Category: Barack Obama

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Barack Obama Economics Financial Crisis Politics The Bush Legacy The Opinionsphere

Obama’s Grand Bargain (as a necessary response to the deficit problem)

[digg-reddit-me]David Leonhardt has a typically excellent piece in the Times with a helpful graph explaining the deficit problem. Leonhardt tells the story of how the $800 billion surpluses left by Bill Clinton have turned into $1.2 trillion deficits – or what he calls the “$2 trillion swing.” He identifies four categories of spending accounting for the swing in descending order of significance:

the business cycle, President George W. Bush’s policies, policies from the Bush years that are scheduled to expire but that Mr. Obama has chosen to extend, and new policies proposed by Mr. Obama.

Leonhardt identifies only 10% of the current deficit as resulting from either Obama’s stimulus package or new spending (which is only 3%). 20% of the deficit is traced to Bush policies set to expire that Obama is continuing – for example, a large portion of Bush’s tax cuts and the Iraq war. 33% comes from legislation signed by Bush – like the Medicare prescription act. And Leonhardt attributes 37% of these enormous deficits – the single largest factor – to the combination of increased counter-cyclical spending (on food stamps, unemployment, etc.) and a decrease in government revenues resulting from the downturn.

This math is a large part of what made those Tea Parties – as well as so much of the Republican opposition – ridiculous. First, these Tea Parties – and most of the opposition – was silent while George W. Bush pushed through legislation account for 53% of the current deficit – but suddenly was up in arms once a Democrat proposed 10% in spending to stimulate the economy and fix some significant problems. At the same time, many of those conservatives who were strong opponents of Bush continue to propose more tax cuts. In fact, during the debate over the stimulus bill, Republicans denounced the deficits being caused by government spending while proposing a tax cut bill that would create even large deficits.

What Leonhardt describes is a nation that has been subjected to the conservative “starve the beast” strategy of cutting taxes and increasing spending. This deliberate policy has brought us to the brink of disaster – as George Will describes:

For years, many conservatives advocated a “starve the beast” approach to limiting government. They supported any tax cut, of any size, at any time, for any purpose, assuming that, deprived of revenue, government spending would stop growing. But spending continued, and government borrowing encouraged government’s growth by making big government cheap: People were given $1 worth of government but were charged less than that, the balance being shifted, through debt, to future generations. In 2003, Republicans fattened the beast with the Medicare prescription drug benefit (Cooper opposed it), which added almost $8 trillion in the present value of benefits scheduled, but unfunded, over the next 75 years.

Liberalism’s signature achievement — the welfare state’s entitlement buffet — will, unless radically reduced, starve government of resources needed for everything on liberalism’s agenda for people not elderly. Conservatives want government limited, but not this way.

Leonhardt quotes Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley,

Bush behaved incredibly irresponsibly for eight years. On the one hand, it might seem unfair for people to blame Obama for not fixing it. On the other hand, he’s not fixing it.

And not fixing it is, in a sense, making it worse.

I think Andrew Sullivan has the right tack on this:

I don’t blame Obama for failing to turn all this around in five months, and for running a debt this big right now. I willblame him if he does nothing serious to tackle this in the next year.

Leonhardt has been a reporter with good access to the White House in these early days of the presidency. Which suggests that this article is not coming out of the blue for this administration. In fact, shortly before taking office, Obama talked about the “Grand Bargain” he would need to negotiate to deal with precisely this issue. It seems to me that this piece begins to set the stage for what Obama is looking to do after cap-and-trade and health care are passed – to tackle the issues of tax reform and entitlement reform.

All this makes his continued and extraordinary attempts to woo members of the House and Senate – and his efforts to give them a role in determining policy (as described in Matt Bai’s new article) – essential. As Bai describes:

“One of the mistakes of the past is that when presidents arrive on Capitol Hill with legislation chiseled into stone, it’s not well received,” says David Axelrod, one of Obama’s most influential advisers. “You have to give people a sense of ownership.”

Obama seems to have decided early on that his model for pursuing legislation would be something closer to Ronald Reagan, a president whose political savvy he has often expressed admiration for. Partly by necessity, because he had to work with a Democratic Congress, Reagan was known for providing broad policy frameworks while delegating the details to lawmakers. In this way, he managed to fundamentally reform the tax code and shore up Social Security during his first year in office — achievements for which he gladly took credit, even if Congress didn’t give him precisely what he wanted. To this end, Obama’s chief health care adviser, Nancy-Ann DeParle, has been all over Capitol Hill, consulting with various members and soliciting their advice, but the administration has been careful not to weigh in with too much authority or to make any public pronouncements on the negotiations.

Obama may have been able to push through health care and cap-and-trade with his Democratic majorities and personal popularity. But he needs the Congress and Senate to work with him on tax reform and entitlement reform once the financial crisis has been dealt with. Or perhaps sooner – as the bond market pressures the administration to set a clear path which involves a return to fiscal sanity.

To do this, Obama needs the trust and support of a large majority of Congressmen and Senators. And he needs to mobilize public and elite opinion to support a significant change in our tax and spending policies. This article by David Leonhardt strikes me as an attempt to set the stage for this soon-to-be debate.

[Picture by Peter Souza courtesy of the White House.]

Categories
Barack Obama Economics Financial Crisis Law Politics The Bush Legacy

The Supreme Court Holds Up the Chrysler Sale

I actually decided to write a short piece stating my hope that the Supreme Court would look into Obama’s and Bush’s expansion of executive powers in tackling the financial crisis before the Supreme Court delayed the sale of Chrysler to Fiat. Now that they have, I’m relieved if a bit nervous. The key issue is the use of executive power in a crisis – as Michael J. de la Merced explained the issue:

In a broader context, such a decision would also give the justices an early opportunity to consider the scope of the wide-ranging but not unlimited authority that Congress granted the president to address the economic crisis.

I think this is a good thing – though I’m not sure how the timing of this will affect things. Generally, the strongest decisions restricting the executive’s freedom in a crisis have come after the crisis has past. With the rash of bad news on the economic front – even as most indicators seem to be levelling off – this financial crisis is not yet over. On the one hand, strong action by the Court at this time to curb the power of the president could destabilize the economy, as it is confidence in the power and determination of the executive branch and the Federal Reserve to backstop the financial system that seem to have restored confidence in the market and economy itself. At the same time, the Supreme Court is less likely to challenge the president’s authority in the middle of a crisis – making it more likely the decision will be deferential.

It is possible that all of these competing claims could be dealt with responsibly – with a Solomonic decision along the lines of Marbury v. Madison. It’s also possible that the Court may find Presidents Bush and Obama both acted constitutionally in their response. But as a matter of policy, the recent government interventions into the market are ill-advised if they extend beyond the minimum amount of time. As I wrote regarding Obama and the Rule of Law:

The power of the executive branch has grown enormously in the financial crisis – between the Stimulus Bill and the bank bailout. While in the short-term this may be necessary, if steps are not taken, this would undermine the balance of power between the federal government and the states. While this in itself is not a violation of the Rule of Law – it does weaken the system which together helps maintain the Rule of Law.

The one issue that strikes me as worth considering – on matters of constitutionality rather than policy – is whether or not Bush and then Obama acted within their powers in providing loans to Chrysler and General Motors; perhaps a Court should also look at the broad authority given by the TARP bill itself and set some standards regarding what authorities and monies can and cannot be extended to the executive branch by the legislative.

The whole process of drafting and passing the TARP bill was obviously flawed – though it’s difficult to judge legislation passed in the midst of a crisis. The only logical way out of this I’ve heard mentioned would be to “stockpile laws” as Philip Bobbitt once suggested with regards to terrorism.

But even as there is a flawed process, it’s not clear what if anything was unconstitutional.

At the same time, I’m glad to see the Court looking seriously at getting involved. I’m all for these checks and balances.

Categories
Barack Obama Law National Security Politics The War on Terrorism

Closed-Door Hearings

Last week, at a closed-door Intelligence Committee hearing, Republican members claim they were told “the truth that enhanced interrogation of detainees is effective.” The members did not offer details as to what they learned – but by speaking about this, they clearly violated the closed-door policy. As Democrat Oversight and Investigations Chairwoman Jan Schakowsky said:

“I am absolutely shocked that members of the Intelligence committee who attended a closed-door hearing … then walked out that hearing — early, by the way — and characterized anything that happened in that hearing. My understanding is that’s a violation of the rules. It may be more than that.”

This reminds me of the recent controversies regarding Nancy Pelosi and the allegations of abuse of the Gang of Eight process. Wikipedia describes it:

[T]he President may elect to report instead to the Gang of Eight when he feels “it is essential to limit access” to information about a covert action.

They are all sworn to secrecy and there is no vote required.

In each of these circumstances, the power of legislators to do their job – and check the executive branch – is curtailed by secrecy. This is a situation crying for judicial oversight – or for political courage. Either immunity could be offered for Congressmen and -women – allowing them immunity from prosecution for what they reveal of classified information; or perhaps, they could create some judicial process to force classified information to be revealed.

This would help counteract the increasing trend to classify every document possible.

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Barack Obama Foreign Policy National Security Politics The War on Terrorism

The Cairo Rapprochement

Obama’s Cairo speech is an excellent beginning of a rapprochement with Muslims around the world.  Here’s a few brief comments on a few passages in the speech:

So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed.

Very respectful tone here. But, to my mind, theologically problematic. Obama is no theologian – but if he is a Christian, then does that not mean he rejects that Islam was revealed? It’s one thing to speak in a respectful tones about another religion – but another to accept that religion’s premises that supersede your own as true.

America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We were born out of revolution against an empire. We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words – within our borders, and around the world. We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept: E pluribus unum: “Out of many, one.”

This is something Obama has done so well – to preach the exceptionalism of America. And in many ways, his own story is a symbol of this. This idea of American exceptionalism is rejected as toxic though by most opponents of America – as well as many leftists in America. At best, it is seen as a kind of crude nationalism – and at worst as a sociopathic indifference to great crimes. There are two schools of American exceptionalism – the one which suggests America is inherently better than other countries and empires – and the other which states that America’s exceptionalism can be found in how it has dealt with its ideals and its power. Obama, clearly, belongs to the second category.

For we have learned from recent experience that when a financial system weakens in one country, prosperity is hurt everywhere. When a new flu infects one human being, all are at risk. When one nation pursues a nuclear weapon, the risk of nuclear attack rises for all nations. When violent extremists operate in one stretch of mountains, people are endangered across an ocean. And when innocents in Bosnia and Darfur are slaughtered, that is a stain on our collective conscience. That is what it means to share this world in the 21st century. That is the responsibility we have to one another as human beings.

Here Obama touches on the idea of the increasing interconnectedness of the world today – and in which he seems to be suggesting an alternate explanation than greed and empire for America’s involvements around the world, as well as a collective responsibility of all to create a better world.

…more than any other, they have killed Muslims…

I wish Obama had brought this up a few times – as this is such an important point. Al Qaeda and other violent extremists (the term Obama adopted, at least for this speech) have – while speaking most about attacking America – killed mainly fellow Muslims. In a recent editorial in Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English-language newspaper, columnist Nosheen Abbas quoted a man who lived in Swat before the Taliban took over:

These hooligans come and tell us they are here to bring Islam. What? Are we not Muslims?!

This is why the most effective counterterrorism strategy that the Bush administration was able to find was to let the extremists win for a while – and let their intolerance alienate the population.

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It’s a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.

Although this might be the right thing to say – given our interests – I am not sure this is historically accurate. It’s a rather dangerous idea – that “Resistance through violence and killing is wrong.” Clearly – Obama is not saying that with any act of violence, one cedes one’s moral authority – for then he would be condemning the police whose authority is based on their implicit ability to do violence as well as our own military – which are even now engaged in violence with various forces in the Middle East. What he is instead referring to is violent resistance – by which he clearly is referring not to violence which supports the status quo, but which opposes it, or alternately, the violence of the weak against the strong. It’s an odd thing to condemn on moral grounds – and I’m not sure how this case can be made. There are many other instances in history when resistance would seem to justify violence – the Nazi occupation, the various genocides, slavery. What I could accept is that in recent history, it has been found that peaceful mass resistance has proven to be a far more effective tool in overturning the status quo, in empowering the weak over the strong.

Too many tears have flowed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer. [my emphasis]

I am not certain – but I feel as if this passage will be cited most of all – and will be the most influential, especially the idea of Jerusalem as “the place of peace that God intended it to be.”

So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.

That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere…

No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

This is almost exactly what I had hoped Obama would say. Democracy activists in the region had already expressed disappointment that Obama was going to Egypt, implying an endorsement of the regime. And some – in the aftermath of the speech – continued to complain that he had given up on Bush’s democracy promotion. Realists continue to assert that we shouldn’t bother with such niceties as democracy promotion – seeing it as mainly a destabilizing element. The neoconservatives on the other hand correctly pointed out that a great deal of the instability and resentment in the region came from the fact that most of the nations here are authoritarian. Obama is attempting to “thread the needle” here – and to my mind, did it perfectly. He adopted what I understand to be Philip Bobbitt’s understanding of a state of consent being in direct opposition to a state of terror. Accepting this formulation puts Obama’s foreign policy on stronger ground than Bush’s.

Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit – for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.

Am I wrong to see this as a swipe at France here?

Overall, an excellent speech – and one that was apparently well-received. The follow-up is crucial – and it remains to be seen how Obama’s focus on nations that “reflect the will of the people” differs from Bush’s democracy promotion. But the change in emphasis is key – and itself does a great deal of good.

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Barack Obama Foreign Policy Politics

Variations on a Theme

Anyone else notice that Ayman al-Zawahiri’s criticisms of Obama follow the same meme Obama’s domestic opponents tried to use to marginalize him:

His bloody messages were received and are still being received by Muslims, and they will not be concealed by public relations campaigns or by farcical visits or elegant words.

It’s also worth noting that variations on this theme – that you have to ignore Obama’s words and mastery of public symbolism and focus on his record and policies – that Hillary Clinton used, that Paul Krugman used, that John McCain used, and that Republicans have continued to use – have failed to substantially detract from popular support for Obama.

Of course, in the Middle East, Obama’s policies are far less popular than his American policies are. But I think this just goes to show how tuned in Al Qaeda is into the American media and politics.

Categories
Barack Obama Economics The Opinionsphere

Rewriting the Rules of Capitalism

Marc Ambinder discusses what he terms “Obama’s New Capitalism” in a recent piece. He asserts that the administration is “rewriting the rules of capitalism” but goes on to not discuss what these rules are. Which is fine – Ambinder’s piece makes some good points. One which I’ve made before is that Obama has not been violating the Rule of Law with regard to his GM and Chrysler interventions as his conservative critics allege:

Note that, aside from threats and suasion, the administration hasn’t done anything. The bondholders (with notable exceptions) agreed to these two deals. No laws have been broken. Everyone has sacrificed. And the unions have already given up a great deal – and, in doing so, put their trust in the administration.

I had written earlier:

These authors make a big point of the fact that Obama is abrogating contracts – but this objection is a bit silly. Obama is not a party to these contracts – and thus has no obligation to honor them personally. The Contracts clause of the Constitution – the Law which it is being alleged Obama has broken – was meant to constrain the individual states rather than the President or even the Congress. Congress was in fact given the power to abrogate contracts through bankruptcy proceedings in the Constitution. Obama – in intervening in the case of Chrysler – helped to negotiate an out-of-court settlement of the matter. Out-of-court settlements happen all the time – and are welcomed by overburdened judges who see it as better to allow all sides to come to an agreement rather than having to order them to agree.

To call this a violation of the Rule of Law is disingenuous at best.

What these authors are right to be concerned about is the concentration of power that undermines the system of the Rule of Law – as the government’s role in backstopping the finance and auto industries leaves it with enormous leverage.

Ambinder’s point that the UAW is putting a lot of trust in the Obama administration by accepting these deals is well-taken.

But I look forward to reading (or perhaps writing) the piece that Ambinder’s title seems to promise – explaining what amendments to the capitalist system have been wrought in the final days of the Bush administration and in these opening days of the Obama administration. We obviously don’t know everything yet – as that big piece of legislation which attempts to regulate the purported roots of this financial crisis has not been drafted to my knowledge.

But I can make a few educated guesses about the shape of this capitalism. So far anyway, institutions that are too big to fail have now combined into even larger institutions. It seems unlikely this will reverse. These enormous institutions now seem to have a implicit government backstop. This will need to be dealt with either with more regulation of such institutions – or by breaking them up into smaller pieces. It seems that in the future new financial instruments will be regulated more closely – and hopefully traded over some public exchange. Obama seems to want labor forces to have a greater role in running corporations – which is a relatively unique prospect in American history – and one that if it catches on could be revolutionary. At the moment, this depends on how well the UAW is able to handle its ownership stakes in Chrysler and GM – but one can see this creating either an advantage or a disadvantage competitively. There is also the issue of systematic risk – and finding a regulator responsible for monitoring this. Perhaps most significantly – the federal government has explicitly accepted what has long been its implicit promise to keep economic growth going.

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Barack Obama National Security Politics The Bush Legacy The Opinionsphere The War on Terrorism

“Nobody’s going to wage a tough political battle to give up power.”

Yglesias makes a good point about the odd dynamic Republicans are creating on the national security front:

Part of why it’s so problematic for congressional Republicans to be so busy attacking the Obama administration as too hesitant to torture people and so forth is that the natural order of checks and balances is totally turned on its head when the opposition is urging the executive to seize more power and become less transparent. Nobody’s going to wage a tough political battle to give up power.

I’ve stated before that I believe it is primarily the job of the Courts and legislature – and even of individual citizens to the extent they are able – to provide a check on the Executive branch – as not only can one not expect a president to give up power – but for him to do so unilaterly serves to strengthen the power of the executive in the future. If the Courts or the Congress forces him or her to give up power, then the system of checks and balances is working – and the executive is seen to be subject to them in the future.

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Barack Obama Law Politics The Opinionsphere

Judge Sotomayor

My opinion of Judge Sotomayor hasn’t changed much since last week’s announcement. The right-wingers attempts to tar her as a racist bug me. But not all that much. The particular sentence they keep repeating is – without context a racist remark:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life. [my emphasis]

Within the speech she was giving though – when she made this remark – she seemed to be making a similar, but different point:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would as often as not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

It does seem – as Barack Obama said – that her original speech contained one sentence that was poorly phrased to convey the point she was making.

I agree with the many out there who think the right-wingers are hurting the Republican Party by making Sotomayor’s nomination about race.

The two areas that might potentially trouble me about Sotomayor are in the areas of executive power and civil libertarianism. She’s probably in the mainstream of the conservative/liberal consensus on these issues – which is an improvement over the right-wing extremism on these issues evident in Judge Roberts and Judge Alito. But I am not sure where within this conservative/liberal consensus she stands.

Sotomayor’s ruling the “douchebag” case – though it is certainly possible to view her deference to the school’s position as a judicial modesty which I can support. But I think the role of Courts in checking the increasing power of corporations, schools, and other semi-voluntary organizations to monitor and police the private activities of citizens is going to gradually become a big issue. That Sotomayor signed onto an opinion then that allowed the restriction of free speech on a non-school affiliated blog because calling administrators “douchebags” presented a “foreseeable risk of substantial disruption” is a matter of concern.

On the issue of executive power, Sotomayor’s record is thin. As Charlie Savage wrote in the New York Times:

[T]he effect on presidential power could be pivotal. Important rulings on executive authority — striking down military commissions and upholding habeas corpus rights for Guantánamo detainees — have been decided by a five-vote majority, including Justice Souter, on the nine-member court.

“Given that the decisions have generally been 5-4 in this area, this could be terribly consequential,” said David Golove, a New York University law professor. “We’re losing one of the court’s strongest leaders on the side of limiting executive power to reasonable bounds. If the person who replaces Souter is different than him, the balance of power may shift.”

The article was written before Sotomayor was nominated – but Savage briefly outlined her record in this area:

[O]ne person near the top of Mr. Obama’s short list — Judge Sonia Sotomayorof the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit — has never worked in the federal executive branch and sits on a court that hears few executive power cases.

These issues – of executive power, war powers, of state secrets, of torture, and of national security in general – are becoming the new culture war. And it is a front in which the Court must take a strong position. I await the hearings to see what Sotomayor has to say on the issue – although I presume she will be as careful in her answers on this issue as past nominees have been on abortion.

Categories
Barack Obama Foreign Policy Israel National Security

Stephen Walt’s Insights

Due to a website outage for most of the day, none of my posts went up today.

So for your national security/politics/etc fix today, I suggest you look to Stephen Walt – whose blog I just discovered, although I’ve been familiar with his work for some time. Some thought-provoking excerpts from the past week or so in Walt bloggery:

On which president’s foreign policy Obama seems most similar: Nixon…

In short, he’s trying to deal with Bush’s legacy by cutting losses, resolving conflicts, and getting help from our allies, in order to buy time for economic and military recovery. Sounds almost Nixonian (or maybe Kissingerian).

On his favorite topic, Israel:

Some readers may think that Hastings is employing a double-standard, or that he is “singling Israel out” for criticism. They could point out that Israel’s adversaries have often lied or prevaricated too, and that they have done plenty of brutal things themselves. They could also remind us that Israel’s neighbors are hardly models of tolerance or open discourse and that there is a far more open debate about these issues within Israel than there is in Jordan or Saudi Arabia or Syria. I agree, and the willingness of some Israelis to confront the past honestly and to question its present policies remains an admirable feature of Israeli society.  

But there is no double-standard at work here, and comparisons with states whose behavior may be worse miss the point. Israel’s actions are not being judged against the conduct of a Sudan or Burma, but by the standards that people in the West apply to all democracies. It is the standard Americans expect of allies who want to have a “special relationship” with us. It is the standard Israel imposes on itself when it tells everyone it is “the only democracy in the Middle East.” Israel is being expected to behave like Britain or Canada or France or Japan and not like some one-party military dictatorship, and it is certainly expected not to deny full political and civil rights to millions of Palestinians who now live under its constant control.  These other democracies eventually gave up their colonial enterprises; Israel is still trying to consolidate its own. 

On the most effective imbalance of power:

Unlike Preble, I still think a margin of superiority is a good thing, but I agree that we’ve got a much bigger margin than we need and we often use it in the wrong way. Instead of exploiting our favorable geopolitical position and acting like an offshore balancer, and playing hard-to-get so that other major powers will bear a greater share of the burden, the United States has declared itself to be the “indispensable power” and decided that it’s got to take charge nearly everywhere. The result, as you may have noticed, has not been all the salutary. Instead of stabilizing the key strategic areas of the world — something we used to be pretty good at — in recent years the United States has been an activelydestabilizing force. And instead of spreading U.S. values, we’ve ended up undermining them here at home and discrediting them abroad.

Moreover, as Preble notes, excessive U.S. dominance encourages others to act irresponsibly. To use Barry Posen’s apt terms, states either “free ride” on Uncle Sam (think Japan, or much of Europe), or they engage in “reckless driving” (think Israel, Georgia last summer, or maybe Pakistan), because they are confident we’ll bail them out if they get into trouble.  

Categories
Barack Obama Criticism Law Politics The Opinionsphere

Conservative Empathy

Doug Kendall and Dahlia Lithwick take on the conservative attacks on empathy by pointing out the hypocrisy of the position:

Every time Justice Antonin Scalia writes a habeas opinion that begins with the depiction of a gruesome murder, he is evincing empathy toward the victim. When Chief Justice John Roberts battled for the rights of white schoolchildren facing arduous bus trips and educational hardship due to school integration programs in Seattle and Kentucky, he was evincing empathy for the white “victims” of affirmative action. It’s a patent falsehood that liberal judges weep and bleed for their plaintiffs while conservative jurists treat plaintiffs with stony indifference. And smart advocates on either side, knowing that, seek out “sympathetic plaintiffs” for litigation precisely because they are attempting to appeal to some part of the court’s lizard brain; the part that does more than mechanically apply the law to the case.

I think that’s about right.