Author: Loquitur Veritatem

See https://politicsandprosperity.com/about/.

Paul Johnson on Election 2004

Paul Johnson, a British historian perhaps best-known for Modern Times, assesses the stakes in the election of 2004:

The great issue in the 2004 election — it seems to me as an Englishman — is, How seriously does the United States take its role as a world leader, and how far will it make sacrifices, and risk unpopularity, to discharge this duty with success and honor? In short, this is an election of the greatest significance, for Americans and all the rest of us. It will redefine what kind of a country the United States is, and how far the rest of the world can rely upon her to preserve the general safety and protect our civilization….

…September 11…gave [George W. Bush’s] presidency a purpose and a theme, and imposed on him a mission….[H]e has been absolutely right in estimating the seriousness of the threat international terrorism poses to the entire world and on the need for the United States to meet this threat with all the means at its disposal and for as long as may be necessary. Equally, he has placed these considerations right at the center of his policies and continued to do so with total consistency, adamantine determination, and remarkable courage, despite sneers and jeers, ridicule and venomous opposition, and much unpopularity.

There is something grimly admirable about his stoicism in the face of reverses, which reminds me of other moments in history: the dark winter Washington faced in 1777-78, a time to “try men’s souls,” as Thomas Paine put it, and the long succession of military failures Lincoln had to bear and explain before he found a commander who could take the cause to victory….[S]omething persuades me that Bush — with his grimness and doggedness, his lack of sparkle but his enviable concentration on the central issue — is the president America needs at this difficult time.

He has, it seems to me, the moral right to ask American voters to give him the mandate to finish the job he has started.

This impression is abundantly confirmed, indeed made overwhelming, when we look at the alternative….[T]here are six good reasons that he should be mistrusted. First, and perhaps most important, he seems to have no strong convictions about what he would do if given office and power. The content and emphasis of his campaign on terrorism, Iraq, and related issues have varied from week to week. But they seem always to be determined by what his advisers, analyzing the polls and other evidence, recommend, rather than by his own judgment and convictions….

…Second, Kerry’s personal character has, so far, appeared in a bad light. He has always presented himself, for the purpose of Massachusetts vote-getting, as a Boston Catholic of presumably Irish origins. This side of Kerry is fundamentally dishonest. He does not follow Catholic teachings…[and] since the campaign began it has emerged that Kerry’s origins are not in the Boston-Irish community but in Germanic Judaism. Kerry knew this all along, and deliberately concealed it for political purposes. If a man will mislead about such matters, he will mislead about anything.

There is, thirdly, Kerry’s long record of contradictions and uncertainties as a senator and his apparent inability to pursue a consistent policy on major issues.

Fourth is his posturing over his military record, highlighted by his embarrassing pseudo-military salute when accepting the nomination. Fifth is his disturbing lifestyle, combining liberal — even radical — politics with being the husband, in succession, of two heiresses, one worth $300 million and the other $1 billion….Sixth and last is the Kerry team: who seem to combine considerable skills in electioneering with a variety of opinions on all key issues. Indeed, it is when one looks at Kerry’s closest associates that one’s doubts about his suitability become certainties….[T]he man Kerry would have as his vice president is an ambulancechasing lawyer of precisely the kind the American system has spawned in recent decades, to its great loss and peril….

Of Kerry’s backers, maybe the most prominent is George Soros, a man who made his billions through the kind of unscrupulous manipulations that (in Marxist folklore) characterize “finance capitalism.” This is the man who did everything in his power to wreck the currency of Britain….He has also used his immense resources to interfere in the domestic affairs of half a dozen other countries, some of them small enough for serious meddling to be hard to resist. One has to ask: Why is a man like Soros so eager to see Kerry in the White House? The question is especially pertinent since he is not alone among the superrich wishing to see Bush beaten. There are several other huge fortunes backing Kerry….

I don’t recall any occasion, certainly not since the age of FDR, when so much partisan election material has been produced by intellectuals of the Left, not only in the United States but in Europe, especially in Britain, France, and Germany. These intellectuals — many of them with long and lugubrious records of supporting lost left-wing causes….

Behind this front line of articulate Bushicides…there is the usual cast of Continental suspects, led by Chirac in France and the superbureaucrats of Brussels….Anti-Americanism has seldom been stronger in Continental Europe, and Bush seems to personify in his simple, uncomplicated self all the things these people most hate about America — precisely because he is so American. Anti-Americanism, like anti-Semitism, is not, of course, a rational reflex. It is, rather, a mental disease, and the Continentals are currently suffering from a virulent spasm of the infection, as always happens when America exerts strong and unbending leadership.

Behind this second line of adversaries there is a far more sinister third. All the elements of anarchy and unrest in the Middle East and Muslim Asia and Africa are clamoring and praying for a Kerry victory….[Bush’s] defeat on November 2 [would] be greeted, in Arab capitals, by shouts of triumph from fundamentalist mobs of exactly the kind that greeted the news that the Twin Towers had collapsed and their occupants been exterminated.

I cannot recall any election when the enemies of America all over the world have been so unanimous in hoping for the victory of one candidate. That is the overwhelming reason that John Kerry must be defeated, heavily and comprehensively.

(From Paul Johnson’s “High Stakes,” National Review, October 25, 2004. Thanks to The American Thinker for the tip, and to the Hispanic American Center for Economic Research for the complete text.)

Ray Fair’s Prediction

Yale econometrician Ray Fair, whose model of presidential election outcomes I have discussed here, has issued his final prediction for the 2004 election. He believes that Bush will get 57.70 percent of the two-party popular vote. If that were to happen, Bush would walk off with 461 to 518 electoral votes (explanation here, see method 3).

I see a much closer election, with Bush getting about 51 percent of the two-party popular vote and somewhat more than 300 electoral votes. I’ll issue a final prediction on election eve.

Al Qaeda’s Candidate…

…isn’t Bush:

No, my fellow countrymen you are guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. You are as guilty as Bush and Cheney. You’re as guilty as Rumsfeld and Ashcroft and Powell. After decades of American tyranny and oppression, now it’s your turn to die. Allah willing, the streets of America will run red with blood matching drop for drop the blood of America’s victims. [al Qaeda operative “Azzam the American”, via ABC News]

So it must be Kerry.

The Illogic of Helmet Laws

Liberals love laws that require bicyclists and motorcyclists to wear safety helmets. The usual reasons:

1. Taxpayers defray the cost of emergency services that go to the scene of accidents.

2. The failure to use helmets results in higher health-care costs and, thus, higher health-insurance premiums.

Proposition number 1 isn’t universally true. But even if it were, so what? Accidents aren’t caused by the use or non-use of helmets. Almost any accident involving a bicyclist or motorcyclist will require emergency services, whether or not the rider incurs a head injury.

Proposition number 2 overlooks the fact that non-helmeted riders are less likely to require prolonged, expensive care — because they’re likely to die more quickly than helmeted riders.

That brings us to the real proposition — number 3: Bicyclists and motorcyclists should wear helmets for their own good. The insistence on helmet laws is simply another liberal pretext for telling others how to lead their lives.

Here’s a deal for helmet-loving liberals. If you’re a bicyclist (likely) or motorcyclist (unlikely), you can wear a helmet if you want to. In return, non-liberal bicyclists and motorcyclists will agree that you don’t have to sport an American flag on your helmet.

Peace in Our Time?

The European Union — an idea whose time has come and gone — is about to become as permanent as a modern marriage, with the signing of the EU constitution. Here’s the story from BBC News:

Heads of state from across the EU will be in Rome for the ceremony, to be held in the same room where Treaty of Rome was signed to establish the EU in 1957.

The ceremony will be held amid a row about the views of prospective Italian EU commissioner Rocco Buttiglione.

Incoming President Jose Manuel Barroso has withdrawn his entire proposed team and has hinted he may make changes….

A squadron of F-16 fighters is expected to enforce a no-fly zone over the city centre for the duration of the ceremony….

On Thursday Mr Barroso said he is considering making a number of changes to the commission, despite controversy focussing on Mr Buttiglione.

The Italian, a devout Catholic, has been widely scorned by MEPs unhappy at his views on a range of issues, including homosexuality and the role of women in society….

Although the constitution will be signed in Rome on Friday, member nations still have to ratify the document individually before it comes into effect.

Some clauses within the constitution have caused divisions in EU states, notably plans for an EU president and a change in voting systems.

Member states can choose to hold a referendum in order to ratify the treaty or to put the issue to a parliamentary vote.

A number of countries have chosen to hold a public vote, with the first scheduled for Spain in February 2005.

The memory of World War II — the impetus for the EU — was vivid at the EU’s inception in 1957. But thanks to Europe’s American-engineered peace and prosperity, a European war has become as likely as an outbreak of laissez-faire capitalism in France. The merger of European countries is no longer necessary to the future peace and prosperity of Europe, but the formalization of the EU will proceed because of pressure from the bureaucrats and politicians who stand to benefit from it.

I predict that the EU will dissolve — in fact if not in law — within 20 years. Moreover, I won’t be surprised if the union is dissolved by intra-EU disputes that lead to a European “civil war”. That would be the ultimate, tragic irony of Europe’s misguided attempt to secure a lasting internecine peace through an arranged marriage of incompatible partners.

Ballots for the Intelligent

Regarding the purportedly confusing Ohio absentee ballots, Eugene Volokh says:

…I think well-designed ballots should be understandable even by people of below average intelligence — there are quite a few voters like that, and one doesn’t want them to be confused, either. More to the point, ballots should be understandable by people who are intelligent but who are distracted, or who don’t invest much time in following directions closely….

Why should we tailor ballots to fit the needs of those who are stupid or distracted? If you’re too dumb or distracted to understand a ballot, you shouldn’t be voting. The loss of liberty can be traced to too much democracy (see here and here). Complex ballots might be an antidote for excessive democracy.

The Ketchup Lady’s Twisted Logic

THK sez:

The perpetration of certain myths that diplomacy and alliances are a sign of weakness is Neanderthal. I never heard of teaching a child to make enemies so they can get along in the playground.

And I never heard of teaching a child to believe that someone who lies to him or betrays his trust is an ally. But I didn’t have the advantage of Ms. H-K’s “liberal” education.

Remembering Paul Nitze

Paul Nitze died on October 19 at the age of 97. Most readers are probably stumped by the name. Here’s a bit of his bio, from Wikipedia:

Paul Henry Nitze (January 16, 1907 – October 19, 2004) was a high-ranking United States government official who helped shape Cold War defense policy over the course of numerous presidential administrations.

Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, Nitze attended the Hotchkiss School graduated from Harvard University in 1928. After working in investment banking, he enter government service during World War II. In 1942, he was chief of the Metals and Minerals Branch of the Board of Economic Warfare, until named director, Foreign Procurement and Development Branch of the Foreign Economic Administration in 1943. During the period 1944-1946, Nitze served as director and then as vice chairman of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey….

In the early post-war era, he served in the Truman Administration as head of policy planning for the State Dept (1950-1953). He was also principal author in 1950 of a highly influential secret National Security Council document (NSC-68), which provided the strategic outline for increased U.S. expenditures to counter the perceived threat of Soviet armament.

…In 1961 President Kennedy appointed Nitze assistant secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and in 1963 he became the Secretary of the Navy, serving until 1967.

Following his term as secretary of the Navy, he served as deputy secretary of Defense (1967-1969), as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) (1969-1973), and assistant secretary of Defense for International Affairs (1973-1976). Later, fearing Soviet rearmament, he opposed the ratification of SALT II (1979). He was President Ronald Reagan’s chief negotiator of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (1981-1984). In 1984, Nitze was named special advisor to the president and secretary of State on Arms Control. For more than forty years, Nitze was one of the chief architects of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union. President Reagan awarded Nitze the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985 for his contributions to the freedom and security of the United States….

I met Nitze in 1965 when, in his tenure as Secretary of the Navy, he was gracious to a young analyst (me) whom the Commandant of the Marine Corps had called upon to make a dubious case for sending more Marines to Vietnam.

Nitze later served as a trustee of the defense think-tank where I was chief financial and administrative officer. He spoke seldom, but when he did he cut to the heart of the matter.

Nitze was a rare “public servant” who truly served his country. He was hard-nosed, non-partisan, and brilliant.

Nailing a Neo-Marxist

I read an online excerpt of Cornel West’s Democracy Matters several weeks ago, but I decided not to blog about it because I didn’t know where to begin. It is simply one of the worst pseudo-intellectual excretions I’ve ever stumbled into. Luckily, Will Wilksinson was willing to hold his nose long enough to deal with West’s waste, in an essay at Tech Central Station). Here’s a sample of Wilkinson’s take:

…A fellow professor once quipped: “Cornel’s work tends to be 1,000 miles wide and about two inches deep.” In a new book, Democracy Matters,…West promises to examine a triple threat to democracy: “free-market fundamentalism,” “aggressive militarism,” and “escalating authoritarianism.” Despite the occasional insight and illuminating connection, mostly we observe Professor West in his thousand-mile pool, out of his depth, gurgling in dropped names like a baby face-down in a puddle….

…Despite West’s intellectual posturing, Democracy Matters is a prime example of the quasi-intellectualism of the far left, a triumph of moralizing, name-dropping rhetoric over argument. West’s wide-ranging erudition is impressive, but nowhere provides a curious but skeptical reader with a reason to believe that the market does in fact have this kind of distorting effect on our minds, or a corrosive effect on democracy as it is less tendentiously understood. West engages no advocates of the free market, nor does he even deign to knock down straw men. Overestimating the world-making powers of language, West simply slaps negative labels on his opponents and declares victory. The choir is no doubt delighted.

That’s more than enough of Cornel West.

The Meaning of the Election

Virginia Postrel has it exactly right:

[A] Bush victory will be interpreted as public approval (a majority’s, at least) of his executive style and personality, of the war in Iraq, and of his economic policies, particularly the tax cuts. A Kerry victory will be interpreted as public rejection of Bush’s temperament, of the war in Iraq, and of his tax cuts and of his pro-business (and in some cases pro-market) policies.

I wish I’d said it.

Killing Two Birds…

…with one story, from The Washington Times:

Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein’s weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned….

So much for Russia. So much for Kerry and the Democrat defeat-mongers.

Next.

Cutting Krugman Down to Size

Donald Luskin (The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid) really, really, really, dislikes Paul Krugman. Luskin responds to a reader who takes him to task for making an issue of Krugman’s shortcoming in the vertical dimension:

…Reader Vivek Rao asks, ” I’m on your side — the side of free enterprise — and try to help in the fight against Krugmanism. But I think that mocking his height is overly personal and detracts from your site. We dislike him because he’s a nasty, dishonest, socialist — not because he’s short. Right?” Fair question, and the answer is “yes.” I don’t dislike Krugman because he is short. But I do dislike him for more reasons than just that he is a nasty, dishonest, socialist (though I admit he is certainly all those things). Another reason I dislike him is his haughty, arrogant pose of infallibility — the snotty, condescending, know-it-all tone he assumes when he writes from the august pages of America’s newspaper of record. I do not intend to ever grant him the authoritativeness he pretends to have, or accord him any respect at all based on his pedigree or position. One way I can puncture his pedigree and position is to constantly show that this man is not the titan he pretends to be. As anyone knows who has seen him on television or in person, he is a short, pudgy, whiny, stuttering, shifty-eyed, ill-groomed, gray little homunculus. Keep that in mind when you read his New York Times columns — it puts everything in perspective. Am I stooping to name-calling? If I am, too bad. The emperor has no clothes, and I intend to keep calling him naked.

Saying that Luskin really, really, really dislikes Krugman is an understatement. It would be more accurate to say that Luskin loathes Krugman — and I empathize with Luskin. Krugman is a lying rabble-rouser of the first order. His presence on the op-ed pages of the Times speaks volumes about the prevailing mentality and standards of that once-great newspaper.

Curses on the Red Sox

The Boston Red Sox broke the Curse of Bill Buckner by beating the New York Yankees to advance to the World Series. Now, the Red Sox have broken the Curse of the Bambino by beating the St. Louis Cardinals to win the Series.

How long before the Sox win another Series? As a Yankees fan, I curse the Sox to another 86-year wait.

Get ’em next year, Yanks.

Dancing around Racial Differences

Climatology isn’t the only politically correct science. Nicholas Wade of The New York Times reports about race and genetics in “Articles Highlight Different Views on Genetic Basis of Race“:

…In articles in the current issue of the journal Nature Genetics, scientists at Howard, a center of African-American scholarship, generally favor the view that there is no biological or genetic basis for race. “Observed patterns of geographical differences in genetic information do not correspond to our notion of social identities, including ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity,’ ” writes Dr. Charles N. Rotimi, acting director of the university’s genome center.

But several other geneticists writing in the same issue of the journal say the human family tree is divided into branches that correspond to the ancestral populations of each major continent, and that these branches coincide with the popular notion of race. “The emerging picture is that populations do, generally, cluster by broad geographic regions that correspond with common racial classification (Africa, Europe, Asia, Oceania, Americas),” say Dr. Sarah A. Tishkoff of the University of Maryland and Dr. Kenneth K. Kidd of Yale….

Here we have so-called scientists at Howard University trying to deny the obvious and their “peers” at other universities merely confirming it. You’d think scientists would want to do something worthwhile with their time.

Wade continues:

Two years ago Dr. Risch, a population geneticist, plunged into the long-taboo subject of race and said that these geographic patterns correlated with the popular conception of continental-based races – principally Africans, East Asians, American Indians and Caucasians (a group that includes Europeans, Middle Easterners, and people of the Indian subcontinent).

These categories were useful in understanding the genetic roots of disease, many of which follow the same geographic pattern, Dr. Risch said. His article was provoked by editorials in medical journals suggesting there was no biological basis for race.

The articles in today’s issue of Nature Genetics represent a second round of the debate. The Howard scientists agree that there is a geographic pattern in human genetic variation but favor the approach of going directly to the underlying genetic causes of disease without taking into account any possible correlation with race….

Why is race off limits as a scientific topic? What are the “scientists” at Howard afraid of learning about their race? Where’s the shame in truth?

I will say once again that I fully understand Bush’s refusal to kow-tow to scientists (see here and here). Most Americans, unfortunately, have subscribed to a false view of science as coldly precise and unerringly accurate in its power to prescribe “wise” policies. I don’t subscribe to that view, as you’ll find by reading this and following the links.

Another Blow to Chicken-Little Science

I wrote recently about a report by Richard Muller that took a chunk out of the hockey-stick theory of global warming:

This [hockey-stick] plot purports to show that we are now experiencing the warmest climate in a millennium, and that the earth, after remaining cool for centuries during the medieval era, suddenly began to heat up about 100 years ago — just at the time that the burning of coal and oil led to an increase in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide….

Canadian scientists Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick have uncovered a fundamental mathematical flaw in the computer program that was used to produce the hockey stick….

This improper normalization procedure [used in the computer program] tends to emphasize any data that do have the hockey stick shape, and to suppress all data that do not….

Muller was, in the end, rather restrained in his criticism of the authors of the hockey-stick theory, namely, University of Massachusetts geoscientist Michael Mann and colleagues. Not so restrained is a research paper published recently in the journal Science by Professor Hans von Storch and colleagues at the Institute of Coastal Research at Geesthacht, Germany. Scientists Willie Soon and David R. Legates, writing at Tech Central Station, report:

In short, the new paper…confirms what several other climate researchers have long stipulated. The hockey stick curve — which is a mathematical construct, as opposed to actual temperature information recorded at individual locations — is problematic because it yields air temperature changes on timescales of a few decades to a century that are simply too muted to fit the phenomena of the Medieval Warm Period (ca. 800-1300) and Little Ice Age (ca. 1300-1900), which are well recorded in historical documents and recognized in indirect climate data from growths of tree-rings and corals or isotopic content in ice cores and stalagmites collected around the world.

This is traditional science, with results from one group tested by others. What makes this case important, though, was explained by Von Storch in Der Spiegel:

“The Mann graph [i.e., the hockey stick of IPCC TAR] indicates that it was never warmer during the last ten thousand years than it is today. … In recent years it [the hockey stick] has been elevated to the status of truth by the UN appointed science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This handicapped all that research which strives to make a realistic distinction between human influences and climate and natural variability.”

According to Soon and Legates, Von Storch calls the hockey stick “junk” or “rubbish.”

My Advice to the LP

Max Borders, writing at Jujitsu Generis, says:

A viable Libertarian Party is going to have to change its ways: 1) its platform, i.e. to moderate its views; 2) it’s [sic] image, i.e. of geeks and pot-smokers; and 3) maybe even its name and brand, i.e. a name and brand sullied by 1 and 2.

Here’s a better plan. Don’t run LP candidates for office — especially not for the presidency. Throw the LP’s support to candidates who — on balance — come closest to espousing libertarian positions. Third parties — no matter how they’re packaged — just don’t have staying power, given the American electoral system. The LP’s only hope of making progress toward libertarian ideals is to “sell” its influence to the highest bidder.

Buckley Cuts Through the Cant

In an op-ed at Yahoo! News, William F. Buckley Jr. says:

LONG LIVE OIL

Thu Oct 14,12:05 AM ET

By William F. Buckley Jr.

Teresa Heinz Kerry’s reference to “greed for oil” can be passed over, and is being passed over, as routine political hyperbole. But maybe the time has come to examine the words and their meaning. This is so because “oil” is widely used as the great engine of human avarice. In years — and centuries — gone by, the devil word was “gold.” It was gold that brought out the reserves of evil in men. It ranked with and even exceeded love and sex. Oil could not, of course, go through hobgoblinization until its uses were discovered. But now it is used as the commonplace agent of evil.

What needs to be said about oil is that it IS worth fighting for. We would all agree that air and water are necessities. Without them life instantly ends. Without oil, life does not end, but life radically changes….

Only the super-rich can afford to be haughtily condescending about things like oil (evil incarnate) and the environment (to be protected regardless of the cost in jobs and GDP).

UPDATED:

Mike Brock takes out similarly minded lefties who begrudge any signs of happiness among Teresa’s “common people”:

[T]his morning, I had a discussion with somebody at a local coffee shop….

“Do you know what really bothers me?” he says, “all of these middle-class people making $40,000 a year, living out in the suburbs thinking their lives are so great. They actually think because they have a house and two cars in the driveway, that they are living on the up and up”.

“Are you aware that you are evil?” I asked him. He responded only with a blank stare.

“You resent that people have found relative happiness in their lives. You would seek to convince them that they should be depressed,” I said to him straightly.

He then announced his theory that the only reason they were happy, is because the bourgeois and corporations had brainwashed them into thinking that they were happy, when they really are not.

I’ve only recently started to pay attention to this mindset among left-wingers, but now that I’m really looking at it, I realize just how evil and shallow some people are. How can you resent somebody for finding happiness on a modest income? What the hell is wrong with these people?…

These people will only accept the happiness of others if it’s happiness in the context of what they deem to be an appropriate way of living. The fact that Joe Anybody doesn’t complain about working 8-hour days, 5-days a week, and enjoys his weekend doing home improvements and going out to dinner with his family, bothers these people deeply. They don’t want these people to be happy. They want to remind them that they live a meager lifestyle, and they are slaves to capitalism, and that they should be resentful of our society….

These people…seek only to lower the spirits [of] and bring grief [to] the average person, in order to satisfy their own personal insecurities.

Yep. Insecurity (emotional if not financial) breeds an unfounded sense of superiority.

(Thanks to Megan McArdle for the tip about Buckley’s piece, and to The Monger for the tip about Mike Brock’s post.)

Taking Andrew Sullivan Too Seriously

Megan McArdle, guest-blogging for Instapundit, devotes a lot of bytes to Andrew Sullivan’s endorsement of Kerry. McArdle skewers Sullivan’s clumsy theory that Kerry would have to hang tough on national security:

The idea that we should trust Kerry, even if we think his previous foriegn policy instincts have all been bad, because he has nothing to gain from failing to pursue Al Qaeda, makes little sense. Surely George Bush had nothing to gain from failing to suppress the insurgency in Iraq, and yet his administration still hasn’t done so. This argument seems to fall into the partisan assumption that if Kerry fails it will be out of malice. But most people who think that Kerry isn’t the right man for the job think he will fail not because he wants to, but because he’s fundamentally wrong in some way in his national security strategy.

Similarly, it doesn’t strike me as very logical to imply that Democrats have abandoned national security issues, and then suggest electing them anyway as a way to force them to “take responsibility” for national security, any more than I would employ a drug addict in a pharmacy on the theory that this would force him to “take responsibility” for enforcing our nation’s drug laws.

But Sullivan shouldn’t be taken that seriously. He’s merely grasping at excuses for his anti-Bush stance, which is predicated on Bush’s opposition to gay marriage.

P.S. Mike Rappaport of The Right Coast seems to agree with my diagnosis of Sullivan’s real issue with Bush.

On the Other Hand

Regarding the ambush that killed about 50 Iraqi soldiers heading home after graduation from a U.S.-run training course, the AP headline blares “Allawi Blames Ambush on ‘Great Negligence’.” Whose great negligence?

…Allawi told the Iraqi National Council…that coalition forces’ negligent handling of security was responsible for Saturday’s deadly ambush along a remote highway near the Iranian border.

“It was a heinous crime where a group of National Guardsmen were targeted,” Allawi said. “There was great negligence on the part of some coalition forces.”

But there’s more to the story:

…However, in an interview with Al-Arabiya television, Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan blamed the recruits, who in their eagerness to get home decided to leave immediately after their graduation and take an unauthorized route.

“They are to blame. They graduated at 12 p.m. and could have delayed their trip,” he said. Shaalan added that neither the Defense Ministry, the Kirkush commanders nor the U.S.-run forces were to blame.

“They are the ones who chose this road that led them to this ugly result,” he said of the victims. “There might have been some people who gave information about them to hostile sides.”…

Aha! Personal responsibility evaded. Treachery abetted. Life in the Middle East.

Quantum Baseball

If you think that you can jinx your favorite team by watching its games on TV, Dennis Overbye agrees with you, in “This Season, Heisenberg Wears a Red Sox Rally Cap.”