The only thing we, as foreigners, can do to promote democracy is to be diplomatically extra-friendly to democratic countries, and to countries with independent, trustworthy judiciaries, and stuff like that -- and less helpful to undemocratic countries where the rule of law is not present. This might actually work!

Of course, the US has done exactly the opposite, overthrowing democracies in Central and South America with great regularity, trying to isolate and refusing to recognize Hamas -- which won free and fair elections -- sabre-rattling against Iran (which does have elections, though not fully free and fair, and has a well-respected judiciary) -- while supporting the most undemocratic country in the world, Saudi Arabia, essentially unconditionally.

I don't know whether "democratization" would work. After all, we have never tried it.

Posted at April 28, 2008 7:31 PM in response to If wishes were horses--liberals could democratize

Just remind your friends outside the US:

(1) Only 54.?% of Pennsylvania Democrats voted for Clinton.

(2) Due to the dreadful Republican-controlled media, most of them hadn't even *heard* the psychopathic "obliterate" line.

In other words, *most of us aren't crazy like that*.

Posted at April 23, 2008 6:30 PM in response to A view from overseas

Actually, as of now she's winning by 8.4%.

Not ten points.

Posted at April 23, 2008 4:44 AM in response to Josh Marshall needs to stop his bias

Actually, based on the more recent numbers, the spread is going to be something like 8.4%. (The current numbers show 8.4% -- the few areas remaining out are all expected to favor Obama). Not even *close* to 10.

Posted at April 23, 2008 4:43 AM in response to Clinton Did Not Cross the Threshold in PA

Is it possible to ban trolls at TPMCafe? The parent commenter is developing a consistent record.

For the onlookers, it's well known that Obama supported a revote where he would be on the *ballot* and the DNC would count it, while Clinton blocked a revote, and was demanding that the results of the original Soviet-style election be counted. Clinton, after changing her tune once it was too late, then demanded impossible conditions for revotes and tried to blame Obama for it.

Of course, the Michigan Democratic Party leadership was even more to blame for the fiasco.

Posted at April 14, 2008 10:46 PM in response to Polls: Revote Battle May Have Hurt Obama In Florida, But Not Michigan

What this means?

I would guess that people working for hedge funds are most worried about the economic collapse, since it's their jobs which are going first during the collapse.

Clearly about three quarters of them think that McCain would be bad for the economy and a Democrat would be good.

Posted at April 14, 2008 10:08 PM in response to Money Managers Betting On Obama

Peggy Noonan's not credible on most issues but here's one point: she was a *speechwriter* by profession. She wrote most of Reagan's most successful speeches. She knows effective rhetoric when she sees it. If she honestly believes what she wrote (which is not guaranteed, of course, maybe it was a deliberate ploy) -- then she thinks his rhetoric is really good, and her opinion on *that* is credible.

Posted at April 14, 2008 10:03 PM in response to Denouncing and rejecting DF

"Greater of two goods" has a nice ring to it, actually.

Posted at April 14, 2008 9:54 PM in response to Hillary Clinton: Bitterness Towards Her Campaign (and why)

Why is this relevant? Because Clinton has been running a largely Republican-line campaign, doing McCain's work for him. Yes, she has been distracting rural Americans from the issues which matter to them -- with bogus Republican ideas like the "commander in chief threshhold", with the "3 AM phone call" ad, and so on.

When Obama notes that the Republicans are trying to distract people from the issues that matter with hot-button "cultural" issues, he's avoiding saying outright that Hillary Clinton is distracting people using the same tactics as Bush and McCain did -- using the phony "war on terror" instead of the cultural issues. Why is he avoiding saying that, since it's true? Because he doesn't want to hurt a fellow Democratic candidate if he doesn't have to.

How's that for an explanation, dijamo?

Posted at April 14, 2008 9:43 PM in response to In Pennsylvania Robocall, Obama Surrogate Pushes Back On Criticism Of "Small Town" Comments

I'm a big supporter of tenure -- but there are three grounds for firing a tenured professor for cause -- grounds which are significantly underused -- and two of them may apply in this case.

(1) misfeasance.

Teaching so inaccurately that it constitutes malpractice. This is very hard to judge in most subjects, but things like a math teacher announcing to his or her students that 1+1=3, and testing them on it, would qualify.

The consensus among lawyers is that Yoo's memo represents legal malpractice (by failing to reference Youngstown, for starters); if he teaches his students to "practice" law this way, it would probably be misfeasance.

On the other hand, perhaps he only gives this sort of bad legal advice on his own time, and teaches his students not to do anything of the sort; that wouldn't be misfeasance.

(2) malfeasance.

Committing serious crimes, or moral turpitude. Yoo probably is guilty of conspiracy to commit war crimes, and is definitely guilty of moral turpitude for supporting torture. I think is this pretty clear, but the evidence is certainly strong enough to justify a malfeasance hearing.

(3) nonfeasance.

Just not showing up for work. He's not guilty of this one.

Posted at April 14, 2008 9:19 PM in response to More Yoo