Economics in One Lesson

Alexander McClure of Polipundit needs to read his Henry Hazlitt:

Yes the price tag is high, but the spending will actually in the long run have a very positive effect on the nation's economy and of the three states, invigorate the construction industry and trades, and of course create a lot of good paying, real jobs.

The lesson of Hazlitt is that broken windows aren't good for the economy. Perhaps he should have added that this is still true if the repair man is a Republican. some of the comments agree.

Wish I Had Said That

Andrew Sullivan refers to Hugh Hewitt as the Sidney Blumenthal of the Bush administration -- an apt comparison. Of course, Blumenthal eventually made it official and went to work in the Clinton Whitehouse.

Formerly Massive Deficit Now Only Huge!

Polipundit readers learn what the liberal MSM refuses to tell you: the formerly gargantuan Bush/Republican deficit is now only monstrously large.

Settled Law

I don't know if John Roberts is just being coy (you know, lying) when he describes Roe v. Wade as "settled as a precedent of the court, entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis." Roe is actually a festering sore on the Constitution and one of the most unsettled decisions of the last half century. Undoing this decision would be like a tonic for the American body politic, although I doubt that it would have much affect on the abortion status quo.

The Reality of War

Jason Apuzzo of the rightwing Libertas website is already worked into a froth over Jarhead, the forthcoming film by British director, Sam Mendes (American Beauty). Part of what has Apuzzo so upset is a Los Angeles Times article questioning if Americans are ready for such a film. Appuzo's interpretation of the article is:

The real question, though, is whether moviegoers in Nebraska strip-malls are ready to have their shallow, Midwestern prejudices about the justness of America's cause be challenged. Probably we advanced thinkers in Hollywood are still too far ahead for them, so this film with its earnest, stage-trained European director will probably fall flat.

Actually, if Apuzzo would come to Knoxville, I could introduce him to many ordinary Americans who at least question the wisdom of our present Iraq adventure, as well as the previous campaign depicted in Jarhead (the book as well as film). At the close, Apuzzo complains about a scene described in the LA Times article depicting a Marine mutilating an Iraqi corpse. "What a marvelous, respectful depiction of our fighting men! Goodness, how could our boys over in Iraq ask for more than to be depicted as mutilators of corpses! This should really help morale on the ground, don't you think?

I wonder, what exactly does Apuzzo think happens in war? He should read (and Mendes should film) With The Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, by the late Eugene B. Sledge. Sledge's account of his role in the War in the Pacific depicts the savagery of war as it existed on both sides (with the Japanese far worse than the Americans) in that war. Sometimes it is difficult to simply read and almost impossible to manage how anyone could survive with his sanity intact. Here is just one example:

While I was removing the bayonet and scabbard from a dead Japanese, I noticed a Marine near me. He wasn't in our mortar section but he happened by and wanted to get in on the spoils. He came up to me dragging what I assumed to be a corpse. But the Japanese wasn't dead. He had been wounded severely in the back and couldn't move his arms; otherwise he would have resisted to his last breath.

The Japanese's mouth glowed with huge gold crowned teeth, and his captor wanted them. He put the point of his kabar on the base of a tooth and hit the handle with the palm of his hand. Because the Japanese was kicking his feet and thrashing about, the knife point glanced off the tooth and sank deeply into the victim's mouth. The Marine cursed him and with a slach cut his cheeks open to each ear. He put his foot on the sufferer's lower jaw and tried again. Blood poured out of the soldier's mouth. He made a gurgling noise and thrashed wildly. I shouted, "Put the man out of his misery." All I got for an answer was a cussing out. Another Marine ran up, put a bullet in the enemy's soldier's brain, and ended his agony. The scavenger grumbled and continued extracting his prizes undisturbed.

Such was the incredible cruelty that decent men could commit when reduced to a brutish existence in their fight for survival amid the violent death, terror, tension, fatigue, and filth that was the infantryman's war.

UPDATE: A thouhtful comment by a reader who, of course, hasn't seen the unreleased movie:

These leftist losers have been making these types of films since 1969. Only a liberal can come up with logic such as this, "I support the troops but not the war . . ." yet they admire the US Marines, but always show them in a negative light. This generation of fighting men and women will be spit upon in the pop culture in the years to come, just as they did to the Vietnam Vets. Liberals can't help themselves, they HATE President Bush, they HATE conservatives, they HATE GOD and everything that AMERICA stands for.

Timeline

Josh Marshall has a handy timeline of events related to Hurricane Katrina.

UPDATE: Similar effort from Rightwingnuthouse.

Fiddlin' While New Orleans Drowns

I can't begin to sort through all of the events on the Gulf Coast of the past week that have mangaged to sweep everything, including the unfolding Iraq quagmire, out of the headlines. A big question now is, who is to blame for the disaster? Presumably that list is large and includes several people in Louisiana. It is possible that the Mayor Nagin of New Orleans and Governer Blanco of Louisiana will pay with their political careers.

It looks as if President Bush, who allowed himself to be photographed while playin' a guitar the day the levies gave way, may pay a political price as well-- although his allies are in full damage control mode. Christopher Ruddy, taking a break from solving the Ron Brown murder, finds time to make excuses for the president. Ruddy delivers a brief lesson on federalism and then notes that after all that the "Federal Emergency Management Agency, was created only in 1979." Well gee, I guess they are still trying to figure out how the copier works and find a place to plug in the coffee pot.

Hugh Hewitt, who has as much critical distance from the president as Karl Rove, also plays up the federalism angle:

It is possible that Neal doesn't know basic American government. It is obvious quite a few folks don't. Brendon Loy, who has done an amazing job posting this week, brought a 2L's passion to his denunciation of various federal officials, but if he was a student in my ConLaw class, I'd ask him, and allother commentators the following questions:

What is the "police power?"

Where does it reside?

Is there a federal "police power?"

Can the federal government order the evacuation of a city when state and local officials have not done so?

Who has first call on a state's national guard?

Who controls a city's police department?

Are Hewitt and Ruddy so deluded that they believe that the president and his advisors carefully read through the Constitution and the opinions of Learned Hand before deciding if they have the power to act? Bush had no concerns about federalism when he signed the No Child Left Behind Act, or when they went to the Supreme Court to override state governing the use of medical marijuana.

The real issue concerns the President's leadership. It is hard to imagine any other plausible president -- Clinton, Gore, Kerry, McCain, Buchanan -- dithering the way that President Bush did in the aftermath of the hurricane. If Louisiana state officials were dragging their feet; I'm sure that President McCain, for example, would have got on the horn and found out what the hell the problem was, instead of waiting for paperwork to be filled out in triplicate. I doubt that President Kerry would stand around, patting his FEMA director on the back, or look forward to sittin' on Trent Lott's porch while people were still dying.

There is going to be much discussion of the proper role of the Federal Government in the coming weeks. I would like to see it get out of many areas, starting with education and trying to run the rest of the world (What clause of the Constitution authorized the Coalition Provisional Authority, Hugh?). But as long as it has the resources, rescuing people from major natural disasters seems like a good thing. When the feds are done with that, they might take a look at that southern border.

Carter's Decontrol

It helps to simplify your world view immensely when you get to make up your own facts. Jayson at Polipundit rightly dismisses the insane notion of price controls but can't help inserting a dig at our 39th president. "Fortunately, however, we’ve come quite a long way since Jimmy Carter was running the country."

What's wrong with this statement? Well, as this Mises Institute report by William Anderson reports, President Carter was resonsible for the decontrol of oil prices that were put in place by Richard Nixon. Anderson notes, however that "Full decontrol was scheduled to take place in the spring of 1981, but Reagan upon taking office lifted controls almost immediately, thus receiving credit for what was mostly the action of his predecessor."

Good Timing

Another quick note about the Sept. 12 issue of the American Conservative: It's cover could only have been more timely if it had read; "New Orleans: Get Out."

Duncan '08

The Sept. 12 issue of the American Conservative arrived and it is notable for having two Upstate New York Reactionary Radicals. James Howard Kunstler is the author of the anti-suburban jeremiad, Home From Nowhere and other books. His latest book and his TAC article argues for that we facing a bleak future of withdrawal from our oil-dependent economy. I don't yet buy into his bleak vision, but it doesn't sound as crazy as it would have a few years ago.

The issue also contains an article by the estimable Bill Kauffman. Kauffman, the author of Dispatches From the Muckdog Gazette, interviewed my congressman, Jimmy Duncan. Duncan is one of the handful of actual conservatives remaining in the Repulican party. He is one of the six who voted against the invasion of Iraq because, as he notes, Saddam "hadn't attacked us. He hadn't threatened to attack us," and "he wasn't capable of attacking us." Since the war has become a costly quagmire, he reports that some house members privately tell him the wish they had voted with him.

Kauffman prods Duncan to run for president in the next election:

I suggest to Duncan that he would make a fine antiwar candidate for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. Surely there are still Republicans who care about limited, decentralized governance within a constitutional republic and who would rally to Duncan's blend of front-porch antiwar patriotism, Scots-Irish Presbyterian rectitude, East Tennessee pride, and taxpayer-watchdog populism.

I would like to think so, and he would have my vote, but I think Duncan is correct to predict that he would get "slaughtered." The loudest voices on the Republican Right want nothing to do with a conservative.

Democracy in Iraq

Democratization advocates, Glenn Reynolds and Michael Ledeen both fear that the U.S. government is going to allow Iraqis to write the Iraq constitution. Ledeen: "I'm also concerned because our current ambassador, Zal Khalilzad, was previously ambassador in Afghanistan and he sat still for a constitution that called the country an 'Islamic Republic,' fulfilling the demands of the Iranians."

What can one say about people like this? It boggles the mind that mature, middle-aged, presumably good-at-what-they-do, people can be so naive.

Absolut Creepy

Ben Stein used to be amusing, now he is just creepy. Stein sees a thin (Yale) blue line between America and the abyss. "There is one great man standing between us and this capitulation to evil: that man is George Bush, and he has two great allies, Tony Blair and John Howard." How did such a man come to power? Was he the choice of Republican activists and fundraisers? No you idiot, it was a higher power: "By a great providence, we were sent George Bush."

Although we have been blessed to have this great leader, all is not well. "The terrifying part is that he will be gone from power in less than three years. Then what? The evil will remain in men's souls, and who will be there to fight it? We have to start thinking right now of who sees and recognizes the difference between good and evil and start energizing ourselves to make that man or woman President. George Bush's shoes will be terrifyingly difficult to fill."

I won't try to argue against Stein. People who think like this are impossible to reason with. They are clearly in the thrall of a religious cult. If you see Stein coming with a glass of Kool Aid, run in the other direction.

Horowitz Predicts the Future.

While watching MSNBC's Connected Coast to Coast, the utterly vile David Horowitz, while spewing his usual bile towards Cindy Sheehan imparted that if the US withdraws from Iraq, there is going to be a bloodbath in that country. Yeah David, there's going to be a blood bath.

P.S. I noted here how poorly Ron Reagan handled a tirade by Christopher Hitchens last month. Today, he was much more effective. He essentially treated Horowitz with the contempt he deserves without being rude.

Bomb Iran?

That Iraq thing went so well, perhaps we should dispatch the threat from Iran. What could go wrong? Plenty says Pat Buchanan:

What could Iran do? Plenty. Send Revolutionary Guards into Iraq to make that country a worse hell for the 135,000 U.S. troops. Incite Hezbollah to launch rockets on Israel to widen the war. Attack U.S. allies in the Gulf. Encourage the Shias in Iraq and Saudi Arabia to attack Americans. Mine the Strait of Hormuz. Activate Islamic loyalists to bring terror home to the United States.

In short, a U.S. attack on Iran could lead to war across the region and interruption of the 15 million barrels of oil a day that come from the Gulf, which would drive the world economy into instant cardiac arrest.

Poddy Strikes Again

John "Poddy" Podheretz, who is an embarrassment to NRO's the Corner, whines about a forthcoming film adamption of Anthony Swofford's Jarhead. According to Poddy:

Hollywood has now made its third movie about the Gulf War, following Courage Under Fire and Three Kings. And -- surprise surprise surprise! -- like its two predecessors, it's an attack on the war. You know, the war John Kerry praised in 2004 even though he voted against it in 1990. The movie is called Jarhead, it's based on a highly cynical memoir by a Gulf War veteran. You can see the trailer here. It may win Oscars. What a wonderful gesture of support for our troops, hah?

I don't have a clue as to what he is talking about. The reference to John Kerry makes no sense at all. I watched the trailer and didn't see any indication that the movie is an "attack" on the war. I can only assume that Poddy wants pictures that depict American soldiers saying things like, "gee whillikers, isn't democracy great."

Jason Apuzzo, of the Libertas blog complains that Jarhead "deals with the 'dehumanization' of Marine trainees prior to and during the 1991 Gulf War, and is "based on Andrew Swofford's notorious and questionable memoirs of the same name." Note how he sneers the word dehumanization. According to my American Heritage College Dictionary "dehumanize" means "to deprive of human qualities such as compassion" and “to render mechanical and routine. That is exactly what occurs (along with much more) in military training. Appuzo has made a few references to credibility problems in Swofford's book with out being specific. Perhaps Apuzzo is abit mixed up since he thinks the book is written by somebody call "Andrew Swofford" instead of Anthony Swofford.

Credibility Gap

James Wolcott notices Megan McArdle's credibility problem in attributing credibility to Dick Morris. "On this issue he has a credibility gap as big as his corncob grin, a record of bum predictions that awould be a lingering embarrassment to him were he capable of being embarrassed."

As I have noted before, Dick Morris has a history of making dubious predictions relating to Hillary Clinton. McArdle says, "yesterday I heard Dick Morris on the radio making a credible case that Pirro can make things uncomfortable for Hillary by demanding that she commit to serving out her term." The obvious solution for Sen. Clinton if that becomes an issue is to promise to fill out her term in 2006, and break that promise in 2008 if she should decide to run for president. I can't imagine that doing so would hurt her that much.

Nick & Nora

Adam Cohen, the New York Times "Editorial Observer," editorially observes that a collection of the Thin Man series has been at or near the top of Amazon.com's DVD best sellers. Cohen suggests that they are popular for the same reason now as they were in the 1930s -- escapism. "We are not in a Great Depression. But with the economy feeling precarious, the war in Iraq going badly and the headlines filled with London subway bombers and North Korean nuclear weapons, it is comforting for many people to imagine that a rich person might want to take care of them - or that they are rich themselves, with little more to worry about than how to get over a martini-induced hangover."

That might be the reason. The economic indicators are reasonably good, but I see too many check cashing businesses, rent-to-own stores, signs offering to buy homes quickly and places where you can borrow money on your car title; to believe that the economy is genuinely healthy.

While building his case, Cohen skips over another potential reason. "Leaving the world's grittiness behind to wallow in a life of luxury is a fantasy that is particularly prevalent right now. On a new television show on VH1, 'Kept,' young men are competing to be the kept man of a wealthy woman. On another, NBC's 'I Want to Be a Hilton,' young people are vying to be part of a family of rich celebrities." So much of what passes for entertainment is awful and insulting to the intelligence of anyone remotely sentient. There is obviously a large market for watching ordinary people make fools of themselves for a bit of wealth and fame. Even already rich people such as Paris Hilton and Donald Trump are eager to debase themselves in public for a sort of third-rate, famous-for-being-famous sort of celebrity.

Fortunately, we have so many options these days. It is a healthy sign that at least a few, after turning on the TV and seeing Paris and Donald, decide to replace them with Nick and Nora Charles.

Tragic Irony

FrontPage just published a symposium on Iraq that includes the late Stephen Vincent. Ironically, Jamie Glazov, the host, repeatedly sassed Vincent for giving relatively low grades to the U.S. war effort:

FP: Thanks Mr. Vincent. You are going to give a B- to the Bush administration because the terrorists have wreaked violence and mayhem and made nation building extremely difficult? We are at war. You are judging the Bush administration because there are terrorists trying to destroy Iraq at every turn. You blame America that you can't leave your hotel. But Mr. Vincent, sorry, you can't leave your hotel because the terrorists are a threat to you. Blame the terrorists, not America.

Are you going to blame America for suicide bombings as well? Sorry, in my humble opinion, when a suicide bomber blows himself up and kills innocent people and destroys the "quality" of life, the perpetrator is the suicide bomber -- and the Islamist enemy that has sent him -- not America. When al Zarqawi chops a head off of a hostage, the person who should be blamed for the dead hostage is al Zarqawi, not America. Am I missing something here?
An F to America for the quality of Iraqis' lives? The terrorists are waging war on the country and doing everything in their power to destroy the quality of life. We need to blame the terrorists for that, not the side that is sacrificing its young boys and girls to give Iraq liberty and to nurture and protect its growth. The premise here is the height of the pathology of anti-Americanism -- blaming America for what the terrorists are doing. Isn't it?

At least he doesn't accuse Vincent of being an America hater -- he must have forgot. It takes minimal logical powers to follow what I'm going to say next. Responsibility and blame are two different concepts. When terrorists commit murder, they are to blame. However, when the Bush administration invades a foreign country, topples the ruling regime and installs a new one, they are responsible for the successes and failures that follows. If there is no security, insufficient power and a porous border, then President Bush and Don Rumsfeld bear full responsibility for the failure.

Competition Over

Cliff May is the dumbest, lamest pundit in the world of Neocondom. His response to Robert Novak's televised tantrum is to blame James Carville for being rude:

Evidently, CNN has suspended Novak and Novak is contrite.

I’m surprised. I saw him stand up and walk out -- I was multi-tasking but the TV was on -- and it seemed to me that he was just responding to Carville's abject rudeness. Carville was snarling something about Novak wanting to please far right-wingers.

I didn't blame Novak. I thought, "Good for him, there is some sh** up with which he will not put. Maybe this will teach Carville to keep a civil tongue in his mouth and to learn that all is not permissible in partisan debate."

Oh brother! "Abject rudeness" is the whole point of these televised exchanges. Robert Novak, who is a veteran of the McLaughlin Group, Crossfire and the Capital Gang has been on the giving end more often than the receiving end. With the rare opportunity to watch TV history live yesterday, I was lazily dozing when Novak stormed off stage. After watching it again on the Web, I still don't understand what Carville said that was so bad. It is difficult to spin the episode in such a way that Novak doesn't look foolish. That partisans such as May feel the need to spin on behalf of fellow pundits indicates the sad state of America's current political debate.

UPDATE: I spoke too soon. There is always competition in the Corner. Tim Graham: It's Clinton's fault.

Understatement

Paul Weyrich makes the understatement of the century: "I am not convinced that the best way to defend America from terrorism is to invade and occupy other countries, countries with religions and cultures very different from our own."
Selectively read parts of the rest at your own discretion.