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Political Rantings

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Bush Administration Beseiged by Good News

Tuesday, December 4th, 2007

Power Line points us to this Washington Post article about the recent NIE finding that Iran halted it’s nuclear weapons program in 2003.

The title of the article is A Blow To Bush’s Tehran Policy.

Here’s a sample:

The new intelligence report released yesterday not only undercut the administration’s alarming rhetoric over Iran’s nuclear ambitions but could also throttle Bush’s effort to ratchet up international sanctions and take off the table the possibility of preemptive military action before the end of his presidency.

Iran had been shaping up as perhaps the dominant foreign policy issue of Bush’s remaining year in office and of the presidential campaign to succeed him. Now leaders at home and abroad will have to rethink what they thought they knew about Tehran’s intentions and capabilities.

This could possibly be the most twisted logic I’ve ever seen in a mainstream news article. Basically, they’re saying that Bush and Co. were gearing up for war in order to stop Iran’s nuclear program, and now that we’ve learned the nuclear program has stopped, the whole “gearing up for war” plan is a miserable failure.

By “failure” here, they could just as easily have meant “success.” The point is not (nor is ever) to go to war. I realize that those seeking to paint the President as an indiscriminate war hawk say that over and over again, but in the real world, the point is to promote the best interests of the United States. If our actions (both our military actions in Afghanistan/Iraq and our diplomatic saber-rattling regarding Iran) helped convince Iran to stop pursuing nuclear weapons, then the policy worked, and we’re happy to achieve our goals without military conflict. To declare something a failure because the contingency plan you had in case of failure had to be scrapped is twisted logic indeed.

National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley tried to say as much:

The White House said the report vindicated its concerns because it concluded that Iran did have a nuclear weapons program until halting it in 2003 and it showed that U.S.-led diplomatic pressure had succeeded in forcing Tehran’s hand. “On balance, the estimate is good news,” said national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley. “On the one hand, it confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons. On the other hand, it tells us that we have made some progress in trying to ensure that that does not happen.”

Hadley disagreed that the report showed that past administration statements have been wrong, noting that collecting intelligence on a “hard target” such as Iran is notoriously difficult. “Welcome to the real world,” he said.

Indeed. In fact, the big risk now, as I see it, is what happens if this intelligence estimate is found to be wrong. After all, we were pretty convinced that North Korea had given up their program after signing a treaty during the Clinton administration, only to find out later that they’d been continuing in secret. If we find out two years from now (or heaven forbid, just before the 2008 election) that Iran still has a nuclear weapons program, will statements made today be held up as evidence for “Bush lied, people died?”

Our leaders certainly deserve a great deal of criticism of late, mostly for not modifying their approach in the face of new information. When they do acknowledge a new direction, dragging them through the public square for it seems rather hypocritical.

Categories: News and/or Media, Political Rantings | Comments Off on Bush Administration Beseiged by Good News

Does New Jersey State Law Discriminate Against Idiots?

Friday, October 26th, 2007

Public Question #4, Union County, New Jersey, 22nd Legislative District:

Shall the amendment of Article II, section I, paragraph 6 of the Constitution, agreed to by the Legislature, revising the current constitutional language concerning denial of the right to vote by deleting the phrase “idiot or insane person” and providing instead that a “person who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting” shall not enjoy the right of suffrage, be adopted?

And here’s the Interpretive Statement that follows it:

Approval of this amendment concerning the denial of the right to vote would delete the phrase “idiot or insane person” and replace that phrase with “person who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting” in describing those persons who shall be denied the right to vote. The phrase “idiot or insane person” is outdated, vague, offensive to many, and may be subject to misinterpretation. This constitutional amendment acknowledges that individuals with cognitive or emotional disabilities may otherwise be capable of making decisions in the voting booth and that their right of self-determination should be respected and protected in this regard. The amendment only denies the right of suffrage to those individuals determined by a court, on a case-by-case basis, to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting.

No word, of course, on what legal body, if any, would declare a person an “idiot or insane person” under the old law…

As Dave Barry likes to say, I am not making this up…

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Random Acts of Blogging II

Friday, October 19th, 2007

Once again, the things I want to blog about have exceeded the time I have available to blog. Hence, we move into “quick hit” mode.

First up: Violent crime has increased for the first time in more than a decade. What is to blame for this distressing news? The Bush Administration? The Democratic Congress? A weakening economy causing increased pressure on low-income youth? No. Apparently, it’s the iPod:

In the first three months of 2005, major felonies rose 18.3% on the New York City subway — however, if cell phone and iPod thefts are excluded, felonies actually declined by 3%.

Thus far, in Washington, D.C., in 2007, robberies of iPods on the Metro alone account for approximately 4% of all robberies in the city, compared with well less than 1% of robberies in 2005. Likewise, in San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system, there were 4 reported iPod robberies in 2004, 102 in 2005, and 193 in 2006. The increase in iPod robberies on the BART between 2004 and 2006 accounts for a 23% of the increase in robbery in the entire city over that time.”

You see, it seems that iPods are criminogenic, which means they “create crime.”

iPods [are] “criminogenic (creating crime)” because they lack antitheft protection, because they are not tied to a subscription service and can thus be used after they’re stolen, because they’re “high-status items and may be stolen for their status,” because they make the owner less aware of his or her surroundings, and because they’re easy to identify, thanks to the visible white headphone cord and ear buds.

It sounds crazy at first, but when I look at that list, it starts to make some sense…

Next, we have Apple’s new OS X Leopard Operating System, due to ship on October 26. Apple touts more than 300 new features of the OS, although many of those are features of the applications that ship with it (like Address Book, Dictionary, DVD Player, iCal, iChat, etc.). Hey – remember when bundling applications inside your OS was considered anti-competitive, monopolistic behavior? But I digress…

What I found absolutely fascinating about this list of features was how many of them already exist in Windows Vista. There are semi-transparent window title bars, dynamically populated folders, live icons that show a preview of the application rather than just a static icon, improved Spotlight searching (including Boolean operators), e-mail stationary, group calendar scheduling, etc. In all, I counted roughly fifty of the three hundred changes as things that Vista already has up and running.

I’m not complaining, of course. These features are useful in Vista, and I’m glad they’re in Leopard now. I’m just surprised, because an Apple OS release typically includes innovative interface ideas, which are then implemented by Microsoft in the next Windows release, sparking cries of “Foul!” from Mac Zealots who claim Microsoft is just parroting what Apple has done. It seems we’ve achieved more of a “leapfrog” model now, which is just awesome news for PC consumers…

Moving from technology to politics, the month of October was a big one for high-profile, liberal documentaries. First there was this report about Canadian, Belinda Stronach, formerly a Member of Parliament (MP) from the Conservative Party, who switched to the Liberal Party in 2005.

In 2004, she gave an interview with the CBC defending the Canada Health Act and arguing against a two-tier health system, in which those who could afford to pay more would receive speedier access to health care (the system touted as far superior to the United States’ system in Michael Moore’s Sicko).

In 2007, she was diagnosed with Ductal Carcinoma in Situ (a common form of breast cancer), which required a mastectomy and breast reconstruction. On the advice of her doctor, she flew to California and paid out of pocket to have the surgery done there (something Canadians can’t do in Canada under the Canada Health Act she so stauchly defended).

And of course, if we’re going to mention Moore, then we have to mention Gore. Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth (review here) has been distributed to 3,500 London schools, along with four other short films about the environment.

A lorry driver and father of two children, 11 and 14, sued to have the film declared unfit for schools because, he said, it was “politically biased and contains serious scientific inaccuracies and ‘sentimental mush’.” The British judge agreed that the film promoted “partisan political views,” but did not ban it from schools, instead requiring that teachers “warn pupils that there are other opinions on global warming and they should not necessarily accept the views of the film.”

Later in the month, Gore went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize, although his opponent got more votes (kidding…)

Sticking with politics, a quick mention is warranted on the Iraq war:

A congressional study and several news stories in September questioned reports by the U.S. military that casualties were down. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), challenging the testimony of Gen. David H. Petraeus, asserted that “civilian deaths have risen” during this year’s surge of American forces.

A month later, there isn’t much room for such debate, at least about the latest figures. In September, Iraqi civilian deaths were down 52 percent from August and 77 percent from September 2006, according to the Web site icasualties.org. The Iraqi Health Ministry and the Associated Press reported similar results. U.S. soldiers killed in action numbered 43 — down 43 percent from August and 64 percent from May, which had the highest monthly figure so far this year. The American combat death total was the lowest since July 2006 and was one of the five lowest monthly counts since the insurgency in Iraq took off in April 2004.

During the first 12 days of October the death rates of Iraqis and Americans fell still further. So far during the Muslim month of Ramadan, which began Sept. 13 and ends this weekend, 36 U.S. soldiers have been reported as killed in hostile actions. That is remarkable given that the surge has deployed more American troops in more dangerous places and that in the past al-Qaeda has staged major offensives during Ramadan. Last year, at least 97 American troops died in combat during Ramadan. Al-Qaeda tried to step up attacks this year, U.S. commanders say — so far, with stunningly little success.

Things are still not going well enough over there, of course. And one large bomb can reverse all of these statistical trends. But regardless of what party you belong to, this has got to be good news…

And finally, it’s been a while since a newspaper sent undercover reporters through airport security in order to embarrass the TSA, right?

WASHINGTON – Security screeners at two of the nation’s busiest airports failed to find fake bombs hidden on undercover agents posing as passengers in more than 60% of tests last year, according to a classified report obtained by USA TODAY.

Screeners at Los Angeles International Airport missed about 75% of simulated explosives and bomb parts that Transportation Security Administration testers hid under their clothes or in carry-on bags at checkpoints, the TSA report shows.

At Chicago O’Hare International Airport, screeners missed about 60% of hidden bomb materials that were packed in everyday carry-ons – including toiletry kits, briefcases and CD players. San Francisco International Airport screeners, who work for a private company instead of the TSA, missed about 20% of the bombs, the report shows.

These studies, while making for great headlines, continue to miss the point. The goal of airport security is not to find every bomb. The goal is to make people who would consider bringing an actual bomb on the plane think twice about doing it because of the high likelihood that they will be caught. In other words, security works when it prevents people from trying to bring bombs on planes, not only when it catches someone in the act of doing so.

That number, of course, is impossible to measure…

Categories: Political Rantings, Random Acts of Blogging, Tech Talk | Comments Off on Random Acts of Blogging II

From the “Can’t Catch a Break” File…

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007

George W. Bush, campaigning in January, 2000 on the “No Child Left Behind” bill:

“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”

President George W. Bush, September 26, 2007, advocating for the renewal of the No Child Left Behind Law:

As yesterday’s positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured.”

George W. Bush – snatching defeat from the jaws of victory at every turn…

Categories: Political Rantings, The World Wide Weird | Comments Off on From the “Can’t Catch a Break” File…

Columbia Upholds Free Speech, Exposes Idiocy to the World

Monday, September 24th, 2007

Last Thursday, in my Random Acts of Blogging post, I casually said this:

Also note that while I’m glad Ahmadinejad will not be visiting Ground Zero, I’d be fine with him speaking at the University of California at Davis.

Well, I was close:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with an American university president who called him a “petty and cruel dictator” at a forum on Monday where Ahmadinejad criticized Israel and the United States and said Iran was a peaceful nation.

Introducing the Iranian president, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger said Ahmadinejad behaved as a “petty and cruel dictator” and that his Holocaust denials suggested he was either “brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.”

Bollinger asked a string of pointed questions, most of which Ahmadinejad ignored in a speech that dwelt at length on science as a gift from God and the importance of using knowledge and learning purely and in a pious way.

Many Columbia students and faculty opposed the decision to let him speak, although many others supported it. Just about everyone (if not absolutely everyone) condemned Ahmadinejad’s positions, though.

I’ll say I stand by my earlier statement. I find it very hard to believe that there’s anyone in the world (with the possible exception of Iran) who honestly believes that by allowing Ahmadinejad to speak, Columbia University is endorsing anything he has to say. I also think that the quickest way to convince Americans of this guy’s insanity is to let them hear him speak, as opposed to counting on the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity to explain it to them. So go ahead, Mr. Ahmadinejad, say something to show the world just how nuts you are:

Ahmadinejad … rejected criticism of human rights in his country, notably persecution of homosexuals: “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country,” he said, drawing loud laughter from the audience.

Thank you kindly.

Your Honor, I rest my case.

Categories: Political Rantings | 3 Comments »

Bush Endorses Clinton

Monday, September 24th, 2007

President Bush says he believes that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee for President:

President Bush, breaking his rule not to talk about presidential politics, says he believes Hillary Rodham Clinton will defeat Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primaries.

Bush also predicts that Clinton will be defeated in the general election by the Republican nominee. “I believe our candidate can beat her but it’s going to be a tough race,” the president said.

“She’s got a great national presence and this is becoming a national primary,” Bush told [journalist Bill Sammon]. “And therefore the person with the national presence, who has got the ability to raise enough money to sustain an effort in a multiplicity of sites, has got a good chance to be nominated.”

Bush also expressed “surprise” over Rudy Giuliani’s status as the Republican front-runner, given Giuliani’s more liberal positions on social and cultural issues. The Washington Post quotes Bush as saying “Giuliani’s popularity was a sign of how important the terrorism issue is to Republican voters.”

Giuliani’s candidacy continues to intrigue me. I heard quite a few liberal commentators this weekend who were accusing him of being a one-issue candidate who was attempting to parlay his center-stage role on 9/11 into the U.S. Presidency. Meanwhile, folks on the right prove that he’s not a one-issue candidate by taking every opportunity to criticize just about every other position he’s taken. So here’s a candidate that can get the Democrats talking about 9/11 and the Republicans talking about abortion and gay marriage. Go figure…

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Random Acts of Blogging

Thursday, September 20th, 2007

I usually try to avoid posts like this, but there’s a list of things I’ve been meaning to blog about and I just haven’t been able to find the time. So, some quick hits:

– The Yankees have pulled within 1 1/2 games of the Red Sox in the American League East. On May 30th, the Red Sox lead was 14 1/2 games. Just two weeks ago, the lead was 7 games. Ah, September baseball…

– Former President of Harvard University, Larry Summers, has been uninvited to speak at the University of California at Davis due to pressure from a group of female professors who signed an online petition. The petition called Summers a “keynote speaker who has come to symbolize gender and racial prejudice in academia.” Leaving aside the idea that they’re preventing someone from speaking because they’re offended by his views (a concept that seems completely antithetical to free speech), note that their concern is his symbolism regarding gender and racial prejudice, not the prejudice itself. I think that speaks volumes about the protesters’ real intent here.

– Speaking of turning down visitors, New York City has denied a request by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit Ground Zero. I think this is the right answer, both because his presence would offend the many, many people who think of this space as hallowed ground, and also because of the official reason given by the New York City Police Department: security. There is no doubt in my mind that President Ahmadinejad would encounter an angry mob if he showed up at the site. On the upside, Ahmadinejad apparently acknowledges the existence of 9/11, as opposed to the Holocaust, which he famously regards as a hoax. Also note that while I’m glad Ahmadinejad will not be visiting Ground Zero, I’d be fine with him speaking at the University of California at Davis.

– Dan Rather – September 10th, 2004:

“I believe, I know that this story is true. I believe the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn’t have gone to air if they had not been.”

Dan Rather – September 18, 2007:

Dan Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit Wednesday against CBS, alleging that the network made him a ‘scapegoat’ for a discredited story about President Bush’s National Guard service. The 75-year-old Rather, whose final months were clouded by controversy over the report, says the complaint stems from ‘CBS’ intentional mishandling’ of the aftermath of the story.

Is it me, or is he really not helping his own credibility here?

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9/11/07

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

It has become a tradition of mine to post my thoughts about September 11, 2001 on its anniversary each year (2002, 2003, 2005, 2006). This year is different in several ways.

First, I’m not in New York. Due to an important business trip, I won’t be in or near New York City on the anniversary of the attacks, and will likely not see much (if any) of the annual memorial service at Ground Zero. Intellectually, I know it doesn’t matter much at all; I’ve never gone to Ground Zero for the ceremonies, or even taken time off of work to watch them on television.

The closest I’ve come to a personal memorial has been to try and do something nice for a New York Police Officer on 9/11. In 2002, an officer was on line in front of me at a pizza place and I insisted on buying him his dinner. In 2004, while stuck in traffic approaching the Lincoln Tunnel on a hot 9/11 afternoon, I offered to buy the cop directing traffic a drink from a nearby street vendor (he politely refused). This year, as in other years, I won’t come into contact with any of New York’s Finest, but they’ll be in my thoughts.

Also new this year: my wife and I told my older son, Avery, about the attacks this weekend. He was 18 months old when they happened, but he’s seven now and has just begun second grade. We figured there was a pretty good chance that either a teacher or fellow student would mention it today, and we wanted him to hear about it from us, rather than from someone else.

I have to say, he took it very well. When I told him that 3,000 people died, he looked scared, but recovered very quickly and began asking questions: Did the buildings hit other buildings when they fell down? Did the bad men who hijacked the airplanes die too? Why would anyone do something that they knew would kill them? Why would anyone think that God would like it if they killed people? We answered all his questions as best we could, and then he said, “Can I go now?” and ran back upstairs to play with his brother.

I suspect he’ll have more questions in the coming days, weeks, or even years. That’s okay – I’ve been preparing myself to answer them for six years now, and while it made me nervous to bring it up (more nervous than it made him to hear it), I felt well prepared to answer his questions and to reassure him from his fears.

Finally, a few words about Osama Bin Laden’s latest video. I have to say, I thought he was dead. That’s not to say I thought we killed him, mind you. I thought that years of running and hiding, given his poor health to begin with, had taken its toll, that he’d died of natural causes, and that Al Qaeda had covered it up in order to claim his ability to avoid capture as an ever-present victory over the United States.

I was also found some of the things he said fascinating. For instance:

“All praise is due to Allah, who built the heavens and earth in justice, and created man as a favor and grace from Him. And from His ways is that the days rotate between the people, and from His Law is retaliation in kind: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and the killer is killed.”

It’s revealing that he reads that ancient proverb as one of retaliation. James Lileks points out Dennis Prager’s thoughts:

It’s not about retaliation. It’s not an injunction to do unto others for the sake of vengeance. The message is proportionality. An eye for an eye, not two. A tooth for a tooth, not a mouthful.

The fact that Bin Laden sees it as a command to exact revenge on his enemies shows you the specific way in which his mind is severely twisted. Here’s more:

“There are two solutions for stopping [the Global War on Terror]. The first is from our side, and it is to continue to escalate the killing and fighting against you. This is our duty, and our brothers are carrying it out, and I ask Allah to grant them resolve and victory.”

To reiterate: the best thing he can do to stop the war is to continue killing and fighting against us. The second solution, by the way, is for all of us to convert to Islam.

Bin Laden’s message is rife with our most public complaints about the Bush administration: negative public opinion polling, corporate influence on government policy, the Democrats’ unwillingness to halt war funding, civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, the federal deficit, high taxes, global warming, and even the recent difficulties in the home mortgage market. Consistent with his reading of “an eye for an eye,” he sees these problems as a rationale for abandoning the democratic way of life, and embracing Islam. Our government has wronged us, he reasons, so out of revenge, we should wrong our government by running toward Islam. If we do so:

“It will also achieve your desire to stop the war as a consequence, because as soon as the warmongering owners of the major corporations realize that you have lost confidence in your democratic system and begun to search for an alternative, and that this alternative is Islam, they will run after you to please you and achieve what you want to steer you away from Islam. So your true compliance with Islam will deprive them of the opportunity to defraud the peoples and take their money under numerous pretexts, like arms deals and so on.”

What Bin Laden doesn’t realize – what he’s never been able to realize – is that our constant carping signifies the strength in our system, not its weakness. We do not need to seek revenge against our government to change its policies. We need only make our disagreements public in a way that convinces the leadership (or the voters) to change direction. To one who has never known this freedom, our complaints may sound like desperate rage. And, as I’ve discussed on these pages before, perhaps we’ve been going about it in somewhat ineffective ways lately, reinforcing that idea.

In the end, though, the open debate of ideas is precisely what will allow us to persevere long after Bin Laden has sacrificed himself to gain “entrance into Paradise.” It is what truly makes us the greatest country in the history of the world.

God Bless America.

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Strange Bedfellows…

Wednesday, August 29th, 2007

TO:Senator Larry Craig
FROM:Fmr. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez
DATE:August 28, 2007
SUBJECT:Thanks…

Larry,

Thanks for the air cover. Your timing is impeccable. Sorry I couldn’t meet you in that bathroom stall in Minneapolis like we’d planned. Maybe next time, OK?

Regards,
Alberto

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Al Qaeda and Iraq – Interesting Tidbits

Saturday, August 18th, 2007

Just a couple of quick things I read on the train home today:

First, remember Jose Padilla? He’s the Brooklyn born man who was held without trial in a military court for three and a half years, until finally being transferred to a Miami civilian court, where he was convicted of all charges against him. Apparently, one of the pieces of evidence that convinced the jury was an application he filled out to attend an Al Qaeda training in Afghanistan in 2000. For those who don’t believe that Al Qaeda was a well-organized operation before we went after them, here’s a PDF of the application, along with an English translation.

Second, this from Captain’s Quarters about U.S. Representative Brian Baird, a five-term Democrat who voted against the war in 2002:

U.S. Rep. Brian Baird said Thursday that his recent trip to Iraq convinced him the military needs more time in the region, and that a hasty pullout would cause chaos that helps Iran and harms U.S. security.

“I believe that the decision to invade Iraq and the post-invasion management of that country were among the largest foreign-policy mistakes in the history of our nation. I voted against them, and I still think they were the right votes,” Baird said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C.

“But we’re on the ground now. We have a responsibility to the Iraqi people and a strategic interest in making this work.”

Baird, a five-term Democrat, voted against President Bush ordering the Iraq invasion

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