"Many historians today believe that by about 1972 we and our South Vietnamese partners had succeeded in defeating the Vietcong insurgency and in setting South Vietnam on a path to political self-sufficiency. But America then withdrew its support, allowing the communist North to conquer the South."
And there's Giuliani's advocacy of an even larger military (additional 10 brigades, newer submarines and bombers). But ponder the LeMay congruence referred to in this post's title. Giuliani is running a George Wallace -like campaign. He has to. He needs to get in tight with the Republicans that are the party of the Confederacy. He's from New York. He roots for the Yankees, no less. So the way to win in the primaries, especially the many in the south, is to be tough like Wallace. Giuliani promises to crack down on criminals and be law-and-order just like Wallace. Giuliani take Wallace's anti-black rhetoric and turns it in the direction of Arabs. He has very nasty things to say about liberals (although not unique among Republicans, he's the most strident).
If Rudy does succeed in snagging the George Wallace contingent (at least its 21st century version) look for an anybody-but-Rudy movement to throw its support behind somebody more sensible, like Romney.
Giuliani: The terrorists are building nuclear weapons right here in the United States!
From selected quotes of his (no doubt ghost written) Foreign Affairs essay:
"We must also develop detection systems to identify nuclear material that is being imported into the United States or developed by operatives inside the country. Heightened and more comprehensive security measures at our ports and borders must be enacted as rapidly as possible."
In discussing a Fred Thompson candidacy, Broder writes:
Thompson, like many of the others running, has caught a strong whiff of the public disillusionment with both parties in Washington -- and the partisanship that has infected Congress, helping to speed his own departure from the Senate.
Yup. No distinctions are made here. The public is disillusioned with both parties. And there is the hoplessly partisan "Congress", which can mean Republicans or Democrats, but Broder is probably hinting at the party in power: Democrats. Hey David, Democrats have been in power for one measly Friedman Unit. Give Nancy and Harry a break!
Also, nice to see that Thompson departed Congress due to the partisanship that held sway while he was there - from 1994 to 2003 - when Republicans were in control for 6 of the 8 years.
Is Broder saying that decade-old Republican partisanship is a reason for Thompson to run in 2008? To clean up the mess, as it were? Looks like it.
George Will tells the Federal Reserve what their priorities should be:
In an op-ed that celebrates the pain of lenders and borrowers in the mortgage market, Will states:
The Federal Reserve's proper mission is not to produce a particular rate of economic growth or unemployment, or to cure injuries -- least of all, self-inflicted ones -- to certain sectors of the economy. It is to preserve the currency as a store of value -- to contain inflation.
Note Will's use of the word "proper". To the casual reader that might sound like "mandated", but it's not. In any case, let's see what the Federal Reserve has to say about itself:
What are the Federal Reserve's responsibilities? Today, the Federal Reserve's responsibilities fall into four general areas:
conducting the nation's monetary policy by influencing money and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of full employment and stable prices
supervising and regulating banking institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation's banking and financial system and to protect the credit rights of consumers
maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets
providing certain financial services to the U.S. government, to the public, to financial institutions, and to foreign official institutions, including playing a major role in operating the nation's payments systems
So, by the Fed's lights, attending to unemployment is a responsibility. But Will, says no. Or rather, he narrows the definition of unemployment to "a particular rate" of unemployment, which usually flies by the reader when in fact it's part of the deceptive language Will uses. Try it yourself. That way, nobody is responsible for anything, because the "particular rate" is undefined and therefore potentially unreasonable, impossible, or otherwise unattainable.
Apply it to George Will. He writes:
The Federal Reserve's proper mission is ... to preserve the currency as a store of value ..."
Largely true. But how about this:
The Federal Reserve's proper mission is ... to preserve the currency as a store of value at a particular rate"
No, that's not the case since conditions are always changing and no central banker worth his salt would commit to maintaining a currency at a particular rate under all circumstances.
It should be pointed out that Bill Clinton also engaged in that kind of deceptive qualifying language. Repeatedly he'd say that Policy X would not be determined "solely" by Factor A, when in fact Factor A was the overwhelming determinant. But by using "solely" the listener was misled into thinking that the factor would be little considered, if at all.
It was five years ago yesterday, that this blog got started, largely due to the encouragement and influence of pioneer blogger Ted Barlow (whose original blog seems to have tranformed into something else entirely). Thanks Ted!
A lot has happened since then. But the big difference between 2002 and now is that a whole lot of talented writers have emerged. And these people have been vital towards understanding and clarifying important policy areas (Social Security is not doomed, there are better and cheaper ways to provide healthcare, the Iraq War makes no sense, much of the economic "wisdom" you read in the papers has a pro-corporate tilt).
The liberal blogs have begun to influence the big press as well. Mostly it's fact checking, but that's almost enough. As Josh Marshall wrote, the media has become gradually more conservative over the last 25 years. That's due to a number of factors, mostly consolidation and abandonment of regulation (equal-time provision, fairness doctrine). But the result was a limited perspective on the world. Perhaps the best example of that is the Washington Post's never-ending cry that Social Security must be pared down. But we know better, thanks to the tireless efforts of bloggers who actually looked at the numbers and weren't stampeded into dismantling a program that, more than ever, is needed in a world where job changes are frequent and pensions a thing of the past. And then there's Fox News, a party organ masquerading as an objective news outlet - and influencing their cable-news peers.
Think about how dismal the situation was a little more than five years ago. The only place to read about politics was NRO and Mickey Kaus. Ugh. But that was all there was in 2001. Thankfully, that's all changed.
Where are blogs headed? Hard to say. The recent inclusion of video does not seem to be a step forward. On the other hand, group blogs are a success (allowing a single blogger to rest from posting, but still keep visitors engaged).
A few words about right wing blogs are in order: They don't matter since right wing radio is where the action is. Who cares about Powerline when you have Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, Prager, Medved, Hewitt, Miller, Ingraham, Bennett, and Gallagher broadcasting throughout the day and night?
In any event, blogs have made a real difference, mostly for the good, and it will be interesting to see what they will look like, and how they influence the debate five years from now.
"We lack the technology to get from here to there."
"In the United States, it would take massive regulations, higher energy taxes or both."
"[U.S.] assaults against global warming are likely to be symbolic, ineffective or both."
"We simply don't have a solution for this problem."
However,
"To cut oil imports, I support a higher gasoline tax -- $1 to $2 a gallon, introduced gradually ..."
Why? Is it to use a regressive consumption tax to pay for "the huge retirement costs of baby boomers" now that Bush's tax cuts for the rich make redeeming the $1.9 trillion special-issue Treasury bonds much more difficult?
Mostly Olbermann, but also various deletions of less-than-glowing appraisals of Fox regulars (Wallace, Hume, Cameron. Smith).
Now that Rupert Murdoch owns the Wall Street Journal, can we expect to see Paul Gigot "cleaning up" the Wikipedia page of Herbert Hoover? Or perhaps, deleting the Lucky duckies entry?
Gone from the White House are Bush's buddies from his Texas days:
Harriet Miers
Dan Bartlett
Karen Hughes
Karl Rove
Bush doesn't seem to be particularly close to the new guys (Joshua Bolten, Robert Gates, et al). Does that mean that Bush will cling even closer to Cheney? (Who was sort of Texan)
As a result, is there a greater likelyhood of bombing Iran?
Found this from clicking on a Google at at alicublog, of all places. I knew about the head scarves, but is covering the legs and arms part of the rules?
Three out of four top Republican presidential candidates ...
Yes, it's only Iowa. Yes, it's a paid-for straw poll. Yes, some "big name" candidates ignored the event. But there was still a reasonably large number of candidates and voters. How did the Iowa straw poll end up?
1 Mitt Romney, 4,516 votes, 31.6 percent 2 Mike Huckabee, 2,587 votes, 18.1 percent 3 Sam Brownback, 2,192 votes, 15.3 percent 4 Tom Tancredo, 1,961 votes, 13.7 percent 5 Ron Paul, 1,305 votes, 9.1 percent 6 Tommy Thompson, 1,039 votes, 7.3 percent 7 Fred Thompson, 203 votes, 1.4 percent 8 Rudy Guiliani, 183 votes, 1.3 percent 9 Duncan Hunter, 174 votes, 1.2 percent 10 John McCain - 101 votes, 0.7 percent 11 John Cox- 41 votes, 0.1 percent
