Davy, on Peter Wehner:

I came across this blog from realclearpolitics.com but judging solely on the post above, this must be a partisan publication. Any political hack, if honest, will tell you that Palin as VP, is a hail mary pass, a half-court heave, an attempt to hit a 10-run homer — whatever sports analogy you want to use — it smacks of desperation.

In a week or so, it will also bring some serious tactical challenges:

1. They are going to have to spend a lot of time filling in the blanks on Palin, more so than was the case with Biden, who came with a ready-made narrative. That means less time for messaging on whatever issues which can win the election, most likely attacks on Obama.

2. McCain has now made age a bona fide and safe issue to discuss. The Dems have tiptoed around but now, America has no choice but to confront the fact that McCain is 72 and Palin would be next in-line to be POTUS.

3. The Dems are moving to neutralize the energy issue with the Gang of 10 compromise which will allow some offshore drilling so Palin’s selling point as an energy-conscious governor will be nullified to an extent.

4. This is the worst way to pitch Hillary voters. Many Hillary voters resisted Barack Obama as another example of the less-qualified male stepping over the more qualified older woman. Palin is now going to be the poster girl for the younger, pretty, less-qualified girl that older women have always had to deal with, whether it’s the boss preferring eye candy over competence or the husband trading in the older model to deal with his midlife crisis. The fact that Palin has very little common ground on the issues with Hillary means that PUMA, in order to vote for the Republicans, have to admit that it is solely about ovaries and nothing else.

5. McCain did next-to-nothing to bolster his credentials on the economy. Palin manages a state that pays people to live there — that’s a very different situation than the lower 48.

6. Joe Biden will relentlessly attack McCain and now Palin. How can Palin credibly attack Obama or Biden on experience or foreign policy?

7. That crowd in Ohio was not terribly excited (or at least that’s how it played on TV) about Palin. Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s initial reaction was probably more representative of the true feelings in the party than the made-for-TV response brought out after the announcement.

Addison, on Daniel Casse:

Let me preface this with: I wish Mitt Romney were the Republican Presidential nominee.

That written, it would be an act of mind-boggling asininity for McCain to pick him as a Vice President. The recorded rancor and enmity between those two during the primaries would be used against McCain just as he, McCain, used Senator Biden’s words against Obama, but more so, as the enmity between the two–from what I read–was considerable.

Governor Sarah Palin is a better choice. Even if it is pointed out she has an experience deficit, the question to retort with is, to whom, Senator McCain (naturally, given her age) or Barack Obama? Given the Democrat rules this year, she has more experience to be President that Barack Obama, so I would find it difficult for the Democrat campaign to question her experience when the Republican ticket is the reverse–in experience–of the Democrats.

I don’t know how many women care if a Vice Presidential pick falls in the ‘oh, we both have ovaries, how lovely’ category but having a woman in the Vice Presidential slot would make Mrs. Palin the most powerful woman in US history, but that could get some votes from the Hillary supporters (who must certainly feel a bit scorned right now).

CK MacLeod, on Jennifer Rubin:

You know, if some of you McCain critics with your ridiculous amazement at the fact that McCain answers questions crisply and quickly actually watched him at town hall, you wouldn’t find his performance the other night very unusual. That’s how he is. That’s what he does. He’s used to answering every kind of question. Newsflash: Unlike your guy, he’s actually an experienced politician who’s been answering questions of all types for 30 years. Unlike your guy, he’s been giving town halls almost daily, sometimes more than one time a day, for months. In the meantime, unlike your guy, for most of that time up until fairly recently, he was so open with the press that rightwingers referred to the media as his “real base.” This is John McCain. He doesn’t need the questions ahead of time. If he had them ahead of time, he’d probably be at a disadvantage since he and his staff would try to contrive responses and he’s not as good at following a script.

He could do this in his sleep. You guys are hilarious. You hate and despise him, and are willing to make all sorts of wild accusations - even, in the height of hypocrisy, accusing him of being dishonorable, on the basis of no evidence - and you don’t even know him! If you could force yourself to watch just one of his townhalls the next time one is broadcast, you’d know, and you wouldn’t embarrass yourselves with this childish malarkey.

You’re as arrogant as your candidate. Big surprise.

Ari, on Linda Chavez:

I couldn’t agree more. Fears of rampant cultural destruction are completely misplaced. If anything, this country needs a second language!

“You’re where you are from, and you incidentally happen to be an American”

I don’t think we say that. American culture is Americanizing such exotic locales as India and China - that Hispanic immigrants within America should somehow be spared its pervasive and encompassing reach is somewhat implausible.

“When you have ten different ethnicities in a city’s ghettos, you have competition for success. When you have *one* ethnicity in a city’s ghetto, you have an opportunity to avoid assimilation.”

Immigrants inevitably tend to cluster. When has there ever been racial competition in Chinatown? When was there competition in the Jewish section of the Lower East Side in the early 20th century? “Ethnic competition”? What do you mean? Besides, David, it’s not as though Mexicans are turning California into Mexico - illegal immigrants who speak only Spanish often cross the border just for work.

“as in, people with a cultural, social and even political identity to the country right next door, as opposed to the Ellis Island wave of immigrants, who had no choice but to leave the “old country” behind”

As I said, these people often don’t stay in this country. Those who do are no more malign than Jews or Chinese. There is no excess of Hispanics in America.

Raj C., on Jennifer Rubin:

Add it [America’s response to the situation in Georgia] to the list of conservative policy failures. Bush inherited a record surplus, moral authority to lead the world, a global rush toward liberalization and democracy, and peace with Russia. Gone. Gone. Gone and Gone. Well played, right wingers!

I must admit that I like Bush’s use of the military to deliver humanitarian aid. Artful. Would that he were this inventive before hostilities broke out.

RE: Obama’s vacation. He’s right to keep quite at this stage. Obama has no power over foreign policy, and he is wise not to be seen as undermining or criticizing the president during an international crisis. What would be the point in sending a message to the Russians that might conflict with Bush’s? Why show any daylight? How could that possibly be in America’s best interests, or Obama’s, particularly when the clock is running on Bush’s administration?

Funny, isn’t it, that Obama’s actually building his lead while he’s on vacation? McCain can’t even move the needle when he has the stage to himself. The Real Clear Politics average now has Obama plus 5. He’s pulled ahead of McCain in Alaska! And his favorables gap over McCain has widened. Still a little early to say whether Georgia has had any impact, but so far, so good.

Question: If we go to war with Russia, would that be World War V? I’ve lost count.

Moshe Aharon, on Jennifer Rubin:

I write to applaud Senator Obama’s close relationship with George Clooney.

In the present post-historical period international issues are framed as narratives. The once-heroic Israeli narrative, for example, has been superceded by the poignant Palestinian narrative of displacement and occupation. The current skirmish between Russia and Georgia is likewise a compelling conflict between narratives. In this context it would be a mistake to confuse the soft power of narratives with outmoded neocolonial concepts of hard power or geopolitical ambition. Senator Obama understands — as contributors to Commentary do not — that Mr. Clooney and his peers in Hollywood wield enormous influence in the construction and dissemination of governing narratives. As President, Senator Obama will be able to harness this soft power to create alternative sources of energy, halt global warming, and save the oceans.

I am saddened to share that Ms. Rubin’s blog is emblematic of the barriers that confront Mankind in our collective efforts to save the planet in a post-historical era of peace, ecological balance, and limited consumption. Thank you, Mr. Clooney, for your contribution to Our Moment and Our Movement.

From J.E. Dyer, on Max Boot:

Let’s keep a few things straight.

First, Russia has not been a help with Iran. Russia is not our ally in the project of keeping Iran un-nuked. There are absolutely no concessions we can make to Russia that will induce Moscow to act honestly in this role. Moscow wants the US out of South Asia as much as Iran does. All the Russians will do with our commitment to a Russia-enabled process with Iran is exploit it to keep us from changing course, and acting more decisively.

Second, Russia has, since November of 2007, presented Georgia with every provocation in South Ossetia except a slap in the face with a glove. Russian forces have actually occupied South Ossetia for some time now, even though it is disputed territory whose disposition is supposed to be determined by peaceful negotiation. Georgia has excellent historical reasons, going back three hundred years, to fear Russia’s intentions toward Georgia — and to fear the strategic position Russia would have as the occupier of South Ossetia, to menace Georgian independence.

Third, anyone who doesn’t think Russia would like to menace Georgian independence should refer to Russia’s post-Cold War history with Georgia, and to Russia’s attempt to fix the 2004 election in Ukraine, which almost certainly included poisoning the nationalist independence candidate.

Fourth, South Ossetia itself has a large majority of ethnic Russians, and if it came to a vote, would choose to rejoin Russia. America’s interest here is not in forcing South Ossetia to remain part of Georgia, but in ensuring that South Ossetia’s fate is decided peacefully, and without compromising Georgia’s security.

This last is the place to start. We should do more than send Stingers and Javelins to Georgia: we should make it a project for a full spectrum of US patronage, to enable Georgia to defend her sovereignty. We had US military trainers in Georgia until the day before Russia invaded, training the Georgians to participate in Iraq. The precedent and infrastructure are there to immediately step up our military cooperation with Georgia, and publicly outline our interest there.

Instead of a series of incoherent responses to Russian actions, we should get out in front of this problem by defining it on our terms: a sovereign Georgia, a South Ossetia whose future is decided by negotiation and not force, a Black Sea whose security and accessibility for all is not held hostage by Moscow (critical to Ukraine, Romania, and Turkey), and a resources regime (e.g., oil) that enriches Moscow as much as anyone else, but does not put the region’s resources under Moscow’s exclusive domination.

(Consider, for example, that we in the US do not require all the natural resources of even North America, much less the rest of the Western Hemisphere, to be under our domination. We even let China drill off our coast, without so much as a public political discussion of doing otherrwise, so entrenched and longstanding is our commitment to national sovereignty and UN protocols for the world’s resources. You may not think it’s important to get Russia and China to operate on the same principle — and they don’t, BTW — but you can’t argue that the US doesn’t at least practice what we preach, in this regard.)

We should not attempt, nor do we need, to force Russia out of South Ossetia militarily. If we have to, we can even accept the outcome of South Ossetia being subsumed by Russia through this invasion, although we should make Russia pay for that inch by inch. Our increased commitment to Georgia should be non-negotiable, and we should also promptly increase non-negotiable cooperation with, and military sales to, Ukraine and Romania. But we could also conduct Black Sea naval patrols, with US Air Force cover from Turkey, and make a UN-monitored referendum in South Ossetia the price Russia pays for our forces standing down from that operation. Russia’s capacity to confront such an operation outright is limited, and she doesn’t want to provoke a larger confrontation with us anyway.

We should do nothing without a clear concept of what it is we are trying to achieve. If we have learned nothing else from Vietnam, we should have learned that merely flinging arms at a problem, without a definable objective, is worse than useless. It creates new vulnerabilities without accomplishing anything positive. If we are going to demonstrate resolve to Russia, we will have to make it clear to Russia what she is not to do: try to subvert Georgian sovereignty, or the sovereignty of the other Black Sea nations, by either arms or political subterfuge. What Russia should see is every other nation on the Black Sea strengthening before her eyes — and her gambit in South Ossetia backfiring.

Seth Halpern on David Hazony:

Israel has no government, no clear public consensus on much of anything including even the validity of its founding principles, is beset by violent enemies and routinely vilified around the world, yet somehow not only survives but prospers. One needs to suspend disbelief when approaching Israel as one would when viewing a movie or a play. There’s an alternate reality at work. In such circumstances modesty gives way to speechlessness.

A little late, today. John Russell on Jennifer Rubin:

Last week I paid $3.95 a gallon for gasoline…I had enough of high gas prices, so I immediately inflated my tires. The next day I again paid $3.95….so I again inflated my tires.

The next day I paid 3.95 , and again, I inflated my tires. I just don’t understand…Obama told me that this would bring the price of gas down….but, being a staunch democrat, I once again inflated my tires and BOOOOOMMMM! I found out the hard way that Obama is just FULL of HOT AIR! Now I need a new tire.

Gord, on Noah Pollak:

I suppose the response of the George Kennan acolytes would be: The Strait will not be closed. We will bring the navy in and if you nuke it, we will incinerate your country. But what if the Mullahs then threaten to incinerate the Saudi, Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil fields and Israel in response to any such threat by us. Oops. I guess we will then have no Fifth Fleet, no staunch ally in the ME, and no emerging Arab democracy in Iraq, but we will have $15/gallon gas. Lester can then ride his horse to work, as long as he is responsible for cleaning up the waste. We want to be environmentally conscious after all.

From J.E. Dyer, on Daniel Halper:

The public narrative on this is probably too well entrenched to ever be dislodged. But, once again, whatever it is you believed about Saddam and WMD, US intelligence did NOT believe Saddam had the stockpiles of mushroom-cloud producing warheads evoked by Colin Powell’s UN speech.

US intelligence believed Saddam had two basic things: an undetermined number of former-Soviet chemical rounds on-hand, along with an undetermined number of battlefield rockets and short-medium-range missiles to deliver them (the inventory never accounted for by UN inspectors); and a group of WMD programs. The WMD programs were believed to include nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs, along with the ballistic missile program to provide warhead delivery. Saddam was thought to have dual-use factories which could rapidly be converted from commercial production or research to WMD production. As stated repeatedly by President Bush, the concern about Saddam and these programs was the ease with which he might supply the quantities of WMD sufficient for terrorist attacks (which could be very small) to groups like Al Qaeda.

After the war, what we found — in spite of the months Saddam had had available to move items out of the country, whether you believe he did or not — was:

- More than former-Soviet 500 chemical rounds

- Documentation and pieces/parts of Saddam’s ballistic missile programs, including development of missiles with longer range than allowed by the UN sanctions

- A number of tons of partially enriched uranium (the precise number has not been reported to the public, and Canada accepted the uranium after the war), retained from the 1980s in defiance of UN sanctions

- Blueprints for a uranium-enrichment centrifuge, and documentation (see the Duelfer Report) of Saddam’s continuing retention of scientists, infrastructure, foreign contacts, and a funding line for a nuclear weapons program

- Containers of the chemical toxins sarin, VX, and mustard gas

- Documentation of the intended dual use of chemical factories for weapon production

What we found after the war largely validated our pre-war estimates. Those who insist otherwise simply don’t know what they are talking about.

We want to start highlighting the best of the many excellent reader comments we receive here at CONTENTIONS. So, without further ado, the Commentary of the Day, from Lawrence Gulotta, on John Podhoretz’s post “Death of an Oak“:

A thoughtful piece of writing by Messr. John Podhoretz: “He stood athwart the greatest evil the world has ever known, and, by the grace of God, he outlived that evil, by 16 years.”

I stopped giving the former USSR any benefit of the doubt after reading and hearing Alexander Solzhenitsyn, as a student and young adult during the early 1970s. He methodically pulled apart the Soviet’s false ideological defenses one-by-one in his works and talks. I was privileged to hear Solzhenitsyn speak in Manhattan, at a long speach sponsored by the NY AFL-CIO trade unionists. Sol “Chik” Chaiken chaired the meeting. Solzhenitsyn spoke for nearly two-hours, reading from index cards and extemporizing. One stanza at a time, he demolished the philosophical underpinnings of Soviet Marxism.

Seated at my table was an Afro-American trade unionist, among others. A good hour into Solzhenitsyn’s talk, the black trade unionist looked up and remarked, ” You know,” he said to me, “there are serious problems in Mississippi, too.” I was startled by his remark. Could Mississippi, at its worst, equal the horrors of Stalinist Russia? I’ve never felt that there existed an “equivalence” between the two systems, yet my table partner obviously felt that too much time was spent attacking Russia’s evil system and insufficient time denouncing the evils in Mississippi.

Solzhenitsyn spoke at great length. The AFL-CIO gave him his long sought after podium in the USA. Sol “Chik” Chaiken began rolling his eyes toward the ceiling after 90 minutes of stand-up bravery, intoned with a Russian Orthodox priestly cadence and accent. During that two-hour talk, Solzhenitsyn was our patriarch or mentor. My table partner did stay for the whole talk, stirring somewhat uncomfortable in his chair. Alexandre Solzhenitsyn filled the room with his voice and his truth. Solzhenitsyn’s works allowed me to reach the truth concerning the barbaric nature of the former USSR. As a young political activist, I was fortunate to have received the invitation to hear this great figure in person talk about defying the odds in the gulag.

Hey, CONTENTIONS readers! COMMENTARY is looking for an in-house IT supervisor. Our requirements?

A person who can:
– serve as a systems administrator in both Windows and Unix environments
– work with PHP/CF/SQL
– physically set up and manage server systems
– manage Commentary’s website in-house
– set up and manage email servers
– set up an internal network in the Commentary offices
– manage, organize, and secure Commentary office data
– perform load testing and log analysis, and other statistical and performance tests
– work with WordPress
– preferably work with Flash

SALARY IS HIGHLY COMPETITIVE. The candidate should be energetic and self-motivated. Also he/she should be excited about learning new interactive technologies as they evolve, and very good at working with others. Also must be willing to take on more responsibility as the position evolves.

Please send resumes, with references and portfolio, to applicants@commentarymagazine.com. And please tell your friends.

Thanks!

Sam Munson,
Online Editor

Hey, CONTENTIONS readers!  COMMENTARY is looking for an in-house IT person who can:

– serve as a systems administrator in both Windows and Unix environments
– work with PHP/CF/SQL
– physically set up and manage server systems
– manage Commentary’s website in-house
– set up and manage email servers
– set up an internal network in the Commentary offices
– manage, organize, and secure Commentary office data
– perform load testing and log analysis, and other statistical and performance tests
– work with WordPress
– preferably work with Flash

SALARY IS HIGHLY COMPETITIVE. The candidate should be energetic and self-motivated. Also he/she should be excited about learning new interactive technologies as they evolve, and very good at working with others. Also must be willing to take on more responsibility as the position evolves.

Please send resumes, with references and portfolio, to applicants@commentarymagazine.com. And please tell your friends.

Thanks!

Sam Munson,
Online Editor

For those of you curious to see Fitna,  the controversial Dutch politician and filmmaker Geert Wilders’s so-called anti-Muslim movie, you can check it out below:

As you’ve probably noticed, THE HORIZON has gone on hiatus. The arts and culture bloggers you enjoy are still writing for us, but now they can be read at CONTENTIONS.

As of this afternoon, we are integrating our arts coverage into CONTENTIONS. Which means, sadly, bidding goodbye to THE HORIZON as a stand-alone blog. All of the arts bloggers you enjoy will still be writing for us. So don’t worry. Just make sure to look for them here.

Powerline has just announced that Norman Podhoretz’s World War IV is the winner of its first Book of the Year Award. Podhoretz is, of course, COMMENTARY’S Editor at Large, and the articles that formed the basis of the book first appeared in COMMENTARY. As Scott Johnson, one of the three proprietors of Powerline, writes:

We judge Podhoretz’s book perhaps the most important published last year. It is an elegantly written assessment of the long war in which we are engaged, and a passionate defense of the Bush Doctrine. As Podhoretz notes in the book, we have occasionally expressed our own second thoughts about the Bush Doctrine and do not necessarily agree with every tenet of his argument. We are nevertheless quite sure that it is a book, not just for this season, but for the foreseeable future during which the United States will confront the Islamist enemy that is at war with us.

The $25,000 prize, funded by an anonymous benefactor and to be donated in Podhoretz’s honor to Soldier’s Angels, makes it the most financially substantial award in American publishing. “With this award,” Johnson writes, “it is our intention to raise awareness of one of the several outstanding books published by conservative authors last year that have been or will be given short shrift by the Pulitzer and NBCC judges.” The award will be presented Monday night at a dinner in New York featuring Henry Kissinger and Mark Steyn.

Apologies for the gap in service! We were experiencing technical difficulties with our server as a result of unprecedented response to John Podhoretz’s Why They Hate McCain. but we’re back online now, as you can see.