Reasons for Republicans to be Thankful

Jennifer Rubin offers some Thanksgiving cheer at Pajamas Media. I don’t agree with every word of her post, but I love these parts:

First, President-elect Barack Obama won by assuring voters he would pursue tax cuts, victory in Afghanistan, prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and go “line by line” through the federal budget to eliminate waste and unneeded programs. We can doubt his sincerity or ability to achieve these ends, but he won by recognizing and espousing center-right principles. If he pursues some or all of them, the country will be the better for it. If he doesn’t, he is unlikely to succeed or maintain the broad-based popularity needed to keep Democrats in power.

Second, Hillary Clinton, James L. Jones, and Robert Gates are on tap to fill key national security roles. This is not the crew to bug out of Iraq before the job is done, repeal FISA, rush off to meet with Ahmadinejad, or support a 25% cut in defense spending. On national security, the president-elect in essence has conceded that the Left’s vision is impractical and dangerous. …

Ninth, President George W. Bush and General David Petraeus persevered against tremendous odds and have placed us on the verge of one of the great military turnarounds in our history. We can disagree about the wisdom of the decision to go to war in Iraq, but a victory with a stable Iraq allied with the U.S. and a humiliated al-Qaeda is now within our grasp. By avoiding defeat and empowering an Arab nation to take up arms and defeat Islamic terrorists, Bush and Petraeus furthered the security of the U.S., the region, and our allies around the world.

Rubin’s post is headlined “Ten Reasons for Conservatives to be Thankful.” I substituted “Republicans” in my headline because after describing myself as a liberal for most of my life, I can’t quite get my brain wrapped around the idea that I’m a conservative. I’m certainly right-of-center on economic and national security issues, but I’m pro-choice and I favor marriage equality for same-sex couples. I guess that makes me a libertarian… except hard-core libertarians tend to oppose the Iraq war, which I strongly support.

Also, once you get too far out on the libertarian spectrum you’ve got anarchy. This 64-question libertarian purity test gives you extra purity points for a desire to abolish government, privatize roads, police forces, etc. I’m a big fan of capitalism and market-based incentives, but I think we need some government.

Here’s a much shorter quiz (10 questions) to help locate your political identity. Here’s the result I got:


Bullseye. Happy Thanksgiving.

The Perils of Blogging


Like many (most?) bloggers, I crave a bigger audience, and I thought I had found a gambit that might tempt James Taranto to link to me from his “Best of the Web Today.” Yesterday’s BotWT included one of his “Wannabe Pundit” items, quoting a journalist taking a pot shot at the Bush Administration in the context of a non-political article. Here’s the quote, which was from an article about buying Oriental rugs:

“Hizballah has re-armed, Israel could attack Lebanon again at any time, Iran is probably building nuclear weapons, the surge in Iraq is a mirage, and America is falling apart,” reports Time magazine’s Andrew Lee Butters.That’s the bad news. The good news is, you now know how to buy an Oriental rug.

Wait a minute — “the surge in Iraq is a mirage”? In September, even Candidate Obama was forced to admit that the “surge has succeeded beyond our wildest dreams”! My outrage gets my creative juices flowing — I’ll do a chart!! I’ll show how U.S. casualties have declined over the duration of the surge, and I’ll add famous surge quotations!!! It’ll graphically illustrate what a nonsensical statement Butter made!!!! How could he even write such a thing, more than two months after Obama said the surge succeeded?

Well, he didn’t. I discovered this when I was putting the finishing touches on my chart. I just needed the original date of the Butters quote… oops. It was in BotWT yesterday, but apparently the normally careful Taranto didn’t notice that the quote on Time’s website was dated April 18, 2008.

Anyway, there’s the chart. (What, I’m not gonna post it after I go to all that trouble?)

Update — I sent the item to James Taranto anyway, and here is his response:

Sorry about that. I don’t normally use such old items, and indeed I didn’t notice how old it was. However, since I wasn’t making fun of him specifically for the surge quote, I didn’t make an actual error and thus will not run a correction. Feel free to note on your blog that I acknowledge your point, however.

Fair enough — even if the statement were accurate or defensible, it would still qualify as a Wannabe Pundit on the basis of irrelevance to the rest of the article.

Bush Derangement Syndrome and the Surge

Peter Wehner, writing in Commentary, does the best job I have seen of chronicling the sordid history of liberal opposition to the surge. For paragraph after relentless paragraph he replays the mockery from the left, from before the surge even started until long after its success was clear.


Anti-surge rhetoric died down only when even Barack Obama — who won the Democratic nomination in part because he was seen as the “purest” advocate of surrender in Iraq — finally had to admit in September that the surge has “succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

Wehner wrestles with the question of why so many on the left continued denying the reality unfolding before their eyes:

A generous interpretation is that by the end of 2006, many liberals had made a definitive good-faith judgment that the Iraq war was irretrievably lost. This then became the filter through which they viewed all later developments. Once convinced of the impossibility of substantial progress, never mind a decent outcome or an actual victory, they could not help receiving good news as anomalous and/or inherently unsustainable.

But the generous interpretation may be too generous, and also condescending. Reasonable and responsible adults are expected to assess the solidity of their convictions against the available evidence and in light of changing circumstances. Even at the time of the surge’s announcement, when things were going quite badly, should responsible adults not have been able to entertain the possibility that, given the enormity of what was at stake in the war, a fundamentally new approach merited at least a degree of support, however hesitant or conditional?

Instead, many pronounced the new approach a failure even before it was tried. Still worse was that they continued to pronounce it a failure even as the evidence began to amass that it was succeeding. Even those few who (like Richard Cohen and Joe Klein) eventually admitted they were wrong about the surge itself continued to insist they were right about the war. Others stuck more and more zealously to their original position the more it became falsified by reality. They, and not the President, were the ones who were truly “doubling down” on their bet—as if a decent outcome in Iraq threatened their entire worldview.

Wehner doesn’t actually use the term “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” but he describes it:

For some liberals, hatred of the President was clearly so all-encompassing that they had developed a deep investment in the failure of what they habitually dismissed not as America’s war but as “Bush’s war.” To an extent, this passion was driven by merely partisan considerations: Iraq had become a superbly effective instrument with which to bludgeon Republicans. It had helped the Democrats take control of both the House and the Senate in 2006; might not a thorough “Republican” defeat in Iraq lastingly reshape the political landscape in their favor?

This is, admittedly, an unpleasant line of speculation, and those foolhardy enough to venture upon it have been loudly condemned for questioning the patriotism of their political adversaries. But patriotism is not the issue—judgment is. When politicians acting in good faith misjudge a situation, nothing prevents them from acknowledging their error and explaining themselves. For the most part, we await such acknowledgments in vain.

My “favorite” BDS bumper sticker is the one I saw nearly every day when I was still commuting into New York, on a car usually parked a few slots ahead of mine. The sticker is pictured above — if you’re reading this via RSS, the sticker plays off the ill-advised “Mission Accomplished” proclamation, except the word “Mission” is crossed out and “Nothing” scrawled above it.

It’s deeply offensive not just because it dishonors the sacrifice of the troops, but because it does so in a way that is transparently, objectively false.

Removing Saddam Hussein from power is not “nothing.” One can argue that it was not worth the cost. One can argue that it was not an appropriate use of American military power. One can even argue, although it’s getting harder, that the Iraqi people would be better off if we had left Saddam alone. I disagree with all of those assertions, but there are substantive arguments that can and have been made for them. Well, for the first two anyway.

But the notion that “nothing” has been accomplished is… well… deranged. Thankfully, Obama has shown signs that his own case of Bush Derangement Syndrome is in remission. Soon it will no longer be “Bush’s war” — it will be for Obama to win or lose. I hope the success of the surge will allow him to continue the responsible draw-down of forces that has already begun.

A McCain Voter Contemplates an Obama Presidency

I was going to write a poignant, insightful post about why this McCain voter is undismayed by the prospect of an Obama victory, but Peggy Noonan beat me to it. Saves me a few pixels, I suppose. An excerpt:

A great moment: When the press was hitting hard on the pregnancy of Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, he did not respond with a politically shrewd “I have no comment,” or “We shouldn’t judge.” Instead he said, “My mother had me when she was 18,” which shamed the press and others into silence. He showed grace when he didn’t have to.

There is something else. On Feb. 5, Super Tuesday, Mr. Obama won the Alabama primary with 56% to Hillary Clinton’s 42%. That evening, a friend watched the victory speech on TV in his suburban den. His 10-year-old daughter walked in, saw on the screen “Obama Wins” and “Alabama.” She said, “Daddy, we saw a documentary on Martin Luther King Day in school.” She said, “That’s where they used the hoses.” Suddenly my friend saw it new. Birmingham, 1963, and the water hoses used against the civil rights demonstrators. And now look, the black man thanking Alabama for his victory.

This means nothing? This means a great deal.

I’m voting McCain because I believe he has a better understanding of the cost of meekness in the face of fascism. But Obama has demonstrated that he knows he can’t afford to be held hostage by the extreme pacifist wing of his party. Ironically, the success of the surge has worked against its champion, McCain. An Obama Presidency that might have been a disaster two years ago is much less frightening now that the advocates of surrender have lost interest in the war.

For me, the redemptive potential of electing a black man as President is not a sufficient reason to support the candidate I consider less qualified to be commander-in-chief. But if Obama wins, my vote for the other guy will not prevent me from celebrating a joyous milestone. As Noonan wrote, this means a great deal.

In Praise of Milbloggers, and of the Iraqi Air Force

“Ask any of these three brand-new pilots if the Surge worked.” (Photo Credit: TheDonovan.com)

The financial crisis has sucked all of the oxygen out of the news media, but it’s good to remember that there’s a war going on — and going well.

From a “DV” (distinguished visitor, not otherwise identified) at the first graduation of new Iraqi Air Force pilots since the liberation of Iraq, via an unofficial translation on the fly:

“He is saying that for the first time in our history, we are not doing things for one man, but we are doing it for all the people of Iraq. He is saying the US has showed us how, and we must not forget when we thank God every day, we must also ask him to bless the US.”

My link above is to a Jonah Goldberg post in The Corner, but the original author of those words is “Bill” at TheDonovan.com, “the home of two of Jonah’s Military Guys.” Other milbloggers also were all over the story, but it went unreported in the mainstream media. As one of Bill’s co-bloggers said later, “how is this not important?”

In Bill’s words,

a few months ago, putting their pictures in a public forum would have been a death sentence for them or their families. Right after the ceremony, they were each interviewed for Iraqi TV.

TheDonovan.com’s “Bill” is not further identified in the “About Us” section of the website, but he’s referred to on another milblog as “CWO [Chief Warrant Officer] Bill T.” TheDonovan.com indicates that all the posters are “retired warriors.” Bill’s post indicates he teaches a course at the flight training school in Kirkuk.

In other words, he’s a contractor… or, in the execrable formulation of Markos “Screw Them” Moulitsas, owner of Daily Kos, he’s a “mercenary” — a type of warrior declared not worthy of being mourned, when the charred bodies of four contractors were dragged through the streets of Falluja in 2004.

My anger is rising as I write this. It’s no longer sufficient to my mind to say that the situation is “improving” in Iraq. If it was in any way defensible in April 2007 for Senate Majority Leader Henry Reid to declare “this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday” — then simple logic and justice demands the conclusion today that “the war is being won.” Not “over” — “being won.” But you won’t read about it in the MSM. Good news is no news, and besides, it remind the voters about where the candidates stood on the surge.

More from “Bill”:

Class 66 was the last class to graduate from the *old* Flight School. Seven years ago. In Tikrit. …

[As for Class 67, which graduated Oct. 13,] There are only three of them. They volunteered when it was a tossup whether they’d even live to graduate.

But there are eight in Class 68.

Twelve in Class 69.

And twenty-four in Class 70.

Back at you, “DV”: May the Good Lord bless, preserve and keep Iraqi 2nd Lieutenants Hassan, Majid and Habeeb as they proudly wear their flying wings in defense of their country.

P.S.: I’m late to the party as a milblogger fan — a good place to start exploring is this list of the top 100 milbloggers.

McCain’s Town Hall "Advantage"

Before the debate, we heard a lot about how good McCain is in a town hall format. There wasn’t much evidence of that last night. Time’s Swampland does a good job of explaining why:

In the classic McCain town hall, differences of opinion are expressed, and McCain works to build a conversation, so that everyone develops respect for him and each other, even if there is disagreement. In this debate, McCain was trying to convince voters and the audience that Obama was not worthy. So there was a stilted element to the affair. Finally, the key to the classic McCain town hall is that McCain is having fun. He did not appear to be having fun tonight. Obama, meanwhile, did not seem interested in having fun. He was there to make his case, and he did it clearly.

I’m starting to get used to the idea of President Obama. The economic crisis seems to have sealed McCain’s fate, even though he’s the one who warned two years ago about the problems of Fannie and Freddie, while the Democrats were saying everything was fine. After eight years of spending increases, the Republicans have squandered their reputation for greater financial responsibility.

I’m just grateful that Obama was not President in 2007. By the time he takes office, it looks like it will be too late to surrender in Iraq. Once it becomes Mr. Obama’s war, I doubt he’ll be eager to lose a war that is being won.

So THAT’S Why He Picked Her – What a Speaker!

I take back everything I said or hinted or even thought about Sarah Palin being a drag on the ticket.

She did several things she had to do in her speech tonight:

  • She established that her record of actual office-holding achievement compares very favorably with Obama’s. (Obama’s achievement of winning his party’s nomination for president is extraordinary and admirable. But as Palin said tonight, “this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform – not even in the state senate.”)
  • She demonstrated the combination of combativeness and populist appeal that have given her an 80% approval rating from her fellow Alaskans.
  • She showed she was ready — more than ready — to fill the customary VP role of attack dog on the stump. She even claimed the dog imagery for her own. I had already read the line, which she has apparently been saying for years, that the main difference between a Hockey Mom and a pit bull is lipstick. It seemed a little contrived when I was reading it on the screen, but when she said it, she owned it.

She took lots of hard shots at Obama, but by my count only one cheap shot. I wish she had left out the snipe that Obama’s worry about Al Qaeda terrorists is “that someone won’t read them their rights.” I don’t think that’s fair even as an exaggeration of anything I’ve ever heard Obama say.

But I loved the line that “Victory in Iraq is finally in sight … he wants to forfeit.” The “wants to forfeit” part isn’t literally true either, of course — but it’s certainly true that Obama’s pre-surge proposal to retreat-no-matter-what would have forfeited any chance at a positive outcome in Iraq.

My Obama-supporting wife — whom I love with a love that transcends space and time, let alone politics — didn’t like the speech. We both reacted negatively to the cheap shot on Miranda rights. But Nina was clearly pained to hear a man she admires attacked again and again, first by Giuliani and then by Palin. We watched the speech through different filters. Because I want McCain to win, I felt good about the effective, substantive, sarcastic hard punches being thrown at Obama — a man whom, as I’ve written before, in many ways I admire also.

Nina and I have virtually identical views on social issues. We both think the Republicans are on the wrong side of the abortion issue. Even more strongly, we both think they’re on the wrong side of marriage equality for same-sex couples. She was as angered and appalled as I was by the attacks of 9/11, and she knows the danger isn’t over. But we’ve reached opposite conclusions about which candidate to support. We respect each other’s decision, and we respect each other. We have in-depth, substantive discussions on the issues, but we’re careful not to mock each other’s candidate when we talk. That’s the way it should be in a marriage

But that’s not the way it’s going to be on the campaign trail. Unfortunately, negative campaigning works. Because it works, both sides have to do it. I wish it were otherwise — but no candidate has ever won a major election by staying entirely on the high road.

And so to bed.

Five Stages of Adjusting to Palin

As a socially liberal McCain supporter living in one of the bluest towns in a blue state, I’ve learned how to reconcile myself to various aspects of his candidacy. The most glaring example is abortion rights, where I think McCain is on the wrong side of the issue. But for me the issues that trump all others are the Iraq war and the war against Islamic extremism. Obama has many appealing qualities, but of the two, McCain is the candidate I want as Commander-in-Chief, and everything else is secondary for me.

I paid very little attention to the pre-announcement VP discussions in either party. When Biden was named, I thought it undercut Obama’s change message, but that he’s a safe choice and I could imagine him as President. Then came the Palin announcement.

Stage 1: Confusion

Hm… First-term governor of a sparsely populated state — doesn’t that undercut the most potent argument against Obama? I saw the first Palin headlines just before I got on the treadmill, and this stage lasted throughout my half-hour workout.

Stage 2: Rationalization

OK, so it’s not a great pick, but maybe it will help McCain get elected by shoring up his relationship with social conservatives, and attracting disaffected Hillary voters who already are considering McCain.

This stage lasted the rest of the day Friday, while I hunted for reasons to reassure myself that she’s not a terrible choice.

  • Social conservatives are my least favorite part of the Republican coalition, and I also have little patience for people who attribute Hillary Clinton’s loss to sexism rather than to her own baggage and the appeal of her rival. But while placating these groups is a low priority for me, their votes count as much as mine do, and my candidate needs every vote he can get.
  • Inexperienced though she is, Palin has electoral appeal (80% approval rating in Alaska) and some steel in her spine. She ousted a sitting governor, then took on the corrupt senior officeholders of her own party. I’d vote for her for governor of Alaska in a heartbeat.

Stage 3: Annoyance

I woke up in this stage this morning. Why couldn’t he just have picked Romney? I don’t particularly like Romney, but the guy came in second — the positives and negatives about him are already well known. It would have been a safe choice, certainly by comparison, and the VP contest would have become irrelevant, as it normally is.

Stage 4: Gloom

I slipped into this stage later in the morning while talking with my Obama-supporting wife. Nina and I share common values and we would never mock each other, even by proxy. She respects my reasons for supporting McCain, but she’s going to pull the other lever in November. She was very gentle when she said, after I watched video of Palin’s remarks, “I’m sorry, honey, but it doesn’t look good for your team.”

I agree, it doesn’t. Maybe things will look brighter after the convention, where we’ll get to know Palin better and hear more about why McCain picked her. But right now I see her as a net drag on the ticket. She’ll gain votes among social convervatives and maybe among some Hillary fans, but she saps the life out of the experience issue. Even some social conservatives have qualms about tokenism — Ramesh Ponnuru said “Can anyone say with a straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?”

Stage 5: Reconsidering My Vote

I haven’t quite reached this stage yet. Maybe I won’t. I think McCain made a bad choice, but anybody can make a bad choice. Obama has made bad choices. The top of the ticket still matters most, and I still prefer McCain over Obama. But I’ve never been an Obama hater, and I don’t subscribe to the idea that he would be a disastrous president. Issues aside, I would be proud to have a black president, as long as it’s Obama and not Jesse Jackson.

A vice president only really matters if the president dies. I hope McCain lives another thirty years or more, but he turned 72 yesterday. Sarah Palin seems like a decent and courageous woman, and she might do a great job as president. But the heartbeat-away factor — the most relevant question for a vice president — clearly favors Biden. I’m talking here not about issues, just about readiness to step in and do the job.

The fact that I’m even thinking along these lines doesn’t bode well for McCain’s ability to pick up voters like me, who if not for the war would be inclined to vote for Democrats.

Senator Biden’s Odd Notions of Right and Wrong

Joe Biden’s acceptance speech last night was well-delivered and powerful. The only part that raised my hackles was the Iraq section, with the thrice repeated “John McCain was wrong. Barack Obama was right.” At the time I thought it bothered me simply because I continue to support the decision to overthrow Saddam. But on inspecting the transcript today, I believe Biden’s argument also was intellectually dishonest.

The obvious problem with arguing that Obama’s judgment is better than McCain’s is the “surge.” McCain was a champion of the concept of a surge, long before the Bush Administration put it into action. MoveOn.org even described the surge as “McCain’s idea” — that’s a bit hyperbolic, but a nice compliment nonetheless. Obama consistently opposed the surge, and as recently as a month ago he was still trying to explain away the apparent success (thus far) of the change in tactics. Last night Biden took his party’s best remaining option with regard to the surge, which was to ignore it.

But that’s not even what I mean by intellectually dishonest. Here’s the dishonesty:

Now, let me ask you: Whose judgment should we trust? Should we trust John McCain’s judgment when he said only three years ago, “Afghanistan — we don’t read about it anymore because it’s succeeded? Or should we trust Barack Obama, who more than a year ago called for sending two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan?

It’s hard to catch when listening to him say it, but I’ve added emphasis to the switcheroo that he hoped we all would miss. Three years ago there was, in fact, very little in the news about Afghanistan, because the Taliban was quiet. Two years later, under very different circumstances, Obama seized on a resurgence of violence in Afghanistan as protective cover to avoid being seen as a doctrinaire pacifist, while continuing to argue that America should promptly surrender in Iraq. (P.S.: McCain also favors sending additional troops to Afghanistan.)

The other sleight-of-hand in Biden’s speech was his statement that “Now, after six long years, the Bush administration and the Iraqi government are on the verge of setting a date to bring our troops home.” This is offered as evidence that Obama was right in supporting a timeline for withdrawal and McCain was wrong in opposing it.

“On the verge” may be an overstatement, but more to the point, the timeline being discussed is the end of 2011. The argument over a “timeline” began back when we were arguably losing the war, and Obama and others talked about a timeline of months, not years, regardless of the situation on the ground. On principle I think a timeline is still a bad idea, but if the current leaders of Iraq and the U.S. want to set a timeline for three-plus years down the road, so be it. There will be plenty of time to reconsider if necessary before any significant troop draw-down begins.

Biden also didn’t mention the original decision to authorize war in Iraq, which he… um… supported. Obama opposed the authorization, from his seat in the Illinois state senate, not quite six years ago.

A Military Perspective on the Anbar Awakening

A fascinating 20-minute video from MilBlogs TV describes how American forces cooperated with and supported the early stages of the Anbar Awakening, a key factor in the turnaround in Iraq.

It’s not a completely happy tale — the American captain and the local sheik who played central roles in the cooperative effort both were ultimately killed. But near the end of the video is a helpful explanation of the reasons for success:

“The tribes represent the people of Iraq, and the populace represents the “key terrain” of the conflict. The force that supports the population by taking the moral high ground has as sure an advantage in COIN [counter-insurgency] as a maneuver commander who occupies dominant terrain in a conventional battle.”

This is why I’ve never believed the advances made in Iraq are going to be temporary, and disappear with the end of the surge. The irony is that the success of the surge will probably benefit the candidate who opposed the tactic. The better things get in Iraq, the less concerned people become about the idea of Obama as Commander in Chief.