SuperUser

Re-re-re-re-reading

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by JanieM

In 1966, the summer I was sixteen, the Saturday Evening Post published an article entitled, "The Hobbit-foming World of J.R.R. Tolkien." The subheadline called The Lord of the Rings "the hottest-selling item in U.S. campus bookstores."

I would like to think I was drawn in by the description of the story itself, not just by the desire to be cool like the college kids, and subsequent history supports that conceit. I bought and read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings that summer, then reread the trilogy every year for almost the next fifty, long after I let go of the desire to be cool like the college kids.

It has been a few years since I stopped reading LOTR word for word every single year. Some years I do need the solace of the whole thing; usually this happens in the winter. Other years it's enough to read scattered bits, some chosen at random, some deliberately.

"I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel…"

But I really sat down to write about rereading. ….More below the fold.

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

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by JanieM and apologies to Janie for retitling her post, which was While everyone’s obsessing over Russian influence… I couldn’t resist… lj Here’s a gem: Following concerns from civil liberties advocates, Rep. Joe Kennedy’s office says he is reviewing an anti-boycott bill he cosponsors. Kennedy is among 63 Democrats and 174 Republicans supporting a House … Read more

Abigail Adams and Me

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by JanieM

Some years ago I read Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams, by Lynne Withey, and John Adams, by David McCullogh, in quick succession. Unexpectedly, I ended up thinking a lot about communication.

John Adams took John Quincy to France when JQ was about ten years old. The trip took more than three months, then it took three more months for a letter to get back to Abigail saying that her husband and son had been safe and well in France as of three months before she got the letter.

By contrast, during the five years when my son lived in China, we could talk via Skype every day if we wanted to.

With video.

For free.

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On accusations of *-ism and prejudice

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Guest post by Bruce Baugh; originally a comment at File770. There’s an aspect of worldview which is sort of prior to specific politics, religion or philosophy, and so on, that needs some explicit attention. Some people believe that it’s possible (in the sense of “feasible for some significant number of people”, not the abstract possible … Read more

Facts Can’t Stop Zombie Lee Atwater

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by Eric Martin This is more evidence that the housing crisis and financial meltdown were the result of the CRA, Fannie and Freddie and, in general, extension of home ownership to poor minorities: Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage … Read more

Venezuela Anecdote

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This post is NOT by Moe Lane.  I’m using the administrative account instead of my own identity for reasons which I will hope you will understand after you read.  I’m fairly certain that a regular reader could guess who wrote this, but I ask you not to do so in the comments. The company I … Read more

You write Malkin, I read Hillary

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It’s now clear (SAT time):  Michelle Malkin : Obsidian Wings as Hillary Clinton : Republican party Malkin is the one common enemy that unites all the warring factions.  In any event, before I slink back into that long night of semi-permanent retirement, let me offer the following two thoughts: 1.  Malkin is not the conservative … Read more

The First Rule of Holes

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…. is when you’re in one, stop digging. (Yes, yes, I’m on semi-permanent hiatus.  But I make a special exception for Malkin, who, as John Cole rightly relates, "is a gaping asshole and everything that is wrong with the Republican party.") UPDATE: Compare: "I certainly am not convinced that a government-run system is the answer, … Read more

*Claps Hands*

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by von I’M OUT.  Well, for the moment at least.  This blog is no longer what I signed up for, and it has turned into something that isn’t a good fit for me, my politics, or my style.  Never say never and all, but it is time for a break. By the way, my departure … Read more

Onward, Semper Assholia Maxima!

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by von WOW:  SNIDELY REFERENCE Kevin Drum’s snidery toward the rich — i.e., "it’s nice to know that there are a few rich people who aren’t complete assholes, but it seems safe to say that the majority fall pretty safely into this category" — and catch it, well, in the ass.  (Read the comments.)  But … Read more

WTF

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by von LOOK, I GENUINELY like Kevin Drum’s blog, but it really seems to be silly season over there.  First, we had a head-scratcher regarding the rationale — if any — for FDR’s alleged decision to set the price of gold based on his latest luck number.  Now, we get this: ….What a depressing story … Read more

Sloe Gin Fizz

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by von I AM NOT posting on the blogkerfuffle involving Pejman, Calpundit, Pejman (again), and the price of gold in 1933.  Well, not directly. OK, fine, I take that back:  I am going to post on it.  I side with Pejman, but concede that El Pundit has a point with "Dude: That was 74 years … Read more

But each and every member of that 6% has a blog!

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by von ANOTHER REASON WHY the blogosphere is a less-than-reliable political barometer:  Only 13% of Americans think that President Bush did the right thing in commuting Libby’s sentence, and only 6% of think that the President should have pardoned him.  But every one of those folks has a blog! As I’ve remarked before: [T]he blogosphere … Read more

Southampton Dock

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by von

ROSS DOUTHAT, last Tuesday:

Two out of two Matts agree: If the U.S. pulls out of Iraq or fails to bomb Iran, the "stab in the back" narrative is going to become the centerpiece of a revived post-Bush conservatism, and progressives need to steel themselves to combat it.

Myself, I think that liberals should be praying that the Right embraces the "stabbed in the back" theory of what went wrong in Iraq (and possibly Iran as well), because it will push conservatives toward political irrelevance.

Professor Reynolds, today, ignoring Douthat’s advice:

JUST BACK FROM IRAQ, J.D. JOHANNES HAS A COLUMN ON RICHARD LUGAR: "Is it possible to win a war on the ground, and lose it in Congress?"

J.D. Johannes, Reynolds’ support, explaining:

The principal accomplishment of the surge to date is solidifying the “Anbar Awakening,” the significance of which has been under-reported by the media and ill-understood by the public. If any piece of territory in Iraq qualified as a “terrorist safe haven,” it was bloody Anbar. …..

The virtual extinction of the insurgency in the province — a victory that I was privileged to witness first-hand — represented not some momentary quirk of tribal alliances, but a diligent application of the revised tactics that coalition forces have implemented under skilled, battle-proven officers and Gen. Petraeus.

Anbar province and Baghdad, this week:

[June 24] Iraqi authorities say a suicide bomber driving a fuel tanker has killed at least 10 people in an attack on police headquarters in the city of Baiji.

[June 25] A stealthy suicide bomber slipped into a busy Baghdad hotel Monday and blew himself up in the midst of a gathering of U.S.-allied tribal sheiks, undermining efforts to forge a front against the extremists of al Qaeda in Iraq. Four of the tribal chiefs were among the 13 victims, police said.

[June 26] The Petraeus team’s attempt to try to (at least temporarily) change the game in Iraq’s Anbar province by arming some tribes against the ISI (the loose Islamic State of Iraq) looks like it is already over. A significant failure in security allowed a suicide attack in the Mansour hotel lobby that killed key leaders (made critically important due to the imposed hierarchy deemed necessary to create a single Sunni "front") of the "Anbar Salvation Council." In parallel, there are rumors of bitter rivalry and that a tribal leader ("Anbar Awakening") absconded with $75 m in US money given to fund militia development.

[June 26] Iraqi commandos raided the home of a Sunni Cabinet member Tuesday after a warrant was issued for his arrest, outraging Sunni politicians and jeopardizing U.S.-backed reconciliation efforts within the Shiite-led government.

The move against Culture Minister Asad Kamal al-Hashimi came after he was identified by two suspected militants as the mastermind of a Feb. 8, 2005, ambush against secular politician Mithal al-Alusi, an Iraqi government spokesman said. Al-Alusi escaped unharmed but two of his sons were killed.

[June 26] An Iraqi tribal leader has been shot and killed in southern Baghdad, one day after at least four Sunni tribal leaders were killed in a suicide bombing at a hotel in Iraq’s capital.

[June 27] Iraqi officials say a car bomb has exploded in northern Baghdad, killing at least seven people.

Authorities say the blast in the Kadhimiya district on Wednesday evening injured at least 14 others.

Bomb attacks and other violence Wednesday in Iraq killed about 50 people overall, many in the Baghdad area.

[June 27] Insurgents killed a US marine during combat operations in the restive Sunni province of Anbar in western Iraq, the military said Wednesday.

[June 27] Police found the bodies of 21 people in Baghdad on Wednesday. Most had been shot. ….Four Iraqi policemen were killed in an ambush near the oil city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, when gunmen opened fire on their vehicles, police said. …. The Iraqi army have killed four insurgents and detained 85 others during the last 24 hours in different districts of Baghdad, the Defence Ministry said. ….Gunmen killed two members of the Assyrian’s Beth-Nahrain Association Union in a drive-by shooting in central Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. …. A suicide car bomb targeting a police commando checkpoint killed one policeman and wounded three other officers in the al-Jaderiyia district of southern Baghdad, police said. …. A roadside bomb killed seven people, including five police commandoes in Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said, adding that two civilians were killed when security forces opened fire in the aftermath of the blast. …. A car bomb killed at least three people in an attack on police vehicles near a busy market in northern Baghdad, a witness said. Police said there had been an explosion in the Suleikh district and 10 people were wounded. …. Fourteen insurgents were killed when a truck they were rigging with explosives blew up overnight in the town of Shirqat, 310 km (190 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. …. Five people were killed and three wounded in different attacks by gunmen on Tuesday in Mosul, police said. …. An athletic club in Mosul was badly damaged when gunmen planted bombs inside the building overnight, police said.

[June 28] A massive car bomb exploded at a street-side bus depot during Baghdad’s Thursday morning rush hour, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 40 others in a tremendous explosion that set fire to scores of vehicles, Iraqi police said.

Authorities say at least 18 others were wounded by the blast in the northern town.

Earlier Monday, a suicide car bomber killed eight people and wounded 25 in an attack on the governor’s offices in Hillah, a predominantly Shi’ite city, south of Baghdad.

It took four years of failure for the President and his supporters to heed the advice of Senator John McCain and others.  It took four years for them to admit that, maybe, McCain, Powell, and Shinseki were right. Now, they complain that we do not trust their judgment.  Now, wars are not lost by the Commander in Chief or the Secretary of Defense, but by the U.S. Senate.  Now, we are the ones who are oblivious to reality.  Now, we cannot ask whether the surge is "Too Little, Too Late."  Now, they are right and we are wrong.  Now, four years on, they still do not get it.

It may well be that the troops have been stabbed in the back.  Reynolds and Johannes, however, are pointing their fingers in the wrong direction.

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And So It Goes

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by von LONGTIME READERS will know that I am, in foreign policy matters, a Lugarist:  whence Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) went, so, generally, do I scramble to follow.  So I can’t let this post from Professor Reynolds pass: 535 COMMANDERS-IN-CHIEF: Now it’s Richard Lugar calling for a new strategy. Maybe we could do something to … Read more

About Right

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by von PROFESSOR REYNOLDS, clearly in his element, explains why Vice President Cheney’s claim that he’s not part of the executive branch misses the point.  I’m not an expert in this area, but it’s the best explanation that I’ve seen so far.  So just go read it.

Anti-Althousiana, Hooray!

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by von I DON’T GENERALLY READ Ann Althouse; I find her shtick — and a lot of it is shtick — to be kinda boring.  Indeed, that Professor Althouse attempts treat blogging as performance art doesn’t mean that all of her performances are art (or particularly good).  But curiousity got the better of me, and … Read more

With Friends Like These ….

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by von LOOK, I GET IT.  The Pajama-folks are, by and large, idiots.  Were you to put Roger Simon and Charles Johnson in a room ask them to create a foreign policy, you would end up with a panda bear.  Not a metaphorical panda bear.  An actual panda bear.  Don’t ask how they did it: … Read more

Jimmy Nada Is A Dead Man

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by von MICKEY KAUS, taking an unexpected turn: Bush’s Domestic Iraq, cont.: In today’s WSJ, Jeb Bush and Ken Mehlman defend the Senate immigration bill [$] in part on the grounds that it will enable Republicans to capture the Latino vote. This is largely a fantasy, as Heather Mac Donald argues. Anyway, if the GOP … Read more

Summa-Assuma

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by von I’VE DISSENTED FROM Hilzoy’s post (and the Newsweek colum) declaring that Plame has been found to be a "covert agent" under the law:  Perhaps she was, but a Court gets to decide that — not the executive branch (here represented by Patrick Fitzgerald and the General Counsel of the CIA).  Moreover, we haven’t … Read more

A Distant Episode

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by von WE BREAK FROM POLITICS* to reconsider our relative youth.  And one of the better tunes from the late 1990s: You’re such a willing stick to beckon that wanting knife and you’ve been looking for it the right blade, all your life saying: "who’s gonna cut me down to a size that suits me? … Read more

Remove All Doubt

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by von ROGER SIMON’S [*] most recent attack on John Edwards basically discredits him as a pundit and blogger: Does John Edwards include Jews in his prayers? Or Muslims? Or Hindus?  Or any other non-Christians? He didn’t the other day. The other day, in order to commemorate those killed at Virginia Tech, Edwards led a … Read more

Bodies

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by von "AT LEAST 20 people were killed this morning at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and University after a shooting spree at two buildings on the campus." (Washington Post) Other sources put the total number of dead at 21, including the gunman, with about the same number wounded. (Indianapolis Star.)  UPDATE: MSN reports that at least … Read more

Vonnites Of Von-Nation, Rejoice

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by von (of course) I WAS QUITE flattered to be asked to provide a profile for Norman Geras, who has profiled a good chunk of the blogosphere at Normblog.  Geras is one of the better bloggers around, and his site is well worth a visit. In any event, the profile is here if you’re interested. 

J’accuse!

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by von QUITE FRANKLY, Kevin Drum and Eric Martin are offering non sequiturs that are beneath them: A couple of months ago conservative apologists were falling all over themselves lauding the success of Ethiopia’s brutality-based approach to quelling the Islamist insurgency in neighboring Somalia. Today, that approach isn’t looking so good. Eric Martin comments: Why, … Read more

The Kobayashi Maru Scenario

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UNLESS Y’ALL convince me otherwise right quick, I’m about to deploy Plan B of von’s way in political giving:  start giving money to the least objectionable candidate in the primaries of both parties.  The idea is to do what one can to avoid the tragedy of a match-up like the one we saw in ’04, … Read more

Atom Heart Mother, Redux

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by von PROFESSOR REYNOLDS continues his attempt to shoot down carbon offsets (previously discussed at ObWi here), by linking to a well-rounded analysis from The Economist.  Reynolds claims that The Economist supports his claim that carbon offsets are counterproductive.  Here is Reynolds’ post: STILL MORE on whether carbon offsets work, from The Economist. "If you … Read more

Housekeeping

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by von Please keep in mind that a goal of ObWi is political diversity, even though the commenteriat may lean decidedly left of late.  This is not an activist site for the Democratic party.  (Nor is it, obviously, an activist site for Republicans.)  Please also keep in mind that you need to stay away from … Read more

Not Ready For Primetime

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by von While I’m agreeing with The CalPundit on one thing, let me agree with him on another:  The proposal by Senator Dodd to cap the level of troops at 130,000 is bad policy and bad politics.  As Drum writes, "legislation that essentially locks in place the status quo" is probably the worst of all … Read more

Context, Of Course

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UPDATE by von:  Comments are closed.  Thanks for playing, folks.

by von

Why do the anti-war liberals get no love, despite their apparent vindication by events on the ground?  Kevin Drum has an answer and Publius — an anti-war liberal himself — responds below.  It should surprise no one that I think Drum has the better argument. The dominant arguments of the anti-war camp in 2002 were arguments against preemptive war, and did not emphasize the real flaws that resulted in the current mess.  Indeed, if anything, these pre-war cries may have helped those in power justify a smaller force in Iraq — to our enormous detriment.*

But that’s a digression, and we’ll not know the may-haves or could-bes for a long time to come (if ever).  A contribution can still be made to the debate, however.  It’s important to recall that there were reasonable bases for many liberals and moderates to favor intervention in Iraq (I count myself among the moderates) .  These reasons required neither total allegiance to President Bush nor a blind acceptance of General Frank’s strategy:  Indeed, many of us were calling for more troops from the very start.  For context, consider the following statement, which I posted* on November 25, 2002 and which comes closest to explaining the bases for my decision to provide guarded support for the war.  You’ll note that the context was the ongoing Security Counsel debate regarding whether the invasion would have UN backing.

Resolved: The United Nations’ Security Counsel should endorse a U.S.-led attack on Iraq if Iraq does not fully comply with the U.N.-mandated inspections regime. The credibility of the Security Counsel is at stake; an Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction will destabilize its neighbors; Iraq may share such weaponry with terrorists or other, rouge states; and Iraq’s past violations of international law merit a response, however belated. In addition, even a minimally-democratic Iraq, with its educated and secularized population, will likely restrain the Arab street and serve as a counterweight to an increasingly radicalized Saudi Arabia. Indeed, in no other (so-called) rogue nation — Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya — are the advantages of military action so clear, and the risks of inaction so dire.

There were two significant factual flaws in that analysis, of course.  The first and biggest one was that Iraq possessed WMDs.  Yet, I continue to think that this flaw was an excusable.  Although it’s undoubtedly true that Bush cherry-picked the best intelligence to aid his case, those who (today) act as if this lack-of-WMD thing was totally obvious from the start are doing their own selective remembering.   The evidence for and against WMDs was at best muddled, in part intentionally by Hussein who wanted to avoid letting the world know of the "paper" aspect of his paper tigerdom.

If the first flaw is excusable, however, the second is not.  The assumption that Iraq had a substantial "educated and secularized population" that would dominate the post-war environment was an assumption that was not supported by evidence.   Although I was concerned about inflaming tribal and sectarian divisions post war — one reason why I favored more troops from the get-go — I did not appreciate the depth of those divisions.  Nor did I appreciate that much of Iraq’s education and secularization was skin deep (a partial side-effect, no doubt, of the damage done by the long sanctions regime).  That was a significant misunderstanding, and one I continue to regret. 

But, importantly, the context and course of the war debate did not devolve as straightforwardly and simply as Publius describes.  Those who supported war — those who won the argument at home and brought us this mess — had rational reasons to do so.  It may seem black and white now, but it wasn’t then.  And that is part of the reason why anti-war liberals are still getting no love:  many of them*** saw the issue as black and white from the get go, when it wasn’t — and, truth be told, still isn’t.

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A Gang Apart

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by von

I thought, given all the changes that have been made to ObWi’s line-up since its inception and the woefully out-of-date state of ObWi’s "About Me," a short "cast of characters" might be helpful for the readers to ferret out exactly who-is-what-and-why among the front-pagers. …. 

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Bad Television

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by von Television, it is said, thrives on conflict; debate; dispute.  Let us hope that the same does not apply to blogs — at least, not this day. I agree with Hilzoy and Andrew that President Bush’s push for more troops in Iraq should be opposed.  I do not say this because I believe that … Read more

A Brief Note

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by von A general distrust of my natural enemy — trialius lawyerius — does indeed extend to one John "Two Americas" Edwards.  So I’ll take this opportunity to declare my lack of support for his candidacy. Although I’m looking forward to the day that his agenda of "economic populism" causes him to go Lou Dobbs … Read more

Say What?

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by von Matt Yglesias — following post after post protesting our nominal assistance to Ethiopia in its intervention in Somalia — mixes it up with Josh Tevino .  Yglesias is capable of being both smart and witty, but he ain’t either here.  Conceding that Trevino is better informed and probably right on the facts (yet, … Read more