You Can Call Me "Senator Franken"

Congratulations to Al Franken! After the Minnesota Supreme Court confirmed the Election Commission's decision that Franken did indeed win the Senate election last November, his opponent Norm Coleman has conceded and decided not to pursue the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

This should do it, unless Senate Republicans dig in their heels against their man's wishes, which would be both unlikely and unseemly, though it could delay Franken a bit longer.

I remember an old Franken & Davis bit on Saturday Night Live when they played two competing electoral candidates who raised their rhetoric progressively until they were calling each other murderers and rapists. Fortunately, it never came close to that, and we have to thank Coleman--who was never the bad guy, just a Republican--for that.

Franken should be a reliable vote for progressive legislation, and one that will be needed by the Obama Administration for some of the tough votes coming up in the Senate.

U.S. Soccer Men's Squad Detected on Radar

The Confederations Cup performance of the U.S. men's Soccer team is worthy of the comment it has generated. Though the Confederations Cup itself is of secondary importance, there were several consequences of significance.

First, though, I should review the results themselves for those who weren't following it: after looking like anything but world-beaters in their first two games of the round-robin in their group, losing 3-1 to Italy (after leading 1-0 at halftime) and 3-0 to Brazil, they won 3-0 against Egypt and got through to the semifinals on goal difference when Brazil beat Italy 3-0. Both Egypt and Italy finished 1-2, like the US, but somebody had to go through, and the US ended up one goal better than both.

They took maximum advantage of their lucky result, and I suspect the lack of respect they were accorded, when they defeated world #1 ranked Spain, 3-2. Then, in the final, they almost pulled off a huge win: they led Brazil 2-0 at halftime, but allowed three second-half goals and were nosed out.

The biggest beneficiary was probably coach Bradley, whose job looked in danger after the two losses, which followed some recent less-than-impressive performances in regional World Cup qualifiers. The US team will benefit in being accorded a higher rank for their Confederations Cup result in World Cup seeding, assuming they qualify (about 95% certain at this point). On the negative side, they probably won't be overlooked as easily by the highest-ranked teams that oppose them. I think having those five games against top teams (all eight teams in the competition earned their spots in previuos regional competition) will help sort out those who are really ready for the World Cup competition next year.

Finally, the US team showed some real character, which I would describe as aggressive, fit, increasingly unafraid, and determined to make its mark. We can only salute their success in making the most of their good fortune.

The King Must Die

Michael Jackson, King of Pop, joins Elvis Presley, King of Rock (or just "The King") in kingly afterlife. They are joined together in like fate: regal death through prescription drug abuse abetted by physicians.

MJ is an object lesson in the harmful effect of excessive fame at too young an age. In terms of talent, I'd rank him higher than Presley, actually, and describe him more like a latter-day Sammy Davis, Jr., a superior song-and-dance man. As a pop songwriter/stylist, though, I'd rate him below Stevie Wonder. Also worth noting is his prominent position--near the top--in the creative use of the new medium--now almost defunct in a creative sense--of the music video.

I rate highest his early solo album, "Off the Wall", and his hits of the early '80's ("Wanna Be Starting Something", "Billie Jean"). By the time of his "Thriller"--the highest-selling album of all time, I hear (maybe never to be topped), something I'd call The Dark Side was emerging. The most visible example of it was his repeated self-mutilation through plastic surgery and skin treatments. I didn't care much for the latter-day habitual crotch-grabbing (his own, in this case) and trying to convince everyone that he was "bad", but those were part of his public appeal, I guess.

I personally don't place too much credence in the allegations of criminal behavior approximating pedophilia, for which he was never convicted, except in the realm of public opinion. Unfortunately, neither the laws nor public moral standards made much allowance for 40-year-olds with the emotional development of 12-year-olds. My children, who didn't experience his extraordinary juvenile talent or his youthful hits, knew only of Wacko Jacko, maker of overhyped bombs and weird behavior.

To the end, he seemed a serious professional in his field known for his attention to detail, but clearly his ambition to perform 50 live concerts in London and tour for years was more than a step too far for him.

There are many victims of his demise, and I sympathize with all of them. They include those who would have profited from promotions off the deaths of the likes of Farrah Fawcett and David Carradine, whose own cases got totally wiped off the news by Jackson's.

Suggestion to Supreme Leader of Iranian Islamic Republic

This is Iran's Tienanmen Moment: soon Supreme Leader Khamenei will be faced with climactic decisions about how long to let the protests and demonstrations continue. Will he blink or send the troops in, firing? And, if he does, will they fire?

Try the link at top for background on the topic, which is mushrooming with the determined effort by supporters of officially-defeated former Prime Minister Moussavi's candidacy to take to the streets, come what may. Suffice to say that there was unseemly haste to declare President Ahmadinejad re-elected with an incredibly-large percentage of the vote, then more haste from Khamenei to endorse the result.

Moussavi, a savvy infighter with proven patriotic credentials (government leader through the war with Saddam's Iraq), said not so fast. He appealed to the Muslim clergy in the sacred city of Qom to review this cozy affair between Khamenei and his secular stooge Ahmadinejad. The first round ends with Khamenei appearing to blink and requesting an investigation of the results from the Guardian Council, a bunch of Shiite mullahs with an official role to oversee the government but with day jobs in the clergy, and presumably they are in the Supreme Leader's pocket.

Despite the apparent show of weakness, it's a move to control and defuse the situation. It sets up a classical sham outcome with the G.C. making a show of a review, proffering the rubber stamp, and, as Khamenei fervently hopes, things then going back to normal, with the delay allowing for diversion of the public attention (perhaps President Ahmadinejad--P.A. for short, oh, did I say "short"?-- could taunt the Jews or something).

In the current environment, though, this seems unlikely to work, so we could find the people back in the streets in a matter of weeks--angrily violent, this time. There might not even be a let-up in the demonstrations, unless the Green forces ask the followers to pause for a day or so, just to show their mastery of the people's actions.

So, for Khamenei, it may seem that it will be back to the original question: yield, or order the soldiers to shoot? And then, once he chooses to protect himself and the regime, the agonizing moments (days and weeks, in the case of Tienanment) when the military shows its willingness--or lack thereof--to follow orders or melt into the crowd.

It's happened before, and even in Iran: before overwhelming masses of people in the late '70's the Shah's forces chose to take off the uniforms and blend in as best they could. In several Eastern European nations in the '80's and '90's, the soldiers' clear unwillingness to shoot anymore unnerved the leaders, who generally never gave the order. Something similar to Iran's predicament happened at the end with the Marcos family in the Philippines, and the army gave way.

The mullahs will be aware that the track record for the military mowing down their own people is spotty, at best. They will want a more secure, smarter outcome. It's our thought that perhaps they are looking for a door.

It's a fairly simple concept, really, and either Khamenei or the Guardian Council could go for it: identify some wrongdoers as culprits for some real vote-rigging actions (my reading of the facts is that there were some millions of extra ballots, not properly marked except for the Ahmadinejad indication, tossed in with the real ones, so find the tossers!) The effect of the result of their inquiry is to throw into doubt whether P.A. exceeded the 50% needed to avoid a runoff (the official results tried to preclude this by announcing his vote was all of 62%, but no matter), so there will be a runoff.

This will delay the crunch, probably permanently. P.A. may lose a fair election under these more unfavorable circumstances (the irony is that I'm not sure he wouldn't have won eventually if the vote counting had been fair), but that's a relatively small defeat for Khamenei, and for the theocracy: the secular side is supposed to be unruly, and attention will be diverted from their real power. Justly so, even, if this were to be the outcome and it results from their interference.

The most bizarre angle I've seen so far is the story from Time (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1904628,00.html) that Obama foreign policy advisers feared the Moussavi victory scenario more than this, which was anticipated. The logic went that it would be much more difficult to come down hard on Moussavi's Iran than P.A.'s when Iran proceeds with nuclear weapon development. They believe this would be the case either way, as the decisions lie with the mullahs.

The argument that Moussavi wouldn't have made much difference (which Obama has now given public airing through his interview with John Harwood, released today) is minimally plausible, though the statement of Time's Massimo Calabresi that Iran "loses as much as 500,000 barrels a year in production capacity" doesn't convince me there's a problem--try 500,000 barrels a day. The Administration's reasoning is purely pragmatic, but if I were Obama's advisers I'd prefer a potential symbolic victory for Moussavi as proof of concept for Obama's Islamic policy and speeches, which would then have been followed by intensive effort to take advantage of good fortune. At any rate, all this is moot--short of a cataclysm, or Khamenei's taking my advice (hardly anyone else does, so why he?), we will be stuck with the big-mouthed shrimp, President Ahmadinejad. This I am certain has been anticipated by our folks, and the tactic should be to keep him out of the diplomatic dialogue: first talk at a lower level, then if there is progress, skip to the top guys: Obama and Khamenei.

The Ron Paul Rebellion 2.0

The implosions of the national candidacies of Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford raise again the question: Who the heck the Republicans can possibly come up with for 2012 that would be even a glimmer of a threat to a second Obama Administration? At this point, the base scenario, assuming Obama remains healthy and untouched by serious scandal, and that the economy begins to show serious recovery by 2011, would be: Nobody.

Only a split in the Democratic party, which I consider likely in the longer run(especially if the Republicans continue to weaken) but very unlikely in the next 3-5 years, would give the GOP a chance for a freakish Electoral College victory with a 35-45% share of the popular vote. One could say a Third Party could provide the necessary fragmentation of the solid 50-60% share the Democrats should otherwise expect in '12, but that would amount to the same thing--a split among the Dems--because there is no real 3rd today, and something coming out of the Republicans would only make their calamity worse. A John Anderson-like moderate Republican could easily emerge but would not be a significant factor. No, what would be needed for a real contest would be either a major disaffectation among the Left (due to unfulfilled promises) or the Right (due to Obamadmin's refusal to address untrammelled deficits).

The Republicans have a real option to generate new interest for their party, though, if they were to nominate none other than Ron Paul in 2012. He wouldn't win, of course, but his candidacy could be a Goldwater-like principled stake in the ground that could pay enormous benefits for their remaining a relevant party in the future, a future when we can easily envision rampant inflation, uncontrolled deficits, higher taxes, the financial endangerment of entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, etc. In such an environment--which might only be 8-10 years away--Paul's warnings about the Federal Reserve, relentless printing of money, endless war, and intrusive finagling with the private economy could be seen as prophetic and convincing.

The wisdom among Mainstream journalists is that "libertarian" politics have been dealt a death blow by the failures of absent regulation of the banking community evidenced in the financial crisis last year. I see it differently: the "laissez-faire" stance toward collateralized debt obligations and other fancy off-balance sheet practices was indeed right at the heart of the problem, but the move for greater regulation hasn't caught fire nor convinced anyone that we will thus prevent the next disasters. The "moral hazard" problem of guaranteed mortgages, and where to draw the lines with them for government-underwritten institutions in our future, is also right at the heart of the matter, and here the libertarian argument scores.

Besides, libertarian politics ranges much wider than just government hands-off big business, though it does seem to include that. The focus for them is much more on the small enterprises and their free operation--still very popular, and that will be getting broad support in the months to come--along with other topics likely to be popular like reducing government debt, ending our involvement in South Asian wars, and ending the costly and ineffective war on drugs (Obama seems to be dragging his heels a bit on this one, though there's still hope he won't let it get away from him).

Paul would do well to keep a relatively low profile, polish his policy stances for current events, make sure he's still accepted by county-and-state-level party hacks (the Washington ones don't matter to him at this point), and campaign vigorously and selectively for 2010 Congressional candidates who would be willing to support him if he helps them. And he can--with fund-raising, organizational support, Internet campaigns--all those areas that the regular party is failing to do and will need to do if it is to survive.

Increasing the Degree of Difficulty

Obama's high-altitude swan dive is complicated by the swirling waters of the economy, whose shifts are barely visible far below his lofty height (think Bay of Acapulco, and the waves dramatically raising and lowering the water depth in the landing area).

Worries of a delay in the recovery are likely to run strong this summer, which will make it harder for fence-sitters to be persuaded to come over--or even just to vote to end debate and finalize something they're in favor of.

All the analysts who've discovered "the second derivative" in recent days haven't really pushed their studies of the differential far enough. How long does that second derivative have to stay positive--meaning improvement in the deterioration measure--before the trend itself turns positive?

The key statistic is net job loss/gain, and Obama and other key progressive voices have rightly looked at job creation as the driver of results in that category. Think of it this way: if you're going in reverse at high speed, braking--no matter how vigorous--isn't going to get you going forward again. I am a long-term pessimist on job growth through public policy, or indeed through any other method (topic for another day), but in the short run the means must be found (and hopefully they were through the stimulus package, and will be through the other domestic legislation on energy, health care, and education).

So, when is net job loss going to turn positive? To me, it looks like it could be quite a while. Worse, I think we are going to find that net job change could go positive for several straight months without any improvement whatsoever in the unemployment rate. Many of those who have given up looking for work--and many recent graduates will join their ranks shortly--will gradually return to the market when they see it beginning to improve.

Crunch Time Approaches

The preliminaries are now over, and friction is due to increase between the metaphorical tire and asphalt on Obama's key legislative priorities: health care and energy.

In these summer months these two bills will set the long-term direction for the country, to the extent the (First) Obama Administration will have the ability to determine it. In each case, Obama will require a bill be passed, in order to complete his campaign pledges, so, the question will be if the bill that gets to him will be one he wants.

He can certainly count on the House, guided by Nancy Pelosi's will and driven by Super-Whip Rahm Emanuel. The trick will be getting the votes in the Senate--not 50, but 60. For these two domestic bills, Obama's party has 59 votes (i.e., Lieberman should be reliable), at least until Al Franken is seated. I think we can count on that being after the summer session--the Republicans' last-ditch delaying tactics can probably keep him out that long, but no more. So, Obama has to pick up one more Republican vote than he loses of Democrat votes in the Senate.

On health care, I think he has good chances to pick up Republican votes with both the Maine Senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. The key aspects to watch will be how realistic the cost savings--for consumers and for the government. Will the public offering--to compete with the private insurers'--emerge as a viable proposition available to all? Will the program pay for itself, after the start-up costs are over and sales commissions are somehow determined? This should be Ted Kennedy's bill, in that he should be the one to say to President Obama: this is a bill for change we can believe in (or not), and it should end up with his name on it.

I am actually less optimistic about the energy bill, both in terms of the votes and in terms of the quality of the bill that will eventually come out to be signed. Cap-and-trade is fundamentally a new business tax, of long or permanent duration, and thus will be very hard for Republicans to ever get behind. They will need solid inducements. I think Obama's bill sponsors (and he is still auditioning for the actual Senators to build around: I like our Sen. Bingaman's chances to win the part, actually) will need to horsetrade, and they will be empowered to do so.

I see four key concessions from a pure green energy, tax-the-polluters approach in the final bill: 1) Grandfathering in emissions from existing coal-burning polluters, so that they would only pay taxes when limits are cut or their fossil-fuel burning increases. This one is already baked in, as the Administration wisely isn't going to propose immediate tax increases, much as these polluters may deserve them.

2) Some kind of special concession for natural gas, which burns cleaner than oil or coal, is abundant in the continental U.S., and could figure into our transportation picture in the future (one of the elements of Boone Pickens' plan). Maybe it would be support for a new pipeline which could ensure plentiful supply at lowered cost throughout the country.

3) Money for at least one major coal gasification project. This is like Carter's synfuels and Reagan's Star Wars--clearly a hole which will permanently sequester money, but politically necessary.

4) Easing of regulatory obstacles and insurance for a small number of new nuclear plants. The Republican bill outlined this week--which has no chance whatsoever but does provide good talking points--has a huge target of something like 100 new nuke plants in 10 years. This is ridiculous and unnecessary--regardless of how many, Obama would go down in the history of nuclear energy as the first to authorize plants in over 30 years, and thus a relative hero to its proponents. Three to five plants would be enough to demonstrate proof of concept--that we now have the technology to build economically, safely, and the smaller scale will allow temporary solutions to the nuke waste problem to continue. Then, in 10 years or so, if all's well we can take a longer look at whether more are necessary and truly beneficial to our future society.

Judicious compromises on 2), 3), and 4) would allow Obama to find the Senators he needs--whether Republicans looking for "energy independence" or blue Dog Dems he needs to buy off--in order to get the 60 votes for cloture, and thus eventually to his desk for signature.

Oh, and Sonia Sotomayor will get approved sometime this summer, easily. That's a real success, too, but the key will be getting Republicans to get used to voting our way and not just allowing this to be a token show of feel-good bipartisan sentiment.

Kobe Gifted Ring

The Magic gave away Game 4 tonight, and the Lakers were glad to take it for a crucial road win, giving them a 3-1 lead.

If I'm not mistaken, the Magic had a five-point lead and the ball with less than 40 seconds in regulation and somehow came away without a win. Bad luck (a tip ball led to a breakaway basket for Gasol), bad free throw shooting (Dwight Howard missed two with less than 10 seconds to go when one would've practically clinched it), bad defense (Jameer Nelson, on Derek Fisher's score-tying 3), and bad offense (the off-balance 3-pointer Mickael Pietrus took on the final play with the score tied--now here would've been the time to get it in to Howard) all combined to allow the Lakers to take it to an overtime, which it won readily.

It's the second time in the series the Magic lost a game in overtime that they should've won in regulation time, and there won't be any more chances, I'm afraid. The win puts the Lakers in a hugely advantageous position, needing only one win from the last three, two of which would be at home.

I suppose we were expecting too much from the Magic in their first real run at the championship. It showed in the little things which win or lose playoffs. On the other hand, they showed they have the potential to come back to this stage for years to come, no matter where LeBron decides to play. For most of this game, they were up to the task, defensively--Mickael Pietrus leading the charge on Kobe Bryant--and offensively (the Lakers can't stop them; they can only stop themselves).

I would urge the team to rise up and smite the Lakers in Game 5, simply for the hell of it. It's a consolation game, with the coronation scheduled for the Game 6 return to L.A.

Speaking of consolation, I see some for Stan Van Gundy, who is sitting on a powerhouse team that just needed more experience this time, and, surprisingly, for Rafer Alston. Rafer, acquired during the midseason from Houston when Nelson suddenly went down, got to be starting point guard on an Eastern Conference championship team (the Magic, this year), but I'm afraid that's as close as he will ever get to being starting PG on a NBA champion. He should accept the fact that Nelson will be the PG for the future, and show that he can work as backup at 1, and at 2 against smaller teams. If he does, Orlando should keep him for the long term, and he will end up having a couple of championship rings.

Meanwhile, playing Nelson in the crucial final minutes of this pivotal game showed him that Stan has full confidence in him, which I believe will be rewarded down the road. At times, it was tough in these games (and ultimately unrewarding), but Nelson showed he can hit the 3 for a high percentage earlier this year, which was all he really needed to complete the package. He's worth it.

Brazilian Plane Update

I'm prompted to post by the most recent news--that the debris collected from the Atlantic Ocean is not from the airliner which went down.  

I was surprised initially when I heard that they did not know--at all--where and when the plane had gone down.  I'm familiar with the constant tracking of our domestic flights, and the handoff from one controller group to another, and I thought the same happened on intercontinental flights.  Apparently this capability does not exist today.   They still don't know where the aircraft went down, so it seems unlikely they will find the "black box" flight recorder anytime soon, and so we may never know what actually happened. 

I think this is a major issue for security, and practically an invitation to terrorists to create an act occurring in the untracked parts of our oceans (if, in fact, this event was itself an accident, as one would assume--perhaps wrongly!)  Furthermore, interviews with pilots and others have revealed that this area has frequent, massive, dangerous storms--so this is not necessarily a freak occurrence.  

There would seem to be two solutions:  either improve ground-based tracking (stations on islands in the oceans) or develop satellite-based tracking.  I'm not a fan of the idea that every little thing needs to be tracked all the time, but these are civilian aircraft with hundreds of people on them who deserve every consideration for their safety. 

New Sweek Scores on Iran

They've already moved on to a new issue with a crazed Oprah on the cover, but Newsweek's June 1 issue (the one with a scowling Ahmadinejad on it) scored major points with me.  I recommend it to anyone; it increased my knowledge of Iran's regime about tenfold.  It's timely, but not too much so; their Presidential elections are coming up in a week or so, and reading it will prepare one to understand whatever comes out of that. 

It was the second issue since the magazine's redesign.  I'm no professional insider in publishing, but it screams "New York Times Magazine makeover of two years ago!" all over.  Possibly it's more readable in terms of sequence and format; it looks different but not necessarily any better.  I really don't care as long as they let Fareed Zakaria write about whatever he wants. 

Taliban Swat'd

The news story of the convoy of schoolkids abducted in Pakistan does not seem to me to have been fully analyzed in the public accounts.  

My reading of it is that the kidnappers were radical units making a retreat in force from the Swat Valley--where they have recently taken a drubbing (they've been "swatted"--possibly by a Special Weapons and Tactics squad?)  I think they took the kids, opportunistically,  in order to create a diversion to allow them to escape back to South Waziristan.  Most of the kids were released, in order to create more confusion to allow the principals--still holding a smaller number of the hostages--to retreat further.

I'm thinking this was a close call for them, with possibly some high-value targets of ours involved.

OK, maybe the Pakistani forces had their Tora Bora moment, or maybe not.  Either way,  I still salute them for their sucesses in routing their internal enemy.  It was critically important to deny the Taliban a significant safe haven like the Swat Valley was being set up to be for them.   

The Taste of Greatness

I saw an ad tonight in which Miller Lite--quite possibly the worst beer I have had in more than 30 countries of drinking experience--has claimed "Taste Greatness" as a trademarked tag line for its product.  One could say that this fact has demeaned greatness itself, but it is more like a testimony for the difficulty of getting a handle on what the word, and the concept behind it, really means. 

There was a coincidence for me, as I was pondering a post on the topic of Greatness at this time.  The Tao Te Ching, at least in some translations, includes a line to the effect: 

How to describe the Tao?  In a word, "great".

Of course, this is not the same "great" as Tony the Tiger's Sugar Frosted Flakes (sorry if you readers are too young for that reference).  It is not a synonym for "famous", or "celebrated".  I would describe that meaning as something like "larger than just 'large'" (like Great Britain?), whereas its usage today basically means "better than just 'good'".   Common examples are the description of a "great" teacher, or a "great" parent (or a "great" kid!)  

I suppose Miller Lite has "earned" its right to claim Greatness through its preceding high-profile campaign on the controversy of "Tastes Great vs. Less Filling", though I would suggest "Tastes Filling--Less Great" was always closer to the truth. 

I saw that ad on Game 1 of the NBA Championships.  It was used on that telecast to refer to the likes of Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard, in their aspiration to place themselves and their team in the Pantheon of Greatness with past NBA champs.  Of course, I'd have to admit both of them are already Great--by any definition limited to the realm of basketball--as are most NBA players, when compared to the millions (tens of millions?hundreds of millions?) of wannabes in the sport.

Here's the salient point, to me:  I think I've always hungered for Greatness, though it conflicts directly with my preference for obscurity. I've seen more than enough people ruined by their fame and the wreck it makes of their lives, and I want no part of it.   Getting back to the Tao, the trick is to have the Greatness, both within oneself and also somehow manifest in the real world, without the crushing weight of being recognized personally as being Great (like Alexander of Macedonia--"great" example!)  

Maybe in today's society a good example is someone like Thomas Pynchon.  Yes, I'd say he is a role model for me. 

Finally, an ad I did think was "great":  A series of close-up pictures of people with youth and vigor.  A message that "we are more than our past, than what has happened to us"--a perfect inspiration for those who have been victimized, or those who have suffered financial ruin in the current economic crisis.  The surprising source of this ad is revealed at its end:  The Church of Scientology!  I wouldn't have thought they had it in them, to go so publicly and upfront, with such a message. 

  

Obama in Cairo

I have not read the speech yet (though I will make its text a link on this posting in the near future).  I have no doubt that it was eloquent, cleverly appealing to its audience (narrowly, Cairo University students; and broadly, all Muslims of good will), and will go as far as good intentions and beautiful words possibly can. 

Mostly, I'll just be glad when he returns home safely.  I wonder what the official stance of the Muslim Brotherhood will be. 

Tienanmen, Mon Amour

Today was the 20th anniversary of the massacre at Tienanmen Square in Beijing.  The Chinese authorities rigorously clamped down on any possible demonstrations or news exploitation of the event within China.   There were extensive efforts to suppress Internet discussion of the anniversary (see link on title above).  It is quite clearly an embarrassment to the current technocrats running things, one which they are insufficiently agile to be able to come to grips with.   

In the Old School ChiCom days, it would've been much easier to turn against those who came before: the slogan might've been "Denounce Deng Hsiao-peng and his Insufficiently Committed Clique of Capitalist/Communist Roaders, who didn't trust the masses enough to let them mobilize for liberty!"  Instead, they are too insecure to denounce those who grandfathered the regime and, in that sense, give them legitimacy. 

I argued heatedly against the US' policy of business-as-usual and most-favored-nation toward China after Tienanmen in '89.  I don't regret that at all, and I assign a special place in my own personal hell for those responsible (next-door neighbors to Nixon and Dick Cheney's reserved spot), but I have to admit that China has progressed since then. Not that I think it impossible for the party to call down the armed forces upon its own people once again, if the threat to their rule be deemed sufficiently serious, nor that they have learned to deal honestly with their citizens.  

The exception that proves something--not a rule, but the more nuanced reality which prevails with regard to Chinese civilization today--is seen from the mass candlelight gathering in Hong Kong, some 200,000 strong by report.  China has kept its promises to allow Hong Kong what we consider "freedom"--of press, religion, assembly, etc.  While Hong Kong's government is hardly parliamentarian, and it's clearly under Beijing's thumb, there has never been a crackdown there (such as Tienanmen was).  Economic liberty prevails for most Chinese, in the sense of being able to move about the country and to work where one chooses, and this may be the most important one for most Chinese.   

There is a strong recognition of reality among the Chinese leaders, and it is one that we owe respect toward.  They are not lunatics or self-destructive; yes, their reality is self-serving, but so is our own perception of reality.