Be very afraid

On the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, Fred Barnes (subs. req'd) warns of "The Seinfeld Campaign"; in a sub-heading presumably provided by the WSJ editors, we are told

So far, the 2008 presidential contest seems to be about nothing.

It's not clear that Barnes or his editors remember the previous example of this usage --

Andrew Kohut, the veteran pollster and president of the Pew Research Center, dubbed the 2000 contest "the Seinfeld election" - it was about nothing.

That would be the election that put George Bush in the White House to snooze during the summer of 2001, manufacture an invasion of Iraq, and run up trillions of dollars in debt. When the conservative establishment is bored, the rest of us should be worried.

Bad example

Washington Post

It's a bit weird when in the joint statement from David Miliband and Condi Rice regarding the Kenyan electoral crisis that they call for "an intensive political and legal process that can build a united and peaceful future for Kenya" when the lesson of the 2000 electoral crisis in Florida was that whoever shouts loudest and longest has the inside track in determining the eventual outcome -- such as with the infamous "Brooks Brothers riot" at the count centre in Miami, featuring flown-in Republican staffers to create the appearance of popular outrage, when of course the actual outrage was those still uncounted votes for Al Gore.

Kenya clearly needs to find some process for figuring out who won without any more people getting killed. But it shouldn't be the American model.

Inoperative

National Review's The Corner --

Lest we Forget Who We're Fighting [Michael Ledeen]

This comes from the Kuwaiti News Agency

BAGHDAD, Dec 31 (KUNA) — Members of the paramilitary Awakening Council of Al-A'zhamiya arrested three persons of Iranian nationality and handed them to the US forces, commander of the council Colonel Riyadh Al-Samerra'e said Monday.

He does no follow up. Which would lead him to --

Iraq denies arrests of Iranians

Published: Jan. 2, 2008 at 7:30 AM

BAGHDAD, Jan. 2 (UPI) -- The Iraqi government denied local media reports that three men working for the Interior Ministry arrested as insurgents were Iranian citizens.

The ministry's chief of operations, Maj. Gen. Abdel-Karim Khalaf, told Kuwait's KUNA news agency the unidentified men arrested by U.S. forces Monday in Baghdad would be freed and were not Iranian.

Osama-nomics

One little detail from bin Laden's latest message --

The Saudi-born militant leader urged Muslims in a video recording on Saturday to support militants so they can “preserve your oil and wealth and protect your money that is slipping between your fingers due to the unjust and arbitrary dollar pegs.”

He refers to the fact that most Middle East oil producers peg their currencies to the dollar. Has anyone told George Bush that his weak dollar is helping al Qaeda propaganda?

Not out with the old

George Bush manages to get in one last signing statement for 2007 -- these are statements which accompanies legislation that he signs in which he outlines which part of that legislation he won't be obeying. This time, if the Democrats had any sense, the talking point should be "Why does George Bush hate Darfur refugees?" --

Today, I have signed into law S. 2271, the "Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007." ... This Act purports to authorize [US] State and local governments to divest from companies doing business in named sectors in Sudan and thus risks being interpreted as insulating from Federal oversight State and local divestment actions that could interfere with implementation of national foreign policy. However, as the Constitution vests the exclusive authority to conduct foreign relations with the Federal Government, the executive branch shall construe and enforce this legislation in a manner that does not conflict with that authority.

There's no reason to believe that 2008 will be any different.

New to you

From a New York Times assessment of Benazir Bhutto's influence in Washington --

Last week, Mr. Siegel said, he e-mailed Ms. Bhutto to tell her he had heard that their publisher, HarperCollins, was pleased with the book the two had just turned in, “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West.” He received a happy response from Ms. Bhutto by BlackBerry. “Which we called her ‘crackberry’ because she was so addicted to it,” Mr. Siegel said.

Isn't it someone's job -- either Siegel, the writer of the article, or its editor -- to make it clear that it's not like these people actually came up with that term themselves for the addictive Canadian device?

Spinners in uniform

The Pentagon website still carries a week-old story "reassuring" soldiers that delays in Congressional funding won't mean any layoffs in the department of defence, but makes no mention of how George Bush's end-of-year veto will delay the implementation of a pay raise for soldiers which was due on New Year's Day.

UPDATE: On New Year's Eve, there is finally a Pentagon announcement about the vetoed pay raise.

FINAL UPDATE: In fairness to the Pentagon, this story straightforwardly notes that the veto is adversely affecting army recruitment because of the uncertainty it created about bonuses.

Hot off the presses

A little link guesswork finds the Sunday New York Times book section review of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism.

UPDATE: The link is now live on the NYT webpage so the frisson of an early read is gone.

Her skin is a different shade

Who knew that France took beauty pageants so seriously? Today brings news of a bizarre compromise in which the holder of the title "Miss France", Valérie Begue, will not represent France in the Miss World contest because of, in Krusty's words, that thing with what's-her-name, click click, you know, nudge nudge wink wink, so apparently the runner-up in the national contest, Miss New Caledonia, Requillart Vahinerii, (above) will take her place internationally.

Special interest

George Bush has announced, on the afternoon of the last working day of 2007, that he will veto the bill that gives a pay raise to soldiers along with other defence policy matters.

Misleading accounts of why the veto is being used will say that it's to protect assets of the new Iraqi government from being seized as part of lawsuits against the Saddam Hussein era government.

In fact it's to protect only those assets of the new government being held in the United States, where the lawsuits have jurisdiction. Thus what is being protected is not the assets themselves, which could be moved to pounds or euros in a flash, but the profit margin that accrues to US banks (and, implicitly, the US government) from these assets being held in dollars.

If one was looking for a signal that the administration is more panicked that it lets on about the move of financial assets out of dollars, this would be it. Of course there's also the simple explanation that Wall Street profits get higher priority than military salaries.

UPDATE: A White House Fact (sic) Sheet never mentions that only Iraqi government assets held in the US are affected.

FINAL UPDATE: Bush left it so late to veto the bill that technically it's a pocket veto, where the bill lapses by not being signed rather than being explicitly vetoed.

Flypaper reverses polarity

The Wall Street Journal's lead editorial (subs. req'd; alt. free link) is about Benazir Bhutto's murder --

With the jihadists losing in Iraq and having a hard time hitting the West, their strategy seems to be to make vulnerable Pakistan their principal target, and its nuclear arsenal their principal prize.

Apparently the idea for al Qaeda to hit Pakistan -- their home base -- never occurred to them until now. Indeed, it only occurred to them after the success of the surge. An additional complication is that the whole point of the Iraq adventure was once flypaper -- that it would draw all terrorists into a losing battle on that front, relieving the rest of the world of terrorism. It would appear that the terrorists have exercised their option to return home and resume normal service from there.

It didn't Caller ID as "White House"

At the "western" White House, also known as the Bush "ranch", it's the substitute press briefer revealing that Pakistani president Musharraf couldn't be bothered talking to George Bush this morning --

Q Why is it taking so long to set up a phone call between President Bush and President Musharraf? Isn't he just able to --

MR. STANZEL: Actually the first time we reached out to him, President Musharraf I understand was talking with reporters.

That real central front in the war on terror

An impossible to parody statement from Rudy Giuliani on the Benazir Bhutto murder concludes --

We must redouble our efforts to win the Terrorists’ War on Us.

UPDATE: Making a valiant effort to take the self-centeredness up to 11, Mike Huckabee --

The terrible violence surrounding Pakistan’s upcoming election stands in stark contrast to the peaceful transition of power that we embrace in our country through our Constitution. On this sad day, we are reminded that while our democracy has flaws, it stands as a shining beacon of hope for nations and people around the world who seek peace and opportunity through self-government.

Romantic Ireland is something or other

When Christy Moore sang, a long time ago --

A cousin of mine goes potholing,
A cousin of hers loves Joe Dolan.

it got something vague yet right about Joe's increasingly selective appeal (as indeed the entire song is a brilliant summary of VIP/celebrity Ireland at that time). But Joe was still going strong many years later until he shuffled off this mortal coil today. Perhaps a case where, without the nostalgia factor, the old clips will just look a bit embarrassing, at least to the new sophistamacated Ireland.

All-Ireland

The Christmas Day fiction on the New York Times op-ed page is from Roddy Doyle and the poetry is by Paul Muldoon. Somewhat strangely, the Muldoonian wordplay is actually easier to make sense of than the mysterious Doyle story, which has no resolution.

The angry male demographic

The Wall Street Journal does a story on political blog trolls. It exaggerates the sense in which trolls have anything substantive to say, since the troll basically exists to pick a fight with a baseless statement.

And they seem to be disproportionately conservative. The baseless statements are easier to find.

As if it was the most offensive thing in the world

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last

The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing "Galway Bay"
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day

Explanation here. Enjoy the day.

A quick Christmas scowl

A BBC story citing the case of stranded Heathrow passenger¹ --

It is the second Christmas Eve in a row he has been stuck at Heathrow, on both occasions he has been on his way from Los Angeles to Budapest.

Can it really be that, seeing what happened last year, that going via Heathrow was the best way to get from LA to Budapest?

¹ The sentence has been pulled from later versions of the story

Keyboarding to book victory

Much has been written already about Jonah Goldberg's oft-delayed and oft-subtitled Liberal Fascism. But now there's an associated blog. There's no material yet besides the cover image, a setup that is symptomatic of the book itself. One word of caution -- don't buy the book from the link at the site, where they want $27.95 for it. It's going for $18.45 at Amazon. Laughs a plenty, even if unintentional, once he starts "responding to some of the critics" as he promises he will.

It's a long way to Limavady

Gordon Brown with a strange assembly of places where the British armed forces will be serving over the holidays --

But I think particularly today when it is Christmas you remember men and women who are separated from their families, who are working in the most difficult of conditions, sometimes in the theatre of Iraq, sometimes in Afghanistan, sometimes of course in the Falklands, or in Northern Ireland or in other parts of the world where we still have a presence.

So the list comes across as saying that Northern Ireland, which is of course part of the UK, is actually somewhere far away like the Falklands or just another of those places where Britain "still has a presence". In Gordon's mind, with the Martin-Ian love-in going so well, are they already gone?

Virtuous circle

One off-the-cuff comment from George Bush during his year-end press conference provided a little insight into how he thinks about global financial flows. He was asked about the trend of investments by overseas wealth funds (East Asia and the Arab states of the Gulf) in Wall Street financial institutions. Before the cliches, he said

I like to get our money back.

His framework is thus that the Gulf and Asian countries have money because of US purchases of oil and manufactured goods, and thus that it's "our money" which has to return to the US.

There's a sense in which he's correct (meaning that there's an actual economist getting through to him) because the US global spending spree has to be financed by other countries. But it's packaged in way that means that huge foreign borrowing is of no concern to him, since it's all just "our money".

Even better than the real thing

Powerline's "Deacon" --

First, [Mike] Huckabee overlooks the fact that George W. Bush, though not a preacher, is a born-again Christian. If Republicans like [Rich] Lowry wanted to keep Christian conservatives at arms-length why did they support Bush so firmly?

George Bush is not a born-again Christian. He was raised Episcopalian (Anglican) and now occasionally attends a Methodist church in Washington. He lapsed from Episcopalian and resumed as Methodist. That's not "born-again". That's just after a while looking for a new church. Born-again should only refer to a profound experience -- essentially an awareness as an adult of the true meaning of the sacrament of baptism, which is of course lost on people at the age they normally receive it.

But the skill of the Bush campaign was to leave out there the statement that he was "born-again" without ever making any attempt to correct it, as a dog-whistle to evangelical voters. Powerline has thus proved Huckabee's point, in that this time the evangelicals want an actual evangelical candidate.

Ghost of disasters past

White House photo by Chris Greenberg

He so wanted to grab his 9/11 bullhorn for the occasion.

Slow news day

Actual extended news segment just now on MSNBC with topic on screen bar: "Britney Spears' sister is 3 months pregnant".

This one writes itself

[Washington Post] ... the smoke appeared to be concentrated in or near the ceremonial office of Vice President Cheney.

Guinness for weakness

New York Stock Exchange

The Dow was down 175 when a person in a pint costume helped ring the closing bell.

Chillin' at the Holidae Inn

George Bush sees the ghost of Christmas future --

Bush spoke at the Yak-A-Doo's restaurant inside a Holiday Inn [in Fredericksburg Va.].

The White House wanted to keep the flavor of the local Rotary meeting, so there was no banner or backdrop. Bush was not even introduced; he just showed up, drawing a round of applause. The Christmas music being piped was not cut off until someone pointed that out.

The president watched silently as club members offered a truncated version of their normal business routine, offering the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer.

This one goes up to 11

It's funny, if unintentionally so, that the newly Murdoched Wall Street Journal editorial page can boast in one editorial (subs. req'd) --

Over the past decade, millions of Americans have joined the once highly exclusive club of six- and seven-figure earners. Some 304,000 Americans earned $1 million or more in annual income in 2005, compared to 110,000 in 1996 and 176,000 in 2000.

but complain in the editorial below (also subs. req'd) that no-one seems to be noticing that inflation is rising so that dollar numbers don't mean quite what they used to. "Money illusion", they call it. Indeed.

The rooster crows

National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez, in the context of Mitt Romney's Mormonism and the view of some evangelicals that it's not Christian:

I remember the first time it was explained to me at a Concerned Women for America conference that I am not a Christian because I am Catholic. At the time I wondered why we — my pro-life, conservative CWA friends and I — couldn't just strengthen our political alliance on issues we agreed on and go our own ways Sunday morning (or whenever).

This is not just getting religion out of politics: it's agreeing to the claim that the essence of your religion is a lie for the sake of a political cause. If faith is allowed to drive your political beliefs, shouldn't it drive who you politically associate with?

Liquid bomb plot evaporating

When the story about the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic flights using liquid bomb ingredients smuggled aboard at Heathrow first broke -- in the run-in to the 2006 election season in the US -- the man whose name kept coming up in the plot was Rashid Rauf, a British citizen who was in Pakistan at the time. Bit by bit the details of the charges against him seemed to weaken.

An extradition request by Britain for him was most recently only based on a murder charge unconnected to the bomb plot, although of course he could have been questioned about more things once he was returned to the UK. As of now though, he won't be questioned about anything. Because, he has "escaped" from police custody. Pakistani police seem to suspect collusion between him and his guards.

Given the role of this plot of the mythology of counter-terrorism -- it's constantly cited an example of international cooperation achieved through US surveillance techniques -- why is it that just when some concrete information is about to come into view, it unravels?

UPDATE 8 SEPTEMBER 2008: The plot is looking even more like vapour at this point. A trial with 8 accused, only 3 convicted, and none of an imminent plot to blow up airlines. So the question keeps coming back: why was Rauf arrested in the first place? Any future juries would like to know.