Poor Zim

I can't express how disappointed I am with the situation in Zimbabwe. There seemed for a brief moment in December the possibility that Zim would get a fresh start and a new leader. While it isn't surprising that Mugabe and company are holding onto power, something I expect they'll try even after he dies, it is so disheartening to see how poorly Mbeki, president of South Africa and mediator for this process, is handling it. For so long, African nations have sought to solve their own problems. Often, it is African Union troops on peacekeeping missions, and leaders from Africa are chosen as mediators. With the history of colonization, I completely understand this desire.

While I support empowerment, with it comes responsibility. If you want the role of fixing the problems in your family, you need to show that you can actually do it. Of course there will be times when it turns out that the African Union will not have the resources to have a peacekeeping mission that meets the needs of the situation. In those instances, the African Union can ask for UN support (as in Darfur). But this is wholly different.

What Mbeki is showing, by his refusal to criticize Mugabe, is that Africa will not stand up against dictators, that it does not support the rule of law or full democratic rights. And worse, he is showing that he, the president of the most powerful country in Africa, is unable to solve problems that arise in Africa. He is making it that much harder for the next person to claim that Africa can and should solve its own problems. (Although it is good to see Mwanawasa in Zambia taking a stand against Mugabe.)

True, to be fair, I should also get into the debate about the limits of sovereignty. The answer though is that there are limits to sovereignty. And those limits need to be when human rights or the rule of law are violated. Otherwise, one shouldn't pretend that they live by those standards. Those standards have to rise above all else.

I have no hope that this situation will resolve itself in any satisfactory way. Mugabe has no incentive to give anything up. He can resist the international community and Mbeki is preventing strong reactions form inside Africa. The worst part of this is that the people of Zimbabwe aren't just suffering from lack of suffrage, but their economy is a complete mess with high unemployment and inflation. They need new leadership now more than ever.

Major Transformation?

I don't usually agree with Paul Krugman. Mostly, it is because I see him as a partisan hack - someone who will fight just as hard for Democratic causes as some Republicans do for theirs. The worst part is that he does this with full self-recognition and without excuse. In a reference to my previous post, he seems completely incapable of being objective (during the primaries he was one of the few people who tried to suggest that Obama's people were being more negative that Hillary and her staff).

Anyway, the point is that this column of his is great. It gets to a serious issue about Obama - that we don't really know whether Obama is a moderate or a serious liberal. His talk about reconciliation and working across party lines suggests moderation, but many of his policies are more liberal. That we are entering the general election phase of the campaign, where candidates move towards the middle, doesn't help me reconcile this.

The fact is that Obama, if elected, and if joined by a strong Democratic majority, could transform American policies. He could increase access to health care, change our foreign policy (and thereby improving our image as well as improving outcomes), make serious progress on curbing carbon emissions, and restore funding to social programs. Alternatively, he could either be ineffective or choose a more moderate path, like Clinton did. His voting record doesn't suggest the latter will be an issue - as long as he really doesn't by into the positions he is / will be taking during the general election. Either way, there is tremendous potential, and we'll have to wait to see if he can realize it.

(By the way, Krugman was of course supporting Hillary, who seemed just as moderate as Bill was. So while I think the column was great, I am surprised that Krugman is expressing these points.)

Am I Objective? Are You?

Hearing about findings like these isn't at all new or surprising. But it should still give us pause. The study that John Tierney is talking about shows that people excuse behavior in themselves or people on their "team" that otherwise they would criticize. What this shows is a propensity to lose the ability to be objective.

We can all point to perfect examples of this. One need only listen to a Red Sox fan complain about the Yankees, or a Yankees fan complain about the Red Sox, to see this. But this behavior is to be expected in sports.

This behavior is just as common in politics, but here the impact is worse. Who cares if fans forgive Steinbrenner for making baseball less interesting by stealing all of the best players? But what happens when Republicans forgive Bush for avoiding service in Vietnam, when they wouldn't forgive Clinton for it. Or when Democrats forgive Obama for refusing public financing of his general election campaign? The inability to be objective when analyzing people in our party allows them to get away with inconsistencies or hypocrisies they otherwise shouldn't.

Here is what Tierney has to say about it:

Politicians are hypocritical for the same reason the rest of us are: to gain the social benefits of appearing virtuous without incurring the personal costs of virtuous behavior.

Of course it makes sense to punish the opposition for trying to get away with this, but why is it in our interest to reward people in our own party who are good at this?

Now, if you asked me to name some people who seem to lack the ability to be objective, I might point to Republicans close to me (my dad and my brother come to mind). And while I would stand by that, it is also pretty clear I have the same problem. This was very apparent during the democratic primaries. I found myself enraged at Hillary's behavior but felt Obama was behaving honestly. The truth is of course somewhere in the middle.

Like many things, the solution lies in admitting you have a problem (how cliche, right?). This means admitting that Obama's support for the agriculture bill was appalling, and his decision to blithely reject public financing could ruin that very institution. It means admitting that the Democrats haven't had many great ideas in the past to deal with Iraq. But on the flip side, it means Republicans should find it much easier to admit that the Iraq War has been a terrible diversion (in resources and attention) and that tax cuts and increased spending should not happen at the same time. And most importantly, it means looking at the history of American foreign policy and being able to point to places where we not only made mistakes, but acted in ways that contradict our core values.

Goodbye

I saw Tim Russert once at a Borders in the Maryland suburbs. He was putting out copies of his book Big Russ and Me. I didn't approach him. I didn't say hi, I didn't tell him how much I liked his show. I just stared from a short distance. I watched as an elderly woman asked where the cook books were. He laughed a bit and said he didn't work there. Then I watched as a slightly awkward man did what I wouldn't; he told Tim Russert how much he admired him. And Mr. Russert gave him a big smile and thanked him. I am resistant to talking to famous people. I generally believe that they don't want me to interrupt them while they are trying to live their private lives. I don't know if that is right or not, but I do regret not saying something to him that morning.

I was on vacation with my dad and brother when I heard the news of Tim Russert's death and I am surprised how much it affected me. I think I am saddened for two reasons, one selfish. First, I am sad because it seemed that he was such a genuinely nice and excited person. Since his death, stories abound of his love of politics, Buffalo, his Dad, his son, his wife, and his faith. To see someone so full of life and joy die at a relatively young age is heartbreaking.

But selfishly I am upset because of the void that he is leaving. Tim Russert was great at his job, and his job was extremely important to our democracy. He had the absolute perfect blend of smarts, hardwork, on camera presence (although not in the traditional sense), and geniality. He did what most other interviewers say they do - he asked the tough questions of all the big names in American politics. He did it in a way that wasn't combative, so people couldn't be excused for dodging questions and responding aggressively. And because he worked so hard and because he was so smart, he could bring up old quotes from politicians and try to catch them in their hypocrisy.

I must admit that I didn't watch the show as religiously as I wanted to. Many Sunday afternoons I would think about what I did that morning and wonder if it was worth missing Meet the Press. The bottom line though is that I didn't make it part of my routine. But at least I drew comfort knowing that the show was on and that some politicians were being grilled about their positions.

The only possible comfort I can take from this is that maybe Tim Russert's death will allow people to fully realize what we are missing when he is gone. In doing so, we might search not for one replacement, but for many replacements. Maybe we'll lose one Tim Russert but gain a dozen people just like him. I imagine that's what he would want.