Kerry/Kos

JohnKerry@DailyKos.com:

I've been reading some interesting reports that J. F. Kerry has decided to engage the folks at Daily Kos (the lack of a link is entirely intentional). Here is one such report; Cassandra has another, at her quietly-reopened blog. I'm rather amused that Kos said that Kerry should be taken out and shot; but apparently the Senator is a forgiving sort (as long as you aren't a Secret Service agent who "caused" him to trip).

But look especially at Greyhawk's writeup. The founder of the MilBlog Ring can't help but notice this little exchange between one of the Kos commenters and Mr. Kerry:

Commenter: Liberals shouldn't pretend to be in favour of the military (as a concept most liberals are instinctively against it) when we aren't. The military are 'special cirucmstances' - men who must do a dirty job when all other opportunities and options are exhausted. They aren't men to be lionised and put on a pedestal - they're like toilet cleaners: it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it. There's nothing brave or noble about it - it's a dirty, degrading, inhuman affair, but one which is occasionally necessary.

Kerry: As you can imagine, it's difficult to respond to each of you individually, but Teresa and I were impressed with your thoughtfulness, your honesty, and your dedication.

I don't know. I might have taken some time out to respond to that one individually, if I ever wanted to be taken seriously as a candidate for a national office. I'm not sure anyone outside of the Kos kids does take him seriously, though; even the despicable attack emails have essentially stopped mentioning him. The lastest "Democrats are pro-terrorist" urban-legend email to drop in my box had apparently reverted to bashing Gore, whereas it had been an anti-Kerry email in 2004. (This one, if you're curious.)

I really hate these things, by the way -- regardless of whom they target. They're designed to plant a big lie in your mind ("Candidate X is a child molestor"). Even if the lie is patently untrue, and in fact proven to be untrue, once you've forgotten the charge and the response you'll remember that you once heard something awful about the guy. It's a poisonous kind of discourse, and if you ever get one of these things, I hope you'll take a moment to research the truth about it rather than passing it on.

John Kerry, of course, claims to have been a victim of such a campaign all along -- or rather, a whole lot of them, including the "Swift Boat Veterans" campaign, the AuthentiSEAL team, the Stolen Valor movie, the authors of Unfit for Command, and others. That's an argument not worth having again, except to reassert that I actually know one of the AutheniSEAL team (Steve Robinson, mentioned on the page), and trust his honesty entirely. The charges they raised, I have every cause to believe they actually believe to be true. Since Kerry has still not released his full military records to the public as he's promised, I see no reason to take his word over my friend's beliefs at the end of his investigation.

In fairness to the Senator, however, Snopes considers him clear of the fake-medals charge. Actually, they have a whole page for Kerry, most of which claims are rated false by Snopes. My own sense is based on a personal friendship, and high regard for the honor of that friend. I see no reason why my regard for Steve Robinson should be persuasive to anyone else, but for what it is worth, there it is.

Bad guests

To Insufferable Guests:

I notice all to my grief,
My vegan guests will not eat beef;
But if I roast them in beef's stead,
And boil their over-suffer'd heads
And place those heads upon the board
That other guests are so informed,
The menu-muttering shall cease,
And we at last shall have some peace.

A small offering at a gathering of friends, where was discussed a number of similar topics. Another such finding: "Dragon is more like veal than beef, given their habit of cloistering themselves in small caverns for centuries."

Given that I named my son "Beowulf," the composition of dragons cannot be a matter of no interest to me. I suspect it will interest, or at least amuse, some of you as well.

Poker Game

A Crazy Game of Poker:

I spent last night playing poker at the house of a former neighbor of mine, who is the groundskeeper at the local Catholic church. He is a devout Catholic and a proud Virginian, and had invited in addition to me his father -- a retired Chicago police officer, who now works at the Pentagon -- and also the priest, and also a couple of other people. Among those "couple of others" was a fellow I'd never met, whom we shall call Blondie.

Blondie had obviously come for the festivities instead of the poker, as he began drinking with several glasses of beer, and then began "fortifying" the beer with some sort of cheap rum. After several more glasses, he moved on to straight hard liquor.

Oh, and what liquor. The advertisement for Tarantula Tequila begins, "You wouldn't expect Tequila to be blended and bottled in Italy, but..."

So anyway, amid all of this some of us are trying to play poker. Blondie, meanwhile, is so drunk that he accidentally deals about half the cards face up on his deal, can't actually tell whether he has a hand or not so just bets heavily on everything and then lays his hand down at the end of the game to see if he won.

He won almost everything. Seriously -- he must have won two out of three of the hands, all night long. I think I broke even, but two of the other players lost everything they'd brought, and most of it ended up in Blondie's pockets.

I would suspect him of being a cheat, except that (a) I actually watched him drink all that stuff, all of which was provided by others, so I know it was all genuine liquor he was drinking; and (b) in my misspent youth I learned several good ways to cheat at cards, and he wasn't making use of any of them. Furthermore, every time he saw an ace in his hand he would burst out laughing and beating his hands on the table, which isn't much of a poker face.

Anyway, Blondie -- who while still sober had been playfully harrassing his Catholic hosts about the 'high church' aspects of the faith, such as robes and bells and saints -- by the end of the night was demanding to know the name of the patron saint of poker so he could perform some sort of ritual sacrifice in his honor.

I don't see anything quite like that on the internet lists of patron saints -- there are saints for "compulsive gamblers," which I don't think is quite the right idea, and for "playing card manufacturers," but again, not just right. Perhaps one of our Catholic readers could help us discover the right saint.

Anyway, there must be one, because he cleaned up. I shall be interested to see if he follows through on his oft-repeated, drunken claim that he was going to donate it to the local Catholic church ("It'shall goin' ta th' poor, boys," was the usual formulation of this promise.) Though I don't know if less devoted gamblers can also benefit from the veneration, some of you may wish to try it.

UPDATE: I knew I could rely on Southern Appeal, which even today linked to this piece:

I am pleased to announce that we have started a campaign to ask the Vatican to name patron saints for... Texas Hold 'Em[.]

That's the Catholic Church I know -- finding a need and filling it.

Global

Global War:
(also posted at Wilde Karrde)

I seem to recall saying, shortly after the London Subway Bombings last July, that this is another reminder that the War on (Islamofascist) Terror isn't restricted to the Middle East.

It is a Global war.

A piece of evidence tying one side of that war to the other surfaced on Reuters today. (Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the pointer.)

It seems that the interrogators at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba have been asking questions of the detainees held there. Those detainees were, of course, rounded up during Coalition military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But some of those detainees have connections in London. Apparently, some useful information about Al-Qaeda related operations in London has surfaced during questioning, and been passed on to London investigative officials.

I am actually somewhat happy that the Reuters story doesn't go into specifics as to what information has been passed along. If the information was leaked, it would quickly become useless to law-enforcement and investigative teams in England, or elsewhere.

But the reminder is welcome. Al-Qaeda has friends and allies all over the globe. Every piece of the network that is dismantled is a victory. And the war against AQ, and against like-minded Islamofascist terrorists, is a global war.

Whiskey

Whiskey in the Jar:

The COUNTERCOLUMN reports on the EU and Irish ballads. Short version: apparently, you have to be in a union to sing at the pub. It costs about forty euros to pay your "fee," every time you perform. Also, you need a permit. And so does the pub.

Unlike the Captain, I'm not an acoustic musician; on the other hand, I know quite a few Irish ballads well enough to sing (well, OK, "roar" -- though Sovay kindly said I have a good singing voice) them by heart. My favorite is "The Old Orange Flute," a good Protestant tune you don't often hear in American Irish pubs. Still, it's got a great sense of humor, and some very clever rhymes. I can also sing plenty of Green songs, lest anyone suspect me of partisanship.

My only point of difference with the Captain is this: what's wrong with someone requesting 'the Wild Colonial Boy'? That's a great song.

Truce

Bin Laden offers truce.

Sorry... but I'll only accept their surrender... preferably at bayonet tip.

I especially loved the:

"We are a nation that God has forbidden to lie and cheat. So both sides can enjoy security and stability under this truce so we can build Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been destroyed in this war."

Aren't we the great satan?

The Whiskey Wars

"The Whiskey Wars" Are Finally Over:

Unconditional surrender has at last been achieved. Only took 131 years; but our cause was just.

Friction & Medicare

Medicare & "Friction"

I'm going to take another stab at saying what I was trying to say below. Sovay is furious because she is shocked and angry that the government's screwups are causing human suffering -- sickness and, perhaps, death, due to something that should have been avoidable. I am angry at the obvious corruption, but I'm not at all shocked, and so I can't muster the same level of outrage. I don't think the government could have done better than it did, because of the flaws native to giant Federal bureaucracies.

People often make the mistake of trying to point fingers at specific mistakes in cases like this. I don't doubt that we will soon see documentation that shows particular administration officials made particular mistakes; and it's easy, in the face of such data, to believe that the mistakes could and should have been avoided. The response I often get to this fatalistic attitude about government incompetence is, "How can you say the government couldn't have done better? Here's ten things it did wrong. If it had done those things right instead, there would have been a much better result." Obviously, that is true on its face: if the Bush administration officials hadn't made the mistakes we will soon be told that they did, things would have been better.

The problem is that it's not possible to run a giant Federal agency without making mistakes. Nor, in fact, am I convinced that the mistakes made at the top are more important than the compilation of mistakes made by the 99.5% of any Federal bureaucracy who aren't at the top -- the civil servant class, which doesn't change from administration to administration except through natural hiring and retirement.

A lot of the problems that appear that arise in these efforts come of that great force impeding human design: friction. I'm no expert on health care, although as you can see I have some opinions about it. I do know a thing or two about military science, and history, and it seems to me that there's a very useful concept we need to bring across to this kind of discussion.

Probably the single greatest military scientist was von Clausewitz; and among the things that earned him that title was the recognition of the problem of friction in war. Clausewitz wrote about "friction in war," but it is obvious that friction exists outside of war as well -- it is just that war exaggerates and worsens its effects. Part of the reason that armies make the mistakes they do is the pressure of blood and fire; but a large part of it is that they are also large bureaucracies, and much of friction arises from the failures that are natural to that form of social organization.

For example, Clausewitz speaks of generals bedeviled by "reports both true and false; by errors arising from fear or negligence or hastiness; by disobedience born of right or wrong interpretations, of ill will, of a proper or mistaken sense of duty, of laziness, or of exhaustion; and by accidents that nobody could have foreseen." Well, and so are bureaucrats; and not only the top level bureaucrats, but bureaucrats at every level. The top level are getting their reports from the field filtered through multiple lower levels, each one blurring the picture; the middle levels can hardly compile the next set of reports from the top level before new directives come down for additional reports, all the while those middle-level bureaucrats must also try to direct operations below them; and the people below are separated from the ones above by these multiple levels, so that they cannot really know what they should be preparing to do or when, or why, or how. No sooner do they think they understand the plan of action and start to prepare, then down filters a new report from on high that tells them that last plan was abandoned weeks ago, and they're only just finding out about the change now. So they must begin again; and the report begins to make its way back to the top that they have had to start preparations over, and so they are not nearly so far advanced along as previous reports had indicated.

This is the nature of bureaucracy. War makes them worse; but so do any matters of life and death, such as health care.

This is not to say that brilliance is impossible, or that no 'general' is capable of better results than another. We celebrate Ulysses S. Grant's Vicksburg campaign because it was brilliant -- but not because it was flawless. A general has to make do with the reality of friction.

I thus regard it as essentially inevitable that, of the 3.6 million new prescription drug beneficiaries, 2.6 million were signed up within the last 30 days. Of course they were. Everything is done at the last minute. That is the nature of things. The bureaucracy designed for day to day operations couldn't handle the surge of the sudden crisis caused by having to institute a major change; it never can.

Where the Bush administration is culpable (aside from their participation in the corruption attendant to the law-writing) is in not having realized that a crisis was inevitable, and prepared accordingly. They should have warned people that major disruptions in basic, life-sustaining services were all but inevitable, and to prepare themselves as best they could. They should have been ready to delay the roll-out until the crisis of late registrations could be minimized. They should have been had excesses of money set aside to address the inevitable collapse.

Really, they should never have done this at all. Yet they insisted. Well. Every major change in a massive Federal bureaucracy must be approached as if it were war: and that means expecting casualties. For major changes to a bureaucracy of any size are always a crisis, just like a battle is a crisis. If anyone's life depends on that bureaucracy, some people will die. That truth, the truth of friction, is a law of nature as immutable as gravity.

So no, I am not shocked, nor surprised, only sad to see it. It is somewhat like receiving news of a distant battle, and mourning the dead -- but we are not surprised that there were dead in a battle. Nor should we be surprised if dead come from this -- not surprised, nor given over to fervent belief that if only this or that mistake had not been made, if only someone better had been in charge...

No, probably not even then. Even Grant made mistakes, and he was a genius in his day.

Medicare

The Medicare Disaster:

I've just had an enlightening conversation with dear Sovay, who is up in arms over the Medicare disaster. "What Medicare disaster?" you may be forgiven for asking if you, like me, have been paying no attention to the subject these last few months. But it's a big story, as you can see reading here and here, and also here, that last link being to Josh Marshall's blog. Marshall, as everyone knows, is given to monomaniacal focus -- which can be a useful trait in crisis situations, though it keeps me from reading him often -- and just now it's Medicare he's focused on.

I don't write to criticize except on one point, which is the corruption involved in (a) misleading everyone as to what this program would cost (i.e., the usual corruption involved in socialist welfare plans), and (b) allowing lobbyists so much influence in how the law was written. Both complaints are with the Congress as much as with the administration; they set out to pass this benefit for political gain among seniors, and apparently did whatever was necessary to achieve that goal. If that meant downplaying costs, as it always does when the government goes into health care, so be it; if that meant giving their corporate lobbyists access so as not to see a withering of financial support from them, so be it.

This is in fact corruption, of a predictable and sad, but pervasive type.

Sovay holds that I am "setting the bar too low" in not being outraged over the other aspects of this case, the most troubling of which is that people are going to die because of the government's rank mismanagement. As I've explained to her, people dying due to mismanagement is what I expect when the government is placed in charge of important matters. This is never more true than when it attempts to take over health care duties.

It's not that I don't care; it's that the political class and the seniors are absolutely insistent on the government doing this. As a result, these disasters are inevitable. Government is not competent to handle anything this important. There are some important things that have to be handled by government, because no one else can do it at all -- maintaining a functional blue-water navy, for example. That doesn't mean the government does it well, just that they're the only ones who can do it at all. Ask any squid what he thinks of Naval bureaucracy sometime. (If you really want to hear some griping, ask what he thinks of their health care.)

I have always been hostile to the idea of a prescription drug benefit, as I am always hostile to all government health care schemes. Mark Steyn has written a few pieces on this subject, including this one:

Making idle chitchat as his fingers felt his way around my fleshly delights, [Steyn's doctor] explained that "waiting" is built into the concept of a government health service: "If you need surgery," he said, "it's in my interest to get you in and operated on as soon as possible, because that's money for me. The faster it happens, the better my cash flow. But when the government runs the system, every time you get operated on it costs the government money. So it's in their interest to restrict or delay your access. When you look at the overall budgets--salaries, buildings--it's not hard to understand that the level of service you provide to the patient is one of your few discretionary costs. So the incentive is to reduce that."

...

A few years back, [Steyn's wife] felt herself beginning to miscarry. Nobody was at home so she called a cab and went to the emergency room at the Royal Victoria. Knowing what "emergency" means in the Quebec system, she grabbed a novel on the way out--an excellent choice, Mr. Standfast by John Buchan, our late Governor General. It's 304 pages, and my wife had the time to read every single one of them before any medical professional saw her. While she was reading, she was bleeding, all over the emergency room floor, the pool of large dark red around her growing bigger and bigger, until eventually a passing cleaner ran her mop over the small lake and delivered a small rebuke to my wife for having the impertinence not to cease bleeding.... Since my wife's experience, the average wait time in Montreal emergency rooms has apparently gone up to 48 hours. So don't pack an overnight bag, take two, and the complete works of John Buchan.

Steyn's wife didn't die, but in Montreal hospitals the death rate is four times the US average from an easily prevented infection that normally results from a lack of cleanliness. The government runs the janitorial services, too.

So now the government has taken it upon itself to provide for lifesaving drugs of millions more people than ever before. The short term consequence? Lots of those people will get very sick, and some of them will die, because the bureaucracy isn't up to the task.

Sovay asserts that any other administration -- Clinton, Bush I, Reagan -- would have handled this better. I honestly don't believe that. It's nothing in favor of Bush II, who certainly isn't the President that Reagan was. It's just that this is exactly what I expect from government, which is why I think we should keep it out of as many places as possible.

The other thing I think about it is that we should tend to push the required government "down" as much as we can, as local governments tend to be relatively more responsive. Sovay tells me that twelve or fourteen states are now providing lifesaving drugs on an emergency basis, since the Feds have totally failed to do so. Great, I say -- if they're succeeding where the Federal government has failed, let's have them do it instead. Block grant the money to them, and fire all these bureaucrats at the Federal level -- including the Bush appointees at the top, if you like. Fine with me. Then, if there is a problem, there's a chance the folks at the state level might really get it fixed.

I don't mind if Bush takes a political hit for this. He deserves one. But let's be clear on why he deserves it. It isn't because the program should have been managed better. It's because he should have known that this is how it would be managed.

This is what government does. It has no business being involved in health care, except -- perhaps -- in terms of block-granting money to the states to protect the poorest and the weakest who truly can't make market-based arrangements. Even those are far from perfect -- I get annoyed with my insurance company every time I think about them -- but they're far better than any government endeavor at the basic work of keeping patients alive, clean, and keeping the wait times short.

For those American citizens who really can't avail themselves of that better way of obtaining health care, I don't mind that we should look out for them. But let's do it at the state level, and restrict the Feds to providing the cash to poorer states if necessary.

Of course, we're not really going to do that. What we're going to do is muddle along with the bureaucracy in panic mode, with people growing sick and dying because they either trusted or were forced to trust the Feds to keep their promises and manage to run things in a good order.

Don't weary me with "experts" who say it could have been done better; if those experts think so, they can take the job at a government wage. They're obviously qualified. They'd rather work at their think tanks instead? Then they can shut up. They aren't interested in doing what it takes to fix the problem. They want to slam others for 'not caring enough,' but they care more about their cheery paycheck than about getting their hands dirty and making things right.

This is a disgrace. Congress, the President, and the whole health-care bureaucracy are equally damned by it. They ought to be ashamed of what they've wrought.

China e-Lobby: News of the Day (January 17)

Chinese Paramilitary Police:

In the comments to the "war games" post below, Eric mentions the Chinese and Russian responses to Iran. Russia obviously has a lot to lose from nuclear terrorism, but China is also concerned about it. It's just that they're more concerned about energy supplies.

China e-Lobby has (among very many interesting links, as always) a link to this story about Chinese plans to bolster their "People's Armed Police," which is to say, government paramilitary units in form somewhat like our SWAT teams. In form, I say; not in function.

In a November video presentation, the Ministry of Public Security identified several threats to national stability, according to Chinese academics, that are echoed in the article.

Among these were growing anger and angst among Chinese as social pressure ratchets up; clashes among domestic groups over corruption, land seizures and the growing gap between rich and poor; and conflicts involving groups Beijing identifies as enemies on its periphery. The latter includes those who advocate independence for Tibet, Taiwan and the far western province of Xinjiang, sometimes referred to as "East Turkestan," as well as members of the Falun Gong religious group and Tiananmen protesters who fled overseas.

Analysts said it has become increasingly difficult for local police to handle the growing number of conflicts, given limitations on their weapons and manpower, leading to calls for a stronger paramilitary force.

Fears of a "paramilitary police force" being used in this fashion is precisely why American libertarians (and, frequently, even some sorts of conservatives and liberals) harbor deep concerns about the militarization of the American police force. (See the post "Reasonable Men," below.) But in China those aren't concerns; it's the reality.

I added the emphasis on Xinjiang, or "East Turkestan." Xinjiang is a Mandarin word that means "New Frontier," which is how China views the lands of the Muslims they have annexed. Beijing has been enthusiastic in building railroads out there, and encouraging ethnic Han Chinese -- who are about 97% of the Chinese population, if memory serves -- to move out to the frontier. Speaking of what Chinese words mean, "Han" translates properly as "true man" or "hero." You can interpret that as you wish; probably almost all societies think of their type as the most heroic, but few are so up front in declaring other sorts of men to be lesser creatures. In any event, that understanding -- rooted in culture and language -- has had an effect on the settlement of the frontier, with the result that there is, ah, "unrest." Exactly how much is not clear, given the remoteness of the province and the short leash on which Chinese state media operates.

But it isn't only its ethnic minorities against which China plans to exercise paramilitary control. It's also unruly farmers, religious minorities, and especially democracy advocates:

"Compared to normal police, the paramilitary police are designed to safeguard social stability through the use of compelling force if necessary," said He Husheng, a professor of Communist Party history at Beijing's Renmin University. "We learned from Tiananmen what happened when we used the army, which was not proper."

The tanks made for bad footage, I guess.

Personal = Political

"The Personal Is Political"

See, I can actually understand why this guy wants to ban the ownership of guns by private families. Unfortunately for him, so can everyone else: "Brooks organized the protest at Rutgers University - 2,000 people were supposed to show up, and only 3 actually made it to the protest."

Maybe it's the messenger.

War Games

The Atlantic's War Games:

I've mentioned in the past my respect for Colonel Sam Gardiner, in spite of his attachment to conspiracy theories about US politics. Still, he used to be a top war game specialist at the National War College, and has done some impressive work over the years in modeling conflicts. Consider this old Wall St. Journal piece on India-Pakistan war games.

I saw this morning (via the excellent Arts & Letters Daily) that The Atlantic got Col. Gardiner to lead a war game on a US-Iran conflict. AEI's Reuel Marc Gerecht was involved as well. The article describes the results as "sobering," but I think they're wholly predictable. We all understand that a limited military strike would not be sufficient to derail Iranian nuclear development because they have spread out their resources and hardened them. We understand that a full-scale regime change would run into absolutely massive domestic and international political pressure -- the domestic pressure being the important part. The public seems to have the required patience to see through Iraq, but doesn't look likely to want to start fresh with another nasty insurgency.

This, the Atlantic team concludes, means that there is "no military option." I don't think that's right -- and indeed, a military option is absolutely necessary, so it has to be developed even if there weren't a 'regular' one on the table. As even the (Woodrow) Wilson Center recognizes, "it is as great a mistake to conduct diplomacy without considering military means as it is to wage war without diplomacy."

[S]tates that attempt to conduct complicated and dangerous diplomatic initiatives without the support of credible military options frequently fail to accomplish even their immediate goals—and sometimes create more severe long-term problems. The greatest danger lies neither in using force nor in avoiding it, but rather in failing to understand the intricate relationship between power and persuasion. Some rulers rely excessively upon the naked use of force, some upon unsupported diplomacy. History shows that the most successful of them skillfully integrate the two.

Yet there are some serious problems in the face of all the suggested military options here -- and additional concerns as well. "What if they move first to pre-empt us?" is a question that has to be asked -- with the probable answer, "As that becomes a serious risk, we have to move even faster." But move where?

This is not a rhetorical question. We've got some good military science thinkers on this board. What options do you see that aren't discussed here? What other thoughts do you have? Let's run our own war game, and see what we might come up with.

UPDATE: The Belmont Club points to an Army War College paper on the same subject. It is titled, "Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran."

Plantations

Plantations:

I didn't have time to blog yesterday, so I missed these insightful comments from the Honorable Senator Clinton.

"When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run - it has been run like a plantation," she said. "You know what I'm talking about."

I really don't. Other than that she wished to invoke some extremely negative imagery, and stoke racial resentment by choosing images associated with slavery, I can't imagine what the analogy is supposed to be. At least when people compare Bush to a Nazi, they can point to the Reichstag fire and compare it to 9/11. It's a false comparison, but at least there's something for the conspiracy theorist to hang his hat on.

The New York Times version offers the next line in her quote, which clarifies the thrust of her argument without clarifying what the analogy is supposed to be:

"It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary point of view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument."

According to the clerk of the House, there were more than six hundred roll call votes in the last session. Glancing through a few of the pages recording them, I can see that a number of these votes passed, and a number failed. The existence of failed votes suggests that the majority, though it is not necessarily passing laws it disagrees with (why should it?) is letting such legislation come to a vote on a regular basis.

If you know anything at all about Congress, you know that no important vote occurs without endless debate, starting pre-committee and carrying on to the final vote. So, I would suggest that the Honorable Clinton is wrong to say that there is no chance to make an argumen, or to present legislation.

It is true, no doubt, that it's difficult to pass legislation when you are in the minority in both houses of Congress. That's rather different from being on a plantation, however, where there is no such thing as a vote at all. Indeed, even if you were not a slave but a cousin or child of the owners, there's no reason you should expect to get a vote in how things were run.

There is no obvious insight into the problem of being a minority party in a democratic republic that arises from this comparison. As such, I suppose it was only an expression of resentment and an attempt to stoke the same in the hearts of others. Yet, if your major means of influencing the system is through argument -- because you are a minority party, you have to persuade others to join your position -- this is a poor way to carry on with it. A little more thought, and a lot less bomb-throwing, would go a long way to easing the problem Sen. Clinton faces.

Reason

Reasonable Men:

I post two examples today of blessed reason in a highly charged debate. The first is from Kim du Toit, speaking of "infringement" and the Second Amendment. While I disagree with some of his underlying assumptions, that is not the point here. The point is that the Second Amendment is as near to his heart as a thing can be, and he comes to a set of conclusions that ought to be soothing to anyone who fears 2A advocates to be unreasonable.

You can (as I do) disagree with the particulars, while recognizing that this is the mark of a reasonable man. The Second Amendment's partisans are wary of 'compromise' only because the opposition openly uses compromise as a "Death by a Thousand Cuts" strategy. If met in good faith, however, a genuine compromise would be possible -- if we could all agree that the issue was settled, and leave it at that. Because every 'compromise' is met with immediate, renewed pushes for still more concessions, you end up with the hard line that has come to characterize the debate.

The second is a post from Geek with a .45, or rather, the comments to that post. The post is against the SWAT mentality that has overcome many law-enforcement agencies (for a defense of that mentality, see Man Sized Target). In the comments, a police sergeant ventures out, expecting to be roundly flamed -- not an unreasonable expectation, given the heat of the comments prefacing his entry to the debate.

Instead, he was met with great civility and respect. His point was an excellent one, and well made. No one drew a straw man around it to attack; no one made any use of flame-war rhetoric. That's the way debate should be conducted.

Religion

A Pair of Religious Articles:

Francis J. Beckwith has a review of a new book on the separation of church and state. I was not aware of the Ku Klux Klan's role in the move of that doctrine to the fore of American jurisprudence, as a result of anti-Catholic prejudce -- if the book is correct in its assertion, that is.

To some degree I am reminded of (former?) reader Robert M's repeated argument that the old and valuable law of Posse Comitatus should be set aside because it was passed out of anti-black sentiment among legislators. Most Americans are entirely satisfied with the notion of separation of church and state, even if we feel that the separation of "state" from church shouldn't mean that individuals who serve in the government should be banned from making decisions based on their religious principles. While it may be true that the KKK was behind this doctrine's rise, the doctrine points to something we have found to be useful and broadly beneficial when it is applied moderately.

We have read that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. It seems the reverse may also be true. A good idea, fielded in the service of a bad intent, can remain a good idea once the original advocates of it have passed away. Those who inherit the idea, being either unaware of or not interested in the bad intentions, keep what is good and discard what was bad. This points to a particular genius in the American system: not only do good ideas often rise to the top, but even bad intentions are often expressed as the cynical misapplication of what is a generally good idea. Once the bad intentions wear away, we are left with just another good idea.

I tend to think that the American courts have taken the doctrine of separation a bit too far, but also that the doctrine does point to a useful ideal. American society works best when religion is not used as a weapon against one's fellow citizens, but only as a weapon against one's self. Insofar as you wield the sword to strike down the evil in your own heart, you and your society benefit from it. The individual Senator or President can benefit from that practice as much as ordinary men or women, because of course they are nothing other than ordinary men or women.

This brings us to the second article, from the Wilson Quarterly, on an attempt to rejoin 'progressive' politics and religion. Or perhaps not religion, exactly...

A good sense of the continuing moral and political import of this American vocabulary of the spirit comes from Barack Obama, the recently elected Democratic senator from Illinois. Obama has said that, despite the results of the 2004 election, it “shouldn’t be hard” to reconnect progressive politics with religious vision: “Martin Luther King did it. The abolitionists did it. Dorothy Day did it. . . . We don’t have to start from scratch.”

Perhaps Obama’s most telling remark came in his observations about his mother’s faith: “My mother saw religion as an impediment to broader values, like tolerance and racial inclusivity. She remembered churchgoing folks who also called people nigger. But she was a deeply spiritual person, and when I moved to Chicago and worked with church-based community organizations, I kept hearing her values expressed.” Obama’s invocation of “spiritual” as an inclusive term, inextricably interwoven with the “broader values” of American democracy, is important and carefully chosen diction. It not only conjures up Whitman’s ghost but also suggests some of the poet’s own audacity.

The article also offers an interesting history of religion in American politics, from a different perspective. As this is MLK day (I am reminded by Sovay), it is probably a good idea to reflect on how he informed, and continues to inform, American politics.

One thing that is little known about the man is that he had a certain number of deacons who served as armed bodyguards. This fact may seem difficult to absorb, because of MLK's focus on nonviolence, and his personal willingness to be the target of violence as part of his method for bringing about change. He famously allowed violence and injustice to be visited upon him, in order that he might better spread his message.

Although this first seems odd, it should not be so difficult to understand: Jesus did the same thing. In Luke 22:36, Jesus bids his followers to sell their garments if necessary to buy a sword, knowing he will soon be taken by the authorities. But he will not allow his followers, though he bid them be armed, to defend him from being taken: that was to his purpose. In an age when people often ask "What would Jesus do?" it is worth noting that MLK actually did what Jesus would do: he exposed himself to violence that justice might arise from it, but he urged his followers to be prepared to defend themselves, and others of his flock, from the predations of the wicked.

MLK could follow in Jesus' footsteps because Jesus walked there first. Only because the message of Christianity lay underneath American society could American society be moved by an example of this type, just as Gandhi's example worked against the British in India. Nonviolence as a method of social change, I am far from the first person to note, relies upon an underlying morality in the society you're trying to change. American society was predisposed to justice, even though it was not yet capable of achieving and making real that justice.

That is why nonviolence worked. American society was shocked into making the hard changes necessary to achieve justice precisely because it hated seeing itself engaged in violence in the cause of injustice. America was not a wicked society, but only a society that was failing to live up to its ideals. The fact that it changed in response to MLK is proof of this: if it had been a wicked society, it would not have cared.

New Links

New Links:

I've added a couple more links to the sidebar. As usual, I don't get around to editing the template often enough, and so I forget things or let them go too long. If you feel like I ought to be adding your site to my list, send me an email or leave a comment.

The first is reader Dad29, who has some interesting things to say about local politics, and is a Calvin & Hobbes fan.

The second is Dr. Helen, who is surely my favorite psychologist. That isn't saying much, as longtime readers know all too well, so I should probably say something nicer about her than that. Much like the Geek with a .45, I enjoy and am impressed by her disdain for the orthodoxy of the "discipline" of psychology. But far more importantly than that, I respect her disdain for death.

There's an old story I recall hearing from a Zen Buddhist on the subject of a young man of the samurai class who came to a swordsmaster seeking teaching. He said that he knew nothing, but begged for instruction so that he might become a swordsman and not disgrace his family. At last the master admitted him to the school, and said, "Come here and let me see what you happen to know already." He took up a wooden practice sword, and the young fellow the same, and they took their guard and their eyes met.

The master watched his new student for a moment, and said, "You have lied to me. You are no student. You are a master."

"Not so!" the student replied. "I have never studied a day in my life."

"This cannot be," the master objected.

"Yet it is true," replied the student. "Though, there is one thing. I have never had the ability to study swordplay, but I did not wish to bring disgrace on my family through cowardice. So, for these last several years, I have practiced dilligently to eliminate the fear of death from my heart. But that is the only skill I have learned."

The master set aside his practice sword, and took up instead a pen. He wrote out a certificate of mastery for the student, and sent him away. "Go forth," he said. "There is nothing more I can teach you."

Is that true? Of course it is not. But there is a truth in it, all the same.

Alaskan

The Ruger "Alaskan"

Oh, yes. A .454 Casull fired out of a 2.5 inch barrel -- OOH-RAH! Gonna have to get one of these some time. I'll wait a few months, though, for the first set of folks who buy them to return them to the stores after they sprain their wrists. Should cut down on that hefty pricetag.

Still, looks about right to me. Yeah, it looks good.

R. James

Did You Have a Friend?

So the old song asks, about the good Reuben James. But did you know who Mr. Reuben James was?

In the ensuing skirmish, Reuben James positioned himself between Decatur and an enemy blade, saving Decatur's life. For the rest of the war, James continued to serve Decatur aboard Constitution and Congress. During the War of 1812, he served on the United States, under Decatur, and on the President. On 15 January 1815, however, President was defeated by the British and James was taken prisoner.

After the War of 1812, Reuben James resumed service with Decatur, aboard Guerriere, and participated in the capture of the 46-gun Algerian flagship Mashouda on 17 June 1815. After peace was made with the Barbary states, James continued his service in the Navy until declining health brought about his retirement in January 1836. He died on 3 December 1838 at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Washington, D.C.

And that, brothers, is why -- even after the disaster of 1941 -- we still have a ship called the good Reuben James.

Ethics & Politics

Ethics & Politics:

As we were just discussing the other day, for both Plato and Aristotle the correct politics were a natural outgrowth of the correct ethics. The two things were natural in the sense that correct ethics was directly related to the nature of man; and correct politics was merely an extension of ethics to society. Once you know what the right kind of man is, you build a society that encourages and develops that type. This understanding is the foundation of Western culture.

Ethics and modern American politics are only very barely connected. In the last several posts, we've talked about the extreme social importance of having a Congress that can be trusted to watch over the secret programs run by the Executive -- and the fact that none of us, not the Executive and not the People, really trust Congress as it currently stands to do that. For now let us leave aside the question of whether Congress doesn't deserve it because its members are naturally corrupt, or because the fact that it hasn't been required to take moral responsibility for the programs through proper oversight. The point is we absolutely need a Legislative branch to oversee secret Executive programs. It is a critical function for the continued survival of the Republic. Without that, trust in government will break down to the degree that either the 'red states' or the 'blue states' will be on the edge of insurrection. Civil war -- let us be absolutely honest, Civil War and nothing else -- lies down that road.

The situation is not better at the state level, even relatively sane states like my beloved Georgia:

Teddy Lee just got fired as executive secretary of the State Ethics Commission. It is your loss - and a big one.
He was sacked by a bunch of politicians who couldn't bend him, fold him or intimidate him from representing your interests above theirs.... Ethics - like motherhood and apple pie - is something all politicians pay homage to, but that's about all they do. Perdue is touting new ethics laws that have just gone into effect, but the law has more holes in it than Bonnie and Clyde.

It's true also in Steel City Cowboy's state, where the government is actually trying to destroy the newspapers to punish them for stopping an illegal government pay raise.

For that reason, I gladly sign on to the Center-Right insurrection on ethics. We've come to the point at which ethics is a national security issue. There is no getting around it. It was one thing during the 'fat and happy' 1990s to play at ethics. No longer. We now need a Congress we can trust, so that the minority -- whether red or blue -- can trust its findings. Oversight has to matter, and it has to be honest and reliable.

We need ethics and politics to be rejoined, or the nation will not survive. It cannot survive, with half of its populace believing the most active branch to be in violation of its basic principles, and with no one that half can trust to engage in oversight. The matter has become critical.

GA politics

Politics in the Great State of Georgia:

I see that Feddie of Southern Appeal has joined the re-election campaign of Governor Sonny Perdue. The race is of interest to me. Although I am currently a citizen of Virginia by virtue of residing there, by birth and in my heart I am a Georgian, in exactly the way that Thomas Jefferson ("my country is Virginia") was a Virginian.

I haven't decided whom I'll support, mostly because the opposition isn't yet clear. I am, however, going to take a moment to point out that Sonny, in the picture he posted on the governor's homepage, bears a remarkable resemblance to another famous politician.

Hopefully, Sonny has a better platform (and a less wily opponent).

Moose Drool

"Moose Drool"

Anyone who happens across some of this is invited to send me some. It's apparently available in Minnesota, where I know for a fact I have at least one loyal reader who ought to want to send me some beer.

Blondes

"The Best Blonde Joke Ever"

I'm not sure I agree with Greyhawk, but it is reasonably clever.

NSA

This Seems Like A Problem:

I realize that (a) government secrecy is something that you've all heard me beat the drum about perhaps one too many times, and (b) there are good reasons for a certain amount of secrecy, particularly in national security matters. But how can this possibly be true?

The National Security Agency has warned a former intelligence officer that he should not testify to Congress about accusations of illegal activity at NSA because of the secrecy of the programs involved.

Renee Seymour, director of NSA special access programs stated in a Jan. 9 letter to Russ Tice that he should not testify about secret electronic intelligence programs because members and staff of the House and Senate intelligence committees do not have the proper security clearances for the secret intelligence.

Miss Seymour stated that Mr. Tice has "every right" to speak to Congress and that NSA has "no intent to infringe your rights."

However, she stated that the programs Mr. Tice took part in were so secret that "neither the staff nor the members of the [House intelligence committee] or [Senate intelligence committee] are cleared to receive the information covered by the special access programs, or SAPs."

The Washington Post has more on the question of how the Congress fails to oversee Executive Branch programs. It sounds as if this is a general failure of both institutions, the Executive and the Legislative branch: the Legislative for not insisting on full oversight and access to information on these critical programs, and the Executive for accepting the lack of oversight. I'm sure it makes things easier, but it's like permitting your drunken co-pilot to sleep through pre-flight: it's probably easier to get pre-flight done that way, but there's nobody checking your work. If the co-pilot is unfit, your job is to say so, not to try to do it all yourself. There's too much at stake.

The Department of the Navy shows the way:

The Navy has issued a new regulation heavily restricting the use of compartmented security classification to preclude or impede oversight of sensitive programs.

After an internal Navy audit begun early last year found that secrecy was being used to restrict Congressional, Defense Department and internal access to potentially controversial or even illegal activities, the Chief of Naval Operations directed a wholesale review of compartmentalization.

He is right to do so, and deserves praise for this course -- although the article raises other questions about the alternative he's proposing. "So here is a program for compartmentalizing information where the security standards internally are the same as an SAP, but the compartment is easier to establish and the program doesn't have to be reported to Congress!" Well, if that's what it boils down to, that's even worse -- although presumably the Navy wouldn't advise you not to testify to the Senate Select Committee.

We the People can't have full access to every bit of information, for practical and unavoidable reasons related to the need for some secrecy. Our representatives, however, have to have that access -- and they have to insist on using it, and use it well. They have failed to do so, and the Executive branch has taken advantage of their lapse rather than insisted on them doing their part. We must, as citizens, demand a higher standard from our elected representatives.

Evidence and Proof

Evidence and Proof
(also posted at Wilde Karrde)

During the West-ward expansion of America, many people found themselves in wagon trains traveling across plains and deserts. Occasionally, they found themselves trapped by winter weather far short of their destination, and went through extreme hardship before spring came.

One such party was the Donner party, which began travelling towards California in 1846. Trapped by snows in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the winter of '46-47, the party was forced to eat anything they could find, including their own pack animals.

There are also debates over whether the party ever resorted to cannibalism of their dead members.

Very recent research into the subject is outlined by David Nishimura at Cronaca. Historians cannot prove that the cannibalism did happen, but they can prove that human bones buried there weren't charred.

It is a case of absence of evidence. We don't have direct evidence to prove that survival cannibalism occurred. As David argues in his short post, this is not absence that no such cannibalism occurred. From his own research into other such claims, he knows that such events rarely leave evidence behind in the form of charred bones.

This simple discussion of a grisly subject reminds me of many other discussions that have been held recently. From the question of what happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons labs to the question of whether the President was right to order wiretapping of suspected terrorists calling friends in the United States, we are dealing with situations where there is absence of evidence on at least one side of the case.

However, the absence of evidence does not prove that that we have evidence of absence. This applies equally to questions about the legality of Top Secret programs, the historicity of survival cannibalism, data sent by CIA sources all over the world, and knowledge about another government's secret weapons programs after significant effort by that government to hide most of the data from the outside world.

The fact that we don't have direct evidence about the Iraqi weapons program does not mean that we have direct evidence that the weapons program never existed and was never a threat.

Likewise for the legality of wiretapping by the NSA. The fact that we don't have the evidence to show that the wiretapping was legal does not mean that the wiretapping was illegal. It means that the evidence is unavailable to us right now.

CON ST Troopers

Outstanding:

Connecticut State Troopers obviously draw on a pool of fine individuals.

Droid death

Androids Must Die:

Also from my sister, a list of 'get a human' shortcuts for many major corporate and government phone systems. Handling the finances and such things here at Grim's Hall, I've had a fair part of my life stolen by these computerized beasts. By all means, let's frustrate them if we can.

The Alito Nom

Alito, War Powers & International Law:

In deference to poor Cassandra, who wants more Alito, I'll point you to Mondo Alito at PajamasMedia, which has gathered a lot of posts from all sides of the debate.

Meanwhile, from the old journalism school, The Ft. Worth Telegram has a very useful roundup:

Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio: This hearing is really our opportunity to fully and fairly evaluate your qualifications for the high court, but what I really want to do is give a lengthy explication of my feelings about Roe vs. Wade. The mere fact that Roe has been upheld for more than 30 years does not mean that it’s entitled to special deference. Is Roe Supreme Court precedent? Certainly. But in my view, it is not super-precedent or super-duper precedent. It is precedent. Nothing more. Now, I want to turn to another topic ...

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a transcript for Biden's war-powers question. It's one of the more interesting Constitutional issues, and a relevant one. The closest I've found is this account, which isn't thorough enough.

Though I am not a lawyer or a judge, I am a citizen, and one who believes firmly that the final right to interpretation of the Constitution lies with the People. As such, I think we all have every right to develop our own opinion of what the Constitution means and ought to mean, independent of what the courts and legislatures say it means. I'm glad to consider arguments from either source, but also from history and reason. In that spirit, let's examine the War Powers question.

Alito is correct to say that the issue is unsettled as a matter of Constitutional law. On the other hand, as a practical matter there is something of an agreement: almost every President of the 20th century 'went to war' somewhere without a formal declaration of war from Congress. Congress retains the power to declare war, and in fact the power to stop it -- by cutting off funding for military operations. Yet it has decided to allow the President a great deal of liberty in conducting military operations.

Even the War Powers Act, passed because of concerns arising from Vietnam, only requires the President to inform Congress. So, as a practical matter, yes -- the President could invade Iran tomorrow, so long as he informed Congress that he had done so.

The Supreme Court has not declared the War Powers Act to be constitutional or unconstitutional, because it has never been asked to do so. Neither the Presidents of recent years, nor the Congress, has desired a formal ruling that might go against them. They have chosen, reasonably, to conduct themselves by informal compromise.

Biden apparently asked if the President "can just go ahead and violate international law ("that's the administration's position," said Biden)."

The answer to that question, as I understand it, is that it depends on what is meant by "international law." If it refers to anything informal, or treaties we haven't ratified but which have been ratified by lots of other countries (e.g., the ban on cluster bombs), or the fact that lots of allied countries have similar laws 'so we should have one too,' etc., then neither the President nor Congress is the least bit bound by "international law."

If it means "formal treaties which the United States has signed and ratified," then the US is bound by them unless -- I would argue, and support any President or Congressman who acted on this understanding -- that treaty violated one of the protections of the US Constitution, such as freedom of speech.

However, even then there is a lot of room. What happens if the US acts in a way it feels is consistent with the treaty, but (say) France and Russia feels is a violation? That's a question I would like to see addressed by Alito, if anyone feels inclined to ask a real question. To some degree there's a domestic analogy in the NSA spying -- if the President and the US Justice Department feel it's legal and constitutional, to what degree does that merit deference from the Supreme Court?

My sense is the answer is, "To no degree in cases of rights; to some degree in cases of power; to a great degree in cases of international opinion."

The Supreme Court is meant to be independent of the other branches. If the President, the lawyers at the Justice Department, and the majority in both houses of Congress agree on a point, the Court should take note of it. However, if it is deciding a case that influences the fundamental rights of US citizens, it ought to be willing to decide in favor of the rights of citizens even if there is near perfect unity among Congressmen and the President's men. If the Court is convinced that fundamental rights are being violated, it ought to set the matter straight in spite of every other branch of government.

In cases where rights are not an issue, but the powers of government are, the opinion of the President and the Justice Department should be taken into consideration along with the sense of Congress. However, they should be of no more weight than the opinions of state-level justice departments, in Federalism cases. If the Federal Government and Texas disagree about whether something is legal, they ought to be equals before the court.

If a case of "international law" came before the Court, the fact that the President and Congress believed they were doing right should have great weight. France or Russia's opinion should have no standing at all. The Supreme Court should consider only the question of whether the President or the Justice Department's interpretation holds water, and is consistent with the Constitution.

There is an underlying principle here, which is this: that the Constitution exists for a purpose, and that purpose is "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." Fundamental rights are absolutely essential to the blessings of liberty, and protecting them must therefore be the first business of the Court.

Ensuring the success of Federalism is important to the blessings of liberty, as it allows for different people, who will have different understandings of what liberty is and how they want to live, to have the chance to live according to their lights. Balancing Federal and state power is therefore an important concern of the Court, and it should give equal deference to both sides.

Finally, the ability to decide for ourselves as a People is one of the fundamental blessings of liberty. We have won it, and we have defended it; and this government was instituted in part to protect that blessing. The Court has no business handing away any part of that liberty. It cannot give, as a gift to any foreign nation or entity, what they have neither the right nor the power to claim.

Both Right

They're Both Right, Of Course:

Althouse snarls at the Durbin-Alito go-round:

Durbin accused of Alito of seeking out ways to decide cases against the little guy and even tried to connect a decision of Alito's to the recent mining disaster. Alito defended himself in his usual way: I decide cases according to the law. That case relating to mining was about the statutory definition of "mine," and the above-ground pile of coal at issue in the case did not fit the definition.

Durbin just repeated his accusation: There's a pattern, a pattern of decisions, you know, the crushing hand of fate. (Crushing miners underground?) Durbin sounds a litttle dimwitted saying this, but his point is one made by some of the smartest people in the legal academy: I don't care what your excuse is for any given case that you might want to explain. I will just retreat to my observation, based on every case you ever decided, that there is an overall pattern of siding with the big guy.

Alito's last response to Durbin, as the time is running out, is the assertion that there are many cases where he has sided with the little guy -- not enough to alter the pattern, the pattern, you know -- and a description of one case where his decision favored a schoolboy who had been bullied because of his perceived sexual orientation -- doesn't matter because there's still the pattern, the crushing-hand-of-fate pattern...

Here's how I suggest the judge-so-accused answer the question:

"Senator, you're right. A lot of the time, I am forced to rule against the little guy. No doubt about it -- most of the time.

"But that's because I'm a judge, and the role of a judge is to apply the law, not to write the law. All I can do, if I'm an honest judge, is apply the law as it is written to the facts of the case. And, sadly, the law usually favors the 'big guy' over the little guy.

"That's a problem, Senator. But it's not a problem for judges. It's a problem for legislators. So tell me, Senator -- what do you intend to do about it?

"Because these aren't the only hearings going on right now in D.C. There's another set going on about lobbyists and influence and bribe-sucking legislators. The answer you're looking for about where this pattern comes from, that answer is going to be found in those hearings, not these."

Kids & Cancer

Kids & Cancer:

A number of you read the site of long-time Grim's Hall reader and commenter Lizard Queen, which you can find here. You probably saw her recent piece on the her cousin Marshall, who died of cancer at the age of ten.

Well, today my sister sends a link to the website of a friend of hers, who is an oncology nurse. She -- her friend, not my sister -- is taking donations to shave her head, with the monies going to St. Baldrick's. She has a modest goal of a thousand bucks, and a cute little girl with leukemia who's agreed to do the cutting.

CEN Cares

CENTCOM Cares, Part III:

USCENTCOM sends a request that I point you to their press releases for today. I'm happy to do so. Lest anyone care to think of this as 'another military attempt to propagandize etc. etc. etc.," notice that there is a press release on a death of a detainee at Abu Ghraib in addition to the good news.

Good Reading

Good Reading Today:

Via The Donovan, don't miss this article on hand-to-hand combat training for amputee veterans. It used to be that an amputation meant that the Army considered you crippled, but no longer: increasingly, even amputees are being returned to duty if they wish to go, as many do. That being the case, you have to develop a plan for keeping them combat-effective.

One of the examples in the article has actually been rendered blind. The interesting thing about the Army's move to Brazilian jiu-jitsu as its main hand-to-hand technique is that it largely eliminates the problem of blindness -- at least, once you come to the point of the grapple. Jujitsu, more generally, does -- BJJ isn't unique in this. With training and practice, you can learn to touch a person anywhere on his body, and know exactly how every other part of that body is oriented with your eyes closed. Even the most subtle shift in the location of any part is detected.

Now, if the army would just get on with developing those cybernetic limbs with built-in weapons we've been promised...

To counterbalance that story of martial virtue and courage, we have this story from the Daily Telegraph, via Yourish:

The commanding officer of a nuclear submarine berated his officers with such fury that his face became "gorged with blood", reducing subordinates to tears, a court martial heard yesterday.

Capt Robert Tarrant, 44, bullied and humiliated his officers while at sea on the submarine Talent, yet behaved impeccably in port, it was alleged.

His conduct led to him appearing before a court martial at Portsmouth naval base, where he denied five charges of ill-treating four officers and one rating under his command through repeated, unjustified, verbal abuse.

His "rants" could last for up to 20 minutes, it was alleged. He would place his face 2in away from the target of his rage and shout. One officer was physically sick, it was claimed.

Obviously this British Royal Navy officer missed his calling. He should have been a USMC Drill Instructor instead. Yelling at your subordinates until tears run down their cheeks is considered the height of accomplishment in that line of work. Indeed, it's quite broadly admired as a skill. My father -- who was an Army Drill Sergeant -- used to tell with awe the story of the time they had a Marine DI with them and one of the recruits did something especially stupid with a rifle.

These are literally matters of life and death, rifles and submarines. You can't touch your subordinates to express your displeasure, not even when they do something that could get people killed. Now, apparently, you shouldn't fuss at them either. At least, not in the Royal Navy.

Recess

Recess:

At Red State, Stephen Den Beste is wondering if the Democrats in the Senate are playing a gambit:

[M]aybe the Democrats are using obstruction and delay of SCOTUS nominees as a way of goading Bush into using recess appointments to fill SCOTUS positions. If they can do that, it's a qualified victory for the Democrats. For one thing, it would make Bush look like he isn't willing to fight it out in the Senate despite his party having a majority there.

For another thing, it holds out hope that if the Democrats can move back into the majority in the Senate, that they would have even more leverage over the kinds of candidates who could be approved. I don't think it would break the hearts of Senate Democrats if one or more seats in the Supreme Court actually remained vacant (or were filled by recess appointments) going into the 2008 election cycle because then they could make that a major issue in the campaign.

I certainly agree that Bush is in danger on the recess appointment issue. He has used it recently in cases where it is apt to draw fire from left, right, and center alike. The left is opposed because they oppose Bush generally, and because Myers a crony rather than a qualified appointee; the right, because Myers isn't a qualified candidate to deal with either immigration or customs issues, which are both serious national security concerns; the center, because Myers represents nepotism and political favoritism over merit, and promotion by merit is a classic American value. It very well may be that obstructionism, not only on SCOTUS but on any candidate, could lead to a campaign issue of the type that SDB envisions.

On the other hand, the problem is that obstructing everyone takes the bite out of the tactic. As SDB himself says:

A lot of the rhetoric you saw about Roberts, and now are seeing about Alito, isn't really about them. Turning women back into second class citizens, rolling back civil rights for non-whites, eroding our right of privacy, strengthening the imperial presidency, instituting a Christian theocracy in the US, etc. etc. is really about the Republicans -- or how the Democrats would like everyone to view the Republicans.

That's right, but it's also transparent. The script against Alito and Roberts sounds so similar because there really isn't anything particularly negative to say about either candidate, yet the Democrats in the Senate feel obligated to oppose them vigorously for reasons of fundraising. If there were real areas of concern, we would be hearing about those instead. In the absence of a real issue, you get "fill in the candidate's name here" boilerplate rhetoric that lacks any real power because it is obviously not serious. Boilerplate sounds and feels like boilerplate.

Thus, the other side of the gambit SDB posits is a real risk of breaking down the credibility of Senate Democrats with middle Americans. SDB says they have nothing to lose by playing this out, but in fact they have. Credibility is the currency of the modern world, as The Defense Science Board pointed out in its advice on "strategic communications":

Power flows to credible messengers. Asymmetrical credibility matters. What's around information is critical. Reputations count. Brands are important. Editors, filters, and cue givers are influential. Fifty years ago political struggles were about the ability to control and transmit scarce information. Today, political struggles are about the creation and destruction of credibility.

If the Democrats in the Senate brand themselves as "knee-jerk opponents of anything the President does," they could actually end up in a situation in which the President could recess-appoint even SCOTUS nominees without suffering at the polls. The danger of boilerplate opposition is that it undermines faith in the honesty of the opposition. Middle America could end up saying, "Well, you weren't playing fair anyway; what did you think the President would do? Just accept never having an appointment ratified?"

The danger of opposing every nominee with this kind of radical rhetoric is that you end up not being able to oppose the real bad nominees. There's no credibility left for opponents to use, and thus no power. Indeed, this is true even on occasions like Myers' nomination, when "the opposition" includes a number of people who wouldn't normally be in the opposition. The public becomes used to ignoring "the opposition," and so ignores whoever happens to be in opposition on any given occasion. The statements of the opposition are interpreted as the usual background noise, even on occasions when the speakers aren't the usual opposition and the statements aren't the usual boilerplate.

The result would be a critical breakdown of the "advice and consent" function of the Senate, and with it a serious weakening of the Constitutional separation of powers. It appears we are already at the point that recess appointments for director-level assignments can be used without political negatives by the President, even when there are serious qualms about the candidate being proposed. It is not impossible that even the SCOTUS could come to fall into that category. It is not impossible that even genuine bad actors could end up being approved in cakewalks, or by recess appointment.

I think the gambit is a much riskier undertaking than SDB believes. If you worry about the creation of an imperial presidency, you ought to be thinking about how to improve the credibility of the Senate. We can begin by telling our Senators to shut up unless they really mean it.

The End

The End:

Mark Steyn rang the bell, and there have been some interesting reactions. Lileks is one, and I think he hits his high note in criticizing what we used to call the counterculture, but which has become so important that we now call it by many other names: multiculturalism, trans-nationalism, and the like. Lileks joins Steyn in being astonished that these folks won't see, or talk about, the danger of radical Islam to the things they care most about:

If the Islamists were Christians, they’d be motivated. That threat they understand, because that threat sounds like Mom and Dad...

Doc Russia responded too, wondering if religion is an evolutionary requirement for long-term cultural survival. He posits that the demography will work out so that the American "Red States" overwhelm the "Blue States" by virtue of breeding -- which only may be true, depending on immigration policy. The problem Europe has is that it has been maintaining its population levels by importing people who, two and three generations in, remain alien and hostile to the base culture. Our immigration policy is wiser, which is not to say that it is wise; it just fares well by comparision. Still, it could be improved.

What I don't forsee is the giant culture clash that Steyn and Doc both wonder about. I don't think we'll ever have a single religion that overwhelms the world; even in the height of European colonization, for example, India remained mostly Hindu and Muslim rather than Christian. I do think, though, that Steyn is right to suggest that Europe is going to become far more Muslim in its outlook and law:

This ought to be the left's issue. I'm a conservative--I'm not entirely on board with the Islamist program when it comes to beheading sodomites and so on, but I agree Britney Spears dresses like a slut: I'm with Mullah Omar on that one. Why then, if your big thing is feminism or abortion or gay marriage, are you so certain that the cult of tolerance will prevail once the biggest demographic in your society is cheerfully intolerant? Who, after all, are going to be the first victims of the West's collapsed birthrates? Even if one were to take the optimistic view that Europe will be able to resist the creeping imposition of Sharia currently engulfing Nigeria, it remains the case that the Muslim world is not notable for setting much store by "a woman's right to choose," in any sense.

At Doc's place, I commented along a similar line. This stuff is a problem for somebody, but I don't see why it should be a problem for Red State America.

Actually, in a lot of the world, I think we have more in common with Muslims than we do with anyone else. The Muslims of Xinjiang province, China, for example -- they're about as happy with Communist China as we are. I read Malaysian and Philippine newspapers regularly as part of my job (and so can you, if you want; Bernama, the state news wire, is on Google News, as is the Star of Malaysia and several others). I can't help but recognize a lot of North Georgia in the whole attitude expressed by a lot of Muslim provinces: "We're who we are, and we don't want your meddling in the way we do things, so leave us alone if you know what's good for you."

As far as I can tell, that applies to al Qaeda as much as to the US or their own central governments. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, for example, is happy to help hunt down bandits and Qaeda-linked groups in Mindanao province, Philippines, but will also fight the government army if it comes meddling. The rebels in Aceh, Indonesia, don't have any use for the Indonesian government or the US -- but they also don't like Qaeda-style meddlers, who want to shut down Achenese traditional culture and replace it with Taliban-style non-culture. Southern Thailand is about the same.

There's not a lot that a fellow raised in the American South is surprised to see. They're religious, and they have funny ideas about their religion, but they mostly just want to be left alone. They don't like meddlers, and mostly nobody suffers from their violence but them and people who stick their noses in their business.

It seems to me we could make allies out of people like that, under the right circumstances. After all, we don't give a damn what goes on in Aceh or Mindanao, as long as it doesn't involve people practicing to blow up US skyscrapers or Naval ships. While the rest of the world plots how to better meddle everywhere else -- China, Europe, our own leftists, NGOs, central governments everywhere -- we could get a long way on down the road we want to be on just by supporting these locals.

Anyone who grew up in the South can probably see what I mean. There is always the church down the road whose members think they're more moral than everyone else -- even the members of the other church down the road, which two years ago was the same church until they split up in a heated dispute over the interpretation of a line from one of the letters of St. Paul. These guys get hot over their particular understanding of the faith, and they will try to enact parts of it into law as the occasion arises. They have every right to do so; it's their country too.

If you can give them some room to do their thing -- say, a town council, or sometimes even just the church's managing board -- they'll confine themselves to that, and generally leave you alone. They don't really like you or approve of you, but they also don't really care about you. As long as you're not trying to change their town or their church, you can do what you like in your town over the hill. In fact, they kind of like that you do things differently -- it gives them something else to feel superior about.

River Tam was right. It's meddling that gets you in trouble. The best thing, if you're going to be a global leader, is to find a way to support people in doing what they want to do anyway. This is true whether you're trying to be a global leader in law and military power, or a global leader in the selling of computers or fashion products.

The great bulk of humanity, which would prefer to avoid politics anyway, will be entirely satisfied by this arrangement. That simplifies the problem: all that remains is to deal with that fraction of humanity that isn't happy unless they're telling everyone, everywhere what to do. That impulse lies behind not only al Qaeda's push for a universal Caliphate but also the United Nations' hand-waving about "unilateralism" and the various NGOs' constant attempts to bully nations into adopting vegetarianism, or banning guns, or whatever.

Anyone who comes selling a universal answer to a human problem is a danger. Not all of them will be terrorists, nor even violent at all, but all of them are selling something you'd be foolish to buy.

What does that mean for Europe? Nothing. Steyn is right; they're done. It does mean something for America, though, which is that we are likely to remain the leading global power for the forseeable future. We are the natural enemy of the "tell everyone what to do" crowd, whether they are Qaeda terrorists or NGO scolds who want to criminalize "hate speech" or fox hunting. But we're the natural ally of anyone, anywhere, who wants to do his own thing.

Indeed, it's the answer to Steyn and Lilek's question: people of the "tell everyone what to do" type see the US as the principle enemy of their natural impulses. With al Qaeda they differ only on the goals, and hopefully the acceptable methods. With the US, they differ on first principles. Al Qaeda's a competitor. We're the enemy.

Myers Again

Julie Myers Shuffles In:

Sovay, who knows how irritated I was with the Julie Myers nomination some months ago, mentioned tonight that Bush had appointed her by recess appointment. I realize the administration has a lot on its plate, and probably is only too happy to avoid any fights it can. Also, it's obviously true that the opposition in Congress is given over to both excessive rhetoric, and knee-jerk refusal of anything Bush asks. That has to be exhausting.

Still, the 'advice and consent' part of the Constitution is not meant to be an empty letter. Recess appointments made a lot of sense in 1787, when the Senate might be out of session for months in order for members to travel home and back again. These days, there isn't anywhere in the world that's more than about 24 hours away from Washington, if you're rich and powerful enough to command a private plane -- for example, if you're a Senator.

Why, then, make use of the provision? ThisNation provides a good writeup on the process, and also the remedies available to the Congress if a President seems to simply prefer to avoid debates on his nominees.

While this provision is fairly straightforward, it has produced several differences of opinion between the Congress and the President. How many days must the Senate fail to convene for it to lapse into a recess? Does a position have to become vacant during a Senate recess for a valid recess appointment to be made or does the position simply have to remain vacant during the recess? Instead of allowing the Court to settle these disputes, the Congress and the President have generally agreed to work together to solve them. This makes sense because neither side has a particularly clear interest in forcing the issue. If the President tries to force recess appointments on the Senate, thus circumventing the normal "advice and consent" process, the Congress can refuse to appropriate funds to pay the salaries of the appointees. The Senate might also take the extraordinary measure of blocking future nominations to "teach the President a lesson." Furthermore, if the Senate took a hostile approach to all recess appointments, it would essentially have to remain in session all of the time--an inefficient solution, to say the least.

Currently, the President and Congress generally adhere to a procedure for recess appointments that minimizes the potential for interbranch conflict. If the President wishes to make a recess appointment or appointments, he generally sends a list of persons to be appointed to members of the Senate shortly before or during a recess. If Senators express serious concerns about a nominee, the President will likely hold off on the appointment until the Senate is back in session and the normal procedure can be followed.

"Currently" obviously should be read "until recently." Myers has been subject to quite a lot of concern.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, said on Friday that Ms. Myers "really was not qualified for the position." Mr. Lieberman said Congress had intended the position to be held by someone with at least five years' management experience.

"In my opinion, she lacks the management background," he said. "And one of her key responsibilities is to enforce immigration laws, and she has virtually no immigration experience."

Daniel K. Akaka, Democrat of Hawaii, echoed those concerns. "The head of I.C.E. should be an individual who has demonstrated extensive executive-level leadership and the ability to manage a budget through reorganizations and budget cycles," Mr. Akaka said. "Ms. Myers has not demonstrated this ability."

Lieberman, at least, isn't one of the knee-jerk enemies of the President, although he does vote with his party more often than not. The Times, which is one of the knee-jerks, digs up a couple of Republicans to say bad things about her, and also a National Review editorial. They didn't quote me, but I had one or two or three things to say about it also. So did Froggy, who served as a Customs Special Agent -- that is, one of the people whom Myers will now be commanding. This isn't a case of the political opposition stonewalling out of spite. It's a case of genuine, serious concerns raised by allies as well as opponents of the President -- and the President choosing to simply ignore those concerns, and those allies.

No wonder they want to avoid a debate. Here is the administration's defense against charges that Myers is an unqualified nepotism appointment:

"She's tried criminal cases and worked with customs agents on everything from drug smuggling to money laundering," Ms. Healy said. "So to say that Julie does not have the prerequisite experience to lead I.C.E., it simply ignores her extensive background working with law enforcement, immigration and customs."

Here's a hint, in case you folks at the White House ever want to do this kind of thing again and there's not a handy recess. If you want to convince the public that your appointee is a highly qualified expert and not someone who is simply being promoted due to her political connections, don't have your spokeswoman call her by her first name. It says volumes that she's so close to the White House that they, reflexively and thoughtlessly, refer to her in the most familiar way.

Hard

A Hard-Hitting Town Hall:

Greyhawk has some more from the Murtha-Moran town hall meeting.

Hello Mr Moran I'm General Wagner. I'm here tonight, I decided to come at 7:30. And I'll tell you the reason I came at 7:30 is because I want an answer to a letter, to a friend of ours. She wrote this letter to Mr. Murtha, where she pointed out to him that he was causing the insurgents to bring more activity against the soldiers in Iraq, just as the traitors did during the Vietnam war. I was fighting in 1972 with the Vietnamese when people were cavorting with the North Vietnamese.

Her son was killed today.

I got the message at 7:30 tonight, and I'll tell you, I wasn't going to waste my time coming here because I knew the trash that was going to be put out. But I'm really mad. Because what is being put out is being used to incite the insurgents to continue this war, just as it incited General Giap to consider the Vietnam war.

He hasn't answered her letter, Mr Moran, but I want to read a paragraph to you...

And so he did. Moran's response, far from inspiring, was as off-balance as you would expect from someone who just got hit upside of the head with a sledgehammer.

Neverthess, he had to respond. The lady, may her grief be eased by time, has absolute moral authority to demand an answer.

Marine SOCOM

Marines @ SOCOM:

BlackFive has a post which started as speculation as to whether the new USMC SOCOM units would have a different name (e.g., "Marine Raiders" instead of just "Marines"). It's become something a bit more than that in the comments. Doc Russia and I have already engaged it, as has JarHeadDad. Some of the rest of you might like to jump in.

Idiots

Oh, This Is Going To Work Out Great:

One never knows if Drudge has been drinking before noon again (not that there's anything wrong with that), but if this report is accurate, it shows that the Democratic national party is cheerfully unwilling to change course in the face of the rocks in front of it, in spite of the experience of having hit those same rocks just recently.

Senate Democrats intend to zero in on Alito’s alleged enthusiastic membership to an organization, they will charge, that was sexist and racist!

Democrats hope to tie Alito to Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP). Alito will testify that he joined CAP as a protest over Princeton policy that would not allow the ROTC on campus.

THE DRUDGE REPORT has obtained a Summer 1982 article from CAP’s PROSPECT magazine titled “Smearing The Class Of 1957” that key Senate Democrats believe could thwart his nomination! In the article written by then PROSPECT editor Frederick Foote, Foote writes: “The facts show that, for whatever reasons, whites today are more intelligent than blacks.” Senate Democrats expect excerpts like this written by other Princeton graduates will be enough to torpedo the Alito nomination.

So, let's play this out.

DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN: Mr. Alito, you belonged to an organization that held that whites are more intelligent than blacks.

ALITO: I did?

DC: Yes. Your old organization, the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, ran an article to that effect in its publication.

A: Really? Huh. I don't remember reading that.

DC: It ran in the Summer 1982 edition of their journal.

A: Could be. I don't remember reading it, though. I had other concerns in 1982. In fact, the reason I joined CAP was one of them: Princeton was trying to keep ROTC off campus.

DC: Don't change the subject. What about these racist writings?

A: Don't remember seeing them. But what I do remember is that Princeton was slandering our military, and doing its best to deny the military access to the campus. Our national defense depends on quality recruits, and...

See where this is going? Right. The same place we've been the last few elections. Republicans are running on the need to provide for a national defense in the face of violent enemies; Democrats are running on identity politics concerns that appeal, by definition, to narrow interests. The Democrats hope to build enough such interests together to make a coalition majority, but so far it just hasn't worked. Coalitions are hard to keep together: their interests are often at variance with each other.

The Republican message, by contrast, is a national unity message. The ROTC story speaks to every American. Not every American will be concerned at all with the question of whether, in 1982, this magazine published a story that could be construed as racist (indeed, I can't muster even idle interest myself); but every American has an opinion as to whether the military is a fine and noble organization, or a base one that should be banned from campuses.

Sadly, we do have a sizable minority of citizens who will hold the latter. That being said, the majority will and has stood with the former proposition.

Bush wins. Alito confirmed. Somewhat more than half of US citizens look in wonder upon the Democrats, who seem consistently willing to take positions that can be interpreted as anti-military. That's just not a competitive message among the swing voters who occupy middle America. Haven't ya'll watched any Superbowls lately?

Well, you'll have another chance soon. I'll bet there will be a few references to the military, designed by the best minds in corporate America to appeal to the broad mass of citizens. They know the right way to talk about the military in order to maximize profit.

Pay attention this time. You might learn something.

Froggy

Froggy Reviews "Navy SEALS":

It's worth having a look at his review of the movie about his service. My favorite part:

The interesting thing about watching the movie again this time was that the “team” commander (Biehn) contacted an American journalist with connections in Lebanon to gain information about the terrorists and the location of the missing missiles. In 2006 America, this is something of a quaint proposition.

Yeah.

ML

The Passing of a True Hero:

The Castle draws our attention, and rightly, to the story of Hugh Thompson, who has died at the age of sixty-two. Thompson was the helicopter pilot at My Lai, who on that terrible day put his ship in between US soldiers and fleeing noncombatants, and transported those he could to safety.