Krauthammer on Lieberman

Charles Krauthammer attempts to understate the relevance of this week's election, perhaps unaware of the implication of his own claims:

The Republicans had control but by very small majorities. In 2000 the presidential election was settled by a ridiculously small margin. And the Senate ended up deadlocked 50-50. All the changes since then have been minor. Until now.

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The result is that both parties have moved to the right. The Republicans have shed the last vestiges of their centrist past, the Rockefeller Republicans. And the Democrats have widened their tent to bring in a new crop of blue-dog conservatives.

Unless he presupposes that the center has shifted along with the Republican party, assuming Krauthammer correct, a nation that was formerly split about 50:50 will continue to vote with a belief set that is now better aligned with the Democratic Party. This inference is also manifest in Krauthammer's claims about Joe Lieberman:

To muddy even more the supposed ideological significance of this election, consider who is the biggest winner of the night: Joe Lieberman. Just a few months ago he was scorned by his party and left for dead. Now he returns to the Senate as the Democrats' 51st seat -- and holder of the balance of power.

The same, of course, can be said for any senator among the 51 who comprise the Democratic majority. Lieberman's not even the only independent who will caucus with the Democrats. Apparently, among the 51, Krauthammer believes Lieberman to have the least loyalty to the Democratic Party and the greatest desire to demand tribute for his fickle commitment - is that truly what he believes? Further,

Lieberman won with a platform that did not trim or hedge about seeking victory in Iraq. And he did it despite having a Republican in the race who siphoned off 10 percent of the pro-war vote. All this in Connecticut, a very blue state.

Sure. And in a "red" state the Republican might have even been backed by his own party, which skews the significance of the outcome. But let's play it Krauthammer's way.

In 2000, Lieberman won reelection 63 - 34 against his Republican opponent. If it is reasonable to infer that the overwhelming majority of the 24% of Connecticut residents who did not vote Republican in 2006 chose Lieberman over Lamont, then almost half of the voters who chose Lieberman were Republican. If in fact, as he suggests, Lieberman is the big winner, Krauthammer should perhaps be acknowledging that a Democratic Party that shifts slightly to the right could dominate a Republican Party that has shifted even further to the Right.

And About Those New Democratic Senators

I've seen a lot of scorn heaped upon Rahm Emanuel for his suggestion that the House keep its left wing in check during the next two years, and govern as centrist. (I'm lazy today - I haven't taken the time to look at his actual words, but that's how they seem to be presented). But I happen to think that he's right.

Those who see the new additions to the Democratic ranks, particularly in the Senate, as a source of possible discord and turmoil in the party? I hope that turns out to be wishful thinking. Because I see a real opportunity here for the Democratic Party to emulate Tony Blair's reshaping of the British Labor Party - ideally without also making the same mistakes as Blair - and shaking off some of the cobwebs that have a lot of voters still thinking of the Dems as a party of big, intrusive government, high taxes, welfare, and of having an anti-military attitude and being "weak on defense". I would like to see some of the paleoconservative principles which have been so clearly rejected by the Bush Administration brought into the Democratic Party, such that it becomes seen as the party of smaller government, responsible spending, personal responsibility (of a meaningful sort - a more libertarian approach to most Americans and, for those who need assistance, what Bush described as a "hand up, not a handout" before he decided he no longer needed to preface the word "conservative" with "compassionate"), and jobs.

This, of course, assumes the introduction of genuineness into the system - that the new majority party has sufficient members who are truly interested in bettering America as opposed to amassing wealth and power. On that front, though, it's hard to imagine that the Dems could be worse than the Republicans. At least, not for a few years. (Yes, I'm feeling cynical.)

The "Myth" Of Karl Rove

I've read a number of comments where people suggest that the outcome of the midterm election reveals that Karl Rove's plans and abilities were overrated. It's possible to take another interpretation - that his tactics were (and remain) extremely effective, but that he pushed too hard. If history is a guide, we can expect even more Rovian tactics in future elections, and anybody who wishes to win (locally or nationally) would be wise not to underestimate their effectiveness. Had the Republican Party not become overconfident after 9/11, and taken a more cautious approach to pushing the country to the right, I believe that they would still control the Senate, and quite possibly the House.

I do suspect that people tended to give Karl Rove too much credit for past election victories, but I think it's unquestionable that many are attributing to him too much fault for this loss.

Taking A Moment To Be A Bit Unfair....

Professor Bernstein, who spent a year collecting a paycheck from the University of Michigan Law School, bleats about UM's reaction to the Michigan proposal banning affirmative action:

President Coleman, in the midst of lengthy remarks expressing her dedication to "diversity," added, "Of course the University of Michigan will comply with the laws of the state." Her devotion to a cause she believes just is admirable, but I think it would have been appropriate for her to recognize, even if briefly, that out of a student body of 40,000, and an alumni body of hundred thousands, there are many thousands of people of good will who disagree. The actual remarks, however, suggest that the only good member of the Michigan community is someone who supports "diversity" policies.

It does? Well, it's pretty clear that Prof. Bernstein isn't in favor of "diversity" policies, but he's not really part of the Michigan community.

I'm assuming that he didn't have access to UM Law's admissions records, but still I have to ask: Was his experience with UM Law's minority students really so bad? (And where can I read him lament that his children will have an advantage getting into Yale, as the children of an alumnus?)

Affirmative action, at least as presently defined, has to end sometime - that is, at some point you have to recognize that it has passed its point of effectiveness or, if it is effective, that it is no longer necessary. I personally believe that many (perhaps most) affirmative action programs are deeply flawed as administered. Funny, though, I can't recall the last time I saw an opponent of affirmative action make a cogent case against the need for affirmative action, or even the manner of its administration. I can't recall the last time I heard an opponent argue for reform and improvement as opposed to abolition. To the extent that a plausible case can be made that affirmative action is no longer helping to achieve progress for targeted groups, I don't recall hearing that argued, either.

Robocalls

With all of the accusations of unethical conduct circulating around "robocalls" - automated phone calls which play recorded messages to prospective voters - perhaps a good first step would be a simple change in how the sponsorship information is announced. If the sponsorship is announced up-front, it seems less likely that the candidate (or organizations supporting the candidate) will try to engage in dirty tricks. I believe this would simply involve applying existing FCC regulations to political calls - you know, the same laws which apply to everybody else. (Or do they apply, in which case these shenanigans are even more shameful.)

Vanity, Thy Name Is.... Frum?

Also from the Vanity Fair article comes this David Frum quote,

"I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything."

Funny, wasn't it Mr. Frum who used to brag about coining the term "Axis of Hatred", which ultimately became "Axis of Evil"? How did Bush not internalize that one? But really, c'mon.

Perhaps the next time he applies for a job, Mr. Frum should pay a bit more attention to the job title and job description.

If They Agree With Me, They Must Be Competent

In the Vanity Fair article on the neo-cons, which today seems to be a leading topic for discussion on political blogs, the neo-con cheerleaders of the Iraq war are wringing their hands at what has happened in Iraq, and blaming everybody except themselves for the Bush Administrations failures. Ken "Cakewalk" Adelman is shocked that those he had thought were competent proved incompetent:

"I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national-security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent. They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the post-war era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional."

This was a state secret before the war? I thought it was pretty obvious that the "team" at issue was limited in its competence, and was eager to shut out anybody who dared to suggest that they were about to head down a disastrous road. I suspect that Adelman viewed the pro-war leaders of the Bush Administration as competent because they found both a warm reception for his ideas and, ultimately, agreement with those ideas. And now the fact that it was anything but a "cakewalk" has Adelman declaring the Bush Administration incompetent... for implicitly agreeing with him.

Similarly, Richard Perle declines to accept any flaw in his ideology, or any responsibility for the implementation of a war he doggedly advocated:

"Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I'm getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. I was in favor of bringing down Saddam. Nobody said, 'Go design the campaign to do that.' I had no responsibility for that."

Ah yes, how clearly I recall him denouncing the Bush Administration's post-war plans, immediately after the invasion, as a recipe for disaster. Why, here he is, speaking of how Iraq could not possibly be occupied and transformed with such low numbers of troops:

Forget the 250,000 figure, Perle said: "The Army guys don't know anything. They said we needed 500,000 troops in 1991 [for the Gulf War]. Did we need that many to win? No."

What's the Perle Plan? I asked.

"Forty thousand troops." he said.

To take Baghdad? Nah, he replied. To take control of the north and the south, particularly the north, where the oil fields are. Cut off Saddam's oil, make him a pauper, that should do the trick.

"We don't need anyone else," he said, in a distinctly imperial fashion.

Er... Oops? Can you even begin to imagine the scope of the catastrophe had Perle's war plan in fact been followed? That is, had the "Army guys" who "don't know anything" not worked so hard, even against their career interests, to ensure that Perle's plan was not followed?

Adelman's awakening is something else:

And if he, too, had his time over, Adelman says, "I would write an article that would be skeptical over whether there would be a performance that would be good enough to implement our policy. The policy can be absolutely right, and noble, beneficial, but if you can't execute it, it's useless, just useless. I guess that's what I would have said: that Bush's arguments are absolutely right, but you know what, you just have to put them in the drawer marked can't do. And that's very different from let's go."

The best analogy I have heard for these guys, which I first heard before the invasion even occurred, depicts them as having the mindset that wars are like video games, and when things go wrong you can just press the "reset" button and make your mistakes go away. Adelman seems to fall into that category, and Perle seems to have learned everything he knows about warfare from a "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers" episode. It took Adelman this many years to realize what many others saw as obvious at the outset, and the neo-cons were more than happy to pour scorn and derision on these skeptics. And now we are assured, their ideology remains perfect - they are but victims.

How fortunuate - even as I type this, my wife is making soup. When it is done, I shall shed some bitter tears into my bowl for those poor, misunderstood neo-cons.