Shock Therapy for the GOP?

Will the McCain's selection of Palin shock the Republican Party out of its current funk and toward a better future - regardless of the ticket's ultimate success or failure on election day?

He has forced the Republicans to look into their souls and ask if they are serious about reform, open government, and reduced spending. He will force them to more strongly move behind those positions as they angle to support his campaign over the next few months. I get the feeling that McCain may have gone some way toward wresting the mantle of the Republican party away from its Old Guard. If that proves to be the case, then McCain has helped the GOP regardless of whether or not he wins the election.

Update:

James Poulos' article in the Guardian neatly summarizes the strength of Palin in rejuvenating a badly damaged Republican Party. The key point to remember: Palin is NOT there as simply a cynical ploy to pull disaffected Hillary voters away from Obama. If anything, it is a more skilled maneuver to wrest the mantle of change from Obama:

Palin has the opportunity to recast the 2008 election entirely — by proving that freshness and unpreparedness for office are not synonyms, and that Democrats do not have the corner on our broad, deep hopes for political revitalisation. Just as Obama brilliantly selected Biden to connect the ticket to the Democratic party of the pre- and post-Clinton years, McCain made the savvy and humane decision to connect his ticket to the years that bracket the Republicans' sorry Bush/DeLay era.

As such, Palin, like Biden, is a victory for all America, and the beginnings of a promise that — young or old, Republican or Democrat — American leaders have the capacity to renovate their country's dysfunctional politics without waging a scorched-earth culture war.

Personally, I'm enjoying watching McCain jam his thumb in the eye of the GOP's DC Establishment...and forcing them to applaud him for it as they head into the RNC.

Conservatism, Progressivism, and the future

I agree with Patrick on his basic premise that looking to historical precedence won't help - Industrial Age solutions are often entirely inappropriate for the Information Age. And I agree that, in many ways, the strength of the Republican Party in recent decades has been centered on the fact that it has been MORE progressive than the self-proclaimed "Progressives" - who, indeed, want to "progress" right back to some time in the late 30s.

In fact, the more I listen to the rhetoric coming from the Democratic side of the Presidential race this year, the more I am convinced that, taken as a whole, the Democratic Party has very little to do with “Progressivism” and very much to do with “Conservatism.”

Call it the natural result of poorly advised populism mixed with the the general Democratic view of the institutions they must support in order to win elections. Rather than looking for new solutions to the rising problems within America (ever higher energy prices based on global economic expansion, spiraling health care costs, and the new reality of a global talent pool), the current populist message that much of the Democratic establishment has gravitated toward looks backward and promises a return to a mythical golden age that apparently existed somewhere after the implementation of the New Deal and ended some time after the election of Ronald Reagan. But, of course, skipped the 50s (when that icky Eisenhower was in office) and the late 60s/early 70s (Nixon...more ick). Yes, it returned during the 90s (never mind the fact that much of that prosperity turned out to be illusory, built upon the faux-growth of the dot-com boom)...but, of course, vanished with the rise of the icky Bush II presidency.

By hearkening back to a system that was only feasible during the post-war years when other world economies struggled to recover from the ravages of that titanic struggle, the so-called “Progressive” movement (or at least those who jump on the mainstream Dem bandwagon), presents solutions that are infeasible given the realities of today. Reinforcing the current health care system that depends on employer coverage will not work - it will only clog the labor market.

Trying to produce a government-run program will create the same cost inefficiencies that Western European governments are currently struggling with. Money poured into health care solutions that will only grow more expensive will reduce the money available for addressing our current problems with truly progressive solutions. Progressive, AFFORDABLE, health care solutions will take a fundamentally different mindset. Most importantly, it will take greater commoditization of routine care (something that both the AMA and ADA will fight viciously). It will take much greater transparency in pricing and performance of doctors, clinics, and hospitals. It will likely take a hybrid coverage system that relies predominantly on individually purchased plans that look more like HSAs than the typical plan used by employers today combined with some degree of government-subsidized coverage for those who don’t have the cash available to fund HSA-type plans.

Unless health care is made more affordable - and I mean for the nation as a whole not merely for individuals deceived by the promise of a single payer system - there will not be enough federal money available for addressing the other problems our country is faced with today.

And I think that's where I diverge from Patrick - in two fundamental respects. Firstly, it seems obvious to me that there is a need for federal action on several fronts - even if that action is simply changing federal expectations for issues like how people will work and how they will get health care in the future. So, from that perspective, there is a need for aggressive national-level action.

Secondly, I disagree with his notion that the American workforce, as a whole, is ready to grab on to the idea of a free agent nation. Yes, the vanguard of the knowledge worker economy is heading that way or already there. But that's a small percentage of folks. It's gonna take a lot of convincing to get any sort of sizeable proportion of the population to look that far forward. And it's going to take some federal action to provide safety nets before the masses will be willing to step out into that future. I'd like to think that Mr. Brooks is addressing that fundamental truth in HIS article. He is right in stating that the price of energy is very likely not going to return to a level that will allow us, as a country, to sustain our current infrastructure. That means our current reliance on cars, our routine use of air travel, our power consumption within homes, and our reliance on large trucks as a critical node in our logistics infrastructure. Addressing this paradigm shift will take considerable federal action. It will require much greater reliance on public transportation, telecommuting, high speed rail, and individual energy conservation on a scale we have seen very little of to date. In order for any of these initiatives to advance, federal resources will be required to ensure state and local programs fit into a larger national strategy and federal power will be required to stand up to those who would defend the status quo in order to protect their current interests.

And this is where it gets tough...

Stability operations take a long time. Counterinsurgency campaigns against aggressive enemies - with extensive safe areas in neighboring countries - take even longer in terms of time and even more in terms of blood and treasure. Western troops are the only troops trained and equipped to have any hope for success in most of these operations...but Western nations don't have the stomach for hard fights any more:

"...American military planners acknowledge that the war is becoming a tough sell: How do you persuade reluctant European governments with staunchly pacifist populations to dispatch frontline troops across the globe to fight such indistinct campaigns as the cat-and-mouse battle against the resurgent Taliban?"

Probably not a particularly good time in history to lose one's stomach for hard fights. It will be interesting to see if more desperate times ahead lead to more desperate measures - like an expansion of roles and responsibilities given to private military companies since few of the forces left in the EU can actually muster much more than a few battalions of infantry hamstrung by government regulations that stretch from the top of the political structure down to the private on patrol.

Trouble signs as Obama closes in - The Boston Globe

Yep. Clinton's refusal to accept she had lost the race by the end of February has created the conditions where a large body of Democratic voters are now conditioned to accept that Obama does not represent them.  So now the question will become this: how much can Billary control this "hard working WHITE Americans!" monster they have created. They've used it to achieve great evil within the Democratic party. Can it be used for Democratic "good?" Jury is still very much out, I think. 

My guess would be putting Hillary on the ticket will not help Obama in the long run - although all of Clinton's efforts for the last week or two seem bent toward ensuring he can only use their monster if they permit it. I don't think such a large body of voters is so easy to control, though. By ANYone.

I'll be honest...

I'm not sure what Baer really has going for him other than his ability to write a book (which I, admittedly, have not read). His perspective on AQ in Iraq, as displayed in this Time article, isn't BAD, but it's largely the same as the official perspective within the American institutions that he slams for not getting it. Over the course of the last year, the US military and much of the intelligence establishment have gotten much better at understanding insurgency and counterinsurgency (has it been because they've really felt like they were up against the clock? Has it been enough people with on the ground experience finally ascending to the proper levels to influence key decisions? I dunno. Probably a mix). This increase in savvy has flummoxed the punditocracy who made their living off sounding like they knew more than the actual practitioners. 

Oops! Shoe's on the other foot now and all these guys are struggling to redefine their core message as American efforts prove surprisingly successful. In Baer's case, it's pretending that AQI wasn't a huge destabilizing force within Iraq (regardless of size) and pretending that general chaos and the disempowerment of Sunnis DIDN'T offer AQ a powerful tool for recruiting worldwide. 

AQI has been pushed to near-strategic defeat in Iraq both because its way of thinking has been proven ineffective - by OUR efforts - and because a whole lot of key terrorist leaders have been killed by an effective network attack campaign waged by American Special Operations forces.

To turn a blind eye toward AQ's former strength in Iraq - or its value as a recruiting tool is a sure sign that it is the pundits - and not the practitioners - who are far less interested in "lessons learned" from our post-9/11 experiences. You know, those experiences that have created this particular punditocracy in the first place....

Killings of Police Threaten Mexico’s War on Drugs - NYTimes.com

It would appear that, for the most part, Mexico is dealing with something nearly on the same level as Iraq - a fractured insurgency with too many small centers of gravity to be uprooted by single strikes; a corrupt police force that makes it difficult to effectively execute long term counter-insurgency strategy, and a general misunderstanding among those at the tip of the spear on how to actually generate the information required to destroy (rather than disrupt) dispersed networks.  These are challenges the US has only begun to overcome in Iraq over the past year or so. It'll be interesting to see how Mexico is able to cope without the sort of resources with which we have provided the Iraqi government.

I would be interested to see the nature of the training that is being provided by US funds. Does it focus solely on the tactical aspects of raids? Is it deeper than that? Does it incorporate lessons learned from our experiences in Iraq?

The Progress he chooses to ignore

Interesting quote from a story in the NY Times today that addresses decreasing media coverage of both Iraq and Afghanistan:

"But the tactical success of the surge should not be misconstrued as making Iraq a safer place for American soldiers. Last year was the bloodiest in the five-year history of the conflict, with more than 900 dead, and last month, 52 perished, making it the bloodiest month of the year so far. So far in May, 18 have died."

Right! Great point! Only, um, tactical success HAS made Iraq a safer place for American soldiers. From September of 07 when US forces lost 65 soldiers, casualties have dropped precipitously, averaging a little over 36 (not counting May - which appears to be on track as a month with the fewest American fatalities since the start of the war - with the possible exception of Feb 2004). All this while American soldiers have more aggressively worked outside of their protected FOBs, interacted much more deeply with Iraqi citizens as well as Iraqi security forces. Since the drop off in Sep 07, IED events have dropped significantly, violence in Anbar has largely vanished, and casualties (such as those suffered last month) are much more attributable to specific campaigns - in the case of April, a focused campaign to reduce the power of the most radical militias associated with Muqtada al Sadr.

Of course, the other issue that no one seems to want to cover too deeply is how many of the increased casualties from April came as a result of greater assistance provided by Iran. In fact, as American casualties have dropped over the past few months, Iranian efforts to generate greater instability have noticeably increased - and often become less covert.

There is a fundamental truth associated with this reduction in media interest in Iraq...the truth is that - despite a very heavy cost to the individuals - American combat forces in Iraq, built on the idea of volunteerism and steeped in the experiences of multiple tours, have developed an affinity for counter-insurgency that very few believed possible. Even in the early days when individual commanders knew what they were supposed to say about COIN, their troops, by and large, didn't get it. We had a force primarily designed for kinetic action. The talk of a LTC or COL did not affect the actions of PV2 or SPC4 fighting in the streets. That's changed now. The truly savvy counterinsurgents exist at every level. They understand the strategic impact of tactical actions. They know you can't simply kill your way out of an insurgency.

None of this, of course, makes for very good copy. Soldiers who are careful about what they say to the press aren't of as much interest. Since most media sources are always looking for stories that can focus on failure, there is substantially less interest in covering success. So reporting resources are shifted to areas that seem likely to garner better ratings and the situation in Iraq improves without the benefits of the sort of mass coverage that existed as the situation deteriorated. In many ways, that's a shame. But I'd rather see coverage continue to decline if that decline remains associated with improving conditions on the ground....

Living your own life

Hm...perhaps a better title would have been, "Say hello to Mrs. Mitty, ready to pretend on Day One." Anyway...

I think Hitchens touches on what bothers me so much about Clinton's pretend experience in Bosnia:

I remember disembarking at the Sarajevo airport in the summer of 1992 after an agonizing flight on a U.N. relief plane that had had to "corkscrew" its downward approach in order to avoid Serbian flak and ground fire. As I hunched over to scuttle the distance to the terminal, a mortar shell fell as close to me as I ever want any mortar shell to fall. The vicious noise it made is with me still. And so is the shock I felt at seeing a civilized and multicultural European city bombarded round the clock by an ethno-religious militia under the command of fascistic barbarians....

I am recalling these two things for a reason. First, and even though I admit that I did once later misidentify a building in Sarajevo from a set of photographs, I can tell you for an absolute certainty that it would be quite impossible to imagine that one had undergone that experience at the airport if one actually had not [emphasis mine].

Although Hitchens goes on to describe the other, shall we say, problems associated with Hillary claiming Bosnia as proof of her "commander-in-chief" credentials, it is her claim to have risked her life when she so clearly DID NOT that bothers me. I have been shot at. I have had up close and personal experiences with Sadr's militia. Those experiences are seared in my memory. I do not misspeak about them (although I inaccurately judged how many bullets had struck my vehicle...I hope you can cut me some slack on that one). Clinton did not misspeak about her experiences either. She LIED about a subject that only charlatans choose to lie about - and that is putting one's life on the line. Drop out already, Hillary. And take your pretend-experience along with you.

Hillary Clinton, the angel on Bad Bill's shoulder...

From Obsidian Wings:

Bill Clinton claims that Hillary Clinton urged him to intervene militarily in Rwanda:

And then, using a more somber tone, he explained that she had wanted the United States to intervene in Rwanda in 1994, when hundreds of thousands of people died in a genocide that lasted just a few months.

Clinton has often said that not acting in Rwanda was one of his biggest regrets. It's a decision, he said, for which he continues to try to make amends. Had he listened to his wife, Clinton said, things might have been different.

"I believe if I had moved we might have saved at least a third of those lives," he said. "I think she clearly would have done that."

When Hillary Clinton was asked whether this was true, she said "It is."

Uh-huh. I can see it now...

Here's what I don't get...

The Colombian government has been locked in conflict with the FARC for decades. They are beginning to make the sort of progress that might finally bring some degree of resolution to the conflict...and suddenly the negotiation for release of a few hostages (as important as they certainly are to their families and friends) is being held up as a higher priority than neutralizing the FARC (you know...the guys responsible for taking hostages in the first place...

The biggest losers in Reyes' death appeared to be the hostages the rebels want to swap for jailed guerrillas.

You don't suppose that, perhaps, the biggest losers in Reyes' death might just be the FARC, do you?

France's foreign ministry said Uribe knew France was communicating directly with Reyes in an attempt to secure the release of former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French national who has become a cause celebre in Europe.

The rebels said Tuesday that Reyes died "completing a mission to arrange, through President Chavez, a meeting with (French) President (Nicolas) Sarkozy" aimed at securing Betancourt's release. Correa claimed his government, too, was talking to the FARC about securing freedom for hostages. He alleged Reyes' killing stymied those efforts.

Because the safety of a hostage - who is a cause celebre in Europe, after all(!) certainly takes priority over the security and stability of an entire country locked in a long term guerrilla war, right?

Last week, the FARC released four hostages to Venezuela's justice minister, who said the Colombian raid proved the "intent of the fascist Colombian government is to hamper the handover of hostages."

At least I can understand this sort of talk from the FARC. They just got served an atomic wedgie from the Colombian military...they're obligated to put SOME sort of PR spin on it.

Correa suggested that the raid was aimed at blocking any release of hostages. Though offering no proof, Correa said he agreed with speculation that Colombia "killed him (Reyes) to prevent a deal for the liberation of the hostages from going forward."

You suppose Correa would have the same attitude if it was HIS government locked in a prolonged counterinsurgency campaign...?