Visual Evidence

Lebanon
Originally uploaded by octopod.

This picture courtesy of Captain's Quarters illustrates the similarities between Georgia, the Ukraine, and the Lebanese (so far) peaceful uprising.

Those neocons must be plotting again!

Polynesian Showdown Delayed

The Polynesian Assembly was unable to make its 3/5 quorum today, reports Tahitipresse. As a result, the election of a president was postponed three days. At that time, 35 out of 57 members will not be needed for a quorum. With the defection of one deputy to the Temaru group, it has an absolute majority of 29. The two candidates are pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru, and Gaston Tong Sang, the Mayor of Mo'orea, who will stand for outgoing President Gaston Flosse's Tahooera Huitaraa party.

Correction: Gaston Tong Sang is the Mayor of Bora Bora, not Mo'orea.

Kiev Redux?

The pictures from Beirut are eerily reminiscent of the pictures of the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine just a few short months ago, except the colors are red, white and green instead of orange. Some Beirut photos here and more here.

The ever-interesting Chris Hitchens muses on the disappearing concept of the "Arab street" here.

We must be cautious. The Syrian régime wiped out the city of Hama when it rebelled against Hafez Assad, father of the present leader. There may be difficult days ahead.

But the parallel with the Ukraine is remarkable -- a country historically dominated by a powerful neighbor rises up peacefully but en masse for democracy and independence, with a crowd sitting in until it gets its way.

Syria doesn't have the tradition of democratic institutions that Lebanon has, but one must ask, if Lebanon succeeds in peacefully winning back its sovereignty, can Syria be far behind?

MoDo Raves

Trey Jackson offers up an astonishing excerpt from Meet the Press starring the New York Times's Maureen Dowd:

"Russert: ' Would you now accept the fact that because of the invasion of Iraq, there is a possibility of democracy in Iraq and that may spread in the Middle East?

Dowd: 'We are torturing people, we're outsourcing torture, the administration is trying to throw journalist in jail and basically trying to replace the whole press corps with ringers, including male escorts.'"

He's got the video, too.

Her derangement, sad and amazing though it is, speaks for itself.

More Good News

Jack Kelly thinks the war in Iraq is all but won. His analogy is to the battle of Iwo Jima, where it took 35 days for the Japanese to be cleared out, but the result was clear after five days, when Mt. Suribachi was taken.

He also comments on the increasing ineptitude of the terrorists:

Lt. Col. Jim Stockmoe, chief intelligence officer for the First Infantry Division, roared with laughter as he recalled the increasing missteps of the resistance in Iraq in an interview earlier this month with British journalist Toby Harnden, writing for The Spectator.

"There were three brothers down in Baghdad who had a mortar tube and were firing into the Green Zone," Stockmoe said. "They were storing the mortar rounds in the car engine compartment and the rounds got overheated. Two of these clowns dropped them in the tube and they exploded, blowing their legs off."

The surviving brother sought refuge in a nearby house, but the occupants "beat the crap out of him and turned him over to the Iraqi police," Stockmoe told Harnden, "It was like the movie 'Dumb and Dumber.' "

Again, inshallah.

Syrian Turnabout?

It appears that Syria had a hand in the capture of Saddam's half-brother. Captain's Quarters analyzes it this way:

"This constitutes a major part of that effort, and as long as the pressure remains on the Syrians, more cleanup will follow after this. It also confirms that Syria indeed had a hand in fomenting the terrorist attacks in Iraq; now, with this revelation and the apparent reversal of course by an extremely nervous Assad, we may see the entire Zarqawi/Ba'athist effort collapse in on itself within weeks."

CQ may be a little optimistic, but this is good and interesting news. Syria is surrounded by hostile powers, its régime is controlled by the Alewi, who represent only 15% of the population, and its Lebanese client state is getting uppity. To add to the problems, the US and even France are pressuring its Ba'athist régime.

So it wouldn't be surprising if Bashir Assad is making a few concessions to relieve the pressure. What's more interesting is the truism that it is when the ancien régime begins to moderate its policies and make concessions is when it is most likely to fall. Collapses of this type are often sudden, à la Ceaucescu.

Inshallah, even if Assad is the devil we know.

Feminism Unhinged

Heather MacDonald gives the lowdown on Estrich v. Kinsley and other feminist moonbattery here.

I thought Estrich, in spite of her grating voice, lived in the world of the rational.

Oh well, working for Dukakis would turn almost anyone into a nutjob.

Boredom and Terrorism

David Warren is a Canadian writer and blogger whom I discovered courtesy of Instapundit. He summarizes the reasons for his admiration for President Bush's foreign policy here: His most interesting insight is the impact of boredom among the young:

"The only truly exciting thing, through the entire Arab-Muslim world, was revolutionary Islamism. Of course this was illegal, and underground; though it occasionally surfaced in some localized mayhem. One of the greatest attractions of Osama bin Laden, et al., perverse as this will sound, was that he supplied the only available entertainment. To nothing else could the idealistic young be attracted. Anyone seeking an interesting life, emigrated to Europe or America.

"Boredom is seriously underestimated as a motive cause in history. And among the more intelligent young, it is always potentially lethal. The madrassas and 'universities' of the Islamic world -- places like the venerable Al Azhar in Cairo -- do in fact produce sharp minds. But educated in a strict monotheism that is, if anything, over-focused. The symbiotic relationship between the terrorist gangs, and the Muslim world's madrassas, is almost too easy to explain."

Fascinating. Read the whole thing.

An Unanswerable Question

The following are both true:

1. The toast always lands buttered side down. This is the Breakfast Corollary to Murphy's Law.


2. A cat always lands on its feet.

Let's suppose, then, we strap a piece of toast, buttered side up, on a cat's back, and drop it. On which side does it land?

Could It Be -- Working?

This CNN.com report and others throughout the media raise a question:

"Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ordered the constitution changed to allow multi-candidate presidential elections in September, making a surprise reversal Saturday that could mean he will face a challenger for the first time since taking power in 1981.

"It was the first significant move toward political reform in decades in Egypt, a powerhouse in the Arab world that has had one-party rule for more than half a century.

"The announcement came amid increasing calls for political reform from the domestic opposition and from the United States and after historic Iraqi and Palestinian elections that brought a taste of democracy to the region."

Let's see:

• The Afghan Presidential election.


• The Iraqi election, with huge turnout followed by parliamentary bickering of a familiar, democratic sort.


• The Palestinian balloting, with a real opposition, a consensus outcome, followed by parliamentary-style infighting about the cabinet, in which the reformers won a partial victory.


• The Lebanese outpouring against Syrian occupation after Rafiq Hariri's murder, and Syrian indications it may relocate its troops or withdraw.


• Elections of a sort in Saudi Arabia.


• Now Mubarak announces a real presidential election rather than an up-down vote on a hand-picked candidate.

Not a Prague Spring, a Berlin wall, or 1848, perhaps, but interesting nevertheless. Of course, it has nothing to do with US policy. All the credit goes to Jacques Chirac and Kofi Annan.

Though Snarky As Ever, Mr. Insufferable Has a Point

Although at the end this week's piece by the insufferable Frank Rich careens into its usual ditch of paranoia about some slight or another to all things gay, the Tiffer has a point worth thinking about.

He notes that even as the Feds get ready to impose stiffer [you should pardon the expression] fines against the networks for offenses such as wardrobe malfunctions, it is audience demand that drives the descent of popular culture into all things prurient. Not only does Homer Simpson perform a gay marriage, and Chris Rock promote his Oscar-hosting debut with headline-grabbing musings about the Oscar show, but also porn-on-demand in hotel rooms and the internet commands a vast audience, sponsored by corporations who would have you believe in their staidness.

Frank's right, of course. The laws of the market apply as much to the heroin market or the sex trade as to cell phones and sow bellies. If there's a demand, someone will create a supply. And there's a huge demand for sex, drugs, and what passes for rock 'n' roll nowadays.

Although the resulting coarsening of the national character is troubling, few now have the heart or the philosophical inclination to advocate systematic state action to stem the tide. Aside from the inevitable dire consequences of government deciding what shall be disseminated, suppression of anything people desire creates a black market where prices rise as a function of the effectiveness of the suppression on the one hand and the inelasticity of the demand on the other. In other words, make something hard to get and the prices on the black market will go up as long as people want it badly enough to pay more.

So Frank is right both about the unlikelihood of the anti-indecency political theater having much effect, as long as pillars of the community in the anonymity of their hotel rooms will dial up porn, and about the hypocrisy of many in the anti-indecency industry.

Nevertheless, Frank can't really be Frank unless he waves the bloody shirt of persecution, and he does not fail us. The real purpose of these anti-indecency gestures, says Frank, is to advance "the larger agenda of the decency crusaders, which is not to clean up show business, a doomed mission, but to realize the more attainable goal of enlisting the government to marginalize and punish those who don't adhere to their 'moral values.'"

Frank's two examples are the removal of the Gay etc. label from a talk at some Federal conference on suicide prevention, and a gratuitous mention of an unspecified potentially lethal denial of sex education to gays and teens. Frank's feared Inquisition turns out to be trivial on the one hand, and undocumented on the other. No punishment in sight, and hardly enough to marginalize anybody.

It goes without saying that when the President says something Frank finds unexceptionable, rather than giving him credit, Frank accuses him of persecution (without using the word) through "surrogates."

Frank points to real contradictions, such as that between the impulse of some conservatives to use government to resist the coarsening of the culture, and the fealty of others (or sometimes the same people) to the market, where demand for raunch burns on unabated.

Unless it is far more draconian and comprehensive than Americans today are likely to tolerate, effective government action to police the culture would be ineffective even if we could agree about what's unacceptable where (cartoon bunnies visiting lesbian mothers on public TV, closed circuit orgy flicks at the Marriott, foul-mouthed heroes on Saving Private Ryan on the networks?). The most government can do is encourage islands of decency or blandness for those who prefer it, and to keep certain matters somewhat private as opposed to public. If the proliferation of the indecent is to be combated, as with the drug trade, the arena of combat should be on the demand side. A difficult task, given the fallen nature of man, that we must leave to parents, pastors, and the Holy Ghost, but one that is not beyond the reputed powers of the latter.

Chuck Schumer's Shiloh -- or the Winter Palace?

Hugh's Vox Blogoli 2.2

Hugh Hewitt has set another challenge to the blogosphere:

Does the Senate GOP Go McClellan or Grant if Harry Reid "Goes Gingrich?"

I have argued before that Hugh's opposition to unseating Arlen Specter as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee was inconsistent with his enthusiasm for invoking the "nuclear option" -- using a majority of less than 60 to uphold a ruling that a filibuster to prevent a vote on a Presidential nominee is unconstitutional.

I didn't oppose it outright, but urged caution and a strong effort to show how unfair the filibuster was, before resorting to the "nuclear option":

We should, therefore, think as long and hard about the "nuclear option" of eliminating the filibuster by a bare majority, as about dumping Arlen Specter for careless and purely theoretical remarks. Certainly, it seems to me, the "nuclear option" should be avoided until they pay the price of a real around-the-clock, make-them-talk-until-their-bladders-swell-to-bursting, Farmers'-Almanac-reading filibuster, as in olden times. The mere ritual of announcing a filibuster should not be allowed as a namby-pamby substitute for the sublime oratorical meanderings of a Wayne Morse, who strapped a bottle to his leg and spoke for, I think, 24 hours to stall a Tidelands Oil bill whose provisions are lost in the mists of time. Let us see if Harry Reid can find his equal, or a contemporary echo of the remarkable Huey P. Long, whose extended oratory echoes to this day.

Then, and only then, let us consider pushing the button.

(More on Morse, here, and Huey Long--was Hewitt named after him?--here.)

That post was a tactical disagreement with Hugh, and a recognition that the traditions of the Senate deserve some consideration -- not a "Never!" to the nuclear option.

I don't think Hugh would oppose putting the Dems to a true filibuster test, with all-night sessions and so on, before invoking the option.

The filibuster, historically, was not used seriously by large groups of Senators, as opposed to mavericks like Morse, and one-of-a-kind figures like Huey Long, except for issues of almost-constitutional import. Although segregation was doomed and fundamentally unjust (even if its demise has not led to the heave-on-earth its advocates hoped for), it was a long-term part of the social order in much of the country. The requirement of a supermajority for such an important issue may have been wrong, but it was not petty, and it was not repeated for individual appointees, even those noxious to the segregationists.

So, once the Democrats have been given a chance to back down, and their stubbornness dramatized, invoking the nuclear option, though not to be taken lightly, would be substantially justified, as we lawyers say.

The filibuster is not written into the Constitution; it's an accretion, albeit one of long standing. The GOP has not won just the Presidency, but a decisive margin in the Senate over a considerable period of time. They are the majority party and the governing party, and they have a right and duty to govern.

Now, if you shoot at a king, you must kill him. Once Lincoln decided to go to war to preserve the Union, he needed a Grant, not a McClellan to carry out his policy.

The party of Chuck Schumer and Barbara Boxer is beneath contempt, petty, arrogant, and vicious, typified, perhaps, by the argument that a Michael Luttig would be disqualified by bias because his father was murdered, or that a devout Catholic can't sit as an appellate judge because their religion influences their world view.

If the nuclear option is exercised, and the GOP prevails, the courts will in all probability defer to the Senate and not involve themselves in a political question within the competence of another branch of government.

How can the Democrats retaliate? For a time, they can paralyze the Senate. But not forever. They are the party of government, and unlike Gingrich, cannot be philosophically comfortable paralyzing the government's operations for long. Moreover, we are at war, like it or not, and to hold things up too long in such a time would arouse the wrath of many.

The other explosion would come from the usual suspects, the MSM, the professoriat, and the Ralph Neases of the world. Their deep hostility to Bush, however, has had the paradoxical effect of rendering them toothless. What more can they do than George Soros, Dan Rather, and Michael Moore have already tried. Let the heathen rage!

In the end, I am not so certain the appointment of these judges will be as momentous as some on the right hope and the left fears. Law changes slowly. Even Roe will not go quickly, and if it does, the abortion issue will be back in the states where it belonged in the first place.

The fight over the appointments, however, is sure to be an interesting spectacle of political athletics.