Category: Election 2008

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Domestic issues Election 2008 Political Philosophy

lib•er•tar•ian: Two roads diverged in a wood…

Alaska
© kruggg6 @ flickr

lib•er•tar•ian

n. 1. a person who believes in the doctrine of the freedom of the will;
2. a person who believes in full individual freedom of thought, expression and action;[digg-reddit-me]
3. a freewheeling rebel who hates wiretaps, loves Ron Paul and is redirecting politics.

From the Washington Post, an ideologically-muddled piece by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch (of Reason magazine) about Ron Paul and the libertarian phenomenon. I would guess the “muddle” is because Gillespie and Welch are still somewhat wedded to the idea of a conservative-libertarian political axis. The idea behind the piece was to explore the growing support for the libertarian philosophy in American politics – especially as demonstrated in the strength of Ron Paul’s campaign. Unfortunately, the idea wasn’t fully explored – and it ended up distorting Ron Paul’s positions significantly and mainly ignoring the left-libertarian movement. But the article did bring up an important topic – and one that I haven’t seen covered by the mainstream press.

Even as consensus on base libertarian ideas is growing, the movement is diverging into two camps. Or, more apt, libertarian ideas are taking root in two different political movements. In broad terms, I’m going to call them Ron Paul Libertarians and Kos Libertarians.

Ron Paul Libertarians

Favorite films
Enemy of the State, V for Vendetta, The Firm, The Conversation

Favorite websites
Reason.com, reddit.com, digg.com, mises.org, lewrockwell.com (see footnote 1)

Favorite TV show
The X-Files, Family Guy

Favorite Conspiracy Theory
“9/11 was an inside job!” (See footnote 2); Honorable mentions: “Global warming is a hoax!” and “The Fed is evil.” (See footnote 3)

Geographic center
The Internet

Top proponents
Ron Paul, phenomenon

Number 1 boogeymen
Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, CIA, The Media, The Federal Reserve (See footnote 3)

Signature issues

  • opposition to Iraq war and most of American foreign policy since 1990;
  • opposition to wiretapping and increased national security measures;
  • support of marijuana decriminalization and ending the War on Drugs;
  • reducing taxes;
  • support of gun rights;
  • eliminating the social support network of Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, etcetera.

Ron Paul supporters tend to fall into two categories: the old guard – the Barry Goldwater wing of the Republican party – and a large contingent of newer members – who are suspicious of government, especially the military-intelligence-industrial complex that seems to be gaining more and more power. To speak in broad strokes: the older members are pretty old – and the main reason to include them is that Ron Paul himself is one of them. They have strong feelings about economic and social issues; and on these, they tend to be reactionary. The older guard want to reverse the New Deal and go back to simpler times.

The newer members care less about restoring the social and economic structures of pre-World War II America, and more about restoring – in their words – the Constitution. They want a new America where the government leaves them alone – with their guns, their hacking, their anarchist beliefs, their marijuana, their prostitution – whatever. (See footnote 2.) They are scared about the growing power of the government and feel we are approaching a police state, if we are not there already.

Ron Paul supporters, both old and new, tend to be contrarians, which makes them a cantakerous lot. But in a society, in a political debate, their views need airing.

Kos Libertarians

Favorite films
The Insider, An Inconvenient Truth, Fahrenheit 9/11, Thank You For Smoking

Favorite website
DailyKos.com

Favorite TV shows
The Wire, The Daily Show

Favorite Conspiracy Theory
“The Iraq war is part of an intricate plot to help Bush, Cheney, and the rich get hold of key resource before the coming near-apocalyptic events brought on by global warming.” Honorable mention: “9/11 was an inside job!”

Geographic center
The Mountain West/The Internet

Top proponents
Jon Tester, Markos Moulitsas

Number 1 boogeymen
George W. Bush, Oil companies, Wal-Mart, Halliburton, Blackwater, Hillary Clinton

Signature issues

  • opposition to Iraq war;
  • opposition to illegal wiretapping and the aggressive pursuit of unchecked executive power;
  • support openness and transparency in every portion of the government;
  • support of marijuana decriminalization and ending the War on Drugs;
  • support of net neutrality;
  • support of gun rights;
  • support of using government as a check against corporate power;
  • support of a strong barrier between religion and the state;
  • support of social security programs such as Social Security, aid to the poor, and health care programs.

The era of Libertarian Democrats was inaugurated with a post on the Daily Kos by its founder, Markos Moulitsas. From Markos’s piece:

Traditional “libertarianism” holds that government is evil and thus must be minimized. Any and all government intrusion is bad….

The problem with this form of libertarianism is that it assumes that only two forces can infringe on liberty – the government and other individuals.

The Libertarian Democrat understands that there is a third danger to personal liberty – the corporation. The Libertarian Dem understands that corporations, left unchecked, can be huge dangers to our personal liberties.

Libertarian Dems are not hostile to government like traditional libertarians. But unlike the liberal Democrats of old times (now all but extinct), the Libertarian Dem doesn’t believe government is the solution for everything. But it sure as heck is effective in checking the power of corporations.

Markos cites Jon Tester, Paul Hackett, and Jim Webb as models for this type of liberal libertarian politician, but the movement has yet to “take off”, even though 2006 proved a banner year. What is clear though is that this movement is growing in power and influence, and is likely to grow more. As the Republican party has become more authoritarian and the executive branch has become more powerful under Democratic and Republican stewardship, and as corporations have come to infringe more and more upon the rights of employees and customers, support for this point of view is growing.

Kos Libertarians believe do not need a government small enough to drown in a bathtub as Grover Norquist famously said. Rather, we need a government that is as small as possible, while still allowing it to act as a check against corporate power. In other words, Kos Libertarians believe we need a government that not only butts out of our life, but that protects our rights against others.

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Election 2008 History Obama Politics

Experience : Judgment :: Clinton : Obama (or Paul or Kucinich)

An issue that has been raised repeatedly in the Democratic primary is that of “experience”.[digg-reddit-me] Hillary Clinton is claiming she is the most experienced candidate and has repeatedly criticized her opponents – specifically Barack Obama – for not having enough experience. This was my initial reaction after I first heard Obama was running earlier this year as well. But as the campaign wore on, Obama won me over. I think similar arguments could be made for Paul, Kucinich, or others as well. If you trust their judgment, then their experience is less important.

There are three main points that were made to change my mind.

  1. History has shown that experience does not lead to better job performance in presidential politics.
  2. Experience can be a proxy for good judgment, but it isn’t always.
  3. No one is prepared to be president, and anyone who claims to be prepared is lying.

1. History has shown that experience does not lead to better job performance in presidential politics.

I published this earlier, but have adapted it a bit for this post.

Richard Nixon was one of the most experienced people to assume the presidency. JFK had less experience than almost anyone. Yet he beat Richard Nixon in the middle of the Cold War while the president was responsible for overseeing a possible nuclear war. JFK’s inexperience led to the Bay of Pigs disaster, but he learned valuable lessons from this, accepted responsibility for the failure, and managed the Cuban missile crisis expertly. Richard Nixon was experienced, one of the most experienced men to have assumed the presidency having served eight years as vice president in addition to his significant legislative experience – he knew how to work the levers of power; but his personality led him to be secretive and paranoid, to try to bully and intimidate those who disagreed with him, etc. JFK was able to remedy his inexperience while Nixon was not able to remedy his character flaws.

If you want to look to a more recent example of the price of experience, just look at Donald Rumsfeld – who was one of the single most experienced bureaucrats in Washington – having worked in the military-industrial complex for the past three decades. He had already been Secretary of Defense during Ford’s tenure, and was chief of staff to the president before that. Despite – and in a way, because of – his experience, his time as Secretary of Defense was an absolute disaster for the military. We could talk about Cheney too if you wanted.

When you think about it, some of our greatest presidents have had little or no national experience before they became president during some of the toughest times in our history – Abraham Lincoln, who had no national or managerial experience, Harry Truman, who was isolated by FDR and did not even know that the atom bomb was in development, and Bill Clinton, whose previous experience had been governing one of the less important states in the union. Yet each of them rose to the challenges they faced, overcame their lack of experience, and mastered the job.

2. Experience can be a proxy for good judgment, but it isn’t always.

Obama in an interview with the Washington Post:

“They want to project Senator Clinton as the seasoned, experienced hand. I don’t fault them for that. That’s the strategy they’re pursuing, and my response is that what the American people need and what the Oval Office needs right now is good judgment. Experience can be a proxy for good judgment, but it isn’t always.”

[Obama] then repeated what he said during a debate in Chicago last week: “All the people who were on that stage in Chicago talking about their experience and criticizing me for the lack of it were the same people who went along and displayed incredibly poor judgment in going along with a war that I think has been a disaster.” [my emphasis]

3. No one is prepared to be president, and anyone who claims to be prepared is lying.

Chris Dodd to voters in Iowa:

“Anybody who stands before you and says, ‘I’m ready to do the job on Day 1’ ought to be disqualified. This is unique, this job. [When] you can sit behind the desk in the Oval Office, you can be better prepared and I believe I am. But you can’t be totally prepared for this.” In an interview afterward, Dodd suggested the proper attitude for anyone who inherits the White House in 2009: “They ought to be nervous.”

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Election 2008 Giuliani Politics

Mister 9/11

Giuliani: Mister 9/11

The New York Post ran this below the fold on page one yesterday evening. The Post had this comment in the body of the article:

A group of 9/11 families and firefighters who oppose Giuliani’s candidacy were outraged.

“Giuliani is running on 9/11 and portraying himself as a hero. It’s disgusting. It’s horrible,” FDNY Deputy Fire Chief Jim Riches said.

“This guy will do anything to get elected.”

The little man in search of a balcony appears to be doing his best to try to live up to satirists’ expectations.

Here’s hoping Giuliani has finally overplayed the 9/11 card.

Breaking news:

The Weekly Standard reports that Rudy’s “achievements in New York – not, as is so widely claimed, his leadership on September 11, 2001 – serve as the touchstone of his presidential candidacy.”  It looks like Rudy’s campaign didn’t get the message (scanned from the Post.)

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Election 2008 History Obama

The Historical Obama

David Greenberg over at Slate has a piece about Barack Obama as Adlai Stevenson. (That is a bit of an unfair summary of Greenberg’s point – but he places Obama in the same political camp as the Mugwumps and Adlai.) Just a few weeks ago, Shaun Mullen, proprietor of the Kiko’s House blog “Is Barack Obama the New Gene McCarthy?” and answers, on the whole, yes. Some time before that Ted Sorenson, among others, began to compare Obama to JFK.

There’s always a bit of this going around – with Hillary and Giuliani both being compared to Nixon; Fred Thompson to Reagan; and Mitt Romney to JFK. But it is my sense that pundits are having a harder time placing Obama than any other candidate in the race. The comparisons to Nixon are based on the shared paranoia mainly; those of Fred Thompson have to do with his TV style; Mitt Romney because of the religious issue. The Obama analogies are different. Rather than attempting to make a historical comparison on a single point, they attempt to place his entire political presence.

I think the reason is that it is clear to most pundits where Hillary comes from – what tradition she is part of; the same is true of every other candidate. Obama represents a break. He represents a point of view that does not come out of nowhere, but is new to the political scene. He represents a new synthesis.

This is why everyone is struggling to explain him away with interesting (and insightful) historical analogies. And this is also why everyone so far has failed.

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Domestic issues Election 2008 Politics

Awesome.

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Foreign Policy Obama Politics

Tom Friedman, Car Salesman

I like Tom Friedman. Reading his column for the past seven or so years, I have come to believe that he’s a good guy and his column regularly provides genuine insight in a simplified format. Several years ago though, The New Republic perfectly spotted his weakness in a throwaway comment in a larger article* calling Friedman a salesman instead of analyst. It is true that his columns, while providing insights, are weak on analysis. Friedman’s strength is that he will start with a truly interesting concept that reveals something about the situation he is commenting on – but his weakness is that his analysis of that concept is poor, and often diluted by the kind of “pox-on-both-of-their-houses” journalism that in attempting to be objective, ends up creating a false middle ground.

This is precisely the problem with Friedman’s latest column which suggests that Barack Obama should keep Dick Cheney as Vice President. A weird concept which Friedman explains thus:

When negotiating with murderous regimes like Iran’s or Syria’s, you want Tony Soprano by your side, not Big Bird. Mr. Obama’s gift for outreach would be so much more effective with a Dick Cheney standing over his right shoulder, quietly pounding a baseball bat into his palm.

Friedman explains that a President Obama could say something like this to the Iranian regime if Cheney was his Vice President:

“Look, I’m ready to cut a deal with you guys, but I have to tell you, back home, I’ve got Cheney on my back and he is truly craaaaazzzzy. You guys don’t know the half of it. He thinks waterboarding is what you do with your grandchildren at the pool on Sunday. I’m not sure how much longer I can restrain him. So maybe we should have a serious nuke talk, and, if it goes well, we’ll back off regime change.”

It’s not a mind-boggling insight – that there are ways to leverage an unhinged and powerful Vice President in diplomatic talks – but it is a solid insight, and one that is often overlooked- not least it seems by the current administration. Where I see Friedman go off the rails is in his attempt to portray Obama’s Iran policy. He cites Obama’s “inner Jimmy Carter” as part of the reason for making this statement: “Mr. Obama evinces little feel for generating the leverage you’d need to make such diplomacy work.” I can see someone plausibly making this argument – but not without trying to square it with Obama’s comments about being willing to launch attacks against high-value targets in Pakistan, with or without authorization from the Pakistani government. I consider this a distinctly un-Carteresque policy.

Friedman does not want to let the nuanced and balanced approach to foreign policy that Obama has explicitly and repeatedly put forth get in the way of Friedman’s bumper sticker approach to political commentary. Friedman sees a hawkish hawk and a Jimmy-Carter-ish dove when in fact Cheney is a hawk in the most extreme and unhinged sense and Obama is a pragmatist. The superficial case Friedman is trying to make – that we need both Cheneys and Obamas to make progress might be correct. But his subtext – that Cheney represents the hardline position and that Obama represents its opposite is incorrect. In Friedman’s own account, Cheney does not represent so much the hardline position as the specter of an irrational man with his hand on the trigger. Obama, as indicated by his many statements on foreign policy, does not represent the extension of Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy – but of precisely the balanced approach that Friedman seems to be advocating.

The problem is that either (1) Friedman does not know this; or (2) Friedman does not want to appear partisan. Either way, it has turned a potentially interesting column into a distorted bumper sticker view of foreign policy.

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Election 2008 Foreign Policy Politics The War on Terrorism

And I am Caesar.

[digg-reddit-me]Thanks to Tony for the link.

Update: Thanks to amstrdamordeath for pointing out that this piece was not found in the public record until 2001, and that there are no records of either Caesar or Shakespeare writing or saying it.

Still, it kind of hits you…

Continue reading “And I am Caesar.”
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Election 2008 Foreign Policy Law Morality Politics The War on Terrorism

Vince Flynn & The Preemptive Surrender of American Values

The Constitution

To demonstrate my previous point that:

“[T]he Republican position is this: the terrorists have won. The terrorists’ ideas and actions make America’s liberal democracy irrelevant. We must take what steps are necessary to protect the public safety; civil liberties are only for those who deserve them. Although the President took an oath to defend the Constitution, he now must defend American lives at the expense of this old document.”

Vince Flynn has written a novel he has ironically titled Protect and Defend. (See footnote if you miss the irony.) Apparently, it is now the top fiction bestseller on The New York Times, and the author is going on a promotional tour. Glenn Beck has said that Mitt Rapp, the hero of Flynn’s thriller, makes “Jack Bauer look like a puss”. Here a taste of what the novel is like from an exchange towards the end of chapter 45 during which the President of the United States, the Attorney General, and the hero Mitch Rapp are on a conference call in a crisis situation that perfectly illustrates my point:

“Mitch, [Attorney General] Pete Weber here. We all know you and [CIA Director] Irene are close but you really need to take a few steps back and remember that you took an oath, an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. We all took that oath and that means that none of us is above the law, including you.”

There was a long pause and then in a voice filled with frustration Rapp said, “You have got to be kidding me!”

Rapp’s stark response caused everyone in the room to take a quick look at each other.

“Excuse me?” the attorney general asked defensively.

“The Director of the CIA was just kidnapped and her entire security detail was wiped out and you want to lecture me about an oath and a two hundred year old piece of paper?”

“Our entire country is based on that piece of paper,” Weber responded defensively.

“You may have been thinking about defending a piece of paper when you took your oath but I was thinking about protecting and defending American citizens from the type of shit that just happened. I apologize for my language, Mr. President, but this is ridiculous.” [my italics]

There are so many things to find wrong with this: the fact that Rapp misrepresents entirely the oath of office and mocks the rule of law; the fact that he deems the legal document that is supposed to be a check on his actions irrelevant; or the fact that Dick Cheney and President Bush have been reputed to have made similar statements about the Constitution and about the rule of law.

A contempt for the rule of law

The overwhelming feeling you get from the book is one of complete disregard for law and morality. Throughout the novel – which I have read – no American character ever objects to torture or law-breaking or murder on moral grounds. The only character who in some way thinks about morality is the Iranian intelligence chief who eventually works with the Americans because he knows that what his country is doing is wrong. But as the novel’s hero cuts off a prisoner’s testicles, mutilates dead bodies, and kills a Democratic Party strategist, there is explicitly no remorse. Flynn actually makes a point of saying that Rapp has no remorse or twinges of conscience over these actions. (It is also suggested the hero, acting with the CIA, killed the Vice President in a previous book: the rationale for the murder of the Democratic strategist and Vice President is that they orchestrated a terrorist attack in order to win an election. As Flynn says in the book and interview: too often politicians put their own party’s interest ahead of national security.)

The odd thing about this rejection of laws and constitutions and any traditional sense of morality is that while Flynn portrays his character’s actions as rational, they are clearly driven by visceral feelings more than pragmatism. Again and again, the “liberal” characters suggest that the hero is too emotionally caught up to think straight and do his job rationally – and Rapp admits it. Yet, knowing this, the President of the United States gives Rapp “carte blanche“. Flynn makes it clear that Rapp would do all of these things while not emotionally involved, but, perhaps to keep the audience sympathetic, keeps mentioning how emotional Rapp is. Any time any limit on Rapp’s actions and power is suggested, he reacts viscerally, with one example shown above. The strongest feeling in the novel is a contempt for law and ethics and the rule of law and conscience are considered “niceties” that are only practical in times of peace. If you doubt the current administration shares these feelings, I suggest reading Charlie Savage’s new book Takeover. The fact is that these visceral feelings are informing Republican policy – both in Vince Flynn’s imaginary world and in our own.

This contempt for the rule of law and for conscience, and the policies and actions stemming from this feeling, represent nothing less than the preemptive surrender of American values in order to try to preserve American lives. What ever happened to “Live free or die” or “Give me liberty or give me death!”? Benjamin Franklin warned, “Those who would surrender precious liberty in exchange for a bit of temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Now we have a president, a number of presidential candidates, and a few literary characters who believe liberty is only worth the paper it is protected by, who believe the rule of law does not apply in times of war, and who believe that we are in a war that will be fought for “generations”. If these men and women are right, we have reached the end of the American experiment. If the president is not constrained by the rule of law; if the balance of power between the branches of government is not respected; if the Constitution is merely an “old parchment” (to use Dick Cheney’s dismissive phrase); if the government has the right to torture and imprison and spy on American citizens in violation of Congressionally sanctioned law; if the president assumes tyrannical powers, even if he exercises them judiciously and is allowed to do so, what is left of our nation “conceived in liberty”?

I believe an Obama presidency would take the first steps to restore American values to our government. But no matter who you support, you must realize this election is of historic importance. Yet despite this, many Americans, especially, those of my generation, the post 9/11 generation are disengaged from power. We cannot afford this disengagement, ironic or otherwise, any longer.

A prescription for change

Vote and vote in large numbers and vote even if it doesn’t seem like it makes a difference. Sign up to vote today if you haven’t already. Vote for change. Vote to tackle the issues that matter. Campaign, volunteer, and throw your support behind the candidate you think is the best. Even more, and in addition, we must work in our local communities, on the web, and through our entrepreneurial efforts to start changing our society.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

We must engage with power. We must try to revive this corrupt system. We cannot wait until 2012 for real change. Our moment is now. We cannot let this election slip by. Sometimes, in the midst of trying times, all we have is the audacity of hope and our seemingly insignificant powers as individuals. We cannot decide what obstacles we will face. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

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Election 2008 Obama Politics

The Reappearance of Monica Lewinsky

Monica LewinskyAs some of my readers might have noticed, I watch the Drudge Report rather closely. He seems to be trying, again, like everyone else in the media, to be hyping the latest Democratic debate which will be airing tonight. His headline: “VEGAS BABY: WILL BO KO HRC?!” is a ridiculous lead-in to a rather tame New York Times article.

I have the feeling that the Hillary camp’s influence is all over that headline. Barack does not seem to want to deal a knockout blow – but rather with a few jabs to demonstrate that he is the better candidate and would be a better president. He does not want to take down Hillary, but instead, wants people to choose him. However, if everyone expects Senator Obama to take out Senator Clinton in this debate, or even to try – it will be very easy for him to lose the expectations battle and come out as the loser.

The one highlight of the New York Times article though is this gem from Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University:

“One absolutely devastating accusation that could resonate is that she is gullible — she bought into two false story lines, one from her husband about Monica Lewinsky and one from President Bush about Iraq…”

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Election 2008 Obama Politics

Drudge Headline: “WOLF WARNED: NO GANGING UP ON HILLARY IN VEGAS!”

Drudge Report Headline on Blitzer

[digg-reddit-me]Hillary is trying the play hard ball and coming across looking like a thug. Who could have predicted that? The full text of the current Drudge headline reads: “WOLF WARNED: NO GANGING UP ON HILLARY IN VEGAS!” The sub headline with a more complete explanation explains:

“CNN's Wolf Blitzer has been warned not to focus Thursday's Dem debate on Hillary. 'This campaign is about issues, not on who we can bring down and destroy,' top Clinton insider explains. 'Blitzer should not go down to the levels of character attack and pull 'a Russert.'' Blitzer is set to moderate debate from Vegas, with questions also being posed by Suzanne Malveaux... Developing..."

Drudge isn’t sourcing this yet, but it passes the “sniff” test in my opinion. And if Hillary’s campaign had done this, I would expect Drudge to break the news. He’s generally very good at the “inside ball” stuff within the press community. All reporters love to leak to Drudge. See a larger version of the image here.

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