"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler
On a leafy drive in west Los Angeles, at a newly renovated home with cathedral ceilings and a backyard pool, 4-year-old Kate Eisenpresser-Davis’ friends have been known to pose an intriguing question: “Why does Kate have three mommies?”
Lisa Eisenpresser, 44, and her partner, Angela Courtin, 38, share custody of Kate with Eisenpresser’s ex-partner.
Is this “progress”? Donald Douglas is somewhat skeptical.
Donald Douglas at American Power got this video during Noam Chomsky’s appearance at UCLA:
Donald describes Chomksy’s lecture as “propaganda, and says:
[W]hat’s even more fascinating than hearing Chomsky’s America-bashing is observing the rock star status he’s afforded by the huge crowd of collegiate wannabe bohemians, diehard pro-terror communists, and the campus Islamist jihadis who thronged the event.
Only at an American university — in the America that Chomsky so loathes — can such a person enjoy this “rock star status.” Read more at American Power.
by Smitty
American Power picks up on the quest for more 2012 GOP candidates. Rubio’s firm withdrawal matches Christie’s. Who, then (emphasis mine)?
So for Republicans in 2012, while it seems late in terms of the “invisible primary” of money, media, and polling, in fact there’s still plenty of time for other candidates to throw their hats in the ring, and the field shaping up isn’t as bad as the media makes out. Mitt Romney’s going to be formidable, despite talk that RomneyCare is a killer (and I’ve even suggested RomneyCare’s an albatross). All Romney has to do is denounce his own healthcare record in Massachusetts as a colossal mistake, make reference to polling there looking for a change, and then turn around and say never again! It might be tough in the primaries against fellow Republicans, but with a GOP Congress looking to repeal ObamaCare, Romney can ride his mea culpa on top of a wave of conservative opposition to big government. He’s telegenic and an experienced campaigner, and the press will take him seriously, unlike Donald Trump.
Beyond that, I don’t know much about Tim Pawlenty, although he looks pretty self-assured at the clip from New Hampshire above. We’ll know more after a round of GOP pre-primary debates. Robert Stacy McCain reports on Herman Cain, by the way, who topped an AFP poll coming out of yesterday’s event: “Herman Cain Wins 2012 Presidential Forum in Manchester, New Hampshire” (with video). I like what I’ve seen of Herman Cain, and at this point it’s hard to figure out which would be a better ticket, Herman Cain and Allen West or Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, although I think this is still super long-shot territory.
But notice that discussion of Governor Mitch Daniels, who was Budget Director in the George W. Bush White House. Hmm … Should he take the adoration seriously and enter the race, he’ll likely end up an also-ran who leaves the grassroots wanting. The Times gives cursory discussion to Sarah Palin. Perhaps her moment to enter the race has passed (doesn’t bother me, since I’ve long suggested she run in 2016). There’s also mention of Chris Christie, Rick Perry, and Paul Ryan, and who knows, maybe one of them will surprise us (I like Christie)?
In any case, like I said, let’s get on with the debates and see how things shake out. And keep an eye on the money. Michele Bachmann’s been raising funds like the devil, and fundraising’s one of the factors facilitating media coverage, so things can snowball for a candidate that way.
It strikes me that the GOP has the harder decision to make. The Democrats are totally sold out to the Progressive Cthulhu. The Tea Parties are attempting to hold the GOP to some semblance of a non-Progressive pose. The GOP, and the country, can win only if the GOP decides to lose its Ruling Class, Progressive posture and do something a bit more, you know, representative. One would think that this decision would be less of a challenge, but let me pose a corollary to the Iron Law of Bureaucracy:
Once entrenched, bureaucracy is harder to root out than an insurgency.
Back to the Bob Dole question of who can give the most graceful concession speech. Yes, this is a devil’s advocate play. The GOP heads are aghast at anyone exhibiting real passion for the historical roots of American greatness. The we-are-not-sheep spirit that informed the revolution in the first place. At the same time, we have seen enough of a rock star president who doesn’t know how to fill the office. And, in Trump, we’ve seen enough of a buffoon who can’t differentiate between leading the country and a reality TV show.
So who fits the bill of someone with enough heart to be recognizably American, yet enough savvy and résumé to be taken seriously by the big donors? I respect Herman Cain tremendously. The sole legitimate question that will be raised about him is his health. Having read his book, I also like Tim Pawlenty. There is no shame in quiet competence. Sarah? Sorry, she’s still not a candidate. Disposition remains not unfavorable, but the Left’s efforts at poisoning the well have been nothing short of phenomenal. Part of me wants to support her in a pure illegitimi non carborundum sense, but that is pure emotion, and we should not be voting with our hormones, ever.
One day, maybe, we will achieve an era where politics can be more safely boring.
A 42-year-old paramedic is hospitalized with critical head injuries after he was savagely stomped in the parking lot while leaving a Dodgers-Giants game last week. The injured man, a father of two young children, is a Giants fan and the Los Angeles Times depicts this atrocity as a sports-rivalry-gone-wrong. But Southern California blogger Donald Douglas headlines it differently:
Hispanics Suspected in Savage Beating
of Giants Fan at Dodgers’ Opening Day
That headline elicited raised eyebrows from Doug Mataconis, who asked on Twitter: “Why is it relevant what race they are?” While I suppose Dr. Douglas can explain this himself, let me suggest two possibilities:
So if political correctness forbids the L.A.-area media from mentioning that the suspects are Hispanic, could this be part of the problem? There were 72 arrests reported at Opening Day at Dodger Stadium and if it is the case (as Dr. Douglas seems to suggest) that Hispanics are disproportionately represented among the troublemakers, why the fearful need to tiptoe around that fact?
But ask yourself this: What if a black fan had been beaten half to death by two white men outside Dodger Stadium? Would a potential ethnic factor in such a crime be ignored or dismissed by the media?
Furthermore, given the fact that Los Angeles is about a three-hour drive from the Mexican border, and that Hispanic criminals in Southern California sometimes flee to Mexico, wouldn’t such a crime tend to highlight certain public-safety aspects of U.S. immigration policy?
All of this, you understand, is posited hypothetically, because it is impossible to know from the media accounts whether the suspects were Hispanic or not. However, Dr. Douglas says: “Don’t be surprised if we find out that the suspects are MS-13 operatives.” And we do have this description:
The attackers are believed to be between the ages of 18-25 and have shaved heads and thin mustaches.
One had a goatee, and the other had tattoos on his neck.
The “tattoos on his neck” description might indeed indicate gang affiliation, or these two might just be a couple of young baseball fans who got too drunk during the game. But if it weren’t for the MSM’s long, sad history of politcally correctness, perhaps Dr. Douglas would not need to be so suspicious. And if he is proven right, it will be the media coverage — and not his suspicions — which require an explanation.
According to every Serious Foreign Policy Pundit, it’s absolutely insane for Beck to assert that the Left and the Islamists are in alliance to bring revolution to the Middle East. However, as Donald Douglas points out, that’s what the Left is telling us:
The neo-Stalinist ANSWER homepage has the announcement, “Emergency demonstrations: Stop all U.S. aid to Mubarak dictatorship” . . .
Code Pink’s Jodie Evans . . . served as a top campaign fundraiser for Barack Obama, and now her organization is leading a fundraising operation for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: “Code Pink: Obama, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood Ally Raising (Tax Exempt) Money to Overthrow Egypt Gov’t” . . .
But don’t let yourself be distracted by mere facts. Bill Kristol says Glenn Beck is “hysterical” and it must be true because, after all, Bill Kristol is a Serious Foreign Policy Pundit and Glenn Beck is just . . . well, he’s just Glenn Beck, right?
And really, who is this Lisa Graas person who tells us about “Five Revolutions Backed by George Soros”?
“The Soros centre’s job in eastern Europe is nearly finished. Its main focus now is the Islamic world, Arab countries, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.”
Oh, that’s not a quote from Lisa Graas. That’s a 2007 quote by Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh, a consultant for the Soros-funded Open Society Institute.
But don’t believe that crazy conspiracy-theory stuff. Trust the Serious Foreign Policy Pundits. Because they’ve never been wrong before.
My friend Dr. James Joyner, however, is of another opinion:
Going back at least to William F. Buckley, Jr.’s famous article casting the John Birch Society out of the legitimate conservative moment, it has been understood that letting the fringe define the cause hurts it. Buckley correctly reasoned that Birch founder Robert Welch’s crazy and outrageous conspiracy theories were tainting the legitimate anti-Communist movement.
Similarly, the psychotic rantings of Glenn Beck invite ridicule on the rest of us. Legitimate points are inevitably countered by comparisons with absurd variants by Beck, Coulter, Limbaugh, and others who make a living stoking the fears of the base. This is, at best, a distraction from the debate and, often, makes intelligent discussion of the issues next to impossible because they’ve been preemptively framed by the loudest, most shrill, most hyperbolic voices.
How many times have we heard variations of this argument?
“Oh, Buckley purged the Birchers and therefore, we must now cast aside Uncouth Person X and distance ourselves from Populist Organization Y, because above all else, the Official Conservative Movement must maintain its precious respectability!”
If we had listened to that argument in 2009, there never would have been a Tea Party movement. Republicans would have rolled over and played dead and gone along with the whole Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda because it was not respectable to oppose Keynesian “stimulus” spending, cap-and-trade, nationalized health care, and so forth.
Now that “the loudest, most shrill, most hyperbolic voices” have succeeded in fomenting grassroots opposition, however, we are told that elected representatives must ignore the people who elected them and, instead, must heed those respectable voices who did nothing at all to help encourage the Tea Party movement.
Hey, let’s dump Ann Coulter because, after all, “the Age of Ann has passed,” right? She’s only the author of, what, five or six New York Times bestsellers?
Yeah, let’s get rid of Coulter because a bunch of bloggers said so.
Purge Coulter! Purge Beck! Purge Sarah Palin! Purge Mark Levin! Purge Rush Limbaugh!
Purge! Purge! Purge!
And keep right on purging until the only people inside the Big Tent are respectable Republicans like Mike Castle, Lincoln Chafee, Arlen Specter and Charlie Crist, and the motto of the Official Conservative Movement becomes, “Me, Too.”
UPDATE: Linked by The Great One: “Cool it with the Stalinist purge crap.”
UPDATE II: Please permit me to point out that, while any conservative who mentions the influence of George Soros is portrayed as a dangerous conspiracy kook, it is perfectly acceptable for liberals to demonize the Koch brothers as right-wing puppetmasters.
UPDATE III: Did I ever mention that you never want to make Dan Riehl pissed off at you?
So says Donald Douglas at American Power, whose initial optimism about democraticization in Egypt has been tempered by evidence that the anti-Mubarak protesters are influenced byIslamic radicalism, and that a post-Mubarak Egypt is therefore likely to be anti-Israel and anti-American.
“Likely,” I say, and to say that is not to suggest the Egyptian unrest will certainly or immediately turn Cairo into Tehran-on-the-Nile. We must keep in mind that the enormous prestige of Egypt’s military remains a brake on any ambition of the radicals to turn these protests into a sequel of the Iranian revolution.
Nevertheless, the potential for such a development cannot be casually dismissed and, in this regard, Israel is still the canary in the Middle Eastern coal mine. Professor Douglas links to a Jerusalem Post editorial pointing out that Egypt’s military is armed with “the most advanced American-made technologies” and that, should a revolution bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power, “a sometimes reluctant ally . . . would be transformed into a bellicose foe.”
This should cause concern if you happen to notice the Egyptian military’s rather soft attitude toward the protesters:
As I write, it’s now nearly 8 p.m. in Cairo and, last time I looked at the TV, protesters were still in the streets there, in defiance of the official 3 p.m. curfew. (“The BBC’s Jim Muir says that hours after dusk and despite a theoretical [3 p.m.] curfew the square is still full of people.”)
You are advised to read Daniel Oliver’s American Spectator column about President Obama’s sloppy thinking in this crisis. Those who remember the Carter administration’s foreign policy may note the resemblance.
My first post about the Egyptian protests, on Thursday, included this antique warning about over-optimistic enthusiasms toward revolutionary developments:
“The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please; we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations which may be soon turned into complaints.”
– Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
Of course, the situation may yet resolve itself in such a way as to assuage these concerns, but in the meantime we would be wise to avoid euphoria.
UPDATE: This is not encouraging:
The Obama administration said for the first time that it supports a role for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist organization, in a reformed Egyptian government.
Ed Morrissey seems placidly resigned to the inevitability of all this. We’ll wait until the ever-pessmistic Allahpundit comes on duty to get the Fear and Loathing in Cairo version of the story.
UPDATE II: Mubarak Expected to Announce He Will Step Aside; Army Chief May Be Successor.
Question of the day, asked by Blake Hounshell of Foreign Policy in response to the latest eruption of Bidenism.
“Asked if he would characterize Mubarak as a dictator Biden responded: ‘Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with — with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator.’ “
Remember how in 2008 we were told that Biden was such a brilliant choice as running mate and that Obama would benefit enormously from this guy’s vast experience in foreign policy?
“I can see Cairo from my house!”
Tobin Harshaw at the New York Times rounds up a number of blog reactions to the Egyptian situation, including Donald Douglas at American Power saying “this administration is the unrivaled champion of reactionary forces in the Middle East.” In regard to Egypt, I’m not entirely sure that “reactionary forces” are the worst to be feared, or whether the protesters in the streets are less “reactionary” than Mubarak’s regime. Thursday night, I voiced a note of Burkean caution toward the incipient Egyptian revolution, which will not help anyone — not the Egyptians, not the cause of Middle East peace, and certainly not the United States — if it ends up empowering Islamist radicals.
Israel reportedly is worried about “regime change” in Egypt, and I think rightly so. Yet what is better for Israel: A corrupt authoritarian regime in Egypt constantly struggling to suppress an outlaw terrorist subculture or that terrorist subculture seizing power in Egypt and declaring itself an open enemy of Israel? I trust if the latter scenario were to play out, the Israeli military would prove itself abundantly capable of meeting any attack that an Islamist Egyptian regime might make. So having the Egyptian radicals seize power might actually make matters simpler for Israel, militarily and diplomatically.
Meanwhile, much of the media commentary is less focused on what the unrest in Cairo means for Egyptians or Israelis than what it means for the prestige of the Obama administration. “Never let a crisis go to waste,” et cetera, and the administration’s sycophants in the press corps — which is to say, just about the entire press corps — seem to be interested primarily in whether the Egyptian crisis will offer them the opportunity to credit the president with a foreign-policy success.
The administration, it appears, is trying to have it both ways so as to be able to claim victory whether Mubarak maintains power or is overthrown. Thus the facing-both-ways caution of Robert Gibbs’s Friday press conference. As I said on Twitter, “If this was 1939, Gibbs would condemn violence on both sides of Germany-Poland conflict.”
UPDATE: Sharif Mansour says Friday’s protests demonstrate that Mubarak is doomed:
If the administration is smart, it will see the writing on the wall and realize that the old order in Egypt, and conceivably the rest of the Middle East, is gone forever. When the smoke clears, Washington will want to be on the right side of history. The United States must now withdraw its support, both financial and symbolic, from the Mubarak regime and avoid any further ties to its oppression.
Arguments based on being “on the right side of history” don’t necessarily persuade a Burkean. Weren’t the Soviets supposed to be “on the right side of history”?
Does the situation in Egypt evoke the distinctions Jeanne Kirkpatrick famously made in “Dictatorships & Double Standards”? If, as we are told, radical Islam is an existential threat comparable to Soviet communism, and if Mubarak has been a valuable U.S. ally in the fight against radicaL Islam, is it not in our interest to support him? But those two “ifs” represent hypotheticals that I don’t have the expertise to address.
What is certain is that the administration cannot vacillate forever. It must either decide to support Mubarak or else decide to support the Egyptian uprising. Eliot Abrams sees the uprising as vindication of Bush’s advocacy of democracy in the Middle East:
Ruling under an endless emergency law, [Mubarak] has crushed the moderate opposition while the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood has thrived underground and in the mosques. Mubarak in effect created a two-party system – his ruling National Democratic Party and the Brotherhood – and then defended the lack of democracy by saying a free election would bring the Islamists to power. . . .
[W]e do know for sure that regimes that make moderate politics impossible make extremism far more likely.
Abrams thus argues that it is Mubarak’s repression that has spurred the growth of jihadist radicalism in Egypt, which may well be true, but that doesn’t mean that ending the repression will eliminate the danger. Nevertheless, if Republicans like Abrams are making the argument against Mubarak, that makes Obama’s choice easier: Side with the Cairo protesters and tout this stance as an example of bipartisan consensus.
Of course, the “bipartisan consensus” will only last as long as the policy is successful. If Obama throws Mubarak under the bus and then Egypt descends into anarchy Somalia-style, the president won’t escape blame by saying, “But Eliot Abrams told me it was OK!”
UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers!
UPDATE III: Thanks to Reaganite Republicanan for calling attention to this interview with John Bolton: “It is not inevitable that street demonstrations lead to Jeffersonian democracy.”
UPDATE IV: The Lonely Conservative notes that Iran’s state-run media are celebrating the Egyptian uprising, a fact that would tend to reinforce Bolton’s concerns. If the mullahs in Tehran think these Cairo riots are a good idea . . .
UPDATE V: Allahpundit on the risk that democracy in Egypt might bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power: “After 9/11 and the Iranian revolution in ’79, how could any American president gamble on backing reforms that might produce a net outcome that’s more Islamist? It’s political suicide.”
Linked by Don Surber, who calls Biden “a dunderhead who cannot tell a dictator from Tater Tot,” and now a Memeorandum thread.