Roundup: Historian's Take
This is where we place excerpts by historians writing about the news. On occasion this page also includes political scientists, economists, and law professors who write about history. We may from time to time even include English profs.
SOURCE: Informed Comment (Blog run by Juan Cole) (12-31-08)
' The historic land of Palestine belongs to all who live in it and to those who were expelled or exiled from it since 1948, regardless of religion, ethnicity, national origin or current citizenship status;
•Any system of government must be founded on the principle of equality in civil, political, social and cultural rights for all citizens. Power must be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all people in the diversity of their identities;
•There must be just redress for the devastating effects of decades of Zionist colonization in the pre- and post-state period, including the abrogation of all laws, and ending all policies, practices and systems of military and civil control that oppress and discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, religion or national origin;
• The recognition of the diverse character of the society, encompassing distinct religious, linguistic and cultural traditions, and national experiences;
• The creation of a non-sectarian state that does not privilege the rights of one ethnic or religious group over another and that respects the separation of state from all organized religion;
• The implementation of the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees in accordance with UN Resolution 194 is a fundamental requirement for justice, and a benchmark of the respect for equality;
• The creation of a transparent and nondiscriminatory immigration policy;
• The recognition of the historic connections between the diverse communities inside the new, democratic state and their respective fellow communities outside;
• In articulating the specific contours of such a solution, those who have been historically excluded from decision-making -- especially the Palestinian Diaspora and its refugees, and Palestinians inside Israel -- must play a central role;
• The establishment of legal and institutional frameworks for justice and reconciliation'
Posted on: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - 22:26
SOURCE: Slate (12-31-08)
Following English parliamentary tradition and early Colonial and state practice, the framers made the Senate its own gatekeeper and guardian. Each house of Congress is "the Judge of the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own members," according to Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution. At the founding, Senators were elected by state legislatures. If the Senate believed that legislators in a given state had been bribed into voting for a particular candidate, the Senate could refuse to seat him.
Because of the word "returns" in Section 5, what is true of elected Senators is equally true of appointed Senators. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a "Return" in the time of the framers involved a report of an appointment made by a sheriff or other official. If the Senate may refuse to seat a person picked in a corrupt election, it likewise may refuse to seat a person picked in a corrupt appointment process. (Alternatively, we might think of an appointment as an "election" by one voter.)
A simple majority of the Senate would suffice to exclude Burris. Majority rule is the general default principle established by the Constitution, except where text, structure, or tradition indicates otherwise. When the Senate tries to expel a member who has already been seated, the rule is two-thirds (as it is when the Senate sits as an impeachment court). But the framers clearly understood that majority rule would apply when the Senate was judging the accuracy and fairness of elections or appointments.
The power to judge elections and returns has been used on countless occasions in American history, at both the state and federal level, to exclude candidates whose elections and appointments were suspect.
True, in the 1969 case of Powell v. McCormack, the Supreme Court properly held that the Constitution imposes limits on the power of the Senate and the House to exclude members. Some legal commentators say this decision trumps the Senate's power to exclude Burris. But the letter and spirit of Powell actually cut against him. The case involved an elected congressman, Adam Clayton Powell, whom the voters had clearly chosen in a fair election and whom the House nevertheless excluded—wrongly, the court held. The key fact is that there was no doubt whatsoever that Powell was the people's choice, and in issuing its ruling, the Warren Court repeatedly stressed this. The justices insisted that their ruling was aimed at protecting the people's right to vote. None of that spirit applies here. And that's why the case doesn't stand in the Senate's way now....
Posted on: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - 21:02
SOURCE: New Republic (12-31-08)
Does the New Deal provide a useful model for fixing our own troubled economy? In many respects, yes. The frenzy of activity and innovation that marked Franklin Roosevelt's initial months in office--a welcome contrast to the seeming paralysis of the discredited Hoover regime--helped first and foremost to lessen the panic that had gripped the nation. And, during the prewar years of his presidency, Roosevelt's actions produced an unprecedented array of tangible achievements as well. He moved quickly and effectively to address a wave of bank failures that threatened to shut down the financial system. He created the Securities and Exchange Commission, which helped make the beleaguered stock market more transparent and thus more trustworthy. He responded to out-of-control unemployment by launching the Civil Works Administration, the Public Works Administration, and the Works Progress Administration, which created jobs for millions of the unemployed. He passed the Social Security Act, which over time provided support to the jobless, the indigent, and the elderly--and the Wagner Act, which eventually raised wages by giving unions the right to bargain collectively with employers. He signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which created the minimum wage and the 40-hour workweek.
Yet, despite these extraordinary achievements, Roosevelt's initiatives did not, in the end, lift the country out of the Great Depression. At no time in the first eight years of the New Deal did unemployment drop below 15 percent. At no time did economic activity reach levels comparable to those of a decade earlier; and, while there were periods when the economy seemed to be recovering, none of them lasted very long. And so this bold, active, and creative moment in our history proved to be a failure at its central task. Understanding what went wrong could help us avoid making the same mistakes today.
Some of the New Deal's most important initiatives were active obstacles to economic renewal. The National Recovery Administration (NRA), created in 1933 to help stabilize the volatile economy, was enormously popular for a time, mostly because it created the illusion of forceful action. The NRA sought to help corporations cooperate with one another in keeping production low and prices up, effectively creating cartels. This effort proved almost impossible to administer: No one in the federal government had any experience or expertise in managing an economic project of this magnitude; control quickly moved to the corporations themselves, with no better results. But the NRA was even worse when it worked as it was supposed to, because its goal was exactly the opposite of what the economy needed: Instead of expanding economic activity, the NRA worked to constrict it. At the same time, the Federal Reserve Board--operating under classical economic assumptions--saw the economic wreckage around it and responded by raising interest rates so as to protect the solvency of the Federal Reserve Bank itself. No one today would even consider high interest rates in a slumping economy, but the Fed of the early 1930s had not absorbed new economic ideas that would later become almost universally accepted. (In fairness, this catastrophic mistake was not a product of New Deal policy, but few New Dealers recognized the magnitude of the error for years.)...
Posted on: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - 20:53
SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Ed (12-31-08)
Not one of the nearly 450 presidents of American colleges and universities who prominently denounced an effort by British academics to boycott Israeli universities in September 2007 have raised their voice in opposition to Israel’s bombardment of the Islamic University of Gaza earlier this week. Lee C. Bollinger, president of Columbia University, who organized the petition, has been silent, as have his co-signatories from Princeton, Northwestern, and Cornell Universities, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Most others who signed similar petitions, like the 11,000 professors from nearly 1,000 universities around the world, have also refrained from expressing their outrage at Israel’s attack on the leading university in Gaza. The artfully named Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, which organized the latter appeal, has said nothing about the assault.
While the extent of the damage to the Islamic University, which was hit in six separate airstrikes, is still unknown, recent reports indicate that at least two major buildings were targeted, a science laboratory and the Ladies’ Building, where female students attended classes. There were no casualties, as the university was evacuated when the Israeli assault began on Saturday.
Virtually all the commentators agree that the Islamic University was attacked, in part, because it is a cultural symbol of Hamas, the ruling party in the elected Palestinian government, which Israel has targeted in its continuing attacks in Gaza. Mysteriously, hardly any of the news coverage has emphasized the educational significance of the university, which far exceeds its cultural or political symbolism.
Established in 1978 by the founder of Hamas — with the approval of Israeli authorities — the Islamic University is the first and most important institution of higher education in Gaza, serving more than 20,000 students, 60 percent of whom are women. It comprises 10 faculties — education, religion, art, commerce, Shariah law, science, engineering, information technology, medicine, and nursing — and awards a variety of bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Taking into account that Palestinian universities have been regionalized because Palestinian students from Gaza are barred by Israel from studying either in the West Bank or abroad, the educational significance of the Islamic University becomes even more apparent....
Posted on: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - 15:48
SOURCE: Real Clear Politics (12-29-08)
By July, we will come to feel that 2009 will be one of the most upbeat years in our history, as what used to be the news media∗ begins to get behind America and report on all the mysteriously wonderful things that are suddenly taking place.
All the campaign talk of the Great Depression, a Vietnam-like war, and our shredded Constitution will now thankfully subside as the Obama administration assumes office and solves problems with conciliation, dialogue, and multilateral wisdom, rather than shrillness, unilateralism, preemption, and my-way-or-the-highway dogmatism. We will hear that, by historical levels, unemployment is still not that bad, that GDP growth is not historically all that low, and that deficits, inflation, interest rates, and housing starts are all within manageable parameters. "Depression" will transmogrify into "recession" which in turn by July will be a "downturn" and by year next an "upswing" on its way to boom times.
Indeed, almost supernaturally crises will be solved with the departure of the hated Bush: no more flooding streets from cracked water mains that were a result of a President's neglect of infrastructure, and no more spontaneous crashes of Mississippi River bridges due to diversions of critical federal aid from cash-strapped states to Iraq. And when the temperatures rise or drop, the wind howls, the clouds burst forth or go away, the snow melts or piles up, it will be, well, nature that caused the havoc, not the current occupant of the White House who failed to sign Kyoto.
As we watch the innocent die from natural mayhem, it will be due to the breakdown of local responders who now suddenly kill people, not federal inaction--except perhaps for an occasional few Bush federal holdovers that have not yet been rooted out. Human nature, of course, now will be seen more culpable, more selfish, as in needlessly resisting wise and caring federal interventions, rather than being inherently noble but shunned by an uncaring Washington. Yes, when dikes collapse and planes collide on crowed runways, it will be due to a cruel and unpredictable nature, or intrinsic design flaws, or improper local use and maintenance, or the past President's nefarious legacy, not current government policies. (But if you still must bash the government, it will be wise to do it in 1950s style of inattentive state and local officials, prone to regional and tribal prejudices, blocking the infinite wisdom of a caring federal government.)
Some military action abroad could be necessary--and necessarily reported on as measured and reluctant, rather than cowboyish and gratuitous. European whining will be a result of miscommunications or the Euros' unfair caricatures of Americans, not Bush's alienation of allies. If radical Islam strikes, it will be, well, radical again and sometimes even dangerous, not a figment of neocon pipe dreams. If an administration official quits, goes on 60 Minutes, and writes a nasty tell-all book about Obama's insensitivity and his government's directionless ennui, he will be a heretic, a whiner, a turncoat, not a truth teller or brave maverick who blew the whistle in need of a bestseller hyped from NPR to the New York Times. We will come again to hate the filibuster, obstructionist Congressional policies, and the occasional loud-mouthed Senator who voices slurs against our nation in unpatriotic fashion....
Posted on: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - 22:09
SOURCE: CNN (12-29-08)
Congressman Charles Rangel's fate hangs in the balance as a report concerning the Ways and Means Committee chairman is being prepared for release in early January.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she is waiting for the report from the House Ethics Committee before deciding what to do about several allegations against Rangel.
He's under investigation for allegedly using formal letterhead to solicit donations to a school to be named in his honor; helping one donor's company keep a tax loophole; having unreported income from a vacation villa; and having several rent-controlled apartments at below market rates, including one set up for his campaign operations in violation of state and local laws.
Democrats will have to decide what to do with Rangel. But it would be a mistake to only focus on punishing Rangel, if he is guilty, and not on the underlying issues that have been raised by this scandal.
We should remember that Rangel is not the first chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee to find himself in political hot water. Rangel could join a cohort of powerful Ways and Means chairmen who have met notorious fates.
The chairmanship is a position that elevates legislators to the nexus of political and private interest group power. The temptation to abuse the position has been overwhelming to some.
The most famous case was Wilbur Mills, the Arkansan who controlled the committee from 1959 to 1974. Mills was one of the most important men in Washington in the 1960s. Mills helped design Medicare and shaped the income-tax system.
The scandal that brought him down centered on his relationship with an Argentinean stripper, named Fanne Foxe. The two were caught in a Lincoln Continental that was speeding near the Tidal Basin.
When the Park Police stopped the car, the stripper jumped out and ran into the water. Mills trailed her. Voters re-elected Mills the following month, but when he joined her on stage and appeared drunk at her first public performance after the Tidal Basin incident, Democrats stripped him of his power.
While the sex scandal was the straw that brought him down, Mills was already the focus of attention from younger reformers.
The relationship between Mills and powerful interest groups, such as the oil industry, had become the subject of investigations following his unsuccessful campaign for the presidency in 1972.
There was substantial evidence that Mills had received campaign funds from lobbyists who maintained close ties to the committee. Reformers also resented Mills because he had used committee power to stifle younger liberals who opposed him.
When he appeared drunk in Boston, Massachusetts, this was an opportunity to force him to step down and to weaken Ways and Means. Reformers created subcommittees to decentralize power in Ways and Means and passed sunshine laws that opened the legislative process to greater public scrutiny.
Mills was part of the reason the Democratic Caucus passed reforms that empowered the party leaders over committee chairs, who used to be more autonomous. Campaign finance laws in 1974 created limits on campaign contributions and created an independent commission, the FEC, to oversee elections....
Looking back to the Mills era, Democrats and Republicans should use the problems that became evident with Rangel to push for the kinds of lobbying reforms that have been missing, even after the Jack Abramoff scandals. The House made some progress with an ethics bill after the 2006 midterm elections, but with three major shortcomings.
The first was that Congress did not create an independent body to monitor legislative misbehavior. Without such a commission, it is unlikely Congress will ever enforce the rules.
The second is that the new rules did not create strong prohibitions on the revolving door between K Street and Capitol Hill.
Finally, the reforms were silent on campaign finance. Until legislators are no longer dependent on private money for re-election, lobbyists will always be able to gain access to Congress.
If Congress simply uses the Rangel scandal to punish Rangel, their action won't accomplish much in the long-term. With revelations from the case of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Democrats should feel even more pressure to act.
We will soon have a president in the White House who campaigned on the promise of a new kind of politics.
He should work with Congress to deal with the core issues that lead members of the legislative branch to abuse their power and seek reforms that will diminish the number of times we have to go through these stories.
Posted on: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - 22:02
SOURCE: WSJ (12-29-08)
A quarter century has passed since Israel last claimed to go to war in the name of peace.
"Operation Peace for Galilee" -- Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon -- failed to convince the international public and even many Israelis that its goal was to promote reconciliation between Israel and the Arab world. In fact, the war had precisely the opposite results, preparing the way for Yasser Arafat's disastrous return to the West Bank and Gaza, and for Hezbollah's ultimate domination of Lebanon. And yet, Israel's current operation in Gaza is essential for creating the conditions that could eventually lead to a two-state solution.
Over the past two decades, a majority of Israelis have shifted from adamant opposition to Palestinian statehood to acknowledging the need for such a state. This transformation represented a historic victory for the Israeli left, which has long advocated Palestinian self-determination. The left's victory, though, remained largely theoretical: The right won the practical argument that no amount of concessions would grant international legitimacy to Israel's right to defend itself.
That was the unavoidable lesson of the failure of the Oslo peace process, which ended in the fall of 2000 with Israel's acceptance of President Bill Clinton's proposal for near-total withdrawal from East Jerusalem and the territories. The Palestinians responded with five years of terror.
Yet much of the international community blamed Israel for the violence and repeatedly condemned its efforts at self-defense. The experience left a deep wound in the Israeli psyche. It intimidated Israeli leaders from taking security measures liable to be denounced by the United Nations and the European Union, or worse, result in sanctions against the Jewish state.
One consequence was an Israeli reluctance to respond to periodic Hezbollah provocations following Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000. This hesitancy allowed the Shiite terror organization to amass a rocket arsenal with the proclaimed intent of devastating Israel's population centers....
Gaza is the test case. Much more is at stake than merely the military outcome of Israel's operation. The issue, rather, is Israel's ability to restore its deterrence power and uphold the principle that its citizens cannot be targeted with impunity....
Posted on: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - 19:21
SOURCE: Daniel Pipes Blog (12-30-08)
2) Palestinians have proven themselves more competent at the p.r. battle than the Israeli government, winning public support everywhere — with the lone but decisive exceptions of Israel and the United States.
3) Secondarily, Hamas's defiance should be seen in light of Iranian ambitions to wear down the Israeli body politic.
4) Most Arab regimes so fear Tehran that they can barely bestir themselves to denounce Israel's war on Hamas, much less do anything.
5) The PLO's Mahmoud Abbas condemns Israeli actions as intensely as he roots for the Israel Defense Forces to destroy Hamas.
6) The moral opprobrium for Palestinian rockets raining down on Israeli towns falls entirely on the Palestinians and their enablers.
7) Israel has made astounding tactical mistakes, including the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, long years of passively enduring rockets, and tacit acceptance of elaborate smuggling tunnels from Egypt to Gaza.
8) The IDF has learned from tactical mistakes made in 2006.
9) Still, the Israeli war effort remains problematic. For example, an unnamed Israeli defense official was quoted saying "Hamas knows our demands, and there's no use to talking about them publicly." Since when does one signal military intentions to the enemy and hide them from one's own population?
10) The Israeli goal should be victory, not ending terrorism.
11) The Bush administration must not save Hamas.
12) Nor should the Obama administration save Hamas.
Posted on: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - 18:05
SOURCE: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices (12-29-08)
Recently the Muslim Council of India sent an important message to the world's Muslims. It asked one of the country's largest Muslim graveyards, Marine Lines Bada Qabrastan, where unclaimed bodies are often interred, to deny burial rites to the nine men who died after terrorizing Mumbai. Refusal to bury the terrorists in a Muslim cemetery signifies not just that terrorist attacks are un-Islamic, a contention often heard, but that their perpetrators become, by carrying these acts, non-Muslim."They cannot be Muslims or followers of Islam," declared Muslim Council president Ibrahim Tai,"so they cannot have a final resting place anywhere on sacred Mother India."
The question then arises, what should India do with the dead bodies?
Options range from repatriating the terrorists to Pakistan, where apparently they were trained, to dumping the corpses at sea, naked, and far from India's shores. The Muslim Council has said it does not care what happens to them, as long as they are disposed of outside of India.
Ordinarily, Muslims hasten to bury the dead as soon as possible after the moment of death. But in this case the bodies of the nine terrorists will remain in a Mumbai morgue until the government can reach a decision on what to do, and that may take some time. (Mateen Hafeez, the reporter who broke the story for the"Times of India," wrote to me that several weeks could easily pass before the Mumbai police takes action, in consultation with the Ministries of External and Home Affairs. Legal hurdles may well emerge, if relatives claim the bodies or if religious organizations contest the deceased men's right to cremation or burial.) Meanwhile Indians are engaged in a riveting debate on whether to treat the corpses with dignity--or not. It is, in fact, very important to think this matter through.
A failure to handle the bodies properly might exacerbate tensions between India and Pakistan, and lead to Muslim-Hindu acrimony. Yet the government cannot just leave the dead for eternity in the Sir J.J. Hospital mortuary. It must act soon and decisively, so as not to squander a precious opportunity to make a powerful symbolic statement against terrorism.
Shipping the bodies to Pakistan may seem like a good idea, a way to say to that country,"Here, deal with your terrorists." But Pakistan might well grant the terrorists a Muslim burial, Indians would become furious, and foreign relations between the countries would further deteriorate.
Another option for the Muslim Council to entertain is a symbolic inversion of Islamic death rituals. Normally, Muslims who die an ordinary death are wrapped in shrouds, which envelop the entire body; they are deposited in the grave on their right side and facing Mecca, the direction of Muslim prayers; and ideally a community of forty or more Muslims gathers to intercede with God on their behalf. Martyrs undergo different treatment. According to the Shari'a they should be buried in the battlefield in whatever clothes they were wearing at the time of death, with dirt, bloodstains, and all. They need no funerary prayer to enjoy the afterlife. Martyrdom alone guarantees their salvation. Terrorists would rejoice at the prospect of burial outside of a Muslim cemetery, in their old clothes, without a prayer, for such a fashion of corpse disposal actually resembles what Islamic law prescribes for martyrs.
Why not bury the dead only in yellow underwear, leaving the body shamefully exposed? In the grave, the corpse can be contorted and made to face away from Mecca, because that posture is considered a sign of eternal damnation, a sign that the dead will be tortured in the grave and perhaps refused entry into Paradise. Forty or more Muslims would then gather at the graveside, not to intercede on behalf of the terrorists, but against them. According to an authoritative Islamic tradition, Muslims act as"God's witnesses on earth." When they choose to disparage, rather than to pray, for wicked persons, Hell-Fire will be their certain destination.
But there exist risks in carrying out a cathartic fantasy that would strike everyone as bizarre, merciless and inhumane.
Cremating the dead and scattering the ashes in international waters, as Israel did after executing Adolf Eichmann in 1962, is the best option. Because Islamic law opposes cremation for Muslims, who believe in the physical resurrection of the body, incineration alone would signify a non-Muslim way of disposing of the dead. The ritual would have special significance for India's Muslims, who know that the country's Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists favor this form of corpse disposal. Depositing the ashes at sea would prevent the establishment of a memorial for the deceased, and it would convey the view that terrorism is an international problem.
There is a potential obstacle, however. The Shari'a recommends burial in the earth for unclaimed bodies, of Muslims and others. Consequently, individual Muslims have already begun warning, and circulating petitions, against incineration. Yet the Shari'a allows non-Muslims to carry out their own death rites, in accordance with their own religious laws. If Indian Muslims can agree, then, that the terrorists died as non-Muslims and that burning their bodies is the optimal solution, they simply need to urge the government to dispatch the corpses to the crematorium after ruling on their lack of religion.
Cremation would neither shame the bodies of dead terrorists, nor haunt the minds of would-be terrorists, as powerfully as would a symbolic inversion of standard Muslim rites. But it would convey an effective, reasonable and humanistic message to the world: that a Muslim who commits terrorism dies excommunicated, as an infidel.
Posted on: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - 17:20
SOURCE: Frontpagemag.com (12-24-08)
Two events earlier this month summed up differing views of George W. Bush's Middle East record.
In one, Bush himself offered a valedictory speech, declaring that"the Middle East in 2008 is a freer, more hopeful, and more promising place than it was in 2001." In the other, an Iraqi journalist, Muntadar al-Zaidi, expressed disrespect and rejection by hurling shoes at Bush as the U.S. president spoke in Baghdad, yelling at him,"This is a farewell kiss! Dog! Dog!"
Ironically, Zaidi's very impudence confirmed Bush's point about greater freedom; would he have dared to throw shoes at Saddam Hussein?
While I like and think well of Bush, I have criticized his response to radical Islam since 2001, his Arab-Israeli policy since 2002, his Iraq policy since 2003, and his democracy policy since 2005. In both 2007 and 2008, I critiqued the shortcomings of his overall Middle East efforts.
Today, I take issue with his claim that the Middle East is more hopeful and more promising than in 2001. Count some of the ways things have degenerated:
- Iran has nearly built nuclear weapons and appears to be planning for a devastating electro-magnetic pulse attack on the United States.
- Pakistan is on its way to becoming a nuclear-armed, Islamist rogue state.
- The price of oil reached an all-time high, only to collapse due to a U.S.-led recession.
- Turkey went from being a stalwart ally to the most anti-American country in the world.
- Iraq remains an albatross (or a pair of shoes?) around the American neck, incurring expenses, fatalities, and with an immense potential for danger.
- Rejection of Israel's existence as a Jewish state has become more widespread and virulent.
- Russia has re-emerged as a hostile force in the region.
- Democracy efforts have collapsed (Egypt), increased Islamist influence (Lebanon), or paved the way for Islamists to attain power (Gaza).
- The doctrine of preemption has been discredited.
Bush's two successes, an Iraq without Saddam Hussein and a Libya without WMD, hardly balance out these failures.
Unsurprisingly, Bush's critics excoriate his Middle East record. Fine, but now that they are almost in the driver's seat; exactly how do they intend to fix America's Middle East policy?
 "Restoring the Balance" offers defeatist policy recommendations. |
This reader is struck by two major deficiencies. First, while the book covers six topics (the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iran, Iraq, counterterrorism, nuclear proliferation, and political and economic development), its specialists have almost nothing to say about Islamism, the most pressing ideological challenge of our time, nor about the Iranian nuclear buildup, the most urgent military danger of our time. They also manage to bypass such issues as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Arab rejectionism of Israel, the Russian danger, and the transfer of wealth to energy-exporting states.
Second, the study offers defeatist policy recommendations."Bring Hamas into the fold" advise Steven A. Cook and Shibley Telhami, arguing that the terrorist organization be included in a"Palestinian unity government" and be urged to accept the ill-fated Abdullah Plan of 2002. It is hard to imagine a single more counterproductive policy in the Arab-Israeli theater.
On the topic of Iran, Suzanne Maloney and Ray Takeyh dismiss both a U.S. strike against the Iranian nuclear infrastructure and the policy of containment. Instead, in a far-fetched"paradigm change," they urge engagement with Tehran, the acknowledgment of" certain unpalatable realities" (such as growing Iranian power), and crafting"a framework for the regulation" of Iranian influence.
As these examples suggest, a spirit of weakness and appeasement permeates Restoring the Balance. What happened to the promised robust promotion of American interests?
If one hopes the Obama administration will ignore such despairing pablum, one also fears that the Brookings-CFR mindset will dominate the next years. Should that be the case, Bush's record, however inadequate it looks today, would shine in comparison to his successor's.
Posted on: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - 16:38
SOURCE: NYT (12-29-08)
MANY Israelis feel that the walls — and history — are closing in on their 60-year-old state, much as they felt in early June 1967, just before Israel launched the Six-Day War and destroyed the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian armies in Sinai, the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
More than 40 years ago, the Egyptians had driven a United Nations peacekeeping force from the Sinai-Israel border, had closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping and air traffic and had deployed the equivalent of seven armored and infantry divisions on Israel’s doorstep. Egypt had signed a series of military pacts with Syria and Jordan and placed troops in the West Bank. Arab radio stations blared messages about the coming destruction of Israel.
Israelis, or rather, Israeli Jews, are beginning to feel much the way their parents did in those apocalyptic days. Israel is a much more powerful and prosperous state today. In 1967 there were only some 2 million Jews in the country — today there are about 5.5 million — and the military did not have nuclear weapons. But the bulk of the population looks to the future with deep foreboding.
The foreboding has two general sources and four specific causes. The general problems are simple. First, the Arab and wider Islamic worlds, despite Israeli hopes since 1948 and notwithstanding the peace treaties signed by Egypt and Jordan in 1979 and 1994, have never truly accepted the legitimacy of Israel’s creation and continue to oppose its existence.
Second, public opinion in the West (and in democracies, governments can’t be far behind) is gradually reducing its support for Israel as the West looks askance at the Jewish state’s treatment of its Palestinian neighbors and wards. The Holocaust is increasingly becoming a faint and ineffectual memory and the Arab states are increasingly powerful and assertive....
Posted on: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - 14:22
SOURCE: Guardian (UK) (12-29-08)
The first bombardment took three minutes and 40 seconds. Sixty Israeli F-16 fighter jets bombed 50 sites in Gaza, killing more than 200 Palestinians, and wounding close to 1,000 more.
A few hours after the deadly strike, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert convened a press conference in Tel-Aviv. With foreign minister Tzipi Livni sitting on his right and defence minister Ehud Barak on his left, he declared: "It may take time, and each and every one of us must be patient so we can complete the mission."
But what exactly, one might ask, is Israel's mission?
Although Olmert did not say as much, the "mission" includes four distinct objectives.
The first is the destruction of Hamas, a totally unrealistic goal. Even though the loss of hundreds of cadres and some key leaders will no doubt hurt the organisation, Hamas is a robust political movement with widespread grassroots support, and it is unlikely to surrender or capitulate to Israeli demands following a military assault. Ironically, Israel's attempt to destroy Hamas using military force has always ended up strengthening the organisation, thus corroborating the notion that power produces its own vulnerability.
The second objective has to do with Israel's coming elections. The assault on Gaza is also being carried out to help Kadima and Labour defeat Likud and its leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who is currently ahead in the polls. It is not coincidental that Netanyahu's two main competitors, Livni and Barak, were invited to the press conference – since, after the assault, it will be more difficult for Netanyahu to characterise them as "soft" on the Palestinians. Whether or not the devastation in Gaza will help Livni defeat Netanyahu or help Barak gain votes in the February elections is difficult to say, but the strategy of competing with a warmonger like Netanyahu by beating the drums of war says a great deal about all three major contenders.
The third objective involves the Israeli military. After its notable humiliation in Lebanon during the summer of 2006, the IDF has been looking for opportunities to re-establish its global standing. Last spring it used Syria as its laboratory and now it has decided to focus on Gaza. Emphasising the mere three minutes and 40 seconds it took to bomb 50 sites is just one the ways the Israeli military aims to restore its international reputation.
Finally, Hamas and Fatah have not yet reached an agreement regarding how to proceed when Mahmoud Abbas ends his official term as president of the Palestinian National Authority on January 9. One of the outcomes of this assault is that Abbas will remain in power for a while longer since Hamas will be unable to mobilise its supporters in order to force him to resign.
What is clearly missing from this list of Israeli objectives is the attempt to halt the firing of Qassam rockets into Israel's southern towns. Unlike the objectives I mentioned, which are not discussed by government officials, this one is presented by the government as the operation's primary objective. Yet, the government is actively misleading the public, since Israel could have put an end to the rockets a long time ago. Indeed, there was relative quiet during the six-months truce with Hamas, a quiet that was broken most often as a reaction to Israeli violence: that is, following the extra-judicial execution of a militant or the imposition of a total blockade which prevented basic goods, like food stuff and medicine, from entering the Gaza Strip. Rather than continuing the truce, the Israeli government has once again chosen to adopt strategies of violence that are tragically akin to the ones deployed by Hamas; only, the Israeli ones are much more lethal.
If the Israeli government really cared about its citizens and the country's long term ability to sustain itself in the Middle East, it would abandon the use of violence and talk with its enemies.
Posted on: Monday, December 29, 2008 - 20:46
SOURCE: NYT (12-26-08)
Long-Term Capital was advised by finance quants, or quantitative analysts, who made a number of unsound, esoteric bets, including investments in interest rate derivatives. When Russia’s inability to pay its debts roiled global markets, the fund, saddled with high-leverage and off-balance-sheet obligations, was near collapse.
Because Long-Term Capital owed large sums to banks and other financial institutions, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York organized a consortium of companies to buy it out and cover the debts. Alan Greenspan, then the Fed chairman, eased monetary policy to restart capital markets, which were starting to freeze up. Long-Term Capital’s shareholders were wiped out, but none of the creditors took losses.
At the time, it may have seemed that regulators did the right thing. The bailout did not require upfront money from the government, and the world avoided an even bigger financial crisis. Today, however, that ad hoc intervention by the government no longer looks so wise. With the Long-Term Capital bailout as a precedent, creditors came to believe that their loans to unsound financial institutions would be made good by the Fed — as long as the collapse of those institutions would threaten the global credit system. Bolstered by this sense of security, bad loans mushroomed.
Of course, there were many reasons for the reckless lending and failures of risk management that led to the most recent systemic credit shocks. And we have now entered the realm of trillion-dollar bailouts, vast contagion across financial institutions, rapid deleveraging of banks and an economic crisis that some people are starting to compare to the Great Depression.
The Long-Term Capital episode looks small when viewed against all of that. But it was important precisely because the fund was not a major firm....
Posted on: Monday, December 29, 2008 - 19:34
SOURCE: Sandbox, a blog run by Martin Kramer (12-29-08)
It was December of an election year, and President Bush was winding up his term. The newly elected Democrat was waiting in the wings. In Israel, a prime minister who seemed committed to the "peace process" decided to put an end, once and for all, to the threat posed by Hamas to Israel's citizens. The prime minister took a bold move, and entrusted Ehud Barak to do the job.
No, this scenario isn't December 2008. It's December 1992. The outgoing president was George H.W. Bush; the incoming one, Bill Clinton. The Israeli prime minister was Yitzhak Rabin; Ehud Barak held the post of IDF Chief of Staff. The bold move? The deportation of 415 Hamas activists from the West Bank and Gaza to south Lebanon, following Hamas's killing of four Israeli soldiers, and its abduction-murder of a border policeman. Those expelled included Ismail Haniyeh, now the Hamas "prime minister," and Mahmud az-Zahar, today its "foreign minister." Israel announced that the deportation would be "temporary," for two years, and that it was required by the "state of emergency" engendered by Hamas attacks.
Israel's action caused an international uproar. The Palestinians claimed that Israel had violated the Fourth Geneva Convention, and the images from south Lebanon, where the deportees camped out in tents in a winter landscape, boomeranged on Israel. Even the United States wouldn't stand by Rabin. The U.N. Security Council passed a unanimous resolution which "strongly condemns the action taken by Israel, the occupying power, to deport hundreds of Palestinian civilians." U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger said the deportation would raise "a lot of serious problems for the peace process," which the Bush administration wanted to keep "in as a good a shape as we can between now and when Clinton comes in." Israel soon found itself capitulating—offering to take back some of the deportees, and eventually, within less than a year, all of them. By all reckonings, Israel was defeated politically; Hamas emerged strengthened.
Time and again, Hamas has been saved by the West's (uneven) application of its principles, only to terrorize another day. It happened again during the George W. Bush administration which, in the name of the vaunted ideals of democracy, allowed Hamas to participate in Palestinian legislative elections—without requiring it to dismantle its terrorist apparatus or accept Israel. Hamas then turned its unexpected electoral victory into a coup in Gaza, acquiring a territorial foothold. Its leaders, who once stood in the freezing rain on a hill in Lebanon, have become rulers of an Islamist principality, where firing indiscriminately into Israel is a sacred ritual that affirms the Palestinian so-called "right of resistance."
A lot has changed since 1992, and this Bush administration, having waged its own "war on terror," seems to understand the obvious: that this is the last chance to reduce Hamas to its true proportions, lest the "peace process" finally become the lost cause it's often appeared to be. But will the United States hold the line alone? Already the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, a kid think-tanker back in 1992, has decided that the level of civilian casualties in Israel's operation is "unacceptable." (More precisely, he said that "any innocent loss of life is unacceptable," which sets a new standard for modern warfare—one that Britain has never once upheld.) The West is forming a line to throw yet another life preserver to a terrorist gang that has become a terrorist entity, and that needs just a little more indulgence to become a terrorist state.
Twice, presidents named Bush have done Hamas big favors. These favors were inadvertent, but they were game-changers. It's time for a President Bush to do Israel a favor, and let it shove Hamas up against the wall, or right through the wall, depending on what's still feasible. No doubt President Bush would have preferred to leave office with a tidy "peace process," good to go. But who couldn't hear the Hamas bomb ticking in the corner? Better Israel defuse it now, than have it go off under Barack Obama just when he's trying to defuse an even bigger bomb-making operation—in Iran.
Posted on: Monday, December 29, 2008 - 19:12
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Iraq has called upon Arab and Muslim nations to support the Palestinians in Gaza with more than lip service. Iran's PressTv translated the statement this way:
'"Condemning what is going on in Gaza and supporting our brothers only with words is meaningless, considering the big tragedy they are facing . . . Arab and Islamic nations need to take a decisive stance, now more than ever, to end these ongoing aggressions and to break the unjust siege imposed on the brave people of Gaza . . ."
The relatively secular governments of Egypt and Jordan do not like fundamentalist Hamas, and they are implicitly or in Egypt's case actively cooperating with Israel to weaken Hamas. Iran, which supports Hamas, is seeking a propaganda coup in the Middle East over this issue. That is to be expected. Sistani's forceful call for practical action, on the other, shows an increased militancy and self-assuredness on the part of the Shiite authorities in Iraq. The prospect of a quick US withdrawal may be helping fuel this confidence.
Aswat al-Iraq reports in Arabic that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the leading Shiite party in parliament, also came out strongly on behalf of the Gazans.
The Israeli bombardment of Gaza entered its third day on Monday, as the prospect of a possible land invasion loomed, with Israel massing tanks on the border.
What I can't understand is the end game here. The Israelis have pledged to continue their siege of the civilians of Gaza, and have threatened to resume assassinating Hamas political leaders, along with the bombardment. The campaign of brutal assassinations launched by Ariel Sharon earlier in this decade were, Sharon, promised us, guaranteed to wipe out Hamas altogether. Do the Israelis expect the population at some point to turn against Hamas, blaming it for the blockade and the bombardment? But by destroying what was left of the Gaza middle class, surely they a throwing people into the arms of Hamas. The US experience of bombing North Vietnam and mining Haiphong Harbor, etc., was that it only stiffened Hanoi's resolve. The massive Israeli bombardment of Lebanon in 2006 did not achieve any significant objectives. In fact, Hezbollah was politically strengthened; it now sits in the Lebanese cabinet and has been recognized as a formal national guard for the south of the country. Its stock of rockets has been replenished. There is a UN buffer now, but in the past such buffers have been removed when hostilities threaten.
If the Gaza population doesn't turn on Hamas, and Israeli measures don't destroy the organization (which they helped create and fund back in the late 1980s when they wanted a foil to the secular PLO), then what? They'll just go on half-starving Gaza's children for decades? Malnourished children have diminished IQ and poor impulse control. That would make them ideal suicide bombers. Plus, sooner or later there will start to be effective boycotts of Israel in Europe and elsewhere over these war crimes. The Israeli economy would be vulnerable to such moves.
Of course, there are only 1.5 million Gazans, and they increasingly are being forced to live in Haiti-like conditions, so in the short term the Israelis can do whatever they want to them. But I can't see this ending well for the Israelis in the long term. Very few insurgencies end because one side achieves a complete military victory (I think it is about 20%). But by refusing to negotiate with Hamas, Israel and the United States leave only a military option on the table. The military option isn't going to resolve the problem by itself. Gaza is a labyrinth. Those Qassam rockets are easy to make. There is so much money sloshing around the Middle East and so many sympathetic Muslims that Gaza will be kept just barely afloat economically, making Hamas hard to dislodge. And the Israeli blockade of Gaza is so distasteful to the world that eventually there is likely to be a painful price to pay for it by the Israelis.
Among the 210 targets hit by Israeli airstrikes this weekend was the campus of the Islamic University. Israel also bombed the Interior Ministry.
The Washington Post reports a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where the death toll from Israeli air strikes has reached 300 with 1300 wounded, 235 of them wounded. WaPo writes:
'Humanitarian aid groups sounded the alarm Sunday about what they described as a deteriorating medical situation in the strip and urged the opening of Gaza's borders to allow supplies to flow to hospitals. There are growing shortages of vital medicines and equipment, the aid workers said."There are hundreds of wounded in the hospitals in the Gaza Strip, and what we have received so far has only been a fraction of our need. Our supplies have been depleted, and we are in desperate need for supplies," said Iyad Nasr, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza."We ask the parties to avoid striking the civilian population on both sides." '
Aljazeera English gives video on Gaza hospitals struggling to treat civilians wounded by Israeli airstrikes. The hospitals' ability to treat had already been degraded by the long Israeli blockade of Gaza.
The link for this entry is http://tinyurl.com/9c5eow
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Sunday, December 28, 2008
230 Killed, 388 Wounded in 100 Israeli Air strikes on Gaza;
Challenge for US, Obama
Aljazeera English reports on the Israeli air strikes on Gaza, which have killed 230 persons, a third of them civilians and wounded 388. The other 2/3s were largely Palestinian policemen, as Israeli warplanes targeted 32 police stations, maintaining that they are essentially Hamas foot soldiers. The 100 air sorties killed the Gaza chief of police and other officials, including individuals Israeli intelligence had fingered as masterminds of the rocket attacks on Israel.
The outbreak of hostilities affects Americans, since al-Qaeda hit New York and the Pentagon in some important part over the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians. The airstrikes and large death toll also present a challenge to the incoming Obama administration, which may find peace-making more difficult now.
The UN Security Council held a special evening session on Saturday and issued a call for an immediate ceasefire. The attacks drew a furious response from the Arab world. Egypt, which has collaborated with Israel in blockading the Gazans, branded its partner's air strikes"murder." The US, which for some odd reason holds an irrational hatred of the Palestinians, branded the dead Gaza policemen"thugs" and blamed the massive aerial strikes solely on Hamas, the fundamentalist Muslim party that controls Gaza.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, outgoing president of the European Union, issued among the more measured responses:"The President of the Republic expresses his lively concern at the escalation of violence in the south of Israel and in the Gaza Strip. He firmly condemns the irresponsible provocations that have led to this situation as well as the use of disproportionate force. The president of the republic deplores the significant loss of civilian life and expresses his condolences to the innocent victims and their families."
Sarkozy"requests an immediate cessation of rocket fire directed at Israel as well as of Israeli bombardment of Gaza, and he calls on the parties to exercise self-restraint. He reminds everyone that there is no military solution to Gaza, and demands the implementation of a durable truce."
This statement, which I seem to be the only news source to present in full in English, seems to me to be the best issued by any head of state on this particular incident, and shames the insensitive and one-sided statement issued on behalf of the US by Gordon Johndroe.
Israel blames Hamas for primitive homemade rocket attacks on the nearby Israeli city of Sederot. In 2001-2008, these rockets killed about 15 Israelis and injured 433, and they have damaged property. In the same period, Gazan mortar attacks on Israel have killed 8 Israelis.
Since the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, Israelis have killed nearly 5000 Palestinians, nearly a thousand of them minors. Since fall of 2007, Israel has kept the 1.5 million Gazans under a blockade, interdicting food, fuel and medical supplies to one degree or another. Wreaking collective punishment on civilian populations such as hospital patients denied needed electricity is a crime of war.
The Israelis on Saturday killed 5% of all the Palestinians they have killed since the beginning of 2001! 230 people were slaughtered in a day, over 70 of them innocent civilians. In contrast, from the ceasefire Hamas announced in June, 2008 until Saturday, no Israelis had been killed by Hamas. The infliction of this sort of death toll is known in the law of war as a disproportionate response, and it is a war crime.
Posted on: Monday, December 29, 2008 - 16:49
SOURCE: History News Service (12-29-08)
President-elect Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan has provoked comparisons with Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Like Roosevelt, Obama is promising to pull the country out of a depression with massive job creation through infrastructure spending. But, like FDR before him, it looks as if Obama is on his way to neglecting women.
An injustice then, it would be even worse now. Nearly half of America's wage-earners are female and they're suffering proportionately from the economic downturn. Any fair spending plan must therefore ensure that women have equal access to the jobs that federal money creates or sustains.
New Dealers treated jobs for women as an afterthought. As one official told Eleanor Roosevelt in 1935, "For unskilled men, we have the shovel. For unskilled women, we have only the needle." Obama's plan seems to be giving the same low priority to female workers by focusing on "green" jobs and infrastructure improvements that are likely mainly to employ men.
From 1933 through 1943, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, Civil Works Administration, and Works Progress Administration (WPA) employed from 1.4 to 4.4 million people each month. To preserve men's status as principal breadwinners, the Roosevelt administration gave the best jobs to white men and minimized the number of women eligible for work relief. The administration maintained the federal Economy Act, which limited civil service positions to one per family. By January 1934, only 300,000 out of four million jobless women -- 12 percent -- had found government jobs.
In planning his jobs programs, Obama can certainly learn from the past. By its end in 1943, eight million men and women -- one fifth of the workforce -- had labored under the WPA. They built 2,500 hospitals, 5,900 schools, 1,000 airports, and 13,000 playgrounds.
But Obama should not follow his New Deal predecessors in prioritizing white men's employment. Women made up only one-sixth of WPA workers. The African-American and Mexican-American women who received jobs were largely restricted to domestic service projects. With federal wages based on prevailing rates in the private sector, women earned only 51 percent of what men did for work of comparable worth.
During the Depression, officials justified such policies by the idea that men were the primary breadwinners for their families. Women, they believed, merely earned "pin money," while African-American and Mexican-American families could make do on less.
But they were mistaken: in the 1930s, four million women were out of work, and they, too, had mouths to feed. Lone female wage-earners supported as many as one out of six urban families. Among African Americans, the rate was double.
Today, the situation for women is even graver. Women make up 46 percent of the labor force, and they're almost as likely as men to be the principal supporters of their families. Over 70 percent of both married and single mothers hold jobs. They earn money that is vital to paying mortgages and putting food on the table.
The problem with Obama's proposals is not simply that women are unlikely to qualify for the jobs he wants to create for rebuilding the nation's infrastructure. Some women could be trained to do "men's work," and the new administration should make a commitment to hire them for "non-traditional" employment.
But even if the stimulus package guarantees women an equal chance at the new jobs, it still won't address the occupational sectors in which most female wage-earners are concentrated, such as education, child care, social work, health care and care for elders and those with disabilities. These sectors are also marked by low wages and poor working conditions.
Addressing these issues makes sense in terms of the economy as well as for women's equality. Any successful recovery plan must focus on jobs that cannot be outsourced as well as those that open up new directions for economic growth. Service work, where women are concentrated, is here to stay. A forward-looking jobs program would recognize the value of the work that women are already doing and pay them at commensurate levels.
Integrating work performed primarily by women into the recovery package and infusing the jobs with new resources would be a way to ensure a living wage for the millions of women who provide the education, social services, and health care that are essential to creating and maintaining a productive labor force.
In this way, President-elect Obama and his team could both move toward a more sustainable economy and avoid repeating the mistakes of their New Deal predecessors.
Related Links
More than 1,000 American Historians Call for Equity in the Stimulus Package in an Open Letter to Obama
This piece was distributed for non-exclusive use by the History News Service, an informal syndicate of professional historians who seek to improve the public's understanding of current events by setting these events in their historical contexts. The article may be republished as long as both the author and the History News Service are clearly credited.
Posted on: Monday, December 29, 2008 - 15:37
SOURCE: http://bosqueboys.com (12-23-08)
Reflecting back on the star-crossed eight years of the George Bush administration, the outgoing chief executive might feel some gratitude to his predecessor. In a perverse way, Bill Clinton and his desperate campaign to retain power in the face of scandal probably saved the Bush presidency.
The framers designed impeachment as the ultimate (as in last resort) "check" against the misuse of executive and/or judicial power. Congress has used the weapon of impeachment sparingly over the course of American history. Two presidents, Washington and Jackson, when faced with a quarrelsome opposition in Congress, dared the legislative branch to impeach. On both occasions, Congress wisely demurred.
Jeffersonian Republicans (forerunners to the modern Democratic Party) pushed to consolidate gains against the Federalist Party and remove a troublesome remnant of the opposition within the judiciary. Through mostly good luck and/or providence, the scheme failed. In the aftermath of the Civil War, Radical Republicans attempted to remove the beleaguered Southern Unionist, Andrew Johnson. The Senate failed to convict the President (just barely), but the legislative succeeded in diminishing the executive for a generation. The power of the presidency did not make a real comeback until the administration of Theodore Roosevelt.
In 1974, a resurgent legislative branch finally succeeded in toppling a president. Although the House of Representatives never formally impeached him, Richard Nixon resigned once leaders of his own party assured him that he faced certain removal.
Enter Bill Clinton.
Initially, I believed that the low crimes and misbehavior of President Bill Clinton did not meet the threshold of constitutional removal from office, but it merited resignation. That is, although not quite impeachment-worthy, Bill Clinton's lying, cheating, and shameful behavior tainted the presidency and compromised the national security of the United States; therefore, an honorable President, made to confront his misdeeds, would have fallen on his public sword and slunk off into the shadows of American public life. But, alas, President Clinton did not see it that way, and he determined to hunker down and hold on to power with every ounce of his prodigious instinct for survival.
In the midst of his simultaneously craven and courageous full-court press to stay in office, I began to detest President Clinton and the gutter brawl he waged to preserve his power. Although I voted against him twice, it is important to note that I had never been a Clinton-hater before Monica. Before it was over, however, I loathed Bill Clinton and his entire team. In the heat of the moment, I cheered for impeachment, and I cursed the day he was acquitted (or "not proved") on all charges.
Today, I look back on impeachment sheepishly. Perhaps we over-reacted. Bill Clinton was pathologically untruthful, egregiously self-absorbed, and disdainful of many of the traditional social mores that serve to limit the worst excesses of human behavior. Worse, he seemed to view himself as above the law (although he was never formally charged with any criminal behavior).
On the other hand, we the citizenry duly elected him as president twice, and he clearly maintained the overwhelming support of the American people during the very worst of the revelations concerning his conduct. We got the leadership we desired. While the impeachment charges were serious and valid, they were also the product of overheated politics.
Looking back, the impeachment of Bill Clinton seems ill-advised, and his decision to eschew the myriad calls for resignation appears far-sighted. I grudgingly believe that he acted judiciously in riding out the storm. If he had left office under the pressure of the moment, the institution of the presidency would have suffered significant damage, and every president forward would have faced intense pressure to resign in moments of crisis and personal embarrassment.
More practically, one can reasonably argue that Bill Clinton's decision to fight for power, and his ultimate victory, saved the presidency of George Bush. Understanding the lessons of 1999, the Democrats of 2007 went to work to derail this president the old fashioned way (through obstructionism and violent calumny). Standing against fierce calls for impeachment proceedings from the left-wing fringe of the party, Democratic Leadership opted to wait for and work toward the Election of 2008 as the appropriate moment to chastise a president they had come to detest.
Who can doubt that an impeachment charade during the spring and summer of 2007 would have been a violently destructive and destabilizing national experience? Ironically, Bill Clinton's primal impulse to stand and fight back in 1998 played an essential role in securing our reprieve from a pathetic partisan show trial in 2007. Going forward, the consequences of the Clinton showdown will serve as a cautionary tale for any opposition majority. This is a good thing.
Posted on: Sunday, December 28, 2008 - 22:39
SOURCE: Pajamasmedia.com (12-21-08)
Consider aristocratic entitlement. Ms. Kennedy apparently spends a great deal of her time divided between her Park Avenue Upper-East-Side Manhattan townhouse and her hereditary estate on Martha’s Vineyard. She has had no real experience with the ordinary lives of New Yorkers, either a few dozen blocks away in Harlem (despite a sudden ad hoc lunch last week with the Rev. Sharpton at a soul food diner) or the state’s rural towns to the north.
Ms. Kennedy is about as undiverse as one could imagine. She was educated at exclusively private schools among those of her like race and class. Her financial security is due to either inheritance or marriage; there is no evidence of a self-employed stellar legal or business career. But there is plenty of evidence that Ms. Kennedy reflects the current Democratic Party’s obsession with celebrity and Hollywood-like imagery—as we see from the recent politicking of everyone from Oprah to Sean Penn, the Senate run of comedian Al Franken, and the messianic cult that surrounds Barack Obama, from his vero possumus Latin seal to his mass rallies with Greek temple backdrops.
Press reports suggest that the current political junkie Ms. Kennedy was an erratic voter in the past. In any case, her positions on both state and national issues are perhaps doctrinaire liberal in the Kenndyesque sense. But we can only assume, rather than know, that, since she has not in the past voiced any strong views about anything in any detail. Unlike dozens of veteran, hard-working and savvy New York state and federal office-holders in the Democratic Party, who would be both qualified and happy to serve out Sen. Clinton’s term, Ms. Kennedy has never run for, or held, public office. Her only prerequisites for Senator are her pedigree from her father and her purported celebrity mystique passed on from her mother Jackie. She certainly has shown none of Hillary Clinton’s grittiness, traipsing over the rural haunts of America in a bright blue pantsuit, quaffing boilermakers at biker bars and reinventing herself as a sort of Annie Oakley everywoman, clinging to guns and religion.
In 2007 Ms. Kennedy was, in fact, a strong Hillary Clinton donor and supporter, but jumped ship and joined Obama once he surged in the polls at the beginning of the year, when the national media and the fossilized icons of the Democratic Party underwent some sort of ecstatic catharsis and mass hysteria akin to what Euripides’s Bacchants experienced on Mt. Kithairon.
That savvy metamorphosis into an Obamiac explains Ms. Kennedy’s sudden me-too piggy-backing into national politics. Indeed, her current newfound political zeal seems predicated on the larger Obamania craze, a sort of brand name groupthink in which romantic liberals imagine a return of JFK’s lost Camelot....
Finally, there is the third charge of hypocrisy. George Bush, we were told ad nauseam was born on third base and thought he had hit a triple. But when it comes to Ms. Kennedy, her liberal lineage and assumed charisma weirdly nullified the same tired media charges of entitlement that have been customarily leveled against almost every affluent, well-connected Republican politician from Mitt Romney to George Bush.
There were also several liberal media complaints against Gov. Sarah Palin, most prominently three—that she lacked experience for high federal office; that she avoided the media whenever possible; and that she either would not or could not opine on world affairs.
But Gov. Palin had been an elected official for some sixteen years, winning and losing elections until assuming the governorship—always at odds with an entrenched male hierarchy that had run Alaska for years. Through it all, Palin mothered five children without either capital or connections. She endured at the very beginning of her national run a vicious press as interested in ridiculing her as a rube in fancy store-bought clothes as it is catching a glimpse of Caroline’s glitzy labels....
Posted on: Sunday, December 28, 2008 - 21:41
SOURCE: LAT (12-26-08)
In his Dec. 6 radio address, President-elect Barack Obama vowed to" create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s." The story of President Eisenhower's decision in 1956 to create the interstate highway system, how it was funded and its effects on American commerce and culture holds lessons that the new president and the country would do well to heed.
Eisenhower was the first Republican to occupy the White House after Herbert Hoover, who in the 1950s still wore a mantle of shame for his role in the market crash of 1929 and its aftermath. Eisenhower had an almost pathological, but healthy, fear that he might be blamed for allowing the nation to fall into another depression. When a mild recession early in his first term pushed the unemployment rate above 5%, Eisenhower told his Cabinet that"we could be in terrible trouble" and asked for solutions.
The highwaymen at the Bureau of Public Roads (the precursor of today's Federal Highway Administration) heeded the call. They reported that each federal dollar invested in construction generated close to one half-hour of employment. Like a stone cast into a pond, a mile of modern, four-lane, limited-access highway would create waves that would ripple through the economy. Workers across America, not just those who built the roadways, would benefit -- in cement and steel plants (50 tons of concrete and 20 tons of reinforcing steel go into each mile), in paint and sign manufacturers and in heavy equipment factories and oil refineries.
Another impetus for the massive project was that the president knew firsthand the need for better roads. As a young lieutenant colonel, he traveled in 1919 over the Lincoln Highway in the Army's first transcontinental caravan, a journey that lasted 62 days and sometimes required oxen to pull the trucks through mires of mud. Eisenhower called it a trip"through darkest America in truck and tank." A quarter of a century later, a ride over Adolf Hitler's autobahn showed the general how highways might serve the defense of a nation.
Eisenhower realized that he could not fail with highways. Americans wanted more roads for their postwar cars. Construction would prime the economic pump (1950s language for"economic stimulus package") and help secure the nation's future. He signed a small highway bill in 1954 and, on June 29, 1956, the $25-billion Federal-Aid Highway Act to build a 42,000-mile interstate highway system by 1972. Ultimately the cost would escalate to more than $130 billion, and workers would not finish the roads until 1993, with the Century Freeway in Los Angeles County as the last link.
Eisenhower wasn't afraid to create a huge public works program, and unlike today's presidents, he wasn't afraid of taxes. (He even vetoed his Republican Congress' repeal of a 20% federal admission tax on motion pictures.) The 1956 highway bill levied a tax of 3 cents on each gallon of fuel -- equal to 24 cents today. The revenue went into a dedicated highway trust fund. Though it wasn't enough to support the entire program, it was a start. And the tax proved to be a Mobius strip of money. Each gallon of fuel pumped helped to create more highways, which enabled more cars to drive more miles -- and use more gas, which generated yet more money for the trust fund. ...
Posted on: Friday, December 26, 2008 - 17:39
SOURCE: Weekly Standard (12-23-08)
... [M]ost of the reason the press portrays Obama as "Lincolnian" has to do with the former's rhetoric. These days, there is a tendency to dismiss rhetoric as somehow unimportant. But Aristotle wrote a treatise on rhetoric that all could read with profit. Rhetoric is particularly important in a republic because of the need for our governors to persuade the public. Lincoln's rhetoric was important in drawing a line concerning the rightness or wrongness of slavery and in stressing the importance of preventing the extension of the institution into the Federal territories. It was also important during the war in linking the sacrifices of the soldiers to the survival of republican government.
But his actions were important as well. Without the steps he took to win the war, Lincoln's rhetoric would have been hollow. And when it comes to actions, the true parallel between Lincoln and a contemporary is between the sixteenth president and George Bush. It was Bush, after all, who arguably had to confront a crisis most like the one that Lincoln faced from 1861 to 1865: a rebellion "too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings."
Among the problems that Bush and Lincoln both faced included the decision to go to war in the face of substantial domestic opposition, achieving a balance between "vigilance and responsibility" when it came to security and civil liberties, dealing with domestic opposition to the war that often crossed the line from dissent to obstruction, and the relationship between policy and military action and its corollary, civil-military relations.
Consider just two of the issues above: domestic opposition to the war and the issue of balancing civil liberties and security. During the Civil War, the so-called Peace Democrats or "Copperheads" actively interfered with recruiting and encouraged desertion. Indeed, they generated so much opposition to conscription that the Army was forced to divert resources from the battlefield to the hotbeds of Copperhead activity in order to maintain order. Many Copperheads actively supported the Confederate cause, materially as well as rhetorically.
As president, Bush confronted Democratic opponents of the Iraq war who echoed the rhetoric of the Copperheads. The latter described Lincoln as a bloodthirsty tyrant, trampling the rights of Southerners and Northerners alike. Today's Copperheads described Bush as the world's worst terrorist, comparable to Hitler. But the actions of the Copperheads of today went far beyond unpleasant words. Antiwar Democrats' expressions about "supporting the troops" rang hollow in light of Democratic efforts to hamstring the ability of the United States to achieve its objectives in Iraq until the success of the surge took the issue off the table.
The parallels between Lincoln and Bush regarding civil liberties during a period of emergency are even more striking. In June of 1863, Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to Erasmus Corning, who had sent him the resolutions of the Albany Democratic convention censuring the Lincoln administration for what it called unconstitutional acts, such as military arrests of civilians in the North. This letter remains the best articulation of the problems that a democratic republic faces when confronted by a crisis that threatens the very existence of that republic.
The essence of Lincoln's argument was that certain actions that are unconstitutional in the absence of rebellion or invasion become constitutional when those conditions exists--in other words, "that the Constitution is not in its application in all respects the same in cases of rebellion or invasion involving the public safety, as it is in times of profound peace and public security."
In December of 2005, President Bush issued his equivalent of the Corning letter. In his weekly address to the nation, the president, speaking live from the Roosevelt Room, addressed the failure of the Senate to renew the Patriot Act, which passed that body 98-1 in the wake of 9/11, and forcefully defended his actions in authorizing the National Security Agency "consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations."
He pointed out that the Justice Department and NSA's top legal officials had reviewed the activities permitted under this authorization and that the executive branch had briefed congressional leaders of both parties more than a dozen times on this authorization and the activities conducted under it.
"This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists," the president said. "It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power under our laws and Constitution to protect them and their civil liberties. And that is exactly what I will continue to do, so long as I'm the president of the United States."...
Posted on: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 21:30