On the eve of the New Year, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, charged with conspiring to sell the Senate seat of Barack Obama, put the ball back squarely in the court of a Democratic Party that had disowned him.

Blago named Roland Burris, former attorney general of Illinois and first African-American ever to win statewide office, to fill the vacated seat. National Democrats and their media auxiliaries went berserk.

This governor, thundered the New York Times, “has taken his hubris to new heights and the misery of Illinois citizens to new lows.”

This appointment “will not stand,” raged Majority Leader Harry Reid.

If the distinguished 71-year-old lawyer arrives to take his seat, Reid threatened, the Senate will slam the door in his face.

But who is truly showing hubris here? And under what authority and with what justification would Reid deny Burris his seat?

There is not the slightest hint Burris did anything unethical or illegal to win this appointment. Nor is there any doubt as to Governor Blagojevich’s right to make the appointment. He is still governor of Illinois. He has not been convicted of anything. And he not only has the right but an obligation to carry out his duties, one of which is to appoint candidates to fill empty seats in the U.S. Senate.

As for Burris, his qualifications are surely superior to those of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, whom Democrats have been pounding New York Gov. David Paterson to appoint to Hillary Clinton’s seat.

Before now, Kennedy has shown zero interest in public office or a public life. She has been lax in voting and shown nothing in the way of political substance since being hailed as the next senator.

Who is to say Paterson’s motives in considering Kennedy are superior to Blagojevich’s motives in naming Burris? Read more…

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It’s silly of the Politico to suggest that the “Magic Negro” brouhaha might actually help would-be RNC chairman Chip Saltsman. His candidacy is effectively over, and while some RNC mandarins might defend him — they need to buttress their standing with the conservative grassroots somehow — they won’t want him as the figurehead of their party. If this flap helps anyone, it helps Ken Blackwell: Republican committeemen who want to appear conservative while neutralizing Saltsman’s politically incorrect gaffe might well turn to the black candidate who has spoken up for Saltsman — Blackwell. “As a result of his position, a source close to the race said that at least 12 uncommitted committee members have contacted Blackwell to thank him for his support for Saltsman,” the Politico story notes.

Whatever benefit accrues to Blackwell might not be enough to see him through: I tend to credit reports that committeemen are leaning heavily toward picking one of their own as chairman. But perhaps the RNC will think that only a Blackwell or a Michael Steele can insulate the party against accusations of racism and allow Republicans to go after Obama with gusto. (Then again, who really believes the Republicans will get a pass just because they choose a black chairman?) In any case, the RNC battle serves as a test of the alternate strategies Sean Scallon mapped out in TAC: the GOP can reinforce its appeal to its traditional base (perhaps by choosing South Carolina’s Katon Dawson? Or by trying to win back Reagan Democrats with Michigan’s Saul Anuzis?) or it can try to rebrand itself a party both conservative and diverse (with Ken Blackwell). But the trouble for the GOP is that the former path may lead to extinction, while the latter runs aground on the reality that the GOP is neither diverse nor, especially after the Bush years, conservative.

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I finally saw David Zucker’s witless An American Carol, which consists of 80 minutes of Kelsey Grammer reading Hugh Hewitt columns aloud. Grammer, John Voigt and several other rightwing actors embarrass themselves in this film dedicated to the proposition that one should always support any war, period, as long as the U.S. is fighting; and that the only possible stances are mindless militarism and empty, “give peace a chance” pacifism.

As bad as An American Carol is, I give it credit for accurately capturing the mentality of the Right in the late Bush years, as represented by Townhall, Pajamas Media and the Republican party. It even features Trace Adkins calling an audience of soldiers, sailers and marines the “real America,” in true Sarah Palin fashion; in spite of the fact that, as Andrew Bacevich has pointed out, only a tiny percentage of Americans are actully fighting in its wars.

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Last summer, as Barack Obama directed the subtle intimidation of fawning European crowds (millions of charisma-intoxicated Germans can’t be wrong!) at those Americans still retaining the quaint notion presidential elections are domestic affairs not subject to global opinion, at least one of his acolytes in the media here in the formal remnant of the United States gushed that Senator Obama had thereby assumed the leadership role vacated by President Bush–by acquiring the geopolitical equivalent of an impressive TVQ score. “Power begets more power, absolutely” Mr. Rich enthused, apparently without irony.

We’ll leave aside for the moment the interlocutor’s widely shared confusion–that President Bush does, or that President Obama can be expected to, maintain a leadership role that is more substantial than ceremonial. The inverse relationship between the freedom of action afforded a president and the power vested in the executive office continues to grow, along with the complexity of the job and Congress’ by now institutional cowardice. Likewise the relationship between the caliber of man drawn from the electable and the reverential expectations we have of the office. For this we have only ourselves to blame. Remarkable leaders are possible only by astounding coincidence in this environment, and they will not be fashioned out of creative desperation (witness the fiction of President Bush’s post-9/11, thrust-upon greatness).

Of course, before Barack Obama’s world tour touched down amid the automatic adulation of the children and the childlike of Europe, he’d already performed a much smaller gig in front of a tougher crowd in Israel, where he dutifully asserted that any amount of force (or US munitions) Israel deems necessary to deter Hamas’ crude rocket attacks is justified, because he has children of his own (the children of Gaza, and how their deaths might perpetuate the cycle of violence–something the president-elect has at least feigned awareness of in the past–would not be allowed to complicate this simple calculus). Yes, he doesn’t really believe this, he was just saying–which is precisely the point. Even now, three weeks before the nation changes administrations in a state of bewildering economic and geopolitical crisis, the next president of the United States has little experience beyond just saying.

That rhetorical bet of last July is now being called, before the president-elect has even sat at the table in earnest, as sanction for a gruesomely disproportionate military response leveled upon an all but powerless adversary. The precocious senator, having grown used to posturing before people intoxicated by the imagined wisdom inherent in his mulatto moral superiority, and having his elegant vapidities received as profundities, has forgotten, or never properly learned, that words have meaning. Of course he’s not alone; we’ve all forgotten this. Barack Obama wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

More to the point, this man who’s made a religion of power (with which he has, like the born-again Christian and his savior, a close personal relationship), has ascended with such absurd ease and rapidity to its pinnacle he hasn’t had the opportunity to develop sufficient respect for its consequences. His make-believe of last summer, playing at global “leadership”, is suddenly harsh reality. Israel’s hard bargainers weren’t just looking for him to genuflect properly (this much is to be expected), but were looking for something a little more concrete. Obliterate the Gazan ghetto with America’s finest military hardware before an outraged world, burning through American soft power as rapidly as we expend her munitions? Yes we can!

So the presumption and airs of that heady summer last are nowhere to be found as the president-elect ducks questions on his way from gym to golf course, his sudden shyness papered over by embarrassing beefcake shots. “One president at a time” is how the dodge is put into words, even as Israel’s actions and Ehud Barak’s assertions, placing limitations upon the incoming administration with the complicity of the current one, reveal it for what it truly is, capitulation to a forced reality. The economic crisis warranted no such respectful inaction, but rather haste in supporting the status quo; Obama’s duck-and-cover in this instance is really the same thing after all, reassurance to the players upon which the new president’s cherished power is utterly dependent that he will not step out of line. As for that much-hyped esteem which the rest of the world so cheaply bestowed on our frail young prince, it will wear out as quickly and to the same disappointment of any cheap purchase if Mr. Obama doesn’t redeem it with real, yeah, “change”.

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According to Israeli historian Benny Morris, writing in The New York Times today, Israel is facing now an existential threat, akin to the one it confronted on the eve of the 1967/Six-Day War. No one denies that Israel is facing many threats as do most members of the United Nations. But the notion that Israelis feel or should feel that “the walls — and history — are closing in on their 60-year-old state,” Israel, with its educated population, advanced economy, powerful military, nuclear weapons, etc. is just nonsense.

Morris lists problems and dilemmas that Israel will have to deal with, including a large Arab minority inside its borders.

What is common to these specific threats is their unconventionality. Between 1948 and 1982 Israel coped relatively well with the threat from conventional Arab armies. Indeed, it repeatedly trounced them. But Iran’s nuclear threat, the rise of organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah that operate from across international borders and from the midst of dense civilian populations, and Israeli Arabs’ growing disaffection with the state and their identification with its enemies, offer a completely different set of challenges. And they are challenges that Israel’s leaders and public, bound by Western democratic and liberal norms of behavior, appear to find particularly difficult to counter.

What is common to all these “threats” (Israeli Arabs are citizens of the state and not “a threat”) is that they don’t have a concrete military solution and may force Israel to make difficult political compromises. And if one examines the historical analogy that Morris applies in his commentary, the Six-Day War, the swift Israeli military victory in 1967 demonstrated that the Israelis’ apocalyptic fear of destruction at that time was unwaranted. It also made it clear that military “solutions” don’t necessarily resolve problems. In fact, the 1967 War ended-up creating even more problems, including the control by Israel of the Palestinian population in Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Hence, most Israelis will be delighted if Egypt decided to retake control of the Gaza Strip…

In any case, after reading Morris today I recalled the advice that the late Israeli PM Levi Eshkol (who headed the Israeli government in 1967) had given to Israeli diplomats then: “Present yourself as Poor Samson” (or pitiful Samson), make powerful Israel look weak in order to justify Israeli military action. Indeed, that is exactly what Morris does in his ominous sounding finale:

Israel’s sense of the walls closing in on it has this past week led to one violent reaction. Given the new realities, it would not be surprising if more powerful explosions were to follow.

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