Category: Politics

Lieberman and Clark are skipping Iowa, or at least the Iowa caucuses. Makes sense for Lieberman, who was polling very poorly in Iowa. A little surprising for Clark, but he couldn’t make a dent in the Gephardt/Dean race, so it’s probably his best option.

However, this puts both of them in the position of battling for third place in New Hampshire, which is not entirely auspicious. Even worse, if Kerry wins or comes in second in Iowa, they run the risk of being just part of the pack.

South Carolina is looking increasingly important. No wonder Edwards hasn’t dropped out yet.

Christopher Allbritton dug around and came up with some fresh indications that the United States might be planning to attack Syria. I gotta agree that HR 1828 is pretty indicative, although it’s also the kind of rhetoric Congressmen use to take a tough stance on terrorism in election years. I also think that Israel’s nuclear revelations are aimed at Iran, which has much more of a nuclear program than Syria.

Then again, Syria is a somewhat easier target than Iran given geographical considerations. I don’t think you’d want to use Iraq as a military base of operations right now. So for the purposes of a quick poll pickup, sure, Syria might look like a good choice.

If this isn’t mockery of a high order, I don’t know what is.

Bush told his senior aides Tuesday that he “didn’t want to see any stories” quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, and that if he did, there would be consequences, said a senior administration official who asked that his name not be used.

Phil Carter was on fire yesterday. First off, this post on radical Islam in prison is fascinating. It’s one of those issues which is obvious after someone points it out, but only then.

Radical black racism often uses Islam as a skin in the United States. Cue Louis Farrakhan. This “Islam” has very little to do with mainstream Islam — but you could say the same of Al Qaeda, and it makes sense for Al Qaeda to recruit inside the prisons of America.

The irony is that Ashcroft is happily engaged in making those prisons fuller.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies says that the war on Iraq helped Al Qaeda. As predicted, invading Iraq pissed off Muslims, resulting in a recruiting bonanza for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

The IISS is “a distinguished group of thinkers,” in case anyone was thinking they were lefty pinko symps. Or at least, that’s what Condolezza Rice says.

Wolfowitz made a nice speech at the Hungarian Embassy today. I shouldn’t really pick on it; it’s a semantically meaningless speech designed to make Hungary feel good. And Hungary should feel good about itself; it’s emerged from some really nasty totalitarianism.

Still, he had one of those quotes, and I can’t resist.

“And, frankly, it is particularly important to have friends who really understand the value of freedom. And I think countries that regained their freedom relatively recently seem to have that sense more strongly sometime than others.”

So I’m guessing he doesn’t mean that France, which finally got rid of their monarchy in 1871, feels the value of freedom more than the United States. Or maybe he means that France, which was under foreign rule during World War II, feels the value of freedom more strongly than countries which were inviolate during World War II? Hard to say, hard to say.

Either way, one might assume that he’s saying England doesn’t feel the value of freedom as strongly as India, since England’s been free for much much longer. There’s something about Britain and India I can’t quite recall, something about their relationship up until 1947. But India’s the country that doesn’t want to send troops to Iraq. Well, maybe they don’t understand the value of freedom properly.

In any case, I’m still really happy for Hungary. It’s a country that deserves its freedom, and it’s a country that fought hard for freedom. We can only regret that America was preoccupied with the Middle East during Hungary’s struggle.

Good for China.

I have two reactions to China’s membership in the manned space club. My first is pleasure. I’m glad there are other countries in the world who are going out there, because we’re sure falling behind. For whatever reason, the United States government isn’t maintaining a serious space exploration effort. That’s one egg I don’t want in a single bucket.

In the grand scheme of things, I’d rather China bring the resources of space back to Earth than nobody. I believe that once we start harvesting the asteroid belt, the value will be so clear that you’ll see an explosion of effort in that direction. But someone’s gotta get there first to make the point, whether it’s China or India or a private American company. I’d be a little worried if it turns out to be China, but in the long term it won’t matter as long as someone does it.

My other reaction, my immediate reaction, is concern. China’s stepping up, and if China gains control of Earth orbit, we’re back to the days of mutually assured destruction. Possibly we never left them, but there was some degree of hope. Mind you, I’m not sure the “mutual” refers to us and China; more likely we’re talking about China and India. And what does Pakistan do if India goes to space? Pakistan can’t buy a space program the way it bought nuclear missiles.

Destablization is inevitable. It’s a fool’s game, pretending that two antagonistic countries with a disputed border can remain at peace for a century or more. We’ve got three there, with India and China and Pakistan, and we had to expect a tipped balance at some point. So I’m not surprised; I’m just concerned.

The source of those “identical soldier letters” came forward: Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo. He claims that every soldier who signed the letter did so after reading it carefully. This means that he’s calling Pfc. Nick Deaconson and Sgt. Shawn Grueser liars. How insulting.

Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric, is putting together a shadow government in Iraq. The Sunni guerilla action, which continues to take its toll, provides excellent cover for the Shiite efforts.

I’ve been chewing over these two posts from Kevin Drum about the Texas Republican Party platform. First off, I agree with him: the platform as a whole is pretty damned radical. I would certainly be interested in hearing President Bush, who presumably has signed a similar document, talk about whether or not he supports all those positions. And much of the platform is way the hell out of the mainstream.

However, it’s wrong to say that the platform has no place in American politics. For example, there is absolutely no reason to recoil from the sight of a politician who wants to return to the gold standard. It might not be a bright thing to do, but it hardly signifies the destruction of the republic. Most if not all of the economic planks fall into that bucket. Dumb ideas? Maybe. Radical? Sure. Shouldn’t be discussed in polite company? Uh…

Now, when you get to creationism being taught in public schools and eliminating separation of church and state, there I’m more or less in agreement. But even the anti-abortion plank isn’t something you can just sweep away with a magisterial comment or two. Democrats should realize that whether or not they like that position, it’s a position which is fully in the mainstream. Sure, it’s disturbing that the Texas wing of the Republican Party has so much influence, because their platform as a whole really is scary. However, when you point at it and say “look, radical ideas!” you just alienate a pretty big section of America.

And it’s healthy to be able to discuss ideas. Just about any idea. You can’t gain consensus by squashing dissent, even wacky radical right wing dissent. The country’s better off for having dissenting voices, even those we really don’t like.