Libertarian Leanings

William F. Buckley

William F. Buckley passed away yesterday.  He was 82.

William Francis Buckley Jr. died Wednesday morning in Stamford, Connecticut, at age 82. Appropriately enough, he was working on a column. His death is the severing of the last remaining link between contemporary American conservatism and its founding generation.

In 1950, the literary critic Lionel Trilling could assert "the plain fact" that there were no conservative ideas "in general circulation." That confidence would be ground away. In 1951, Bill Buckley made his name with "God and Man at Yale," which critiqued his alma mater for its hostilities to capitalism and religion. Four years later, Buckley founded National Review. He was 29.

Buckley's influence propelled Barry Goldwater to the top of 1964 Republican presidential ticket.  Goldwater lost badly in the general election, but in 1980 Buckley admirer Ronald Reagan won the presidency.  According to Reagan Buckley was the most influential journalist of his era.

Buckley was a fierce debater who loved trading lyrical put-downs with his political opponents. But, unlike some of the conservative pundits who drive talk radio today, he had many personal friends and admirers among his public foes, including such luminaries as the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith and the late author Norman Mailer...

"You can't stay mad at a guy who's witty, spontaneous and likes good liquor," Mailer once said.

A Global Warming setback

This will undoubtedly be greeted as terrible news by Global Warmists:  Snow cover over much of the northern hemisphere has been greater this year than at any time since 1966, China is enduring its most severe winter in a century, and the U.S. National Climatic Data Center reported that the average temperature this past January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 20th century average."

...when Profs. Toggweiler and Russell rejigged their model to include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the equator (then back towards it again), the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the north was obvious in the current Arctic warming.

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

Maybe Global Cooling will make a comeback.

Roadside bombs along the way to the White House

The New York Times has energized support for Republican presidential candidate John McCain.  Engaging in an incredible leap, the Times published a front page story reporting that unidentified aides to the Arizona Senator's 2000 presidential campaign had suspected, at the time, that an extra-marital affair might have been going on between the Senator and a lobbyist.  The Times then used that 8-year old speculation as support for their own speculation that McCain might have exerted undue influence on government regulators on behalf of lobbyist's clients. 

The story appeared immediately after McCain had solidified his position as front runner in the race for the Republican nomination, but Times executive editor Bill Keller denied that the electoral calendar had anything to do with his decision to go with the story.  The denial has even the White House weighing in in support of McCain.

...Keller's protests would be more persuasive if not for the way his paper handled--a better word may be "stoked"--a controversy in the final days of the 2004 presidential election.

Beginning on October 25, 2004, with just over a week left until Election Day, the Times ran 16 articles and opinion pieces about looting at the al Qaqaa munitions facility in Iraq. Some of the stories were implicitly critical of the Bush administration, others were directly so. The Times dismissed suggestions that the attention on the issue was politically motivated. But, as National Review's Byron York asked four months later: "Why was the Al Qaqaa story so important in the eight days leading up to the election that it merited two stories per day, and so unimportant after the election that it has not merited any stories at all?"

Those memories could not have been far from the mind of Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman, when he rather surprisingly offered a comment on the current Times controversy: "I think a lot of people here in this building with experience in a couple campaigns have grown accustomed to the fact that during the course of the campaign, seemingly on maybe a monthly basis leading up to the convention, maybe weekly basis after that, the New York Times does try to drop a bombshell on the Republican nominee. .  .  . Sometimes they make incredible leaps to try to drop those bombshells.

It's a peculiar patriotism that afflicts liberals and the liberal media.

It's a theme that seems to resonate with liberals: America could be a great nation, if only liberals were in charge.

At the Times they do their patriotic duty.  They use every bit of news manipulation at their disposal with the aim of putting liberals in charge.

Turning point

Karl Rove interprets Obama's Tuesday night speech as a major turning point in Campaign 2008.  According to Rove, Barack Obama has left himself wide open to valid criticism from campaign adversaries.

Perhaps in response to criticisms that have been building in recent days, Mr. Obama pivoted Tuesday from his usual incantations. He dropped the pretense of being a candidate of inspiring but undescribed "post-partisan" change. Until now, Mr. Obama has been making appeals to the center, saying, for example, that we are not red or blue states, but the United States. But in his Houston speech, he used the opportunity of 45 (long) minutes on national TV to advocate a distinctly non-centrist, even proudly left-wing, agenda. By doing so, he opened himself to new and damaging contrasts and lines of criticism.

Mr. McCain can now question Mr. Obama's promise to change Washington by working across party lines. Mr. Obama hasn't worked across party lines since coming to town. Was he a member of the "Gang of 14" that tried to find common ground between the parties on judicial nominations? Was Mr. Obama part of the bipartisan leadership that tackled other thorny issues like energy, immigration or terrorist surveillance legislation? No. Mr. Obama has been one of the most dependably partisan votes in the Senate.

Mrs. Clinton can do much more to draw attention to Mr. Obama's lack of achievements. She can agree with Mr. Obama's statement Tuesday night that change is difficult to achieve on health care, energy, poverty, schools and immigration -- and then question his failure to provide any leadership on these or other major issues since his arrival in the Senate. His failure to act, advocate or lead on what he now claims are his priorities may be her last chance to make a winning argument.

With regard to campaign strategy Rove and McCain are of the same mind, and I think it's safe to say McCain will follow the Rove prescription.  If she's smart Hillary Clinton will too, but even she does it may be too little, too late to salvage her shot at the presidency.  Rove is almost always on the money and Republicans will do well to follow his advice.

They didn't in the summer of 2006 when he came to Manchester, New Hampshire to urge Republicans to campaign on the Iraq war. 

As for the 2006 Republican defeat, in part it can be chalked up to the fortunes of war but in greater part to the failure of Republican candidates to follow Rove's campaign formula.  In the summer of 2006 Rove came to Manchester with a message for New Hampshire Republicans.

In a speech to New Hampshire Republican officials here Monday night, the White House deputy chief of staff attacked Democrats who have criticized the U.S. war effort in Iraq, such as Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.), who he said advocate "cutting and running."

"They may be with you for the first shots," Rove said of such opponents. "But they're not going . . . to be with you for the tough battles."

He said that Republicans should not to avoid the topic of Iraq in the upcoming campaign, but instead they should make it the center piece of their campaigns.

He defended the administration's decision to invade Iraq by laying out Saddam Hussein's "vital interest" in acquiring advanced weapons technology.

"We were absolutely right" to remove him, Rove said of the former leader. He added, "We have no excuses to make for it."

The example of Joe Lieberman, the Democratic hawk from Connecticut, proved him right.  Running as an Independent after losing to anti war Democrat Ned Lamont in the primary, he campaigned hard on the importance of winning the war in Iraq and defeated Lamont in the general election.  On the other hand, Republican candidates who hoped to distance themselves from the President on Iraq were so successful that they distanced themselves right out of Washington.

Then, as now, McCain was a strong proponent of the rightness in taking down Saddam Hussein.  He has been loudly critical of the Iraq war at times, but his criticisms have been aimed at the strategy, not the goal.  The strategy has changed and because of it, prospects in Iraq have improved dramatically.  But the goal and McCain have both remain the unchanged.  It should be no surprise that McCain is on course to be the last man standing in the Republican race, and if the example of Joe Lieberman is any indicator, McCain will be the last man standing in November.

Republicans are being given a "do over" in the 2008 campaign.  They have another chance to take Rove's advice from the summer of 2006.  All they have to do is hitch themselves to McCain's star.

A new plan

Accused by the union of violating teachers' rights at Locke High in the Watts, principal Frank Wells was relieved of his duties.  His offense?  He wanted them to use lesson plans. 

The true wealth of our nation is in our people. Their ingenuity, ambition, and intelligence are what drive the economy. Allowing our most valuable resources to remain hostage to a labor union is idiocy.

"From Box to Box"

With threats and murder they did what they could, but al Qaeda and the Taliban were the losers.  The voters and the people were the real winners in the Pakistani elections.

Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies did all they could to disrupt things, killing some 300 candidates, election officers and party activists. Their sinister slogan "From Box to Box" - i.e., anyone who cast a vote into the ballot box could end up in a coffin - was posted or scribbled on many walls. The terrorists also destroyed at least 12 polling stations and stole several dozen ballot boxes.

Still, they failed. And their political allies did no better.

The Unified Assembly for Action (MMA), a coalition of Islamists, saw its share of the vote drop from almost 11 percent in the last general election five years ago to around 3 percent. It lost control of the only one of Pakistan's four provinces that it governed, and all its main leaders lost their seats. In the provincial assembly of Sindh, the MMA won no seats.

A Shiite group, heavily financed by Iran's Islamic Republic, suffered an even bigger rout. If the latest results hold, it will end up with 1 percent of the vote.

The politicians linked with the military and security agencies also lost, if not as heavily. Their chief party, the Pakistan Muslim League, lost almost two-thirds of its seats and control of the national parliament and the three provincial assemblies that it had dominated for years.

The message of this election is clear: The overwhelming majority of Pakistanis reject both military rule and its political twin of Islamism.

According to Amir Taheri Monday's election has returned Pakistan to about where it was before the government of Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was overthrown in a military coup in 1977.   The Pakistanis deserve our support.  With Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan having all held legitimate elections, I'd have to say the chances for real democracy taking hold in the Middle East are better now than they have ever been in history.

Change... to what, exactly?

The Barack Obama campaign urges, "Be an 'Agent of change'." But what does change mean?  To IraqPundit it means changing back to a pre-9/11 foreign policy approach to the Middle East that had been an utter disaster for over 50 years.

I have a suggestion for people who support Barack Obama: They should make their support contingent on Obama finding a new foreign-policy adviser.

His current foreign-policy adviser is Samantha Power, who just told an interviewer that “The next president is really going to have to walk and chew gum at the same time, because no long-term peace in the Middle East is possible until we get some kind of modus vivendi in the Arab-Israeli situation.”

Ah, that “Arab-Israeli situation.” Power is demonstrably in harmony with the Arab world, especially its long line of dictators. Her words reminded me of the unceasing echo we heard growing up under Arab dictatorship. To wit, Palestine comes first; everything else is to be sacrificed for the cause. Solve the Palestinian problem and everything else (especially our own freedom) will fall into place. That’s exactly what we were told, and it's what the Egyptians were told, and what Arabs all over the Middle East and North Africa were told. Nobody in Iraq would dare comment on the shortages of food and ordinary supplies, but we could all comment on the injustice being done to Palestinians. During the sanctions of the 1990s and early 2000s, Saddam Hussein allowed Iraqis to go hungry while he sent cash to the families of suicide bombers in the West Bank.

No doubt Obama will seek a new partners in peace, such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who offers a solution to Middle East turmoil -- a solution that has always run parallel to Obama's notion of a foreign policy "change."

But IraqPundit is wary of Obama's Iraq policy and what that might entail.

Concerning the well-being of Iraqis, Samantha Power advises Obama to abandon them, albeit possibly in new neighborhoods. “We need to be incredibly sensitive as we leave Iraq to the welfare of Iraqis who are going to be left in our wake. That potentially entails the idea of sectarian or ethnic relocation if people are in a mixed neighborhood and feel that they'd be safer in a more homogenous neighborhood,” Power said.

Power was paid how much to come up with that?

Amazing what passes for "change" these days.

Michelle's dissatisfaction

Jonathan Last takes a look at Michelle Obama's dissatisfaction with America.

Instead of seeing America as a place which afforded her the opportunity to create a blessed life, Mrs. Obama seems to view it as a place where some "people" are always trying to hold her back. Whoever these "people" are, we should be glad they haven't been successful. Michelle Obama's progress is--despite her telling of it--an inspirational story that should make us proud of America, not frustrated by, and scornful of, it. It says something about her view of this nation, and of her husband and herself, that she seems to find it so difficult--their own experience notwithstanding--to feel gratitude for and pride in her country.

Read the whole thing.

Middle class squeeze?

According to Drew Cary, not only are the middle class not being squeezed, Americans have never had it so good.  Take a look at this:

Cancerous growth

Iran's a letter of condolence to Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah for the recent death of Hezbollah commander, Imadh Mugniyah, called Israel a cancerous growth that would soon disappear. 

The cancerous growth Israel will soon disappear," Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Muhammad Ali Jafari wrote to Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the FARS news agency reported Monday.

In a letter of condolences following last week's assassination of Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh, Jafari said: "I am convinced that with every passing day Hizbullah's might is increasing and in the near future, we will witness the disappearance of this cancerous growth Israel by means of the Hizbullah fighters' radiation."

Iran, Hezbollah, and the rest of the terrorist crew blame Israel Mungiyah's murder, but U.S. Director of National Intelligence thinks otherwise.

...the editor of the Hizbullah-affiliated Al-Akhbar newspaper, Ibahim El Amin, said that it was clear Israel was behind Mughniyeh's assassination and that there was an ongoing investigation to determine who had joined the US and Israel in its war against the resistance in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq.

Amin, himself considered a close associate of the guerrilla group, said that anyone who is interested should join the battle for Israel's destruction and that the tools used in the campaign would be different to those used in the past. He said that Israel should "expect a painful and rational response from an unexpected direction since the enemy broke all the rules."

On Sunday, the US Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said that internal Hizbullah groups or Syria may be to blame for the killing of the top Hizbullah commander in Damascus.

McConnell said he considers the threat of retaliation for the assassination to be primarily against Israel. But he said US intelligence officials were keeping a close watch and taking any necessary action to protect the United States because Mughniyeh has been "responsible for more deaths of Americans and Israelis than any other terrorist with the exception of Osama bin Laden."

"It is a serious threat," McConnell said. "There's some evidence that it may have been internal Hizbullah. It may have been Syria.

Mugniyah may have become more useful to Hezbollah dead than alive.  Now, at least, he provides a pretext for more terror attacks.