Category Archives: Politics: US

Not Geniuses has a pretty smart appraisal of California AG Bill Lockyer's otherwise bizzaro revelation that he voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Basically the theory is that it's a smart and cynical move,

Bill has never voted for a Republican before, he voted no on the recall, he couldn't bring himself to vote for a candidate Californians didn't like, and now he can start working with Schwarzenegger an ally? He's praying that his optimism isn't misplaced and setting up a context for Arnold to con him? He's setting up a whole [expletive deleted] storyline for Arnold to fit into if he missteps even once! And it gets better.

Arnold will [expletive deleted] up, this much is guaranteed. He may block some of Lockyer's liberal policies, thus angering Californians. He may cut services we don't want cut, he may play partisan politics, he may screw with environmental legislation, he may anger Latinos, he may fail. No matter what he does, Lockyer is going to run against him — and he is going to run against him as an experienced politician who was sucked into Arnold's aura of optimism and saw first hand that it was but a sham.

Michael Kinsley nails it in Why Bush Angers Liberals. My main puzzlement is, what makes Kinsley think only liberals think like this? Or, if he's right, why do only liberals think like this?

Another story buried inside the national edition of the Times is Commission on 9/11 Attacks Issues Subpoena to the F.A.A. Here's the key part:

In a statement, the 10-member commission said it learned within the last few days that “various tapes, statements, interview reports and agency self-assessments highly material to our inquiry inexplicably had not been included” in the materials from the aviation agency. “It is clear that the F.A.A.'s delay has significantly impeded the progress of our investigation,” the statement said.

…

Government officials with knowledge of the commission's work said the panel and its staff were particularly alarmed by the discovery that they had not been provided with detailed transcripts and other information about communications on Sept. 11 between the the F.A.A. and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or Norad, the unit of the Pentagon that is responsible for defending American air space.

I've argued before that the 9/11 commission is a possible sleeper issue of serious magnitude. This latest develpment (cover-up?) is consistent with that hypothesis.

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Monday evening I attended the U. Miami edition of The People Speak: America Debates its Role in the World which was a marquee edition of the 1000 or so related events being held around the country this fortnight.

The run-up to the meeting was not auspicious. Neither in some ways—mostly relating to the presence of Fred Barnes—was the meeting.

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Several of the Democratic presidential candidates have struggled with the Iraq issue because they are on record as having voted for the bill that permitted the invasion (the issue seems to have flummoxed Clark as well). Dean has made hay with this.

Take Senator Kerry as an example. I think he would probably be a fine President (as would several other of the Democratic hopefuls). He started his campaign as the notional front runner, and surrounded himself with consultants from the Democratic party establishment. And they ran the standard play from the Democratic playbook: if you are ahead, be cautious. Don't blow it. That might have worked against Gephardt, a very studied sort of populist, but it doesn't work against genuine populist insurgents (Dean, maybe Clark).

Caution is not such a terrible trait in a President, at least most of the time, but it proved a wasting strategy for the Kerry campaign. So, at long, long last, John Kerry has finally decided to attack Bush in his foreign policy soft underbelly. While I think that it's a good decision, it does make one wonder about the more general question of why so many of the candidates have avoided the obvious explanation for their vote: Bush lied to us.

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