Books and blogs

I don't see why we have to choose, and anyway a millennium is a long time: "Three hundred pages in, I fervently resolved to shut down my blog and spend the next millennium reading books."

The book I'm currently reading is short but dense: Imagining the Future: Science and American Democracy, by Yuval Levin.

Class disgust

In a cogent column in this morning's Financial Times, Clive Crook explains why the left-liberal reaction to the Palin nomination is such a disaster for Democrats:

For days, the derision poured down from Democratic party talking heads and much of the media too. The idea that “this woman” might be vice-president or even president was literally incomprehensible. The popular liberal comedian Bill Maher, whose act is an endless sneer at the Republican party, noted that John McCain’s case for the presidency was that only he was capable of standing between the US and its enemies, but that should he die he had chosen “this stewardess” to take over. This joke was not – or not only – a complaint about lack of experience. It was also an expression of class disgust. I give Mr Maher credit for daring to say what many Democrats would only insinuate.

Someone needs to get this memo at The Atlantic.

Palin rumors

Recommended reading: The Palin rumors clearinghouse. I expect it will continue to grow. (Found via this post.)

Tell Me How This Ends

There's a chance it will be overshadowed by Woodward's new book, but Linda Robinson's Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq deserves a large audience. Based on many in-country interviews with military people from Petraeus on down, it gives a vivid picture of the massive task that was the surge and counterinsurgency strategy. Petraeus comes out looking extremely impressive, and not the gung-ho type he's stereotyped as being ("tell me how this ends" was his worried request early in the war), while improvisation by troops on the front lines was a crucial ingredient in the success.

The too-sectarian Maliki government looks less good in the book, as do the generals and admirals who opposed the surge. The Bush administration gets favorable treatment only insofar as it managed to reverse some of its own mistakes. The politicians who were ready to pull out, damn the consequences, are mentioned only in passing, and will find little comfort in this book.

McCain's individualist streak

Below I noted a statement John McCain made last year after the Kelo case. Here are some more McCain quotes that stress individual rights and freedoms. The old joke goes that Wagner's music is better than it sounds; I think the same could be said of McCain's rhetoric:

Conservatives believe in the pursuit of personal, political and economic freedom for everyone. We believe that free people may voluntarily unite, but cannot be compelled to do so, and that the limited government that results best protects our individual freedom. In health care, we believe in enhancing the freedom of individuals to receive necessary and desired care. We do not believe in coercion and the use of state power to mandate care, coverage or costs. -- Des Moines Rotary Lunch, October 11, 2007

So it’s important that we remind ourselves that limited government and the rule of law are more than the arid cliches of partisan political debate. In fact, they are the essential underpinnings of our freedom, and the principles for which the Federalist Society has been fighting since its formation over 25 years. To lose either would be to lose freedom, for they are our strongest bulwarks against tyranny. -- Remarks to Federalist Society, November 16, 2006

Tough times can breed fear, and the Democrats are using those fears to push an agenda that is tired, dangerous, and will rob us of economic freedom. Once again, they want the government to make our choices for us -- not respect our dreams, and trust our decisions on how best to seize our opportunities. -- Prosperity Michigan Summit, January 12, 2008

I intend to do that by fighting for the principles and policies I believe best serve the interests of the American people: for a government that takes and spends less of your money and competently discharges its responsibilities; that shows a proper respect for our rights and values; that provides a strong and capable defense; that encourages the enterprise and ingenuity of individuals, businesses and families, who know best how to advance America's economy, and secure the dreams that have made us the greatest nation in history. -- Potomac Primary Victory Party, February 13, 2008

Meanwhile in the asteroid belt

The European space probe Rosetta is about to fly by asteroid (2867) Steins.

More on McCain

Nick Gillespie notes he's "simply tired of [McCain's] genuinely awe-inspiring war bio." I can appreciate that sentiment. Those of us who are political junkies have heard the McCain POW story many times now. (And there are many libertarians who claim not to be political junkies, but nonetheless are.) But an enormous part of the population is only getting interested in the presidential race right about now, and some of this stuff about Hanoi might be news to them.

More substantively, Gillespie writes that McCain "really leaves me cold with the emphasis on service and communitarian-type ideals." To a degree, I share that sentiment too. I'm not as libertarian as the people I used to collaborate with at Reason, but as a McCain supporter I would like to hear more from the candidate about how a sense of national and community solidarity is needed in a free, individualistic society, precisely to protect that freedom and individualism.

Lest anyone say that this is not McCain's view, I refer them to his statement after the Kelo Supreme Court case that "individual liberty and the free market are paramount."

UPDATE 2:53PM: And see post above.

New Jersey Sun?

The New York Sun is in financial trouble and may have to close at end-September. I second the notion by one commenter: Why not try branching out to the suburbs, where more center-right people live?

McCain speech reaction

A pretty good speech, targeted more at the largely centrist audience watching on TV than at the conservative one in the hall with him (and whose support he's now firmed up, as of this week). One of my favorite parts: the promise to make the authors of the next pork-barrel bill famous.

Barr chutzpah

Bob Barr, who for some reason is still running for president, has a complaint:

Palin didn't explain what the Republican ticket would do differently from the current Republican administration and past Republican Congresses. For example, the words Social Security, Medicare, national debt, the deficit and the Constitution didn't pass her lips. Yet Social Security and Medicare alone face an unfunded liability of more than $100 trillion. The national debt runs $9.5 trillion. The deficit next year will be a half trillion dollars.

Who was it again who voted to add prescription drug coverage to Medicare?

Palin market news

The "Sarah Palin to be withdrawn" prediction market took a tumble overnight.



UPDATE 12:43PM: The Intrade chart is an active feed (I wasn't sure if it would download that way or as a snapshot), so the data from "last night" (late Sept. 3/early Sept. 4) will soon be gone. But it's an interesting chart to keep an eye on.

Speech reaction

My reviews:
Romney -- So-so. Nothing terrible, just nothing particularly good.
Huckabee -- Very appealing, funny and with a surprising emphasis on limited government.
Giuliani -- Witty and smart, though some of the wording ("we'll be safe in [McCain's] hands") was not to my liking.
Palin -- I had high expectations, and she met them. And seeing the entire family, including daughter's fiance, onstage afterwards was a perfect rejoinder to the mud-throwers.

Tolerance watch

As I mentioned in a post a couple of weeks ago, I was at the Chautauqua Institution and attended a lecture by biologist Ken Miller, and a discussion on Jewish psychology held by the local Chabad Lubavitcher. Miller, a high-profile defender of evolution, happens to be Catholic.

I guess by the standards some people are now applying to Sarah Palin, I should have stormed out of those events. After all, I'm not a Catholic or a Hasidic Jew, so what was I doing there? By the way, I'm not a spiritualist either; I guess I should have wrestled one of the Lily Dale cold readers to the ground.

Douthat's respect

Ross Douthat refers to "the coverage of Sarah Palin to date - by colleagues I used to respect and publications I normally admire." I won't put words in his mouth, but I think I know whom he means.

Waiting for Palin

Looking forward to tonight's speech. One thing that the left-wing assaults have helped accomplish is to ensure that Sarah Palin will have a large, attentive national audience.

UPDATE 11:37 AM: Lorie Byrd draws out the implications (via Althouse). Excerpts:

Television viewers/voters who might otherwise have turned the channel to HGTV or Sci Fi channel or Spike when the convention airs tonight, will watch the Palin speech to see what all the fuss is about. Some will be curious to see America's hottest governor, others will watch to catch a glimpse of Bristol's baby bump in the crowd or a shot of her handsome young hockey player fiance. Others will watch to see if she is really the "Dan Quayle in a skirt" they have been hearing about. Some will even be interested in her take on the issues....

If Palin performs even half as well as she did in Ohio last week (without a teleprompter much less) they will find out that in addition to being a mayor she has (to paraphrase a friend of Christopher Orr) played tough with "Big Oil" as head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission negotiating a proposed Alaska natural gas pipeline, exposed corruption in her own party, cut taxes and wasteful spending, slaughtered an incumbent governor in a primary with a 30 point margin of victory and won the general over a former Democratic governor. She will no doubt list many of her other life experiences, both personal and professional, that have prepared her for the vice presidency.

Beyond gossip

Here's one sign the anti-Palin smear campaign will not succeed: The gossip site CelebrityNews.net is denouncing it as character assassination.

God's will...

Wait a second. The latest criticism of Palin is that she said she was trying to do "God's will"? Here are remarks from Obama in July:

And in time, I came to see my faith as being both a personal commitment to Christ and a commitment to my community; that while I could sit in church and pray all I want, I wouldn't be fulfilling God's will unless I went out and did the Lord's work.

Palin's critics

I agree with Abe Greenwald here: "They Have Nothing." And if Obama does fail to get elected, the Sullivan/Kossites' lack of ethical and epistemological standards will be a plausible reason.

Libertarian Palinism

Recommended reading: "The Libertarian Case for Palin," by David Harsanyi. (Via Althouse.)

Plus, Virginia Postrel has some thoughts on merit, and notes the Battlestar connection.

Welch tries to outdo Sullivan

Matt Welch, master of the misleading anti-McCain diatribe, is now complaining that McCain went

from saying that "Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality" (2003), to saying that a McCain administration would focus on "creating new markets for farmers by providing incentives to create low carbon auto fuels like ethanol" (2007).

But McCain was consistent in his opposition to ethanol subsidies. Here's a report from December 2007, shortly before the Iowa caucus:

The presidential candidate voiced his opposition to ethanol subsidies during a recent speech before an energy group in Virginia and during a debate this week in Des Moines, Iowa....

McCain has said he supports creating a market environment to encourage production of ethanol and other alternative fuels, but not government subsidies.

And McCain was no less clear in his opposition to ethanol subsidies last month.

Welch also complains that McCain wrote "God has given us...life, shown us how to use it, but left it to us to dispose of as we choose," and later wrote the following about Charles Darwin: "It is hard for me to appreciate the history he made without seeing in its accomplishment the hand of providence....God is not indifferent to our suffering nor has He left us bereft of hope." How these sentiments are supposed to be contradictory is left unexplained. And I don't see how either contradict McCain's characterization of Paul Weyrich as "a pompous, self-serving son of a bitch."

Who benefits most from Welch's ill-informed, ill-considered rants? It's not Reason's readers.