Remember all the warnings we’ve had over the years from the wise heads in the punditocracy, how if we supported Israel, or removed the Taliban, or removed Saddam, or dissed Arafat, or promoted democracy in the Middle East, that the “Arab Street” would rise up in anger?
Well, I guess they were finally, after all those years of false predictions, proven right.
I think that Syria is finding itself in a quagmire. So is the MSM.
[Update at 1:48 PM EST]
Rick Savage emails:
I’m waiting for Ted Kennedy to proclaim that Lebanon is Syria’s Vietnam, and demand an immediate pull out!
I wondered what Andrew Sullivan’s point about Bush and big-government conservatism was last week. Ramesh Ponnuru has responded to his post in a similar manner:
His thought experiment, meanwhile, is thoughtless. For it to begin to work, his President Al Gore would have had to have overthrown the Baathist regime in Iraq, enacted Health Savings Accounts, cut taxes, proposed a free-market reform of Social Security, nominated conservative judges, and so forth. (There have been more conservative policy achievements under this president than there were at the height of Gingrich’s revolution, a fact which certainly tempers my nostalgia for it.) Is Sullivan really suggesting that opposing Bush and backing John Kerry would have been the truly conservative thing to do in the last election? Oh right: That is what Sullivan thought. Now he’s complaining that NR refused to join him in his folly.
I wondered what Andrew Sullivan’s point about Bush and big-government conservatism was last week. Ramesh Ponnuru has responded to his post in a similar manner:
His thought experiment, meanwhile, is thoughtless. For it to begin to work, his President Al Gore would have had to have overthrown the Baathist regime in Iraq, enacted Health Savings Accounts, cut taxes, proposed a free-market reform of Social Security, nominated conservative judges, and so forth. (There have been more conservative policy achievements under this president than there were at the height of Gingrich’s revolution, a fact which certainly tempers my nostalgia for it.) Is Sullivan really suggesting that opposing Bush and backing John Kerry would have been the truly conservative thing to do in the last election? Oh right: That is what Sullivan thought. Now he’s complaining that NR refused to join him in his folly.
I wondered what Andrew Sullivan’s point about Bush and big-government conservatism was last week. Ramesh Ponnuru has responded to his post in a similar manner:
His thought experiment, meanwhile, is thoughtless. For it to begin to work, his President Al Gore would have had to have overthrown the Baathist regime in Iraq, enacted Health Savings Accounts, cut taxes, proposed a free-market reform of Social Security, nominated conservative judges, and so forth. (There have been more conservative policy achievements under this president than there were at the height of Gingrich’s revolution, a fact which certainly tempers my nostalgia for it.) Is Sullivan really suggesting that opposing Bush and backing John Kerry would have been the truly conservative thing to do in the last election? Oh right: That is what Sullivan thought. Now he’s complaining that NR refused to join him in his folly.
Weapons of Mass Distraction, that is. Remember all the stories, led by the New York Times, the week before the election about Al Qaqaa, and the missing munitions, and (of course!) the incompetence of the Bush administration in not guarding them properly? Remember how we haven’t heard anything about it since?
The obvious question is whether the Times pushed the Al Qaqaa story hard in the days in which it might have an effect on the presidential election, and then let up the moment the election was over. Okrent conceded that that might appear to be the case. “I would say at the very least that the dates they were running stories certainly can leave an impression,” Okrent told NRO. “But I’m not ready to convict, at least not yet.”
With characteristic zeal, Moore campaigned vigorously for a Best Picture nomination.
“He was at every Oscar party and screening,” said Moore’s former manager Douglas Urbanski, a critically acclaimed 25-year veteran of the entertainment industry most recently known for the movie “The Contender,” starring Gary Oldman, Joan Allen and Jeff Bridges. “He took out full-page ads, cut his hair, bathed and even wore a suit. [Moore was] very present around town.”
Emphasis mine. Apparently, Hollywood is blaming him for Kerry’s defeat. And then there’s this:
…he feels no compunction in talking about the only client he ever fired. And he fired Moore with a ten-page letter.
“A more dishonest and demented person I have never met,” Urbanski wrote me in an e-mail, “and I have known a few! And he is more money obsessed than any I have known, and that’s saying a lot.”
Urbanski believes that Moore hates America, hates capitalism, and hates any normal concept of freedom and democracy. This seems odd considering that if it weren’t for America, freedom and capitalism, Moore’s brand of expression and capitalistic success would be impossible, if not illegal. “Michael Moore could not withstand
Many Americans wander round with the constitution in their pocket so they can whip it out and chastise over-reaching congressmen and senators at a moment’s notice. Try going round with the European Constitution in your pocket and you’ll be walking with a limp after two hours: It’s 511 pages, which is 500 longer than the U.S. version. It’s full of stuff about European space policy, Slovakian nuclear plants, water resources, free expression for children, the right to housing assistance, preventive action on the environment, etc.
Most of the so-called constitution isn’t in the least bit constitutional. That’s to say, it’s not content, as the U.S. Constitution is, to define the distribution and limitation of powers. Instead, it reads like a U.S. defense spending bill that’s got porked up with a ton of miscellaneous expenditures for the ”mohair subsidy” and other notorious Congressional boondoggles. President Ronald Reagan liked to say, ”We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around.” If you want to know what it looks like the other way round, read Monsieur Giscard’s constitution.
Maybe Bush’s decision to endorse the EU this week was just his way of hurrying things along.
David Levey and Stuart Brown have an antidote for global gloomsaying about the US economy in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs.
The U.S. dollar will remain dominant in global trade, payments, and capital flows, based as it is in a country with safe, well-regulated financial markets. Provided U.S. firms maintain their entrepreneurial edge — and despite much anxiety, there is little reason to expect otherwise — global asset managers will continue to want to hold portfolios rich in U.S. corporate stocks and bonds. Although foreign private demand for U.S. assets will fluctuate — witness the slowdown in purchases that precipitated the decline in the U.S. dollar in 2002 and 2003 — rapid growth of world financial wealth will allow the proportion of U.S. assets held by foreigners to increase….
…Only one development could upset this optimistic prognosis: an end to the technological dynamism, openness to trade, and flexibility that have powered the U.S. economy. The biggest threat to U.S. hegemony, accordingly, stems not from the sentiments of foreign investors, but from protectionism and isolationism at home.
David Levey and Stuart Brown have an antidote for global gloomsaying about the US economy in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs.
The U.S. dollar will remain dominant in global trade, payments, and capital flows, based as it is in a country with safe, well-regulated financial markets. Provided U.S. firms maintain their entrepreneurial edge — and despite much anxiety, there is little reason to expect otherwise — global asset managers will continue to want to hold portfolios rich in U.S. corporate stocks and bonds. Although foreign private demand for U.S. assets will fluctuate — witness the slowdown in purchases that precipitated the decline in the U.S. dollar in 2002 and 2003 — rapid growth of world financial wealth will allow the proportion of U.S. assets held by foreigners to increase….
…Only one development could upset this optimistic prognosis: an end to the technological dynamism, openness to trade, and flexibility that have powered the U.S. economy. The biggest threat to U.S. hegemony, accordingly, stems not from the sentiments of foreign investors, but from protectionism and isolationism at home.
David Levey and Stuart Brown have an antidote for global gloomsaying about the US economy in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs.
The U.S. dollar will remain dominant in global trade, payments, and capital flows, based as it is in a country with safe, well-regulated financial markets. Provided U.S. firms maintain their entrepreneurial edge — and despite much anxiety, there is little reason to expect otherwise — global asset managers will continue to want to hold portfolios rich in U.S. corporate stocks and bonds. Although foreign private demand for U.S. assets will fluctuate — witness the slowdown in purchases that precipitated the decline in the U.S. dollar in 2002 and 2003 — rapid growth of world financial wealth will allow the proportion of U.S. assets held by foreigners to increase….
…Only one development could upset this optimistic prognosis: an end to the technological dynamism, openness to trade, and flexibility that have powered the U.S. economy. The biggest threat to U.S. hegemony, accordingly, stems not from the sentiments of foreign investors, but from protectionism and isolationism at home.