Britain and America

Picks from the web

Senator Joe Lieberman wrote for last Monday's Wall Street Journal and reminded his readers - and former Democrat colleagues - of the stakes in Iraq: "A precipitous pullout would leave a gaping security vacuum in its wake, which terrorists, insurgents, militias and Iran would rush to fill--probably resulting in a spiral of ethnic cleansing and slaughter on a scale as yet unseen in Iraq... We are at a critical moment in Iraq--at the beginning of a key battle, in the midst of a war that is irretrievably bound up in an even bigger, global struggle against the totalitarian ideology of radical Islamism. However tired, however frustrated, however angry we may feel, we must remember that our forces in Iraq carry America's cause--the cause of freedom--which we abandon at our peril."

Tom Bevan of RealClearPolitics notes that failure of 'the surge' will mean the end for Bush's Iraq policy: "Though a majority of the American people and members of Congress appear to have given up any hope of achieving success in Iraq, the Bush administration has not. Despite opposition, the White House has been slowly but surely moving ahead, playing what amounts to the last card in its hand on Iraq.  That play, for lack of a better word, boils down to a new plan currently underway to secure the Iraqi capital. It's a plan that was conceived out of necessity last year as the administration reviewed all possible options for achieving success in Iraq. Ultimately, as a senior administration official told me in an interview on Tuesday, the conclusion was reached that "the risks associated with not stabilizing Baghdad were unacceptable."

Victor Davis Hanson, on National Review, still believes that the Iraq war - a just war - can be won: "Somehow a war to remove a mass-murdering psychopath — a psychopath with his hands on a trillion-dollars worth of petroleum reserves, with a long record of attacking four of his neighbors and of harboring and subsidizing terrorists — who, once removed, would be replaced with the first truly consensual government in the history of the Arab Middle East, ended up being perceived... as something it was not.  But if we have an orphaned war that is dubbed lost, it nevertheless can still be won. None of our mistakes has been fatal; none is of a magnitude unprecedented in past wars; all have been cataloged; and few are now being repeated. We now understand the politics of our Iraqi odyssey, with all its triangulations, and the ruthlessness of our enemies."

The Editors of the New York Post sat down with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and he reminded readers of what's at stake in the war on terror: "We tried weakness in the Middle East. Liberalism had a shot at this. And [yet] we're not prepared to get up and say to Teddy Kennedy, "You guys did this before, I mean, do you really want to go back and do it again?"  We've got to start with that notion - you had better think through a grand strategy, and you had better be prepared to do what it takes.  Somebody ought to do a map of this city, one that assumes it was a nuclear weapon on 9/11, not an airplane, and just show the amount of damage you're gonna have in this city . . . I'm warning you, this is real; these people tell you every day - that when they get a chance to kill you, they're going to."

And finally... Mark Steyn uses his Chicago Sun Times column to ridicule Revd Al Gore's climate change theatrics: "How do "carbon offsets" work? Well, let's say you're a former vice president and you want to reduce your "carbon footprint," but the gorgeous go-go Gore gals are using the hair dryer every night. So you go to a carbon-credits firm and pay some money and they'll find a way of getting somebody on the other side of the planet to reduce his emissions and the net result will be "carbon neutral." It's like in Henry VIII's day. He'd be planning a big ox roast and piling on the calories but he'd give a groat to a starving peasant to carry on starving for another day and the result would be calorie-neutral."

Reflecting on the mid-terms

In the first of a regular 'Media Choice' series, BritainAndAmerica.com links to some of the best commentary in the American media...

Democrat John Podesta is quoted in a New York Times Op-Ed piece listing the three reasons why the conservative movement has "collapsed under the weight of conservative rule":

• “stewardship of the Iraq war” had undercut conservatives’ credibility on national security;
• budget deficits and stagnant wages had discredited tax cuts; and
• Congressional scandals had given the lie to the movement’s moral values.

There is actually little evidence to suggest that tax cuts were unpopular.  In the National Review Pat Toomey presents polling evidence which suggests that tax relief was popular.  What angered swing voters was the perception that Republicans had become the party of pork, fiscal ill-discipline and big government.  Reagan will be turning in his grave.

Much attention has been given to the way Democrats have recruited pro-military, fiscally responsible 'Blue Dog Democrats' on their way back to majority status.  One Blue Dog Democrat is interviewed on NPR and he explains the motivations of his 40-strong congressional grouping.  Michael Tomasky uses an LA Times piece to insist, however, that the Democrats are succeeding because they are operating a 'big tent' - not because they are shifting in a conservative direction.

For Michael Medved, on TownHall.com, the election exposed the myth of a big red state, blue state divide:

"The media emphasis on regional differences always distorted reality but this election should force the permanent abandonment of the meaningless red/blue distinction. Montana, supposedly the reddest-of-red states, may well end up with a Democratic governor and two Democratic Senators. California, theoretically the bluest-of-blue states, not only re-elected its Republican governor in a landslide, but also appears poised to elevate GOP candidates (including some outspoken and cantankerous conservatives) to three or four other statewide offices. In Kansas, which gave Bush 64% in 2004, Democrats enjoyed sweeping victories, and so on. The definitive designation of an entire state as either “red” or “blue,” Republican or Democrat, ignores the impact of circumstances, personalities, and issues."

At the Weekly Standard Fred Barnes thinks that President Bush isn't going to be a lame duck for the next two years but will work with the new Congress on passing immigration reform and passing a higher minimum wage and use to full advantage the fact that "he can always command a national audience".

Outside of California - where quite conservative GOP candidates won office on Arnie's coat-tails - the Republican Party had little to celebrate.  An exception was Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's re-election.  The victory of Pawlenty (pictured) has him tipped by RealClearPolitics' John McIntyre as a possible VP nominee in '08.

Ed Rogers in the Washington Post surveys the GOP Presidential candidates and concludes that the race won't have a clear conservative candidate and points to Romney or McCain as the frontrunners.  Joe Trippi looks at the Democrat field for The Post and urges readers not to write off Gore in a contest where Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are currently exciting the pundits:

"In a party that tends to treat its past nominees like lepers, Gore has done an amazing job of reemerging as an important thought leader on issues such as the Iraq war and global warming. If he throws his hat into the ring, he will immediately suck all the oxygen out of the room for most of the other candidates. The media won't be able to stop doing the Hillary vs. Al 800-pound-gorillas-go-at-it stories. Everyone but Obama will be reduced to begging for attention."

Trippi, who was the technological mastermind behind Dean's insurgent candidacy, also makes this fascinating prediction:

"I'm going to make one bold prediction about 2008: Thanks to changes in communications and technology, one of the candidates on my list will raise $500 million, almost all of it from ordinary citizens contributing less than $100 each. Don't believe it? Wait and see. It'll happen, and we'll witness the birth of a new progressive era that could last a generation or more."

My own belief is that Trippi is right about the potential of many $100 donors but why should they give to the Democrats or the GOP, for that matter?  Why not fund an independent campaign... particularly if the main parties nominate dull candidates?

In the Los Angeles Times Frederick Kagan, long an advocate of bigger troop deployments in Iraq, reflects on Rumsfeld's six years as Defence Secretary, and concludes that his efforts at technological transformation of the military have heavily compromised the Iraqi effort.