Critical look at where our deficits have come from and where
they are projected to go. See the Ezra Klein article below.
UP-FRONT GOP CONGRESSIONAL CHUTZPAH NUGGET!!
This exchange between the GOP Freshmen, Obama and Pelosi is the MOST ASTONISHING back-and-forth between a sitting president and the House caucus of the opposite party I have EVER encountered. It is truly breath-taking!
Pelosi to GOP freshmen: The Truth About Your Plan to End Medicare Hurts (Joan McCarter) from Daily Kos
"On Tuesday, Kinzinger and 41 of his GOP colleagues sent a letter to President Obama, asking him to rein in Democratic attacks on GOP members who voted for the House budget, which includes a plan to privatize Medicare and cap spending on the program. "We ask that you stand above partisanship, condemn the disingenuous attacks and work with this Congress to reform spending on entitlement programs," the letter reads."
How Perpetual War Became U.S. Ideology (James Joyner) from Outsidethebeltway.com via the Atlantic
"While neoconservatives and liberal interventionists have led post-Cold War U.S. foreign policymaking, traditional realists continue to dominate the academic study of security policy and even the rank-and-file military and intelligence communities. But their more ideological brethren are better positioned to win the day politically."
I definitely had a response to this article -- and I posted it over on Joyner's website, outsidethebeltway.com. In certain ways, it summarizes my conflicted view of the US's intervention in Libya. Check out Joyner's piece. Here's what I wrote:
I read with interest your piece on “Perpetual War” – and the central question is one I have often asked. I have long considered myself a realist in foreign affairs – but I will have to say, with recent events, I have found myself to be a deeply conflicted realist. I think you are definitely on to something with your focus on the role of the international media – but I think you are constrained by a somewhat outmoded emphasis on the traditional foreign policy framework of “realist v. interventionist.” I am not a foreign policy expert – but I am an expert in the history of the American Civil Rights Movement. I think the history of that movement can shed some useful light on the dilemma you lay out. You may be familiar with Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation (2007) which examines the impact of print and television coverage on the national conscience from the 1940s to the 1960s.
The point I would make here has several aspects: first that, as with the Civil Rights Movement, it is easy for average people (both in the US and most other places) to look away from even the most heinous forms of individual brutality and mass slaughter – so long as it is conceptual, remote, and we do not have to confront the visceral realities of our on-going inaction. Consider the Holocaust: FDR, Churchill and Eisenhower were never held up for severe censure in their lifetimes for their relative inaction in the face of the Nazi slaughter of the Jews and others, even though they knew of it. Average people were largely unaware of it – and, given the technological limitations of the day, it was easy to keep the abject horror of the Holocaust at arms length.
I think you correctly lay out the moral/ethical constraints laid on the superpowers by the Cold War dynamic from 1946 to 1991. But looking at the 1990s, consider the way events unfolded first in Bosnia, then Rwanda, and then Kosovo. The UN peacekeepers and the Europeans did not act to stop the slaughter in Srebrenica and no one took action to stop the genocide in Rwanda. If I understand your argument correctly, both instances might reflect a traditional realist’s response to such tragedies. But here’s the difference: there was far more real-time coverage of these events than before. Moreover, both the UN, the Europeans, and Clinton quickly became impressed by the *downside of inaction.* The UN, the Europeans (both their individual leaders and as collective nation states) and Clinton paid a price for their lack of will, their unwillingness to stand up for supposedly deeply held principles, and for paralyzing indecision. Indeed, I would argue that most of the rest of the world stopped taking Europeans seriously as military powers to be reckoned with by the end of this set of conflicts. Clinton saw this dimension and chose to intervene in Kosovo. This is not to say that “Clinton was right to intervene” – rather it is to simply note that the price for choosing to do nothing increased in the 1990s.
In recent years, it seems to me that the costs for inaction have only increased. Consider the counter-factual of what might have happened in Libya had NATO not intervened and there had been a massacre in Benghazi. It is easily conceivable given the technologies of our time that we would have been exposed on a nightly basis to grainy YouTube clips of men, women and children being slaughtered in all kinds of heinous ways – night after night, all over the world, often in real time, with continuing anguished cries for outside intervention complemented with widespread condemnations of the moral bankruptcy of western powers and the US in particular. Now, it still could be the case that the realist position would *still* be the correct one – but in this kind of environment realists need to be aware that the costs for great power inaction are rising. IF the US has any claim to moral leadership in the world, the pressure to exercise that leadership will not only increase from abroad but may also grow here at home. Countries such as China and Russia make few claims to moral leadership in the world – and this certainly seems to simplify their responses to broad-based wanton brutality. But, speaking as a deeply conflicted realist, I don’t look to them as models for an American realist foreign policy. Given the growth and increasingly broad-based use of new media technologies by average people, this dilemma will only grow in the years to come.
Osama Bin Laden Journal Seized During Raid from the Associated Press
"U.S. officials say that Osama bin Laden kept a hand-written journal filled with planning ideas and details of operations. The journal was seized in the dramatic US raid."
With bin Laden Gone, Now’s the Time to Push Pakistan (Fareed Zakaria) from the Washington Post
"The killing of Osama bin Laden has produced new waves of commentary on the problem of Pakistan. We could all discuss again its selective policy toward terrorists, its complicated relationship with the United States and its mounting dysfunctions. But there is more to this opportunity than an opening for analysis. This is a time for action, to finally push the country toward moderation and genuine democracy."
I will have to say that I think Zakaria is one of the sharpest knives in the box when it comes to foreign policy analysis -- but I think he is off here. I suspect that it is too late for the kind of conversation he's advocating. Pakistan is, I suspect, lurching towards a deep, long-deferred existential meltdown right now -- and the established elites in the military and in the civilian administration are united on only one thing: blame everything on the US. Those leaders who make up these fundamental pillars of the state are far more afraid of their own people right now; they are in deep survival mode -- and I simply don't get that they are in much position to either institute serious reform or to do anything with US pressure but to push back.
Hamas Accepts 1967 Borders, but Will Never Recognize Israel, Top Official Says from Al Haaretz [of Israel in English]
"Speaking to Palestinian news agency Ma'an, Mahmoud Zahar says recognition of Israel would deprive future Palestinian generations of the possibility to 'liberate' their lands."
An interesting development. One can only hope that it is the beginning of Hamas behaving like an organization genuinely interested in governing. Renouncing violence (and meaning it) must come next.
Obama’s Handling of Bin Laden’s Death is Exactly Right (Adam Serwer) from Greg Sargent's Plum Line at the Washington Post
"This is exactly how Obama should refer to the operation — give the lion’s share of the credit to the tireless work of American servicemembers and intelligence agencies. The president refocused time and resources on finding Bin Laden, and he deserves credit for doing so. Presidents run on the accomplishments achieved during their term, and by all rights, the killing of Bin Laden is one of his."
Old Man With Clicker (Maureen Dowd) from the New York Times
"There were differences. She had a dead chimp. He had a live water buffalo. She had an Isotta Fraschini with leopard-skin upholstery. He had a Suzuki van. She used tuberoses. He used Avena syrup, an herbal Viagra. She liked Champagne and caviar. He liked Coca-Cola and Pepsi. She had a script. He had a Koran. She had a white telephone. He had no telephone. But the similarities were striking. The faded murderous glamour queen and faded murderous terror king relied on drivers to negotiate their relations with the world."
China Inflation Climbs 5.3% (Jason Miks) from The Diplomat
"China's inflation data for April again exceeds Premier Wen Jiabao's 4 percent target for this year."
Further evidence of trouble in the "rising power" of the future!
A Diplomat Looks East (Bret Stephens) from the Wall Street Journal
"Will Beijing continue to pursue a policy of 'peaceful rise' or become a more belligerent player on the world stage? ... What remains of the diplomatic legacy of Henry Kissinger, probably the most charismatic—and easily the most controversial—secretary of state of the 20th century?"
GM's $2 Billion Expansion: Sign US Auto Makers Are Back from CNBC
"This is one of those days the US auto industry should savor. Just two years after being bailed out by the US government, General Motors is announcing today that it will spend $2 billion to add approximately 4,200 jobs at 18 plants in eight states."
Now, if Obama and his team can't make some SERIOUS HAY out of this news, they don't deserve re-election!
Frank Sees Consumer Watchdog Recess Appointment from Reuters News Service
"The Obama administration will likely use a recess appointment to name a director for its new financial consumer watchdog agency, Democratic Representative Barney Frank said on Wednesday"
I WONDERED if this might be in the offing given the intransigence of the GOP around this appointment.
The Past and Future of Our Budget Deficit in Two Graphs (Ezra Klein) from the Washington Post
"Insofar as policy has gotten us into this fiscal mess, the Bush tax cuts deserve the bulk of the blame. In their absence, deficits would be much smaller today. If they’re allowed to expire in 2012, deficits will be much smaller going forward."
Boehner’s Views on Economy Contradicted by Studies from Bloomberg News Service
"House Speaker John Boehner, giving Wall Street leaders his prescriptions for growing the U.S. economy and reducing the nation’s debt, built his case on several assertions that are contradicted by market indicators and government reports."
AP: Obama Approval at 60%, Majority Say He Deserves Re-election from Daily Kos
"Obama's job approval rating was 60% approve, 39% disapprove, a 21-point net approval ratings. That's up from an eight-point net approval rating in AP's previous poll. On the reelection question, the split was 53% saying he deserves reelection with 43% saying he doesn't, up from a three-point net advantage in the previous poll."
Muscle Memory: The Training of Navy Seals Commandos - Reviews of Memoirs of an Elite Navy Seal Sniper by Howard E. Wasdin and Stephen Templin, and The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy Seal by Eric Greitens from the New York Times
"Two new memoirs by former members of the Navy Seals, “Seal Team Six” by Howard E. Wasdin and “The Heart and the Fist” by Eric Greitens, are very different in tone."
Obama's Lone Star Long Shot (Glenn Thrush) from Politico
"President Barack Obama’s campaign is heeding the political siren song of Texas, telling supporters he hopes to make a real effort in a state where the growing Hispanic electorate has long raised — then dashed — Democratic hopes."
It won't happen -- in 2012. The time IS coming though.
Survey: 85% of New College Grads Move Back in with Mom and Dad from Time Magazine
"The kids are coming home to roost. Surprise, surprise: Thanks to a high unemployment rate for new grads, many of those with diplomas fresh off the press are making a return to Mom and Dad's place. In fact, according to a poll conducted by consulting firm Twentysomething Inc., some 85% of graduates will soon remember what Mom's cooking tastes like."
The Self-Destructiveness of the Purity Test (Peter Wehner) from Commentary
"The very purity test that Marr wants to impose on Daniels would have disqualified Reagan. That fact alone should give a moment’s pause to Marr and others who think like him."
Losing steam: In Congress, Tea Party’s Idealism Falls Prey to Political Reality (Joshua Green) from the Boston Globe
"the Tea Party established the contours of the current debate over deficits and reforming entitlement programs, which follow conservative principles much more closely than the Republicans’ limited formal power — they control only the House — should allow. But last week, this tide seemed to peak, and then begin to roll back."
This was always inevitable. If history is any guide, what follows will be the disillusionment -- after which these people will start to GO AWAY!
The Geography of Hate (Richard Florida) from the Atlantic
"America's racist groups concentrate in certain regions -- and their presence correlates with religion, McCain votes, and poverty"
EDUCATION NUGGET [of a sort]!!
Death to High School English (Kim Brooks) from Salon
"My college students don't understand commas, far less how to write an essay. Is it time to rethink how we teach?"
COOL-UNDER-PRESSURE JOB NUGGET!!
The Man Who Has to Clean Concrete Pit Full of Deadly Cobras (VIDEO) from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"For most people, it would be their worst nightmare - trapped in a tiny concrete pit surrounded by hundreds of deadly snakes. But this young animal worker appears ice cool, chewing on gum and barely flinching as he comes face-to-face with the venomous cobras."
WORLD-WAR-I-ERA BOOK NUGGET!!
Red Rosa (Christopher Hitchens) from the Atlantic
"The writings of the martyred socialist Rosa Luxemburg give a plaintive view of history’s paths not taken."
SUMMER MOVIES NUGGET!!
The 25 Hottest Movies of Summer 2011 (Brandi Andres) from the Daily Beast
"From Steven Spielberg’s collaboration with J.J. Abrams on Super 8 to a whole slew of sequels from The Hangover Part II to the final installment of Harry Potter, check out The Daily Beast’s guide of what’s coming to theaters this summer."
Depending on your taste, their might be something in this list worth seeing. I saw a couple.
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