The Strange Dementia of Chris Shays, Part II Posted by Shadi Hamid

It appears that Chris Shays is pulling a Lieberman and declaring his independence from all recognized forms of reasoned debate, sanity, and rationality. I didn't think that the beleaguered congressman from Connecticut could do any worse than last week's apology for torture. It appears that I have been proven wrong. I suppose that we may yet be closer to a diagnosis: Chris Shays is slightly deranged. I suspect it might be worse.

Let me also say that I feel bad picking on Shays two weeks in a row, but there comes a point where politicians become so separated from reality, that you really begin to wonder what went wrong and how it went wrong.

Olbermann and Buchanan: Left, Right and Sound Advice Posted by Lorelei Kelly

I'm travelling this week, so this will be short and eclectic. We're taking our first trip with our nine week old baby to see his New England cousins. (This explains also why I've been so flakey posting lately, my apologies) I was so entranced by 3 a.m. Senate hearings on CSPAN that I couldn't do much else.

First, kudos to Keith Olbermann. He blisters the administration  and their "talk to the hand" treatment of the constitution, the founding fathers, and millions of Americans with the signing of the Military Commissions Act. I've been so upset by this bill that I've started a netflix anarchy list. So far I've re-watched Fight Club, Brazil and V for Vendetta. Suggestions welcome.

I had a good discussion with a sailor last weekend and he told me about a new organization  for members of the active duty military who want to protest the Iraq war. Military professionals have rigid restrictions on their ability to talk publicly about policy, and don't have the same constitutional right to express themselves as civilians do. Yet there are specific ways to speak out. Rights under the U.S. Constitution, laws passed by Congress, and the military's own regulations provide direction for those who want to voice an opinion about what's going on in Iraq. Here is the website of this movement. Here's a link to "Sir! No Sir!" -- a film that documents similar actions during VietNam.

Finally, a network for security progressives-- the National Security Network -- is up and running. It seeks to bridge the divide between the foreign policy experts and politicians in Washington aka "wonks" and local community leaders and the general public.
An affiliated organization provides a communications hub where you can sign up and discuss ideas.

And in recognition of how wacky politics have become, I'm going to end with an entire article on the U.S.-North Korea policy impasse by Pat Buchanan. I can't believe I'm saying this. But it's is pretty sound advice.

Media Matters Posted by Michael Signer

If you don't already, put Media Matters on your bookmark list and RSS feed.  It was started with the help of former right-wing hit-man David Brock and apparently has some Democracy Alliance money.  It's a fascinating and energetic new effort at doing to the right what the right has done to the left for a couple of decades now -- put them on the defensive for media bias.

A couple of highlights from today's posts:

(1)  They note that both ABC and CNN reported on President Bush saying during his press conference yesterday that Bill Clinton's North Korea policy "didn't work" -- but that the reporters failed to report the fact that plutonium production stopped during the Clinton presidency.  Here's their summary:

The AP's Terence Hunt and NBC News' David Gregory both reported President Bush's "veiled swipe" at the Clinton administration's North Korea policy, in which Bush said, "I appreciate the efforts of previous administrations. It just didn't work." But neither noted that, following the Clinton administration's signing of the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea, that country did not produce any plutonium until 2002, when the Bush administration abandoned the agreement.

(2)  They observe that network news faithfully carried President Bush's new talking points that he was "open" to change in Iraq -- but failed to note that he has maintained his inflexibility on troop withdrawal, perhaps the most important actual policy to most Americans today.  Here's their summary:

ABC, NBC, and CBS reported that, during a recent press conference, President Bush stated that he is "open" to changing the administration's Iraq war policy, but did not note that, during that same press conference, Bush reiterated his claim that the United States will not "leave before the job is done."

This is a powerfully helpful addition to the media landscape.  We should all pay attention to what they have to say -- particularly in the closing weeks of the current campaign.

Thank God for Our Antiquated Institutions Posted by Shadi Hamid

I’ve decided to finally get through all of Sam Huntington’s classic work (before he went bonkers) – Political Order in Changing Societies. Here’s one passage that stands out not because it is particularly original, but because it conveys just how lucky we are to have the unique and somewhat antiquated institutional structure which the founding fathers devised for us (and which has proven surprisingly and fortunately resilient). In other words, if we were living in Britain (where there is no separation of powers) and Bush happened to speak in a British accent, we’d probably find ourselves much closer to tyranny than we currently are. 

The passion of the Founding Fathers for the divison of power, for setting ambition against ambition, for creating a constitution with a complicated system of balances exceeding that of any other is, of course, well known. Everything is bought at a price, however, and as many Englishmen have pointed out, one apparent price of the divison of power is governmental inefficiency. "The English consitution, in a word," [Walter] Bagehot argued, "is framed on the principle of choosing a single sovereign authority, and making it good: the American, upon the principle of having many sovereign authorities, and hoping that their multitude may atone for their inferiority." (p. 111)

God bless America.

Check-Bouncing Then, Mark Foley Now? Posted by Michael Signer

I've been sitting here for an un-blog-like amount of time (well over 20 minutes) trying to figure out what to write on foreign affairs and having no luck -- not because there isn't a lot going on, whether in Iraq or with the revelations that Dr. Strangelove is again running American foreign policy.  But, rather, my writer's block is coming from the strange, dizzying, Foley feeling a lot of political watchers are experiencing right now.  The oxygen has literally been sucked out of the blogosphere.  Man, this story has legs.

As any PS 101 student knows, it's extremely hard to unseat incumbents.  The only thing that will do it, en masse, is a scandal that emotionally crystallizes for voters, in a very generic and immediate way, a sense of outrage that can be applied to any old incumbent, with electoral effects. 

I've been trying to do some research on the most analogous event in recent history, which was the check-bouncing scandal that engulfed Congress from 1990 to 1992. 

Pizza is the New Spaghetti Posted by Shadi Hamid

Can we stop comparing Islamic extremism/radical Islamism/or whatever else we might wish to call it to Western ideologies. I understand the temptation to make the unfamiliar seem familiar but, in the wrong hands, such comparisons obscure much more than they clarify. In a recent interview, Niall Ferguson, scoffs at “Islamism is the new fascism,” but then tells us that Islamism is the new Marxism. Fine, I can understand where he’s going with this, but what, ultimately, does it really mean to say that radical Islamism = Lenin plus the Koran? It’s sort of like saying spaghetti is like pizza. Yes, they both have sauce and I personally like to sprinkle as much parmesan cheese as possible on both. But then what? Sometimes, comparisons, even if they make some degree of sense, are quite pointless. As Daniel Drezner suggests, why can’t we just understand political Islam and its various derivatives for what they actually are and not for what we would like to think they resemble?

Welcoming the Converts Posted by Shadi Hamid

Is it just me or is the Andrew Sullivan the most intellectually honest blogger/writer out there today? In a recent post, he flirts with the possibility of switching sides:

Well, we've had Reagan Democrats. And we've had Goldwater Republicans. Why not a new version: Goldwater Democrats? By Goldwater Democrats, I mean old-style libertarian conservatives who actually believe in fiscal responsibility, small government, prudent foreign policy and live-and-let-live social policy. After being told we are completely unwelcome among Republicans, should we shift to the Dems?

I have never thought of myself as a Democrat or left-liberal in any way. And there are plenty of people among Democrats I do not agree with at all. But it's getting to the point that the illiberal, authoritarian big government Christianism of the GOP makes me completely supportive of backing the Democrats this time around. My one reservation is, of course, spending. But at this point, could they be worse than the GOP? No Congress has been worse on spending than the current crew since FDR! The war? Again, at this point, we desperately need some check on an administration utterly without prudence or a capacity for self-correction.

If Andrew Sullivan and others like him would like to join the Democratic Party, then I say welcome. Not only that, I think the Democrats will be stronger for it. Apparently, Markos Moulitsas - another former Republican - is doing some outreach, taking names, and looking for converts in an article for Cato Unbound, titled "The Case for the Libertarian Democrat." So, Sullivan continues, taking his post to an interesting and perhaps inevitable conclusion:

And so I find myself in a very uneasy alliance with Markos Moulitsas, who writes the lead essay in the libertarian magazine Cato Unbound. Strange bedfellows. But these are strange times.

Islam, Andrew Sullivan and The Pope Posted by Shadi Hamid

Is it a coincidence that two of the most satisfying prose stylists are English? I suspect not. Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens are two writers that, political disagreements aside, are an unqualified joy to read. It is, therefore, somewhat unfortunate that both seem to stumble whenever they attempt to parse matters having to do with “Islam.” Hitchens, on this count, may be excused for he is an avowed secularist and atheist. I respect his consistency in disliking all religions equally. (With that said, Hitchens's recent criticism of Pope Benedict's pathetic speech and his perhaps more pathetic apologies are quite on target). There is, however, no reason why someone as perceptive as Andrew Sullivan - commenting on the Pope/Islam controversy - should feel compelled to write the following kinds of sentences:

[The Pope’s] essential point was the resistance of Islamic thought to Greek conceptions of reason. It is indeed the crux of the matter, and reveals how hard it will be for Islam to have the kind of reformation it needs if it is to become compatible with the rest of the modern world.

What in the world is Sullivan talking about? Even a cursory study of Islamic history would render such suppositions wildly off-base. It was, after all, Islamic scholars during the Abbasid era who revived Greek thought, incorporated it within the Islamic canon, and helped transfer it to Europe, a process which would lay the foundations of the renaissance to come. There is nothing inherent within Islam which makes it “irrational” or “unreasonable.” Here, Sullivan conflates a religious problem with a political one. The crisis of the modern Middle East is, first and foremost, one of a political nature. For example, if one wishes to explain the meteoric rise of Islamism in the 1970s, then one can find the source of this ideological shift in the aftermath of the Arab world’s crushing defeat to Israel in 1967. If you want to explain how Sayyid Qutb - who was once a dapper secular literary critic who wrote novels about the pains of love and romance (see Ashwak or Thorns) - became the intellectual godfather of a violent, extremist strain of Islam, then you need to understand how being brutally tortured in President Gamal Abdel Nasser's dungeons radicalized him and his followers (a lesson that the Bush administration appears wholly unaware of).

As I argued in a recent article, one has to make a careful distinction between political and religious imperatives:

Political reform leads to religious reform, not the other way around. Islamic thought and practice has been stifled by an undemocratic atmosphere in which Muslims are not exposed to the full diversity of opinions on issues of importance. Democracy, as Madeleine Albright argues in “A Realistic Idealism,” will “create a broader and more open political debate within Arab countries, exposing myths to scrutiny and extreme ideas to rebuttal.” In free societies, Arab liberals will finally be allowed to organize politically and communicate their ideas to a larger audience.

New Issue of Democracy Posted by Michael Signer

The second edition of the new journal Democracy has just been released.  The initial issue was covered intensely by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers and websites around the country. Maureen Dowd said they “might help the wretched Democrats stop driving on Ambien and snatch back a little power.”  David Broder hailed the first issue as “really impressive.”

The second issue includes provocative articles from a wide range of thinkers and writers from across the political spectrum:

 

The Passion of ... the Council on Foreign Relations Posted by Heather Hurlburt

The Council on Foreign Relations has been making some interesting new appointments this summer, perhaps none more intriguing than the juxtaposition of former Bush speechwriter and prominent evangelical Michael Gerson and former German foreign minister and 70s radical Joschka Fischer.

For a while I had wonderful visions of the conversations the two could have in the men's room, but alas, Gerson is staying in Washington, where his family is, while Fischer, who is also teaching at Princeton this semester, will be in New York.

Fischer and Gerson represent two continents, two generations, two rather different philosophies of government -- not to mention two contrasting lifestyles.  But I'd rather think about something they have in common -- something I'd like to hope maybe our friends at the Council would ask them to reason together about.

In many ways, Fischer and Gerson represent the 1990s and the 00s vision of the same ideal:  using the power of the state and the global community to promote democracy, peace and freedom beyond the borders where it has flourished on its own.  I might even provocatively say that this ideal shares important qualities of the vision our own Shadi Hamid put forward as a "democracy-centric" foreign policy.