Time to Go

 Posted by Mike  Abuse of Power, U.S. Politics  35 Responses »
Aug 302007
 

Should Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) resign? I’m sure you’ve all heard by now how he was arrested awhile back in an airport bathroom in Minneapolis for soliciting sex from an undercover cop, how he plead guilty to a “lesser charge” without consulting his staff, his family, or his lawyer, and how he now wants to take back that plea because he says he did nothing wrong–all the while repeating over and over again that he is not gay (and yes, he does find something wrong with that). All of this led to his being fire as co-chair of the Romney campaign, and calls from newspapers and fellow Senators (including John McCain) that he resign his Senate seat. But is this the kind of thing that necessitates resignation from the Senate?

Let’s start by thinking about the US Senate like any other job. Imagine that your friend plead guilty to a crime. In my mind, that would only necessitate his firing in one of two cases: the aftermath interfered with his ability to do the job, or the nature of the crime cast doubt on his trustworthiness or integrity as it relates to his job. So, do either of these apply to Senator Craig?

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Conservatives Attack Liberal For Being Too Conservative

 Posted by Mike  2008 Election, The Media  No Responses »
Aug 292007
 

John Edwards Hates SUV’s!  Presidential candidate tells Americans they need to give them up!  Or at least that’s the story making its way around conservative media this afternoon.  (Including Fox News and Tucker Carlson, not to mention the blogs).

Of course that’s not quite what happened.  To quote the Fox News article:

“I think Americans are actually willing to sacrifice,” Edwards said Tuesday during a forum held by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. “One of the things they should be asked to do is drive more fuel efficient vehicles.”

The former North Carolina senator was asked specifically if he would tell them to give up their SUVs, he said, “Yes.”

The irony, of course, is that Edwards is actually making a very conservative argument: that Americans ought to take personal responsibility for the environment when they make consumption decisions.  This isn’t a “big government liberal” who wants the police to arrest SUV drivers.  This isn’t even a moderate “lets do it through tax breaks and fees” argument.  He doesn’t specify how he will “ask” Americans to sacrifice to drive more fuel efficient cars–just that we ought to ask them to do so.

It’s things like this that make me believe that most conservatives really aren’t interested in conservative principals of individual responsibility.  After all, they want everyone to pull themselves up by their own boot-straps, unless they have wealthy parents.  They don’t think there ought to be a safety net that might discourage people from failing, but they have no problem with corporate bailouts that do the same thing.  Government regulation is evil, except when we’re regulating sexual activity or the entertainment industry–in those cases, people should be told what’s good for them.  And we should discourage environmental regulation that would take away individual freedom, but woe betide any politician who actually encourages them to exercise that freedom to protect the environment.

Not all conservatives are like that, certainly, nor all Republicans.  Perhaps not even most.  But it’s well past time for us to stop listening to the ones who are.

PR Wars: Domestic and International

 Posted by Mike  Foreign Policy, Middle East, War in Iraq  No Responses »
Aug 272007
 

Great op-ed this weekend by Thomas Friedman. If you don’t have NY Times Select access, here’s an excerpt:

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Adieu, Alberto

 Posted by Mike  Bill of Rights, Bush Administration, U.S. Politics  No Responses »
Aug 272007
 

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned. It’s about time.

Now, many people with my general political leanings are going to attack Gonzales for his record as attorney general. And, to be fair, that record isn’t a particularly auspicious one. He oversaw the politicization of the hiring and firing of civil servants. He implemented some horrid civil rights abuses: imprisoned innocent people, attempted to justify the use of torture, denied the rights of Habeus Corpus plus the fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth amendments, etc. The thing is, in each and every one of those cases, he was simply implementing White House policy. President Bush is the one ultimately responsible for these things, and the one that we all ought to hold accountable for them. It was President Bush who used the Justice Department to make this a less Democratic union; Alberto Gonzales was just playing the part of the good soldier.

Gonzales’ sin is that he is a horrible PR man. One of the main responsibilities of the Attorney General is to get in front of Congress and the American people and justify the actions of the president. Admittedly, with this president, that task was especially gargantuan. But he did an awful job of it. He claimed ignorance well past the point of credibility. He came awfully close to perjuring himself, on several occasions. He showed an ignorance for (and contempt of) the language of the Constitution. As a spokesman for the president and for the country, he did a horrendous job, and for that he deserves to be fired.

On the other hand, if you want to fire someone for the other stuff… well, that requires a majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate.

Historical Lessons

 Posted by Mike  Foreign Policy, War in Iraq  No Responses »
Aug 242007
 

In a speech yesterday, President Bush compared Iraq to Vietnam in order to warn us about the dangers of a premature withdrawal from an unstable state.  He’s not the first conservative to draw that comparison, and i can guarantee you that he won’t be the last.  Of course, the history behind the analogy is atrocious.  But the problem here is that as soon as we start debating the relative merits of the historical analogy, we’ve already lost.  After all, there are certainly some legitimate comparisons that can be made; any public debate about them is simply going to sound to the average voter like yet another area where both sides are taking radical positions and yet both sides have merit.  In fact, the real problem here is not the history that he used; it’s how he used it.

As we’ve discussed before, history is full of seemingly analogous events that have varying outcomes.  And while we could conceivably spend the next few years debating how analogous the Vietnam War was to the Iraq War, that’s not going to get us anywhere.  Instead, we need to really study the Vietnam War, examine what mistakes were made and why, and then draw broader lessons that can be applied to this (and other) cases.

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