New Year, New Muse

• We're going with
• Polyhymnia or Polymnia (the "[singer] of many hymns", muse of sacred song, oratory, lyric, singing and rhetoric...

(The) muse[s, as a group,] embody the arts and inspire the creation process with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music, and dance. They were water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and with Pieris, from which they are sometimes called the Pierides. The Olympian system set Apollo as their leader, Apollon Mousagetēs. Not only are the Muses explicitly used in modern English to refer to an inspiration, as when one cites his/her own artistic muse, but they are also implicit in the words "amuse" or "musing upon".^[2]

According to Hesiod's Theogony (seventh century BC), they are the daughters of Zeus, king of the gods, and Mnemosyne, goddess of memory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse

Something like Hillary "embodies change", I guess. In particular, I think I should try to appeal to their mother, Mnemosyne, "goddess of memory". Please don't let me down, Mom!

'08 Elections: Early Reviews of the Previews

At this critical juncture of the Presidential race, in which all of us (even those few of us in a couple of predominantly-white swing states) can do nothing except hold our breath and wait, I suggest we pause. Just for laughs, or for rigor, or mortis, it might pay for me to own up to my prior previews and see how well I've handicapped events to date.

It might also be opportune to look at just how realistic those ancient scenarios are today as previews for what might be coming in the near future.


The Scenario of the Two Divergent Triangles

My first effort was an exceedingly long attempt which posted a couple of weeks before the 2006 elections. In an effort to keep from stressing out, I was looking beyond them to this '08 electoral contests.

In each of the Democratic and Republican nomination races, I foresaw at that time the likelihood of a three-way race, something that still seems likely for each. I found the prospective Republican race much more dependent on the '06 outcomes than the Dems'.

I was pessimistic for '06, giving "a 32% chance Dems win H of R this year; 20% chance they win Senate, so that's my guess as of October 15, 2006--".

Regardless of '06, though, I saw the Democratic race as ending up being a three-way race between Hillary, a "Clinton Centrist Challenger" and what I called "XXX", and meant the consensus choice of the Netroots and the left. At the moment , casting was wide open for "CCC" (Mark Warner had just dropped out), while I thought Feingold or Gore would end up with the "XXX" constituency. I came up with these probabilities for the Democratic nomination:

"Clinton 52%, Edwards 16%, Feingold 12%, Biden 8%, Gore 5%, Kerry 3%, the Field (Richardson, Bayh, Vilsack, Wes Clark, Schweitzer/Obama-type Draftee) 3%, Is there anything else? 1%, Kucinich 3 votes."

Well, at least I mentioned Obama--clearly understood today to be, indeed, the foretold Clinton Centrist Challenger--though at the time I didn't think Barack was going to run. As for Edwards, I knew he would be a factor, though I wasn't sure whether it would be as the centrist challenger or the leftist one.

I had the narrative for the electoral race. It took the DNC to preserve it, by sabotaging the attempts by Michigan and Florida to get more attention by bringing their primaries forward:

The basic theme of the Democratic nomination process will be winning in the early-season Four Corners (of a diamond?): IA, NH, and the recently promoted SC and NV. It seems improbable that anyone but HRC could win all four, but any candidate who doesn't win in SC but does win all the other three should be able to coast home. The SC winner would be the likeliest choice for the '3-C' role, while the first XXX leader will be identified before SC. (There could be more than one, someone coming in late and absorbing most of the delegates from an early XXX leader who may falter).

If Hillary doesn't win it early (at least 3 of 4), it should settle into the three-way race.

I spent a lot of effort on the Republican preview, looking at three '06 scenarios: a Bushite victory, Total Bushite Chaos!, and a Democratic Victory, the latter being defined as the Democrats winning control of at least one house of Congress (which I saw as having a 40% probability). For each outcome, I came up with an estimated "conditional probability"; and

after a Democratic Victory: GPR 25%, McCain 40%, anti-Bushite Right-Winger 35%".

("GPR" meant Giuliani, Pataki, or Romney, who were pretty much interchangeable, and I felt there was a niche for only one. ) The position of "anti-Bushite Right-Winger" was up for grabs--I saw Gingrich as the one most likely to snag it--and I disparaged Huckabee like the rest. Sen. Brownback I saw as a "fourth way" and possibly pivotal figure. Again, that role went to Mike.

I saw McCain's chances hinged on winning both NH and SC, but today it seems that in South Carolina he has no chance. Regardless, today it would be hard to criticize any preview except one that had any degree of certainty about it. You don't find anyone willing to stick one's neck out and say anything about the outcome at this point, except that someone's bound to win in the end.

After the double-D Democratic victory (which I gave only a 12% likelihood), I revisited the three-cornered race I saw coming forward. Not much had changed, though there was, of course, more clarity:

Update on most likely six finalists for the two three-cornered party nomination races:
1) McCain
(now more than ever with the decisive Democratic victory, Bushite defeat.)
2) Giuliani
(Romney now heir-apparent to this role if Rudy falters, as Pataki disappears)
3)Gingrich
(over Brownback as leader of right-wing holding action and eventual VP candidate. No more chance of a significant Bushite candidate )


1) Hillary Rodham Clinton (in her own interest, HRC will be advising Nancy Pelosi on a full-time basis throughout 2007)
2) Barack Obama (the Clinton Centrist Challenger of the moment)
3) John Edwards (establishing a surprising claim to be the best "XXX" candidate)

Got one right.

It would be ironic if it comes down to these three (and, for a further fancy, say, Bill Richardson) and Edwards is the only white male left standing for the Democrats, while being the one "furthest to the left". Such a combination could actually put him over the top for the nomination.

Seems unlikely.

I still see the likely scenario for the Republicans being the right-wing stalking horse handing the laurels to McCain in mid-primary season and getting the VP nomination (not insignificant, given McCain's age).

McCain-Huckabee we're talking here, though I didn't realize it. Still kind of hard to imagine, though tactically it makes a ton of sense. And that's what I'm hoping for, a ticket without Giuliani or Romney at the top. (Cheers to the Concord Monitor for their Romney "anti-endorsement"--also known as "endorsement. Not.")

Illegal Betting Advice

In July of '07 , I gave my assessment of the posted odds: (http://chinshihtang.blogspot.com/2007/07/money-where-my-blog-is-not.html#links):

If I take the odds from one of the offshore gaming sites--press@intrade.com--(I don't recommend gambling in such places, plus it's illegal (!?) for Americans to vote in this way.)--

they have (7/25): Clinton 47.2; Obama 38.0; Edwards 5.9; Gore 5.4; Others (by subtraction only) 3.5%...

They have: Giuliani 39.0%; Thompson 32%; Romney 16.7%; Mc Cain 6.0%; Others 6.3%.

My conclusions would be: Clinton, though rising, is still cheap for the nomination (until about 60%). Clinton for the Presidency, at 29%, also looks cheap up to about 35-38%. Sell Giuliani and Romney; buy Thompson and McCain.

Except for the part about Thompson (who knew? I was going by his Watergate committee performance, never watch Law and Order), my advice still looks good.

More recently, in my tactical endorsement (http://chinshihtang.blogspot.com/2007/11/democratic-prez-endorsement-pt-2.html#links), I wrote that I thought Obama would win Iowa, drawing upon Edwards-supporters forced by the rules to move toward their second choice. In the short time since then, Obama has surged to the Iowa lead in poll-driven expectations. As a consequence, neither Edwards nor Clinton should feel inclined to cut deals with Obama in Iowa.

The pundits seem to be hinting that Clinton is offering to deal with Edwards--which I see as more likely to help HRC, if it comes off. This, and the unreliability of counting on the youth vote, is making me a bit nervous about the "Obama the clear favorite" talk. I think that New Hampshire might still swing Obama's way, regardless, as the Graniteers choose free life rather than death.

Frank Morgan Memorial

When I consider all of Man's arts, crafts, and sciences, I am convinced that the most impressive and unique human achievements are in the worldly microcosm of sound--words, and how they are used, and especially music. I think that music best represents fulfillment of the pure ambition of human art for expression. The abstraction music can provide for human experience needs little explanation and can abide it less.

If some human voices approach the purity of tone and facility of note-playing that instruments provide, some instruments seem designed to express musical tones and emotional expression that could come from human voices--without words, of course (Peter Frampton notwithstanding). That seemed to me to be the kind of beauty that Frank Morgan could bring with his saxophone.

Frank knew what he had, and he respected his talent and demanded respect--for that artistic ideal, I feel--when he played. His jazz was not background music for chit-chat and party dialogue: he wouldn't let it be so. My evidence for that was his willingness to tell his audience in so many words to be quiet when he played.

At the Remembrance event today at the Taos Inn, I watched but didn't speak up. I didn't have the incredible stories to tell that most of them had, none at least that were unique or humorous. What I had seen of him was only his public persona: warm, stylish, flirtatious with the ladies, and mild-mannered and dignified with the gentlemen. There was more, I knew, but I didn't know so much--about his health problems, about his history of addiction (though I knew of it), about his time in prison. I hadn't been hip to his talent or his career in the '80's--a time when I was living in New York and going to the jazz clubs--though he was visiting and playing there some of the time.

I can testify to his generosity in putting his talent out there for the people of Taos. He played beautifully at my mother-in-law's wake (no fee, far as I know), including a sweet bit when he made the strings of the grand piano in the room vibrate to his tones. He came to the ski valley to play to our group for the Yaxche Mountain Festival, sending his sounds resonating off the nearby rock faces for our enjoyment.

I don't know about the rest of it, but in his later life, he seemed a fulfilled person, happy to be sharing his gifts. He left us something real and permanent in the enduring dialogue between human voice and musical instrument.

EPA Outrage

The announcement by the chief of the EPA that the new 35-MPG fuel efficiency (for what? 2020?) standard trumps more rigorous standards set in 17 states (led by California) borders on the criminal.

First, the timing clearly demonstrates that this was a quid pro quo--the government promised it would protect the auto manufacturers from these tougher state standards in return for their accepting the Federal standard just set in the Energy bill. This just goes naturally with the standard Bushite approach that those being regulated get to set the regulations, under Bushite Misrule.

Second, the EPA is clearly failing in its primary mission--to protect the environment, duh--unless it can show that 35 mpg is good enough to protect us from the consequences of climate change from greenhouse gases. Of course, it isn't.

The interesting note is that the large states with stricter standards, combined with the Federal nationwide standard, would've given the auto manufacturers a chance to dump their fuel-guzzlers in the other states. Now--at least until this ridiculous ruling is reversed, either in the courts or after the 2008 elections--there will be knockdown, drag-out battles to preserve the "right" for gas-hogs to be sold in quantity in states whose legislatures have largely rejected them.

Email to David Brooks

Re: The Obama-Clinton Issue

Wow! This was your best column since coming to the Times. I admire your use of historic references to bring clarity to a choice of historic dimensions.

I liked the lead gambit of your article which brought forward, then demolished, the argument that argues for Hillary through her stronger Senate performance. Obama supporters who'd read the blurb got a jolt of reality; Clinton supporters were flattered to get their attention for the battering conclusion.

What I liked most, though, was this line: "There are reasons to think that, among Democrats, Obama is better prepared for this madness." You didn't even feel the need to explain this strange notion that madness is reality. In this, you were right--how very 21st of you!

Ch'in Shih-tang

For full disclosure, see http://chinshihtang.blogspot.com/2007/12/stoner-democratic-prez-endorsement-pt-2.html#links
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/opinion/18brooks.html

Obama on the Issues--A Reality Check

Let's check how BHO's issue positions line up with my own.

The following are the Issue Headings, in reverse order listed, from BarackObama.com. I've taken the liberty of adding some notes (in italics) summarizing some of the key policies he advocates.

Assuming the order of topics represents something like Obama's priorities (though I note it's somewhat different on the homepage), I've numbered them that way, but omitting 6 of the last 9 listed. I found all those six to be a bit too apple-pie stuff, not too substantive, designed to reassure the moderates if they get that far down the page. We're left with my "Unofficial Obama's 10-point program".

Finally, on the issue listed first--"Strengthening America Overseas"--I give verbatim the five-point program he has under that most-important issue.

Obama's Issues (Reverse Order)
Reconciling Faith and Politics
Strengthening Families and Communities
Cleaning up Washington’s Culture of Corruption
Honoring our Veterans
10. Protecting Our Right to Vote
9. Immigration—Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Homeland Security—9/11 Measures
8. Improving our Schools—more Funding for Poor School Districts
Fulfilling our Covenant with Seniors--protect Social Security and Medicare
7. Technology and Innovation for a New Generation—Broadband for all
6. Energy—CAFE, Renewable Fuels, and Clean Coal
5. Environment—Global Warming Plan
4. Fighting Poverty—Job Programs, and see Education (BHO's #8), Healthcare (his #3); Rebuild New Orleans
3. Healthcare—Govt offered Insurance—no mandate
2. Plan to End the Iraq War—1-2 Brigades per month; history of being right. Short on prescription for Iraq, beyond new convention with UN support. Doesn’t mention future bases.
1. Strengthening America Overseas First, we will bring a responsible end to the war in Iraq and refocus on the critical challenges in the broader region. Second, we will rebuild and transform the military to meet 21st-century threats. Third, we will marshal a global effort to secure, destroy, and stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Fourth, we will renew the alliances and partnerships necessary to meet common challenges, such as terrorism and climate change. And fifth, we will strengthen impoverished, weak and ungoverned countries that have become the most fertile breeding grounds for transnational threats like terror and pandemic disease and the smuggling of deadly weapons.

Now, the point-by-point comparison with my own 10-pointer, with reference to Obama's where applicable.

1.. Get control of climate-changing gases. Yes; #5
2. Preserve our biosphere. Not really, beyond the energy plan. Brings up enforcement of existing law; preservation of federally-protected status where applicable—way down the page!
3. Rebuild our relations with the world. Yes; #1
4. Visualize our children’s / grandchildren’s society, and the implications of that vision. Somewhat; see #9 and #7. Generally very future-oriented.
5. Reform the UN Charter. No such luck.
6. Get control of armaments. Yes; see #1
7. Establish clearly the political dimensions of privacy and of permissible government intrusions into it. Nope.
8. Provide health care to our people. See #3; some doubt whether his plan would solve the problem if people don’t sign up. One good idea was to extend parental coverage of children up to age 25—this would help cover an age group with low health cost (to get the benefit for others) that generally isn’t covered today.
9. Electoral reform. #11 is mostly about removing obstacles to voting, which is half the problem. The other is how they’re counted (and applied).
10. End the "War on Drugs" (or at least give it some focus on the more harmful ones). Mention of the topic is conspicuously absent anywhere on the website. Off the website, he has a fairly responsible position today and shows more honesty than most, so I do not see him having much problem with it once this hoo-ha with Clinton campaign intriguers passes.

I'll give him 4 A's (on green house gases, vision for the future, general foreign relations, and arms reduction), 2 B's (electoral reform and healthcare), and 2 C's (environment and Drug Wars). The topic of the UN gets an Incomplete--Grade TBD. On protecting civil liberties, though, he gets a failing grade by failing to address a major issue.

Most importantly, Obama's implicit priorities recognize the fact that the primary duties of our President--though not the ones most American voters would cite as most important to them--are in the areas of foreign affairs and military policy. Here, he's not as strong as Biden or Richardson, perhaps, but he blows away someone like Huckabee or Romney.

In Dem Prez Endorsement--Pt 4, we'll take a look at HRC's 10-pointer and how it rates--for me--compared to Obama's.

Reasons to Declare "I Just Don't Know..."

Here's my response to the editorial by Eduardo Porter, "Campaigns Like These Make It Hard to Find a Reason to Believe", published today (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/opinion/14fri3.html?th&emc=th):



By failing to consider the perspective of the agnostic, Porter nearly re-creates Mitt Romney's omission on a smaller scale.

Declared agnostics clearly have on their side the combination of rationality and honesty. Most agnostics don't declare themselves, though: Pascal's wager-type situations occur too often in daily life, not only when running for office. There are plenty of agnostic Presidents in our history (more in memoirs than as a publicly stated view), and I daresay there are more than a few in Jerusalem, too.

If it came down to the Wager itself, we'd be on the losing side, whichever side we chose. The truly devout would never accept us who only professed belief for motives of gain. So we're with the atheists. Why don't they acknowledge us?

The world would be a better place if more of us faced the facts, accepted the plurality of humanity's religious beliefs, and got on with making this colossal living experiment a success.
— chinshihtang, Taos

It's not so much that I need to declare that I don't know (what's the big deal, anyway?--I don't), it just seemed like there was a pretty large animal in the room that hadn't been named.

Rate Reduction Reactions

We've seen the pattern now two or three times: the stock market rises in anticipation of a reduction in rates by the Fed, then we get it, then the doldrums creep back in. Net result is basically no movement in the market as a whole (at a level that I would argue is about 20% too high).

This time it varied slightly: market expectations (at least from some) were for a 50-basis point (in plain English, that's half a percent) reduction. The market dropped on the announcement of a 25-bp reduction. One day of rebound (at least there was something; also some infusion of funds was announced the next day), then back to the doldrums.

I have a little different take on the ongoing story. I think the initial 50-bp reduction (September?) was the right move--then the Fed should have sat and watched. For one thing, these moves have a delayed reaction in the world--months, not minutes or seconds. Bernanke and the Fed got pressured to do more when there were continuing danger signals of a possible future recession after the first move. So?

The second point is that weak resolve from the Fed is going to end up leading to galloping inflation. We have all the engines for future inflation already in place: high and rising energy prices, increased costs as we substitute higher-cost sources of energy, trade wars about to set in, and a weak economy going into an election year. The scenario looks like this: jobs drop, rates drop, a brief recession accompanied by more rate reductions, a strong recovery and prices go out of control.

The Fed should announce that its reductions are over for several months and then gird its collective loin for the political attacks that will follow. Anybody remember stagflation? The pain required to get out of it (Volcker's recession of '80-'82)? I do.

Romney the Mormon

Many people seem mystified that Romney has felt the need to defend his right to be a Mormon and run for President.

I just look at it as another form of pandering, one that will probably not work very well. Ah, but he needed to do something as Huckabee was daily stealing his bread (and Fred's bread, too) as the evangelist-cum-huckster choice--a role that is guaranteed about 25-30% of the Republican primary vote.

The key point of Romney's speech was his claim that the Mormon church never influenced his policies as Massachusetts governor, so it would never influence him as President. I'll grant that, as President, he'd be more powerful than even the most-senior Elder (Chairman of the Board) of the church in Salt Lake City (he might not have been so in MA), so he wouldn't have to listen to them. What I believed before his speech, and what I still believe, is that Romney consulted the church elders and got their OK to shift his policies some to get the governor job, and then again to get their OK to run for President as a Republican. So his flip-flops, the main item to debate regarding Mitt, would have a subtle church influence under that theory.

I believe this simply because I don't really trust the Avatar of Ken on anything. This, in particular, would be something that he would be stretching the truth about. Is this bigoted?

When it comes to the Mormons themselves, I find their theology, their view of society, and especially their account of the discovery of the Book of Mormon, along with its contents, all absurd in the extreme. About par for the course, I guess. What I can't disparage is their design for living; flexible though it has been, it has always provided for long, untroubled lives; for extensive procreation (one wife or many), and broad proselytizing.

It all makes for an intensely rapid growth rate: it's clearly a winning business model. Perhaps Mitt should go into it in more depth as an example of the competent management along Bushite lines that his campaign wants to promise. It wouldn't sway me, but so many of us want to be part of a winning team, and he can help us to join up on the mystery tour.

Football Mess

This year, the annual college football mess has been unusually chaotic. None of the top-ranked teams has proven it can win consistently thruogh he whole season, and the number of top 5 (top 2, top 10--take your pick) teams who have lost to unranked teams has hit a record high.

To be fair, the commentators this year have shown their impatience with the mess and the lack of a playoff system to resolve it.

I'd advocate a six-team playoff which takes three play dates to resolve (separated by two weeks, ideally). Teams 3-6 would play seeded games in the first round, and the winners would go up against the top two, with the finals to follow. This puts some emphasis, as is the case now, on finishing first or second in the rankings, and even more emphasis on finishing sixth vs. seventh.

I don't think you would let all the major conference champions have an automatic berth in that system. In order to do that properly, you'd need one additional round and make it a 12-team playoff. Teams 5-12 would play in the first round, and winners (perhaps re-seeded) would play vs. 1-4 in the quarterfinals, etc. I like this system even better, but it does require a fourth play date. One could begin the week after Thanksgiving; then you'd have the quarters in mid-December, the semis sometime around the New Year, and the finals in mid-January. It could catch on!

Democratic Prez Endorsement--Pt 3

The Aftermath

I based my recent endorsement of Obama for President on a tactical analysis of how best to achieve my strategic objective from the 2008 Presidential election. So far, it seems as though my pinhead-sized drop in the political sea has joined with a substantial surge rising all around me, even in landlocked Iowa. The next month or so will decide whether the wave of Obamania (it’s the second wave of it, really) will carry all before it, or crash ineffectually onto the banks of the Mississippi, receding before Her Royal Colossus. So far, both the decision and the timing seem good from this vantage point.

Now, I have to comment on The Nation’s November 27 issue, entitled “Time To Choose” (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071126/vidal#list). Like me, they saw this was the time, but they decided not to make a choice.

The cover piece has eight short essays, by eight different writers, each endorsing a different Democratic Presidential candidate (even one for Mike Gravel!) This seems to be a fair way to go at the difficult decision of choosing the best from this excellent field of contenders, but it will not change The Nation’s modern tradition of providing no effective endorsement to anyone.

At its best, we would get eight brilliant, totally convincing essays by prominent and articulate expert practitioners of rhetoric, thus confusing us hopelessly. Actually, that’s pretty much what the reader gets, omitting the hyperbole. The eight writers are all skilled, medium-to-well-known, not the usual Nation columnists (impressively neutral, the Editorial Board stays out of it, except to make the minimalist, and irrelevant, endorsement of all viz. the incumbent), and sincere.

I’d say the people they got to speak for some of the more minor candidates (Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson for Richardson, New Mexico’s John Nichols for Biden, and all-time fave Gore Vidal for Kucinich) have names more prominent than those recruited for the Big 3: Ellen Chesler, Michael Eric Dyson, and Katherine S. Newman (in order of descending national poll popularity of the endorsees).

For leaners/undecided Democrats like my wife and me, we found the overall impact to be less clarity in our decision-minded thinking and less certainty in our tendencies. In other words, the issue provides little to no help in the requisite choice, except to emphasize its difficulty.

Reading them for clues to my own feelings and thoughts, I was struck by the mix of different types of argument and rhetorical style employed. The brevity required (1000 words max?) didn’t allow individual writers to attack their thesis from various angles: each basically got one shot at it, plus or minus a twist to open or close the deal. Crafting the piece perfectly would involve harmonizing its style with key characteristics of the candidate to be endorsed, identifying the type of appeal most likely to succeed with those leaning toward the candidate, and employing ironclad logic.

The main choices were emotional or rational appeals, being more or less assertive in terms of strength of preference, and whether to utilize implicit or direct criticism of the other candidates in the argument. These break down as follows:

Biden (Nichols): rational; less assertive; Contrasts: Yes—he’s “the one Democrat Republicans feel compelled not merely to attack but to answer”.

Clinton (Chesler): rational;* more assertive; No—the other Dem candidates barely are in her Hillary’s field of vision.

Edwards (Newman): rational; more assertive; Yes—opposed to “tepid, middle-of-the-road, blow-with-the-wind candidates”.

Dodd (Bruce Shapiro): rational; much less (“Will I vote for Chris Dodd? I don’t know.”); No.

Gravel (Richard Kim): emotional; not very (he knows he’ll have to switch allegiance); not really antagonistic (as opposed to Gravel himself).

Kucinich (Vidal): emotional; not assertive; Yes—his cool knife inflicts a thousand cuts (or approximately one cut per word).

Richardson (Anderson): rational; assertive; Yes—repeatedly attacks all of the Big 3 on Iraq.

Obama (Dyson): emotional; assertive; No (does not mention another candidate, even indirectly). +

Dyson’s piece ended with an appeal so eloquent that it is worthy of Barack:

“Barack Obama has come closer than any figure in recent history to obeying a direct call of the people to the brutal and bloody fields of political mission. His visionary response to that call gives great hope that he can galvanize our nation with the payoff of his political rhetoric…he is our best hope to tie together the fraying strands of our political will into a powerful and productive vision of national destiny.”

Like a speech from Obama, these words say nothing…and everything.

Notes:

*But note the emotional rhetorical flourish (a “1-in-10” kind of blind shot) when Chesler throws in at the end “one more thing”: that she’s supporting her “because she is a woman”!

+In the order of the articles, except with Richardson and Obama reversed (one must save the best to last, of course!)

Living, Philosophy of (I)

I’ve got no lead (lede?) whatsoever for this one, except that “It should be obvious by now to my theoretical readership that there is something going on consistently in this blog, and sometimes it just has to be spelled out.” Maybe better to say “…it just has to spill out”—does that flow better?

In the perfect society, as envisioned by the Taoist sages, people would not need to ask themselves why they live the way they do. They would be fully committed to the life they live and would find their motivation from the intrinsic value of what they did. This notion is very close to the artistic ideal, though I would admit that my description of it overemphasizes the product and does not give full value to the process.

Human life is not perfect, though, and a philosophy of living must help people deal with inevitable dislocations from their perfect path: sickness, death, conflict with others, failure. What we need in our difficult moments is the wisdom gained from others’ experiences and their hard learning, with the hope that it may either prevent or ameliorate our problems.

I see this as the genesis of the Tao te ching by Lao-tse. The traditional story of its provenance is that of a middle-aged, middle-level official of the ancient Chinese empire, named Li Erh, who was leaving the empire’s boundaries for parts unknown. A border guard sought his wisdom for the benefit of civilized society, and “The Book of The Way and Its Power” was the result.

It was only the dislocation—before, we can hypothesize, he was content in his job and place in society, but now he clearly was not--and the sage’s pity for us Left Behind which caused us to receive those deep, cryptic notes. In the Tao te ching, though there are hints about ultimate realities, the guidance for “the Prince”—the many would-be practitioners who would receive these words—has to do with getting it right the first time, about making one’s way through life as it is, not fixing things. If one can not be directly the agent for Tao, at least one can proceed from second principles: how It works in the real world.

Unlike the ancient Chinese Old Master, the Greek philosophers—at least the ones of the Socratic school—saw the practice and study of philosophy itself as an ideal vocation for life. The ideal philosopher’s role, as portrayed through the example of Socrates’ death and Plato’s “cave analogy”, was to bring light unto mankind (more accurately, to help us to find it for ourselves), so that we would move toward it in our lives. For them, as for the second great Taoist philosopher Chuang-tse, and for the later Romantics and Marxists, the principal motivation was somehow dealing with this gap between the real and ideal; the art of the project was in the beauty of the objective: attempting to redeem humanity.

What was not artistic, as it turned out, was the product of their struggles. Their actions produce the drama of history, and sometimes even changes in our lives, in the form of the progress that makes our lives more complex, less pure. Hence, the Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times!” In today’s world, as in all eras of civilization so far, we must keep our heads down if we don’t want them to be lopped off by the wild swings of those who prescribe for others. This is the source of our reverence for classic conservatism.

Most people, most of the time, have had neither the luxury nor the distancing required to look around and examine their place in the scheme of things. They learn, as part of their native culture, their “parochial” view of these far-off First Movers—the gods. The stories that thrived and survived—our great religions—even gave us comfort with our place within it. At least they helped make it bearable.

In our time, we—many of us, anyway—have more space for maneuver. We are not as bound by the accidents of our birth, our race, gender, nor even the locally-accepted view of cosmology. We can accept that the design has its intelligence within its manifestations (the Darwinist view); we can insist that the intelligence is inherent in the design; or we can make our own design, if we have the time, the intelligence, and the discipline.

It can hardly be wrong for us to live our lives in the way we think best, but that design needs somehow to take into account the harm from the dislocations that others face, since we recognize that we must face them ourselves someday (my version of The Golden Rule, which all long-term successful philosophies and religions acknowledge). We can decry as folly the designs of those who live in this world without care for others or who deny their own vulnerability. Hence, we accept this central tenet, if not the practice, of our latter-day “liberals”.

In our lives, we have seen how dangerous it can be to come forward, to speak plainly, to try to rise above. We have seen that, while the ways in which one can express one’s ideas unmediated have flourished, most people absorb their information pre-chewed and artificially flavored. Our role model for exerting one’s influence positively while living artfully is Thomas Pynchon—as we imagine him—who moves the Monster with many small cuts, at a safe distance.

Democratic Prez Endorsement--Pt 2

Tactical Endorsement

Now would seem the time to put one's weight behind a candidate.

My intention was to keep the 2008 election in 2008--endorsements, contributions, polemics--and keep the thing at a distance until it's time. That seems fine with regard to the elections at state level. Rather than blanket contributions to the DSCC, I will be helping individual candidates in races that matter, and I can decide those much later, once the choices are clearly before us.

Unfortunately, while I like the Unofficial National Primary as a means for the parties to choose their nominees for President (the date is declared by the parties, and states can go before or after, or on it), February 5 is ridiculously early. It should be in May or June.

The Republicans can kick each other all the way to the convention, and I'll be pleased. It seems, though, that because of substantial leads that Hillary holds in many of the key states after the show gets on the road, the road race in the Democratic party is all about the first lap after the green flag. If Hillary pulls even a narrow victory out of Iowa, she will quickly be anointed, based on the expectations set by polls in states like New Hampshire, Nevada, Florida, and California. Something has to interrupt that apparent momentum in Iowa.

So, with only 36 days, it's time to decide on an endorsement. Let's try to use logic and see where it points us.

Hillary or Other/Than Hillary (O/TH)?
This is the main line of demarcation for most every Democrat I've spoken with. Is there someone who's improvement enough on the Clinton Brand to justify putting roadblocks in her path?

The answer to this turns on four points, four "abilities": to get the nomination, to get elected, to govern successfully (at least our federal government), and to lead the country (and the world, insofar it has anything to do with US) toward a future worth living in.

We'll go into the last item more in Part 3 of the serialized endorsement--the discussion of policies and expected realities resulting from those policies. No one could deny that each of the first three points, though, is a sine qua non: we're not talking third-party Presidency here, not that anyone has explained how that could possibly work.


The only core scenario that makes any sense is a massive anti-Bushite victory in a referendum on the last eight years, and it's not farfetched at all. So, part of that governability requirement is bringing about a landslide, with coattails please, for the Democrats.

As I suggested in my Republican-party endorsement for Ron Paul and other postings, since the 2006 debacle there are no more candidates willing to wear a Bushite label. Yet the prevailing stance of the Republican candidates, with Paul's exception, is to accept many Bushite notions and only differ from the Administration on a couple of its qualities, its persistent incompetence being the principal choice. The non-Paul Republicans have in common a set of policy views typified by John McCain's all-but-Bushite (ABB) stance: we will not clamor to change much, except the stupidity we've come to associate with Bushite Misrule.

McCain is notable for presenting this position straightforwardly (and is doomed for it). The other first-tier candidates wear various masks over it: Giuliani the wounded urbanite mask, Huckabee the aw-shucks friendly pastor mask, Thompson occupies some sort of ghoulish re-animated cadaver of a 19th-century constitutional lawyer, and Romney, of course, is the Avatar of Ken.

Compared to these, Clinton is unabashedly and clearly an anti-Bushite and I would not begrudge her place alongside the Bushites' greatest foes. Yet, the question remains: is she sufficiently anti-ABB?

The key question of this election concerns McCain's advocacy of "the long war". He believes this GWOT will continue for generations, and, being honest, he tells us as much. This, not the cut-and-run neo-appeasement he accuses the Democrats of advocating, is the losing strategy. It preserves and enhances the need for continued war-fighting, instead of undercutting it, or better yet, uprooting it.

I want to see this strategy rejected from the 2008 Presidential election. This would be the greatest, most lasting result that could occur. The next President, no matter whom, is likely to be hemmed in and cursed with a lousy economy--a recipe for being outed after one term. Ending this Iraq occupation, and starting the hearts-and-minds effort which will be needed to end the tensions currently generating an unending supply of suicide bombers, are the accomplishments which can be expected (!) of the next President.

It is in this area that I fear Hillary could come up short. Partly because of her political posturing toward the hawkish side, though I recognize she could move once elected. More because of the ambiguity about her desire to go that way. "I will end this war," she says, but we don't know how. Bill reinforces our uncertainty when he claims to have opposed the Iraq invasion from the start.

There's another problem: Hillary winning this thing early means we'd have nine months of Republican Hillary-bashing to look forward to. This will give them plenty of time to propose a host of different angles, see which ones survive the Darwinian battle for our deficient attention spans, and provide the perfect growing environment for the viruses that remain. A sickness that poisons Hillary's candidacy and brings about a fold-up is probably the only thing that could prevent a strong Congressional victory for the Democratic party. The Republicans are counting on a protracted siege of Hillary's Honor and would have to improvise and invent a new game plan should anyone else get the nomination.

We look then, to Other/Than to see who has ideas to turn this thing in a new direction. Kucinich has the model answer (as he does for so many of the principal issues), but we all know what a weak vessel he is; in a general election tussle he's be an easy target to Swiftboat. Dodd I don't see rocking this boat of GWOT.

Biden and Richardson meet the general election requirement, so the question turns on the ability of either to get the nomination. Despite strong, and improving, performances in debates by both of them, Richardson gets no respect from the national media, while Biden has not succeeded in getting the voters' attention. I don't see a single state before the Unofficial National Primary where either could possibly win, so each will be put in the position of folding up his tent a few days this side or the other of Feb. 5.

We are left with the eternal question that has haunted our household for months: Edwards or Obama? Tactically, Edwards needs to win Iowa, while Obama just needs for Hillary not to win it. So, if we want to preserve our options, we should look for Edwards to win this round and Hillary to finish third.

Such a stance is little better than prevarication, though: we'd just be putting off the decision and letting events make up our mind. And such a fragile thread of hope such as Edwards' seems unlikely to hold, and his chances of governing seem doubtful. I see a potential Edwards Administration threatening to be like Jimmy Carter's--nice grin, Southern accent, good man, lousy President.

Obama is the only candidate whose promise includes the ability to win the nomination, win clearly against an ABB candidate (with or without Bloomberg in the race), carry the party to victory, yet preserve some hope of outreach to the defeated opposition.

We look for Obama to sweep up Edwards' Iowa caucus supporters in cases when they need to relocate to second-choices. Though Obama will tolerate the reciprocal movement (unofficially), he will gain on the unspoken deal and thus edge both Hillary and John in that state. He'll get enough momentum to get the message of his viable candidacy across to African-American voters, who will lift him in South Carolina and position him for an upset on UNP Day. After that, we'll see.

For now, it's Obama in '08.

And I didn't even wait until '08 to say it!

Pakistan: Disbelief is Restored from Suspension

I have long argued in chats on foreign policy themes that, if one is looking for a new object of concern about international security, Pakistan is a much more valid choice than Iran. Just two points should make the case:

1) Whatever the probabilities of various nuclear proliferation fears being realized in Iran (and I'd say they are high--50% or more--with our current policy arc, though remote in time), in Pakistan they are 100% proven. With regard to both domestic development and spreading capabilities beyond their borders, which is what the Bomb Iran Now! crowd suggests might happen in the worst-case scenario.

2) Control over Pakistan--under any regime, but especially under this one--is guaranteed to be much more unstable than Iran's has been under the mullahs or likely will be.

I do not argue that Musharraf has not been friend to US; his failures have been due to the limitations of his power rather than his intent. The limitations of the policies he chooses are pretty severe, though, when his own intelligence agency deliberately undercuts them, as with the Taliban.

Benazir Bhutto has made impressive efforts to take on Musharraf: first by daring to trust him, then by staying when her arrival (and the suicide bombing ensuing) demonstrated that he would not or could not protect her, and now by challenging his emergency rule.

Musharraf's recent moves are a good example of the slow-motion train wreck approach to government. He had boxed himself into a position where he had to take the self-destructive course. It reminds me somewhat of Indira Gandhi's emergency rule in India in 1969, and the outcome will be similar: some day he will allow an election, and then in that initial election, the Pakistani majority vote will be for the party that most thoroughly repudiates Musharraf before finding a new balance. Bhutto is positioning herself well for that day, whether it come sooner or later.

Udall In!

The national party leaned on Tom Udall to go after the Senate job opened up by Pete Domenici's announcement that he will retire, and now Tom is announcing that he will go for it.

Up until now, we stayed with our position, announced even before Domenici's admission of his illness and intention to retire (see our previous endorsement, made in June!) that the best person to run for the seat is Bill Richardson, who would have a brief window to change course, plow his remaining funds over, and announce before the deadline and after February 5 (I feel that he will be able to keep his candidacy viable until then).

That Udall's even considering running seems to indicate that Bill is unlikely to waver from his Executive Branch-headed course (for example, he would certainly be on Hillary's short list for V.P. , or some other senior Cabinet position, if it goes her way). His decision only came after consultation with Richardson, whom Udall boldly endorsed. No, seriously: it was bold, though perhaps also easy.

Udall's going in to the race changes things--we would shift from our endorsement of Richardson and our contingent endorsement of Martin Chavez. Udall's about as good a candidate as one could find, from a policy point of view, and would be nearly as strong as Bill Richardson. He should be able to defeat either Wilson or Pearce handily.

The Senate seat will be the headliner, but the real news will come in the scramble for all three of the state's House seats. All will be opened up if Udall, Wilson, and Pearce run--and the best thing is that, at most, one of the Republicans will still have a Congressional job!

Right now, we have two good-to-great Congressional reps (Udall and Sen. Bingaman) and three not-so-good-to-awful ones (Wilson, Pearce, and Domenici). What we want from the 2009 Congressional delegation is four of the former category, conceding the Republicans the House member from the southern part of the state. We need Udall to win, along with a decent (moderate Democratic) House representative from the middle, Albuquerque-centered district Heather Wilson now represents, and, perhaps the longest shot, we would need one of the better choices among the many Democratic hopefuls in the north-central district Udall now has.

We won't get a House member as good as Tom, but we will strive to identify someone honest and progressive and get behind such a Democrat. This race may require more direct involvement than I am generally willing to give, and on a personal basis may pre-empt general contributions to the DCCC. Similarly, while I always gave when Udall asked (and he usually only asked once per campaign), the financial needs for the Senate race for Udall will doubtlessly feel more immediate (and will soak up funds for DSCC).

The candidates are rapidly lining up. 2008 looks like a watershed year for the state, with most everyone running for something (for what Richardson will end up running, I'm not sure). Diane Denish is the one exception, as she has the inside track for the governor's job when Richardson's turn would naturally end, in 2010, or sooner if he gets a new job.

Democratic Prez Endorsement--Pt 1

I want to begin this discussion by singing the praises of someone whom I will not be endorsing for the nomination anytime soon: Hillary Clinton.


It is not faint praise when I say sincerely that she has the potential of having the best administration of my lifetime, so that we can envision going from the worst to the best in one step.


I do not blame her for some obfuscation on selected wedge issues, unlike some of her chief opponents for the nomination with her party, whose motives are obvious. I do not believe that her problem is an absence of clearly-announced positions; it is that she does not want to be boxed in, and that is appropriate given her present role as the focus of all attention (in either party). It is smart for her to do so, and generally, she's just plain smart. Well-disciplined, too (her husband's downfall). So, there is much to hope for with her, and I will readily settle if that is what it comes to.


Still, I can hope for better. I am persuaded by the War of the Roses argument that the national tickets of the last two-plus decades have shown a surfeit of Bushes and Clintons. We do not need another chapter (or two, when Jeb runs against her in 2012). Doing the Bill Clinton Administration without the sexual hijinks would've been great in 2000-2008, but we need to look toward the future.

It is a bit unfair to suggest Hillary doesn't look to the future, but it is not unfair to suggest her appeal is largely based on a desire to re-run the last decade or so--with edits.

John Edwards has now proved that he is the Democratic opponent with the best chops at getting Hillary. He's well informed, polite, but tough on her. The fact that he's the best at taking her down, though, does not constitute grounds for an endorsement. Barack Obama's strategy would seem to be a better one for getting elected: let Edwards bring her down to size, then he can take them both on without getting his reputation dirty.

NYT haiku challenge

My entry:


Vindicate Torre
Through seven straight years' downfalls
Close the door now, Joe.

The BoTox Dynasty

It is not too soon to declare the Boston RedSox' firm, likely recurring grip at the top of the major leagues' greased flagpole of the present and near future--in the modern parlance of short-lived phenomena, "a dynasty".

Perhaps it is too soon to declare this the Red Sox' century, in the sense that the 20th--at least since the Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees--was the Yankees' Century. 24 or so World championships in 78 years for the Cranks: Botox so far in the 21st has two of seven (remember, 2000 was so last century), so a similar pace. A couple-three Series Championships a decade is all it takes to stand alone, above.

They are the only team with two titles since the new millennium, however one defines that milestone. It also looks as though there will be more to come: Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, and now Jon Lester being the key indicators. Moneyball combines with Steinbrenner-like funding and Theo Epstein is elevated above all.
Let the legends begin: "When John Henry was a little baby...."

The only question seems to be whether to upgrade 3B from Mike Lowell to A-Rod. I'm a Lowell fan and have watched his flirtation with fame; here's a guy who was perennially underrated (unless you expected something from him, in which case he underperformed). This was his best regular season yet, and he topped it off with a brilliant postseason performance. He will certainly be overpaid next year, but I'm happy for him wherever he may go.

As for A-Rod, I would say his announcement last night showed excellent timing given today's news. This way, it doesn't seem as though he didn't want to play for Joe Girardi (which he may need to do in a couple of years for some other team). Just not these Yankees. The fact that it will cost Steinbrenner $20 million or so in Rangers' subsidies can only be the icing on the cake.

The thing I'm happiest about in the World Series was the clutch homer by Garrett Atkins in the 8th inning of Game 4 to bring the Rockies within one. In his last at-bat of the season, he might have saved his job--and my Rotisserie team--for 2008.

The Lady V. Speaks (Redacted)

Valerie Plame Wilson's book has come out, heavily redacted. Haven't seen it yet, but I cheer her on: very few have such a clear bone to pick with the Bushites, and does she pick it!

A good time to remind viewers of the link to one of my finest posts on this site: The Lady V., and the Bald Man of WHIG.

Justice is waiting......

Republican Prez Endorsement

I made the mistake in 2000 of taking pleasure in George W. Bush's campaign undermining that of John McCain. McCain was the tough foe I didn't relish Gore taking on; Bush was the lame-o that would be easy meat.

I made a similar error in 1980, though I was out of the country for most of the campaign. I saw Reagan as one of the Republicans' weaker choices and assumed that meant he had little chance of winning, even to the point that I could vote for John Anderson.

The mistake is twofold--one is believing that the American voters will discern the weaknesses in Republican national candidates on their own, i.e. without it being rammed down their throats. The second is to think that it doesn't matter so much which aging white guy sneaks into the White House when we're so busy yelling at ourselves.

Every Republican candidate has to establish his viability in terms of opposition to the Bushite administration in some form. There are so many areas from which a Republican can separate himself from Dubya, though, and he really only needs to pick one or two. Taking issue with the President in too many areas would make one seem disloyal to the party, which is a candidacy-killer. From my point of view, though, purging all possible elements of Bushite Misrule is the top priority for the 2008 Presidential election.

The main facets of Bushite Misrule and the main types of principled distancing are from the following:

1) Bush The Incompetent of Katrina; and its corollary,

1A) Bush the Political Hack.

2) Bush The Neo-Imperialist Neo-Con;

3) Bush The Usurper and Trampler of Constitutional Rights;

4) Bush The Big Spending Phony Conservative; and

5) Bush The Hidden Plutocrat, and its corollary,

5A) Bush the Pollution/Global Warming Enabler.

Examining the anti-Bushite content (if any) of the Republican Presidential candidates' positions and image projections should help identify our preferred nominee--in serious--to help ensure the most anti-Bushite administration possible in 2009, come what may in the intervening 15 months.

So, let's quickly review the candidates and accentuate their good sides--which Bushite facets they oppose:
Giuliani--1) and 4). Of course, Rudy's burnishing his phony conservative credentials, but he hits pretty hard on the fiscal conservatism line. His total endorsement of Bushite GWOT and tendency to create discord make him the worst candidate going. I feel he'd invade Iran, if we haven't already done so by 2009.
Romney--1) and 5). I've detected some sympathy for the underprivileged in Romney's debate performances. It won't help him; of course he himself would be an obvious choice as Chief Plutocrat, in this case not hidden at all. Of course, who can believe anything he says?
Thompson--3) and maybe 4). His nouveau federalist line insulates him a bit from the big spender charge, and logically would also suggest he would come down in favor of some limitations on executive authority. I haven't seen that much evidence that he's opposed Bushite civil liberties abuses, though. Instead, he is associated with Chief Justice Roberts, whose strict constructionist interpretations of the Constitutions allow them somehow.
McCain--3) and 4). He's clearer on his opposition to Bushite civil liberties abuses, and on big spending Republicans.
Brownback--sorry, he's gone. His role as champion of right-wing anti-Bushites has gone, somewhat surprisingly to me, to
Huckabee--2)? Unlike most of the candidates, who earnestly seek new enemies to attack, I feel that Huckabee is looking to reduce our overextended military commitments. He really hasn't separated himself much from Bushite policy much, though; more like he appears to be sensible. This is pretty big for a Republican. He's probably anti-bushite on 1), too.
Hunter, Tancredo--basically no anti-Bushite credentials (except for Tancredo's opposition to Bush's immigration stance, which counts as a negative in my book). No chance for them, either.

We are left with Ron Paul, a bit of a wacko, but who gets credit for 2), 3), and 4). Very strongly so, too. He is likely to pull down the GOP flag and run independently, but that's OK: my recommendation to all Republicans is to vote for Ron Paul, both in the primaries and the general election.

Thompson and McCain seem at least to be honest and respectable and to be capable of forming their own opinions independently of interest-group pressures. Huckabee, too, unless this smiling face is just a mask. These I would accept as worthy of being major-party nominees of this nation, even if their election would be undesirable at this or any other time.

The Last Anno Domenici.....

...it's now within sight (apparently will coincide with the conclusion of Larry Craig's list).

I wish Sen. Domenici good luck with his incipient brain-rotting condition, but his foul luck should be the Democrats' good fortune with regard to his seat.

Heather Wilson may be able to hold the strong military and lesbian voting blocs in New Mexico, or at least their intersection, but she should be tasty fodder for a well-schooled Dem with statewide name recognition.

We made our endorsement months ago and will stand by it: Richardson for Senator! He would, of course, deny any interest in the job while he's still running for President. By Feb. 15, though, he should be clear on the likelihood of that occurrence, and by March 1 he should understand the probability of running in the second spot on the national ticket.
Although he's certain to be short-listed, I'd put my money on the second-place finisher between Hillary (that's right, Hillary!) and Obama. Either would make a superb VP choice, while Bill is just a damned fine one.

If Richardson persists in his determination not to seek the job (and assuming Tom Udall will be unshakable in holding on to his comfortable House seat), my next choice would be the mayor of Albuquerque, Martin Chavez.

GWOT Thoughts

Tim Russert succeeded at the last debate to pin down Democratic candidates on the specific question of the projected American military presence in Iraq for January 20, 2013. There are lots of ways to go at the answer, but it is hard to say that it is in any way an unfair question. Just thinking about it turns the page to a new phase in the political conversation.

Richardson's answer--as contrasted with the three leading candidates'-- may be the most important development in any debate so far and could still propel him upwards toward first-tierness (in spite of the disregard he gets from the national press).

I think he has a very good point, which is: when does the occupation end? Can we claim to have ended it if we go straight into a permanent or enduring basing situation there?

I don't share in the criticism of Edwards' answer, though he did miss the trenchant point. Obama's answer disturbed me: the first time he included "defending bases" in the future mission he'd define; when he came back to it shortly afterwards he dropped the bases. So, which is it?

Meanwhile, we fume about Iran and ignore the question of Pakistan.

Five Goes Into Three...How?

A great situation going into the last weekend with 5 teams competing for three playoff slots in the NL. Cubs and Brewers will compete for the other NL slot, but have no effect on this mess (except for the Brews being the opponents for the 'dres).

The good news is that a five-way tie at the end of the regular season is not possible. The key series, between the D'backs and the Rockies, will end with the Rockies either 1 game ahead of Arizona, or 1, 3, or 5 games behind them.

The bad news is that a meaningful logjam seems probable at 89 wins, at 90 wins, or both. The messiest situation that can probably emerge is a four-way tie behind Arizona, e.g. D'backs at 90 wins and the other four at 89. Then they'd need to do playoffs for both the NL East and WC, with the NL East playoff loser in a highly ambiguous status.

Arizona is the only team that can book its own playoff spot at this point, by winning two or more against the Rockies. Even one win might do it, depending particularly on the Met/Phillies' successes vs. their non-contending opponents.

The three teams that will emerge are a total crapshoot, beyond the D'backs who'd seem to have an edge with Webb tonight.

My picks from this are the Phils (NL East), Mets (WC), and Padres (NL West) (also the Brewers, but let's forget that for the moment). I believe there is no way for these outcomes to emerge directly from the regular season, so I'm rooting for the Rockies, 'dres, and Easterners and expecting my teams to emerge from the improvised one-game playoffs.

Arizona 89-70 3 vs. Colorado
S.Diego 88-71 3 vs. Milwaukee
NYM 87-72 3 vs. Florida
Phila. 87-72 3 vs. Washington
Colorado 87-72 3 vs. Arizona

IRAN: Pre-emptive Action Needed Now

The scuttlebutt among the BTH this week was that Cheney is dissatisfied with the pace of progress against Iran through the diplomatic route. He, along with perhaps a brace or so other residual Bushite chickenhawks, is thinking, so they say, that the USA will need to do something before he and the Bushite Administration sink into the sunset. We know the process: Revisit those contingency plans, start the PR program, make threats, impugn the loyalty of your opponents, make “surgical” air strikes. History will thank us for them.

Perhaps the yammering is due merely to the presence of Iranian President Ahmadinejad in the U.S. for the General Assembly. Certainly he’s inflammatory; just look at the controversies on his laying a wreath at Ground Zero and making a speech at Columbia. (For the record on those minor flare-ups: there was probably a legitimate security concern about his going to the WTC site, and his appearance at Columbia did little credit to him or the University, though it’s good he can’t claim he was censored or silenced.) Ahmadinejad’s a petty despot, a demagogue, an unapologetic hostage-taker and serial liar. Like Bush, he got elected through a fluky combination of circumstances and failed to deliver on his electoral promises to his country. Unlike Bush, he’s not going to be re-elected.

Unless, of course, we take the bait and attack Iran, which will rally nationalistic support behind him. The most important fact to consider regarding Ahmadinejad is that he is not, regardless of his title, the decision-maker in Iran’s government: he’s a puppet of the mullahs, a floater of trial balloons for them. They will serenely sit by and let them pop; on the other hand, they will use any successes he can bring them.

We should insist that Iran live up to the provisions of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, to which it is a signatory nation. We should make it clear that, far from gaining respect, Iran's regime will be vilified and punished if it goes on to develop nuclear weapons. We should not be goaded and fall foolishly into their trap, nor let the Israelis do it for us.

The measure passed by Joe Lieberman and passed overwhelmingly in the Senate to officially portray the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization is the first planned step in the awful, militaristic drumbeat which leads to madness. Now, before Cheney forms a new WHIG for Iran, we should take pre-emptive action. I call upon Congress to pass a resolution, perhaps as an amendment to the Defense Department authorization bill now before it, prohibiting the Bushites from taking aggressive military action against Iran’s territory without specific authorization from Congress. Speaking hypothetically, if that can’t won't protect us against rogue action from our government, I’d suggest some sort of public action to put Cheney in “protective custody” against Iranian threats, or to cut off his “undisclosed location” from communication with the outside world, until January 20, 2009.

We are not “the herds that are feeding yonder, (that) know not the meaning of yesterday or today” (Nietzsche, “The Use and Abuse of History”). We can do better than this.

Run, Larry, Run!

My friend Muhammad Cohen (look for his new HK-handover novel Hong Kong on Air) has a theory that we should distrust anyone with two first names. Don't ask me why, but Larry Craig has once again borne out that theory.

I have to agree with Sen. Craig that he is not "gay"; try "grim, repressed." His inability to keep himself sufficiently in the closet is to be pitied somewhat; his hypocrisy, ordinary enough as it is within his party, only to be scorned. No doubt he pleaded guilty because he felt guilty; only later did he fully realize he hadn't really done anything that could be considered a crime, except in his mind.

So, I say to him, yes, see if you can clear your conviction, get them to throw out your guilty plea. I'd say the same to anyone else who got sandbagged into a plea that didn't really do himself/herself justice and caused harm. Don't resign your seat, and for that matter, don't preclude your options--run for Senate in '08 and defy the party hierarchy!

That last bit is disingenuous: it's probably the only way the Republicans could lose the seat. Still, if he's not satisfied with their mindful, gutless response to his scandal, he should make them take it from him in a primary.

Thompson Gun like Ray-Gun

As the Times put it, Thompson Seeks to Don Reagan Mantle. I don't know what Mickey Mantle has to do with it, or why they misspelled Reagan's former chief of staff Don Regan, but I think they (belatedly) are on the right track, which I explored at length some months ago (stoner: Yearning for Ronnie?).

Anyway, I find Thompson the most likely nominee and a reasonable choice for the Republicans. He should save them from a disaster in their home turf in the South (particularly in the Congressional elections), winning 100-150 electoral votes. Much less risky than going with Giuliani.

The part I find interesting about it all is the treacherous path that Fred will need to tread. Romney seems to have the inside track in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Granted that Thompson should win South Carolina, whenever that comes to pass, I do think there could be a serious three-way showdown (pre-Unofficial National Primary) in Florida among Giuliani, Thompson, and Romney. The result will have national importance and set the stage for the knockout blow the following week. Perhaps there is another, better path; I'm sure that he would love to sweep Iowa off its feet, but it seems unlikely.

I do feel that Thompson's entry sucks the oxygen out of Newt's possible run. I also hope that is true.

Primary Posturing

I applaud the announcement by the principal Democratic candidates that they will forego campaigning in Florida unless or until the state gets its primary/delegat selection act approved by the DNC. Everyone except Kucinich, if I read it right.

The DNC had to take action or face rebellion by yet another state wanting to jump the queue--Michigan. Yes, we are all vitally interested in the states of Michigan and Florida, though I would argue that their being swing states makes them more than likely to get their share of attention in 2008. What we don't want is the primary season moving into 2007, for the love of Fred!

The deal is easy enough to arrange: have a "beauty contest" before Iowa or New Hampshire, if you must, but no delegates will be seated before those states and their dates, which must be fixed.

I disagree with those in Florida who think their Democratic primary will matter, even if no delegates are selected, the candidates don't show, and Hillary wins easily. It would be nice if the primary voters reward Kucinich for his principled pandering with a couple of unseated delegates. Perhaps the situation will be different with the Republicans, as I could see it being quite a close contest between Giuliani and Thompson there, no one is begging off, and the state would only be penalized half its delegates.

Act IV, Scene 1

Petraeus' recitation contained few surprises and little drama, beyond the question of "Who sabotaged the mikes?" The Bushite Scourge will be over by next summer; no plans to go much beyond that during the current administration. Funding commensurate with these planned troop levels will be forthcoming and an approved Congressional resolution to change the timetable from Petraeus' recommendation will not.

The one thing that I heard that was most disappointing is that Iraq's government does plan to authorize "the Coalition" to stay through 2008. That is the one source of potential influence it may have (demanding the withdrawal of foreign forces, or posing a threat to do so), but they don't intend to use it. Worse, I think there will be an agreement for long-term basing of U.S. forces there. To me, that's the equivalent of the government's suicide statement. In Act IV, Iraq will once again be portrayed by a puppet.

What I am most interested in hearing at this point, without giving away too much "freedom of action", is what the Democratic candidates for President will plan to do with the situation that they can clearly anticipate they would inherit:
o) 50-75,000 U.S. troops in Iraq;
o) Ground forces staying mostly in their bases and the Green Zone;
o) Sufficient air resources to take any action needed in the theater;
o) A desperately bad situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan;
o) The Army and Reserve totally depleted, and consistently falling short of recruitment targets;
o) Ethnic cleansing pretty much complete in Iraq; and
o) No political progress.

For that matter, what the Republican candidates would do in that situation, too--maybe they'll have some sort of idea. I doubt it, though.

Slow-Motion Train-Wreck: Act IV

Petraeus will open the final act of the drama in Scene 1 (sounds very Shakespearean, if not Sophoclean). The principal dramatic tension is whether he and Ambassador Crocker will be allowed to mouth their own words, someone else's or whether their words will be "interpreted" by loyal Bushite officials. Regardless of the dramatis personae, the import of the message will be the same and the outcome will, as well.

The Bushite Scourge in Iraq has approximately 8 more months to run (I'd set the over-under bet on the first withdrawals without replacement--sort of like my scalp follicle policy--to begin approximately February 29). By that date, the probable or certain Republican nominee's identity should be known (as it certainly is not today). That White Northern European Male, after evaluating the political challenge posed by his likely or certain November opponent(s), can signal the national party leadership of his political needs, which will most likely be to go the "John Warner" route, i.e., begin token withdrawals now.

Natural rotation out with lesser replacement, along with a new focus on avoiding casualties (a la Vietnam in election years) will bring the level down to 75-80k American forces by the election, which should leave all options open for the 2009-inaugurated President, whatever his/her party affiliation and previous stance on the war.

I continue to find the "debate" a waste of time and effort, even politically (at the strategic level). Few points will be gained for either party in November, 2008 by the outcome that is clearly indicated.

Jack of Hearts, Ace of Spades

Alberto Gonzales bites the dust in typical ignominious Bushite fashion. The honorary family member and never-quite-up-to Attorney General can go back to legal stenography for the Dubya Presidential library. He was scapegoated quite effectively by the legal community when it was clear that he couldn't "not remember" convincingly.

Not so the top-ranked card in the deck, domestic adviser Karl Rove. His plan to build a national Republican dominance is in shambles. He showed himself tactically brilliant but strategically flawed. Since every decision (especially those relating to GWOT) in this White House is politically motivated, if not politically determined, it is hard to pick any Bushite fiasco for which he should not bear personal responsibility.

Still, it is not over, and Rove's move to the outside reflects that. Republicans' re-capturing either house of Congress would seem to be out of the question in 2008, barring a complete Democratic swoon (not out of the question in any election year). The numbers of seats at risk in the Senate put the Republicans in a position to lose 3-5 seats even if they run a good campaign with a good Presidential nominee (both seem unlikely at this point). Larry Craig's is just the latest seemingly-safe Republican-held seat to come into play.

Despite an uninterrupted series of bad news for the party (even the successes they might claim on the ground in Iraq are double-edged, politically), there's still a real chance that the Presidential race could fall their way. About a 41% chance, if one believes the political futures market (I'd say that's about one-fourth too high).

Of the original Bushite deck, the only active face cards are Cheney (Ace of Clubs), Mitch McConnell (Jack of Diamonds), and Dubya (Ace of Hearts). Not enough for an opening bid.

August Excuse Posting

A tough month in which to find time to post has been compounded by the life-and-death struggle for control of this computer with some bad spyware (I blame the kids' downloading for getting it started). So far, it's winning, but this post shows we haven't given up the struggle. Now I know why James T. Kirk would blow up the Enterprise rather than letting powerful alien forces gain control of it. With regard to my predicament, I resist Iraq references playing on "surge", the Iraqi parliament's taking the month off.

We're working on a possible new endorsement (our reader(s) are invited to guess), additional book reviews from the summer reading, and a belated diatribe marking the passing of the Bushite Ace of Spades, that real hot potato head, Karl Rove. Visit this site soon.

Summer Reading II, III--The Predictors; The Black Swan

I've put these two together because they share a theme, one I'm particularly interested in these days: the problem of prediction.



The Predictors, by Thomas A. Bass, is subtitled "How a Band of Maverick Physicists Used Chaos Theory to Trade Their Way to a Fortune on Wall Street". The subtitle takes most of the mystery out of the telling of the story, as they work through their organizational issues, find funding, generate reams of unworkable models, and finally--in the last chapter--actually start making some bucks (1997 or so). The author had chronicled some of the physicists' earlier (unsuccessful) attempt to devise a casino-breaking roulette calculator, and he was in on the discussions from the very beginning. So, that part of it was interesting.


Also interesting, and one that took me back to my own career efforts in the mid-90's, was their attempt to bring in huge data streams, address the predictive qualities of the data, and develop and operationalize models which would predict specific outcomes from the data.

The author made a lot--too much--out of the notion that these geniuses chose to launch their envelope-stretching endeavor from the puny backwater town of Santa Fe.

Their methods made a lot of sense from a model-development and validation point of view, but I felt they were overreaching. Essentially, they wanted data feeds of most everything in order to develop models predicting--almost everything. They should have focused on a few key trading indices and bent all their efforts to find the occasional opportunities these markets produce, instead of trying to get involved in a whole bunch of different markets and trading all the time.


The book needs a postscript, epilogue, or second edition for today's readers to understand how well the approach worked in the long run, through the vagaries and changes in the marketplace (some of which this group may have, in fact, driven), and especially in response to the calamity that occurred 9/11/01. How well did chaos theory (which seems to have more inspired the model-building effort than drving the actual functional models) anticipate and deal with that one, and its aftermath?



Which brings us to the tougher read and subject of critical analysis, The Black Swan (subtitled "The Impact of the Highly Improbable"), by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. This new volume has been a major success (#25 in Amazon's nonfiction titles, last I looked).

The key notion of the book is that nonlinear processes describe key events in society (also a key idea in The Predictors). Forecasters are deceived by their need to place narratives on phenomena that may not fit well, and statisticians and economists are deceived in their efforts at risk management by using faulty assumptions of normality. The events that disrupt things in a nonlinear way Taleb calls "the black swans" (let's not go into why--suffice to say it yields a catchy title).

Taleb hits particularly hard on those whose job is to control risk but never consider the possibility of new events, ones that have never occurred and thus not easily considered empirically. Chaos theory also comes out here.

Taleb is a man who has given up reading newspapers and magazines and watching the news; he claims the time it freed up has allowed him to read many more books. He is certainly well-read. His style is gruff and off-putting; rather gratuitously, he throws an insult in the first 20 pages at anyone who stands for a woman's right to choose (regarding abortion) and dares to call oneself a humanist. He doesn't suffer fools gladly, and everywhere he looks he sees mostly fools, so he's irritated all the time.

I agree with many of Taleb's arguments and find it to be original and thought-inspiring. So why did I want to disagree with him constantly? It was that style.

I have done many projects to look at future behavior based on past behavior, carefully constructed as those with the Predictors. I would agree that the conditions of normality are usually absent and that that fact is often ignored. The proof of the model is simply how well it predicts, not the theoretical basis, though, in the end, we would always only include factors for which we could conceive some sort of a priori justification (a blind spot--though we tested the others, too). Taleb would hate that narrative externalizing.

The real issue comes from the only type of business Taleb finds interesting--complex and highly-leveraged derivatives. With these, there is no room for an occasional off day. Taleb advocates a highly conservative strategy (e.g., T-bills) while leaving oneself open for the big score. My strategy was always to select a small number of high-likelihood gambles, each providing a reasonable return and avoiding excessive exposure in each.

I have to commend his ending for the main text: "Thank you for reading my book." Dignified, courteous.

Money where my Blog Is? Not

Time for some update on the assessment of probabilities for the Big Ticket in '08.
At this point, I am working with a basic scenario and a few key variables--: for more in-depth analysis, see here.

If I take the odds from one of the offshore gaming sites--press@intrade.com--(I don't recommend gambling in such places, plus it's illegal (!?) for Americans to vote in this way.)--for Democrats on the nomination, they have (7/25): Clinton 47.2; Obama 38.0; Edwards 5.9; Gore 5.4; Others (by subtraction only) 3.5%. These quoted prices are supposed to conform to percentage chance, as perceived by their trading population.

Republicans, they have: Giuliani 39.0%; Thompson 32%; Romney 16.7%; Mc Cain 6.0%; Others 6.3%.

My conclusions would be: Clinton, though rising, is still cheap for the nomination (until about 60%). Clinton for the Presidency, at 29%, also looks cheap up to about 35-38%. Sell Giuliani and Romney; buy Thompson and McCain.

"Others" is an interesting bet--though I don't think it exists as such. For the Democrats, you can see it is a weak choice, whereas for the Republicans, the existence of the likes of Gingrich and Hagel out there (Jeb Bush!?) and the weakness of all the current candidates make it conceivable. Seven days ago, the same figure by subtraction works out to 4.3%, so it's gone up over 45% in a week!

Update on the local co-op's Green Energy Issue

Last December, I posted a challenge to our local electric co-op: put green energy on a track to have price parity with the dirty stuff (stoner: Green Energy: What's it Worth To Ya?).

Now, courtesy of Bill Whaley and the Horse Fly (semi-monthly independent paper), we have some new information. It seems that the exclusive, monopolistic supplier to all the local electricity boards (ours, the cooperative Kit Carson Electric, included), named Tri-State, has so far imposed a policy that no more than 5% of the electricity they supply to any customer (read: electric company) will be green.

This puts Kit Carson's pricing mis-alignment (using fully-loaded economics) into perspective. There's no real need to drive green power to Carson's customers, as they can't deliver it if the demand were too high. Setting the price above the "normal" power ensures there won't be much of that problem.

Still, though, I maintain the challenge. If Kit Carson announced their intention to bring the prices to parity, and to supply the extra Green Power themselves, we'd have, as they say in Jamaica, "a situation".

Tri-Power could challenge Kit Carson (who has an exclusive contract with Tri-Power as supplier) and look very, very bad. So bad they would be subject to political defenestration, which would free things up a mite. They could ease up on their 5% limitation, and agree to provide Kit Carson with all the Green Power their customers demanded, which would be accomplished by putting (yet another) price increase on the dirty stuff (without the corresponding increase on the Green). Or they could call Kit Carson's bluff, let them come up with all the Green Power they could add to their network. Which would be the best possible outcome for all down here.

So, I stand corrected, but maintain my challenge to the local rural electric co-op: announce, by January 1, 2009, that you intend to bring the prices of Green and Grey Power in line. Spit out those chips onto the gaming table.

Gaming the Elections

I received the following analysis from a Beltway Talking Head (BTH, or maybe better, Belle Twee Talking Head, or BTTH), via my Father, who got it from his financial adviser (and presumably he paid for this analysis):

Gaming the U.S. Elections - Outside the Box
- Special Edition July 26, 2007
Gaming the U.S. Elections By George Friedman

Domestic politics in most countries normally are of little interest geopolitically.

On the whole this is true of the United States as well. Most political debates are more operatic than meaningful, most political actors are interchangeable and the distinctions between candidates rarely make a difference. The policies they advocate are so transformed by Congress and the Supreme Court -- the checks and balances the Founding Fathers liked so much, coupled with federalism -- that the president rarely decides anything.

That is not how the world perceives the role, however. In spite ofevidence to the contrary, the president of the United States is perceived as the ultimate "decider," someone whose power determines the course of action of the world's strongest nation. Therefore, when presidents weaken, the behavior of foreign powers tends to shift, and when elections approach, their behavior shifts even more. The expectation of change on the burning issue of Iraq is based on the misperception that the American presidency is inherently powerful or that presidents shape the consensus rather than react to it.

The inability of Congress to make any decisive move on Iraq demonstrates that immobility isn't built only into the presidency. The two houses ofCongress are designed to be gridlocked. Moreover, the congressional indecision reveals that behind all of the arias being sung, there is a basic consensus on Iraq: the United States should not have gone into Iraqand now that it is there, it should leave. There is more to it than that,though. The real consensus is that the United States should not simply leave, but rather do it in such a way that it retains the benefits of staying without actually having to be there. To sum up the contradiction, all of the players on the stage want to have their cake and eat it, too.

We are only being a trifle ironic. When all is said and done, that is the policy the system has generated. The United States has been in roughly this same position with the same policy since World War II. The first time was in 1952 in Korea, when the war was at a stalemate, the initial rationale for it forgotten and HarryTruman's popularity about the same as President George W. Bush's is now.The second time was in 1968, when any hope of success in the Vietnam War appeared to be slipping away and Lyndon Johnson's presidency collapsed. In both cases, the new president followed the logic of the popular consensus, regardless of whether it made sense. In the Korean instance,the national position favored decisive action more than withdrawal -- as long as the war would end. In Vietnam the demand was for an end to the war, but without a defeat -- which was not going to happen.

During Korea, Dwight D. Eisenhower appeared a formidable enemy to the Chinese and his secret threat of using nuclear weapons seemed credible.The war ended in a negotiated stalemate. In the case of Vietnam, the public desire to get out of Vietnam without a defeat allowed RichardNixon to be elected on a platform of having a secret plan to end the war. He then continued the war for four years, playing off the fundamental contradiction in the consensus. Adlai Stevenson, who ran against Eisenhower, might not have been nearly as effective in convincing the Chinese to close the deal on Korea, but we doubt that Hubert Humphrey would have differed much from Nixon -- or that Bobby Kennedy, once in power, would have matched his rhetoric with action.

Yet the fact is that the world does not see the limits of the presidency. In the case of Iraq, the perception of the various players in Iraq and in the region is that the president of the United States matters a great deal. Each of them is trying to determine whether he should deal with the current president or with his successor. They wonder who the next president will be and try to forecast the policies that will break the strange consensus that has been reached. Therefore, we need to begin handicapping the presidency as we did in 2004, looking for patterns. In other words, policy implications aside,let's treat the election as we might a geopolitical problem, looking forpredictive patterns.

Let's begin with what we regard as the three rules of American presidential politics since 1960: The first rule is that no Democrat from outside the old Confederacy has won the White House since John F. Kennedy. Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carterand Bill Clinton were all from the Confederacy. Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry were from way outside the Confederacy. Al Gore was from the Confederacy but lost, proving that this is necessary, but not a sufficient basis for a Democratic win. The reason for this rule is simple. Until 1964, the American South was solidly democratic. In 1964 the Deep South flipped Republican and stayed there. If the South and mountain states go Republican, then the Democrats must do extraordinarilywell in the rest of the country. They usually don't do extraordinarily well, so they need a candidate that can break into the South. Carter andClinton did it, while Johnson did extraordinarily well outside the South.

The second rule is that no Republican has won the White House since Eisenhower who wasn't from one of the two huge Sunbelt states: California or Texas (Eisenhower, though born in Texas, was raised in Kansas). Nixonand Reagan were from California. Both Bush presidents were from Texas. Gerald Ford was from Michigan, Robert Dole from Kansas. They both lost. Again the reason is obvious, particularly if the candidate is from California -- pick up the southern and mountain states, pull in Texas and watch the Democrats scramble. Midwestern Republicans lose and northeastern Republicans do not get nominated.

The third rule is that no sitting senator has won the presidency since Kennedy. The reason is, again, simple. Senators make speeches and vote,all of which are carefully recorded in the Congressional record. Governors live in archival obscurity and don't have to address most issues of burning importance to the nation. Johnson came the closest to being a sitting senator but he too had a gap of four years and an assassination before he ran. After him, Former Vice President Nixon, Gov.Carter, Gov. Reagan, Vice President Bush, Gov. Clinton and Gov. Bush allwon the presidency. The path is strewn with fallen senators.

That being the case, the Democrats appear poised to commit electoral suicide again, with two northern senators (Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama) in the lead, and the one southern contender, John Edwards, well back in the race. The Republicans, however, are not able to play to their strength. There are no potential candidates in Texas or California to draw on. Texas right now just doesn't have players ready for the national scene. California does, but Arnold Schwarzenegger is constitutionallyineligible by birth.

In a normal year, a charismatic Republican governor of California would run against a northern Democratic senator and mop thefloor. It's not going to happen this time. Instead, the Republicans appear to be choosing between a Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, and a former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani. Unless Texan Ron Paul can pull off a miracle, the Republicans appear to be going with their suicide hand just like the Democrats. Even if FredThompson gets the nomination, he comes from Tennessee, and while he can hold the South, he will have to do some heavy lifting elsewhere. Unless Obama and Clinton self-destruct and Edwards creeps in, or Paul does get a miracle, this election is shaping up as one that will break all the rules. Either a northern Democratic senator wins or a northeastern Republican (excluding Thompson for the moment) does.

The entire dynamic of presidential politics is in flux. All bets are off as to the outcome and all bets are off as to the behavior of the new president, whose promises and obligations are completely unpredictable. If one is to ask whether the Iranians look this carefully at U.S.politics and whether they are knowledgeable about the patterns, the answer is absolutely yes. We would say that the Iranians have far more insight into American politics than Americans have into Iranian politics.They have to. Iranians have been playing off the Americans since WorldWar II, whatever their ideology. In due course the underlying weirdness of the pattern this year will begin intruding.

Here is what the Iranian's are seeing: First, they are seeing Bush become increasingly weak. He is still maintaining his ability to act in Iraq,but only barely. Second, they see a Congress that is cautiously bombastic-- making sweeping declarations, but backing off from voting on them.Third, they see a Republican Party splitting in Congress. Finally, they see a presidential election shaping up in unprecedented ways with inherently unexpected outcomes. More important, for example, a Giuliani-Clinton race would be so wildly unpredictable that it is unclear what would emerge on the other side. Any other pairing would be equally unpredictable. This results in diplomatic paralysis across the board.

As the complexity unfolds, no one -- not only in the Iraq arena -- is sure how to play the United States. They don't know how any successor to Bush will behave.They don't know how to game out who the successor to Bush is likely to be. They don't know how the election will play out. From Iraq and Iran to Russia and China, the United States is becoming the enigma and therewon't be a hint of clarity for 18 months. This gives Bush his strange strength. No president this low in the polls should be acting with the confidence he shows. Part of it could be psychological, but part of it has to do with the appreciation that, given the strange dynamics, he is not your normal lame duck. Everyone else is tied in knots in terms of policy and in terms of the election. Bush alone has room to maneuver, and the Iranians are likely calculating that it would probably be safer to deal with this president now rather than expect the unexpected in 2008. Come what may, the current political cycle, with YouTube debates and such, is certainly a move away from our accustomed to Presidential elections.

My response:

Thanks for sending that, Dad.

It does have a different perspective, and I enjoyed the analysis--as far as it went. Unfortunately, I don't think it goes far enough to be actually useful.

Here are the conclusions I see in the article:
1) Recent electoral history provides no guide who will win the Presidential elections in 2008;
2) Though as lame as a duck can be, Bush still has political control of thesituation, though no freedom of movement (I disagree with his assessment ofthe weak executive), simply because the identity of his successor isunpredictable at this point;
3) The Iranians are watching very closely and are actually very astute aboutAmerican politics.

I think these are well-argued but too close to being truisms.

I offer my follow-on analysis for free (please don't let any "Iranian's" see it; on the other hand, they already figured all this out!)

1) Congress--the Senate--can not take any meaningful initiative until 10-15 Republican Senators join in for a change. That will happen soon after Sept.15, when the generals ask for more time. Enough Senators will say, "OK--this is how much more time you get" to make a deal possible, in which U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq will be reduced by 50% or so (and combat missions, more sharply in the final months) by Election Day, but there will not be a total withdrawal. This won't go down too well with the voters, which should help the Democratic nominee. The new President--from either party-- will have the freedom to increase, maintain, or eliminate entirely the remaining forces inIraq. Both Clinton and Obama have preserved some "strategic ambiguity" about what they would do, which is wise.

2) A meaningful challenge to Bush's authority has come just this week from the Democratic frontrunner, Hillary. Her demand--backed up by her role on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee--to know more about the secret withdrawal contingency planning in Gates' Pentagon (it has certainly happened; their mistake was not to tell her about it) is the sign that she has emerged as the leading contender and is acting like it. The most significant othercontender--Obama--has taken an appropriate position for an outsidercandidate--that he will talk to excluded nations.

3) The electoral test that will decide it: Do Americans want to try to work our way out of this mess, or try a whole new approach?--has yet to happen. I'd say it will be the California primary on February 5. Obama has the chance for an upset, unless there is a major homeland scare; a setback like that might logically argue more strongly for a change, but I think it would go the otherway as people seek a safe haven, which in this case would be Hillary!

4) Giuliani winning the Republican nomination would really surprise me (I'd put my money on Thompson, who, as Friedman suggests, would do well enough to prevent disaster, but lose). The only way Giuliani wins is if there's a homeland terrorist incident in September or October.

The jihadists might make exactly this calculation and try for it--Rudy would be a disaster as President, on the order of the current Bushite one. Which, as desperate men, they would see as their best chance.