriously. In fact, for a long time, I was right behind Thomas Friedman favoring this argument. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for me anymore. We talk a good game when it comes to democracy, but we don't follow though. We tolerate Saudi Arabia - a very oppressive monarchy, and we ignore the results of Palestinian elections because we don't like who they chose (without even wondering why they chose them). If we are going to support democracy, we have to do it everywhere if we are to retain moral credibility.

Someone said in regards to this argument that Iraq was low hanging fruit. Maybe, but was it the lowest? Could we have supported a democracy in the Middle East without losing more than 4,000 American soldiers, tens of thousands of Iraqis dead, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees? I think we could have done a better job in Afghanistan (where Al Qaeda is making gains again), supported Lebanon - including stopping Israel's disastrous invasion, recognized Hamas' victory in Palestine - while keeping them on a short leash, and been tougher with Saudi Arabia. All of this could have been done without the disastrous consequences we see in Iraq.

This gets to my main point. Besides invading when there is an imminent threat, I think the only other time we should get involved is when the situation is bad enough that we can't likely make it worse and could conceivably make it much better. Iraq, at the time of the invasion, wasn't a model of human rights and democracy, but wasn't as bad as many other places around the world and certainly not as bad as it was before, and directly after, the first Gulf War. Under this reasoning, we wouldn't have invaded Iraq, but we would get involved in places like Rwanda, the Balkans, Sudan, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. I think if we were fighting to create more democracies and protect those under horrible dictatorships, as some (with memory problems) argue Iraq is about, there are better places to start.

What may end up happening over the next decade is Iraq could improve slowly, mirroring in some ways South Korea. If that happens, people might forget these disastrous years, as many forget the ups and downs of the Korean War. In fact, tens of thousands of Americans and South Koreans died, and we are still paying to have troops in South Korea. Yet this draws little protest and South Korea is seen as a success.

If this is the case, then I probably won't have a strong response. While I still believe that the costs to the Iraqis so far has been great - partly because of our mismanagement, I think that through containment and time, we might have achieved the same goal for the Iraqi people at a smaller cost to them and us.

So what do you think, unnamed conservative friend / family member? Care to weigh in?