A number of influential voices (see here, here, here, and here) are weighing in on the Continuing Resolution (CR) and the 2011 budget. What they are all saying, in one form or another, is that while the debate over the CR is important, it’s a mistake for conservatives to make it their fiscal Ground Zero. What matters most is not the outcome of a debate focused on several billion dollars in discretionary spending cuts for the FY 2011 budget. The key debate is about reforming government in deep structural ways that would save trillions of dollars in the next decade.

Which brings us to the Ryan budget. Next week Representative Paul Ryan, Chairman of the House Budget Committee, will release the GOP House budget for FY 2012. It’s likely to include far-reaching tax and entitlement reforms, significant cuts in domestic discretionary spending, spending caps, the rollback of injurious laws, and more. We’re talking about savings of more than $2 trillion over the next decade. If that’s the case – and we’ll know by early next week – it will rank as arguably the best, most important policy document produced by any Congress in our lifetime.

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If you want to understand the constitutional arguments of both sides on ObamaCare, watch this debate at Harvard Law School last week among Randy Barnett, Charles Fried, and Lawrence Tribe, three of the finest constitutional lawyers in the country.

It seems safe to say that those who pushed ObamaCare through the Congress last year never thought it would be subject to a constitutional challenge as compelling as Barnett’s. His case against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a tour de force that begins with a couple of “thought experiments” – one designed to demonstrate that an economic mandate is fundamentally different from economic regulation or even economic prohibition; another, to establish that the ObamaCare mandate is unprecedented.

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Bashar Assad and Barack Obama don’t have much else in common, but as recent events have shown, both have labored under the delusion that an obsession with Israel could solve their problems.

Earlier this week, Syrian dictator Assad addressed his country in the wake of violent protests in which his security forces had killed dozens. But rather than play the Arab reformer — the pose that this British-trained opthamologist has often assumed during his decade as Syria’s strong man — Assad showed that he was his father’s son. Like the murderous Hafez Assad who slaughtered tens of thousands of his opponents during thirty years in power, Bashar didn’t back down. Instead, he claimed that dissent against his regime was the result of a foreign conspiracy designed to bring down Syria and “enforce an Israeli agenda.”

But on Friday, protesters ignored the charge that they were Israeli agents and again took to the streets of Syria’s cities. Assad’s thugs were there too with, as the New York Times reported, “tear gas, electrified batons, clubs and bullets.”

There are two conclusions to be drawn from this latest turn of events.

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At the Washington Post, Ruth Marcus points out President Obama’s excessive use of the “false choice” paradigm in his speeches. Obama supporters often praise his “nuance” – but as Marcus notes, the president is only “nuanced” if you believe that most people view arguments in extreme black-or-white terms:

The false-choice dodge takes three overlapping forms. The first, a particular Obama specialty, is the false false choice. Set up two unacceptable extremes that no one is seriously advocating and position yourself as the champion of the reasonable middle ground between these unidentified straw men.

Some of Obama’s false choices involve two positions that nobody is realistically supporting. But Marcus argues that this tactic is slightly different than the straw man he set up in his Libya speech last week:

“In fact, much of the debate in Washington has put forward a false choice when it comes to Libya,” the president said on Monday night. “On the one hand, some question why America should intervene at all — even in limited ways — in this distant land.” Meanwhile, he noted, others “have suggested that we broaden our military mission beyond the task of protecting the Libyan people and do whatever it takes to bring down [Libyan leader Moammar] Gaddafi and usher in a new government.”

As Marcus writes, “This isn’t a false choice — it’s a hard one.” She’s correct. But worse than that, these aren’t even two sides of the same argument. We are already in Libya – so whether or not we should intervene is not up for debate. What should be questioned is whether we need to expand our mission to include regime change. It was a mistake for Obama to rule this option out at the beginning. And based on the situation in Libya right now, the president may end up having to face this very real prospect soon.

Despite the encouraging news of recent progress in Afghanistan, the chorus of lawmakers urging the U.S. to pull out of the war is growing. Which might be why President George W. Bush – not usually one to weigh in on current policies – warned of the consequences of leaving Afghanistan too early in a speech yesterday:

“My concern, of course, is that the United States gets weary of being in Afghanistan and says, ‘it’s not worth it, let’s leave,’” Bush said. “If that were to happen, women would suffer again and we don’t believe that’s in the interests of the United States or the world to create safe havens for terrorists and stand by and watch women’s rights be abused.” …

“Part of our objective is to remind people that isolationism will end up subjecting certain people to horrors that — I don’t see how our country could live with that kind of decision,” he said.

The former president was speaking at a conference on promoting human rights and economic opportunities for Afghan women, which was hosted by the George W. Bush Institute. Child marriages, honor killings, and the use of women as currency are still prevalent problems in the country. Companies like Goldman Sachs and Kate Spade participated in the event, and discussed initiatives for reaching out to women and girls in Afghanistan through business and financial education programs.

When I was applying for internships and jobs back in the 1990s, we still did things the old fashioned way: I would put together a one page resume, get some stationery to print out cover letters, include some writing samples, and hope to get lucky. Most often, I did not: But, I could always take solace in the knowledge that, within a month, I’d have some certainty either way. When the rejection letter came, I knew that the powers-that-be had at least considered my application.

I’m lucky now to be in my dream job: Monday marks the start of my eighth year at the American Enterprise Institute. Needless to say, I hope to remain at AEI for years to come. Still, I’ve watched many interns and friends apply for onward jobs in recent years. Almost exclusively, they are required to apply online. Sometimes, the system acknowledges their application; more often, it does not. Organizations say they will contact applicants if the company is interested, but they do not send rejection letters or emails: They simply leave applicants in limbo. This shows amazing disrespect for applicants, and a profound arrogance among the administration of prominent NGOs, companies, and government agencies. Read More

Alan Dershowitz writes a troubling account of his recent visit to Norway. Norwegian universities have recently welcomed speakers like Stephen Walt and Ilan Pappe to address the Israel-Palestinian conflict. But when Dershowitz offered to speak about Israel free of charge, all of the major schools apparently declined, saying that the subject was too controversial.

Further, the university libraries reportedly turned down free copies of a Norwegian translation of Dershowitz’s most well-known book, The Case for Israel.

Dershowitz did end up speaking at several universities, after being invited by student groups. But he writes that his speeches sparked a faculty boycott:

But despite the refusal of the faculties of Norway’s three major universities to invite me to deliver lectures on Israel and international law, I delivered three lectures to packed auditoriums at each university. It turns out that the students wanted to hear me, despite their professors’ efforts to keep my views from them. Student groups invited me. I came. And I received sustained applause both before and after my talks. Faculty members boycotted my talks and declined even to meet with me.

According to Dershowitz, the sustained effort at Norwegian schools to initiate an Israeli cultural and academic boycott has resulted in a “de facto” boycott of Jewish pro-Israel speakers. “Moreover,” writes Dershowitz, “all Jews are presumed to be pro-Israel unless they have a long track record of anti-Israel rhetoric.”

The worst part of such an academic boycott is that the students genuinely sound like they’re interested in hearing pro-Israel perspectives. But if the universities continue to shut these voices out, the upcoming generation won’t have the opportunity to hear anything other than anti-Israel arguments, at least not in an academic setting.

The March unemployment numbers are out, and they are favorable: 216,000 jobs created, following a month in which 214,000 were created. The trend line is unmistakably positive, especially since all of the job creation is in the private sector. But these are only good numbers relative to the horrific numbers of the past three years. (You can see a chart of monthly job creation in the United States here; you can adjust it back 50 years.) Given the growth in the size of the American population, producing a little in excess of 200,000 jobs a month will not be enough to bring the unemployment rate back to a level at which the newly employed can—through their own economic activity—help to lower the rate still further. It’s still the case that the overall unemployment rate, which fell a tenth of a point to 8.8 percent, continues to fall less because of job creation than the continuing fact that people are dropping out of the workforce altogether. As Jim Pethokoukis tweeted this morning, “labor force participation is at the lowest point in 27 years,” with less than 65 percent of the able-bodied gainfully employed.

The political impact of this will be interesting; it’s hard to predict, really. As always, the issue for a president in a troubled economy is not what the statistics say but what the American people feel. If they feel as though the economy is in recovery and it cheers them, it will be of immense benefit to Obama. If, however, that’s not the feeling—if even among the comfortably employed, rising gas and food prices combine with the fact that the value of their house may still be underwater to make them feel uncertain about the future—a slowly declining unemployment rate isn’t likely to make much of a difference.

Just days after a series of Turkish police raids targeting unpublished books and criticism of political Islam, Francis “Frank” J. Ricciardone, Obama’s un-confirmable ambassadorial recess appointment to Turkey, is at it again. Having made his career in the 1980s shilling for Saddam Hussein, in the 1990s trying to undermine Iraqi opposition unity, and this past decade arguing that Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was so popular in Egypt that he could even win election in the United States, Ricciardone is now interjecting himself in the midst of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s opposition crackdown to praise the strength of Turkey’s democracy.

According to Zaman, a newspaper affiliated with Islamist cult leader Fethullah Gulen, Ricciardone said, “There has been a great development in democratic structure in Turkey,” and praised Turkey’s “open democracy.”

On the same day Ricciardone made his comments, Turkey’s most prominent bank chairman resigned after criticizing the ruling party for threatening police measures against bankers who did not follow the ruling party’s political dictates.

Ricciardone and, by extension, President Obama just don’t get it: American interests do not lay in ingratiation to dictators. Ricciardone should not put lipstick on a pig. Saying nice things about dictators does not make abuse-of-power go away; it encourages it. When an ambitious, corrupt Islamist like Erdogan tries to monopolize power, it is essential to encourage Turkey’s system to develop checks-and-balances that protect civil society.