"...oh, I'm not angry at the corruption and certainly feel no urge to embrace a naive socialism - I've been in business long enough to know that given a chance people will screw up, and that that chance always comes around. Much of what you say seems, from my untutored perspective, to make sense - but inherent in your theories is the paradox that they only become applicable once the damage is done and that, given the history of such things, they will fail to adequately predict the next crisis - which may just be a way of espousing creative destruction - still, the species does seem to be more adept and its true worth best expressed in responding to a crisis rather than predicting or stopping it altogether..."

This I did speak unto them, those dark souls flitting 'round the edges of the world:

"...The real issue has little to do with what's an appropriate bonus and who gets to decide that or at what point does greed cross the imaginary line separating good deeds from bad - the fact is it's quite beyond the humble conscience of the average American to understand in any legitimate way what Wall Street does and why some people make so much god damn money. No, the real issue is that big money is being demonized - America will no longer be America if big money and all its trappings, good and bad, are washed away in a flood of populist class-addled angst. Obama peed his share of piss into this flood, but wisely seems to be changing tone, no doubt taken aback by the rising tide.

Does compensation need a rethink? Sure, why the hell not - but to move forward as if some how now the world is to be made anew and there will no longer be dirty little secrets percolating through the mysterious higher echelons of power beyond the ken and understanding of poor average Joe - well, that's delusional and dangerous..."

See Obama has followed through on his campaign promise to reach out to the Iranians - heartfelt video message beamed to Persians everywhere stating ol' Uncle Sam be ready to play nice. Like I've said before, if this 'reaching out' is part of some earnest and sincere attempt to redefine the relationship, I think they're out of their minds and the Ayatollahs will have their way with them. On the other hand if it's part of a long term strategy to control imagery and perceptions on several levels regarding various audiences - well then I could possibly support that. Problem is, if latter, and you end up, either by design or mere consequence, portraying the Persian theocracy as unyielding, deceitful, hostile etc etc, what that leaves you with is an implied intention to take things to the next level - ie if Obama really is playing hardball here he better have thought out all his pitches because, to extend the metaphor, if the guy doesn't bite on your curveball, you gotta come inside, you gotta challenge him, and that's when the game gets dangerous.

This is why, if they do seriously imagine the engendering of some kind of rapprochement, that Obama could quickly find himself out flanked and with no alternatives but to back down - this why Hillary was right to call him naive when during campaign he suggested talking to the Iranians - again, it all depends if this part of a long term strategy or simply a sentimental act not grounded by realism and sound reasoning.

Never commented on Jon Stewart's supposed beat down of CNBC clown Cramer - so here's my comment: Stewart's turned into a sanctimonious twit. Used to be not a bad show, but has gone downhill since guy who started The Onion left. Still manages some sharp satirical bits, but the rampant left wing bias of it undermines the satire [which is why The Onion's political satire is much more satisfying] Stewart himself seems quite taken with his role as tone setter when it comes to political dialog and the left/right zeitgeist in general - but also quite obvious he depends on the cover of the 'comedy': it allows him to engage in simplistic partisan prattling and then fall back on the I'm just an entertainer dodge when more substance may be required, which is exactly what he did with Cramer, pillorying the hapless fool for not taking his role as I guess a business media maven seriously - it was a ludicrous point, especially coming from a guy who shamelessly used the ultimately light weight humour of his show to promote Obama. Any reasonably intelligent person with a team of writers and some knack for performing on camera can manage to sound almost well informed and thought out in the scatter shot world of entertainment news - and that's exactly what Stewart does. But the earnest way he approaches 'serious' issues like in the Cramer interview belies the fact that he now sees himself, or more accurately has accepted the mantle of being a leading voice when it comes to the opinions and attitudes of the youthful demographic - in short, success has gone to his head, the role he imagines for himself is not at all in keeping with his limited attributes [although admittedly entirely in keeping with his media profile - but I see that as a negative], the worst excesses of sanctimonious left wing buffoonery are starting to crowd out the meager charms of his comic persona and if he had any real gift for satire he himself would show up as an object of ridicule on his own show - but of course he'd have to be a conservative for that to ever happen.

"... not sure you're making any sense: Bush and Obama may represent fundamentally different approaches, but if you end up in the same place regardless, implied in what you're saying, then what does it matter? Obama will be able to rely on greater international support because he's a nice guy? That very possibly is as illusory and naive as Bush's putative cowboy diplomacy... and just as Bush's antics may have served to validate the claims of extremists so too they gave an out to other players who in reality didn't want responsibility for finding or shouldering solutions. Not seeing a big uptick in people wanting to help in Afghanistan are we? Truth is the Frances and Germanys et al were happy that Bush's stridency gave them an excuse to essentially opt out of the heavy lifting which they had no inclination to adopt in the first place - and the irony is Obama may be left with no choice but to become just as strident himself..."

"... I wonder... I'll be accused of being a homophobe here, which I'm not... don't think so anyway... although it only makes sense that a heterosexual would be more or less uncomfortable within the milieu of a gay agenda... males anyway... it'd be disingenuous to pretend otherwise... no, I just find that homosexual issues hold way too prominent an aspect in our culture given their quite marginal significance and, yes, I do find that annoying... but back to my point, I wonder if when Obama opens up the gates for gays in the military if that reform then devolves into a political agenda of actively promoting, by whatever faction, the enlisting of openly gay men into the military... much the same way that when same sex marriage became legal in California gays flooded the state to exchange vows and turned such into the making of a political statement, into political agenda theatrics... if same type of political theatre gets played out in the military, well, I'd have to believe that would be a bad thing, a very bad thing... in fact I'd be willing to conjecture that a majority of your military types, ah... probably don't unreasonably abjure homosexuality per se but rather look forward with a certain disgust and disdain to the absurd political circus they will inevitably be asked to endure..."

Could it be that Obama and the boys are pushing their aggressively transformative budget because the experts have told them that as long as they 'sort of get things right' the economy will be improving by the time the next election rolls around no matter obstacles that may remain in the way - Obama can take credit for the upturn, even if it's modest, because modest will look good after so much hardship, and then run roughshod over the hapless GOP whose candidate will be stuck groveling before Rush and the god and guns rabble. Get that feeling - especially after reading his chief economic adviser Romer's speech to CFR concerning lessons of The Great Depression - how under FDR's stewardship the country groped its way towards economic health in spite of setbacks of their own making and those intruding from the Europe - FDR got credit for recovery, however halting, however sometimes undeserved - and yada yada yada one of the greatest presidents ever.

Sure get the feeling they're thinking along those lines.

Wouldn't it make sense for Iran to try and purchase a nuke, a small fellow, couple a megatons or something, and then 'test' it in the desert as if they were testing one they had developed themselves? To outsiders it would simply look like they had joined the club a little sooner than was expected and would certainly seem to render any military intervention by Israel or the US pointless, futile and dangerously provocative. Iran could then continue on with its program undisturbed, at least undisturbed relative to what a military intervention would look like.

I mean, I'm assuming Iran's greatest concern is will they be able develop a bomb before the West gets around to doing something about it - or before Israel feels it has no choice but to act. An explosion that has all the appearance of demonstrating they've acquired the technology puts an end to that risk. Seems so obvious I almost have to believe they've looked into it.

And to take it a step further - is it preposterous to speculate that maybe it's in Russia's interests to sell such a bomb, little half megaton fella, to Iran for this exact purpose? Possibly a stretch, but definitely plausible, no?

"... although in general my sympathies tend to favour a conservative view of things, despite that I really can't stand the Republican party... there's an almost absurd sadness to their backward looking ways... then again I can't stand the Democrats either... just as bad after their own fashion... I suppose I understand that it would be hard to make politics work without partisan affiliations and ideological factions... still, I find associating with either more than a bit galling... their silliness has the unfortunate effect of reminding one that there's something decidedly delusional about democracy..."

When I read about Obama's call to enter into 'talks' with moderate elements of Taliban I thought 'well that sounds stupid' - and then when I read some comments by ostensibly objective Muslim commentators who to a man said there's no such thing as a moderate Taliban so the plan made no sense to them I felt justified in doubting Dear Leader - but now I read the plan is the offspring of Petraeus and the full scope of it is to hit the Taliban hard, very hard apparently, over the next few months and hold out this carrot of 'talks' to try and pry free some moderates, fragment the muslim militia, stoke some dissension and distrust etc etc and watch radicals devour themselves - or something along those lines - and so don't know what to think now.

Only semi coherent thought: it may be possible to manufacture moderate faction that one can in a sense nurture in the wilds of Afghanistan and eventually do business with, but that those apostates would then no longer be Talibani, possibly never really were, and therefore I'm not sure what's accomplished, especially if the factions left behind in Pakistan are refined into a purer blend of radical and persuaded to be even more motivated in the making of mayhem. I suppose there could be some significant tactical benefit, intel acquired etc etc - but other than that I find myself a little unconvinced.

"... business did what business does, pursued profit... in pursuit of that profit did it take unwise risks? Yes! That's what it does, has always done... it's a beast that seeks gain through exploiting power, taking chances, speculation, innovation and expects, with an odd naiveté, that its ambitions will be justly rewarded... that's what it does... it's not business that failed us, even though these guys obviously screwed up big time... it's government that failed to live up to its role as a counterweight and, albeit somewhat putative, voice of reason... failed to be the hoped for moderating influence on the rut of self interest that is business..."

My reply to Drezner viz America's standing in the world:

what was Rome's standing in Gaul? England, during the zenith of its empire, did the French like them? Who the hell gives a shit! All that matters for an empire is the successful wielding of power. If you can draw a correlation between that success and 'standing' in the world [and it may help to define with some precision what the hell 'standing' means - does it reference fear? intimidation? respect? esteem? a recognition of common cause and shared concerns? dependence? submission to the power most likely to secure the general interests of those that might judge us?] then ok, I could care about something like that, that might prove interesting - otherwise stop wasting peoples time. Is this what four years of Obama is gonna look like? The world economy is gushing down an epochal toilet and the guy's holding a pep rally on health care - it's frickin' unbelievable! Here's a clue, O! great leader: we're in the middle of the worst banking crisis in seventy years and your treasury department is still slogging along under staffed - I mean c'mon! You may wanna put that piece in place before you start fiddling with the fucking health care system!

Nice to see I have Gary Kasparov in on my side - by which I mean when the Times reported Obama's secret letter to Medvedev concerning dropping missile defense in Poland in exchange for Russia's support contra Iran I heard from no one suggesting what a bunch of hooey it was - certainly no one from the left, god forbid, but also not from the right either that I recall. My problem was there seemed to be no consideration given at all to distinct possibility that Putin's intentions in opposing MD were political and not military at all - he couldn't be seen being walked over by the Americans and also, no doubt thinking down the line, possibly viz Iran, it'd be nice if he could be seen getting America to back down through some sham of 'trade offs' - or possibly even better get asscess to the technology. Kasparov writes op-ed in WSJ today basically agreeing with me that calulations all political - although Kaspy's contention Putin needs to drive up price of oil therefore in his interests to keep Persia and the Yanks at odds - which I agree with too - but for a chess master I think he's missed some moves.

I also made the point, which no one else seemed interested in making, of why would Putin surrender his Iran wild card to thwart a technology that Obama has made clear he himself doesn't support? Would be kinda stupid, no? I mean, he might consider it to get access to the technology if he thought, unlike Obama, it viable - but other than that? The more I look at it the offer made by Obama makes no sense - well, unless of course they have reason to believe Medvedev is his own man - then possibly - but where is there any proof of that?

Is it possible they thought, what the hell, run it by them and see what happens? But it would be stupid to put missile defense on the table - not if they've already decided to unwind the program. I would vehemently disagree if that's what they intend - for reasons similar to my defense of the F-22 - but also because deterrence cannot be relied on in a world where the technology is available to anyone determined enough to get it - the genie's out of the bottle - and since it would be utterly naive to believe nuclear weapons can ever be done away with the only solution left is to develop a workable countermeasure. Whether missile defense as it stands now is the answer, I dunno - but certainly it's something along those lines.

The debate concerning saving the F-22 Raptor has degenerated into arguments over whether it retains viability as a 'make work' program given current economic troubles - this is unfortunate and has fueled even further criticism against it by people who view it as a ridiculously expensive boondoggle - but I've found in arguments both for and against which attempt to transcend this silliness a failure to really focus in on the substantive issue, which as far as I'm concerned has less to do with the tactical relevance of the F-22 and more to do with strategic relevance of pursuing and perfecting cutting edge military technology.

It's obvious that history has not kept step with the original intentions of the Raptor as an air superiority replacement for the aging F-15s - right now it looks like overkill that is out of sync with the current perceived needs of the new 'asymmetrical battlefield' and not nearly as well suited or cost efficient vis a vis that battlefield as the soon to be online F-35 - but that's to place too much emphasis on short term tactical applications. In the long term strategic view what comes into focus is that the technology, in both design engineering and high end manufacturing is well beyond what any rival can achieve and the implications of that are what really matter when discussing its relevance.

To begin with, you definitely don't want Raptor-centric technology migrating out of the country because we refuse to employ it and, related, you don't want that technology to grow 'stale' because we refuse to push its limits. Secondly, overwhelming technological superiority dissuades rivals from attempting to keep up and mitigates challenges to future air dominance by unexpected morphing of battle dynamics. Finally, and most importantly I think, if rivals do not attempt to keep up they either will not develop or will be hampered in developing related technologies and expertise. Why is China going to the moon? Prestige, yes. To stoke nationalistic chauvinism, absolutely. To diminish the technological gap between it and America? Damn right - which is why America needs to commit to a mission to Mars - and why the Raptor cannot be allowed to slip away.

Now, it may be too loose and broad an assumption to say America's technological edge will be diminished and left vulnerable if we stop production at 180 F-22s - that's fair - but I think what concerns me more is the possible emergence of a point of view linked to certain political sympathies [see Obama's antagonism towards missile defense] that do not quite understand how important that technological edge is nor fully appreciate the speculative environment required to keep it virile.

[ed: how then do you explain Gates' opposition to it?]

"... the real fear is that with this budget they will stoke, indeed that it is their intention to stoke, since they have the better salesman, the flames of a new culture war, a class war that will rouse the extreme left while roiling the extreme right and leave moderates stewing in an unobserved backwater... the real fear is that this will devolve into an exercise that serves well the worst instincts of each side at the expense of the best interests of the country..."

My response to Ricks:

The 'mistakes' of flawed military adventures by empires by and large remain venial if lessons available to be learned are learned - they become mortal when such lessons along with incumbent adaptations are lost for whatever reason. Since it's illogical to assume that everything an empire does in pursuit of its needs is sensible or justifiable a priori it follows that 'mistakes' are not only inevitable but necessary and that the Iraq adventure therefore can only be designated the 'biggest mistake ever' if inherent lessons have not been learned - but your book's thesis is that lessons have been learned and put into practice thus rendering your sweeping characterization of the war somewhat nonsensical .

It's really about time that critics stop analyzing the war completely in the shadow of how it was managed - there's a broader context here that has very little to do with the competence of the former Commander in Chief. For instance you casually imply in your post that one of the reasons Iraq was 'the biggest mistake ever' was that we were already at war somewhere else, a complaint to which the reasonable response is: one, our troop commitment in Afghanistan was small; and two, our whole military is, or at least was premised on the ability to conduct simultaneous actions. Your criticism is therefore narrow to a fault and absurdly presupposes a quite obviously flawed postulate that empires don't make mistakes!

Part of a more rational approach to understanding the war would be to say it revealed how many false assumptions were underwriting our strategy - the important point being that we were fated to learn that lesson and possibly that it's for the best we learned it now instead of at some future point that may have proved less forgiving [Iran?]. Therefore, within that context, from that broader, historical view, one can with credibility speculate that continuing attempts to characterize Iraq as 'the biggest mistake ever' et al are classic examples of not seeing forest because of trees - speculate that possibly the most dire and dangerous consequences stem not from the war per se but from the litany of false impressions stirred up and left to linger in its wake.

This is not to absurdly defend any actions an empire might take but rather to defend a moderating reality, often missed by lobbyists for and against, that implies there is a dynamic in which an empire must move in order to remain viable the benefits of which cannot always immediately be known or reduced to a balance sheet that clearly states what is lost and what is gained.