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"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
Friday, January 23, 2004
Iraq and Saudi Arabia
Two more things from Foreign Affairs. Another piece by Kenneth Pollack on Iraq, this time on reconstruction efforts & prospects. Well worth reading. I was going to analyze it in light of something a reader sent me today (which isn't available "free" on the web, or I'd link to it), but I haven't had time. Pollack's piece can be read alongside StrategyPage's Iraq log, in particular the entry for today (Jan. 23 if you're having trouble keeping track at home).
If and when I get a moment's peace I'll try and get back to these with some thoughts. In the meantime, check 'em out. Just reading them will take some time. The Pollack piece in particular is long enough.
President Bush will propose an increase of less than 1 percent for federal programs not related to defense or homeland security, effectively freezing discretionary spending in the next budget, after coming under fire from conservatives to control runaway spending.
Of course, it depends on which type of spending they mean: phantom, authorization spending, or actual outlays. They seem to be a bit shifty on that.
There's a good review of Jagdish Baghwati's book In Defense of Globalization in Foreign Affairs. Baghwati also has an article in the publication on the Cancun trade talks which is worth reading but, alas, not available online. This is a pretty apt description of critics of globalization:
Bhagwati divides critics of globalization into two basic categories. The first is made up of incorrigible enemies of market capitalism, constitutionally anti-establishment and not open to serious argument. The second consists of well-meaning but ill-informed critics. Bhagwati addresses his book to the latter group -- and takes their charges seriously.
Then there is this observation:
As a young economist at the Indian Planning Commission 40 years ago, he observed that redistributing wealth is not an effective way to reduce poverty; far more effective is to create more wealth. And engagement with the rest of the world facilitates growth. During the three decades that Bhagwati's India was a relatively closed economy, for example, the economy grew at 4 percent a year, and the poverty rate hovered around 55 percent. But in the two decades since it opened its economy to foreign trade and investment, economic growth averaged five percent; by 2000, the poverty rate had fallen to 26 percent.
(Emphasis added). Shades of the Equalities post. Anyhow, check out the whole review.
British use of cluster bombs in the Iraq war could count as a war crime and justifies further investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor in the Hague, a group of international lawyers say.
Not to send you elsewhere, but Steven Den Beste wrote about this possibility here and here.
Glenn Reynolds asks who is the target audience of the State of the Union Address. Perhaps this is a rhetorical question, but I'm going to answer it anyhow since the kind of people who read blogs like this one and his can easily forget.
It's not people who keep at least one eye on politics on a daily basis. The target audience for these things are the people who otherwise don't pay much attention to politics, government, and policy matters. For them this is a once-a-year update. These speeches get a fairly large overall audience, much larger than the audience that sits glued to the TV switching back and forth among news channels and to C-SPAN to catch every update of the Iowa Caucuses (for example) and the analysis/opining on why what is happening happened.
For the later kind of people, State of the Union speeches are tiresome and consist largely of things we've heard before, proposals we know won't happen or are meaningless, rhetoric about issues we're up to date on already, &tc. Our natural inclination is to watch them because we do that with every major political event. This group divides into those who say to themselves "yah, the State of the Union speech is always kinda crappy" but then evaluates a given one with that in mind ("this was pretty good as SotU's go" or "bad as SotU's go") and those who pan them because of their essential nature (laundry-lists and platitudes).
For people in the other group, those who don't make politics part of their daily lives, this is probably the one speech they watch every year. That is, the target audience consists of the same people who don't really start getting into an election until the last few weeks before they vote. I'm not trying to disparage them, just identify them. They are at least different from the sort of people who, when asked who the Vice President or Secretary of State is, give you a blank stare. The group that is the target audience of the State of the Union know the answers to questions like that, but politics isn't one of their hobbies.
Of course the audience for the State of the Union used to be different, before it became a TV event or a radio event. For a long time, the President simply submitted a SotU document to Congress and didn't go to Capitol Hill and make it a speech. The content was much different then, because the audience was different.
Clark Demonstrating How Not to be Polarizing & Divisive
So earlier I linked to a Union Leader article where Clark said Bush was a >polarizing, divisive figure. Well, here is another Union Leader piece, where Clark demonstrates how to be a uniter and avoid polarizing rhetoric, as General Clark tells Lieutenant - er, Senator - Kerry what for, playing the rank card.
As I wrote earlier today, I was surprised that this section of the State of the Union speech hasn't received more attention:
So America is pursuing a forward strategy of freedom in the greater Middle East. We will challenge the enemies of reform, confront the allies of terror and expect a higher standard from our friend.
To cut through the barriers of hateful propaganda, the Voice of America and other broadcast services are expanding their programming in Arabic and Persian. And soon, a new television service will begin providing reliable news and information across the region.
I will send you a proposal to double the budget of the National Endowment for Democracy and to focus its new work on the development of free elections and free markets, free press and free labor unions in the Middle East.
And above all, we will finish the historic work of democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, so those nations can light the way for others and help transform a troubled part of the world.
I might have expected a fairly decent chunk of the blogosphere to sit up in their chairs when they heard this and raise an eyebrow of interest and take notice of it. It is, after all, a move in the direction that many people have been calling for: an aggressive waging of the intellectual battle, the communications battle, which many have said they see as being as important as the military battle in determining the outcome of the war.
Well, I certainly took notice, and it's the one section of the speech that I felt like cheering. Some other parts I said "Yah, tell 'em" to, parts that emphasized distinguishing reality from propaganda - for example, the parts that highlighted the fact that we're not "going it alone" in a "unilateral" fashion. But this was a proposal to take the next step in advancing our war aims - and I'll add, in a "peaceful" way. That is, it doesn't involve killing our enemies but rather trying to persuade those who are being deceived by them. So one might have thought that people who see Bush as only viewing the war in narrow terms of applying military force would have been particularly keen on this announcement.
But their reaction, especially their reaction - or rather lack thereof - is highly disapointing. Perhaps if another man had spoken these words, one with a "D" behind their name, it would have received greater attention and thus greater emphasis in the repeating. But, alas, 'twas not to be. People often ask what we can do in this war. How can we help? Well, part of what people can do is take note of, pay attention to, and thereby amplify, good policies when we see them. Especially when it comes to an aspect of the conflict like this one, which involves communicating not just to our foes but to ourselves and the rest of the world. Maybe they misperceive us as overly emphasizing the military aspect of things not simply due to who occupies the White House, but as a result of what the rest of us pick to emphasize in America's policies.
Or perhaps I'm just shocked into a stunned stupor that those who have been harping on the need to do more on this front, do better in communicating our ideas, do better in engaging in the war as a War Against Bad Philosophy, have largely ignored this section of the speech in their reactions to it.
Gen. Matloob Muslat Sayer, who was a member of the former Iraqi dictator's Fedayeen militia, gave himself up Monday in volatile Al Anbar Province, the military said in a statement.
The Fedayeen are a particularly nasty bunch, "dead-enders" if there ever were any. The fact that this guy is calling it quits may be telling. In Britain, the David Kelly/WMD story takes a bit of a swerve:
Kelly told the BBC before the war that Iraq's weapons could have taken "days or weeks" to deploy.
Again, if our intelligence was wrong, we weren't alone, as I pointed out in the analysis of Pollack's Atlantic Monthly piece and scapegoating America here isn't going to help fix the problem, which wasn't limited to our intelligence agencies. Facing up to this honestly is going to be a prerequisite of fixing whatever is broken, not only here but throughout the Western intelligence services. Again, if what is now being assumed to having been faulty intel was faulty.
You can always trust the Democrats to be strong when they should be weak and weak when they should be strong. One could hardly call Clark's own rhetoric anything but polarizing and "divisive" (More on the canard of that accusation in a later post sometime), and I linked yesterday to an article that said the Dems should go ahead and block that turkey (the spending bill). In the aftermath of Iowa, the Unions lick their wounds and wonder why the horses they backed, Gephardt & Dean, did so poorly. Meanwhile, David Frum and Richard Perle have a Test of the seriousness of Democratic contenders:
Cutting the terrorists off from the states that shelter them ? that facilitate their recruitment, training, planning and arming is essential. But doing so will embroil us in diplomatic disputes. Are the Democratic candidates ready for that?
. . .
If the Democrats are serious about their stated analyses of the terrorist threat, then they need to tell America their plan to destroy the terrorists and change the policies ? or, if necessary, the regimes ? of the states that support them. In addition, they need to propose a policy toward Saudi Arabia equal to the magnitude of the Saudi problem. Such a policy would be based on this direct challenge: either the Saudis put an end to the direct flow of money from the kingdom to extremist organizations or else the United States will no longer have an interest in the continued tenure of the present regime.
Can the Democrats credibly convey this message to the Saudis? Will they fight terrorism rather than chase terrorists? These are tests that they have thus far refused to take.
So far the Democratic candidates have limited themselves to platitudinous generalities and harsh criticisms, claiming "Bush has no plan" but not offering a realistic alternative themselves. That alone is why they deserve to fail in November.
Darren Kaplan catches them distorting things to mislead people. Remember, though: That's fair when done by the Good People against bad people like Bush. Over to David Adesnick to further rationalize this and explain it away. After all, the Washington Post is a respectable institution that would never mislead its readership, right? In an election year? Certainly not!
This one I just have to link to because it invokes a quote from Al Davis, the NFL's Dark Prince: "Just Win, Baby". Of course, if the Democrats only had some Pride & Poise (especially the latter) and a Commitment to Excellence, they might stand a better shot. Then there is this paragraph that sealed the deal when it came to linkage:
Mr. Edwards, the smooth millionaire trial lawyer, has distilled his stump speech into a modern, smiling William Jennings Bryan riff on the "two Americas." Mr. Kerry, who summers in Nantucket, employs Mr. Gore's tub-thumping wordsmith Robert Shrum and borrows the same lines from 2000 deploring the "powerful interests" who somehow run the country. Call these Democrats the angry affluent: They're rich as hell and they're not going to take it anymore.
That's true. Every time they mention abhorrence of "special interests" I ask myself, what? Like, trial lawyers, teacher's unions, wealthy wives? Airline companies that the wives of prominent Senators (name begins with "D", ends with "ashle") lobby for?
Few people in the press ever call them on the spreading of this bovine fecal matter that they're somehow aloof from special interests and not living the life of luxury. They get to prattle on about being the tribunes of the downtrodden, but that's not who they rub elbows with, nor is it who they're beholden to. If that were the case, they'd side with inner city families, not with the teacher's unions, on improving the education system.
They don't, because when they're talking about politicians that are bought and paid for, they're talking about themselves. They're the worst kinds of hypocrites and demagogues, and I'm not timid about throwing those words out there when it comes to this. Someone's gotta call a spade a spade. It's been too long that they've been given a free pass on this stuff.
Then, there is this antidote to those who talk about America in gloom-and-doom terms, as if we're living before some sort of collapse (you know, the kind of people who invoke Herbert Hoover's name frequently). It's another review of Gregg Easterbrook's latest book, which I previously linked to here and still need to pick up. Check out the piece, and buy Gregg's book. Stick it in ESPN's eye, just like Al Davis sticks it in the NFL's eye.
(Hey! But I like ESPN and the NFL! you say. So do I, chummer, so do I. But sometimes, just sometimes. . .)
Paul Krugman's Great Unraveling continues, this time in the banking sector and new home construction is at the highest level since '78, further adding to the urban sprawl and burdening people with debt, no doubt. Things have gotten to the point that even the NYT & IHT have to acknowledge that it may be real:
Even though the U.S. government recently ignited new talk of a jobless recovery by reporting a tiny gain of 1,000 jobs in December, nearly every other measure of the labor market offers a more encouraging picture.
This gap suggests that President George W. Bush may be running for re-election with a stronger economy than is widely understood
Expect everything to be done that can possibly be done between now and November to keep people thinking that the economy is weaker than it is. Not just Democrats, but media outlets will downplay good data and latch onto anything negative and hype it to the Nth degree. The Cause is on the line, after all, and defeating Bush is the focus of more lives than just George Soros'.
But read the whole IHT piece if you're into the "How Many Jobs?" argument.
Bush's proposal to increase the funding of the National Endowment for Democracy and the VOA and create an Arab-language TV broadcast is getting a lot less attention from people than I thought it would. This was, in my opinion, very good. Certainly a move in the right direction. I'd have been even happier with it if he proposed bringing back the United States Information Agency, but we can't have everything.
Some people seem more focused on what Bush said about steroids. I'm not sure whether that says more about Bush's priorities, or theirs.
So I must be some kind of outlier. On Monday, when compared to Kerry's and Edwards' speeches, which I thought were dominated by bile, I thought Howard Dean's wasn't too bad - an effort to keep supporters motivated. But just about everyone else had nothing but praise (or nothing at all to say) for Kerry & Edwards' speeches and thought Dean's was a sign that he blew a gasket and became unhinged, even deranged. Well, maybe I didn't see it because I'm crazy too and like follows like (my sanity has come into question recently).
Then last night. So far in the sliver of blogs I've frequented since, the reaction to Bush's speech seems largely negative. I happen to not think it was terrible. Andrew Sullivan criticizes it for not offering a new foreign policy, when I thought Andrew wanted us to keep focused on our current foreign policy and not waver. Also, he evidences precisely what I see as the limits of "fiscal conservatism, social liberalism" when on the one hand he complains that Bush didn't show enough concern for the deficit, but on the other hand didn't offer enough additional government help to those who haven't benefited from the economic recovery. This is shades of what I wrote yesterday.
Of course the initiatives Bush mentioned were small scale, inexpensive ones. Perhaps that does show he recognizes we can't break the bank right now. On the other hand, past a certain point people can't have it both ways unless they're a Democratic party hack (at which point anything goes): Can't denounce Bush's excessive spending habits and bemoan the deficit and then in the next breath be upset that Bush isn't proposing enough new programs or spending enough on the ones he is.
The section on marriage didn't perfectly satisfy me, but did people have some sort of dream of Bush saying anything else?
Glenn Reynolds had a good point about the Democratic response, though:
Daschle says that when our parents were kids, all Americans could go to good schools. Really? When my parents were kids, schools were segregated.
Too true. I wouldn't make too much of this, except you know that if a Republican had said that, it would be harped on eternally as an example of how insensitive Republicans are to racial issues and their disconnection from minority voters, how they want to turn back the clock to the '50s and forsake all the progress we've made, blah blah blah.
Since Dashle's a Democrat, though, he'll be given a pass and a more generous interpretation put on what he meant. That'd be fine if it didn't involve such a blatant double-standard.
I'll also say, regarding the Democrat's co-optation of "Opportunity society" and other fine-sounding phrases, that it is clear they were either insincere (Pelosi. How many defense programs has she supported over her career?) or, when it comes to the "Opportunity Society", they mean it in a different way than most people will take it. For Dashle, it clearly meant the opportunity to be a busy little worker bee and Dashle and the Democrats will then decide how the money should be spent in best taking care of you.
Bush's speach emphasized giving people more options - the opportunity to make decisions for themselves and control their own future. Dashle emphasized insuring that everyone was taken care of by government programs run by people like himself who will avoid the mistakes that the commoners would make if Bush's programs were enacted. So, tell me again, which party is the elitist party and which party the one that trusts the people to be free to make their own decisions?
Update: On the other hand, this is a reaction I concur with.
It pretty much confirms the Weekly Standard piece, but apparently Rumsfeld is trying to remove these restraints now. The big questions then are what took so long and what's the hold up?
Real ones, that is, not the faux ones the Democratic politicians genuflect to. Steven Den Beste has a post on the real deal.
No excerpts, check out the whole piece.
As for my part, as I mentioned at the end of my reactions to The Last Samurai, "I would be honoured if, at some point when either or both of us are in peril, we would fight at each other's side". So here we are.
I think we'll all miss that feature. It certainly just won't be the same now that Dean is getting his fundiment handed to him, and none of the others provide the same sort of materiel. Oh, sure, they try. And Clark has potential. But the shear range and volume of Dean material just can't be matched. *Sigh*
Well, at least we have a new recepie to look forward to. I'm not given to "food blogging", like some others, but I could get on board with that one.
But without the restraining influence of Republicans to their Right. Indeed, the only influence the opposition party provides is the constant harangue that not enough is being spent and the wildly propagandistic claims that "vital" programs (that is, all programs except defense) are being "gutted and cut". Democrats talk about "fiscal responsibility" by that they only mean "more revenues from higher taxes" - not the spending restraint that is the true key to fiscal discipline.
Andrew Sullivan has been all over this lately - though letting the Dems off the hook, mainly. Something that's not all that appropriate considering that one has to compare the deplorable to its alternative, and in some cases - such as this one - the alternative is even more wretched. Sure, the Dems would repeal some of Bush's tax cuts, with the claim that it is because of the deficit. But then compare that to their spending proposals and see that if they got their way, things would be worsened, not improved.
The problem with Bush may be that he embraced the "National Greatness Conservativism" that attracted many people to McCain in 2000, when he seemed to be the candidate carrying that banner. "National Greatness Conservatism" was always going to be expensive. People who pine for McCain should remember that as they lament Bush's spending habits. He's spending like McCain would have, but also on "Compassion" programs, ones that some of the same people decrying spending also embrace. But that only proves that many have embraced Democratic Budgeting Mentality: a radical mental disconnect between the programs that money is spent on and the spending itself. "What? These things cost money?"
Nor can recent increases be blamed on the war. At 18.6%, the increase in non-defense discretionary spending under the 107th Congress (2002-2003) is far and away the biggest in decades. In 2003, total federal spending topped an inflation-adjusted $20,000 per household for the first time since World War II.
I wouldn't mind this so much if it had been spent to increase our military capabilities and expand the force structure. But, unlike the Reagan-era deficits, this money's just being blown on whine, women and song (and yes, I meant to write "whine", not wine. Each whiny special interest gets $$$. The squeaky wheel gets its palm greased).
I agree with this conclusion of the editorial:
The truth is that this spending bill is hardly necessary. The government has been running just fine at 2003 spending levels since September (have you noticed?), and can easily continue to do so for the rest of the fiscal year. We realize Mr. Bush is eager for passage of certain line items, such as his program to combat AIDS in Africa, but this bill is literally too high a price to pay, especially in terms of his own credibility. We're not holding our breath for a change of heart, but President Bush can help shore up his conservative base and appeal to many moderate voters by exercising his very first veto here.
Gephardt is clearly done. Dean has money but is on the decline. Various lesser candidates are even more clearly lesser candidates.
The elimination of Gephardt will further help Kerry and Edwards and hurt Dean, because people in other states who were for Gephardt are far more likely to have Kerry or Edwards as their second choice than Dean.
The oddity of the day, if you consider it odd, is that Edwards, upon receiving the Kucinich support in the Caucuses, said that he and Kuchinich had identical positions on many issues. This is very revealing, because Edwards has been giving off an "I'm a moderate" vibe, and he just self-identified with the most extreme Left candidate in the field.
Either Kerry or Edwards would be much better General Election candidates for the Democrats than Howard Dean or Wesley Clark would be.
Now, that observation isn't very interesting. But I expect a lot of Liberal and Left pundits who wouldn't say that before tonight, who always dismissed stuff like that and said that Dean would be just as good will start making that same uninteresting observation after tonight.
My predictions from earlier today may have blew, but on the other hand, what I said about endorsements seems to be holding water. Dean got Gore, and he got Iowa's Own, Sen. Harkin, and he got the gaspipe.
Lest I be seen as ducking this when I finally come out with my "Year in Preview", I'll say
Dean
Gephardt
Kerry
Edwards
In that order, but in close order. The first two primarily because their organizations are the strongest. I know Dean has dropped considerably and Kerry is ahead in the polls, but organization is at a premium here and Gephardt & Dean have the most robust ones.
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. It won't matter in the end.
Prof Riley-Smith, who is Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge University, said the plot was "complete and utter nonsense". He said that it relied on the romanticized view of the Crusades propagated by Sir Walter Scott in his book The Talisman, published in 1825 and now discredited by academics.
"It sounds absolute balls. It's rubbish. It's not historically accurate at all. They refer to The Talisman, which depicts the Muslims as sophisticated and civilized, and the Crusaders are all brutes and barbarians. It has nothing to do with reality."
Prof Riley-Smith added: "Guy of Lusignan lost the Battle of Hattin against Saladin, yes, but he wasn't any badder or better than anyone else. There was never a confraternity of Muslims, Jews and Christians. That is utter nonsense."
Dr Jonathan Philips, a lecturer in history at London University and author of The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople, agreed that the film relied on an outdated portrayal of the Crusades and could not be described as "a history lesson".
Well, I would say that by and large this critique sounds right. However, Guy of Lusignan wasn't exactly the most shining example of Western Chivalry, nor did the Templars play a positive role in the Battle of Hattian. Their role was negative not primarily because they were Snidely Whiplash types all around but because they happened to be led at the time by someone who encouraged Guy to do stupid things, and Guy didn't need much encouragement.
On the other hand, Selah ed-Din was one of the best examples of a Moslem ruler - not, however, because he had entirely clean hands. One thing many of these accounts that are aimed at drawing a contrast do is omit some of the devious and bloody things he did in his own account. But overall any appraisal of him is bound to be a positive one.
However, that gets to the real point: omission and emphasis. The period of the Crusades was a two-plus century era, with heroism and villainy (to use "judgmental" words) on both sides. Not every city the Crusaders took had its inhabitants slaughtered, and not every city the Moslems captured or recaptured was treated as generously as Selah ed-Din treated Jerusalem when he entered it.
By picking the periods and characters they do to emphasize, people like Ridley Scott give audiences a skewed view. This is highly common in academe today and general discussions about the legacy of the Crusades. Today it is common to put the "white hat" on the Moslem side of things as if they were the victims of unprovoked Western Aggression, and portray the Crusades as a precursor of European/White Male/Western Imperialism against a noble, advanced, culturally sophisticated people that only wanted to live in harmony with others.
This is done by selecting choice bits of history, accurate in and of themselves, but leaving out other bits that would give a fuller picture. It is history-as-propaganda, in this case Multicultural, Transnationalist, Progressive propaganda.
I'm writing this post, by the way, as someone who is not too keen on the Crusades as a whole. There were positive aspects, but also a lot of things that I think were deplorable. As the article quotes Amin Maalouf saying:
"It does not do any good to distort history, even if you believe you are distorting it in a good way. Cruelty was not on one side but on all."
It doesn't serve Western audience well, nor does it serve Arab and Moslem audiences well, to portray things this way. As Riley-Smith says, it is Osama bin Ladin's version of history.
For those interested in more, I've written on the Crusades and their relationship to modern conflicts before, in the following posts:
Here in America, all political eyes are on the peculiarly American "primary season", starting with the Iowa Caucuses and then on to New Hampshire.
But overseas Britain is going through one of the peculiarly British political processes. Here's how Matthew d'Ancona puts it in The Daily Torygraph:
It is at least feasible that next week will be the most spectacular in British politics since the fall of Margaret Thatcher in November 1990. If the Government whips fail to bring the number of Labour rebels below 81 - the cut-off point that at present separates victory from defeat - the Prime Minister will be forced to call a vote of confidence in his administration on Wednesday. In normal circumstances, he would expect to survive such a vote, bloodied and humiliated, but still in office.
Yet if Lord Hutton's report on the Wednesday morning condemns Mr Blair for his part in the events surrounding Dr Kelly's death - if the Prime Minister is branded a liar, hours after his own party rejects his latest "flagship" policy - then victory in this hypothetical vote of confidence would be far from certain. Imagine, then, if it were lost: Michael Howard would find himself facing a general election a mere 11 weeks after becoming Conservative leader (comparable with Eden's modern record of five weeks between assuming the Tory leadership and going to the polls in 1955).
Of course, such an outcome is unlikely:
The more prosaic outcome is that the Labour opponents of top-up fees decide that rebellion should not lead to regicide. The malcontents are meeting this week, I understand, to discuss their tactics, and the Blairites' fervent hope is that their revolt will be postponed, in effect, until the Higher Education Bill reaches its report stage. Number 10's belief is that the imminence of Lord Hutton's publication will inspire at least a batsqueak of loyalty in the rebels: enough to tide Mr Blair through a week of furious turbulence.
Of course, the Torygraph being no fan of Labour, puts things in rather stark terms. But it'll probably be worth sparing a moment or two to keep up with events in Britain this week between watching the maneuverings of American candidates, most of whom will be of little interest after a couple weeks. Of course, one of them will remain important over the next year, but I can say with some confidence that none of them is a Tony Blair. But, speaking of the Blair that most Americans have in mind from the last couple years, D'Ancona writes:
Indeed, the very agility that makes the Prime Minister strong when facing terrible adversity translates into impatience when he faces the much lesser adversities of everyday administration.
And then there's Tony's EUphilia. . .
But never the less, from an American point of view, it's worth worrying some that if Tony falls, is it likely that the man who replaces him will be a better Prime Minister? Maybe Howard would be - certainly he would be less bonded to the EU - but is it likely he would become PM?
