What to expect

So this is my roughest week of the quarter, what with exams and papers due, so I don't have a ton new to report tonight. But there are three things on the agenda.

1. I adapted an earlier post about Wal-Mart for a column in the Maroon last week and in Tuesday's newspaper there is a response column written by one of UChicago's latest Rhodes Scholars. Expect a response from me (hint: I am going to talk about predatory pricing).

2. Tomorrow Richard Posner and Geoffrey Stone are going to be debating the NSA's wiretapping. I plan on attending it and doing my first live blogging. We'll see how it goes.

3. Last, tomorrow is also the State of the Union, so expect some links on analysis on that. I'd probably give some analysis of my own if I didn't have so much crap to do.

-Mr. Alec

Democrats sounding reasonable?

It was shocking to hear a Democrat not doing one of the only two things Democrats have been good for lately, that is silently hoping Republicans mess up their own prospects or screaming about lies and hanging out with Cindy Sheehan.

It was even more shocking to hear it from one of the brightest stars in the party.

Kudos to Barack Obama for this brutally true statement on ABC's "This Week" which followed his opposition to a futile filibuster:

There's one way to guarantee that the judges who are appointed to the Supreme Court are judges that reflect our values. And that's to win elections.

-Mr. Alec

PS Check out Biden, who takes a Kerry-like stance on the filibuster:

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said he, too, would support the filibuster attempt but agreed that it was not particularly wise.

"I think a filibuster make sense when you have a prospect of actually succeeding," Biden said on CNN's "Late Edition." "I will vote one time to say to continue the debate. but the truth of the matter" is that Alito will be confirmed, he said.

Well here is hoping he doesn't get the nomination, it could 2004 all over again.

Lake Wobegon sticks it to the French

Garrison Keillor rips Bernard-Henri Lévy a new one, and deservedly so, in the New York Times Book Review today. His set of pointlessly long articles in The Atlantic were "shallow and pedantic."

Keillor strikes to the heart of the matter when he calls out Lévy for being, "short on the facts, long on conclusions."

Read the whole thing for the full effect.

-Mr. Alec

Stop equating things to Hitler

Why must so many people equate everything to the rise of Hitler?

It gives Hamas far too much credit. For one, Hamas is not taking control of a country with one of the strongest economies in the world. The Palestinian Authority is a shell of a country, Israel could fuck it up at the drop of a hat (#3 on that list), and there is no chance, whatsoever that the Palestinian Authority will be threatening anyone’s security with anything other than suicide bombs. A tactic that was used before Hamas was elected to power, so it is basically impossible for things to get worse because how could it?

But if everyone is so into equating everything with World War 2 (something that makes me contemplate the benefits of having 1929-1945 taken out of our history textbooks, if only to get people to reason out arguments instead of relying on whatever WW2 or Great Depression parallel they can construct--I mean come on, causality is not that simple!!!!) then shouldn't we wonder why Hamas was elected in the first place? Isn't that one of the lessons we are taught about Nazi Germany; that reparations pushed the Germans to extremism? Well, if everyone seems to agree that they probably would have voted for Hamas had they been a Palestinian, then why are we placing the blame with Hamas?

-Mr. Alec

Sheehan and Chavez: Meant to be?

This is ridiculous.

-Mr. Alec

Pushing Democrats to the Left II

The Washington Post reports on my worst nightmare:

Democrats are getting an early glimpse of an intraparty rift that could complicate efforts to win back the White House: fiery liberals raising their voices on Web sites and in interest groups vs. elected officials trying to appeal to a much broader audience.

These activists -- spearheaded by battle-ready bloggers and making their influence felt through relentless e-mail campaigns -- have denounced what they regard as a flaccid Democratic response to the Supreme Court fight, President Bush's upcoming State of the Union address and the Iraq war. In every case, they have portrayed party leaders as gutless sellouts.

What is it with so many liberals and the War on Iraq? It is really the defining issue for them and I don't understand why. The war was done to liberate a huge country from a tyrannical dictator. Many liberals thought it was just for the oil, but seeing as the country still isn't producing oil at the level it was before the war, that just doesn't seem to be true.

Another frequently used argument that liberals raise about the war is that, "the president lied to us." While it does seem to be true that the President may have ignored some intelligence that pointed to no WMDs, there was still an overwhelmingly amount of evidence that Saddam did have weapons (this is the one area where conservatives have solid footing in defending the decision to go to war). But even if Bush was ignoring evidence that WMDs were not there, then that just furthers the liberation of Iraq reasoning, one that seems to mesh with many liberal ideas (I know that is why I supported the decision to go to war).

So where does that leave liberals? Well on little to no solid footing and this is precisely why the Democrats are trying to ignore this wing of the party. The Democrats are not going to win any seats in 2006 by playing to this constituency. The 2008 Presidential Election is probably going to come down to national security again, and no Democrat is going to win who is not seen as a hawk (Hillary gets this).

This wing of the Democratic Party got its bone when Dean was made head of the DNC. They need to shut up if they want to see their party get into office. I know Republicans are probably loving the coverage of this.

All I can hope for is that either a moderate Democrat makes it through the primary, or McCain runs, as an independent or Republican.

-Mr. Alec

The second most annoying woman...

Ann Coulter ought to taste some of her own medicine:

Universal Press Syndicate columnist Ann Coulter "joked" during a Thursday speech that liberal Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned. "We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee," Coulter said at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark. "That's just a joke, for you in the media."

She made other "off-color" jokes about liberal Supreme Court justices that made the audience "squeal," according to an article today in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Perhaps I needed to read this to remind me why I am a Democrat.

-Mr. Alec

Who does this woman think she is?

Turns out Cindy Sheehan has threatened to run against Senator Diane Feinstein if Feinstein does not filibuster the nomination of Samuel Alito. I guess that Sheehan, on top of enjoying "absolute moral authority" on the issue of Iraq, also has moral authority on Constitutional Law.

Turns out that she is against Alito because:

Sheehan is the grieving military mother whose vigil outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford last summer focused the nation’s attention on the human cost of the Iraq war. Her son Casey was killed in Iraq in April 2004.

Judge Alito has an extensive paper trail documenting the right-wing political agenda that he has actively advanced, not only as a high-ranking official in the Reagan Administration, but also as a judge. He has publicly supported the "Unitary Executive" theory, a radical notion that the President holds exclusive and inherent authority to execute all federal law. He has supported efforts to curtail privacy rights, including not only privacy from government surveillance and arbitrary arrest, but also other constitutional rights based on privacy, such as reproductive liberty for women. Alito has outspokenly sought to restrict Congress' power, limiting the scope of the Commerce Clause of Article I of the Constitution. In addition, he has consistently applied his discretion as a judge in favor of certain interests and against others. He rarely votes against big business, police or prosecutors.

But how she feels about Alito's opinion's or the implications of them is of no importance. Justices are there to interpret the Constitution. There are strong arguments for the way that many purport him to feel (and for an excellent response to those feelings, read this, and for a great response to that, read this).

Regardless, this is a woman who has spent a little too long hanging out with hero worshipers. It is ridiculous for her to think that she will win any election. The best she will do is hand a Republican a Senate seat by diverting Democratic votes, or by forcing Feinstein to turn left. And turning left is just what the Democrats need to do to start winning elections.

Well, I'll tell you that if they do, they might gain Sheehan's vote, but they will quickly lose mine because there are some people in this country who don’t really give a shit about the difference between big and small business, especially when big business is more efficient. There are some people who stand for free trade and for market solutions to problems, not because they are cold or heartless, but because they actually make peoples lives better.

There are some people who are against the disgusting self-interest of public sector unions, most notably teachers unions, whose work against merit pay and longer employment before tenure is holding our education system behind the rest of the world. There are some people who are for a robust defense force, and for fighting a war on terror. [If you haven’t noticed, I am ranting…gar!]

As one of those people, I feel sorry for Ms. Sheehan’s loss, but people die in wars; that doesn’t mean they should never be fought. If Ms. Sheehan has reasons for withdrawing from Iraq outside of, “My son died, and we were lied to,” then I don’t really care much for her opinion (not like I ever have). If her reasons against Alito are nothing but, “my son died and Mr. Alito’s interpretation of the constitution might necessitate that in the future,” I also don’t care.

Here is to hoping Ms. Sheehan disappears, much like she did this summer. The country only stands to gain when people with inane opinions like her own are ignored.

-Mr. Alec

Who's who in Hamas

I found this who's who of Hamas via OxBlog. I highly recommend checking it out, especially given that Hamas has undergone a massive change in leadership due to Israel's assassinations of Hamas leadership in 2004 (which gave rise to this awesome Onion point-counter-point).

The most striking thing was to see that nearly every leader is well educated. A couple are teachers. One is even a surgeon! Yet further evidence against the frequently pushed hypothesis that poverty is the root cause of terrorism (which was well discussed here and here)

-Mr. Alec

Hamas

Hamas has out performed nearly everyone's predictions.

Here are a couple of notes:

1. Israel has to be wondering whether it was their pullout from Gaza that caused this. A New Republic article last week alluded to how, "Palestinians credit Hamas for its militancy and for getting the Israelis out of Gaza." It will be interesting to see how the Hamas victory will effect Ehud Olmert's upcoming decision on whether to begin a unilateral pull out of the West Bank or not.

2. While my first note seems to imply that Palestinian votes for Hamas are votes for terrorism, many have gotten the feeling that while their actions in Gaza put them on the map; it has been their honesty with money and their well reputed social services that caused them to get the vote. Also, the above mentioned New Republic article talked about how many in the West Bank are worried more about the state of the West Bank and Gaza Strip than they are about their defunct government’s purported relations with Israel. Negotiations that have led to any sort of beneficial change for Palestinians were not happening under Fatah, so the feeling may well have been, why keep them in power when they are so corrupt.

3. Over at OxBlog, Patrick Belton, who is now in the Palestinian authority has remarked that this is probably the worst thing for Hamas:

It's not clear anyone wanted this, least of all Hamas, who in assuming the administration of the Palestinian national authority's creaking and often corrupt bureaucracy single-handed in a moment when its sole lifeline of European and other international support appears threatened, may just have stumbled into the biggest molasses patch the Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah has ever faced. Unlike the Lib Dems of 1985, Hamas did not go to its constituencies to prepare for government. It had prepared for a coalition, or possibly pristine opposition, but not this.

This strikes me as the best spin that could be put on this, it even seemed to be the track that President Bush took in his speech this morning that was clearly prepared for this moment.

4. I think we could end up seeing a couple of scenarios. Hamas could quickly morph into a peaceful political party, much like the PLO morphed into Fatah. Hamas could also fail miserably in power like OxBlog is pointing to as a possibility. Also, Hamas could choose not to renounce its terrorism and simultaneously rule very effectively. The basic conclusion is that no one is sure what is going to happen, but that something big has definitely happened. We'll have to wait and see how it all turns out.

-Mr. Alec

Why people don't go to the beach in the bible belt...

Now that the Christian Fundamentalist Swimwear (via Andrew Sullivan) market has been cornered it is only bound to grow.

Scary...

-Mr. Alec

Zakaria on Iran

Foreign policy superstar Fareed Zakaria has a sobering column on Iran this week. I say sobering not because he actually tries to scare people into worrying about Iran (that has already been done), but because he tries to make a best-case scenario about Iran getting nuclear weapons. This is preceded by him dismissing the effectiveness of any other strategy.

He logic is sound is dismissing any course of action against Iran. Invasion is not politically or militarily feasible. Air strikes are a pipe dream, especially seeing as we don't seem to actually know where the weapons sites are. Sanctions are not going to work. They never do, and they are guaranteed not to work against the world's second largest oil exporter.

But all of that does not mean a nuclear Iran is something that we should just come to accept.

We'll see what happens. Thankfully I am not in any decision making capacity on this one.

-Mr. Alec

Effective student protesting?

Often it seems that protests suffer from a debilitating set of constraints. Many times they are fueled by nothing but a reactionary gut feeling and an urge to rebel. As a result they seem juvenile and unconvincing. But with that said, credit is due where it is deserved, and today at the Georgetown Law School a group of protesters effective conveyed a nuanced yet blunt position on the NSA wiretaps as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended them.

I can only hope that their white sheet with Ben Franklin's famous quote, "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither," ends up making news in more places than the internet.

Much like the Abramoff scandal, the only thing threatening the prospect of change is the public's attention span.

-Mr. Alec

Them Changes

So I was given an offer I couldn't refuse last week. Over the next couple of months I will be taking over as the Editor of the Chicago Maroon's Viewpoints section (the editorial section).

I am unsure what this is going to mean for this blog. But I have been thinking about it and decided two things.

First, I am not going to give this blog up. Although I have neglected this, I still enjoy writing my bring, off the cuff opinions on it. However, time is going to get more and more precious for me, so there is going to be a serious shift in the nature of this blog which is the second thing.

Second, I still read news and blogs just as much as I ever have. I think instead of synthesizing numerous opinons, I might start providing links to what I think the most intriguing stories and opinions of the day are. We'll see how it works out. But expect some changes.

-Mr. Alec

Biden or Obama

Over at "The Plank" the question is asked: Where is Barack Obama?

I think it is a pretty worthy one. How the Democrat's failed to get this guy on the Senate Judiciary Committee speaks of an enormous failure on the part of Harry Reid and the Democratic senior leadership in the Senate.

Let's look at Obama's credentials: He graduated from Harvard Law School, as the President of the Law Review. He then went on to be a lecturer of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Tell me, how does that not get you on the judiciary committee? But on top of that, the guy is charismatic as all hell, he is the type of person Democrats need to get out there and what better way to show him off (and also show the country that he has a deep understanding of government and the law, something he'll have to battle if he runs for President in 2008).

The matter becomes even more urgent when the Democrats seem to only be putting their worst foot forward. Two years ago, Joe Biden seemed like a smart guy. Then I heard him talk. Over at the Washington Post, Richard Cohen updates us on what you may have missed:

during Biden's round of questioning, he "spoke about his own Irish American roots, his 'Grandfather Finnegan,' his son's application to Princeton (he attended the University of Pennsylvania instead, Biden said), a speech the senator gave on the Princeton campus, the fact that Biden is 'not a Princeton fan,' and his views on the eyeglasses of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)."

The tragedy is that Biden, who is running for president, is a much better man and senator than these accounts would suggest. But his tendency, his compulsion, his manic-obsessive running of the mouth has become the functional equivalent of womanizing or some other character weakness that disqualifies a man for the presidency.

Ouch.

But seriously, if Democrats are going to continue to avoid having any quick and appealing political philosophy, then they have to at least start putting the more charismatic leaders out there. Watching Senators like Biden so transparently pandering to every possible voting block seems like a repeat of the 2004 Democratic Primary. Democrats need to at least get a guy who can pander well enough to veil the parties gaping ideological problems. Bill Clinton was someone who could pull it off, maybe Obama can, but it is pretty clear that Biden, Kerry, Gore, etc. sure as hell can't.

-Mr. Alec

PS The further question can be asked, why is Ted Kennedy still thrust into the national spotlight by Democrats? Shouldn't he be the guy that Democrats secretly like but reprimand anyways when he goes nuts with some sensational soundbyte, much like Republicans do with people like Bill O'Reilly, Pat Robertson, or Rush Limbaugh.

Maryland's Healthcare Bill

Yesterday Maryland's legislature overrode a veto by the state's governor to pass a bill that would require, "employers with 10,000 or more workers in the state must spend at least 8 percent of their payrolls on health insurance, or else pay the difference into a state Medicaid fund."

While the public's interest in this was surely fueled by the ever-present animosity against Wal-Mart, it seems that the real justification was just that Maryland can't handle its own Medicaid bill, so it is simply passing that cost onto Wal-Mart.

The great thing (and I am being sarcastic if you didn't notice) though, is that this will simply force Wal-Mart to have higher costs, which in turn will cause it to raise its prices. This will harm the sort of people that shop at Wal-Mart, as opposed to the sort of people that shop at organic yuppie markets. So what does this mean? Well it means that the poor are now going to end up paying more for their own healthcare instead of progressive taxation paying for the healthcare.

That sure as hell sounds like something liberals ought to get behind.

Don't you love it when government clearly avoids its clear responsibility and fucks over the poor in doing so?

-Mr. Alec

Is this news?

While this may not be nearly as important as the brewing Abramoff scandal or the situation in Iraq, it is pretty entertaining. Bill O'Reilly was on the Letterman show last week and the results were surprisingly political.

While Letterman clearly does not know his stuff, he very effectively shows everyone's opinion to O'Reilly. Check it out here.

-Mr. Alec

How to liberate Cuba: End the embargo

Luckily for the United States and the people of Cuba, Fidel Castro is mortal and soon to enter his eighth century of life. When he dies you can expect a rush of Cuban exiles presently in Miami to storm Havana to liberate their homeland. You can also expect Fidel’s brother and deputy, Raúl, to attempt to carry on his brother’s revolution. But however the struggle resolves itself, it is increasingly clear that optimists who prognosticate the complete liberalization of Cuba may be off the mark.
Cubans still have a sense of nationalism that is fueled by an increasingly successful rhetoric that vilifies American imperialism and capitalism. The United States could go a long way in undercutting this rhetoric and quickening Cuba’s liberalization by repealing its antiquated and ineffective embargo.

The embargo is a relic of the Cold War and while it arguably had a place during the Cold War—Cuba received huge financial support from the USSR—it clearly has failed in achieving any sort of regime change in Cuba.

On top of that, it has only harmed the Cuban people. They were the ones who suffered the brunt of the 35 percent drop in GDP when the USSR’s financial support disappeared with the end of the Cold War. While Cuba’s economy has showed some spurts of moderate growth since 1995 it could take off with the added boost of the richest country in the world visiting its beaches, buying its agriculture (most notably sugar), and of course smoking its cigars. In fact, prior to the embargo, the United States accounted for nearly 70 percent of Cuba’s imports and exports. If Castro were to allow American money in, the world could see a drastic improvement in the average Cuban’s quality of life, something that surely ought to be encouraged.

Politically there are only bright spots to ending the embargo. It would put Castro in a tight spot. He would have to let American money spike GDP growth or he could use his control of the island to block American money. Either scenario is a political win for the United States; we are no longer the oppressive giant, but the money fueling drastic benefit to Cuba.

But while ending the embargo would increase trade, benefit Cubans, and increase a positive perception of America amongst Cubans, keeping it has allowed Castro to further vilify the United States, playing it as the party depriving the Cuban people. This has done nothing but further concentrate his power and given its increasing success by Latin American leaders like Hugo Chavez, it could end up being the key Castro loyalists use to maintain the status quo upon Fidel’s death.

And changes to the status quo are precisely what the doctor ordered. The constant string of political debacles the Bush administration has created will not make the upcoming transition any easier. Not only has it threatened to veto any legislation lifting the travel ban on Cuba, but last year it appointed a “transition coordinator” for the post-Castro Cuba. These are nothing but headlines for Castro’s propaganda machine (and shameful moves to win Florida and its crucial Cuban exiles in the presidential election). For once let’s make Castro’s job hard, let’s force him to be the bad guy (or make the United States the good guy), and in doing so, remove the key that has kept Castro in power and could keep his disgraceful government from ruling in perpetuity.

-Mr. Alec