Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
America’s public and intellectual elites do not know history. How can we say we know our enemies or know ourselves. [sic] Sun Tzu would be ashamed, no? ~Michael Brendan Dougherty
Perhaps, or perhaps he would take it as evidence that we were pushovers ripe for an invasion.
More seriously, Michael’s post, inspired by Scott McConnell’s article comparing Iraq and Algeria […]
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Filed under: politics, history, foreign policy
Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
In Riverbend’s case, perhaps, we can excuse all this. As I said, she’s had to live with the situation, and we haven’t. But it also has to be kept in mind that she presents a special, one-sided, and in some ways quite misleading perspective–that of the Sunni Arab minority, and especially its urban professional classes. […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Stephanopoulos: If this now declared deadline of Gen. Petraeus of September, if the political goals haven’t been met by then, do you see large scale Republican defections at that point?
Will: Absolutely. They do not want to have, as they had in 2006, another election on Iraq. George, it took 30, 40 years for the Republican […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
…to be so insanely wrong in his characterisations of other conservatives that he makes me look like an ecumenical bridge-builder who looks for the best in everyone’s ideas. I think there is a pretty big difference between objecting strongly to the betratyal of conservatism based on accurate assessments of what other people are proposing and the wild, scattershot style […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
There is still zero empirical evidence that anthropogenic production of CO2 is making any measurable contribution to the world’s present warming trend. The greenhouse fearmongers rely entirely on unverified, crudely oversimplified computer models to finger mankind’s sinful contribution. Devoid of any sustaining scientific basis, carbon trafficking is powered by guilt, credulity, cynicism and greed, just […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
What’s more, McCain argues on the basis of unmatched experience, including real military experience. None of the other candidates has so much as tried on a uniform. ~Niall Ferguson
I suppose if you must be a madcap warmonger, it doesn’t hurt that you at least have served in the military in wartime and suffered tremendously as […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Ironically, the correct comparison is to the Republican Party in the United States. This is a political party that draws much of its support from the political mobilization of Christian sentiment. ~Matt Yglesias
Yglesias is responding to a Michael Rubin item here, which was an update on his original post about anti-AK rallies. The comparisons with […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy, Islam
Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
If the conservative movement’s domestic policy vision ran from Ponnuru on the right to Brooks on the left, well … Andrew might not be happy with the result (though I think his differences with both men are often more a matter of emphases and rhetoric than policy substance), but I’m pretty sure the GOP wouldn’t […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
The problem for Obama is that his failure to be more supportive of Israel will not be forgotten by those for whom this is a dealbreaker, which includes not only a fair share of Democratic donors, but also a significant voting bloc in states like New York and Florida. ~Susan Estrich
As I have already said, […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
But neither the New Mexico governor nor the two senators with the most time in office said or did anything that ignited the sparks you need to move up in the hierarchy of the race, which inevitably becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. ~Susan Estrich
This is something I hate about the political media. The “hierarchy” didn’t exist four […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Obama was as jittery as an aged Katharine Hepburn [bold mine-DL], and gave away the natural advantage of his tremendous intellect by failing to provide any specifics. He shied away from engaging frontrunner Clinton and appeared timid and uninformed. His candidacy can’t afford another appearance this bad. ~Kevin Hassett
On the other side, Mr. Hassett believes nuestro […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Rove is more than a symbol. He is the architect of Bush’s election triumphs and an influential player in pushing the president’s agenda. He represents Republican success. ~Fred Barnes
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Filed under: politics
Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
So you have peculiar situations where authors can report an unending sequence of facts which suggest an epoch of relative material scarcity and decreased social complexity who just won’t admit that judged by these metrics there was a downsizing. ~Razib
I have a couple points expanding on my original response to Razib’s otherwise very good review of Ward-Perkins’ […]
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Filed under: history
Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
At first, I thought my improved rank in the TTLB ecosystem had something to do with the greater attention Eunomia had received lately (and, of course, all the fine content that you are being provided). It seems that I was kidding myself. The entire ranking system seems to have gone haywire. I was alerted to just how […]
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Filed under: miscellaneous
Posted on April 29th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
For the past few months, while he has virtually been crowned Antiwar Republican Demigod by certain enthusiasts, I have complained that Chuck Hagel said a lot of promising-sounding things but never actually did anything. Well, okay, he is at least doing something now. It isn’t much, and it doesn’t reflect a foreign policy vision all that terribly […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on April 29th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Eight years later, it is Clinton who is running for president, and Penn, 53, is her chief strategist. While not her campaign manager in name, Penn controls the main elements of her campaign, most important her attempt to define herself to an electorate seemingly ready for a Democratic president but possibly still suffering from Clinton […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on April 29th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
A Thompson run would be a serious, possibly fatal, blow to the prospects of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who hopes to emerge (against either McCain or Giuliani) as the “conservative alternative.” Thompson would be a rival for that role, and the announcement of his candidacy would create at least a temporary boomlet that would […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on April 29th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
In Colorado, Republican Sen. Wayne Allard’s decision not to seek reelection set the stage for one of the nation’s most competitive 2008 races. But the top choice of party leaders, former Rep. Scott McInnis, has taken a pass, citing family reasons. McInnis had nearly $1 million stockpiled for the race. ~The Los Angeles Times
The rest […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on April 29th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
For a time. Once the frenzy of the nominating campaign was over, Royal proved a candidate so weak as to horrify the Socialist rank and file. For a politician who speaks so often about listening to ordinary people, she is authoritarian in private, according to Eric Besson, a snubbed top aide who gave a bestselling […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on April 29th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Personally, I like it. ~Robert Kagan on Obama’s foreign policy
It’s hardly a secret that Obama is a rabid interventionist. He didn’t exactly hide this in the past, and with his foreign policy speech last week he has made it clear just how far out there he is. Not that this should surprise anyone–Obama is a […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on April 28th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
They are like people quietly marching to their doom. ~David Brooks on the GOP
Brooks’ observation about the miserable state of the GOP is interesting, but does he really think that the presidential candidates for ‘08 are competing for the “George Allen” vote? No one would compete for the “George Allen” vote as such if you […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on April 28th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
But I do think that those who claim the gentleman from Kansas is such a conservative rock star (see our previous posts on the silliness of the Conservative Messiah Watch) ought to be a little more careful given that his views on the most pressing issue of our time–the war against jihadists who want to […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on April 28th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
I would never have thought it possible, but Cornel West is actually making some sense about Obama and the other presidential candidates.
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Filed under: politics
Posted on April 28th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Recently, there have been a few statements about pre-war Iraqi society that would appear to flatly contradict each other. One comes from Ali Allawi’s new book The Occupation of Iraq (via Fouad Ajami’s review in The New Republic and a helpful reader of this blog):
Essentially, it was based on the recognition by the Shi’a elite that they […]
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Filed under: politics, culture, foreign policy
Posted on April 28th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Heidi, a recent college graduate from Florida, wonders whether the war will eventually collapse on the Green Zone, the way it did on the U.S. embassy in Saigon. But she doesn’t let that occupy her for long. Looking down at the empty glass in her hand, she smiles and says, “Let’s do a shot.” ~Brian […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
