Author: Bryant

Good news, without question. Doesn’t make people on US soil a whole lot safer, but it may make a difference for soldiers in Iraq, and it’s excellent news for the Iraqi people.

I could speculate all day on the possible effects of this. “Aha, now the attacks on American troops will slow down.” “Aha, now the Iraqis won’t feel the need for US protection and will demonstrate against the occupation.” “Aha, there will be a major boom in Saddam bobblehead dolls.” I don’t have any idea what will happen, though, so I’m not going to try and say something authoritative and convincing. I’ll just be happy the guy’s caught.

Josh Marshall can say something authoritative if he likes, though, cause he called this one. And — crap, here comes the cynicism. It’s great timing, capturing Saddam on the same day the Telegraph runs dubious stories about the Saddam/9-11 connection.

Well, chances are it’s just coincidence, anyhow. Still good news for the Iraqi people, either way.

Everett Ehrlich starts out talking about the basic value of the Internet, which is that it makes it really cheap to gather and transmit information. I’d never heard of Ronald Coase, but the basic outlines of the theory as Ehrlich explains it make complete sense. The Internet allows very focused tribes to form very quickly, because one no longer has to look very hard to find other people who consider bowling shoes to be the pinnacle of modern art.

But that’s just the opener to the article. He goes on to suggest that Dean “is a third-party candidate using modern technology to achieve a takeover of the Democratic Party.” Whoa, say I. That makes a surprising amount of sense.

Perot demonstrated the power of the activist center. Dean may have figured out how to fuse that power with the machinery of an existing party. Nice trick if you can manage it. It certainly explains some of the hostility from the Democratic establishment.

William Weld was trying to pull off a similar trick a few years ago, except that he was planning on using the Northeast as his organizational base rather than the Internet. If he’d beaten Kerry in the Senate race, he’d be pulling centrist Democrats over into the Republican tent right now. Jesse Helms managed to torpedo that, though.

I don’t agree with Ehrlich’s long term predictions. The Conservative Party of New York has more or less folded, after all, so I wouldn’t count on them as a model. The pressures which push coalitions together in our Presidential politics go beyond the difficulties of access to information. His basic thesis, however, seems pretty sound.

Hey, look: more right-wing cop-killers. But remember, it’s the left which is the problem. Arthur Bixby is just another exception.

Edit: I’m going to expand on this, because I jotted it off a bit too quickly. If you look at Bixby’s history, you’ve got a pretty iconoclastic guy who doesn’t respect the legitimacy of the United States government. The problem is the violence. The other problem is the strange alternative government people like Bixby make up. Being an anarchist is one thing; inventing new rules and expecting people to live under them is another.

I don’t think you can rationally call yourself an advocate for minimal government if you’re relying on filing hundreds of nuisance suits in order to get your way. Maybe you’re a member of a cargo cult, though.

We’re restricting Iraqi rebuilding contracts to coalition countries. That’s pretty short-sighted. Bush’s take on it:

“Coalition, friendly coalition folks risked their lives and therefore, the contracting is going to reflect that, and that’s what the U.S. taxpayers expect.”

Actually, I expect Bush to choose the course which results in high-quality reconstruction at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayer. I suspect that opening the bidding to more firms will lower the costs. I would prefer, thusly, not to exclude non-coalition firms.

I also find it deeply ironic that the latest Halliburton story is breaking today. Seriously. Open the bidding up to everyone. The guys we’ve chosen so far are gouging us.

Now, if I was thinking globally — and I’m told we invaded Iraq for the Iraqis — I’d also be a little bit worried about the best interests of the people who live there. It seems not entirely impossible that, among the companies best suited for this kind of reconstruction work, there might be some French or German or Canadian companies. It seems not impossible that, by imposing this restriction, we might be causing some degree of difficulty for the Iraqi people. It’s almost enough to make one think that the motives behind this war might have had something to do with US interests all along.

I’ll finish up with the always-evasive Scott McClellan’s Wednesday press conference.

Q: In the case of Canada, Canada contributed troops to Afghanistan, lost troops in Afghanistan in an accident by U.S. troops, which politically made it very difficult for them to contribute to Iraq. And they’re being punished for not being able to provide —

MR. McCLELLAN: In the war on terrorism, there are a lot of countries participating in those efforts, and we appreciate that. There is a very large coalition of countries across the world that are fighting the war on terrorism and making sacrifices. There were — there was a decision made by coalition forces on Iraq and there are a number of countries that have been helping from the beginning. There are a number of countries that have been sacrificing on the ground in defense of freedom and in an effort to build a better and safer world. And we’re talking just about the U.S. taxpayer funding here, which is a significant amount of money from the U.S. taxpayers.

Scott! It’s OK with me! Open up the bidding so Halliburton can stop charging way the hell too much for gas…

Crap. The White House isn’t listening.