Drug war quote of the day

From a New York Times story on the war on coca in Bolivia:

“The Chapare was the caldron of violence out of which Evo [Morales] was born,” said Jim Shultz, a political analyst in Cochabamba. “If there had not been a U.S. war on drugs, there would not have been a President Evo.”

Of course, allowing for the rise of Hugo Chavez wannabes in South America is worth it, because it has really helped to restrict the cocaine market in the States . . . right?

Or not:

VPILF of the future

Andrew’s jumped the shark so many times this election, I wouldn’t be shocked to see him capture a long-jumping gold for the Brits in 2012. This time, the Palin pick has him nearly bounding over the Pond:

Think about what the Palin pick really says about how McCain views this campaign and how he views his potential responsibilities in national security.

Think about what it says about the sincerity of McCain’s own central criticism of Obama these past two months in foreign affairs.

Think about how he picked a woman to be a heartbeat away from a war presidency who hadn’t even thought much, by her own admission, about the Iraq war as late as 2007.

Think about how he made this decision barely knowing the woman.

. . .
Here’s the real slogan the McCain campaign should now adopt:

Putting. Country. Last.

Sigh. Putting that last hyperbole aside, this entire argument is made moot by the fact that McCain is not going to win the presidency. Let me say this again: John McCain will not be president of the United States. It’s not as though we didn’t know this from the beginning: the GOP brand is still poison, Obama is still a rhetorical master, and parties don’t carry the White House for three consecutive terms, unless they were really successful (which this one, clearly, was not). Sure, there were stories about a closing McCain, and tightening polls, which served the dual purpose of giving the press an ephemeral reason to continue the excessive punditry, as well as to get more money out of the donors — no one gives freely to a dominating campaign (OK, that might be a bit cynical. But the point remains).

The GOP realizes that it must throw this election under the bus. McCain, whose hero is Hemingway’s Robert Jordan, is fit perfectly for the tragic role. He relishes this.

So where does Palin fit in? Palin is inexperienced, yes. Couldn’t find Iraq on a map? Perhaps (although she would be in good company if that were the case). But she’s got promise; she is, ultimately, the future.

She will figure out the rough-and-tumble world of punditry the hard way, and by the time 2012 rolls around, a Palin-Jindal ticket will be a force to be reckoned with. Jindal is already relatively well-known, but Palin barely exists outside of the Internet and the Arctic Circle. By placing her on the ticket, the GOP has actually set up a poignant diptych: McCain is the heroic past, raging against the dying of the light; Palin is the future, a bit unsteady on her feet, but quickly learning. Their opponents laugh now, but I suspect that the GOP will have the last laugh when it comes to the former governor of Alaska.

Hat tip to Reason’s Hit & Run for the delightful picture.

A credo for pessimistic conservatism

After enduring the four-day Hopeapalooza, this wonderful Derbyshire post goes down like a Sierra Nevada at the end of the day. The long pull-quote is worth it:

Every age has its characteristic follies, and those follies have their correctives. The folly of the present age in America is a facile, infantile optimism, that recognizes no limits to human abilities or the wonders that can be wrought by politicians, bureaucrats, and generals. The corrective is a firm, measured pessimism.

The natural home of that fool’s optimism in this age is the political Left, so the corrective must come from the Right.

There is also of course a fool’s pessimism. In this age, however, it presents no danger. We are so awash in preposterous smiley-face optimism, we should welcome anything that counters it.

Optimism helped build this nation. Yes, we can clear the forest, tame the prairies, fight off the Indians. Yes, we can build heavier-than-air flying machines, land on the Moon, defeat fascism and communism. Yes, we can prosper without the horror and indignity of slavery. I am sure there were pessimists who said those things could not be done. They were wrong; and thoughful persons, including thoughtful pessimists, knew at the time that they were wrong.

Today, however, American optimism has got completely out of hand. A corrective is needed. The corrective must come from conservatives, the people who understand that “human nature has no history.” We must revive the fine tradition of conservative pessimism. In this age, optimism is for children and fools. And liberals.

Some children will be left behind. You cannot “remake the Middle East” or “defeat evil.” The poor will always be with us. Black and white will never mingle together in unselfconscious harmony. Corporations will not research and explore without hope of profit. Russia will not become Sweden. Forty million immigrants speaking a single language will not assimilate.

Conservatives used to know all this. Some — the infallibly sapient Roger Kimball, for example — still do. The smiley-faces are leading us to perdition. They must be shouted down.

Yes, we can!

No, you can’t, you bloody fools.

Convention imagery

An open question that would ideally be answered by Virginia Postrel (if you haven’t checked out her new blog Deep Glamour yet, do it now): what is with the strange stripe imagery in both convention logos?

In my mind, two main culprits emerge:

The Adidas “three stripe” logo, which is apparently quite the contentious trademark.

The striking South Vietnamese flag.

Seriously, though, it is an odd congruence. Any ideas?

House of Hubris aka The Temple of FAIL

The sound you hear is the vindication of rational Obama skeptics the world around:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s big speech on Thursday night will be delivered from an elaborate columned stage resembling a miniature Greek temple.

The stage, similar to structures used for rock concerts, has been set up at the 50-yard-line, the midpoint of Invesco Field, the stadium where the Denver Broncos’ National Football League team plays.

Some 80,000 supporters will see Obama appear from between plywood columns painted off-white, reminiscent of Washington’s Capitol building or even the White House, to accept the party’s nomination for president.

This is outrageous, beyond satire. It’ll be interesting to see how Sullivan explains this one away. Best-case scenario, he’s simply a presumptuous ass, assuming the election is in the bag as his poll numbers stagnate. Depending on how this “temple” turns out, however, he could be harkening to back to f–ing Cicero, who is obviously the only orator who can hold a flame to His Obamaness.

However, all of his sins will be wiped from my mind should Obama stride up, donned in a toga, and begin reciting the Aeneid, in Latin. Arma obamumque cano. . .

First they came for the CEOs. . .

Dispatches from the class war, via the Washington Wire:

Barack Obama said Monday that mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cannot be allowed to fail, as he offered support for the White House to infuse the mortgage giants with capital in order to prevent a further meltdown in the mortgage market.

“As president I don’t think we can allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to collapse,” Obama said. “I’d like to be able to punish them for their bad decisions. But the problem is they’re too [big] right now not to cause more damage.”

But he said that any government plan shouldn’t offer any help to shareholders, though he didn’t say whether he favored nationalizing and then breaking up the housing giants, a plan backed by Republican John McCain. “Investors who were making a whole lot of money over the last decade, they shouldn’t be protected. If they’re stock tanks, that’s not my problem.”

“CEOs?” he continued. “I have no sympathy for them.”

So would a President Obama approve of a Bear Sterns bail-out? What about Chrysler? Or, better yet, combine the two: does Sen. Obama feel sympathy for the CEOs of Freddy and Fannie? Or is it a cold-hearted, unsympathetic bail-out?

Whenever my ears start perking up at the sign of a president who doesn’t derisively dismiss academics, or who understands the problems of present-day conservatism better than the GOP itself, I remember that he really doesn’t like business that much. I hate throwing the Marx card around unnecessarily, but this quote certainly echoes some of the worst proletarian sentiments.

Then again, it was John McCain who claimed that he would “shame” oil companies into not passing off the gas-tax holiday on their customers. Is it November yet?

The Mad Men president

Via Mary Q. Contrarian at The Agitator, one of the coolest pictures ever:

Also, this one, from when Reagan was a sportscaster back in the 1930s (via this site):

Anarchists foiled again

From the Wall Street Journal:

Protests are in full swing in front of the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver, and a specific group of four are the spotlight as cops have lined them up on the curb for questioning.

The four, who look to be somewhere in their teens or early 20s, were sporting black bandanas covering their mouths and carrying a black flag. Police officers stopped them but declined to say why, though one said there was some suspicious activity and violations followed. One of the four, the only female of the bunch, was handcuffed.

Add a little yellow to that flag, though, and you might not only find a candidate you can begrudgingly support, but a convention that won’t kick you out!

I also found it amusing that this entry was filed under the ominous title, “Protests Grow At Denver Convention Center.” O NOES 4 ANNARKISS! At this rate, the Convention may be overwhelmed by tens of protesters by the end.

(Perhaps, though, they were protesting Joe Biden’s stances on technology policy.)

John McCain will fill you with his gasoline (hard!)

So, it was amusing at first. When John Mayer started drunkenly rambling about Ron Paul, I chuckled. I’m still torn between a Bob Barr vote and a Paris Hilton write-in campaign. But this is one step over the line in sand. From the Washington Wire:

Daddy Yankee, the hip-hop star from Puerto Rico, endorsed the Republican candidate Monday morning. Wearing black aviator shades in the library of Central High School here, Daddy Yankee said, “I believe in his ideals and his proposals to lead this nation…He’s been a fighter for the Hispanic community.”

. . .

He talked to reporters briefly on the plane before taking off, saying that he first met the Arizona senator at a Time magazine party a few years back. McCain aide Brooke Buchanan said “Gasolina” was McCain’s “favorite.”

When asked what that song was about, the rapper smiled: “Energy independence.”

Very droll, Mr. Yankee. Let’s just take a small section of the English translation of this song:

Get ready, because whats coming is to give it to her, (hard!)
Mamita, I know that you aren’t going to take away (hard!)
What I like is that you let yourself get taken away (hard!)
every weekend she goes out to have fun (hard!)

Energy independence, indeed. Soon, if we keep pushing this canard hard enough, it’ll be a sexual metaphor in time for the 2016 election. Speaking of which, my C-SPAN-addled mind can’t help but notice this little stanza:

The turns on the turbine
she doesn’t discriminate
She doesn’t even miss a fancy dress dinner
She gets dressed up even to go to the corner store
She wears things so well that even shadow favors her
assasin, she dominates me
she hangs out in cars, motorcycles, and limousines,
she fills her tank with adrenaline,
when she listen to reggaeton in the kitchen

I’m not sure about the “reggaeton in the kitchen” bit, but everything else sounds a good deal like Mrs. McCain herself. Between this song and ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”, McDaddy’s favorite song, we have three possibilities: 1) the Senator is either enamored with his wild wife; 2) his campaign is actually a front for the shadow campaign of Meghan McCain; 3) he’s been secretly frequenting the DuPont Circle scene over the last few years (Inside the Beltway joke = -12 cool points).

In all seriousness, this is unprecedented, and it does not bode well. As I wrote in a piece for Kalamazoo’s Kosmopolitan (not yet available online):

This back-and-forth results a serious intellectual failure: for many, especially those among our generation, politics is merely a bastard stem on the Great VH1-MTV-TMZ Tree of Pop. Political preferences are not based in philosophical consideration, world views and experiences, or empirical studies; they are based solely on personal preference. We are “supporters” of political parties and members in so far as we are “supporters” of Law and Order or the Dave Matthews Band.

(As a footnote, though, it would be fun to see the web traffic for “Daddy Yankee” at the Atlantic, National Review, New Republic, et al.)

New Wastewatcher article out

Also, for those of you interesting in the inner workings of the cosmic Maw congressional issues, the lastest Wastewatcher from Citizens Against Government Waste has my article on the appropriations process this year:

. . . Even a cursory review of the bill shows that it is anything but “clean.” Among the earmarks in the bill is $11.6 million for a fitness center in Kingsville, Texas, added by Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-Texas). There is a private gym four miles away that costs $30 per month, with a $35 initiation fee. That $11.6 million could pay for the gym memberships of 29,300 service men and women for one year.

Read the rest here.