Back of the Envelope

John Nordlinger has some thoughts on Condoleeza Rice and the complaints from the press that she's too much of a Bush loyalist:

The man she replaces, Colin Powell, is one of the most popular men in America, and for some good reasons. But it would be difficult to judge him a success as secretary of state. For one thing, he did an uneven job of explaining and defending U.S. policies around the globe, perhaps because he did not support some of those policies. This should not be a problem with Rice. Everywhere, she is described as a "loyalist" to the president, and people say that with a sneer — as though a president should have a renegade secretary of state.

If John Kerry had been elected president, would pundits have demanded that he appoint someone in disagreement with him?

This is a charge made against Bush across the board — that he is naming "yes men" to key positions. Newsweek ran a cartoon showing the president surrounded in the cabinet room by a bunch of "happy face" figures with the word "YES" on the name plates.

In truth, I doubt very much that Condi Rice, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, Margaret Spellings, and the others are yes men. How would we know? When they present challenging views to the president, or disagree with his ultimate decision, the rest of us don't know it, because they don't complain to the press — they don't seek to aggrandize themselves at the expense of the chief, or of the administration. When Colin Powell and Richard Armitage, at the State Department, disagreed with something, we tended to know about it. Gee, wonder how that happened.

Look: Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others have lost plenty of internal battles — over the U.N., the Iraq aftermath, the 9/11 commission, etc. But they are not regarded as independent thinkers or brave dissenters, à la Powell, because once the president comes to a decision, they support him, certainly in public. If they thought the president egregiously wrong, they would resign, I imagine.

And, by the way: Powell was lionized, to be sure — but John Ashcroft, Rod Paige, and the others replaced by these "yes men"? Do you recall that the liberal press praised them while they were in their posts? Neither do I.

This was originally posted at 10:55 am on Nov 30, 2004. I'm reposting it, and deleting the original post, in order to eliminate the trackback spamming this post routinely receives.

A Harvard Law professor and evangelical, Bill Stuntz, has a few observations (via Instapundit):

The past few months have seen a lot of talk about red and blue America, mostly by people on one side of the partisan divide who find the other side a mystery.

It isn't a mystery to me, because I live on both sides. For the past twenty years, I've belonged to evangelical Protestant churches, the kind where George W. Bush rolled up huge majorities. And for the past eighteen years, I've worked in secular universities where one can hardly believe that Bush voters exist. Evangelical churches are red America at its reddest. And universities, especially the ones in New England (where I work now), are as blue as the bluest sky.

Not surprisingly, each of these institutions is enemy territory to the other. But the enmity is needless. It may be a sign that I'm terminally weird, but I love them both, passionately. And I think that if my church friends and my university friends got to know each other, they'd find a lot to like and admire. More to the point, the representatives of each side would learn something important and useful from the other side. These institutions may be red and blue now. But their natural color is purple.

See, I told you there were evangelical churches in Boston. More to the point, Professor Stuntz points out ways in which these two very different cultures could benefit from each other: evangelicals would benefit from the University's love of argument, while the University could benefit from the evangelicals' virtue of humility. Bill Stuntz also lays out the common ground: the focus on ideas, the importance of community, and the reliance on voluntary service. He even points out some common political ground:

There is even a measure of political common ground. True, university faculties are heavily Democratic, and evangelical churches are thick with Republicans. But that red-blue polarization is mostly a consequence of which issues are on the table — and which ones aren't. Change the issue menu, and those electoral maps may look very different. Imagine a presidential campaign in which the two candidates seriously debated how a loving society should treat its poorest members. Helping the poor is supposed to be the left's central commitment, going back to the days of FDR and the New Deal. In practice, the commitment has all but disappeared from national politics. Judging by the speeches of liberal Democratic politicians, what poor people need most is free abortions. Anti-poverty programs tend to help middle-class government employees; the poor end up with a few scraps from the table. Teachers' unions have a stranglehold on failed urban school systems, even though fixing those schools would be the best anti-poverty program imaginable.

I don't think my liberal Democratic professor friends like this state of affairs. And — here's a news flash — neither do most evangelicals, who regard helping the poor as both a passion and a spiritual obligation, not just a political preference. (This may be even more true of theologically conservative Catholics.) These men and women vote Republican not because they like the party's policy toward poverty — cut taxes and hope for the best — but because poverty isn't on the table anymore. In evangelical churches, elections are mostly about abortion. Neither party seems much concerned with giving a hand to those who most need it.

That could change. I can't prove it, but I think there is a large, latent pro-redistribution evangelical vote, ready to get behind the first politician to tap into it. (Barack Obama, are you listening?) If liberal Democratic academics believe the things they say they believe — and I think they do — there is an alliance here just waiting to happen.

I've said this before. The Democrats could easily reach out for the evangelical vote if they could cast down the sacred cow of abortion rights. After they do that, they would need to stop villifying evangelicals, at the least putting that wing of the party which believes that evangelicals want to turn the US into a theocracy out at the fringes where they belong. I doubt they could win me--I'm politically conservative for reasons of pragmatism (I have my doubts about whether the government can ever be effective in solving domestic problems)--but I know plenty of evangelicals who are conservative theologically but up for grabs politically.

I came across this article at Townhall, and it's a must-read:

Once, about four years ago, I found myself being tailed late at night by a car I didn't recognize. I was by myself, it was around 11 p.m. in my hometown, a city with enough violent crime to make a person more than a bit wary.
...
I took a few more turns, trying to get back to the bluish streetlamp glow of the main road. He turned with me every time. My brain swerved from panic to reason and back again, he and I the only two cars on the road. I was almost to the pool hall and he was still with me. I could hear the blood beating in my ears. I was contemplating driving all the way to my parents' house, pulling right onto the grass in the backyard and dashing in the door to avoid attack when I looked back and realized the car was gone.

Deep breaths. I drove around for a few minutes, still no one behind me. Deep breaths. So, I headed back to the pool hall to meet my friends. When I walked in, I was still a little shaky, sat down to have a Coke and watch some friends play 9-ball. A couple acquaintances came up to my table, started telling a story that had them both in stitches.

"Did you guys hear?" one of them laughed. "John tailed some idiot with a Bush-Cheney sticker on his car all the way here."

The story got a hearty laugh from my whole group of acquaintances, all liberal. It was a good joke, played on some abstract conservative, retold in the utter certainty that there were no such abstract creatures in the room.

I glared straight at John and said something along the lines of "Yeah, that was me, and that was real liberal and accepting of you," adding a few sailor-approved flourishes worthy of a man who would threaten a young woman with physical harm because of her political beliefs.

At first there was more laughter, then nervous smiles, then looks and comments of utter bewilderment—not at the fact that someone they knew had just been physically threatened for her political beliefs, but at the fact that she held those particular beliefs. There were apologies from John, but all with a smile on his face. The whole incident was quickly excused.
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This week, I'm going home for Thanksgiving to a blue city. Maybe the healing will start there.

But if things go as they generally do, I'll end up having to explain to folks who excuse Mammy jokes that I am not a racist.

I will try to tell people who look at me like a rare zoo exhibit missing its explanatory plaque that I am not insulated from other opinions.

And I will undoubtedly have to convince the young man who once tailed me on a dark night because he didn't like my political bumper sticker that mine are not the politics of fear and intimidation.

But here's hoping that this year will be different. I think we all deserve better.

I find groupthink of any kind to be disturbing. Being in Louisiana, I see plenty of it from the right as well, although I still see some from the left depending on the setting. I guess what is most disturbing is the assumption that all rational people think the same way. Opposing viewpoints are simply dismissed, and as a result, it's impossible to have conversations on certain issues. I blame poor education: a proper grounding in history should be enough to convince students that rational people can disagree on fundamental issues. It's necessary to understand enough of those worldviews that you aren't at a complete loss when talking to others.

Rich Lowry has a bit of fun, imagining what the Bush White House would be like if he did things like the liberals seem to want:

President Bush announced that former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle would be his new White House counsel, in a move interpreted as part of an effort to reach out to Democrats. The Bush team has abandoned its euphoria over a victory that had the president winning a higher percentage of the popular vote than the last three Democrats elected to the White House, and instead reconciled itself to the reality that in a polarized political environment, elevating partisan enemies and encouraging internal critics is the only way to govern effectively.

"We realize that merely winning 51 percent of the vote, a higher percentage than any Democrat in 40 years, doesn't cut it anymore," said a chastened White House official. "Sure, Clinton tried to implement his ideas after winning 43 percent and 49 percent of the vote in 1992 and 1996 respectively, but that was a different time. We know we have to find a place within our administration for people who hate us and our ideas. That's what democracy is all about."
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Bush's maneuvers represent a departure from his typical political style. Bush usually presents voters with clear policy ideas and, should he win, implements them. "We all realized that was just too simplistic," a Bush official said. "Look, there's no getting around the fact that 55 million people voted for 'nuance' and incoherence. That's exactly what we're going to give them."

For my money, though, the last paragraph is the best:

The Bush team's ambition in implementing its new approach was evident in rumors of a shake-up at the Republican National Committee. Soon-to-depart Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe is being considered for a post there. "The problem is, the Republicans have a slight majority in the country, which isn't very bipartisan if you think about," said a member of the Bush political team. "We've got to get some of the ineffectual guys from the other side working for us, so they can help tamp down our popularity. Terry would be perfect. We're considering Bob Shrum too — if we can get him to come down on his fee."

I was wondering how long it would be until Dave Barry got around to seriously mocking Dan Rather. Dave's more blog-savvy than most MSM people (he has one of his own), so I'm not surprised that he's finally doing it:

Yes, it is a tragic but statistical fact that every Thanksgiving, undercooked turkeys claim the lives of an estimated 53 billion Americans (source: Dan Rather)...

Now discard the rest of the pumpkin, because the simple truth, obvious to anybody with half a brain, is that NO PART of the pumpkin looks, smells or tastes ANYTHING like so-called "pumpkin" pie. This is why nobody actually makes "pumpkin" pie; everybody buys it at the supermarket. The question is: What does the supermarket put in there? The Food and Drug Administration is investigating this, and according to one informed source (Dan Rather) "they think it's tofu."

...Also, even though I have "poked some fun" at Mr. Dan Rather, I sincerely believe he is a great journalist and a credit to his home planet.

It's too bad that Dave's going on hiatus after next month. At this rate he's never going to get around to poking fun at the election results.

While in the airport yesterday, I caught some of CNN's television political coverage. I know I shouldn't be surprised to find a mainstream media outlet biased, but I was sort of surprised by exactly how biased it was. They were talking about the challenge to Arlen Specter's chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee and Tom DeLay's position given the investigation which might indict him. Republican rules say that the chairmanship should go to Specter and DeLay should give up his position as House Majority Leader if he is indicted. CNN's segment dealt with them both as examples of the Republicans changing the rules of the House and Senate to their advantage, which is misleading. As far as I understand, these are both internal party rules for the Republcan House and Senate caucuses. So the whole story amounts to the Republicans possibly changing their own rules to benefit themselves. Even if you decide it's newsworthy, it's an internal matter for Republicans. Why the heck was CNN asking Hillary Clinton about this rule change, especially when she was supposed to be talking about the Clinton Presidential Library? Of course she called it a grave hypocrisy, which I suppose is her right, but it would have been nice for someone to point out that these are internal rules for the Republicans. How is it any business of the Democrats? Now, when the Republicans start trying to change the cloture rules in order to get Bush's nominees through, then the Democrats can whine to CNN all they want.

My take on both of these issues? Again, they're internal rules, so it's up to the House and Senate Republicans to decide. And now that I've given proper context like any good blogger, I feel free to give my opinion. Arlen Specter is trouble, but the challenge has put him on notice, and he's given a written statement saying that he'll support Bush and Republican efforts as Judiciary committee chairman. I think it was worthwhile to get that concession from him, but I'm not sure it's worth the infighting to push him out completely. And it looks like he'll be confirmed now. As for DeLay, I think Amy Ridenour makes a good point that criminal investigations are too often politically motivated for the rule to make much sense (the one DeLay's under sure seems to be that way), but I think Professor Bainbridge makes a good point that it looks awfully self-serving to change it now. My take? Leave the rule for now, and have DeLay step aside if necessary, to return when he's exonerated, and quietly remove the rule then. I think that would make sense from a pure PR, CNN converage, view. From a standpoint of morality, I can see both sides.

Some liberals have been talking about having blue states secede from the Union, in sort of a reverse of the Civil War. Mac Owens has some fun with the idea:

Of course, we expect such stuff in the fever swamps of internet conspiracy theories. But the rot is more widespread. Blue states have come to believe that they are too good to associate with the peckerwoods who reelected George Bush. For instance, on a recent installment of the McLaughlin Group, Lawrence O'Donnell, a major Democratic operative and alleged "political analyst," suggested that the election will lead to serious consideration of blue-state secession from the Union.

On one hand, I don't think much of the concept of secession...

On the other hand, it might be fun to consider the possibilities that blue-state secession would provide. Red-state Americans who have grown weary of being lectured by their moral and intellectual "betters" from the precincts of the Massachusetts witch-burners and slave-traders might just say: "Go ahead, punks. Make my day."

To begin with, where would the blue-state secessionists get the military force they would need to vindicate their action? After all, to paraphrase Thomas Hobbes, principles, no matter how noble, are mere wind without the sword. Most U.S. servicemen come from the red states, or from the red counties of the blue states. The blue states have made it next to impossible for their citizens to own firearms, so they can't count on "a people, numerous and armed" to vindicate their secession.

There is an additional problem. Owens mentions four potentially secessionist states by name: Massachusetts, New York, California, and Pennsylvania. Of these, only Pennsylvania has a Democratic governor, Rendell. The governors of the other three states, Romney, Pataki, and Schwarzenegger, respectively, are all Republicans. If the blue states want to secede, who the heck is going to lead their secessions if they can't get the governors to play along?

On a more serious note, one hundred and fifty years ago, secession was possible, as our government wasn't very centralized and people were scattered. Since then, the federal government has become much more powerful, and the liberals talking secession now played a large role in decreasing the power of the states in favor of the national government. At the same time, mass communication and high speed transportation did much to decrease the cultural differences between regions. I very much doubt loyalty to regional government is now strong enough to make secession possible

Peter Goss is cleaning out the CIA, and already people are crying bloody murder:

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House," said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."

One of the first casualties appears to be Stephen R. Kappes, deputy director of clandestine services, the CIA's most powerful division. The Washington Post reported yesterday that Kappes had tendered his resignation after a confrontation with Goss' chief of staff, Patrick Murray, but at the behest of the White House had agreed to delay his decision till tomorrow.

But the former senior CIA official said that the White House "doesn't want Steve Kappes to reconsider his resignation. That might be the spin they put on it, but they want him out." He said the job had already been offered to the former chief of the European Division who retired after a spat with then-CIA Director George Tenet.

I am of two minds about this. One, I believe that the CIA needs a shake-up, and this will involve a lot of re-staffing. A lot of good people will need to go for strictly non-partisan reasons--their contribution is simply not what the CIA needs. There's also a need to get rid of the partisan hacks, and that includes the people who leaked information for the express purpose of hurting Bush. Even if getting rid of these people looks like revenge, it simply must be done. That is not acceptable behavior for an intelligence organization. Any leaks are dangerous, and the only people who might possibly get a pass are whistleblowers who alert the public to criminal activity without jeopardizing intelligence operations. As far as I'm concerned, those with differences of opinion over policy don't qualify. On the other hand, it's similarly wrong to get rid of people just because they disagree on policy (if they are a hindrance to implementing policy, that's a different story). Replacing one set of partisan hacks with another is not a productive house-cleaning. However, since I'm not in a position to judge what kind of house-cleaning this is, I'm just going to have to agree with Jonah Goldberg:

Since any good reform will result in just as many screaming hissy fits from the rank-and-file as any bad reforms, I'm simply hoping for the best.

Captain Ed sounds even more optimistic.

Victor Davis Hanson is always worth reading. In his latest column in National Review Online, he carefully weighs the positives and negatives of glabalism:

Globalization has brought the world unforeseen material prosperity and an increasing standardization in material consumption, communications, and basic medical care. But the embrace of Western-style economic reform so far seems predicated on a continual American willingness to run-up enormous trade deficits, allow easy immigration, promote liberal dissemination of expertise, provide global security for commerce, and to ignore accumulated national debt.

Outsourcing has done more for India in improving its standard of living and moderating its former socialist policies than all the past billions in foreign aid. Letting in cheap Chinese goods has caused a liberalizing revolution in Asia and weakened Peking's Communist death grip as much as all the brave work of Voice of America. Japan and South Korea are reasonable, stable, and prosperous societies precisely because the United States was willing to tolerate enormous trade balances with them, subsidized their defense, ignored their occasional anti-American rhetoric, and promoted Democratic reform. The same is true to a lesser extent of many countries in Latin America and Africa.

That is the good news and the world is surely richer and freer for it. But such accomplishment doesn't come cheaply: Ask a steel worker, farmer, or billing clerk. Of course, globalization pressures us to be more competitive and gives us low-cost products; but ever-cheaper wages abroad, an absence of regulations and trial lawyers, and lack of environmental oversight allow all these countries to undercut American producers. We are soon to be a net agricultural importer, something unthinkable twenty years ago. Just drive through the San Joaquin Valley of central California, once the world's breadbasket, and see weed-filled vineyards and orchards, entire generations of farmers gone to town, and suburbs encroaching on former cropland — the wages of cheap dried and imported fruits and staples from abroad. The same realignment is true of manufacturing, textiles, and now even the computer industry, as American expertise and know-how is adopted overseas, but without our health, judicial, environmental, and government oversight — thus, at least for the near future, giving our competitors enormous advantages.

I don't know enough about outsourcing and the like to know if he's correct, but I appreciate reading about both the positive and the negative without the boosterism or the paranoia that you see from people on either side of the argument.

I also appreciated that Hanson pointed out how hard of a job George W. Bush has ahead of him. I hope and pray that he's up to it.

Okay, so I had to work a little to make this post title start with an A. So, I promised I would talk about the foreign policy agenda. Naturally, I don't have a clue what Bush will actually do, so this may be more of a wish-list than anything else. Take it for what it's worth.

1. Afghanistan and Iraq. Here, at least, we have a pretty good idea of what Bush plans. Afghanistan is well on its way to becoming a stable democracy, if not quite as liberal as we would like. Iraq is a bit more difficult, and expect Bush to press hard with the military option. Right now it's Fallujah, but we will continue to track down the terrorists wherever they go, destroying their safe havens whenever we get the opportunity. There will be elections in January, although there may be portions of the countries where elections will be difficult and violent. It will be difficult, and there will be setbacks, but we'll make progress
2. Iran. Iran needs to be dealt with, and there isn't a whole lot of time to do it. The military option may be possible in two years, once things settle down in Iraq, but right now it'd be a stretch. Oh sure, we could bomb the living daylights out of them, that's easy, but if we could get regime change from a bombing campaign Saddam would've been gone in '91. My personal preference is direct and indirect support for the democratic movement in Iran. We already know that Iran is supporting the Islamist movement in Iraq, so I think we need to return the favor. Overt moral support and covert monetary and military support would be my preference. I don't know whether Bush is planning on doing this. So far it seems to be let the UN and the EU-3 do its thing, but we've seen how effective that is, and I think Bush will take a more proactive role. At the least, expect him to talk up the democratic movement in Iran.
3. Syria. Syria's kind of the weak partner in the axis-of-evil, sort of a Iraq's understudy. It provides support for terrorism, but I suspect it will crack under sufficient pressure and pull a Lybia. I hope a lot of that will be taking place.
4. North Korea. North Korea's a big problem. It already has nuclear weapons, which makes it dangerous. It is working on developing ballistic capabilities, so that not just South Korea, but also Japan and the US (notably Alaska) could be targets. It's past the prevention point and into the containment point. That, I think, may be the best thing we can do. North Korea is dying slowly. It has no economy to speak of and it's people are starving. Attempts to provide aid have been stymied by the government--food earmarked for the needy is often diverted to the military and the elite. It's hard to see a good possibility. In a war, South Korea could defeat North Korea with US help, but it would be bloody, with a death toll in the tens if not hundreds of thousands. And if North Korea uses its nukes, it gets worse. We could cut off North Korea completely, sanctions and blockades and the whole works. But first we'd have to get China, Russia, and South Korea to go along with us, and then we'd have to be willing to consign millions to starvation. And if we did this, North Korea might very well lash out militarily. Finally, there's what I think we will do, which will be a form of containment. Sanctions, combined with inspections to prevent North Korea from exporting its nuclear technology, sweetened with food aid whose distribution is controlled by the contributors rather than the North Korean government. It's not really a solution, but it may keep North Korea from causing more trouble than it is already.
5. Palestine. Arafat's death brings troubles as well as opportunities. His successor is a relative unknown, and its mildly possible that he will prove interested in pursuing peace. Look for Bush to pursue opportunities presented while remaining skeptical of the Palestinians' intentions.

Well, those are the ones I feel up to commenting on at the moment. My greatest fear is that Bush will reach an impasse, and not make progress with any of these regimes in the coming years. Myself, I'd like to see regime changes in Iran, Syria, and North Korea. I just don't see how.

Well, it turns out that Ashcroft is not sticking around for Bush's second term. It's not unusual for people to resign after the first term, and Ashcroft has had health problems, but I nevertheless suspect that part of the reason he's leaving is that he tired of being the anti-Christ to so many liberals. Being one of the most feared and hated men in America gets to you, especially when you're just trying to do your job to the best of your ability and defend those ingrates from another terrorist attack. I know it'd get to me. Now that he's departing, some folks have some kind words for him. Roger Simon, for example, says:

What I do know is that when he was first appointed, I groaned. It was proof, if I needed any, that the new "Chimp" in the White House was a reactionary Christer. He had chosen one of his own to be the country's number one law enforcer.
...
But I am now absolutely certain that those who thought or are still thinking that John Aschroft is or was a dangerous fundamentalist are lying to themselves or to us. Ashcroft, whatever his indiosyncracies, his prudish desire not to be photographed with nude statues, etc., was fully aware of one of Jesus' greatest teachings - render unto Casear what is Caesar's - and behaved accordingly. Nothing remotely happened during his tenure to dispute this. We owe Ashcroft a debt of gratitude for his service during exceptionally difficult times. And personally, I think I have learned something from him in a strange way. I used to be rather intolerant of people of faith. I am now less so.

I wish Ashcroft well, and I thank him for his service in very difficult times, made all the more difficult by excessive, and to some extent bigoted, criticism.

Yasser Arafat died last night in France. People had been speculating on whether he had already died for the past week, but we'll take the doctors' word on it. Arafat was an unrepetant terrorist, and it's hard to feel much sympathy for him. Jed Babbin has some thought in National Review Online:

On November 13, 1974, Yasser Arafat addressed the U.N. General Assembly for the first time. Clad in military fatigues, with a pistol on his hip, Arafat was welcomed and then acclaimed for his speech in which he enlarged on his theme that, "The difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist lies in the reason for which he fights." And so it has been in the U.N. ever since: The Minutemen of Lexington and Concord are no different from the men who hack off hostages' heads for the Al-Jazeera evening news. During a 2002 incursion into Arafat's Ramallah compound, the Israelis discovered a cache of documents and photographs showing that Saddam Hussein — through the Palestinian Authority — was funding suicide bombings against Israeli targets. Included in the cache were proofs that Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia were also funding PA terrorism.
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With Arafat dead, there will be rippling effects across Israel, the Palestinian territories, Egypt, Syria, and Iran. Any successor to Arafat — be it sometime PA prime minister Ahmed Qurei (a.k.a. Abu Ala), or Marwan Barghouti, head of the Fatah Movement, or another — will inevitably be from among Arafat's inner circle, and cut from the same murderous cloth. (Barghouti is now in jail, convicted of involvement in the deaths of five Israelis in terror attacks. Qurei, another Fatah member, is often in disagreement with Arafat, and is often characterized as firmly believing in peace with Israel.) No matter who is chosen to succeed Arafat, the pressure on Israel to resume peace talks and cease construction of the anti-terror wall will be intense and instantaneous — and misplaced.

The Palestinians will insist — and the U.N. and the EU will be their amen chorus — that Israel must stop building the wall, stop killing terrorist leaders, and give the new leader a chance to negotiate peace. To say that is to place the entire burden of the peace on Israel. Now that President Bush has been reelected, he must reject the notion that Israel carries an unequal share of the burden of peace. In an interview last year, Ziad abu Ziad, a former Palestinian minister and close Arafat adviser, told me that the PA didn't stop terrorism because it failed to gain sufficient political ground the last time it stopped the attacks. His boast of stopping the attacks was false, but we must call their bluff. We must insist on a six-month period free of attacks, and refuse any EU or U.N. initiative to force the Israelis to the negotiating table before the time passes. If the six months of peace is achieved, then, and only then, will the new leader have bought his way into any new "peace process." Meanwhile, Israel should continue building its wall, and telling the U.N. to buzz off.
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Arafat's death precipitates instability and violence. Israel's refusal to allow his burial in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount — Arafat's wish, seeking to make it a holy place for Palestinians and thus a part of any Palestinian state — will be enough to ensure that. But in chaos there is opportunity, and we — and Israel — must seize it. The nations that use Palestinians as proxies to war on Israel have to be brought to the table and convinced that they can and must sign a peace with Israel that allows it to exist. Negotiating with the next Palestinian "president" will be as much a dead end as negotiating with Arafat unless Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are parties to the talks. (There's no use in talking to Iran. Both the U.S. and Israel will have to deal with Iran on other terms.) Such a negotiation would be long and hard, but it would differ from all that went before in one material respect: There's at least a possibility it actually could lead to peace.

There may be some bitter infighting in Palestine, and the Israelis will do their best to stay out of that. It's hard to imagine something good coming out of that, aside from a respite for Israel as they let the Palestinians fight it out. I'm sure whether it's wise to intervene or not, but it may beat letting the worst elements rise to the top. Isn't there anyone in Palestine we can back?

So, what can we expect from the second Bush terms. Well, here's what Bush has promised domestically:

1. Tort Reform. This basically means getting lawsuits under control, which, if it works, should help get healthcare costs under control.
2. Tax Reform. This will be an attempt to simplify the tax code. If done right, it will increase revenues while decreasing the tax rate, the idea being that lots of revenue is lost due to intricate loopholes which people who can afford to hire accountants and lawyers to go over their tax returns usually manage to find. I'm personally hoping for a flat tax with a large deductible (e.g., take what you make, subtract $20,000 ($40,000 for couples filing jointly), multiply by 20%, pay that). Generally, simplified flat tax has managed to increase revenue in countries where it's been tried.
3. Social Security Reform. Everyone knows this needs to be fixed, but no one's willing to touch it. Bush promised to do so during his campaign, which is something almost no politician ever does, since that's where they expect to be hurt by it. I expect that he will in fact make the attempt. It will be fun to see how many Congressmen are willing to go along. I also think reforming the system without cutting benefits will be expensive, but even a huge price tag now will be worth preventing the system from going bust later.
4. Judicial Appointees. Bush wants to appoint constructionist judges, and I hope he does well. It's one of the reasons I voted for him. The Democrats in the Senate has done their best to block them, vilifying and then filibustering conservative judges because the courts are where liberals have the most success getting their policies through. With a gain of four Republican senators and the removal of Daschle, there's a better chance that the judges will be approved. I also hope Bush and the Senate Republicans will fight harder for them, being more public about the Democrats' shameful conduct.
5. Defense of Marriage. In one sense, appointing constructionist judges who won't be rewriting the current law will do this. The president has stated support for the FMA, but while I want marriage protected, I'd prefer that it wasn't written into the constitution. Maybe the Republican leadership will wise up and adopt Orrin Hatch's amendment. While I think the FMA could get the necessary ratification from the states, it's never going to get the supermajority it needs in Congress.

I was going to discuss foreign policy in this post as well, but this post is getting pretty long as it is, so we'll stop it here.

Update: John Hawkins of Right Wing News shares his agenda wishlist.

Sheya Joie hands a dose of reality to Christians concerning the re-election of President Bush:

The Bush win seemed to have brought out a lot of what I think of as 'Bush-olatry' - Christians so exultant over his win, as if having Bush in the White House will ensure good things breaking out everywhere. I heard a lot of talk of 'reprieve' and 'now we have four more years.'

But four more years to do what? To sit in our churches and continue with the bless-me clubs?

Yes, I voted for Bush (don't let my dad know I violated the principle of the secret ballot!) - but it was more like I voted against Kerry. I don't have a whole lot of illusions about Republican-presidents-as-Messiah: we've had some pretty conservative presidents - and yet abortion is still legal, morals continue to get worse and worse, etc, etc.

Yes, who occupies the White House does matter. But so does what we ourselves are doing. (Yes, including me.) It isn't enough to vote a Christian into the Presidency and think, I did a good thing; I can go back to sleep now.

She's right. While worldly victories are nice, they can be ultimately self-defeating if we put too much emphasis on the world and not enough on the soul. The Christian's job is to win souls, not elections, and that can't be done through winning a majority. Souls are turned one at a time, and if you look at the liberal response to the election, Bush's re-election almost seems counterproductive to winning souls, having hardened hearts rather than softened them. Of course, I don't really believe that's the case, as I believe these particular hearts wouldn't have softened if they had won the election, and the long-term effects for Christianity are positive from this election; ensured freedom of expression here, freedom of religion in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world, and the expansion of a culture of life and moral values are all benefits of a Bush victory. For that matter, I think it sounded an alarm for the mainstream media and the liberal elite that they've lost touch with mainstream American culture which could ultimately change how they talk and think about religious people. Short term, however, I think this election may have made it harder to reach some people with the Gospel.

The response to this is not to water down the Gospel and make it as non-offensive as possible, to the point of removing any moral imperative from our witness, just to win people. Yes, we could make the Gospel more attractive if we got rid of the hard parts, but the Gospel is by its nature a message of offense, and if we're not offending anyone, we're probably doing something wrong. I'm making that point that our success is not unmitigated, and it's certainly not an excuse for rest on our laurels. We should not gloat, despite my previous joking, but we should act with compassion and grace to reach out to others, to make clear what the message is, and to let them respond as they may.

Everybody's talking about moral values these days. According to exit polls, this was the motivating factor behind the votes that gave the win to George W. Bush. Considering what else these exit polls said, I'm surprised people are listening to them. David Brooks takes this view in The New York Times:

Every election year, we in the commentariat come up with a story line to explain the result, and the story line has to have two features. First, it has to be completely wrong. Second, it has to reassure liberals that they are morally superior to the people who just defeated them.

In past years, the story line has involved Angry White Males, or Willie Horton-bashing racists. This year, the official story is that throngs of homophobic, Red America values-voters surged to the polls to put George Bush over the top.

This theory certainly flatters liberals, and it is certainly wrong.
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Much of the misinterpretation of this election derives from a poorly worded question in the exit polls. When asked about the issue that most influenced their vote, voters were given the option of saying "moral values." But that phrase can mean anything - or nothing. Who doesn't vote on moral values? If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result.

On the other hand, a lot of conservatives are crowing about the exit polls, such as Larry Kudlow at National Review Online:

Though the established media outlets almost never talk about it, Bush's core support group has all along been the born-again Christians. They make up roughly 40 percent of the American population. They are middle-class folk who go to church, read the Bible, and practice traditional virtues and values — make that religious values — in their daily lives. They are married and tend to stay married. They are shopkeepers and small-business people. Many are stay-at-home self-employed. Others are salespeople who travel their regions as insurance brokers or financial planners or corporate product representatives. They drive SUVs. They shop at Wal-Mart and JCPenney. They are middle class.

Yes, and they believe in God — as does their candidate George W. Bush. They also believe in traditional marriage between a man and a woman. And as befits the traditional nuclear family, they love their children and believe strongly in a child's right to life.

In Ohio, which turned out to be Bush's most important swing state after all, one-fourth of voters identified themselves as born-again Christians and they backed Bush by a 3-to-1 margin. These folks turned out heavily to support Ohio's state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. In fact, voters in 11 states approved constitutional amendments limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

And a lot of liberals are decrying the fall of America into theocratic fascism that these "moral values" voters indicate, as Mark Steyn notes in the Daily Telegraph:

The big question after Tuesday was: will it just be more of the same in George W Bush's second term, or will there be a change of tone? And apparently it's the latter. The great European thinkers have decided that instead of doing another four years of lame Bush-is-a-moron cracks they're going to do four years of lame Americans-are-morons cracks. Inaugurating the new second-term outreach was Brian Reade in the Daily Mirror, who attributed the President's victory to: "The self-righteous, gun-totin', military-lovin', sister-marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport-ownin' rednecks, who believe God gave America the biggest dick in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land 'free and strong'."

Well, that's certainly why I supported Bush, but I'm not sure it entirely accounts for the other 59,459,765. Forty five per cent of Hispanics voted for the President, as did 25 per cent of Jews, and 23 per cent of gays. And this coalition of common-or-garden rednecks, Hispanic rednecks, sinister Zionist rednecks, and lesbian rednecks who enjoy hitting on their gay-loathin' sisters expanded its share of the vote across the entire country - not just in the Bush states but in the Kerry states, too.

I'll admit, I'm one of those moral values voters. Well, sort of. I was mostly a war voter, since that was my most important issue. Moral values was second on my list, though, and perhaps I should explain what I mean by that, which may give you a clue as to what the other moral value voters are all about.

I do care about embryonic stem cell research, abortion on demand, and redefining marriage to include same-sex couples. I'm against all of them. But what I care about most is democracy. You see, my position on all these issues is shared by the plurality of Americans, if not the majority. I would prefer that these issues be decided by the American people, in their legislatures and at the polls, than handed down on high from the elites. You see, the majority of Americans can respect people with different opinions. If democratic process ends with them on the losing side, they'll regret the loss, mourn it, and move on. They'll try to change people's minds and give it another shot in four years. The elite doesn't seem to trust the American people, nor do they show any respect for honest disagreement. To them, anyone who thinks redefining marriage is a bad idea, or that there is something abhorrent about abortion, or that medical research that doesn't require the destruction of human embryos is preferable to research which does, isn't just wrong, he's evil, or ignorant, or both. Therefore his opinion is simply invalid; he can be safely ignored. It is unfortunate, however, that he still has a vote. All the stupid and bad people can really get in the way of the enlightened and compassionate elites when they get a vote too, so it is necessary to move the issue beyond their reach, preferably to the courts. And that is what they have done, and there they have the advantage. You see, Republicans believe that these issues should not be decided by the courts, so Republican presidents don't appoint strictly ideological judges, they also appoint moderates like as O'Connor and Souter. Democratic presidents only appoint liberal judges. They do, in fact, apply a litmus test, such that only judges with certain views can be appointed to the courts. And when the President is not a Democrat, the Democrats in the Senate do their best to impede the appointment of any judges with whose views they disagree, as the filibusters over the past few years show.

So when I'm thinking of moral issues, my main issue is that the courts will not be allowed to circumvent the democratic process, and I know that only Republicans are at all interested in making that happen. I also know that they are comfortable with the diverse opinions of the electorate, and do not scorn differing beliefs.

So of all the commenters I've read, I think Kate O'Beirne has it best in the Washington Post:

The moderate Republicans who spoke at the convention are at home in their conservative, pro-life party and represent countless others who share their views on such issues as foreign policy, tax rates or tort reform. Political parties are coalitions, and elections are won when a self-confident party can remain faithful to its core principles while appealing to voters with different priorities. President Bush's success exemplifies that approach: He is unapologetically opposed to abortion but passes no judgment on those who disagree with him and encourages them to find common cause with him elsewhere. Last year, Sen. John Kerry was calling pro-lifers "the forces of intolerance."
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Bush believes Americans are smart and unfailingly decent. He doesn't think southern conservatives are closet racists, that opponents of gay marriage are hateful homophobes or that pro-lifers are mean-spirited misogynists. He is well aware that America's liberal media (and as well as European commentators) view him as a dangerous fool. Nonetheless, the majority of high school and college graduates voted for him.

Apparently, some New Yorkers believe they have the only right to 9/11, and that all others should leave America's fight with terrorism to those who were personally affected by it. From A Small Victory:

Since when is terrorism only an issue to those who have suffered from it? Do you have to live through a terrible thing in order to fear that terrible thing? Is it necessary to have the acrid smell of death cling to your clothes in order to want to fight the very thing that caused it?

Have you ever read these stories? They are the voices of 9/11; over one hundred people - most of them not New Yorkers - who did not need to be standing at the foot of the towers in order to understand what terrorism is and what it does to a country.

The people in the Midwest are Americans. Terrorism perpetrated on American soil or interests - whether it be in New York or Yemen, greatly affects all Americans.

[Quoting Ted Rall:]Terrorism? Please, if you live in Mississippi or Colorado or Alaska, don't presume to talk about, much less cast your vote based upon, your "views" of Islamist terrorism. New Yorkers don't lecture you about hunting. Butt out of our business.

And they call us ignorant? Here he compares hunting to a terrorist attack that kills thousands. Tell us, Ted. How does elk hunting compare to people hunting? It doesn't. Two towers crumbling to the ground in New York profoundly affects an entire country and all if its people. A deer falling dead in the woods of Colorado? Need I go on?

And this is what I keep hearing from my fellow New Yorkers. The people outside of New York and D.C. who voted with the war on terror in mind are idiots and fools who were brainwashed by a chimpanzee and his mind-melding sidekick.

I think that these New Yorkers have it backwards. Didn't bin Laden just say that he will only be attacking states that voted for Bush? If that's the case, those Bush-haters in New York and California should be glad that they voted against him, and can now let the Red Staters duke it out with the terrorists. I mean, that is how Michael Moore and his fellow Far Lefties think, isn't it? Their only beef with bin Laden is he attacked non-Bush voters in New York rather than Bush-voters in Louisiana. Of course, these Blue Staters should be glad the Red Staters exist. Frankly, the Islamofascists hate the Hollywood and New York cultural dominance and its amorality than they hate the Oklahomans and Louisianians for their minor contributions to the American Hegemony. Just as they want their earlier conquests in Europe back more than they care what happens in the US. Frankly, Europe needs Americans, and the Bush-haters need the Bush-supporters, because they are the ones who stand between the Islamofascists and their true targets. To the Islamofascists, Bush is an object of intense hatred mainly because he's getting in the way of their true targets.

I was surfing the right side of the blogosphere yesterday looking for some decent gloating. Yeah, it's undignified, but it should be fun to read. And after the abuse the Lefties have heaped on Bush and other conservatives over the last year, you'd expect some, wouldn't you? Unfortunately, most of the bloggers I read were civil and gracious. Megan McArdle is urging civility, which is no surprise as she was undecided right up until last week, as is Lileks, who's always civil, but so is Doc Rampage, and I really expected him to gloat a little. Where do I have to go to read some good gloating? The best I could find was John Derbyshire's highly targeted gloating. Tim Blair's is more fun, and he's not even an American.

Last night, Dave Barry shared his thoughts on the election:

And so, at last, the 2004 presidential campaign, which began in roughly 1997, is over. We have finally come to the end of the bitter hateful partisan viciousness that has consumed us for far too long, and we can now look forward, as a nation, to beginning a new era of bitter hateful partisan viciousness.

But first let's pause for a moment to express our support, as Americans, for the man we have elected as our next president, even if we did not vote for him, or do not -- in my case, anyway -- know who he is.

For all I know, we elected Cher. My deadline for this column was 8:30 election night, and as I write these words, the networks are refusing to make any predictions about who won. They don't want to repeat the fiasco of election night 2000, when they appeared to be getting their voting-return data from a Magic Eight Ball.

I'm really going to miss him when he goes on sabbatical next year.

Pending litigation at the time I write this (just before bed, to be honest, as I broke my promise not to stay up late watching the returns, but I'm putting this post on delay until tomorrow morning), but it looks like a Bush win, plus Republican gains in the Senate and the House. Plenty of reasons for me to be happy. Thoughts on what this means after I get some sleep, and hopefully work on some fiction, and maybe exercise. Okay, it may be a little while, but I'll post my thoughts eventually.

Okay, as my computer screen has now started blinking--I'm serious, this window and all the others are refreshing at about 2 Hz, although the background isn't--I think it's time to go to bed. Or at least reboot the computer

I know I said I wasn't going to do any election commentary until tomorrow, but I found this highly disturbing (via Instapundit):

I was not in the books. I've voted in every election in my district since moving there in 2000. I recently moved but hadn't changed my voter registration (as advised by the County election board) since the move was outside of the timeframe to change voting districts.

I have two forms of ID - a driver's license and a Firearm Owner ID. I also have a faculty ID for the UofC and a corporate ID from where I work. I had my Voter Registration Card. I also had a paycheck with my address on it.

There were many people who were also not in the voter books. The guy next to me was screaming about "Fraud!". There were four ladies who were crying. Another guy was yelling about his rights. The election judges were freaking out.

The election judges (certainly inept and under-prepared for the onslaught) didn't have any provisional ballots.

They turned everyone (that was not in the books) away.

As I left on my way to the County Election Commission to file a complaint, I asked ten different people who were also denied a vote because they weren't in the book, "Are you Republicans?"

All ten replied, "Yes."

"Did you vote in the primary?"

Nine, "Yes."

It's impossible to know if the Republicans were removed from the book. But this is Chicago...where the dead count more than the living.

As Hugh Hewitt says, Bush doesn't just have to win, he has to win by a large enough margin to overcome voter fraud like this. And beyond that by a large enough margin to overcome any legal challenges from Democratic lawyers, as Mark Steyn says.

In other news, I voted today. I'm rather surprised that I did. Not that I didn't want to, you understand, just that I was able to. I was registered to vote in Louisiana when I lived here briefly eight years ago, and I kept a Louisiana license and everything for the seven years I spent in Massachusetts getting educated. Last year, when I moved to New York, I got a New York license and registered to vote there. When I found myself moving back to Louisiana two months ago, I was reluctant to move everything here, since I didn't expect to be here more than a month (it looks more like three months, now, but still not a very long time). My original plan, if I had not found a job and moved somewhere else by the time, was to vote by absentee ballot in New York. When I looked into it, I discovered that legally I'd been living away from New York for too long to vote absentee. I could probably get away with it, but I didn't want to push the law like that. By this time is was too late to register in Louisiana, so I pretty much expected not to be able to vote.

However, it turned out that my registration was still good in Louisiana. This disturbed me, as this would mean that I'm registered in both Louisiana and New York, but it does mean that I was able to vote.

Update: Even when it looked like I wouldn't be able to vote, I wasn't too upset. Neither of the states I could vote in are battleground states. I mean, if my vote gives New York to Bush, then he wins by a landslide. If it takes my vote for Bush to win Louisiana, then there's not a chance he'll beat Kerry.

In a word, no. I'm not going to be doing any election coverage here. I'm even going to do my best not to follow other people's coverage too closely. I will give my post-election analysis Wednesday--expect me to be either ecstatic or dismal then. Or frustrated, if the election goes straight from the voting phase to the litigation phase. If you want coverage in intense detail, your best bet will be National Review's The Corner, which Washington Post's blog survey votes for the best Republican party coverage and Democratic party coverage.