Happy Constitution Day!

220 years ago today, a handful of men, mostly lawyers, all elites, gathered in Philadelphia to re-create the government of their newly-independent Republic. They had a number of critical contemporary issues to deal with but also found a way, in contending with the challenges of the day, to address timeless matters of politics, government, law, human rights, and the meaning of words like "freedom" and "liberty."


The resulting document and the system of government it created was not without its flaws and imperfections. But for most effectively and meaningfully implementing the highest ideals of the Enlightenment, the Constitution of the United States of America has never been exceeded, anywhere on Earth, at any time in human history. In 220 years, we have made less than thirty changes to the dynamic, strong, and idealistic system of government created by the likes of Madison, Hamilton, Washington, Franklin, and their peers.



We Americans often forget how fortunate we are to live in a country governed by laws and not men, and indeed how fortunate we are to live in a country whose laws result from the democratic process and the embodiment of ideals of freedom. Please take a moment, Loyal Reader, to consider just how important the legacy given to us by the Founders truly is. Though they were elites, they concerned themselves with the welfare of everyone, and in so doing, have built the most enduring monument to free government the world has yet seen.

May we all be good stewards of this legacy even as we enjoy the benefits it brings us.

Use The Time Machine

What if we were able to send the bright men and women at MoveOn.org back in time to 1942? I bet we'd have seen an ad a lot like this in the New York Times.

E-e-e-e-ediots!

Deconstructing A Failed Joke

Kathy Griffin is a comedian who I usually enjoy because she is willing to make cutting jokes about celebrities that I find amusing. Like me, she is an atheist who was raised Catholic. A few days ago, she won an Emmy award for her reality show "My Life On The D List." Her acceptance speech has set off alarm bells:

"A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. If it were up to Jesus, it would be Cesar Milan and that damn dog up here. Can you believe this shit? Hell has frozen over. So suck it, Jesus, this award is my god now!"

The Catholic League was quick to condemn her remarks, saying they were the equivalent of Don Imus' "nappy-headed hos" comment that made him lose his job. (One of the women who was the target of that joke recently dropped her lawsuit against Imus, by the way.)

A lot of people say Imus got a raw deal and should not have lost his job, by the way, because he, too, was making a joke that fell very, very flat. (I wonder, if Imus' joke had been funnier, would that have helped his case?)

I certainly disapproved of Imus' joke; I thought it was in bad taste and not very funny on top of that. I did not think he deserved to lose his job. I think he deserved to lose some public standing and deserved public ridicule for it. And I think I need to apply the same standard of judgment to somebody who I identify with who does the same sort of thing (or whose joke I think had the benefit of being actually funny).

No one can fire Kathy Griffin; unlike Imus, she's self-employed. Bravo might or might not renew her show; comedy clubs might or might not book her. But then, they might or might not have done those things anyway; she does not and never has commanded the kind of media attention that Imus did. "D List" might be a bit of self-deprecation, but she's hardly a brilliant star in the firmament of Hollywood.

I can think of three ways we might distinguish Griffin from Imus:

Question 1: Does a higher humor content mitigate the offensive nature of a joke? I think not, although there is far, far more vicious humor than this out there that seems to be accepted with barely a ripple. Ever watch South Park?

Question 2: Does it matter that Griffin made fun of a religion rather than a specific individual? If you're a member of that religion, you probably don't think so; you would, reasonably, feel as though the remarks were aimed at you and everyone like you. (Nor does the fact that she is lampooning the dominant religion of our culture of much help -- if she had made fun of Judaism or Islam, it would be easier to see the problem but the problem would still be the same.)

Question 3: Does it matter that Griffin was, once upon a time, an adherent of that religion? Black comedians make fun of black people and individuals and as a group, generally with social impunity (think Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle). But I don't think that this helps Griffin much, since she is no longer a Christian and has been public about her atheism.

It's just a fact of life -- or at least a fact of show business -- that you've got to set things up carefully if you're going to make fun of people who aren't like yourself so that any reasonable person watching would be certain that you are really making a joke and intend no offense. For some kinds of people, it's just plain easier to do that than others -- it's easy for Dave Chappelle to set up a joke at the expense of "Black Power" activists because Chappelle is black himself. That doesn't mean that a white or Latino comedian could not necessarily do the same thing, but it would take more work to make clear that the white comedian was not making fun of all black people.

Which is what really got Imus in trouble at the end of the day -- he didn't set up the "nappy-headed hos" joke enough that it was immediately obvious that he didn't take what he was saying seriously. So someone did take what he said seriously, and if you do that, it was pretty offensive. So the real issue is, did Griffin set up her joke enough so that no reasonable person would think she was being serious? Someone took her seriously, and I may not be the best person to judge whether they were reasonable to do so or not.

Either way, Griffin is going to have to accept the fact that she put herself at the center of a controversy, whether it is deserved or not. She took a risk with her joke and this is the downside of that risk. I'm glad to see that she's only getting public disdain for the remark, which is all that Imus should have got for doing pretty much the same thing.

And this is also a good object lesson as to why most celebrity remarks are bland and uninteresting.

Unbelievably Stupid Acts Of Violence

Asinine. And worse. What makes people hate one another so?

Good News (I Think)

The President apparently plans to announce troop reductions to the tune of 30,000 soldiers in Iraq to be completed by next summer. Withdrawing more does not seem to be an option. Withdrawing completely, in my opinion, is not desirable in the sense that it produces too many bad results and leaves us with little, if any, net gain for our five-year misadventure in Mesopotamia.

It's a big, gigantic, and dreadful shame that General Petraeus' report to Congress has been so politicized, so polarized, and built up so much that it has become simply another platform for political theater. I doubt anyone in Congress has actually listened to anything the man has to say. (Don't even get me started on those eeediots at MoveOn, who have lost whatever very minimal credibility they might otherwise have enjoyed as agents provocateurs; they can start hanging out with this guy as far as I'm concerned.)

I've been wondering for a long time whether the surge is working; it appears to be achieving its military objectives but the Iraqis also appear to be fundamentally incapable of using the breathing space it was intended to provide to reach any kind of a political consensus capable of governing that country. As it is, the members of the Iraqi Parliament don't seem able to form enough of a consensus to order a falafel plate for lunch, much less figure out what to do with their oil revenues and unreliable national police. (Mmmm... Falafel. But I digress.)

I would like to know the truth. I would like to have some idea of what's really going on, unfiltered by either the Fox News Channel narrative or the New York Times narrative. I would like to know if I am safer now than I was five years ago. I would like to know that Osama bin Laden has been caught and will be denied access to dye for his beard in captivity, but that doesn't seem to be happening. I would like to know if the vision of a lengthy struggle against terrorism will be able to join the historical ranks of the struggles against piracy and slavery -- never to be 100% completed, but enough to make such crimes so irregular and unusual as to be remarkable. I would like to one day be able to feel safe traveling in the Middle East. I would like it, in short, if a strong United States of America could lead the world to a more peaceful phase of existence, one in which people would stop fucking killing each other because their neighbors believe in the hallucinative rants of the wrong Bronze Age misogynist.

The Wages of Stress

Didn't I just take a vacation? How come I'm so stressed out?

I've had what feels like an unusually stressful week. Couple of weeks. Work has been at what often feels like a frantic pace. I've bowed to necessity and done what I have to do, but it's been a juggling act on more than one day. I think, after giving a presentation requiring much more research than I had originally anticipated it would, I am over the hump but I am not out of the woods yet.

Buying a house is a stress. Soffit House, because it is in California, commands a much higher price and a much greater financial commitment than the home that The Wife and I bought in Knoxville and I worry that we will not be able to afford it. We will also be able to add less value to the house easily because so much improvement has already been done to it. This is but one of the many ways I find to fret over money. The missing income that University of Phoenix used to provide -- no more can I taste of that, but the money itself would certainly be welcome.

When I get home at night, I've felt so deflated that all I can do is sit. Things that normally would only be minor problems feel like major annoyances and I don't know why I'm taking life's little travails so hard recently. Patience during the day is a greater effort to find than it normally is. My animals, who want attention and love, annoy me more than is fair to them.

The Wife, who has joined Weight Watchers, seems to constantly obsess over food, constantly counting the points of everything she eats. I am inspired to lose weight, too, but I lack the discipline to track all my food intake. I have tried to moderate my portions and help make healthier choices while eating with The Wife. Although I've tried to make portion sizes right for her and use ingredients that will fit with her dietary plans, we still have had a lengthy negotiations about things like sauce for pasta. A lack of food will affect anyone's mood negatively, and we're both eating less than we're ordinarily used to. The result is that we're a little bit more on edge around each other than we normally are. I wonder if losing weight is worth that.

My feet hurt. All the time.

I try reading or watching television. I cannot concentrate. My mind meanders and can only be focused for short periods of time. Crime shows, like CSI or The Closer, feel too real and disturbing; it is sometimes too easy for me to visualize someone I love as the victim. Such thoughts are particularly unwelcome on this of all days, when the nation indulges itself in a day-long remembrance of a very dark day not so long ago, a day that altered our own national perception of, and reaction to, the world and of ourselves.

Sleep? A fleeting zephyr that either smacks me full in the face at a ridiculously early hour, or else flees from me, always just out of my grasp and mocking my feeble efforts to quiet my mind. Tonight, sleep is far, far away from me, though I am very, very tired and as you can read, my prose has become purple as a result. Perhaps tomorrow night I will follow up on dinner with a round of meditation under the guidance of our friend the Monk. It has been far too many weeks without that periodic moment of mental quiet -- perhaps I can achieve it on my own but it seems easier with the trappings of the zendo. As it is, when I lay in bed, unsleeping, and force myself to think of matters other than the stressors that haunt me during the day, dark, dark thoughts of terrible things enter my mind. I've had plenty of intense and disturbing dreams whose content vanishes with the light of the morning, but which nevertheless leave behind an aftertaste of fear, unease, or foreboding. Dreamless sleep is pleasant, but so hard to achieve!

Perhaps all this will pass as I move out of a phase of intense work activity; perhaps when the purchase of Soffit House is complete; perhaps when we adapt to a modified diet; perhaps when some other challenge, as-yet unknown to me, is overcome. But, as you likely know yourself, Loyal Reader, one stressor magnifies another and when many pile atop one another, the effect compounds geometrically.

For now, the wages of stress are insomnia, an inability to stop grinding the teeth at the back of my jaw, an occasional loss of impulse control when given the option of eating deliciously fatty food, horrifically powerful sneezes, and what feels like a constant effort to remain pleasant around the good people surrounding me who have, in reality, done nothing to earn my annoyance and discomfitude. I hope that it does all pass soon, though.

Realignment Redux

I’m apparently not the only one who sees a reshuffling of the Republican Party’s coalitions going on.  This guy’s assessment of the factions is a little bit different than mine (I don’t see a lot of Republicans standing for the status quo out of reactionary resistance to change; I do see a lot of them motivated by immigration as a single issue).  And where this guy tries to graft each candidate into the personification of a particular wing of the party, so as to make the primary is a battle between these wings of the party for primacy, I see the candidates dancing on top of the reshuffling coalitions, trying to straddle at least two of the major factions he identifies.  All the same, it is clear that the social conservatives’ pre-eminence left over from the 1996-2004 cycles is no longer guaranteed.

Good Questions For Anyone

Over at Volokh, readers have responded to Fred Thompson's calls for questions on his policy platform with some damn tough questions:

1. What is your view of civil asset forfeiture in the absence of a criminal conviction? Would you make any changes in current executive branch policies, or propose any changes in federal forfeiture laws?
2. Do you believe that Gonzales v. Raich was correctly decided? If you were President, would your Department of Justice take action against patients and providers of medical marijuana who were acting in compliance with state law?
3. If Roe v. Wade were overturned, would your commitment to federalism compel you to veto a congressional bill banning abortion? Or in a post-Roe world would you seek to ban abortion by federal law regardless of the wishes of the individual states?
4. Which Attorney General do you most admire? Why?
5. Which, if any, federal gun control laws do you support repealing?
6. You were instrumental in securing passage of McCain-Feingold. Have your views on either the law's effectiveness or constitutionality changed in the years since it was passed, and what would you do about the continually-increasing purview of the Federal Elections Commission? Would you favor new legislation to protect the Internet or non-profits from McCain-Feingold?

As one reader points out, as phrased, most of these questions are too arcane to be meaningful to voters who are not also lawyers or deep policy wonks. And there are good answers available -- whether the candidate being asked these questions is Fred Thompson, some other Republican, or a Democrat:

1. The government should use every weapon available to fight the war on drugs. Civil forfeitures have a lower standard of proof than criminal convictions, to be sure, but don't forget that the government still must show it's more likely than not that a person has taken drug money before the forfeiture takes place.

2. (Republicans) Yes, the case was correctly decided. Although the states can implement whatever laws they want about drugs, there is a Federal interest in regulating drugs, too. This case may not be one of a recreational user or a massive drug dealer, but it's important to demonstrate that these drugs are illegal to deter other people from trying to sell drugs to our children. It's also important to fight drugs on the demand side as well as the supply side, and enforcing the law like this reduces both demand and supply. (Democrats) We have to reserve the right to enforce our drug laws against serious criminals, and that means we need Federal anti-drug laws. As President, I would direct federal law enforcement authorities to review all state laws to see if they were really carving out only compassionate-use situations or were just a cover for recreational use; if it turns out that it's just getting a doctor's note to cover for kids getting high, then yes, I'd authorize the use of Federal resources to go after these users. But I'd focus on big dealers and the most poisonous of the drugs out there.

3. (Republicans other than Giuliani) Overturning Roe is only one step in the process. For a while after Roe is overturned, some states will permit abortion and others will outlaw it. As President, I would use my political power to urge leaders in the various states to adopt laws that were protective of human life. (Giuliani) If Roe were to be overturned, then the question of abortion would go to the states. If I were President when that happened, I would urge the states to very carefully consider all of the issues -- the moral issues, the legal issues, the tough decisions facing a woman deciding whether to bear a child or not -- before making a decision. But at that point, it would be for the states. For myself, I'd like to see states pass laws that would make it easier for adoption to take place as an alternative to abortion. (Democrats) If Roe were to be overturned, I would lead a state-by-state effort to preserve a woman's right to decide what to do with her own body, and at the same time pursue a Constitutional amendment reinstating that right once and for all.

4. Edward Bates, who was Abraham Lincoln's Attorney General and urged the emancipation of slaves in the south. Bates saw that it was the right thing to do morally, it was the right thing to do legally, and it was the right thing to do to help end the civil war. It took a while, but eventually he convinced his President to follow through on the promise of full equality for all Americans.

5. (Republicans) Most of them. Gun control should be left to the states, and the states need to abide by the Constitution. There should be a system in place to protect against criminals and other dangerous people from getting guns, but like it or not, the Constitution gives law-abiding citizens the right to keep and bear arms and as President, I would use my power to see to it that the government enforces that right. (Democrats) None of them. The production and sale of assault weapons, Saturday night specials, and other cheap, lethal weapons is a national disgrace and a threat to our children that some Americans have to face every day and every night. We owe it to these people to take that fear away from them so our streets and homes can be safe again.

6. McCain-Feingold is intended to reduce corruption in politics. The internet is a place where politics can happen -- and Americans who comment on political events on the Internet are exercising their Constitutional rights, and we should encourage that. I do not interpret McCain-Feingold to apply to individual Americans who simply comment on political issues; it only comes in to play when the website gets used to raise money for a candidate or a cause. At that point, it becomes a special interest group, and it should be regulated like all special interest groups -- that is, by requiring disclosure of where the money came from and where it's going to.

But these are all long, wonky answers to long, wonky questions. And it's unlikely that any candidate -- especially Fred Thompson, who seems to be running a light-on-substance, heavy-on-personality campaign -- would give deep thought to the questions or the answers. I like wonky answers to questions, but that's not how elections are won. And if the Message For The Day is, for instance, the candidate's bold new direction for America's foreign policy, it's entirely likely that the answer to every question would be to support the troops, get them home successfully and safely, and to increase America's prestige in the world.

Definition

Man, American: n. A male human being whose nationality is of the United States of America. Essential characteristics include strength, integrity, loyalty, work ethic, competitiveness, and joie de vivre. Behavior motivated by instinctual impulses towards defense of and provision for family unit. Responds to adversity by pushing himself to excellence; can function well both individually and within a team. Diet frequently includes red meat cooked over open flame and fatty snacks. Dresses blandly during week; however, on autumn and winter weekends, frequently wears colorful outfits bearing numerals as part of ritual tribal identification behavior.

Not Different So Much As Better

The idea that the Republican party needs to find a new directions seems to have a counterpart -- it simply needs to find a competent leader. The neo-con ideas of the Bush Presidency, in other words, are perfectly fine ways to think about governing the country; they have just been ineptly executed.

In foreign policy, I can see some merit to this concept. The world has people who consider themselves our enemies and, for better or worse, we find ourselves in hostilities with them. The question is what are are we going to do about it. One of the reasons that I like Rudy Giuliani, despite some anticipated imperfections (weakness on civil liberties, tendency to autocratic governing style) is the fact that he promises, with some credibility, to make the government competent in its foreign policy again.

Bill Clinton made us loved, at least in Europe. George W. Bush has made us despised. Ronald Reagan made us feared -- Hizzonner said in an interview with the Paper of Record, he armed himself and presented an unpredictable face to the world, while at the same time presenting a resolute, audacious grand vision of where things would end up.

We can be both feared and loved, by the way. But if we had to pick between the two, Giuliani has read il Principe and seems to take its lesson to heart. His candidacy is asking whether we want a teddy bear or a tough guy in the White House, and I think that's a winning sort of question for him to ask.

As for governmental competence at home, it's a little harder to identify where things need to be done and where things are best left to work out for themselves. Should the government bail out people who got marginal mortgages and now comprise a massive wave of home mortgage foreclosures? (I heard on NPR last Thursday that one in 200 houses in America is in foreclosure; I wonder how true that statistic is.) Generally, I think that the answer should be "no," the market needs to sort out the problem on its own and in the process, it will re-correct the inflated value of houses that caused this problem in the first place -- and in that way, recycle at least some of these people back in to houses in a few years. If there is a role for the government, it should be in better sorting out the kinds of financial products available and how they are used. A 1% flexible ARM with reverse amortization and a two-year cliff is not appropriate for a young family starting out. (The Wife and I are applying for a plain-vanilla 30-year fixed mortgage, by the way -- I'd sort of like to start accumulating equity right away with my new house, regardless of whether the property appreciates or not.)

Belief in the fundamental power of the government to make things better is more of a Democratic vision of the world than a Republican one, and Republican leaders are generally right to be skeptical of "big government" ideas, particularly coming from leaders within their own ranks. The problem now with demonstrating skepticism about government activity is that after nearly eight years of the Bushmen running the show, the Republicans desperately need to demonstrate that they are not incompetent and can be trusted with the reins of power at all.

Now That's A Tough One To Explain

Here's a forceful reminder to all attorneys to periodically stay in touch with their clients. (Second story on the link.)

Charles Riegel and his wife sued Medtronics, Inc. on a products liability suit involving a medical device made by Medtronics. The suit was originally filed in 1999. After trial, it was appealed, and Riegel lost the appeal. His attorneys filed a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court. In June, the Court accepted the petition for cert. -- Riegel's case was going to be heard by the High Court! Exciting stuff, so the lawyer called his client.

Only to find out that his client had died in 2004.

Civil cases can certainly persist beyond the death of a plaintiff. No problem, it's just a motion and a form and badda-bing, badda-boom, you've swapped out the dead plaintiff for his estate, his executor, his heirs or trust beneficiaries, or whatever other title or form the law of your state happens to be for postmortem pursuit of premortem pleadings and proceedings. But the U.S. Supreme Court's rules state that this motion must be filed within six months of the plaintiff's death.

The lawyer's excuse was that most of his communication with his clients was through the mail (yes, many of us have clients like that) and the case was moving slowly (it was on petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court, after all) and the clients had moved and not been diligent about reporting their new contact information (which happens quite frequently). So there was little to communicate until and unless the High Court acted in some way, and the best way to do it was the mail. I can understand that, really I can. If there's nothing to do on case "X," you have to focus on case "Y" that's pressing on your time and has imminent deadlines. It's easy to dash off a status letter to a client whose case is just sitting there with nothing for anyone to do, and not pick up the phone and call to chat about how nothing at all has happened, particularly if "nothing at all" is not good news.

But, it's a cautionary tale to all of us lawyers to periodically canvass our active case lists and talk to the clients.

I Said I'd Do It And I Did

In response to an accusation of bias on Oval Office 2008, I was asked when I would report a gaffe on the part of my favorite candidate, Rudy Giuliani. I said, "When he makes one." Well, it looks to me like Giuliani stepped on it today on immigration, so with a heavy heart I reported a Giuliani gaffe. I can't say I was happy about it but if I'm going to be a mini-pundit, and still be intellectually honest, I have to call them as I see them. Giuliani needed to find a better response to the immigration issue than he did, and Hizzonner didn't even pursue an appropriate break-even strategy.

The campaign, by the way, has offered this video (unfortunately, it has a lot of background noise) as a long-form explanation, straight from Hizzonner himself, about his position on immigration. I happen to agree with him on this issue ("cracking down" on "illegal immigrants" would be as counterproductive as trying to grab sand by clenching our fists ever tighter), but that's not the point.



The point is, sometimes you've got to lay one up and play for the middle of the fairway, because if you shoot straight for the green, the ball might just go in the water. It's easy for me to second-guess a Presidential candidate; I'm not the one with the spotlights on me all the time. But then again, I don't want to run for President. If it takes you three minutes to explain why you did what you did, you need to get with your speechwriters and come up with a punchier, faster, easier-to-understand explanation -- and one that does not imply that the people whose support you are pursuing have made a very significant policy mistake (even if they really have done exactly that).

Ookie's Dawghouse

Remember, it's a scoring-only league. Yards, fumbles, receptions, completions -- none of that matters. Just touchdowns, field goals, extra points, and safeties. We play two quarterbacks, five position players, a kicker, and a defense every week. The results of the draft are:

Peyton Manning
Eli Manning
Alex Smith
Matt Schaub

Rudi Johnson
Brandon Jacobs
Cedric Benson
Hines Ward
Donald Driver
Santana Moss
Donte Stallworth
Kevin Curtis
Drew Bennett
Fred Taylor
Dallas Clark
Devery Henderson
Ron Dayne

David Akers
Sean Suisham
Green Bay Packers Defense

A World Without Borders (But Lots of Gradients)

In a move that earned him a standing ovation from his own countrymen and which seems cynically calculated to polarize opinion in the United States, Mexican President Felipe Calderón proclaimed in his state of the nation address:

Mexico does not end at its borders.... We strongly protest the unilateral measures taken by the U.S. Congress and government that have only persecuted and exacerbated the mistreatment of Mexican undocumented workers. The insensitivity toward those who support the U.S. economy and society has only served as an impetus to reinforce the battle ... for their rights. ... Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.

Recall for a moment that el Presidente Calderón is on some pretty shaky political ground in his own nation. He won a squeaker of an election against the leftist candidate López Obrador, whose supporters jammed the plazas of Mexico City for weeks after the election and who have continued to refuse to accept the results, proclaiming that Calderón is a usurper and that their man should have won. Obrador has created and has been maintaining a shadow government ever since. And, truth be told, I for one have difficulty accepting the concept that there was not a wee little bit of corruption in the election, probably on both sides, which would mean simply that Calderón's machinery was more effective than Obrador's.

Beyond that, Mexico's government is still pretty weak, despite six years of generally good stewardship under Calderon's predecessor. Crime and corruption are down but still significant problems. Drug gangs hold more power than the police and the army in many northern parts of the country. There are still few economic opportunities within Mexico for its underclasses, whose members continue to try to enter el Norte (that means the USA, you ignorant gringo) to find work that they consider lucrative in numbers that a lot of los Norteños find alarming.

One reaction to a perceived lack of political power is shrill rhetoric, and Calderón certainly has given his countrymen (and us) that. And I agree with those who have suggested that the reason this speech was given this way in the first place is to rally domestic political support around el Presidente and away from the shadow government, by making el Norte the big scary Other against whom Mexico requires leadership. Best if we don't react too strongly to this, although there are sure to be those who will lack the will to restrain themselves.

But if you step back for a moment, there is some real wisdom in something Calderón said -- in the first and last sentences of the excerpt above: "Mexico does not end at its borders.... Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico." Although Calderón was being nationalistic, the fact of the matter is that this phenomenon is a two-way street. America* does not end at its borders, either. Wherever Americans travel, they take some of America with them.

We have military bases all over the world and we can project our military power anywhere we please. We can enforce our will, crudely, nearly anywhere. To say that we have failed to do so effectively in Iraq is not correct -- it was our will that Saddam Hussein be deposed and killed, and lo! it is done. It was our will that a democratic government be put in his place, and that too is done. The criticism of what we have done in Iraq is not the result of a lack of power, but rather a lack of wisdom.

Where we choose to do send many of our people, or where they go on their own, little Americas sprout up organically -- places where American culture thrives and spreads, places where English is spoken, hip-hop and country are the music of choice, blue jeans are worn, people read glossy magazines, most people worship Jesus (or at least claim to), and NFL football is a choice topic of conversation. In fact, a lot of those kinds of cultural phenomena happen even where U.S. military power has not been projected. Go to most anywhere in an urbanized area of Europe and Asia. You'll be able to buy Coca-Cola with your Mastercard and it won't take too long to find an English-language newspaper or a McDonald's restaurant. U.S. dollars are preferred to domestic currency almost anywhere in the world that isn't a Westernized urban area.

Certainly there are geographic borders and demarcations of places where military and police power can be legitimately used. A Mexican policeman in the United States needs the cooperation of local law enforcement to do anything -- for instance, if he's following up on a lead about coyotes or drug runners. So too with the DEA or the INS operating in Mexico. But these kinds of cross-border law enforcement activities do happen, every day. If an U.S. DEA agent makes an arrest in Ciudad Juraez, can we really say that the U.S. does not exist south of the Rio Grande? And if wages are paid to a Mexican worker and sent back to Veracruz, can we really say that the employment relationship is purely within the United States?

So just an idea -- although we can draw clear lines on maps and build fences and border checkpoints all we like, might not a vision of the world in which there are really spheres of influence? Like like ink on wet paper, these spheres of influence are strongest at the center and gradually dilute and faded as the capillary action takes the color away from its source. A nation's military power, its economic strength, its cultural reach, even its vices and its crimes -- these things do not know where borders are any more than do wild animals. Especially for those of us who live in proximity to a political border, the influences of neighboring countries are obvious to see. Maybe el Presidente Calderón is on to something.

But that doesn't mean we don't have the right to set our immigration and labor policies in a way that is to our own advantage. We are under no obligation to help Mexico or Mexicans other than to the extent that doing so is to our benefit as well. One might suggest that an enlightened and permissive approach to the subject, as opposed to digging a moat and reveling in crypto-racism, would work out to be in our best interests. But that's a different sort of idea than the one I set out to write about this morning.


* Here, I use the phrase "America" to mean the United States of America, rather than a descriptive term for approximately one-quarter of the land area of the world located on or near the continents of North and South America; I am well aware that Brazilians, for instance, consider themselves "Americans" the same way that Greeks consider themselves "Europeans."

Blue Sunglasses

My last pair of sunglasses were eaten by the X-ray machine at the security screen for the Superior Court in Stinking Bakersfield. So over the weekend, I got a pair of blue-lensed sunglasses.

I know the scuttlebutt and rumor is that blue-lensed sunglasses are not as effective as polarized or amber lenses. But I don't care. The blue lenses reduce my perception of all the haze that floats around the desert, and it makes the blue sky look bluer, the green of plants and grass look greener, and makes the yellow-brown desert look less harsh.

Good Numbers

Last night, I checked some rating numbers for Oval Office 2008. Astonishingly, I found that in the last 60 days, over 170 other websites had linked to it, and it gets between 1,000 and 1,800 unique visitors a day. That's encouragement to keep on writing there!

A Lone Voice In The Wolf's Den

I’ll be interested to read the entire article, about a law professor who tried to stop the Bush Administration from assuming unconstitutional power, in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. It’s the NYT, so you know what you’re going to get and what perspective it’s coming from, but it will be interesting all the same.

Japan's Aircraft Carrier

The balance of power in today's multipolar world just got a little bit more complicated.



The aircraft in question may be helicopters but could, in theory, be Harriers or similar kinds of VTOL aircraft. At the end of this article, the author points out that these ships are as large as British carriers were in the early 1980's, when the British fought and won a war halfway around the globe from their home ports.

Our Last House Guest?

Yesterday, a friend came over for dinner. She'd never been to our house before and was taken aback by its size. She may well be the last guest we entertain here in the Rented Mansion In The Desert.

The reason for that is that The Wife and I put in an offer to buy a house of our own, less than two miles away. After some negotiation, the seller and we agreed on the price and terms. Escrow is open and should close by the end of the month. Our new house will be half the size of the Rented Mansion In The Desert, has hard flooring surfaces throughout the living space, pleasing landscaping with mature trees, a combined air conditioner and swamp cooler climate control system, and granite tile countertops in the adequate if not luxurious kitchen.

Its defining architectural characteristic is a rather unusual structure running about eight feet high underneath a vaulted ceiling in the front portion of the house. When I first saw it, I said, "What's up with that floating soffit?" and thus the nickname "Soffit House" was born. (It's not really a "floating soffit;" I think properly it would be called an archway, but since it doesn't have a classic arch shape, I didn't use that term.)

Front Loading

I've been discussing on Oval Office 2000 quite a bit about states making their Presidential primaries earlier and earlier. I can imagine that the result of all of this state-level front-loading would produce three things, all of which sound good, at least in theory, from a policy perspective, although I'm doubtful that I'll like them in practice.

Keep in mind that with the war in Iraq being what it is, Republicans are facing the least favorable conditions for a Presidential election since 1976, if not 1932.* It is a measure of Rudy Giuliani's charisma and the depth of Hillary Clinton's negatives that he has a fighting chance to win despite this. But let us have no illusions -- unless things change in the Persian Gulf region in some objectively obvious way, we'll know not only who the nominees are going to be, we'll likely know who the next President will be on February 5, 2008.

So the first practical effect of the very early primary schedule in 2008 is that the next President will have nearly a year to prepare her Administration to will hit the ground running -- including giving substantial campaign aid to Democrats in marginal districts, which would leave her with a more heavily-Democratic Congress and lots of legislators in that Congress who are indebted to her, positioning her to be in a very strong position to govern from the get-go. Whether the Second Clinton Administration is able to fly where the Second Bush Administration stumbled will be up to the Second President Clinton. (Not saying I'd like where she flies us to, by the way, only that she would have all the tools necessary to get Congress solidly behind her.)

Second, the whole thing will wind up looking really ridiculous. Particularly for the losing party (likely the Republicans) there will loud calls for national reform of the nomination process from start to finish. I would welcome the prospect of a national primary, or at minimum a series of regional primaries, spaced out over a reasonable length of time and beginning sufficiently late in the political process so that the nominee has a chance to tailor a campaign message for the issues of the day. (As it is, the nominees have to guess, right now, what will be the significant political issues of the day a year from now so that they can attract general election votes.)

Finally, particularly if the Republicans lose, they will have to undergo a substantial process of evaluating what the party is really all about. Social conservatives will blame the economics and military crowd for nominating Giuliani and abandoning the "core principles" of the party; in response the guns-and-butter crowds will tell the social types to stop looking so sanctimonious and hypocritical and alienating three-fourths of American voters. That's a debate that needs to be had and resolved. If the Republican party is to have a viable future, it needs to be resolved without a schism. (By the way, I haven't a clue what the Democrats are all about these days, as a whole, other than being "not Republicans".) The result of the debate should be a renewed commitment to whatever the party is going to be all about.

The general election is still fourteen months away. A lot can happen between now and then. While the current conditions favor Democrats, the idea of the Republicans winning the general election is not only not laughable, but achievable with the right nominee, the right platform, some good news between now and next November, and a smart and aggressive political campaign. What's interesting is how this election, very differently from the several others that have preceded it, is starting to change the lines of the political battlefield in ways that will change the way national politics is done in the future.

* Money quote from the WaPo: "It's always darkest right before you get clobbered over the head with a pipe wrench. But then it actually does get darker."