Of Palin and Politics
I was cold-called today by the folks that run the Rasmussen Reports. I generally hang up on such calls, but today I was happy to participate in the political survey if only to register my voice of disaffection for both candidates of the major parties. (I was a supporter of Ron Paul and am likely to write in Ron Paul's name for President or vote for a third party candidate). The survey (among other items) asked a set of questions that gauged my general impression of the four Pres/VP nominees as well as my impression of the job performance of our current President using the following heirarchy: 1) very favorable, 2) slightly favorable, 3) slightly unfavorable, and 4) very unfavorable. I rated President Bush (as you might guess) using the "very unfavorable" selection. Sen. Obama, Sen. McCain, and Gov. Palin all received "slightly unfavorable" and Biden was given an equal share of disdain as President Bush received.

Much hay has been made lately of the Vice Presidential selections: Sen. Barack "The Change We Need" Obama selected Sen. Joe Biden (a 36-yr Washington insider); and Sen. John McCain selected the unknown Governor of Alaska, Governor Sarah Palin. The Palin pick is immediately interesting (to me) for the comparison to that of Sen. Obama's pick, Sen. Joe Biden. Sen. Biden detracts from all of Sen. Obama's strengths and adds little to Sen. Obama's so-called "weaknesses". For example, during the run up to the Iraq war in 2002, Sen. Biden was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee. Biden was in a position to allow a real debate to be held on the rush to Iraq War, yet not a single "anti-war" voice was allowed to speak in those hearings. Of course (like so many others), Sen. Biden now regrets his vote in favor to authorize the use of US Armed Forces against Iraq - not because the Iraq War was wrong per se, but rather because the Executive Branch didn't do a great job with the implementation phase. Biden is certainly no Dick Cheney, but as one commentator put it... Biden is very "Cheney-esque" - in other words, business as usual.

Governor Palin on the other hand is pretty much a blank slate with regard to foreign policy matters. Many commentators (well, mainly bloggers) are making this molehill into quite a mountain; one has even suggested Palin will either resign or sabotage Sen. McCain's campaign in part because of this issue of inexperience. I remember another such governor with little to no foreign policy experience... he ran for the office of POTUS back in 2000 and has been our President ever since. Clearly inexperience in these matters is not that big of a deal to a large part of the US population.

The brilliance of the Gov. Palin pick (and it was a brilliant pick) is two-fold: 1) she complements Sen. McCain and fills in all the gaps and dispels many of the doubts the GOP base had with McCain, and 2) her pick sucked the air right out of Sen. Obama's sails heading out from the Democratic Convention and the media has been Palin-this, Palin-that ever since... the momentum shifted - big time - and the Democrats may be unable to regain it. Don't believe me? Check out the latest Rasmussen polls.

I read an article the other day on Daily Kos that basically said that Gov. Palin is "Bush in a skirt". Insulting? Yes. But actually - this is probably Gov. Palin's greatest asset. In a nation seeking "change" and "hope" who better to wave that banner than an ignorant, arrogant, (and perhaps angry) Governor hockey-mom with a grassroots-local-type of a appeal? This drama reminds me of articles I read back in 2000 during the primary leading up to then Gov. Bush's nomination. In one of the interviews with local small-town residents of some state (South Carolina I think), one such citizen responded to the reporter stating that he would be voting for Bush because *ahem* Bush once ran a Major League Baseball team and this citizen liked baseball. In other words, a lot of people - really, a lot - vote for someone that they can relate to, rather than someone that is the most capable person to lead the nation. It's a concept that the RNC understands all too well, but one that the DNC has never seemed to figure out. Exhibit A: President George W. Bush. Exhibit B: Two terms(!). QED.

Speaking of President Bush... he beat two opposing tickets that both featured two Democratic senators. Does the DNC (and really it must have been the DNC pulling the trigger on the Biden pick) honestly believe that another two-Senator ticket is going to be enough to get it done this time? With the Palin pick reaping dividends, I have my doubts... and I'm sure Sen. Obama is having doubts (about the Biden pick) as well.

So what does Gov. Palin bring to the table? She has single-handedly re-invigorated the GOP base that were always lukewarm to the "RINO" McCain. Furthermore, she strengthens Sen. McCain's bonafides with respect to energy policy... where McCain has a clear advantage. And what does Sen. Biden bring to the table? Not much really. However, he detracts significantly from Sen. Obama's reasonable foreign policy strengths. If you judge the presidential candidates by the choices they make rather than the promises they can easily break, then Sen. McCain makes a very strong case with his VP choice. Sen. Obama bombed with Biden.

So will (as a friend of mine suggests) Gov. Palin either resign or sabotage McCain's campaign? That would imply the Palin pick is incredibly bad... worse than Cheney (2000)? or Edwards (2004)? or even Dan Quayle (1988)? None of those three resigned and two of those three were winners, yet... all three of those are arguably much poorer picks than Gov. Palin (imho). Palin resign? The selection of Gov. Palin is not even the worst VP pick in 2008.

45 New Nuclear Reactors by 2030?
It is abundantly clear that energy policy will be the key issue in the upcoming 2008 presidental election. The price of a gallon of regular unleaded gas will likely be north of $5/gallon by then. Today, presumptive republican presidental nominee John McCain declared that he wants to build 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030. A position I wholeheartedly endorse... as does Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore (see here).

McCain Sets Goal of 45 New Nuclear Reactors by 2030
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: June 19, 2008

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Senator John McCain said Wednesday that he wanted 45 new nuclear reactors built in the United States by 2030, a course he called "as difficult as it is necessary."

In his third straight day of campaign speechmaking about energy and $4-a-gallon gasoline, Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, told the crowd at a town-hall-style meeting at Missouri State University that he saw nuclear power as a clean, safe alternative to traditional sources of energy that emit greenhouse gases. He said his ultimate goal was 100 new nuclear plants.

Mr. McCain has long promoted nuclear reactors, but Wednesday was the first time that he specified the number of plants he envisioned.

Currently there are 104 reactors in the country supplying some 20 percent of electricity consumed. No new nuclear power plant has been built in the United States since the 1970s.

"China, Russia and India are all planning to build more than a hundred new power plants among them in the coming decades," Mr. McCain said in this pocket of Missouri that is reliably Republican. "Across Europe there are 197 reactors in operation, and nations including France and Belgium derive more than half their electricity from nuclear power. And if all of these nations can find a way to carry out great goals in energy policy, then I assure you that the United States is more than equal to the challenge."

[...]

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Mr. McCain's chief domestic policy adviser, said Mr. McCain had arrived at the goal of 45 as consistent with his desire to expand nuclear power, "but not so large as to be infeasible given permitting and construction times."

In recent years, I have been voting for candidates primarily based on what I judge to be reasonable foreign policy (which is pretty much the opposite of President Bush's foreign policy positions). I definitely side with Obama on foreign policy (Senator McCain's foreign policy is identical to that of President Bush). However, Senator McCain just might win me over with his energy policy.

Mitt Romney and Mormonism
A few days ago a good friend of mine sent me a chain e-mail letter expressing concerns about how the press was unfairly treating Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential candidate, because Mr. Romney happens to be Mormon. Included in the letter was a link to an essay written by Orson Scott Card titled "Is Mitt Romney Serious?". Like most forwarded chain e-mail letters, I gave it a cursory scan and then dismissed the entire matter out of hand as just a bunch of Mormons exhibiting their persecution complex.

But then today, while browsing the opinion pieces at TownHall.com, I stumbled on what I can only describe as a "Mormon hit piece" written by Frank Pastore titled "Mitt Romney, Mormonism and the Presidency of the United States". Here are some lowlights:

Historically, our largely Christian country has chosen to elect Christian candidates (not that there have been many non-Christian candidates). In the last two presidential elections, church attendance was the most reliable indicator of voting preferences. It's no coincidence that the Democrats this time around are determined to appear more religious (i.e., more evangelical friendly) in order to win the White House. Yet, if appearing more religious in this majority-Christian nation is an electoral advantage, then being from a faith other than Christianity presents a new set of challenges. And therein lies the problem for the Romney campaign. [emphasis mine]

Yes, Mormons aren't Christians... blah blah blah. But Mr. Pastore doesn't stop there. While he is patronizing the Mormons on the one hand ("Mormons are among the finest people I've ever met"), he can't help but continue to cast our religion in the most negative light possible:

Yet many Mormons in recent years have taken to calling themselves Christians, and a growing number of Christians are willing to speak of Mormonism as something akin to another Christian denomination. But, Mormonism is not a Christian denomination, nor is it merely "a non-Christian religion." To be theologically precise, though perhaps politically incorrect, Mormonism is a cult of Christianity (www.apologeticsindex.org/c09a01.html) - a group that claims to Christian while denying one or more central doctrines of the Christian faith.

Wow. With friends like these, who needs enemies!

(Update Fri May 4 09:31:50 PDT 2007 // Pastore is still hammering away at Mormons in his recent column using a definition of "cult" as provided by evangelicals themselves, see his column dated April 28th, "Mormonism: Religion, Denomination, or Cult?". His defintion of "cult" essentially boils down to "those who don't agree with me" - which is nothing shy of soft bigotry.)

Tax Facts
I have been catching up on some reading since I've returned home. Of course, I hit my favorite on-line haunts first, namely AntiWar.com and TownHall.com. One notable article I read tonight is authored by Bruce Bartlett, the subject matter is Tax Facts and contains several bits of trivia. Here are some excerpts that I found interesting:

Just in time for tax filing season, the Tax Foundation and Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation have compiled some useful facts about the federal tax system. Following are a few worth thinking about as taxpayers write their annual checks to Uncle Sam.

-- In 2005, the federal government took $2.4 trillion out of the pockets of the American people. To put this number into context, it is about the same as the size of the entire U.S. economy in 1959 in inflation-adjusted terms. Only two other countries on earth have economies as large as our federal government: Germany and Japan - and Germany just barely makes the cut, with a gross domestic product of $2.7 trillion. China, which everyone is so alarmed about, has an economy significantly smaller than the federal government, with a GDP of $1.9 trillion - about equal to what the U.S. raises just from taxes on individuals.

-- Contrary to popular belief, the vast bulk of federal taxes are paid by the wealthy. According to the JCT, in 2006, 53.7 percent of all federal income taxes were paid by those with incomes over $200,000. Those with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000 paid 28.3 percent of all individual income taxes. Thus those with incomes over $100,000 paid 82 percent of the total. They also paid 44.4 percent of all payroll taxes.

-- Those with incomes below $40,000 paid no federal income taxes at all in the aggregate; the positive liability for those who paid anything was more than offset by tax rebates from the Earned Income Tax Credit for many more who paid nothing. In total, the EITC put $41 billion into the pockets of low-income workers in 2005, 91 percent of it being paid to those with no income tax liability. However, according to the Tax Foundation, three-fifths of Americans believe that it is wrong for anyone to pay no taxes at all, that everyone should pay something to finance the government.

[...]

-- The Alternative Minimum Tax is a rapidly growing federal tax. Originally designed to tax only the rich, increasingly it is a tax on the middle class. In 2005, the AMT affected only 1.3 percent of those with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000. Unless Congress acts, this percent will rise to 42.8 percent this year and over 50 percent next year. This illustrates the problem with all soak-the-rich tax proposals - eventually they end up taxing the middle class, too.

Still In Iraq
I can still remember to this day the first e-mail message I sent out to a group of friends (at work in Utah) outlining my anti-Iraq War position. I was a voice in the wilderness; virtually no-one else that I knew (except Dan) was anti-war. That was four years ago. There were so many baseless justifications for the war that it was almost hard to keep track... the various and sundry WMD programs and weapons, the myriad terrorist connections, 9/11 revenge, etc... such was the mania to plunge head long into Iraq. And I can think of no better way to describe it... it was an insane policy decision. Yet many level-headed persons that I know and respect, such as my brother-in-law, were so consumed with the idea of an Iraq War, that they actually became not only war supporters... but pro-war cheerleaders. My brother-in-law actually tuned in to CNN on the night of the invasion to witness the carnage. It was sickening.

And it still is (sickening), for example read this:

Why I Fled George Bush's War

Why are we still in Iraq?

Chuck Hagel: Leaving Iraq, Honorably
I have been catching up on my political reading today somewhat. A column written by Chuck Hagel a few days ago stood out. I'll pick out a few choice paragraphs, but I recommend that you the whole thing.

Leaving Iraq, Honorably

By Chuck Hagel
Sunday, November 26, 2006; Page B07

There will be no victory or defeat for the United States in Iraq. These terms do not reflect the reality of what is going to happen there. The future of Iraq was always going to be determined by the Iraqis -- not the Americans.

Iraq is not a prize to be won or lost. It is part of the ongoing global struggle against instability, brutality, intolerance, extremism and terrorism. There will be no military victory or military solution for Iraq. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger made this point last weekend.

The time for more U.S. troops in Iraq has passed. We do not have more troops to send and, even if we did, they would not bring a resolution to Iraq. Militaries are built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations. We are once again learning a very hard lesson in foreign affairs: America cannot impose a democracy on any nation -- regardless of our noble purpose.

We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam. Honorable intentions are not policies and plans. Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there. They will decide their fate and form of government.

[...]

America finds itself in a dangerous and isolated position in the world. We are perceived as a nation at war with Muslims. Unfortunately, that perception is gaining credibility in the Muslim world and for many years will complicate America's global credibility, purpose and leadership. This debilitating and dangerous perception must be reversed as the world seeks a new geopolitical, trade and economic center that will accommodate the interests of billions of people over the next 25 years. The world will continue to require realistic, clear-headed American leadership -- not an American divine mission.

The United States must begin planning for a phased troop withdrawal from Iraq. The cost of combat in Iraq in terms of American lives, dollars and world standing has been devastating. We've already spent more than $300 billion there to prosecute an almost four-year-old war and are still spending $8 billion per month. The United States has spent more than $500 billion on our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And our effort in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, partly because we took our focus off the real terrorist threat, which was there, and not in Iraq.

We are destroying our force structure, which took 30 years to build. We've been funding this war dishonestly, mainly through supplemental appropriations, which minimizes responsible congressional oversight and allows the administration to duck tough questions in defending its policies. Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibility in the past four years.

It is not too late. The United States can still extricate itself honorably from an impending disaster in Iraq. The Baker-Hamilton commission gives the president a new opportunity to form a bipartisan consensus to get out of Iraq. If the president fails to build a bipartisan foundation for an exit strategy, America will pay a high price for this blunder -- one that we will have difficulty recovering from in the years ahead.

To squander this moment would be to squander future possibilities for the Middle East and the world. That is what is at stake over the next few months.

The writer is a Republican senator from Nebraska.

I really, really, really wish Chuck Hagel would run for President in 2008. We need a leader that will stand up for old-school conservative principles and Senator Hagel seems (to me) to be the most competent person to take that charge.

Staying the Course
George Will has published an excellent column today critical of the "stay the course" in Iraq policy.

<http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2006/10/22/what_does_staying_the_course_mean>

What does staying the course mean?
By George Will
Sunday, October 22, 2006

A realist with a wintry smile, James A. Baker III, who helped make George W. Bush's presidency possible, is seeking ways to salvage it. After the 2000 election, Baker orchestrated the Bush campaign's lawyering against the Gore campaign's lawyering that tried to overturn Bush's 537-vote Florida margin. Today Baker is co-chairman -- with former congressman Lee Hamilton, the Indiana Democrat -- of the Iraq Study Group, which will issue recommendations after Thanksgiving.

International crises rarely conform tidily to electoral cycles. Too bad. America's electoral cycles are constitutional facts: Every two years, elections take the nation's temperature; every four years, the nation selects the occupant of the office responsible for formulating foreign policy.

Today the policy of "staying the course" means Americans dying to prevent Shiites and Sunnis from killing each other. If in January 2009 more than 100,000 U.S. forces remain in Iraq, there might be 100 fewer Republicans in Congress. So "stay the course" is a policy stamped with an expiration date.

[...]

What are 140,000 U.S. forces achieving in Iraq that could not be achieved by 40,000? If the answer is "creating Iraqi security forces," a second question is: Is there an Iraqi government? In "State of Denial," Bob Woodward quotes Colin Powell, after leaving the administration, telling the president that strengthening Iraq's military and police forces is crucial, but that "if you don't have a government that you can connect these forces to, then, Mr. President, you're not building up forces, you're building up militias." And making matters worse.

[...]

In September 1942 the U.S. government purchased 58,575 acres of wilderness in eastern Tennessee. Soon there was a town, Oak Ridge, and amazing scientific facilities. Thirty-four months after the purchase, an atomic blast lit the New Mexico desert. After 43 months in Iraq, U.S. forces still struggle to cope with improvised explosive devices.

On Sept. 19, Hamilton said "the next three months are critical." On Oct. 5, Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said that the next "two or three months" are critical. If only the worsening insurgency were, as the president suggested Wednesday, akin to North Vietnam's 1968 Tet Offensive. The insurgency is worse: Tet was a military defeat for North Vietnam. The president says the war in Iraq will be "just a comma" in history books, but by Nov. 26, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, with the Study Group's recommendations due, the comma will have lasted as long as U.S. involvement in World War II.

The best way to honor the troops is to put pressure on your representatives to remove the troops from being unnecessarily put in harm's way (specifically in Iraq). Bring the troops home now! Vote for candidates that feel the same way. Vote Libertarian!

A Vain War for Pride (and Profit)
One of my never-to-be-missed destinations for political commentary is The Belgravia Dispatch, written by Gregory Djerejian. Djerejian was pro-Iraq-invasion circa early 2003 but has since been quite repentant. He writes an excellent piece today about trying to figure out what the exact motivations were for the Iraq War - something I've tried very hard to figure out for myself. I like his conclusion, that is was fought because of the pride and vanity of those in charge. As they say, read the whole thing. Mr. Djerejian does not speak to creating our unnecessary Iraqi conflict for the benefit of generating profits to several well-placed Pentagon contractors, but from what I've read about the no-bid contracts awarded it seems obvious that this war was not only fought because of the vanity and pride of our leaders, but it was also waged purely for profit.

Bizarro Conservatism
I look at my fellow "conservatives", the propaganda they ingest (via talk radio, periodicals, etc), and just can't help but think that America can never be redeemed. Justin Raimondo pens an excellent column today, Bizarro Conservatism, that succinctly summarizes my own dour outlook. If you have the time, I recommend reading it in its entirety.

The Toll of Neoconservative Foreign Policy
George Will writes a sharp essay today criticizing the agenda of The Weekly Standard magazine (the most prominent neoconservative publication in the country). We need more George Will's and less George Bush's (*sigh*).

Transformation's Toll
By George Will
Tuesday, July 18, 2006

WASHINGTON -- ``Grotesque'' was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's characterization of the charge that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was responsible for the current Middle East conflagration. She is correct, up to a point. This point: Hezbollah and Hamas were alive and toxic long before March 2003. Still, it is not perverse to wonder whether the spectacle of America, currently learning a lesson -- one that conservatives should not have to learn on the job -- about the limits of power to subdue an unruly world, has emboldened many enemies.

Speaking on ABC's ``This Week," Rice called it ``short-sighted" to judge the success of the administration's transformational ambitions by a ``snapshot" of progress ``some couple of years" into the transformation. She seems to consider today's turmoil preferable to the Middle East's ``false stability" of the last 60 years, during which U.S. policy ``turned a blind eye to the absence of democratic forces."

There is, however, a sense in which that argument creates a blind eye: It makes instability, no matter how pandemic or lethal, necessarily a sign of progress. Violence is vindication: Hamas and Hezbollah have, Rice says, ``determined that it is time now to try and arrest the move toward moderate democratic forces in the Middle East.''

But there also is democratic movement toward extremism. America's intervention was supposed to democratize Iraq which, by benign infection, would transform the region. Early on in the Iraq occupation, Rice argued that democratic institutions do not just spring from a hospitable political culture, they also can help create such a culture. Perhaps.

But elections have transformed Hamas into the government of the Palestinian territories, and elections have turned Hezbollah into a significant faction in Lebanon's parliament, from which it operates as a state within the state. And as a possible harbinger of future horrors, last year's elections gave the Muslim Brotherhood 19 percent of the seats in Egypt's parliament.

[...]

The administration, justly criticized for its Iraq premises and their execution, is suddenly receiving some criticism so untethered from reality as to defy caricature. The national, ethnic and religious dynamics of the Middle East are opaque to most people, but to The Weekly Standard -- voice of a spectacularly misnamed radicalism, ``neoconservativism'' -- everything is crystal clear: Iran is the key to everything.

``No Islamic Republic of Iran, no Hezbollah. No Islamic Republic of Iran, no one to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. No Iranian support for Syria ... '' You get the drift. So, The Weekly Standard says:

``We might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions -- and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.''

``Why wait?'' Perhaps because the U.S. military has enough on its plate, in the deteriorating wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which both border Iran. And perhaps because containment, although of uncertain success, did work against Stalin and his successors, and might be preferable to a war against a nation much larger and more formidable than Iraq. And if Assad's regime does not fall after The Weekly Standard's hoped-for third war, with Iran, does the magazine hope for a fourth?

As for the ``healthy'' repercussions that The Weekly Standard is so eager to experience from yet another war: One envies that publication's powers of prophecy, but wishes it had exercised them on the nation's behalf before all of the surprises -- all of them unpleasant -- that Iraq has inflicted. And regarding the ``appeasement'' that The Weekly Standard decries: Does the magazine really wish the administration had heeded its earlier (Dec. 20, 2004) editorial advocating war with yet another nation -- the bombing of Syria?

Neoconservatives have much to learn, even from Buddy Bell, manager of the Kansas City Royals. After his team lost its 10th consecutive game in April, Bell said, ``I never say it can't get worse.'' In their next game, the Royals extended their losing streak to 11 and in May lost 13 in a row.

I'm still an active subscriber to the paleoconservative publication, The American Conservative. I highly recommend it to thoughtful conservatives everywhere.

Alternatives to Economic Sanctions
Ron Paul (R-TX) published a great article yesterday arguing that we should be economincally engaged with Iran rather than attempting to isolate Iran, as this is the best way to indirectly influence the Irananian people. I highly recommend it for your review:

Sanctions Against Iran

As the drumbeat for military action against Iran grows louder, some members of Congress are calling to expand the longstanding U.S. trade ban that bars American companies from investing in that nation. In fact, many war hawks in Washington are pushing for a comprehensive international embargo against Iran. The international response has been lukewarm, however, because the world needs Iranian oil. But we cannot underestimate the irrational, almost manic desire of some neoconservatives to attack Iran one way or another, even if it means crippling a major source of oil and destabilizing the worldwide economy.

Make no mistake about it: Economic sanctions are acts of aggression. Sanctions increase poverty and misery among the very poorest inhabitants of targeted nations, and they breed tremendous resentment against those imposing them. But they rarely hurt the political and economic elites responsible for angering American leaders in the first place.

In fact, few government policies are as destructive to our economy as the embargo.

While embargoes sound like strong, punitive action, in reality they represent a failed policy that four decades of experience prove doesn't work. Conversely, economic engagement is perhaps the single most effective tool in tearing down dictatorships and spreading the message of liberty.

It is important to note that economic engagement is not the same thing as foreign aid. Foreign aid, which should be abolished immediately, involves the US government spending American tax dollars to prop up other nations.

Embargoes only hurt the innocent of a targeted country. While it may be difficult for the leader of an embargoed nation to get a box of American-grown rice, he will get it one way or another. For the poor peasant in the remote section of his country, however, the food will be unavailable.

It is difficult to understand how denying access to food, medicine, and other products benefits anyone. Embargo advocates claim that denying people access to our products somehow creates opposition to the despised leader. The reality, though, is that hostilities are more firmly directed at America.

Father Robert Sirico, a Paulist priest, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that trade relations "strengthen people's loyalties to each other and weaken government power." To imagine that we somehow can spread the message of liberty to an oppressed nation by denying them access to our people and the bounty of our prosperity is contorted at best.

For more than thirty years we have embargoed Cuba in an attempt to drive Fidel Castro from power. Yet he remains in power. By contrast look at the Soviet Union, a nation we allowed our producers to engage economically. Of course the Soviet Union has collapsed.

Great points.

Be Green; Go Nuclear
One of the co-founders of Greenpeace has an editorial today arguing for nuclear energy. I've long thought that we need to start building more nuclear power plants here in the US, but the stigma of nuclear energy has been hard to overcome (no thanks to Hollywood of course). But this is a positive development. Perhaps soon more people will be less dismissive of nuclear energy. Have a read:

Going Nuclear
A Green Makes the Case
By Patrick Moore

[...] More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions -- or nearly 10 percent of global emissions -- of CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely.

[...]

In 1979, Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon produced a frisson of fear with their starring roles in "The China Syndrome," a fictional evocation of nuclear disaster in which a reactor meltdown threatens a city's survival. Less than two weeks after the blockbuster film opened, a reactor core meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant sent shivers of very real anguish throughout the country.

What nobody noticed at the time, though, was that Three Mile Island was in fact a success story: The concrete containment structure did just what it was designed to do -- prevent radiation from escaping into the environment. And although the reactor itself was crippled, there was no injury or death among nuclear workers or nearby residents. Three Mile Island was the only serious accident in the history of nuclear energy generation in the United States, but it was enough to scare us away from further developing the technology: There hasn't been a nuclear plant ordered up since then.

Today, there are 103 nuclear reactors quietly delivering just 20 percent of America's electricity. Eighty percent of the people living within 10 miles of these plants approve of them (that's not including the nuclear workers). Although I don't live near a nuclear plant, I am now squarely in their camp.

And I am not alone among seasoned environmental activists in changing my mind on this subject. British atmospheric scientist James Lovelock, father of the Gaia theory, believes that nuclear energy is the only way to avoid catastrophic climate change.

[...]

Wind and solar power have their place, but because they are intermittent and unpredictable they simply can't replace big baseload plants such as coal, nuclear and hydroelectric. Natural gas, a fossil fuel, is too expensive already, and its price is too volatile to risk building big baseload plants. Given that hydroelectric resources are built pretty much to capacity, nuclear is, by elimination, the only viable substitute for coal. It's that simple.

The article goes on from there and debunks many popular myths about nuclear power. It's a great read.

Narcissism and Paternalism as Foreign Policy
Go read this.

The stage is now set for a still greater and much worse catastrophe: a military attack on Iran. And there is not one national political leader of any significance who will oppose it. Most of them will support it, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Some of them will say they "regret" it, but they will view it as a "tragic necessity."

We are in love with death, and every day we bring death closer -- and on a scale that we dare not even imagine.

If you want security, stop meddling in other people's affairs.

Speaking Up, Speaking Out on Alternative to War
I think America is a great country. But I have my doubts about whether or not it can survive the current stranglehold the two-party system has on our government. Both parties cling more tightly to power than to principles. And the citizenry (at large, and in my very humble opinion) seems to care very little about the momentous import of the poor decisions our leaders (of both parties) are making.

Case in point... currently both parties are trying to "out-hawk" each other about Iran. I was talking a bit about politics to my brother-in-law while driving home from Priesthood the other day. The context of the discussion was my disagreement with President Hinckley's personal opinion about Iraq (at least his pre-war opinion about Iraq, I have no idea how President Hinckley feels now... more on that here). Then the subject turned to Iran. He blurted out that we should just "bomb Iran" and be done with it. Well, if he wanted to get a rise out of me, that was the perfect thing to say, and I started going through all of the reasons why that was a bad idea and what we should be doing instead. I wasn't upset, but I wasn't calm as the summer's morn either.

My brother-in-law was unimpressed and said something to effect that "[I'm] getting too worked up about it." Now that may be true, but there is certainly cause for grave concern in my humble opinion. This conversation came back into my mind, because of something I read today:

What the War Party is counting on, in the end, is its ironclad control over the two-party system and its all-pervasive grip on Congress: this, they hope, will suppress the effects of widespread discontent and prevent popular antiwar sentiment from upsetting their future plans. They are counting on their well-organized and lavishly financed efforts to counter the rising tide of public opinion, and are hoping, at the very least, to keep the governing elites on their side. If no major party candidate offers the people a clear choice between war and peace, if the Democrats as well as the Republicans push a foreign policy of "preemptive" aggression and global intervention, then - they hope - the antiwar majority can be rendered impotent. No wonder they want to "export democracy" to the rest of the world - it's the system that keeps them in power, while masking their anti-majoritarian, anti-populist rule in the shiny raiment of democratic idealism. A more self-consciously cynical doctrine would be hard to invent.

Perfectly stated. You can read the rest here.

It's time to speak up, and speak out.

The Logic Of Deterrence and Diplomacy
I got my latest issue of The American Conservative in the mail today and have just finished reading most of the articles contained therein. Fantastic political magazine... I highly recommend a subscription. The cover article, "Iran: The Logic of Deterrence" is a very good read. Here are a couple of good quotes (but please go read the whole thing):

Given the overwhelming U.S. advantage in both nuclear and conventional military capabilities, Iran is not going to risk national suicide by challenging America's security commitments in the region. In this sense, dealing with the Iranian "nuclear threat" is actually one of the easier strategic challenges the United States faces. It is a threat that can be handled by an offshore balancing strategy that relies on missile, air, and naval power well away from the volatile Persian Gulf, thus reducing the American poltico-military footprint in the region. In short, while a nuclear-armed Iran is hardly desirable, neither is it "intolerable," because it could be contained and deterred successfully by the United States.

[...]

although a nuclear-armed Iran is not a pleasant prospect, neither is it an intolerable one. Tehran won't be the first distasteful regime to acquire nuclear weapons. The United States has adjusted to similar situations in the past and can do so this time. Rather than preventive war and regime change, the best policies for the U.S. with respect to Iran are the tried and true ones: containment, deterrence, and diplomatic engagement.

There are realistic and much more reasonable alternatives to pre-emption. Remember this when the War Party begins, in earnest, to trump up the Iranian Bogeyman in the coming months.

Had Enough?
I've have long passed my breaking point with the Bush Administration (and the Republican leadership and right-wing pundit class that enables this President). Although the faith in my party has been shaken severely, there have been some rational voices that were speaking out against President Bush and this Administration's insane policies from the very beginning... these include Bob Barr, Bruce Bartlett, Pat Buchanan, and a few others.

Lately however, with the incredible failure in Iraq looming large, many conservative heavyweights are attempting to put President Bush at arm's length... albeit without acknowledging that it wasn't so much that the policies that President Bush embraces are bad, but only the Bush Administration's implementation of the policies is flawed. For example, William F. Buckley writes:

"One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed."

But the failure wasn't because the cause itself wasn't "reasonable" as Mr. Buckley puts it (the cause he is referring to is conveniently not ridding Saddam of his mythical WMDs), but it was just that President Bush and his staff weren't up to the task of democratizing the stubborn Iraqis who would not "suspend internal divisions in order to get on with life in a political structure that guaranteed them religious freedom." Yes, if only the Iraqis had bought into the vision of democracy at gunpoint! I guess when your family members are being blown apart and tortured by an occupying army, you kind of lose sight of the "reasonable postulates" to which Mr. Buckley alludes. Yes, their bad Bill. Not surprisingly, Mr. Buckley is now arguing for an armed intervention in Iran and wondering aloud:

"Is [military intervention] something Mr. Bush is going to handle before the end of his term in office?"

Brilliant, Bill... just brilliant. You have learned nothing.

I was reading some news just now and stumbled on an article in TIME magazine posted today. It gave me just a wee bit of hope (but it's still early):

Republicans On The Run

[...]

As the campaign season kicks into gear, Republican incumbents are having a hard time figuring out how close they want to be to the White House. Voters have plenty to take out on Republican candidates this year--ethics scandals, the G.O.P.'S failure to curb spending, the government's inept response to Hurricane Katrina, a confusing new prescription-drug program for seniors and, more than anything else, an unpopular President who is fighting an unpopular war. Iraq could make a vulnerability of the Republicans' greatest asset, the security issue.

The midterm contests in a President's second term are almost always treacherous, but this time around, Republicans thought it would be different. The 2006 elections, coming on top of their gains in 2002 and 2004, would make history and perhaps even cement a G.O.P. majority in Congress for a generation. George W. Bush's credibility on national security and the states' aggressive gerrymandering, they believed, had turned the vast majority of districts into fortresses for incumbents. But that's not turning out to be the case. In recent weeks, a startling realization has begun to take hold: if the elections were held today, top strategists of both parties say privately, the Republicans would probably lose the 15 seats they need to keep control of the House of Representatives and could come within a seat or two of losing the Senate as well. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who masterminded the 1994 elections that brought Republicans to power on promises of revolutionizing the way Washington is run, told TIME that his party has so bungled the job of governing that the best campaign slogan for Democrats today could be boiled down to just two words: "Had enough?"

[...]

I know many of my blog faithful don't see eye-to-eye on me with respect to President Bush and his inept handling of our foreign policy (and don't get Bruce Bartlett started about how President Bush bankrupted America and betrayed the Reagan legacy... er, wait, nevermind, he already wrote a book about it) - but my question to you is this, when have you had enough?!

I made a friendly wager with my friend Dan that there would be U.S. soldiers in Tehran by November of 2008 and I fully expect to collect on that bet. If the U.S. populace writ large can swallow all of the lies the Bush Administration told about Iraq and not really blink an eye... President Bush was re-elected after all... then I don't see what is going to stop the Bush Administration (and his willing enablers) from committing US forces to an Iran invasion in order to mitigate would will be sold as a "grave and gathering threat" to US security. It really is nothing more than a matter of selling the same crap, just on a different day. The US public will buy it... again... hook, line, and sinker.

(Update Mon Mar 27 16:27:27 PST 2006 // fixed a spelling error)

Domestic Surveillance
Dan is exasperated about the recent news that President Bush authorized domestic spying, bypassing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). As I noted in a previous blog entry, George Will's column on the subject, "Why didn't he ask Congress" is a must read.

More background is available from this NY Times article, "The Agency That Could Be Big Brother".

Airing of Grievances: The Bush Administration
Ah, Festivus - a great time to express how I've been disappointed this year. By far and away, my single source of disappointment this year has been that of the Bush Administration. Not far behind our insufferable President are the Republican Party shills that abandon every shred of integrity (and their conservative principles) in their rush to defend this President.

Fortunately, there are still some sane voices left on the right. I have cut my political magazine subscriptions down to one, that of Pat Buchanan's The American Conservative. I don't see eye-to-eye with Mr. Buchanan on many social issues, but on just about everything else his writings seem to cogently summarize my own opinions. Mr. Buchanan also semi-regularly contributes to one of my favorite on-line haunts, AntiWar.com. Two other syndicated columnists that also will not abandon their principles and kow-tow to this very unconservative President are Bruce Bartlett and George Will.

For example, Mr. Will in a recent column, "Why didn't he ask Congress", writes:

The president's authorization of domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency contravened a statute's clear language. Assuming that urgent facts convinced him that he should proceed anyway and on his own, what argument convinced him that he lawfully could?

[...]

Charles de Gaulle, a profound conservative, said of another such, Otto von Bismarck -- de Gaulle was thinking of Bismarck not pressing his advantage in 1870 in the Franco-Prussian War -- that genius sometimes consists of knowing when to stop. In peace and in war, but especially in the latter, presidents have pressed their institutional advantages to expand their powers to act without Congress. This president might look for occasions to stop pressing.

I recommend you read the whole article as it is exceptionally well written.

Just a week before George Will wrote that column, Bruce Bartlett - in his own syndicated column, "Sheltered at 1600 Pennsylvania" - was hammering away on the President:

In its latest issue, Newsweek magazine has a disturbing portrait of George W. Bush as an aloof, out-of-touch president, isolated by his own governing style. Because of his intolerance for dissent, he has effectively surrounded himself with yes-men (and women) fearful of telling the president anything he doesn't want to hear.

Written by veteran reporters Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe, the Newsweek story confirms reports we have heard for the last five years about Bush's disinterest in the policy process or even the day-to-day politicking that ordinarily goes with the job. He dislikes meeting with members of Congress, is not a big consumer of news that does not come to him through official channels and relies almost exclusively on a small cluster of close aides, ignoring his Cabinet and the rest of the federal establishment.

The result is that Bush appears to live in a sort of fantasy world utterly divorced from reality. For example, Newsweek quotes a senior Republican congressman -- unnamed for fear of White House retaliation -- who was astounded in a meeting with Bush about Social Security at how out-of-touch he was with the political prospects for his reform plan. The congressman and everyone else in the room knew the plan was dead, yet Bush went on and on as if it were on the brink of enactment.

and:

According to Newsweek, in many subtle ways Bush discourages his aides from telling him the truth. One is the way he phrases questions -- not so as to elicit information, but rather in order to force subordinates into a position where the only answer they can give is to confirm the wisdom of whatever decision he already made.

This problem is compounded by Bush's antipathy for in-depth briefings. He prefers short conversations that are "long on conclusion, short on reasoning," we are told. "Faith, not evidence, is the basis for decision-making," Thomas and Wolffe report.

All of this (and more) leads Bartlett to come to this dour conclusion:

Unfortunately, it appears that there is nobody -- even his father -- in a position to sit President Bush down and force him to change course. The one person who might be able to do so is Vice President Cheney, but he has long been Bush's principal enabler, according to a report by John Dickerson in the online magazine Slate. Lacking any political ambitions of his own, Cheney has no incentive to disagree with Bush on anything. This has contributed to the hermetic nature of the White House, helping vitally to sustain the bubble in which Bush operates largely on his own without ever hearing a dissenting voice.

I can't believe we have to suffer three more years of this clown (and his defenders). Sigh.

The So-Called "War On Christmas"
I am a Christian... a very active one (LDS faith). All of my family members and many of my extended family members also share the same faith as I do. I attend church services weekly, volunteer my time as a teacher, and contribute a portion of our income to our church for use in both charitable and administrative purposes. I state all this as a matter of context. It should come as no surprise given my disclosed religious affiliation and activity that I interact with no small amount of what I call "right-wing lemmings". Right-wing lemmings are typically well-meaning folks who formulate their shallow political viewpoints (and cultural opinions) from heavily biased talk radio and television programming (i.e. Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and their ilk).

Right-wing lemmings are easy marks and can generally be counted on as reliable stooges in the cultural battle du jour. Enter the so-called "War On Christmas(tm)" and to wit, here is a screen cap of an e-mail message I received from a dear family member yesterday (click to enlarge).... this is straight from the frontlines:

Of course, call a Christmas tree by whatever name you will, it still has nothing to do with the Christmas story (you know, the one about the baby being born in a manger, etc). The Christmas tree as a symbol is adapted from Pagan origins, not from the story of the birth of Christ. But why quibble about the small details when there is culture war to fight! The poor Christians are being persecuted again!

More on the so-called "War on Christmas" is available here.

And I would be remiss if I didn't link to Khan's recent post about the "War on Christmas" as well. Enjoy.

The Failure of the Iraq Experiment
Dan has the goods on the failed Iraq experiment and where we should go from here.

(Update Wed Dec 21 09:19:01 PST 2005 // moved to new category)

Betrayed
This is one of the best editorials I've ever read, if only because it so closely mirrors my own political viewpoint and position. I've never met James Chaney ("a Eugene [Oregon] attorney who has been in private practice for more than 20 years, and who has been a registered Republican since 1980"), but clearly we are kindred political spirits:

<http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/06/26/ed.col.chaney.0626.html>

June 26, 2005

Guest Viewpoint: The party's over for betrayed Republican

By James Chaney

As of today, after 25 years, I am no longer a Republican.

I take this step with deep regret, and with a deep sense of betrayal.

I still believe in the vast power of markets to inspire ideas, motivate solutions and eliminate waste. I still believe in international vigilance and a strong defense, because this world will always be home to people who will avidly seek to take or destroy what we have built as a nation. I still believe in the protection of individuals and businesses from the influence and expense of an over-involved government. I still believe in the hand-in-hand concepts of separation of church and state and absolute freedom to worship, in the rights of the states to govern themselves without undo federal interference, and in the host of other things that defined me as a Republican.

My problem is this: I believe in principles and ideals which my party has systematically discarded in the last 10 years.

[...]

My party has repeatedly ignored, discarded and even invented science to suit its needs, most spectacularly as to global warming. We have an opportunity and the responsibility to lead the world on this issue, but instead we've chosen greed, shortsightedness and deliberate ignorance.

We have mortgaged the country's fiscal future in a way that no Democratic Congress or administration ever did, and to justify the tax cuts that brought us here, we've simply changed the rules. I matured as a Republican believing that uncontrolled deficit spending is harmful and irresponsible; I still do. But the party has yet to explain to me why it's a good thing now, other than to say "... because we say so."

Our greatest failure, though, has been in our role as superpower. This world needs justice, democracy and compassion, and as the keystone of those things, it needs one thing above all else: truth.

Republican decisions made in 2002 and 2003 have killed almost 2,000 of the most capable patriots our country has to offer - volunteers, every one. Support for those decisions was gathered through what appeared at the time to be spin and marketing, but which now turns out to have been deliberate planning and falsehood. The Blair government's internal documentation only confirms what has been suspected for years: Americans are dying every day for Republican lies first crafted in 2002, expanded and embellished upon in 2003, and which continue to this day.

[...]

While it has compiled this record of failure and deception, the party which I'm leaving today has spent its time, energy and political capital trying to save Terri Schiavo, battling the threat of single-sex unions, fighting medical marijuana and physician-assisted suicide, manufacturing political crises over presidential nominees, and selling privatized Social Security to an America that isn't buying. We fiddle while Rome burns.

Enough is enough. I quit.

Of course, for those that know me and are acquainted with my political viewpoints, I quit the Republican Party a long time ago... namely, on the day the US unjustly invaded Iraq.

(Update Wed Dec 21 09:19:01 PST 2005 // moved to new category)