I've stated before that if forced to choose I'd take the excesses of a conservative agenda over the excesses of a liberal one because the liberal one leads to enfeeblement - I think it's much easier to step back from the problems arising from the exercise of strength than to pull oneself out of the mud of an encroaching weakness. I always believed history would come to judge Obama a worse president than Bush - but even I'm shocked at how quickly Obama is demonstrating the truth behind my hypothetical choice. A rise in debt and attending rise in taxes that will rationalize an ideologically driven redistribution of wealth that is entirely un-American, a phony arms control agreement with Russia that does nothing at all but serve Russia's interests at America's expense, a completely idiotic, delusional and astoundingly arrogant approach to Israel that is sowing the seeds for chaos down the road, and an almost incomprehensible lassitude when it comes to Iran that suggests that Obama is either completely uninterested in complex foreign policy issues, is incapable of understanding why Iran getting the bomb will almost certainly lead to bad things, or is so confounded by his governing ideology that that forest will not admit to its trees, if I may be allowed the beggaring an an old adage.

update: so of course Obama heads to Afghanistan. Should have seen that one coming - maybe just too obvious for comment: move the country way to the left and then go visit the troops and give meaningless speech as if that makes up for it. No doubt there are a lot of voters out there who fall for shit like this - his poll numbers are still mediocre but just jumped up 5% - I mean, who the fuck are these people? - is this the ADD demographic? Jesus. Sure, politicians are in the business of selling crap to gullible consumers - but I don't think someone using the presidency as if it's just another political sell job does anyone any favours - and that's all I get from Obama, he's in a constant self promotion mode for reasons which are all about his ego or his ideology, and often there's no light between those things - hell, the hagiography demonstrates that - possibly I'm just spewing bile from my own little ideologically jaundiced cloud - but I look at Obama's first year and all I see is failure on all the big issues - I don't understand what people are looking at who see something else - but of course according to Frank Rich at the Times that's because I'm a racist - and maybe that's what it's about, that such profound idiocy roused in defense of Obama is just so galling it's hard to not feel an abject cynicism - or maybe it's the thought that there's enough voters out there that will be so unwilling to think negative thoughts about the first black president that he's gonna get away with some real bad shit - and I don't know how anyone looks at that health care reform bills and doesn't see disaster - hell, Warren Buffet, who signed on at the beginning with Obama as an informal financial adviser said a month ago that we should scrap the bill, start over, make reasonable, incremental changes because the economy is just too weak to be fucking around with another sprawling, entirely unpredictable entitlement - but I guess Warren Buffet's a racist, right? That's gotta be it.

"... how China does and will continue to exploit our 'endeavors' and problematic commitments to 'vital interests' in the Mideast is certainly a challenging subject for debate, but for the nonce I'll just quibble with this tendentious sentence of yours:

That's not only because the U.S. government financed the war with borrowings from China, but also because while we were distracted, Beijing has been a busy bee diplomatically, especially in East Asia.

One, I hope you feel the same disgust for Obama's efforts to increase our indebtedness to the Middle Kingdom - his fondness for unfunded entitlements and the torpidity of the welfare state will do more to drive us into insolvency than Bush's 'freedom' agenda. And two, do you really believe China would be doing anything differently if we hadn't gone into Iraq? The Mideast is in play for China just as it was for the USSR - the only thing that would have altered that dynamic in a positive way for us is if the war had been prosecuted with more 'efficiency' - not going in may have shuffled the deck but the cards would remain largely the same, except that instead of dealing with political instability in Iraq we'd be caught up in the absurdist theater of Saddam and Sons - certainly Iran would still be pursuing the bomb.

And this whole notion of America being 'distracted' is nonsense - if America cannot juggle several balls at once then it's no longer a super power, and if one wants to have that argument, fine - but you don't seem to be arguing that. The charge of being 'distracted' has turned into another empty cliche the left likes to roll out when it's Bush bashing time..."

"... I've made this point before with you and will make it again: America can survive looking unjust, cruel, overly aggressive - indeed, these things can prove serviceable in wartime, certainly Lincoln seemed to think so, and FDR - our commitment to the rights of individuals and to freedom pulls us back from any abyss we find ourselves tempted by. What is much more injurious and worrisome for a great power is to appear weak - we cannot afford to look weak, the consequences of that will prove much more dire than Cheney's brief flirtation with putative torture. This liberal obsession with Bush era excesses does nothing but make us look weak, besotted by a whining angst and whimpers of conscience. I mean, I assume Mr Ricks, given your field of interest, you're a student of history - show me the great power that has prospered governed by such a cloying and sentimental display of sympathetic weakness. They don't exist, and for a very good reason.

Bush made a mistake - big surprise. Get over it..."

Rather startling the turn around - suddenly Obama has gone from lame duck to ushering in a liberal golden age with the cackling face-lifted Pelosi riding shot gun - all because of the passage of a deeply flawed health care bill by means of an unprecedented abuse of the legislative system and against the will of public opinion. People and pundits are predicting the end of the republican party and the end of America for that matter [well, righties are; lefties can't stop giggling so taken they are with themselves] - all a bit hysterical it seems, no?. True, if Americans do not send a stern message of disapproval to democrats in November that will probably be a bad thing - if only because campaigning against what has happened here should be so easy that if republicans can't pull it off that will be a clear indication that something is very wrong, either with the republican party in particular or the country in general. And granted, the democrats have pursued a far left agenda as if they literally disdained bipartisanship and that could poison the political waters for a generation leading to god knows what aberrations and abominations - the democrats have lowered the bar and pushed through lousy legislation against the public will, what's to stop them from doing it again if they don't pay a price in November? Or, on the other hand, you could see manifestation of the dreaded cascading ping pong effect of idealogical over reactions: Clinton leads to Bush leads to Obama leads to... Palin?

But maybe Sarah can be a new Reagan to Obama's Carter - hard to believe that, very hard, in fact nigh impossible - still, Ronnie too was underestimated, scorned by the left wing MSM and intelligentsia as a light weight - and like Sarah he had a humble way of connecting to a demographic that toils away far beyond the reaches of Obama's honeyed eloquence - and, again like Sarah, he had a simple message: big government weakens America. It's a message that sells, especially if, as with Carter, a foreign policy disaster lends credence to the impression.

"... to put things simply, it occurs to me that those who support and cheer Obama and his shrew familiar Pelosi's successful shoe-horning through congress of a bloated and ruinous health care bill do so because they lack the ability to place it in the proper historical context... these people seem to think it a noble cause for a great power to bankrupt itself by promoting egalitarianism and a sentimental concern for the poor and needy... but great powers are first and foremost about power, and that is always a reflection of economic vigour and military strength which themselves are a reflection or manifestation of an underlying culture that throughout the history of great powers has seldom, in fact never been about extolling the putative virtues of social welfareism, regardless of certain august states, namely the USSR and Maoist China, having claimed a motherly care for the people as a governing ethos... in short, liberals mistake the watery ideals they hold dear as the cause of indulgent circumstances rather than the mere byproduct of darker forces not nearly so forgiving or enlightened... they either fail to understand that America cannot be defined by an ill fitting emotional construct of sympathy and remain powerful or they do understand but feel so threatened and marginalized by this coarse reality that they long for its decline and are vain enough to believe that there are not after all more things in heaven and earth than be dreamt of in their philosophy..."

Stanford law professor McConnell makes this point, similar to query I made few days ago:

One thing is sure: To proceed in this way creates an unnecessary risk that the legislation will be invalidated for violation of Article I, Section 7. Will wavering House members want to use this procedure when there is a nontrivial probability that the courts will render their political sacrifice wasted effort? To hazard that risk, the House leadership must have a powerful motive to avoid a straightforward vote.

If passage of this bill is dependent on a dubious constitutionality [a reality borne out by fact that even left leaning academics have noticed the dark constitutional clouds hanging over it] then why risk it? Where's the logic to this? I take it McConnell is suggesting the bill is so flawed that even though democrats control congress the only way to get it passed is through less than honest means - I guess the logic being that Obama has invested so much in this nonsense that to not pass something now would drive his administration into lame duck status with three years still remaining in his term ergo, if his presidency is toast anyway, might as well fulfill, even if only partially, one long cherished liberal dream, the thinking being that once in place you'll never get rid of it and therefore it amounts to a crucial first step in the long march towards socialized medicine and the consequent decline [or transcendence as liberals would have it] of America into a passive, European styled tax heavy social welfare ladened bureaucracy. Or something like that.

If true it suggests that Washington is an even bigger mess than one was already quite willing to believe and that democrats are not only benighted ideologues, they're incompetent benighted ideologues - a characterization that can really work against you if you happen to be up for re-election. No doubt though they're sustained by the conviction, like all zealots and true believers, that they're on the right side of history and their efforts and sacrifices will eventually be deemed glorious. I'm sure Trotsky was thinking similar thoughts just before Stalin's axe came crashing through his brain.

[update: democrats abandon controversial 'deem and pass' tactic. So much for that. They just come to their senses? Classic bait and switch trickery? Or they feel they now have the votes so tricks are not necessary? And if that's the case, what happened to change things - in other words, whose been promised what?

From Yuval Levin over at National Review:

We are in the fiscal mess we’re in because again and again our leaders (Republicans and Democrats alike) have failed to find the political courage to fix our entitlement system. That won’t change with this bill. What will change is that the problem will be made much worse, and the means available to fix it in the future will be made fewer and more difficult and costly to employ.

This seems to me the one unassailable negative to the health care shite the democrats are pushing through: even if one gives the bill the benefit of the doubt and allows for all the highly improbable rosy scenarios to actually play out as promoted resulting in a 'deficit neutral' end product, you're still left with an expensive new entitlement that does nothing to improve the fiscal mess but rather makes it worse by sucking up tax increases that could have been used for debt reduction. In short, the very best you can say of this thing is it will produce a marginal increase in access to health care, possibly a marginal reduction in insurance premiums, possibly no dramatic change in quality of care but more likely a decline there, all bought at the expense of making it much, much more difficult to tackle the fiscal crisis sitting on the US balance sheet. And that's the best you can say about it - which is why I maintain [although I'm still the only one harping on this which makes me think maybe I've gone a bit silly] that Obama has no intention of running for a second term.

I see Peggy Noonan in the WSJ takes Obama to task for what she calls his growing tendency to be evasive to the point of dishonesty - that he disingenuously weaves his statements with a surplus of words that lead nowhere. But I believe it was I who pointed out two or three years ago to a callow group of nascent Obama acolytes during an interview he was meandering through that if you pay close attention you'll notice that when asked a probing question he'll circle it with a string of prolix, protracted, ponderous and putatively eloquent sentences that seem to promise much but never once come close to actually offering an answer. Glad to see the pundits are catching up to me.

Hmmn... in China American tech companies can staff themselves with qualified engineers for about 750/month and there's an unending stream of them pouring out of Chinese universities - compare that to what, 9, 10 thousand/month in the States where there's not enough of them so staffing depends on immigration? In China these companies are also favoured with huge tax breaks, subsidies for any number of things, low construction costs, long term leases on property at ridiculously low rates - and what do the Chinese want in return, aside from the obvious economic boon? The technology. Of course, these migrating companies resist, more or less, install anti-theft procedures and protocols etc etc - but, really, how long can that last? And twenty years from now China has the factories, the skilled work force, the technology - don't need the States anymore, except as consumers, but what is a consumer that spends its life working at Walmart really worth come the end of the day? Besides, China has a billion potential consumers of its own just roiling about out there so maybe not even that's true. So then what?

I really have a hard time seeing how this all works out - granted, the issues are complex and would probably take a gifted person replete with the necessary knowledge and wisdom to hazard a credible guess - but regardless - instincts count for something and I just don't see how this all works out. Thank god though that the Obama administration spent its first year in office mucking about with a health insurance reform bill that will make America less competitive and more indebted to the Chinese. Great work people. But hey, as long as Nancy Pelosi and the membership of SAG are happy, how can things possibly go wrong?

[to counter my despair, popular academic and apparent hopeless optimist Joel Kotkin has this to say: 

“The America of 2050 may not stride the world like a hegemonic giant, but it will evolve into the one truly transcendent superpower in terms of society, technology and culture,” Mr. Kotkin gushes. “Its greatest power will be its identification with notions of personal liberty, constitutional protections and universalism.”

Given the viral finger-pointing and hand-wringing over what’s seen as America’s decline these days, Mr. Kotkin’s book provides a timely and welcome — if sometimes Panglossian — antidote. He builds his case for the prevalence of American exceptionalism on the nation’s adaptability, ingenuity, vast land and other resources and religiosity (and also on a less convincing argument that the country has rebounded before).

Those singularly American virtues collectively endow the country with sokojikara — the Japanese scholar Fuji Kamiya’s description of “a reserve power that allows it to overcome both the inadequacies of its leaders and the foibles of its citizens.”

If that remarkable reserve appears to be depleted these days, Mr. Kotkin, a distinguished presidential fellow at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and a columnist for Forbes magazine, projects a resurgence in the next four decades — if the nation can overcome its ennui. Meanwhile, he asserts, China is aging more rapidly and its population may begin to decline before mid-century, and India remains impoverished and divided...]

"... what exactly is it convinces us that Muslims don't think of democracy as simply another way of imposing a theocratic based autocracy? Our own history suggests democracy is the end product of a process of liberalization and a respect for the rights of man, not the source of it. If we go back to the beginning, although hardly a perfect illustration, but Athens was democratic, as far they understood it, before it was a democracy, as far as they understood it. And on an entirely unrelated but entirely related subject, surely it has occurred to someone who matters that Arabs want us involved, committed to peace between Israel and the Palestinians because they know these efforts can never succeed and therefore they always have some sin against the glories of Islam to hold over our infidel heads. This can't possibly be a novel idea... yet we continually act as if no one's thought of it before..."

Do the democrats, or maybe just Obama specifically, want the procedural trick they plan to use to slip the health care bill through congress to be ruled unconstitutional? There seems to be consensus among legal scholars on both sides of the aisle that what the democrats are planning is on pretty thin ice constitution wise and therefore a SCOTUS challenge of any law that does manage to pass appears distinctly possible - and so the question becomes, if passage of this legislation is so important to democrats that they're willing to risk annihilation at the polls come November, why would you leave it so vulnerable to being overturned? Certainly one, although admittedly unlikely answer to that question is somebody wants it to be overturned - why? Well... look like you tried to do something grand and progressive but were thwarted by evil right wing reactionaries - this allows you to wrap yourself in a kind of glory without having to endure all the negative consequences of being held responsible for the enactment of a deeply flawed and unpopular law. And of course I've already speculated that Obama doesn't want to serve a second term but has to figure out a way to avoid it without degrading too much his appeal to lefties everywhere.Or possibly, since this administration loves its academics, possibly this is chaos theory in action, their version of Cortes burning his boats.

These conjectures seem... a stretch, let's say - but what then? Simply desperation? The thought of walking away from this cherished liberal dream is so unpalatable to them that they're willing to risk it all on a constitutional roll of the dice? Seems a tad irrational for pedagogues who like to think of themselves as the only adults in the room.

"... liberals certainly do reveal themselves by insisting on the nobility of their cause as justification for pushing through health care reform legislation... make that health insurance reform as they without shame now parse it... ramming it through regardless of clear evidence suggesting the public is unimpressed... real die hards are seen embracing the certain defeat in coming elections their zealotry consigns them to as if they were martyrs marching to the gallows in glorious service to their most omnipotent god... democracy demands it of us they construe... we were elected to do great things and if it takes the bold actions of an enlightened few to lead the not so enlightened masses towards the grace of a greater good, then so be it... but of course they've failed to understand that democracy is actually an expression of scepticism, of doubt... its methodology is motivated by a belief that no one can really be trusted and a viable social contract must reflect that uneasy state of nature... in short, democracy is a defense against the unnatural absolutes zealots and martyrs and an ordained elite would demand of themselves and the people whose obedience they covet..."

There are two scenarios as far as China is concerned: increasing economic power will mean an increasingly powerful communist state which will encourage and demand an increasingly anti-Western nationalism to hold it together and appease a paranoia that has been a part of Chinese culture and governance for two thousand years and is endemic to authoritarian polities; or widespread social upheaval the consequences of which are hard if not impossible to predict but regardless on both a regional and global scale will prove extremely disruptive no matter how desperately one tries to ken a bright side. The erstwhile third option, which imagined or fancied a halting evolution of China into an open democracy, recedes from the realm of the possible with an almost disdainful abandon.

The current status quo could pertain for twenty or thirty years until the rise of India threatens China's process economy and things start to unwind. More likely though in the relatively more immediate future, barring of course a game changing social reconfiguration of the Middle Kingdom, an increasingly irrelevant and acquiescent Europe will further isolate America creating a fragile vulnerability that will conflict with an increasingly aggressive Chinese foreign policy that encourages autocracies and draws to it allies that have long sought or wished for a humbling of America and the West.

I suppose there is a plausible third option: American and European business interests and their respective economies become so entangled in 'the Chinese way' that resistance proves futile and a new world order emerges with something more of a whimper than a bang. I'm unsure of historical precedents for such - possibly the decline of Rome and consequent rise of Muslim, Byzantine and 'European' powers - but one would hardly classify those transformations as whimpers.

[is there a fourth option? No doubt fourth, fifth and sixth options - but what if Western economies, and competing Pacific rim economies too, see a quick escalation of political and populist resentment towards China's 'unfair' trade practices? Have trouble seeing that enmity translate directly into aggression and conflict - but certainly could see it resulting in dramatic rise of protectionism and corresponding dramatic downturn in global economy and that could potentially bring us face to face with a conflict or possibly precipitate a social upheaval in China that leads to... well, leads to god knows what]

[seems like an affront to credibility that all my China scenarios are unhappy, no? Respectful nod to an unforgiving realism then - almost sounds reassuring]

[and furthermore it must be said that I don't know how relevant China conjectures can be without a thorough understanding of the economic dynamics in which the politics is cradled - but that's a murky thing indeed - even the on the surface simple or 'obvious' issue of China's artificial valuation of the Yuan produces opinions all over the board - Krugman, a lefty I have trouble tolerating, wrote an op-ed yesterday basically saying it's time America declared 'war' on China's unfair currency manipulation - and the response to this agitation by more moderate and right wing economists was anything but clear: some modestly agreed, some vehemently disagreed, some reasonably argued that China's dollar games were a necessary evil, some said good or bad now is not the time to be raising a stink over it - etc etc - how to thoroughly understand the dynamics when the 'experts' can't find common ground for an understanding to exist? After reading several essays all I come away with is a feeling China and America are fatally addicted co-dependents in a relationship that seems doomed to fail: China needs an under valued currency to drive exports in order to placate social ills and discontents which creates vast trade surpluses which they use to buy American debt which has the effect of keeping the Yuan under valued - and America of course needs China to buys its dollars otherwise its huge current account deficits would send the economy into free fall, which puts it in the absurdly masochistic position of desiring something it should want to avoid, namely a huge trade deficit with a country that will be challenging it for world dominance in the none too distant future - and lets not forget that an economy that is driven by consumer spending would be in trouble if prices were to rise, which they would if the price of the Yuan was a reflection of its true value - and all that's confusing enough without even considering how the lesser economies in the world are impacted... and so it goes]

"... isn't this continuing push for peace between Israel and the Palestinians absurd? Hasn't it taken on the personality of an absurdist black comedy, a bitter satire where fops and fools blow puffery at each other while the real world spins away unseen? There's no possible agreement these people can reach that will satisfy both parties and therefore any putative future pseudo entente will be unsatisfactory and highly vulnerable to disruption: Israel would still be left dependent on cold calculation and endless vigilance in order to guard against the fact they live in a neighbourhood where no one likes them; and the Palestinians would still be saddled with poor, corrupt and conflicted governance, poverty in general, no economy to speak of, an idle, uneducated workforce and consequently frustrated youth and extremist elements just sitting around waiting to get mad at something, preferably something Jewish or at least American... no, this ongoing peace charade is nothing but silly..."

I wonder if there's a statistical analysis out there, a probabilities take, a chaos theory viewpoint regarding how the 'micro' proliferation of nuclear arms impacts the likelihood of something very bad happening. I have no abilities concerning the 'numbers' logic of these disciplines and therefore can barely even offer a guess as to what they might indicate - but that feeble guess would tend to imagine the impact as not being particularly sanguine for the species.

I ask this question not only in reference to Iran, which I increasingly view as perched on the edge of a watershed moment in the dire history of proliferation now that China et al have made it clear they're not going to support any tough measures to stop a country that has stated officially that it wants to wipe another country off the face of the earth [doesn't matter if this statement was substantially rhetorical] from developing technology that would make such a thing possible - but also in reference to the ugly little dictatorship in Burma which apparently is getting or actively seeking help from the north Koreans viz developing nuke capabilities. [sidebar: what responsibility will China bear should a rogue nuke enabled by them be used in Israel, London, New York? China would like Burma as a dependent ally because of its geographical subtending of vital waterways - they'll look the other way should Burma make an effort to go nuclear, just like they have done with North Korea and will do with Iran - it's not much of a stretch to view China as the chief enabler of these current and potential rogue WMD programs - if ten years from now a loose nuke from Burma ends up leveling Manhattan, well, that's a whole lot of shit hitting a pretty god damn massive fan]

I've made the point before that caution in foreign policy is a difficult horse to ride - you think a reasonable approach gives you control but then suddenly things change and you realize too late that a more forceful hand would have served you well. I've been struck by those who sanctimoniously dismiss the idea of an Israeli strike on Iran as jingoistic nonsense - fear or ignorance or ideological blindness cause them to artificially favour one approach over another because of the illusion of a reasonable peace: an attack by Israel on Iran leaves no room for such illusory comforts.

Empires, great powers, somehow come to the point where they can no longer see or sense the ground giving way beneath them and are therefore incapable of doing what's necessary. Rome could have denied the Vandals control of Egypt and preserved the 'free' access to grain which underwrote much of their financial system - but apparently the threat went unnoticed or, if noticed, failed to stir the passions of those that mattered - and thus fell the Western empire. Of course, in many ways it was not that simple - then again, to trouble your dreams, in many ways it was.

"... possibly - but extremely unlikely Israel will be waiting til after 2011 to strike if it's gonna strike - Israel no doubt feels compelled to wait for sanctions Kabuki dance to stumble to inevitable unsatisfactory terminus before making any final decisions on military intervention, but that ugly end will come long before SOFA expires.

Much more likely Iran wants the US out - but an accurate understanding of  true nature of current relationship between Iran and Iraq would be required to make predictions here and I'm guessing all parties are waiting for fallout from elections to be made clear before committing to any one strategy - ie smart players here will be keeping several irons in fire.

Likewise, you're assuming there will not be a significant American air presence working alongside Iraqi troops post SOFA - again, you have to wait to see how post election dynamics play out before any reasonable speculation is possible concerning post SOFA Iraq.

Of course, you're an Obama 'fan' and who knows what foolhardy policies he'll pursue. Given his performance viz health care reform and his seeming willingness to turn the democrats into the minority party in 2010 for the sake of a highly dubious ideological 'victory' it appears a safe bet to guess that Obama will not mind losing or not even running in 2012 - so won't he want to go out a hero of the left wing so he can hit that lucrative lecture circuit as the black avatar of a preposterous idealism?... hard to predict what insane initiatives such license will engender..."

China says will not support sanctions on Iran at this time - fuel swap best option they say as do many 'key' players at UN- but this option to me clearly a fall back position for Iran ie if sanctions leveled then they will agree to fuel swap, which of course will be a diversion from real intentions - this seems obvious - China will not get in way of Iranian nuke ambitions - Iran is gaming the 'system', as are all parties in opposing prompt action re sanctions.

But what can be the logic for a delay on imposing sanctions when, viewed objectively, the need for such should be obvious? Only that there is a related issue which the reluctant countries care about more - America - and that says to me you can forget about any degree of diplomacy solving this problem because how else other than by a complete surrender by the US [and consequently Israel] which ends with Iran getting the bomb can these anti-American desires be satisfied?

Surprise - China reduced military budget for fiscal year. Of course, they could be lying, status quo assumes they always under report what they spend on the military, some believe by a substantial margin, which would certainly help explain a tendency to underestimate their abilities somewhat. But with all the heightened rhetoric recently being spun by PLA operatives encouraging or even almost demanding an increasingly ambitious or robust foreign policy by China to more properly reflect its relative power and the dangers implied [to them] by American power it seems a little odd or wrong or confusing to see military expenditures come down. Was the rhetoric preemptive compensation for the scale back? Is there a conflict between what the Peoples Party sees as appropriate and what military brass see as appropriate? Is there a conflict of competing factions within the military grousing for attention and consequent power? Is this an accounting trick, where military expenditures are lumped into GDP figures in order to divert attention and preen the books?

I don't know if it says something about my nature or about China's that I don't for a moment believe military spending will actually decline this year.