Andrew Sullivan on the debate and foreign policy

Andrew Sullivan agrees that McCain won the debate. But he isn't too happy with what passes for foreign policy these days:

very little nuance, very little subtlety, almost no fresh thinking. Conservatism now means simply projecting something called "strength" rather than articulating something called strategy. On the question of thinking through the lessons of Iraq, they seemed frozen. On the question of Iran, they never seemed to include any understanding of what constraints Iraq has placed on us. Just bomb them and kill them and we'll "win". That was about as sophisticated as it got (with the modest exception of McCjavascript:void(0)
Publishain's endorsement of Petraeus). And these people seem more aware of the Islamist threat than the Democrats. That's the state of the country and those entrusted with its defense.

With regards to the Islamist threat, just substitute "are absolutely obsessed with and scared witless by" in the place of "seem more aware of" and I agree 100%.

On Giuliani Being a Loser

Below, DC noted that Rudy Giuliani was the loser of last night's debate. To be honest, I didn't catch the whole debate, but I did see at least one interesting moment that I think supports this conclusion.

Chris Matthews asked each candidate how he would be different from George W. Bush. While most candidates qualified their criticisms with veils of praise for our president, Giuliani made no criticism whatsoever. He basically said that history will remember Bush as one of the greats for starting to War on Terror.

He's gone too far. He doesn't know how to walk the fine line of sticking to his true opinions and trying to please the conservative base. As DC said, he continues to speak out in support of abortion rights, but at the same time, he refuses to criticize President Bush when given a golden opportunity to do so in a nationally televised debate. Did he think that conservatives would be happy with him because he had nothing bad to say about Bush? I tend to have little faith in conservatives (or at least in the brand represented by Bush loyalists), but I think they can see through such nonsense. Giuliani needs to work out his positions more. He's trying to conservatize himself in some areas (and is going too far), but he's remaining a moderate in others. Sorry, Rudolph: Republican primary voters won't have it both ways.

French election update: presidential debate

If you're bored with coverage of the Republican primary debate, you can check out what happened at yesterday's debate between the two remaining French presidential candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal, here, here, and here.

The winners (and the loser) in the Republican debate

Unlike the Democratic debate, I think this was a debate with clear winners and losers. One winner was John McCain, who turned in a vigorous performance, got the most laughs of the night, and delivered a forceful response to questions about his age. On Iraq he did about as well as he could, given that he’s defending an escalation of the war. He managed to distance himself from Bush by criticizing the mismanagement of the war. He also stood out by slamming pork barrel spending and vowing to clean spending bill, saving special criticism for cost overruns in military bills. (My only question: who exactly is going to “follow us home” from Iraq? The Shiites? The Sunnis? Al Qaeda? I think it’s clear that even if we pull out that neither the Shiites nor the Sunni militias would tolerate an al Qaeda mini-state in Iraq.) Nonetheless, a strong performance overall from the senator from Arizona.

The other winner was Mitt Romney. He just seemed presidential. As a Massachusetts native, I’m not a huge Romney fan. He ran for governor as a pro-choice, pro-gay rights moderate, and then flip-flopped to set up his run for president. But I will say this: he certainly is competent and charismatic, and it showed on stage. He did a great job defending the Massachusetts health care plan.

The big loser was Giuliani. His defense of a woman’s right to choose stuck out like a sore thumb in the Republican field. Props to him for not completely flip-flopping like Romney, but it’s going to hurt him. His more moderate positions might be an advantage in the general election but they sure aren’t here.

As for everyone else: Ron Paul did a good job representing the paleoconservative wing of the party. Tom Tancredo managed to differentiate himself on immigration without frothing at the mouth like he usually does. (Although I’m a little disturbed by how completely he conflates American and Israeli interests. I’m all for supporting an ally, but still… ). Tommy Thompson did a decent job, but how exactly does he think he’s going to implement his partition plan for Iraq? The Iraqis don’t want it, and last time I checked we handed control of the government back to them. None of the other candidates really stood out.

Overall, the level of the debate was higher than I expected, but I don't think the party-line conservatism supported by most of the candidates stands a chance against the Democrats come 2008.

Some predictions

Because bloggers have nothing better to do than make predictions about happenings that will be over in a mere matter of hours.

I am referring, of course, to the Republican Presidential debate tonight. I make no predictions about who will "win," because as with last week's Democratic debate, winning is hard to define. For Giuliani, is "winning" simply not blowing it? For Mr. Unknown Duncan Hunter (and Ron Paul, and Tom Tancredo and Tommy Thompson and Jim Gilmore, for that matter), is "winning" simply getting some his name out there? It's too early for any candidate to really be trying to "win," in the conventional sense of knocking out the other guys and making broad, sweeping policy proposals.

So, what is there left to predict? Well, I think it might be interesting to see which Republicans play the various roles that we saw being played last week by the Democrats. For instance, I think Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo (and perhaps to a lesser extent Jim Gilmore) will play the role of Dennis Kucinich/Mike Gravel (i.e. the guy who knows he has no chance, but for whatever reason - my guess is for his own vanity - wants "his views represented"). Sam Brownback will play the role of Joe Biden (i.e. the relatively well-known sleazeball who represents the more extreme side of his party. Although, a part of me thinks Brownback might have some sort of a chance, whereas Biden has none.) I think Mike Huckabee and Tommy Thompson (and perhaps Duncan Hunter, as well) will play the role of Chris Dodd/Bill Richardson (i.e. the respectable but relatively unknown statesman trying to make a name or himself). And, of course, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney will be the Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards of the Republican debate (not necessarily in that order, though).

You may say "Flyntz, this doesn't really say much." And you're right. I don't know who will say what, but I think behavior is just as interesting as content. And I think we will see certain candidates exhibiting certain behaviors that ought to be eerily familiar to us.

Although, I'm not really known for making great predictions; I once predicted that John Kerry would win the 2004 election by 30+ electoral votes. So, don't trust me; just watch and find out what happens. Expect more thoughts on the debate tonight or tomorrow.

Vanity Fair: Rudy = Crazy (but he just might win)

This Vanity Fair article reads like a hit piece on Rudy Giuliani but still manages to be optimistic about his chances:

Bush and Cheney have created a sense of something like guilt, or embarrassment, or, even, disgrace, among the faithful. Potential candidates on the traditional right seem to be hiding under a rock—they don't want the Bush-Cheney taint. So to find yourself a nationally admired figure (a kind of apple pie), in a field where something like 70 percent of likely voters (many your natural ideological enemies) still haven't expressed any opinion about the race, and where the opposition includes the 70-year-old John McCain, who both hates and sucks up to Bush (therefore getting neither advantage), and Mitt Romney, a Mormon from Massachusetts, that's luck. What's more, choosing a relative social liberal—just at the moment when the religious right seems to have lost its way—with supersonic national-security cred might be a way to combine independents with Reagan Democrats, along with the South (which you get anyway), and for the Republicans to actually, miraculously, win.

Barring a complete Democratic meltdown or a miraculous solution to the Iraq War, I don't see the Republicans winning in 2008 no matter who their candidate is. But Rudy probably has a better shot than anyone else.

UPDATE: The New York Times ponders which tack Giuliani will take in the debate tonight: hard-hitting prosecutor or Mr. Nice Guy...

Using BATNAs to understand the situation in Iraq

There is a key concept of negotiation, outlined in Fischer and Ury's Getting to Yes, called the "Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement," or BATNA. A BATNA is the best outcome a negotiator can expect if the negotiation fails. The stronger the BATNA, the stronger the negotiator's bargaining power and the less incentive he has to reach a compromise. An example of this is a job negotiation. If a potential hire has another job offer in his back pocket (good BATNA), he can demand a higher salary from the employer. This is because he can walk away from the negotiation. Now imagine that the employer has also interviewed another job-seeker, with similar skills to the first, who will work for a lower wage. The employer, too, has a good BATNA. What will happen to the original negotiation? It will fail. Both the first job-seeker and the employer have good BATNAs, which will discourage them from making the compromise necessary for hiring to be made. The first job-seeker will take that job offer he had in his back pocket, and the employer will hire that other guy.

Now consider the situation in Iraq. It's clear that a political solution is a necessary component of any peaceful future of Iraq. It's also clear that this solution would involve hard compromises from all parties involved, particularly the Sunnis. It's time to ask if the presence of our troops is hurting or hindering this political solution. They are certainly preventing the current sectarian violence from breaking into an all-out civil war. It's possible, as the administration argues, that this is providing the necessary breathing room for a political solution. But it seems far more likely that their presence is actually hindering the political solution by strengthening the BATNAs of the various factions. An open-ended presence means that the Sunni militias, for example, are free to continue bombing and shooting Shiites without worrying about the consequences of a full-scale civil war which they would almost certainly lose.

One way to address this might be to set a firm timetable for the withdrawal of American troops. This would worsen the BATNAs of the main factions and give them more of an incentive to make the painful compromises necessary for peace. I'm hesitant to fully endorse the idea because it is definitely risky, and the consequences will be terrible if our troops pull out but no agreement is reached. Then we will see what a civil war really looks like. Unfortunately, I don't believe there is a better option available.

On War

The other day, I had an interesting conversation with a professor whom I respect very much (names are not important for the sake of this post). I (jokingly) asked him if he would be voting for Hillary, and he responded that she is the only Democrat who he would consider voting for. Taken aback, I asked why. He said that she seems like the only Democrat who would be willing to use force in response to a terrorist attack, pointing, for instance, to Obama's statement that he would more or less "call the police" in response to a terrorist attack. This seems like a common criticism of this lot of Democrats. Indeed, Rudy Giuliani has implied numerous times that Democrats are unwilling to respond effectively to terrorism.

I think that is a criticism that we should look into. Certainly, some Democrats (e.g. Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel) have made clear that they do not view war as a legitimate tool of foreign policy.

But, they're the crazies.

Despite Obama's "call the police" remark (perhaps I shouldn't use quotes; it is not a direct quote, and he made an attempt at legitimizing himself), I do not believe that he (or any other Democrat, except for the aforementioned loonies) would be unwilling to respond to a 9/11-type terrorist attack with force. Certainly, he may be hesitant to do so, and the public, given recent history, may be more hesitant to rally behind such a war, but is hesitancy a bad thing? Wars should be debated; other options should be seriously considered. If this war in Iraq has taught us anything, it should be this: rushing into war is not good.

I agree whole-heartedly with anyone who states that we need a president who always keeps war as an option on the table. War, from time to time, is a necessary evil. And I think that all serious political candidates realize and accept that. But, given that the focal point of the 2008 election will be the Iraq war, it makes sense for Democrats to position themselves as anti-war per se, and not simply anti-Iraq war. After all, the public (or at least Democratic primary voters - more on that in a second) does not want to hear "I want to get us out of Iraq, but I might start another war before McCain can sing 'Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.'"

Plus, I think there is something to be said about what we can call the "primary conversion." As we see with the Republicans, the three main candidates, who have very moderates pasts, are all positioning themselves (perhaps with a slight exception given to Giuliani) as conservatives. The Democrats are doing something similar. Given that primary voters are mainly the more liberal Democrats, it would not make sense for candidates to be hawkish. Please do not take this as a defense of the "primary conversion." I have lambasted McCain in the past for his newfound conservatism; I am not happy that Obama and gang are pandering to the Kucinich brand of Democrats (i.e. hippies).

Main point: despite what stupid things Obama may have said (for such an eloquent man, he really blew it at that debate, eh?), I think any Democrat would handle a terrorist attack in a responsible (albeit less hawkish) manner.

What does Mitt Romney love about Battlefield Earth?

In case you missed it, Mitt Romney recently declared that his favorite novel was L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth. Jon Swift knows why:

I'm sure that Romney must have had great sympathy for these misunderstood aliens who were trying to fit in to their new homeworld while at the same time defending their values by any means necessary. It's not easy being accepted when you're a furry nine-foot-tall, 1,000-pound alien with talons instead of fingernails. Being the governor of a blue state, Romney must have felt a bit like an alien himself.

Believe it or not, I've actually read Battlefield Earth. The whole thing. The reason was that I was going to Mexico and needed a big ol' book to keep me busy. I wouldn't call it great, or even particularly good, but it's not as terrible as many people make it out to be. You can't even tell it was written by a crazy person.

Concerning Iraq Rhetoric

I still have not figured out where I stand on the whole war issue. But, I have figured this much out: just as pulling out is not an effective method of contraception, it is not an effective military strategy either.

I'm sorry. That was shameful.

But in all seriousness, I do not support an immediate withdrawal of the troops. However, my refusal to support such a plan does not, by any means, echo the sentiments of our president. He (among other Republicans) consistently notes that announcing a timetable for withdrawal would basically tell the enemy when we are going to leave, as if "the enemy" (whatever that means) were waiting in the wings. It sure seems to me like our enemies in Iraq aren't waiting for anything. Also, it implies that a stealthy withdrawal is possible. In other words, he implies that pulling out could possibly be effective at some point so long as we don't announce it before hand.

As if "the enemy" wouldn't notice that we had left.

Of course, I'm sure he doesn't mean to imply this, but it is a necessary implication of his rhetoric. If announcing a timetable is inherently bad, that implies that an unannounced timetable could work, which seems absurd to me. I'm sure our astute readers will point out that Bush has rejected the notion of a timetable for withdrawal in and of itself. So, it is doubtful that Bush would support an unannounced timetable. And that's fine by me. I just wish he would put forward good arguments, and I think that there are plenty to be made against pulling out. However, the whole "aiding the enemy" argument is nothing more than hollow rhetoric, and it weakens the other arguments by shifting the focus away from policy and toward some vague notion of "patriotism." After all, in addition to the "Democrats want to aid the enemy" argument, we've heard that a withdrawal will make it such that all the deceased troops will have died in vain.

This is not about patriotism. It is about policy. And for once our shining star of a president is right: an immediate withdrawal is a terrible idea. But not for the reasons he has been stating. I realize that politics is always about rhetoric, but when it comes to war, I have a feeling that a frank discussion of the consequences of any policy proposal will get us farther than wrapping ourselves in the flag. And as always, this applies to both parties.

But hey, that's politics, eh?

To answer a question...

DC poses a few questions below regarding Supreme Court groupings. Here is my attempt at an answer.

First, I do not mean "political" in the pejorative sense, as in "these questions are too political for the Court to be considering." The Court is political; it has to answer political questions. So, with that in mind, I would consider "blatantly political" questions to be those which Presidents and the Senate are concerned with when nominating and confirming/rejecting, respectively. In other words, when we hear President Bush say "I want to appoint strict constructionists," that is code for "I want a political conservative on the Court." He is looking for someone who will limit individual rights (abortion, free speech, etc.), support a broad reading of presidential power, fight against a "high wall of separation" between Church and state, and so on. In other words, he wants someone who will take his side on the hot-button issues of the day. And that is fine. I have no problem with that. To expect presidents not to consider politics in nominating Justices is simply absurd; being a Supreme Court Justice is inherently political, and for the president to ignore that would be foolish.

So, anyway, on these hot-button issues, we typically see the "liberals" and "conservatives" group up against each other. For instance, in Gonzales v. Carhart (regarding "partial birth abortion"), we saw a 5-4 split, with the conservatives supporting the law, and the liberals opposing it. However, there are a few hot-button issues that produce some odd results. For instance, Justice Kennedy (who is, now that O'Connor is gone, the closest thing to a "swing vote") typically supports gay rights. Justice Scalia, because of his theory of textualism, tends to support free speech (he ruled that laws against flag burning are unconstitutional). But, in general terms, these so-called "hot-button" issues typically produce partisan splits.

We see odd combinations when it comes to technical or mundane constitutional or legal matters (which represent the overwhelming majority of the Court's business). Since candidates are not vetted based on how they will interpret the Dormant Commerce Clause, for instance, there is not a strong link between party affiliation and vote patterns. So, to answer DC's question more briefly, I think we will see the classic partisan split on the issues that presidents care about when they are nominating Justices (such as abortion, gay rights, presidential power, affirmative action, religious matters, etc.), but we will see more interesting combinations as the cases get less interesting (i.e. more about technical legal issues), oddly enough.

Should conservatives support Clinton in the Democratic primary?

Bruce Bartlett makes the case at National Review Online. His argument: the Republicans are doomed in 2008, so conservatives should throw their support behind the most conservative Democrat. Which is Hillary Clinton. It's worth reading the whole thing, but here's a choice quote:

I’m sure that the first reaction of most conservatives will be to say that any involvement in the Democratic party is unthinkable. They view it as the party of treason and socialism. They could no more involve themselves in Democratic politics than a God-fearing Christian would consider working with Satan just because it looked like he was going to win.

For those of you who feel this way, stop reading. There is nothing more in this column for you. But for those conservatives who don’t see the 2008 election as a race between good and evil, but merely a contest between rivals within the same league, I think there is a good case for participating in the Democratic nominating process.

Sure, the odds of this happening are slim to none. But it would be pretty funny to see Hillary ride the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy to victory in the primary.

A question about the Supreme Court and "blatantly political" issues

Fz has a good post below on odd groupings on the Supreme Court. Since I'm no expert on the Supreme Court, maybe he could help me out. He notes that the Supremes tend to divide by partisan affiliation on "blatantly political" issues (like abortion and gay rights) and to form strange alliances on others. I have a couple of questions. First, what makes an issue "blatantly political"? Is it a well-known issue, a moral issue, or something else? Second, in what areas are we likely to see strange groupings in the future?

Little sympathy for Tenet

More reaction to former CIA chief George Tenet's self-justifying new book. Former Time magazine editor and chairman of CNN Walter Isaacson weighs in:

George Tenet's woes, it seems to me, come from the very natural instinct to please rather than tell uncomfortable truths to those in authority... I was reminded how Kissinger, someone I once wrote about, was too willing to cater to and collaborate with the darker impulses of Nixon.

As does the flamethrowing Christopher Hitchens, in an article entitled "A Loser's History":

The author is almost the only man who could have known of Zacarias Moussaoui and his co-conspirators—the very man who positively knew they were among us, in flight schools, and then decided to leave them alone. In his latest effusion, he writes: "I do know one thing in my gut. Al-Qaeda is here and waiting." Well, we all know that much by now. But Tenet is one of the few who knew it then, and not just in his "gut" but in his small brain, and who left us all under open skies. His ridiculous agency, supposedly committed to "HUMINT" under his leadership, could not even do what John Walker Lindh had done—namely, infiltrate the Taliban and the Bin Laden circle. It's for this reason that the CIA now has to rely on torturing the few suspects it can catch, a policy, incidentally, that Tenet's book warmly defends.
...
And now comes Tenet, the man who got everything wrong and who ran the agency that couldn't think straight, to ask us to sympathize with his moanings about "Iraq—who, me?"

A highly irritating expression in Washington has it that "hindsight is always 20-20." Would that it were so. History is not a matter of hindsight and is not, in fact, always written by the victors. In this case, a bogus history is being offered by a real loser whose hindsight is cockeyed and who had no foresight at all.

Odd Groupings on the Court

We tend to think of the Supreme Court as composed of "liberals" and "conservatives," and to a great extent, such a characterization is true. But, when we get away from blatantly political issues (abortion, gay rights, etc.), these groupings tend to fall apart. Take, for instance, the recently decided United Haulers Association v. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority. This case (regarding whether a local government can require that all trash be disposed of at a government-owned facility) was decided 6-3. While the majority was somewhat fractured (there were a few concurring opinions), it consisted of Chief Justice Roberts who wrote the opinion for the Court and Justices Scalia, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, and Breyer. Dissenting was Justice Alito, whose opinion was joined by Justices Stevens and Kennedy.

Granted, the question presented was not one of grave national importance (they decided that yes, a local government can regulate trash flow in such a way without violating the so-called "Dormant Commerce Clause"), but it is still interesting to see the Court split like this. It is uplifting, in a way, reminding us that Justices aren't purely driven by their partisan affiliations.