Mr. Murtha: Blogs One, Right-wing Goons Zero Posted by Lorelei Kelly

If the blogs have their way, the Right's political goonsquad will have to fight in the cyber-gutter before getting their screeds into the regular media. Last week, left leaning blogs were afire with the news that a seamy team of operatives was purchasing a domain name (murthalied.com) and getting ready to smear Congressman John Murtha-- using tactics similar to the Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth" (my quotes). Yes, those of the scornful purple band-aids at the GOP convention--mocking Senator Kerry's service (a display that so angered my veteran father that he swore off the GOP for life).  Here are some of the links that give background on this impending assault. Raw Story and the Agonist provide overview and context while Taylor Marsh ties it to Members of Congress and their staff. A Kos contributor rounds it off with some creepy tie-ins to international arms dealing.  And who is supposed to benefit from this electronic mud wrestle? The person running against Mr. Murtha in November.

Say you come across one of these goons and he or she starts talking smarmy about Mr. Murtha's service record. Here's what you say in response:

Are you calling the military incompetent, awarding ribbons to those who don't deserve them?

Do you realize that you are are tainting every servicemember's medals, by suggesting that their medals might be fraudulently awarded?

Then you say: Well, you can believe what you like, but I BELIEVE THE MARINE CORPS.

A Note to Muslims: Stop Saying Crazy Things Posted by Shadi Hamid

I was quietly sipping coffee and checking my mail when I stumbled upon what I, initially, found to be an interesting and relatively inocuous article, the kind that Muslims always send to each other on Muslim listservs because it makes us feel "good," or at least mildy validated.

It's a fairly long piece. And apparently Laurie Goodstein likes to include the whoppers at the end of her articles, and preferably nestled in the very last paragraph. The article talks about two American Muslim clerics, Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir. They are "traditionalists." Traditionalists are usually consistent in condemning Islamic extremism and terrorism and seem to evince a sincere hatred of Bin Laden, Zarqawi, and their ilk. That's the good news. On the other hand, they are deeply suspicious of Western liberalism and pretty much all the foundational tenets of post-enlightenment thought. They are not liberals and they are not democrats. They are often - I'm not sure what else to call it - absolutists.

In any case, here's the part which awoke me from my stupor (also known as the WTF effect):

He [Zaid Shakir] said he still hoped that one day the United States would be a Muslim country ruled by Islamic law, "not by violent means, but by persuasion." "Every Muslim who is honest would say, I would like to see America become a Muslim country," he said. "I think it would help people, and if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be a Muslim. Because Islam helped me as a person, and it's helped a lot of people in my community."

I had to read it over, because I couldn't believe that a mainstream American Muslim leader would say something so stupid and, well, frightening. It's one thing for him to believe that America should be ruled by Islamic law. It is altogether another for him to imply that all "honest" Muslims believe the same thing. As such, it is incumbent upon moderate Muslims who believe in freedom, democracy, and the US constitution to repudiate such remarks. My God, what's up with Western Muslims wanting to be ruled by shariah? I'm curious, though, how non-Muslims interpret Shakir's remarks. Feel free to post your comments or email me directly with your thoughts.

Using the World Cup to Think About World Politics Posted by Heather Hurlburt

To distract myself from the actual play, not to mention my gainful employment and willful toddler, I've compiled the following (with a bow for inspiration, and later a bow for content, to the very fun volume The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup:

Five Lessons in GeoPolitics the World Cup 2006 Can Teach Us

1.  Iraqis can't watch the Cup, and this isn't good.  NPR's solid reporting lays out, in a very empirical way, the things that have gone wrong with reconstruction and how they affect the average soccer-mad Iraqi -- no decent tv coverage, people can't afford satellite tv or generators or fuel -- or the wait in lines for fuel.  TVs cut out in cafes.  Generators break.  Curfews and insecurity prevent travel.  And this in what should be a wealthy oil-producing nation.  NPR further points out that fixing some of these things before the Cup, and explicitly for the Cup, would've been quite a PR gesture.  But oh well.  (See also number 5 below)

2.  Stadium Boondoggles Are a Universal Language.  Proving that the "cabinet in exile" has a sense of humor, the good people at the Center for American Progress have done a paper looking at the value of hosting a World Cup, or lack thereof, to the nation's economy.  Fear not, Ms. Merkel.  It should pick up next year.

3.  How Do We Rate?  No, not Team USA.  The Thinking Fan's Guide has a great section of statistical comparisons of the 32 nations competing.  USA "wins" in several categories:  GDP, land area and population, but also televisions per capita, executions, and prisoners per capita.  Quick, which entrant has the most tractors per capita?  the highest military expenditure per capita?  the highest population growth rate?  (the last at least perhaps a signal of future success?)  Click through below to find out.

4.  Is there a "Two Nations With McDonalds Don't Fight Each Other" Rule for the World Cup?  New Republic editor Franklin Foer explores what system of government it takes to win the Cup.  Since his publisher has thoughtlessly not put this gem on-line for me to exploit, let me summarize:  Communism will get you into the tournament but not through the final.  Fascism ain't what it used to be.  Nobody has won the Cup while commiting genocide or preparing to do so.  Being an oil-producing nation or in the throes of neo-liberal economic reforms is also a killer.  (Does either of these explain the US performance, I wonder?)  Other things being equal, colonizers defeat the formerly-colonized.  Military dictatorship is a good way to go, but produces lemons as well as champions -- your best bet is social democracy, apparently.

5.  I was going to write here that, whatever you said about the US performance today, they couldn't be accused of over-aggressiveness a la our current Administration.  But then I read the following on ESPN's World Cup blog:

Arena looked crushed in the postmatch conference. Said the right things. But one always senses that his hardest job has been convincing a highly confident team that they're not as good as they think they are, while also protecting them from situations that would expose their weaknesses.

Hmmm.

Check out quiz answers below.

Actual Strength -- Live-Blogging III Posted by Michael Signer

Ted Sorensen gets up to introduce Congressman Jim Leach of Iowa, and while Sorensen is physically shaky and a little slow to get up on the podium, his mind and speech are as sharp and steady as the podium itself. A couple of select lines from a short intro that has the audience rolling in the aisles.

"Don't worry about my vision -- I've got more than the President of the United States."

"There are more formers here than on a Jack Abramoff witness list."

And then Sorensen moves into a quieter, more contemplative section, talking about the need for insurgent, liberal, independent Republicans along the lines of John Norris of Nebraska (outlined by JFK in Profiles of Courage), and presented today by Leach -- who Sorensen says is basically the only example of a liberal Republican left in the House.

The Emperor Has No Clothes Award Posted by Heather Hurlburt

goes to Lael Brainard, global economic policy whiz at Brookings.  I've always thought Lael was one of the most impressive people in Washington, and she just came out and put something so wonderfully bluntly:

Let's admit that competitive liberalization has failed.  APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) is basically dead, the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) is not doing so well, Doha is on life-support.

What this means for you non-trade wonks is that we've given up on the idea that we can be an engine for trade moving forward regionally all over the world -- and have moved to a bilateral modeel of moving trade forward only as and when it suits us.  Sound like other areas of policy?

Power and Superpower: The Global Market is Outrunning the Nation-State Posted by Heather Hurlburt

I'm listening to a range of folks comment on the dilemmas of globalization -- kudos to CAP/SPI for putting as varied a group as trade whiz Dan Tarullo, economist Lael Brainard, left commentator Bob Kuttner, UNDP Secretary-General Kemal Devis and former head of EPA Carol Browner on the same panel.  That's the kind of breadth that progressives need to be bringing to discussions of globalization, and too often don't -- it's either trade wonks, or anti-trade activists, or enviros, or development experts...

But in fact the global market is hardly the only thing that has outrun the nation-state.  Military power has outrun the nation-state (see under:  terrorism).  Control of information has outrun the nation-state.  humanitarianism has outrun the nation-state.  Disease has outrun the nation-state.  Heck, nationalism has outrun the nation-state.

This is what's fundamentally wrong with the neo-cons' idea of how our super-power state can run the world.  But what is the model for thinking about this new world without surrendering either to something very Hobbesian OR goo-goo sounding world government?

I Found My Favorite Evangelical (or, why I think Mike Huckabee is very, very interesting) Posted by Shadi Hamid

I heart Huckabees. Yes, I just discovered the film a few nights ago and in some weird, probably meaningless coincidence, I just discovered Mike Huckabee, the governor of Arkansas. I now declare Mr. Huckabee to be my favorite evangelical (which I suppose isn't saying much considering the competition). One of the recurring themes in my posts has been that politicians have to stop hiring pollsters and start having convictions and saying offbeat, quirky, impassioned, interesting, and innovative things. Yes, this is risky, but Joe Klein has spoken. Moreover, a lot of people seem to agree with him (I do). Mike Huckabee is riding the wave of authenticity and, unlike many – dare I say – Democrats, it seems relatively uncontrived. Good for him. Here's a sampler from a recent interview:

There are a lot of people in the Republican Party who think that there is this total disconnect between fiscal responsibility and social responsibility, and I've said for a long time that I've never matched it up quite like that. But these are not opponents. These are really elements that work together. I think sometimes, if anything, I get in trouble with my party because I've also spoken a lot about that we can't ignore poverty, we can't ignore the lack of health care...

And in a provocative argument that has some interesting, if potentially problematic policy implications, Huckabee points out the causal link between poverty and divorce:

Divorce is one of the key predictors of poverty for a child growing up in a home that's broken. Without making any judgments about the value or rightness or wrongness of it, it's an economic fact that when children are involved in a divorce they are more likely to end up spending part of their childhood in poverty than if they have a two-parent household.

It appears that at least one leading Republican finally figured out that Jesus cares about poor people. Thank God.

Harry S. Bush? Posted by Derek Chollet

Speaking yesterday in Chicago, President Bush returned to an historical analogy that he has used often during the past few months: Harry S. Truman.  “One thing history teaches,” the President said, “if you look back at some of the written word when Harry Truman had the vision of helping [Japan] recover from the war and become a democracy, a lot of people were saying, it's a waste of his time; hopelessly idealistic, they would say. But he had faith in certain fundamental truths.”

Bush and his team often harken back to the late 1940s and early 1950s to suggest that the new challenges facing America since September 11 are comparable to those that faced Truman -- and more important, that the quality of leadership to meet these challenges is the same.  Each president had to deal with a new threat to the American homeland, and each developed a new American strategic doctrine – containment in 1947, preemption in 2002.  (Jim Goldgeier and I critique this comparison in detail in this summer’s issue of The American Interest)

The appeal of the metaphor is easy to understand.  They want to believe that like Truman, whose popularity ratings were also in the toilet at the end of his term (and whose party got whipped in the 1950 midterm elections), Bush will one day be vindicated by history – that Iraq will turn out to be a stable democracy in the Middle East as Germany and Japan became in Europe and Asia in the 1950s, and that preemption will stand with containment as a brilliant strategy to combat a new enemy.

It is true that Harry Truman is far more beloved today than when he left office, and that he is now considered to be one of America’s greatest presidents, much admired for his folksy style and decisive, gutsy leadership.  Bush likes to call himself the “decider,” and with Truman, everyone knew where the buck stopped.  And Bush very much hopes that, like Truman, he will one day prove the naysayers wrong.

Chasing Authenticity Posted by Michael Signer

I unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) can't write too much today, as I've gotten a little derailed at my day job, but wanted to chime in briefly on the very interesting debate about Joe Klein's new book.  I haven't read Klein's book, but it seems like one of those books you really don't have to read to understand. 

His thesis, summarized in this Time piece, is that politics has been ruined by think-inside-the-box consultants who take away Al Gore's passion for the environment, John Kerry's antiwar positions, and, to extend the logic, Bob Dole's humor.  His peroration that concludes the piece is stirring:

I hate predictions. Most pundits, like most pollsters, get their information by looking in the rearview mirror. But let me give 2008 a try. The winner will be the candidate who comes closest to this model: a politician who refuses to be a "performer," at least in the current sense. Who speaks but doesn't orate. Who never holds a press conference on or in front of an aircraft carrier. Who doesn't assume the public is stupid or uncaring. Who believes in at least one major idea, or program, that has less than 40% support in the polls. Who can tell a joke—at his or her own expense, if possible. Who gets angry, within reason; gets weepy, within reason ... but only if those emotions are real and rare. Who isn't averse to kicking his or her opponent in the shins but does it gently and cleverly. Who radiates good sense, common decency and calm. Who is not afraid to deliver bad news. Who is not afraid to admit a mistake. And who, above all, abides by the motto that graced Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Oval Office: let unconquerable gladness dwell.

Good as it sounds, though, there are problems with all of this.

Five Thoughts on Immigration and National Security Posted by Heather Hurlburt

1.  Americans see immigration as a national security issue.  There's no debate except among foreign-policy types who don't want to deal with it.  Check the polls (2006) and polls (2003).

2.  Control of our borders is a national security issue.  But, er, it's our northern borders where terrorists have been apprehended -- or not -- in recent years.  And nobody has suggested calling out the national guard to cover the long, lightly guarded land borders in Washington State -- where we know people have come across to try to commit acts of terrorism -- or elsewhere.  What should be done?  Who is going to do it?  How much will it cost?

3.  The role and mission of the National Guard is a national security issue.  CNN found that three-quarters of those who viewed President Bush's Oval Office address on immigration supported the proposal to put 6,000 Guard troops on the border.  Unfortunately, he doesn't appear to have consulted with the relevant governors first -- where are those Guard troops going to come from?  Is this part of a comprehensive re-orienting of the Guard's role to such missions, and away from expectations of duty in places like Iraq, as CSIS's Michele Fluornoy and others have been advocating?  Or is it just one more item on our "you fix it, military" to-do list?

4.  World perceptions of the US on this issue are a national security issue.  I'll just quote John McCain (no, not at Liberty University): 

"Any real solution in the U.S. must start with a view of immigrants as individuals in possession of certain basic human rights, and as an economically and culturally revitalizing force... In such questions of values, it is imperative that we hold ourselves to a standard at least as high, and surely higher, than we hold everyone else."

5.  Efficacy is a national security issue.  Americans need to recapture the sense that our government -- whether it's Bush and a GOP-dominated Congress this year, Bush and a not-so-GOP-dominated Congress next year, or somebody else and his/her Congress in '09 -- can carry through on certain basic tasks.  Who's going to seize the baton on that one?