Liberal and Loving It

We are not attacking Iran (soon)

Ok, every day there is post after post about how Bush is planning on starting a war with Iran. This is not going to happen - at least not in the next couple of months. Here's why:

1. There is a lot of planning that goes in to an attack like this. Even one that is purely an air attack. Word would get out based on the number of people involved.
2. The military is breaking. Adding a war in Iran would so overwhelm the military as to devastate it. Some, a few at least, in the top of the military will follow their oath and report what is planned to senior Democrats in Congress.
3. This would almost certainly lead to an immediate impeachment of Bush and Cheney. It doesn't matter what excuse he used, the country would demand his immediate removal. And while Cheney may be too far gone to realize this, Bush clearly understands that the Democrats have real power now.
4. Yes there are 3 carrier groups in or headed to the Persian Gulf. We're in a war there. And who knows what else could happen there. But that is not enough to even take out all of Iran's nuclear facilities on top of the Iraq missions they are flying.
5. Update: From a comment An attack on Iran would cause panic at the pumps, and the market would enact massive price increases. The Republicans know that they cannot survive injuriously high gasoline prices unless the disruption is very short lived --  say two weeks or so. And viewing the debacle in Iraq, they now know that any attack on Iran would entail long term hostilities.

The administration is not sure where they are going to find all of the 20,000 troops for the surge escalation. And all of their efforts are focused on that now. I'm not saying Bush wouldn't like the option to attack Iran - but he doesn't have that option.

I think the Democrats are finding their new path

The Democratic party was alive under Roosevelt bringing prosperiety back to the country and saving capitalism (over the objections of the capitalists they were saving). It was alive and vibrant and had something to sell.

It coasted on that through to the 60's and was starting to turn morbid and was on a downhill run. Then Vietnam and civil rights energized it with a new battle to fight and again, alive and vibrant and something to offer the country.

But Vietnam ended (note to the right - we did surrender there). And the fast & easy part of the civil rights struggle was won. And through the to the 90's again the Democratic party went in to decline.

With Clinton it started to find a new way, a new struggle to improve the country and the world. But a lot of what happened then was just triangulation - positioning to get as much of the liberal agenda as was possible. And a lot was just Bill Clinton, not a new philosophy.

But the last 12 years of minority status in congress and the last 6 years of minority status in everything has been the Democrats time in the wilderness. And they seem to have come up with what matters and what to do.

I think we're about to see a new Democratic majority that is vibrant and charged to take on these challanges we face. And it will come up with good solid solutions to the problems we face.

I'm proud to be a Democrat. And I think in another 2 years I will be much prouder.

If not, we will show him the way

Webb's speech was good, and was great at times. But that ending - wow - that was beyond perfect. If the Democrats do end up taking control over the next 2 years (Congress has ended up running things a few times in our past), that will be viewed as the phrase that set it all in motion.

Bush was his normal inarticulate self. His way of speaking seems to be that of someone who doesn't think about things a lot. He's not comfortable with the ideas he is presenting.

As usual, I agree with a lot of what he said. But I know that when it comes to actually doing it he will either be incompetent or will do the opposite.

And Webb's reply (I'm sure he had help) was brilliant. Agree with the president where he could. Then concentrate on those two key points and hammer him so eloquently.

And I think Webb was an even better counterpoint because he also is a plain spoken regular guy like Bush. But unlike Bush he can speak intelligently. And that makes the contrast even more glaring.

It really made Bush look like a doofus. A doofus pleading for 6 more months to try and have some kind of success in Iraq.

On the front line in Iraq

Ok, those of us who have never been in a war (like me) can never come close to understanding what it is like. But we should try as we have sent our countries best in to harms way. And no matter how much one opposes the war, we, as a country, have sent them there to fight for us.

I want to present just two sources from the front lines. They are not the only sources. But I think both are excellent.

First is Michael Yon who has done the best job of giving a picture of life for the grunts at the point of the spear. A lot of his writing is what is going on. Not why, not large scale strategy. But small scale unit combat that occurs every day.

• Gates of Fire - Close combat in Iraq. The best single article to come out of Iraq.
• Walk the Line parts 1, 2, & 3 - Life for the troops today.
• When Less is Too Much - A guest post about the stupidity of the surge
• Al Sahab: The Cloud - One of his stories about how the Army is purposely trying to eliminate all embedded reporters in Iraq.

Second is The Sandbox which comes from Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury) and Slate Magazine. This posts by troops in the field. Hundreds of them. Each a different point of view by a different soldier, marine, sailor, or airman. And they are all excellent. Just amazing.

And with a hundred points of view it is something that in total seems very balanced. Definitely the most comprehensive picture you can get of what is happening on the line in the GWOT.

If you know of of other good sites, please post in the comments.

The end of the white male monopoly on the presidency

With two of the three front runners in the Democratic pack not being a white male (Clinton & Obama), we are suddenly looking at the Democratic presidential nominee being either female or black. And this is not a longshot, a smart bet at the moment would be that one of these two will win.

What does this do to the Republican party? Well the polls show that being female and or non-white is now an advantage in the race. More people will vote for a candidate than will vote against them if they are not your standard white male.

So the Republican's have to plan assuming that running a pair of white males will be a significant disadvantage. Since their entire slate of presidential candidate is both white and male, that means to address this they must have a woman or non-white individual as the VP candidate.

And the Republicans have several well qualified candidates from Condi Rice to Mel Martinez. (Forget Colin Powell, I don't think he wants anything to do with the existing Republican party.) My guess is that over the next 6 months the Republican party will unofficially make a committment that the VP candidate will not be a white male.

So now we jump back to the Democratic primary. Assume for a moment that it is not Clinton or Obama (ie Gore or Edwards). But the Democrats now face a Republican slate that will have a woman and/or non-white VP on their slate. The Democrats cannot concede on this issue. At that point the Democratic VP must be a woman or non-white candidate. And it could in this case very well be Clinton or Obama.

And with the '08 election, it will be locked in. A slate of 2 white males will be a thing of the past. Neither party will risk the loss of votes. And it will stay "balanced" until this does not matter anymore.

Think balance on this is not a big issue? As far as I can tell, every single state has a "balanced" ticket for Governor/Lt. Governor. This country is already doing this at the state level.

And all I can say is - it's about time.

Oil prices will keep dropping

Oil prices are now at a 2 year low. The article goes on to talk about a warm winter, increased supply, etc.

And it mentions in passing Saudi Arabia's decision to not reduce supply which will cause the price to continue to decline. But it doesn't dive in to why the Saudi's won't cut production.

Here's what I think may be going on.

Who do lower prices hurt? The oil producing countries. But some are hurt more than others.

Iran and Iraq are selling every barrel they can produce. They cannot increase production. So a 20% drop in oil prices is a 20% drop in national income for them. (For Venezula and others too but I don't think Saudi Arabia cares either way about those others.)

Now Saudi Arabia also faces the same cuts. But Saudi Arabia is pretty stable and has a lot of investments. And they are not over committed financially. A drop in income is inconvient to the Saudis.

But for Iran and Iraq it is deadly. In Iran it is oil wealth that has been used to buy off the opposition and to spread trouble in Iraq, Lebanon, etc. In Iraq it funds the entire government which is barely not functioning.

Lower prices are deadly for the Shiite governments in the Middle east. Politically it is the easiest way to eliminate the Shiite threat. It is also the cheapest way to do so.

My guess is Saudi Arabia would be thrilled to see oil drop to $40/barrel. At that point Iran and Iraq will have gigantic budget deficits and both will have so many internal problems that they will not be a threat to the Sunni world.

Give Iraq to the Kurds

Ok, I am not sure if this is a good idea. I can find holes in it myself. But in the spirit of bringing up ideas other than the standard two (stay or leave), if nothing else this might lead to a better end result.

What if we turn Iraq, all of it, over to the Kurds. Iraq can become Kurdistan. In return the Kurds provide Turkey with specific actions that Turkey finds credible, that they renounce all Kurdish claims to any of Turkey and will assist Turkey with any cross border raids, etc by Kurdish seperatists from Iraq into Turkey.

What does that get us? First, we are turning it over to a democratic government. The Kurds are not perfect but they have a functioning relatively free democratic system. Compared to any other alternative it is by far the best alternative.

Second, they almost certainly have the necessary ruthlessness to combat the insurgency in Iraq. And that is a good thing. Because the alternative is Shia fundamentalism in many areas which is even more ruthless.

Third, they also have a much better picture of who they can work with and who they need to fight. And they have the only local army that is trained and professional.

While this would not be a great deal for the Kurds, they would still probably take it because it gives them Kurdistan. And they could then provide criteria by which other provinces would gain the right to vote once the insurgency was reduced to insignificance in each.

Turkey and Saudia Arabia would probably both be willing to provide active support if they received credible assurances they needed (for the Saudia's it's stopping the emergence of a Shia state on its border).

This would get us out of there. And it would give all of the people of Iraq a more liberal, democratic, secure state than any other alternative I have heard of.

Yes its anti-democratic in that only Kurds would have the vote and power at first. But that is still, I think, better than the likely alternatives.

What do you think? And does this trigger thoughts of any other good alternatives?

Democratic ticket in '08 - Gore/Clinton

Ok, here is my guess 18 months out - the Democratic ticket will be Gore/Clinton. Here's why.

First off, Iraq is going to be an even bigger mess in '08 than it is now. Hard as this is to believe, I think this is the one prediction that is very likely to be true. Bush will keep trying to both prove he is right (more troops) and to leave the problem for whoever is next (no leaving).

Second, the Democratic congress will do an excellent job of both showing the country all of the mistakes, unethical behavior, etc of the Bush administration. And it will propose some good legislation to resolve many of the issues we face. But the legislation will get stopped between filibusters in the Senate and veto's from Bush. So all of this legislation will be bottled up.

What the people will demand is a candidate that they know can get the job done. This will not be like 2000 when many people figured it didn't matter who is president. This time it matters a lot. And as Kerry proved, it's not enough to be "not Bush" - you have to be a strong, compelling candidate.

Obama is out because he is an unknown. He represents promise and potential and youth. But he could also fall flat on his face as he has no experience and times like these are not when people are going to take a risk. (I also think he has peaked way too soon.) He could be the VP.

Edwards is out because he had a shot in '04 (as VP granted) and he didn't do anything. He wasn't a bad VP candidate but he didn't light up much besides the base and they will vote anyways. For this reason he doesn't even have a shot at VP.

Wes Clark seems like a natural for this. He does have the military experience. But he has not been able to gain traction as a candidate. In '04 he was run out and nothing... He is clearly running now and again no real buzz at all. I think he is there to be Hillary's VP to give her ticket more military and macho credentials.

And that brings us to Hillary (the rest are in the forget it category). The Iraq war will kill her chances. First off, she has no military experience. She's on armed services but she has never served in the military and has no real experience with the military. And she's a woman. That shouldn't matter but it will. In time of war the country is unlikely to look to a woman, and especially our first woman as president.

That leaves Gore. Military experience - check served in Vietnam. Executive experience - check was a very active Vice President for 8 years. Environment - he owns that issue. Boring, dependable, and capable is something the country will desperately embrace for '08.

As to the Vice President, I think we have reached the point where for a long time forward we will no longer see two white males on the ticket. Not with the talent available for Vice President. So the VP will be Obama or Hillary. (And either one would take it if offered - don't kid yourself.)

I think Hillary is the more likely one for two reasons. First she is a very well known quantity. Every piece of dirt that can be thrown at her has been. There are no secrets, no surprises. Obama has had an easy ride to date (remember his opponent Jack Ryan self destructing?).

Second, as VP all of Hillary's positives remain (fantastic fund-raiser, very popular with a large chunk of the electorate) while her negatives don't matter as much because she is the VP. People will vote for Hillary even as VP because in 8 years... But people tend not to vote against a VP.

Now if the Republicans put Condi Rice on as VP, then it will be Obama. But otherwise my guess is Gore/Clinton.

Campaign finance reform

I have always been of two minds on campaign finance laws. On the one hand I do not want people able to buy an election. On the other hand, stronger limits seem to benefit incumbents. So all of the reform has made the existing politicians even more entrenched.

But I think we may be taking the wrong approach. The big cost is TV ads with radio a distant second. Remove those costs and the entire issue goes away. So the key issue is the paid media costs.

Every TV and radio station has a license from the federal government giving it permission to broadcast on the public airwaves. The government owns the airwaves and the licenses come up for periodic review.

So...

What if as a condition of having a license, each station had to deliver N hours of free commercial time to candidates. The amount and when could be spread out as appropriate. Some could go to the parties to allocate as they wish and some could go directly to the candidates.

After all, it's our airwaves, not theirs. If we want to make this a condition of our granting use of our property, that absolutely is our right as the property owner. And they can always choose to not renew their license.

And how to handle it during the primary would be difficult to work out as a credible challenger to the incumbent should get airtime while a flake wanting free publicity should not. But that's a detail.

The key part is having to buy commercial time would go away. And with that, the need to raise significant sums of money would also go away. So we could then keep or eliminate the campaign finance laws - they really wouldn't matter.

And the candidates could spend more time both campaigning and once elected on making good laws. And a lot less time raising money.

Impeachment - just say no

I agree that Bush has been an unmitigated disaster. And for gross incompetence alone the smart thing for this country to do would be to remove him from office. As to impeachable offenses, I think it would be easy to find quite a few. And ones that the majority of Americans would find arguably grounds for impeachment even if they were not 100% certain.

But the critical thing is what is best for the country. And impeaching Bush is not it. Lets go through why.

First, to be effective we would first have to impeach Cheney, then appoint a replacement Vice President, then impeach Bush. This process would take close to a year at its fastest. While many on the left are ready to do this in a day (a month tops), the country isn't. And the Republicans would move with due deliberation.

So you are looking at January of the presidential election year when we have a new president. At that time Bush will be a complete lame duck anyways. His effectiveness, with Iraq a disaster and congress having pounded him for a year, will be incredibly low anyways.

Second, the American public has only so much attention it is willing to expend on politics. If you're reading this you are probably like me and happily pay attention to numerous things happening in the political world. But for most people, 0 is the usual number of political issues they are watching. They're ok with 1 and occasionally 2. But that's it. So if we have impeachment, then we lose attention on Iraq, the economy, health-care, the environment, energy, etc.

Third, we, this country, needs to learn from our mistakes. The last 6 years have a large number of lessons for us. To learn from this we need to look at what was done, not who did it. Impeaching Bush allows everyone, including the right wing, to say the problem was Bush, not the policies. But if we leave Bush the person alone and instead look at the policies and actions of his administration, then we will be discussing what really matters - the moral, ethical, and practical bankruptcy of the right wing agenda.

For all of these reasons, the best thing for the country is to take impeachment clearly off the table. Instead let us concentrate on figuring out how to improve for the future and to learn what mistakes we made and to not repeat them.

And for those of you that want revenge, that hate Bush and want to see him suffer, don't worry. Impeaching him would make many feel sorry for him and would let him go out thinking that it was all just a political move.

But if he has to stay and answer for his actions and must continue to take action on issues from Iraq to the economy, then every day he is hit with the fact that he is failing and failing miserably. This will be worse for him than the absolution that impeachment would give him.

Sometimes having to finish the job is the worst punishment.