Charles Murray has this notion that we should replace all the federal government's transfer programs with a single $10,000 check for all Americans which, upon examination, turns out to only be a $5,000 check for some Americans. There are all kinds of problems with this idea (see my friend and colleague Ezra Klein's brief article in TNR for some of them; Andrew Ferguson's respectful writeup gets at a different conceptual problem) but I think it's worth pointing out that this probably wouldn't even achieve the things that make it attractive to its proponents. Is it really true, for example, that if libertarians "can’t achieve small government in terms of a small budget, then maybe we’d do better to focus our efforts on a small government as defined by a small bureaucracy"? Well, maybe, but this wouldn't achieve that.

When you look at "big government" from a spending perspective, the big items are the Defense Department, debt service, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Murray's plan wouldn't affect the first two, but would mostly eliminate the bureacracy associated with the last three. But how much bureacracy is that? If you look at these CBO numbers the Department of Health and Human Services (including the Social Security Administration) employs less than 10 percent of the federal civilian workforce. Murray's plan would barely touch anyone outside HHS, wouldn't let you fire everyone at HHS anyway, and the 10 percent figure counts neither the (large) non-civilian federal workforce nor the US Postal Service, nor the large number of private contractors working for the government, nor government employees who don't work for the executive branch.

SoS Rice admits tactical errors but insists that the strategic goals of removing Saddam and remaking the power structure of Middle East were right. Strategy is a selection of ends, or goals, and means, or methods. Presumably, Sec. Rice's goals for our country are securing access to oil, repressing terrorism, reducing threats to Israel's security, advancing secularism over Islamic fundamentalism, and promoting regional democracy. At least all these, if not more, have been stated. But these are too many. A strategist must prioritize. This Administration has no foremost goal, except perhaps access to oil.

The chosen means, also part of strategy, have been invasion and apparently permanent occupation, as in case of Japan and Germany in 1940's, in order to assure a permanently friendly Iraqi government. In addition, we have chosen to invest massively in the economy, and to create a local military force that will work in tandem with our military. The American strategy contemplates joint American-Iraqi military occupation at least for three more years, and perhaps for decades.

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I guess I missed the initial stories while I was on vacation, but intimations of a Bolten-led shake-up in the West Wing sound pretty pathetic to me. Calls to reorganize the legistlative liason office and a focus on "rebuilding ties with Congress" are the mid-course correction steps of fools. Obviously, Bush has less pull with congress than he used to because he's become so unpopular. And he isn't unpopular because of a frayed relationship with congress, he's unpopular because of his poor leadership. If you want to improve congressional relations you need to improve Bush's popularity, which means doing something -- something! -- to either improve the situation in Iraq or else refocus people's attention on some kind of impressive new policy initiative.

Talk of replacing John Snow is just sad. There's been talk about this for forever. Credible sources indicate that they tried to fire him over a year ago and didn't because they couldn't find anyone who wanted to be Treasury Secretary in an administration that's shown no inclination to listen to what the Treasury Department has to say or to try and make economic policy in a serious way. It's hard to see what could possibly have changed about that in the interim -- it's gone from being an undesirable salesman's job to being an undesirable salesman's job for a lame-duck, unpopular boss. Also, while Snow's hardly done a brilliant job, it's hard to say he's been to blame for any of the various things that have gone wrong in a significant way.

I've been struggling to come up with something coherent to say about the "Israel Lobby" controversy, and here's what I've come up with. The noteworthy thing about discussions of Israel is that any conversation that starts with the question of America's Israel policy all-but-inevitably turns into a conversation about Israel's Palestinian policy. This is, itself, a noteworthy fact. Israel gets about twenty percent of America's foreign aid budget -- it's the largest recipient by a pretty wide margin. The question of whether or not that makes sense is entirely separable from the question of whether or not one approves of this or that Israeli action. After all, I don't think there are any strident critics of the Phillipines in this country and yet they don't get that kind of aid.

In particular, I think the contrast with India is instructive. India's a kind of similar country. It's a democracy and it's neighbors generally aren't. India's denying self-determination to a Muslim-majority region in controls. India is subject to Islamist terrorist attacks. India won't join the Non-Proliferation Treaty. India's Muslim minority is treated in better ways than Israel's in some respects (they have a degree of formal equality the Israeli Arabs lack) but worse in other respects (in practice, they're subjected to a level of sporadic informal violence that's much worse than anything the Israeli Arabs need to suffer). But the two countries differ in three important respects. One -- India has way more citizens than Israel does. Two -- India's citizens are way poorer than Israel's are. Three -- India gets way less aid from America than Israel does.

So why the difference and what to make of it?

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Check out this Kieran Healy post on "the varieties of civil war." One frustrating element of commentary on what's happening in Iraq is that it seems to often involve the assumption that the American Civil War is the canonical exemplar of what a civil war looks like. Until we see two massed armies clashing on the field of battle, we're not looking at a civil war. Kieran notes that the Irish Civil War (1922-23) didn't look like that at all, but was still uncontroversially a civil war. Numerous other examples could be produced if necessary.

It's worth saying that the general trend in warfare has been away from American-style clashes between large well-defined forces and toward more Irish-style irregular conflict. Since the sides in Iraq's current conflict lack heavy military equipment, we won't see a civil war that's characterized by the deployment of heavy military equipment. Just take a gander at the Congo, however, and you'll see that things can get pretty damn bad even with ill-equipped forces.

Welcome to the TPMCafe Book Club! This is where we regularly invite authors to come and discuss their most recent works with readers and invited commentators. Past Book Club authors include Thomas Frank, Anthony Shadid, Larry Diamond, George Packer, Ivo Daalder/James Lindsay, Robert Dreyfuss, Chris Mooney, Gene Sperling, Gershom Gorenberg, and Kevin Phillips.

This week we'll be discussing Todd Gitlin's The Intellectuals and the Flag. In his book, Gitlin explores the struggle of intellectuals on the left to re-engage American public life, turning to the work of three prominent post-war intellectuals as models. Lee Feinstein, Christine Stansell, Michael Tomasky, and Matt Yglesias will also participate in the discussion.
- kdc

I received the email note that follows below from Stephen Walt last night in response to my post yesterday about whether he was being demoted or not.

I think Walt's views and account of his situation are level-headed and make sense and coincide with Kennedy School Dean David Ellwood's account, published here and on TWN yesterday.

It seems that the only "new and unusual" thing at Harvard is not Walt stepping down but rather Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz getting approval to post his attack on the Walt/Mearsheimer paper on the Kennedy School web page.

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I’ve remarked on THCB how the man who I regard as the leading medical director working in health benefits in America told me privately that he was completely befuddled by the choices that he faced getting his mother into Part D. Now from the HealthLawProf Blog it appears that  “just about everyone is having difficulty figuring out the new Medicare Part D program, including HHS Secretary Leavitt's parents.”

Dixie and Anne Leavitt - parents of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt - recently were forced to change Medicare plans after learning that the one they chose imperiled their retiree medical coverage. The elder Leavitts joined the program last fall with some fanfare and help from their son. Anne Leavitt, 73, was quoted in The Salt Lake Tribune touting the online enrollment as "smooth," and a guaranteed money-saver…. Secretary Leavitt's office confirmed that the couple signed up for another Medicare plan through their insurer, Utah's Public Employee Health Plan.

Well poor Leavitt was just the Governor of Utah when the botch-job known as MMA was passed, so I guess it’s all Tommy Thompson’s fault. Although as he left he said that what he really wanted was  government price controls (sorry I mean “the ability to negotiate”).

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I am going to obscure the names in the vignette I'm about to share to protect folks who don't deserve harrassment.

Once I had a brilliant young fellow at the New America Foundation, now a prominent national journalist, who wrote about the subject of "hero inflation" in America. He wrote an op-ed which appeared in the Boston Globe that stated that the firemen who died in the 9/11 attacks in New York were not really heroes in the true sense of the term.

In a nanosecond, this young, charismatic writer was invited on to Bill O'Reilly's show on Fox. O'Reilly didn't demolish him overtly; he did it in a grand-fatherly way grinning through the interview that he couldn't believe that this young writer was sticking to his guns.

But for those rubbed the wrong way by this story, know that there were many who agreed with you. I was in Tokyo when the piece appeared and literally had hundreds of emails from fire brigades in my in box -- preparing to protest at the New America Foundation's offices. I was able to secure someone who was heading the fire brigade email campaign and make a case to him about intellectual freedom that seemed to make sense to him -- and he told his troops to stand down.

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Seven Months After Katrina:  Sleeping in Your Car in Front of Your Trailer in Front of Your House

In New Orleans, seven months after Katrina, senior citizens are living in their cars. WWL-TV introduced us to Korean War veteran Paul Morris, 74, and his wife Yvonne, 66. They have been sleeping in their 2-door sedan since January. They have been waiting that long for FEMA contractors to unlock the 240 square foot trailer in their yard and connect the power so they can sleep inside it in front of their devastated home.

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First of all, hearty thanks to Matt Yglesias, Michael Tomasky, and Christine Stansell; and to many readers for their thoughtful posts on the book club site.  They wrote in the spirit my book was intended.

To Matt, I want to say first of all that I don’t regard patriotism as a cure-all. Patriotism as I understand it is a disposition toward fellow-feeling, duty, and public improvement, not a symbolic tribute to bygone days—or a reason to tell the rest of the world to fuck itself—or a solution to policy conundrums.   It would not be in accord with American values as I understand them to load the costs of global climate change onto poor countries, island countries, and/or others with long, perilous seashores (like Bangladesh).  Nor would it fit American values to install guest-worker status instead of citizenship for immigrants—even if (as Paul Krugman maintains) low-wage immigration lowers the wages of the American citizens who can least afford the competition.

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As of 11:00 AM today, Capitol Hill police planned to issue an arrest warrant for Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) after she allegedly struck or shoved a police officer who tried to stop her from entering a building without going through a metal detector on Wednesday. McKinney “deeply regrets” the confrontation. 

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Read Paul Krugman's essay on immigration, "The Road to Dubai," in today's New York Times, in which he makes several of the same points I have made on this site.

  P.S.  Max Sawicky says he agrees with me that a public employment policy can raise wages and agrees that immigration restriction can wage raises (though of course tight labor markets with other origins can raise wages without it--for example during the unsustainable, ephemeral 1990s bubble).  What is his disagreement with me, then?  He claims that the EITC is not a subsidy to low-wage employers.  Of course it is, by definition--the beneficiaries of the EITC comprise three groups:  low-wage workers; their employers, whose labor costs are partly subsidized by the state; and the consumers of the goods or services the low-wage workers provide, who like employers receive an indirect subsidy from the government.  This is really not in dispute, is it?

Quoth Mr. L:

"For New Deal liberals, the best antipoverty program is a high private sector wage, resulting from tight labor markets created artificially by public sector workfare programs combined with immigration restriction and credit policies that increase middle-class demand.  Clinton, however, embraced the favorite antipoverty program of economic conservatives:  the earned income tax credit (EITC), which Nixon introduced and Reagan called his favorite antipoverty program.  Why do right-wing Republicans, and conservative Southern Democrats like Lloyd Bentsen, love the EITC?  Because it is a taxpayer subsidy to employers which enables them to pay below-poverty wages to their workers.  In other words, the EITC is corporate welfare, a massive redistribution of wealth to the very employers that treat their workers the worst."

There is much else I'd like to respond to in this immigration debate, not least from Michael Lind, but I'm particularly busy this week and next and don't have time for more than this:

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The Book Club discussion about Todd Gitlin’s The Intellectuals and the Flag is winding down today, but the immigration debate rages on. Make sure to read the new posts from Reed Hundt and Nathan Newman and find out why Michael Lind and Max Sawicky disagree.  Our temporary foreign correspondent Matt Yglesias explains why multiculturalism is hard (but still probably worth it), and readers discuss Iran, prayer, and how immigration polls.

With respect, I am concerned that Senator Kennedy perhaps should reconsider joining ranks with Republicans on immigration. First, we would get a much better bill in 2007 if we won House or Senate in 06 and this is a gamebreaking issue, so don't compromise now. Second, no guest workers should be permitted for long periods-- any one working here should have a clear and reasonably prompt path toward citizenship. Third, as with No Child Behind, in execution this Administration will not fulfill its promises and will distort law. Fourth, in general we are on a path toward increasing America's population and workforce toward sizes behind only India and China among nations, within one or two generations. Shouldn't such a pro-population growth strategy be coupled with a pro-safety net strategy?

There's little gain in my mind from any guest worker program-- if more workers are needed in an industry like agriculture, they should be admitted as potential citizens.  That said, people should keep in mind in this debate that there are two radically different kinds of guest worker programs.  One gives guest workers the right to switch employers during whatever time they are allowed in the country.  The other ties them to only one employer-- who can then terminate their residency in the country at any time by firing them.

This latter form of guest worker program was yesterday declared by the Israeli Supreme Court to be a a human rights violation and a "modern version of slavery" that " compromises the basic rights of migrant workers. It hampers the inherent right for liberty, freedom of action and threatens the autonomy of the free will."  Such a limit on an ability to leave an employers puts the guest worker at the mercy of abusive supervisors and deprivation of any real labor rights.   So a word from the wise in a country with pervasive use of guest workers.

The big news out of Spain today is the passage of a law backed by the Socialists and the main Catalan Party expanding the level of autonomy enjoyed by Catalonia and granting several important symbolic concessions including description of Catalonia as a "nation" and endorsement of the notion that the Catalan government's powers stem from the will of the people of Catalonia rather than from the constitution of Spain. Mariano Rajoy, leader of the main opposition party, says this is "the beginning of the end of the state as it was designed by the Spanish people in 1978." So who cares?

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[From a post at PLAN about an international economic issue that might unite even Michael and I against corporate abuses-- NN]

Every state and local official should be paying more attention to the global trade talks at the World Trade Organization, since local power to regulate services such as health care, mass transit and a range of other public services are on the chopping block.

New proposals in a part of global trade law known as the General Agreement on Trade in Services could give global corporations the right under international law to challenge a host of state and local regulations, as Public Citizen details in this background piece:

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Today at TPMCafe, Steve Clemons disagrees with Sen. Diane Feinstein’s concern about the displacement of U.S. citizens by foreign students in public universities. Matt Yglesias agrees with Steve in this post about the benefits of skilled workers coming to the US. Larry Johnson reacts to President Bush’s claim that Saddam Hussein is responsible for the sectarian violence in Iraq, and Bolton Watch’s Mark L. Goldberg explains why George Voinovich is wrong about John Bolton. Joshua Hudelson has the news here and here, and Drug Bill Debacle’s Matthew Holt looks at how Newt became an expert on Medicare part D. Make sure to check out this week’s Book Club, and the reader discussions about the limits of media coverage and freedom of speech.

President Bush said today that a tour of ancient Mayan ruins is “a good start” to the trade and border discussions with Canada and Mexico scheduled for the next two days.  The leaders of the three countries are meeting in Cancun, Mexico to discuss the Security and Prosperity Partnership, signed three years ago.  The issue of immigration, which has gripped the nation and political sphere in recent days, will also be part of their talks.

Exxon Mobil has sold its stake in a Venezuelan oil field due to President Hugo Chavez’s moves to “renationalize” the oil industry.  Chavez’s changes include increased oil royalties that other foreign companies have been willing to pay.  In February, Exxon was pushed out of a multibillion dollar project in Venezuela for delaying development too long.

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So this is a great example of how spin works. First you take a prominent conservative who claims that he knows something about health care (even if his public pronouncements on the topic, at $40K a time, are ludicrously ungrounded in reality).

Then you get his lackey to write an article about a survey.

Next you get a “liberal” MSM paper, which has printed plenty of rubbish about health care before from right wing loonies, to put it out on the op-ed page. And then it’s accepted as truth.

The article is from Newt and it calls Medicare Part D “A healthy Medicare drug plan  in The Boston Globe. And this is how you lie with surveys.

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George Voinovich is supposedly warming up to our man in Turtle Bay. As reports the Associated Press:

"John Bolton at this point is a changed man," Voinovich told reporters. "I want reform of the United Nations, so I've worked with John and stayed on top of John to make sure he takes this wonderful opportunity."

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"Hello.  I'm a post-patriotic progressive.  I believe that nation-states like the USA are obsolete and indeed immoral.  I abhor and denounce the bigotry of 'citizenism'--the idea that the American government should favor the interests of the 300 million citizens of the US over those of the other 5.7 billion people on earth.  I oppose policing and fencing the border, just as I oppose any measure that would threaten the inalienable human right of foreign nationals to sneak into the US without our government's knowledge or permission.  And whenever I see an American flag, it creeps me out because it seems, well, fascistic."

"Vote for me, my fellow citizens--oops, I mean, my fellow territorial residents, to represent you in the Congress of the antiquated USA, pending the formation of a North American Union, a World Parliament, or a United Federation of Planets."

Jill Carroll, the Christian Science Monitor journalist who was abducted in Iraq in January has been set free.  Carroll insists that her captors treated her well, but she says she did not know where she was kept or “what was going on.”

Speaking at a meeting of the five veto-holding members of the U.N., plus Germany, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said “the international community is united” with regard to Iran’s nuclear program ambitions.  Yesterday the five members agreed on a statement against Iran’s nuclear program, which they fear is being used to develop weapons rather than energy.  Meanwhile, Iran’s chief representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency said “it is impossible to go back to suspension” of nuclear development.

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To re-enforce Steve's point, I think it's worth saying that while immigration of unskilled workers poses some ideological dilemmas for progressives, immigration of skilled workers and the highly educated should do no such thing. The beneficial impact on the overall economy is the same. The consonance with liberal values is the same. But the distributive impact is different. If lots of doctors or engineers or other skilled professionals come to this country (or if college students come, learn skills, and stay) this will increase the purchasing power of the working class rather than (mildly) decreasing their wages. This is a totally progressive win-win. If we're concerned that there may not be enough "slots" left for qualified entrants to universities, then we can fairly easily spend a bit more money and open up more slots.

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So who remembers the "appeasement" talk related to the Spanish electorate's audacious March 2004 decision to deny continued political power to a government that was committed to lying about national security matters and indefinitely prolonging a pointless occupation in Iraq? Wasn't something terrible supposed to happen as a result? Things seem, well, just fine. Unlike in America, they even do some terrorism security stuff on the trains here. Just saying.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't think a link to my photos from Ávila, Spain were worth mentioning on TPMCafe, but in light of this Kaloogian business it seems that the thing to do is just, um, lie about what they are. What you see here, for example, isn't a banal tourist snapshot at all. No -- it's a major scoop! See, under guise of being on vacation, I've actually been doing some tough on-the-ground reporting from Iraq and I'm now in position to reveal a major scandal: The American occupation authorities appear to be . . . building gothic cathedrals in the historic site of Ninevah. That's not likely to win us any hearts and minds in the Arab world, now is it?

Just when you think George W. Bush has plumbed the depths of goofiness, he bests himself. In a speech today (reported on CNN), Bush said that:

"Saddam Hussein, not continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, is responsible for ongoing sectarian violence that is threatening the formation of a democratic government."

When in doubt, blame the guy in jail. So, at what point did George discover that Saddam's previous grotesque behavior spawned sectarian strife? Is there any chance he heard about this before launching the invasion in 2003 or was he still reading from the script that promised Iraqis, regardless of their sectarian beliefs, would be dancing in the streets? It would be nice to get an answer on this point. Why?

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Lind has chutzpah citing the AFL-CIO as part of his own jihad against undocumented immigrants, given that earlier this month, the executive council wrote 'Immigrant workers, like all workers, should be full social partners. We will continue to support effective, credible and enforceable rights for all workers, regardless of their country of origin or immigration status."

But the true ludicrousness of his argument is the idea that Democrats today are more economically conservative than in the past. Remember, the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 was only able to overcome a Truman veto because a large number of Democrats stabbed the unions in the back. Democrats even in the 1930s had exempted farmworkers from protections under labor law-- which is one reason why farmworkers struggled for decades with almost no legal recourse to punishment by their employers.

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How did America become great? Some would argue that it was indeed great before restless explorers, settlers seeking economic opportunity, and persecuted religious victims and others migrated here -- and I get that point.

But in the last couple of centuries, America became great because it was the single biggest "brain drain" problem for the rest of the world. The smartest and most talented people in the world came to the U.S. to pursue a higher education, escape persecution, or to chase other opportunities -- and where smart, talented people go, so goes wealth creation, social advancement, and the like.

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Despite what you may think, the ongoing violence in Iraq is Saddam Hussein’s fault.  At least that’s what President Bush said in a speech to Freedom House today.  But Bush also had a stern message for the Iraqi people, “It’s about time you get a unity government going.”  Yes, get that thing going.

Today, jurors in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui begin deciding whether the Al-Qaeda conspirator can be put to death for his connection to 9/11.  The prosecution has accused Moussaoui of lying to police in August of 2001, which hindered authorities from trying to prevent the 9/11 attacks.  The defense claims that Moussaoui was a lesser member of the group, and that his information wouldn’t have helped prevent the attacks.

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The enthusiastic support by Democrats like Senators Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid for the cheap-labor guest-worker program opposed by the AFL-CIO is a symbol of the final transformation of the Democratic Party from an economically egalitarian party uniting Southern and Western populists with Northern industrial workers into an economically conservative party uniting affluent white lifestyle libertarians with black and Latino voters to whom Democrats appeal on the basis of race and ethnicity, not class.

Socially-liberal, economically-conservative, and appealing to the nonelite voters they need on the basis of inexpensive, feel-good racial/ethnic tokenist policies.  Meet the Democratic Party, circa 2006. 

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The following is by my co-blogger at MaxSpeak, the distinguished Professor Barkley Rosser of James Madison University, in Harrisonburg, Virginia.  (The TPM headline above is my contribution.)  I've been emailing it all over creation.  Please feel free to do likewise.

FBI AS GESTAPO: OPPRESSING THE KURDS OF
HARRISONBURG, VIRGINIA

The following is something that has not hit the media at all, other than a story in the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record that simply repeated FBI propaganda about this awful case.  Harrisonburg, Virginia happens to have one of the largest enclaves of Iraqi Kurdish population in the US.  They all came in the late 1990s to flee from Saddam Hussein's regime after working for pro-US NGOs and having their lives threatened.  They applauded at the fall of Saddam.

However, four of them have been arrested for transferring funds to their families and charitable organizations in Iraqi Kurdistan without a license, a felony offense under the Patriot Act and the act to keep Cubans from sending money to their relatives in Cuba.  One has been convicted in a trial in which most of the evidence was not allowed and in which the FBI suggested that the defendant was a terrorist.  These people were cowed into not talking to the media, and now they are all in deep trouble.  Their homes have been raided, their money seized, even things like medical insurance cards (with one wife pregnant), applications for citizenship are off, they are facing deportation, and so on.  They were assigned a Croatian translator for the court.  There is a serious string of outrages associated with this with no coverage by any serious media.  The FBI agent in charge even told them, "I know you are not the bad guys, but too much paperwork has gone forward on this."

If you are interested in helping these people out, the following are contacts.

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The Book Club discussion about Todd Gitlin’s The Intellectuals and the Flag continues  with this excellent post from Christine Stansell on the politics of patriotism. Read an excerpt from Todd’s book here.

Daniel Levy discusses the results of the Israeli elections here  (for more on the elections, read Jo-Ann Mort’s post from last night).  Frank Joyce explains how he became a world federalist, and Warren Reports’ Elizabeth Warren explains how the Bankruptcy Bill reveals the rocky relationship between the GOP and social conservatives. Joshua Hudelson has the news of the day here,  and After the Levees Boyd Blundell discusses what it’s like to be poor like the “Nolas.” And readers are discussing balancing work and family and Dems on TV.

You can never appreciate grandma or grandpa’s great chicken soup or knish too much, so why not say thanks by handing a pensioners’ party the power to make or break a government?  The Israelis just did.  With the full results almost known, Israel’s political system remains painfully fractured and the pensioners are just a part of that story.  Much number crunching remains to be done, but Israel is very likely to have a center-left government with a working majority that might just be able to extract the country from occupation and conflict.  The implications of these elections cut in different directions and Jo-Ann Mort discussed some of them here at TPM Café yesterday.  One basic point is difficult to deny, though: Israelis want out of the Occupied Territories.  PM Designate Olmert outlined a partial plan for territorial withdrawal in the West Bank.  The Right, claimed (accurately or not) that this would mean “giving up” over 90% of that land and campaigned on a platform of this being a referendum (click here).  Well, they lost the referendum. 

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I don't get it.

This morning, news sources are reporting that Bolton is proposing to fundamentally change UN dues calculations. He wants to change the basis for the assessments from Gross National Product to Purchasing Power Parity.

When I first read the headlines, I was afraid Bolton had officially begun pushing for a transition to cut-n-gut funding for the world body (soon to come, I imagine). That would be a fundamentally bad idea.

Bolton's actual proposal isn't intrinsically bad - but its timing is. The plan "has infuriated Russia and China," which happen to be the swing votes on both Iran and Darfur. Is this really that important to either U.S. interests or the UN's ability to do its job?

I think not - and based on his statements to the press, I'm not even sure Bolton is convinced. 

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When Ambassador John Bolton addressed an audience at the annual AIPAC policy conference in early March, he emphasized US multilateral efforts through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in lockstep with our EU-3 allies (Britain, France, and Germany) to halt the emerging Iranian nuclear threat. Since that address, Bolton and the U.S. delegation have continued to make vigorous diplomatic efforts to gain U.N. Security Council support, particularly from the five permanent members and Germany (P5+1), for a presidential statement expressing concern over Iran’s nuclear enrichment activity.

Following a weekend of negotiations over the language of the statement, Bolton and his team seem to be stuck at an unbridgeable impasse with Russia. This suggests the U.S. could stand to heed the words of some of their allies—the very same ones Bolton rhetorically embraced less than a month ago—who have joined the chorus of voices urging the United States towards direct dialogue with Iran in order to address the broader framework of regional security and non-proliferation concerns as well as to enlist Russian cooperation.

The most recent international figure to be spotlighted for his advocacy of dialogue is none other than IAEA Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei. AP reports:

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei was in Berlin on Monday for talks with German leaders, including Merkel. He said the dispute over Iran was part of a regional security problem that should be addressed in direct talks between the United States and Iran.

He also said "the only way to resolve the Iranian issue is through negotiations."

"A comprehensive package that deals with the whole security issue at the heart of this nuclear problem in Iran needs to be addressed with all concerned parties," ElBaradei said.

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We got him.  Again.  Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who faces war crimes charges, was caught trying to escape custody in Nigeria yesterday.  President Bush had been advised to call off a meeting with Nigeria’s president, Olusegun Obasanjo, until Taylor was found.  Obasanjo says he was “very shocked” by Taylor’s attempted escaped.  Taylor will be transported to Sierra Leone, where his trial is set to take place.

As predicted, Ehud Olmert won Wednesday’s election for Prime Minister of Israel, though his Kadima party took fewer seats than expected.  Turnout at the polls was a record low, but voters tended to favor parties aiming to pull out of the many West Bank settlements.

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Patriotism as politics.

Call me a college professor, but I’m noticing that no one is talking about the book.  And it’s a terrific book.  Cut to the chase, the last chapter, and Todd’s arguments take us past some places where this discussion gets  snagged:   the “are WE patriotic or are THEY patriotic”  debate, or the  “if we pretend to be patriotic, will more people join us”  fantasy, to  the question: “what could it mean for our ideas and conversations if we imagine ourselves holding power in  this  country?”    This country—not the fabled country that will result from that old hobby horse, “fundamental change.”  THIS country, here and now, with its huge problems and its real possibilities and its zillions of conservative and middle-of-the-road voters—along with us, the liberals.

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Allan Carlson gets it.  In the current Weekly Standard, he asks if the marriage between social conservatives and the GOP can be saved.  His case in point:  the bankruptcy bill.  Dr. Carlson makes the point that when Republicans had to make the choice between their big business allies and the millions of hard-working families who put them in office, the politicians enthusiastically chose the financial services giants over the families.  And he’s pretty hot about it.

Dr. Carlson frames the issue in terms of party politics, a rip at the center of the Republican alliance between big business and small families.  But the central point is even larger:  Whether politicians represent corporate interests or family interests is a national question, pervading both Democratic and Republican politics.