June 26, 2008
A Reasonable Decision
When I lived in Chicago I owned several handguns, including the model shown here. I loaded my own wad cutters for target practice, and much enjoyed shooting at the range. Also, although the apartment building I lived in was pretty safe, the neighborhood was not, so owning handguns provided a very real sense of security. When I moved from Chicago to DC, because of DC's ban on handgun ownership, I sold my guns. Now that the Supreme Court has overturned the DC law I may buy some more. Supporting gun ownership is not a conventionally liberal position — on this one I agree, however, with the indisputably progressive Sam Smith (here and here). To what Sam argues I would add just one thing: if we should suffer a catastrophic collapse of society then those with guns will be a heck of a lot better off than those without.
June 25, 2008
Pentagon Apparatchiks Setting a "Reform" Trap for Obama?
By Chuck Spinney
Aboard S/V ChaliVentures, lying Finike, Turkey — Here we have another stellar example of the New York Times' uncritical reportage on national defense. Such stories help sustain a failing status quo by appealing to establishment apparatchiks of an earlier era who are probably trying to worm their way back into the game, perhaps in an Obama Administration.
Cries about defense brain drain and calls for better systems management have been heard since at least the 1960s, yet Kaminski and others interviewed by the New York Times talk about loss of expertise and the Pentagon's grotesque acquisition management problems as if they are recent developments. Looking back, did not the F-111 and C-5 cost overrun scandals occur in the 1960s, even though both programs were sold at that time as examples of better systems management, and in just the same way that in the early 1990s Mr. Kaminski and his cohorts sold the problem plagued, cost overrun infected $200+ billion Joint Strike Fighter program to the President and Congress? All that is new in 2008 is that Pentagon excess occurs without a superpower adversary that would justify bloated budgets, an adversary comparable to the Soviet Union... yet the Pentagon still spends more than the rest of the world's military spending combined.
Continue reading "Pentagon Apparatchiks Setting a "Reform" Trap for Obama?"...
June 23, 2008
Toss Them Out
This business about the Democrats passing funding legislation for Iraq and wiretapping approval should worry us. Fortunately, there's something we can do. ActBlue targets Democrats who vote Republican (not the same thing as conservative Democrats), with some success. At the moment, among others, ActBlue is after John Barrow (GA12), who has a primary challenge on July 15, just a few weeks from now. His opponent, State Senator Regina Thomas, has a good record on both Iraq and Fisa, and also has a good chance to unseat Barrow. I sent ActBlue $25 specifically marked for Regina Thomas — ActBlue doesn't take any percentage but you can add a 'tip,' which I also did — and I encourage you too to support the ActBlue project.
June 22, 2008
Get Smart
Four of five stars. In the good old days of Siskel and Ebert you knew Siskel was the brainy one. When you agreed with one of Siskel's reviews you felt smarter for it, whereas Ebert could be counted on to routinely get things wrong. Except when they strongly disagreed. For me, at least, Ebert in strenuous opposition was almost always right because of the visceral appreciation he brings to a film. Siskel had ideas about what he was supposed to like; Ebert just lets his bourgeois sensibilities run loose. If Siskel were still around he probably wouldn't have liked Get Smart. Most other reviewers didn't. Ebert gives it three and half out of his four stars — according to metacritic.com the most favorable review out there. Heck, I don't care, I agree with Ebert: I laughed through the whole thing, rollicking laughter, with tears leaking out my eyes. And I thought it was a pretty smart, well acted, finely executed film. Even though it's getting panned I predict it'll become a cult classic. You can read Ebert's review, here.
June 14, 2008
An Irish Flack
The encomia for Timothy John Russert, Jr. take one's breath away. They astound even the sympathetic critic. For in reality, Russert practiced evasion and obfuscation, replacing real news with pap. He was no teller of great truths, no champion of the powerless, no voice of conscience. To the contrary, he diligently enforced the status quo. Sure, he was a nice guy. And he had a gift for handicapping political races. But the agitation surrounding his passing marks less his admirable qualities than his failings: without his happy face the establishment media may now more easily be seen for the toxic parasites that they are. Their exaggerated grieving serves the grievers, not the man. It would be better to remember Tim Russert without memorializing the system.
June 11, 2008
The Genius of Patrick O'Brian
The author Patrick O'Brian passed away in 2000 at the age of 85, leaving a wide-ranging legacy — most notably his unfinished twenty volume series of historical fiction chronicling the adventures at sea (and on land) during the early nineteenth century of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. According to the BBC, O'Brian sold over two million books. Brought to an even wider public with Peter Weir's 2003 film Master and Commander, starring Russell Crowe (grossing over $200 million worldwide), nevertheless O'Brian remains outside the canon of great works in English literature.
June 9, 2008
Some Numbers
It's educational to look back at the British experience in Mesopotamia. Following an initially successful invasion (yes, oil was a factor), then a rout (surrender to the Turks at Kut) in 1916, British forces — mostly Indian troops — reached a maximum strength of about 400,000 [PDF] a few years later. Which made me wonder about numbers. In 1920 the population of Iraq was about three million. Today it's about thirty million. Relative to today's population the Brits would have had about four million soldiers! US troop strength today is roughly 150,000 (mercenaries vaguely add something). The British, of course, lost Iraq. So, then, what makes us think that with more than twenty times fewer people things will turn out differently for us? (Related to all this, the story of Gertrude Bell
June 8, 2008
A Geriatric Press
The Millennial generation is critically important in 2008 and will become increasingly central to American politics for the next several decades (for some reasons why, see Friday's podcast). It should be a scandal, then, that the mainstream press not only doesn't recognize the Millennial factor but manages to ignore it when it's the central aspect of a story they report. Case in point: today's NYT piece by Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny on Obama's 50 state strategy. If it weren't for Millennials Obama's effort is merely a curiosity — pretty much as this piece reports — but taking Millennials into account one sees what the story really means: Obama is building a base of Democratic Party participation that goes well past this election cycle. Is the mainstream blind, hopelessly stupid, or what?
June 4, 2008
What Does She Want??
A normal, decent person, faced with the situation Hillary Clinton faced yesterday evening, would have conceded defeat. Hillary seems to think she has other options, prompting CNN's Jeffrey Toobin to call her refusal to concede "deranged narcissism." Perhaps. Lots of others speculate that she's bargaining for the Vice Presidency, but the chances of Obama picking her as a running mate are about the same that John McCain will. Negligible. Nor does she ensure a seat at the table on her signature issues — if she won't close Democratic ranks, why include her in much of anything, anymore? Assuming she's not deranged that leaves an intriguing possibility: she's contemplating running as an independent. Nobody that I've seen has speculated along these lines, but it's worth taking a moment to consider what might happen.
June 3, 2008
Obama On Fire
Obama gave a great speech tonight in St. Paul, Minnesota. Wow! Well constructed, emotional, plenty of content. I notice that a lot of commentators don't get it — I sort of wish they did but, really, I don't care. It's as if they live in another world. As does John "Wetstart" McCain, recycling a dreary 1980s speech. What a cardboard figure. Or Hillary, practicing her occult art of political division. Obama's tapped into something else altogether. And it's amazing, thinking about it, that he's kept this fire under wraps for so long, figuring, one supposes, that it's meant for a general campaign. Republicans, watch out!
June 2, 2008
General William E. Odom, RIP
What a privilege and honor it was to know William Eldridge Odom. After I'd resigned from the State Department we often found ourselves — for whatever reason, I don't know why — booked onto the same television shows to talk about the crisis in Yugoslavia. Usually to argue with each other but also sometimes to argue the same side. We respected each other. And we got to know each other outside the studio, mostly on a professional basis: he invited me a few times to luncheon discussions over at his Washington base at the Hudson Institute. Always subjects I knew nothing about, but interesting. And I can't remember now, but he may have come around to some of my events at the Carnegie Endowment (often very well attended). Though we were not especially close, I certainly thought of him as a friend.
