Crazification watch

The latest Kaiser Foundation poll finds that 60% of Americans either support the ACA or prefer that it "be given a chance to work, with Congress making." Just 27% support repeal.

-- Jon Chait

Why Obama disappoints

It seems to be my day for echoing Kevin Drum, who passes along this from M.J. Rosenberg, recording the Obama disenchantment of himself and his friends:

They all supported Obama in the primaries and all celebrated his election. They are all left-of-center.

And they all feel let down by the administration right now. They are still Obama supporters but, unless something changes, he will soon move in to the territory both Clinton and Carter inhabited. He will have our support because he's a Democratic President up against utterly unpatriotic and selfish lunatics, bigots, and troglodytes. It will be simply be the "consider the alternative" kind of support.

We had hoped for much more. We wanted to feel what our grandparents and great-grandparents felt for FDR — that he was out there battling for working people, the unemployed, and, frankly, an America strikingly different than the one they were living in....I want FDR style politics and TR style rhetoric ("the bully pulpit"). Right now, I don't see it. Neither does columnist Herbert. And, yes, I recognize the constraints. But Presidents have to transcend them, or at least be seen as fighting like hell. I don't see that happening.

Sounds correct to me. Take my pet issue, torture. We were supposed to think Obama was foregoing prosecutions, or even investigations, because they would interfere with his program. But what is his program? What does he stand for?

Obama wants to be *for* without being *against* anyone, at least anyone American. That may be a fatal mistake. I don't need to hear about GOP obstructionism and craziness from blogs. I need to hear about it from the President.

Objectively pro-Republican

Kevin Drum is not happy with Russ Feingold, whose refusal to sign onto the financial reform bill has become a serious problem since the death of Robert Byrd:

What's more, his reasons for doing this don't even make sense. This bill won't prevent another crisis? No it won't, but voting for the status quo does even less. It doesn't break up the big banks? The status quo does even less. It suffers from too much lobbyist influence? Well, Wall Street lobbyists are far more enthusiastic about the status quo than they are about this bill. There are only two choices available here, and on virtually every level Feingold is voting in favor of the alternative that does less of what he says he wants.

Gotta concur with Drum. Principles are nice, but when it's an up and down vote on "better than it was" vs. "just as bad as it was," you have to compromise and vote for the less bad alternative. Which I hope Feingold, said by some to be an intelligent person, will figure out.

Well within the margin of error

A new Vanity Fair/60 Minutes poll finds 24% of Americans still think President Obama was born in "another country," despite the constitutional requirement that presidents be born in U.S. territory.

-- Political Wire.

The crazification factor continues to amaze with its profound accuracy.

"All the Americans here know that their game is over."

William Dalrymple (via Fallows, via Sully) visits Afghanistan, where they remember slaughtering the Brits in 1842 the way Mississippians remember Archie Manning's pro career:

The following morning in Jalalabad, we went to a jirga, or assembly of tribal elders, to which the greybeards of Gandamak had come under a flag of truce to discuss what had happened the day before. The story was typical of many I heard about the current government, and revealed how a mixture of corruption, incompetence and insensitivity has helped give an opening for the return of the once-hated Taliban.

As Predator drones took off and landed incessantly at the nearby airfield, the elders related how the previous year government troops had turned up to destroy the opium harvest. The troops promised the villagers full compensation, and were allowed to burn the crops; but the money never turned up. Before the planting season, the villagers again went to Jalalabad and asked the government if they could be provided with assistance to grow other crops. Promises were made; again nothing was delivered. They planted poppy, informing the local authorities that if they again tried to burn the crop, the village would have no option but to resist. When the troops turned up, about the same time as we were arriving at nearby Jegdalek, the villagers were waiting for them, and had called in the local Taliban to assist. In the fighting that followed, nine policemen were killed, six vehicles destroyed and ten police hostages taken.

After the jirga was over, one of the tribal elders came over and we chatted for a while over a glass of green tea. "Last month," he said, "some American officers called us to a hotel in Jalalabad for a meeting. One of them asked me, 'Why do you hate us?' I replied, 'Because you blow down our doors, enter our houses, pull our women by the hair and kick our children. We cannot accept this. We will fight back, and we will break your teeth, and when your teeth are broken you will leave, just as the British left before you. It is just a matter of time.'"

What did he say to that? “He turned to his friend and said, 'If the old men are like this, what will the younger ones be like?' In truth, all the Americans here know that their game is over. It is just their politicians who deny this."

My question for those who think we can accomplish some wonders over the next year or two in Afghanistan is, tell me how that happens.

Double cert grant on State v. Cory Maye

The celebrated Cory Maye case -- where Maye shot and killed a police officer under disputed circumstances -- is going to the MSSC on dueling cert grants, after the COA ordered a new trial in Maye's home county where the shooting took place.

State's petition: "To Grant: Waller, C.J., Randolph, Chandler and Pierce, JJ. To Deny: Carlson and Graves, P.JJ., Dickinson, Lamar and Kitchens, JJ."

Maye's petition: "To Grant: Waller, C.J., Carlson and Graves, P.JJ., Dickinson and Kitchens, JJ. To Deny: Randolph, Lamar, Chandler and Pierce, JJ."

That seems to leave Lamar wishing the status quo (life in prison for Maye a new trial for Maye) to prevail; Randolph, Chandler, and Pierce leaning to the State; Carlson, Graves, Dickinson, and Kitchens leaning to Maye; and Waller leaning who knows how. Maybe he figured if it was going up on cert anyway, might as well hear both sides.

... Also, the Goodyear Tire v. Kirby case has settled and the cert petition by Goodyear has been accordingly dismissed. And that is all I'm going to say about that.

... Damn, I got onto Bardwell for misstating what happened, and I wasn't doing too hot myself. Is it Friday yet? Soon?

"Apology accepted, General McChrystal."

Obama goes with the Sith Employee Manual. McChrystal out, Petraeus in.:

Mr. Obama, standing with General Petraeus and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the White House Rose Garden to underline the continuity and solidity of his Afghan policy, said that he had regretfully accepted General McChrystal’s resignation.

He said he had done so not out of personal insult, but because a magazine article featuring contemptuous quotes from the general and his staff about senior administration officials had not met standards of behavior for a commanding general, and threatened to undermine civilian control of the military.

“War is bigger than any one man or woman, whether a private, a general or president,” Mr. Obama said. “As difficult as it is to lose General McChrystal, I believe it is the right decision for national security.”

“I welcome debate among my team,” he said, “but I won’t tolerate division.”

It's surely significant that Biden in particular is standing to the other side of Obama as Petraeus's appointment is announced.

Nothing on what this apparent step down for Petraeus means for the command structure. Ricks asks:

The only big question he left hanging in just what happens to Central Command. Will Petraeus try to have both commands? Will someone else take over? With Pakistan, Iran and other Middle Eastern issues bubbling out there, this is a question that needs to be addressed ASAP.

... Via Sully, Thomas Barnette has a 10-point list on what Petraeus's appointment means:

Whatever the general wants, the general will get. After firing his Afghanistan commander twice in just thirteen months, Obama has no choice. Petraeus now outranks every administration player on Afghanistan. Save Obama — officially, at least. * * *

If Petraeus says the strategy needs more time, then Obama's running for re-election as a wartime president. Period. There's just no way that Obama can overrule Petraeus on this one without wounding himself politically.

As Sullivan summarizes, "Those of us who hoped for some kind of winding down of the longest war in US history will almost certainly be disappointed now."

McChrystal and the corrosive effect of war crimes

We noted back when McChrystal was put in charge of Afghanistan that his record was not an unblemished one. Our source then, the Sullysaurus, notes an Ambinder commment--

LOW BLOW: Avowed opponents of McChrystal are whispering about the DoD's inspector general's report on abuses at Camp Nama, which McChrystal oversaw as Commander in Chief of the Joint Special Operations Command. It hasn't been released.

--and retorts:

Low blow? What we saw at Camp Nama was the same kind of towel-snapping, the rules-don't-apply-to-us arrogance among McChrystal's men that we see in the Rolling Stone fiasco. Except the result then was not political embarrassment but eager and unrestrained engagement in war crimes.

Lay that alongside Mike Hastings's comments on his Rolling Stone story that sparked the present crisis:

What’s the response from the military been? Do you think your access will be cut in the future?

The most interesting response has been, in Kandahar, and having more than one person come up to me and saying, "We heard about your story, and we like McChrystal, but the message needs to get out there that these restrictions he’s putting on the soldiers are no good." So it’s actually been a positive response among the soldiers here.

Those restrictions being of course the rules trying to limit the collateral, or simply arbitrary, slaughter of innocent Afghan civilians.

I infer a link between the no-rules attitude in Iraq and the lack of respect for civilian authority in Afghanistan today. Soldiers who've formed the idea that their own safety is paramount, that killing or torturing anyone suspicious is part of the job, and that any orders to the contrary are the work of faggotty civilian pussies who've never been shot at -- well, that's what we seem to have. Lax command and discipline are very hard to fix, and we've seen years now of looking the other way (when not actively encouraging abuses).

From the Department of I Got Mine

Jon Chait passes along a fascinating Gallup result: people who already enjoy government health care don't want anyone else to enjoy it.

Gallup breaks down views of the Affordable Care Act by age. Oldsters hate it, everybody else loves it:

Chait commenter IowaBeauty:

These retirees who don't understand that they are already the beneficiaries of an efficient social medicine program, or who are selfish enough to think that they are the only ones in society who deserve such a thing, drive me nuts. This includes my usually sensible parents. It's hard for me not to see them all as a bunch of selfish old f***s who don't really care about the future of the country they live in, solely because they're not going to live it in that much longer.

I'm sure I'm wrong, but that's how it feels.

I'm not entirely sure that's wrong . . .

... On further consideration, it may be wrong after all. I'm not so sure that the 65+ crowd's opposition to the ACA is based on anything to do with healthcare. Rather, the law was enacted by Obama and the Democrats, and it's an axiom that everything Obama and the Democrats do is bad for the country. Ergo, the ACA is bad for the country.

The circular firing squad begins in Afghanistan?

Kevin Drum observes that our general in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, has a wee problem. He quotes FoxNews [sic]:

An article out this week in "Rolling Stone" magazine depicts Gen. Stanley McChrystal as a lone wolf on the outs with many important figures in the Obama administration and unable to convince even some of his own soldiers that his strategy can win the war. A band of McChrystal's profane, irreverent aides are quoted mocking Vice President Joe Biden and Richard Holbrooke, the special U.S. representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

....The article claims McChrystal has seized control of the war "by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House."

Lovely. Particularly as I'm reading Craig's The Politics of the Prussian Army.

Drum's post has more, including a link to a good Marc Ambinder piece on the fiasco. A later Drum post relays a report that McChrystal may not be toast after this; the title, "McChrystal Coming to DC to Apologize," reminds me of a scene from The Empire Strikes Back: "Apology accepted, Captain Needa."

Tom Ricks' first reaction, meanwhile, is that McChrystal will be otherwise assigned within a week, replaced either by a slummin' Petraeus or by James Mattis. Predictions are fun!

The bottom line may be spelled out by one of Ricks' commenters:

This is the kind of stuff that happens when you are losing or at least not winning your war. If they were accomplishing their mission with their prescribed ‘strategy’ they would be falling over each other claiming credit. They very fact that something like this happens is the canary in the cage warning that the air is toxic.

Word.

Casanova on blogging

... fools are insolent and their presumptions insult the mind. Thus we avenge intelligence when we refute a fool, and the victory is worth the trouble, for he is protected as with armor, and we do not know where to strike him. Refuting a fool, in short, is an endeavor worthy of a man of wit.

-- Casanova, The Story of my Life (tr. Sartarelli & Hawkes), preface.

... I've substituted "refute" for "deceive," because as we know, Casanova was not chiefly interested in blogging. He makes a pleasant distinction between fools and those who are simply stupid: "I am rather fond of such men, who are stupid only for want of proper breeding. I have found some to be quite upright, in fact, and who in the nature of the stupidity had a kind of intelligence. They are like eyes that, if not for their cataracts, would be very beautiful."

Casanova is also our source for one of Voltaire's best qui vive one-liners; the adventurer told Voltaire he'd been to see one Haller, an inveterate opponent of Voltaire's.

Voltaire: "My compliments. One must kneel before that great man."

Casanova: "I agree. You do him justice; I regret, however, that he is not quite so equitable towards you."

Voltaire: "Ah, well! It is quite possible we are both mistaken."

Natural selection at work

I've seen the suspiciously wingnut-looking Matt Ridley book in the stores -- Ridley, known for pop accounts of evolutionary theory, is now writing about how the development of economic exchange was crucial to human evolution -- but I hadn't known the backstory:

In the book, Ridley attacks the “parasitic bureaucracy”, which stifles free enterprise and excoriates governments for, among other sins, bailing out big corporations. If only the market is left to its own devices, he insists, and not stymied by regulations, the outcome will be wonderful for everybody.

What Ridley glosses over is that before he wrote this book he had an opportunity to put his theories into practice. As chairman of Northern Rock, he was responsible, according to parliament’s Treasury select committee, for a “high-risk, reckless business strategy”. Northern Rock was able to pursue this strategy as a result of a “substantial failure of regulation” by the state. The wonderful outcome of this experiment was the first run on a British bank since 1878, and a £27bn government bail-out.

But it’s not just Ridley who doesn’t mention the inconvenient disjunction between theory and practice: hardly anyone does. His book has now been reviewed dozens of times, and almost all the reviewers have either been unaware of his demonstration of what happens when his philosophy is applied or too polite to mention it.

-- George Monbiot, via CT. I gotta say, any organism that's evolved the ruse of squawking "free market!" while collecting billions in bailout money is a sophisticated beast indeed.

Appellate line of the day

Finally, in my experience, it is indeed a rare and unreliable piece of hearsay evidence that cannot be made to qualify under any of the thirty-one exceptions to the rule against hearsay. And if we believe enforcement of the rule against hearsay is appropriate and necessary to protect the rights of murderers, rapists, and pedophiles, surely we think it necessary to protect the rights and interests of children and their parents.

-- McDonald v. McDonald (Miss. June 17, 2010) (Dickinson, J., specially concurring).

... Dickinson also gets the second-best line:

In this case, the Court of Appeals found that, because the Commission's order was appealable, it was not final. Harper, 2009 WL 1856996, at *3. However, no citation of authority is required for the proposition that, unless and until an order or judgment is final, it cannot be appealed. Thus, it would be inconsistent to say that appealable orders are not final.

-- Harper v. Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (Miss. June 17, 2010). What's a little scary however is that the decision was 5-4.

Leaping Danes

Reading Manjit Kumar's Quantum, and suddenly realizing that Kierkegaard, famous for his "leap of faith," is the countryman of Niels Bohr, whose landmark paper on "The Quantum Atom" explained the orbits of electrons around the nucleus as confined to quantized energy levels, such that an electron didn't travel between lower and higher orbits, but made a "quantum leap" from one to the other, without existing in the intervening space.

Not an original observation, saith Google, but curious.

Practice tips from the 12th Chancery District

Mississippi may have its first blogging judge ... Chancellor Larry Primeaux.

What to plead! What to wear! Probably a good resource, at least for those appearing before the meticulous Judge Primeaux.

(Discovered via his comment here.)