A Case Study of Media Error (Or Bias)

Politifact’s Pants on Fire, Contentions, January 20, 2012. "I’ve worked with PolitiFact before, and while I’ve not agreed with previous pieces, they were at least defensible. What it comes down to is that Romney’s claim is factually correct, but assessing the context would require a book-length analysis that would be subject to a wide amount of legitimate dispute over many factors, some of them fundamentally unknowable. Even if applied earnestly and knowledgeably, fact-checking is terrible at assessing this kind of context, precisely because the facts are not known: it’s why Churchill described strategic leadership as an art, not a science. Fact-checkers would have a better sense of their potential contributions and limits if they bore Churchill’s wisdom in mind, and recognized that checking facts is not the same thing as criticizing art."

Reviewing "The Iron Lady"

'Iron Lady' Bias Can't Diminish Thatcher, Contentions, January 18, 2012. "The Iron Lady is not a particularly good movie. In structure and feel, it’s much more a one-woman play than it is a film. But on the screen it’s a success nonetheless, if only because, perhaps without meaning to, it displays conviction politics in their purest, most elemental, and most attractive form."

Economic Freedom Means More Than Austerity

In Europe, Reducing Spending Necessary, But Not Sufficient, To Restore Economic Freedom, Heritage Foundation Foundry, January 17, 2012. "If the 2012 edition of Heritage’s Index of Economic Freedom has bad news for the United States, the news for Europe is not much better. The 43 nations of the European region did manage to lose less economic freedom than did the United States, but a decline is still a decline. And the European decline was broad-based: Only nine countries made gains, and every one of the top 10 declined—in some cases, dramatically. The underlying driver of the declines in many cases will come as no surprise: higher levels of government spending."

Morning Bell on the Iron lady

Morning Bell" The Real 'Iron Lady', Heritage Foundation Foundry, January 11, 2012. "Tomorrow brings the nationwide release of The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Streep referred to the challenge of portraying Lady Thatcher as “daunting and exciting,” and as requiring “as much zeal, fervour and attention to detail as the real Lady Thatcher possesses.” Her performance has already been widely praised by critics, but for those who respect Lady Thatcher, not all the omens are positive. In an interview, Streep compared Lady Thatcher to King Lear and commented that what interested her about the role “was the part of someone who does monstrous things maybe, or misguided things. Where do they come from?” That doesn’t sound good."

University Travel and Totalitarians

Blue State Travel to Cuba, Contentions, January 3, 2012. "A friend has forwarded me a solicitation from the University of Michigan’s Alumni Association to join them on a “Cultural Connection” visit to Cuba. It is a depressing piece of moral blindness. For $3,845, Wolverines can enjoy an eight day trip, complete with “a visit to a local health clinic” to “learn about socialized medicine and the delivery of social services in Cuba,” a trip to an art institute to “compare and contrast the role of the arts in Cuba and the United States” and “identify any differences in the opportunities for artistic expression,” and a “substantive discussion” with the management team of a dance company to explore “the political and financial challenges they face” (i.e. the U.S. embargo) in exporting Cuban dance culture. There is a good deal more in the same vein, including a visit to the Museum of the Revolution and dinner at the Restaurante Vieja Havana, “formerly the American Club,” but you get the picture. It would be pleasant if moral blindness was all that was involved here, but sadly, it’s not."

Christmas Wishes to the UK on Defense

Lessons on Defence Policy from America in 2012, Centre for Policy Studies, December 29, 2011. "My wish is that Britain will in 2012 learn a lesson from America on its defence policy. The lesson is not simply that Britain should spend more money on defence. It certainly should do that, but Britain’s limited and steadily shrinking defence budget is only a symptom of Britain’s underlying problem. Its real problem is that, while America regrettably takes defence less seriously than it used to, it is still far better off than Britain, which no longer treats defence as a centrally important political issue. The lesson Britain should learn from America, therefore, is that defence is a core duty of the state, and it is worthy of appropriately serious political care and attention. My policy wish to Britain thus takes the form of three Christmas wishes."

The Price of Big Government That We're Not Paying

Government Must Be Both Limited And Competent, Yorkshire Post, December 27, 2011. "In his 1978 essay on “The Power of the Powerless,” the late Vaclav Havel wrote eloquently about the importance of that sign. Under Communism, a greengrocer puts a “Workers of the world, unite!” sign up in his window. He doesn’t care what the sign says, he cares what it means. And what it means is that he’s willing to say the conventional thing, to be obedient. He knows he’s sacrificing tomorrow, but he’s gaining security today. Havel wanted elections, and it was the glory of his life that he got them, and won them. But in a democracy, an elected government exists to govern. And that is where we are failing. We are excellent at holding elections. What we do not do is govern. Our system is not like the Communist regimes that Havel detested. But we want what the greengrocer wanted. We want a quiet life. The cost of that today is the sacrifice of tomorrow."

State-Based Factors in the 2012 Elections, Part 2

The Varying Fortunes of Red and Blue States, Part 2, Centre for Policy Studies, December 22, 2011. "When Henry Ford put the buggy whip manufacturers out of business, that was a good thing. But you’d never know this by listening to the President. All the evidence goes to show that he and his followers believe what they are saying. And that in turn goes some distance to explaining why America’s red states are growing, and why the President’s path to re-election in 2012 is narrow. In other words, if the fundamental advantage of the left in America is the rise of administrative and bureaucratic government, the fundamental advantage of the right is, as Lady Thatcher put it, that sooner or later socialism runs out of other people’s money."

Whatever It Is, It's Not Strategy

Biden on the Taliban: They Call It ‘Strategery', Contentions, December 21, 2011. "The problem is not that Obama and Biden are uninterested in the evidence of our failed efforts to engage the Taliban. The problem is that – as Max notes in another context – they want to get out of Afghanistan, and they believe that they can facilitate this in the American political context by depicting the Taliban as irrelevant to our security interests. And sadly, the evidence of the steadily-declining popular support for the war over the past year suggests that, politically, this calculation is correct."

Arms Trade Treaty Will Promote, Not Limit, Arms Sales

The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty Is A “Bulletproof” License to Sell, The Commentator, December 21, 2011. "The broader question is simple: how can a “bulletproof” treaty on the one hand require arms sellers to discriminate between good and bad regimes when supplying arms, and on the other hand demand that the treaty’s criteria not be applied in a discriminatory way? The answer is simple: this is not a “bulletproof” treaty. It is not even a serious one. In practice, the world’s bad actors will cite the treaty to justify selling arms anywhere they see fit, while the West’s activists will use it to try to curtail arms sales to democracies like Israel that they dislike."

State-Based Factors in the 2012 Election

The Varying Fortunes of Red and Blue States, Centre for Policy Studies, December 19, 2011. "What is striking is the number of firmly Democratic states that are delivering – and in many cases have delivered for decades – mediocre economic performances, frequently with huge pension bills impending to boot. Under the circumstances, it’s not surprising that they’re losing population."

Fog In Channel, Commentators Cut Off

Britain's 'Isolation', Contentions, December 18, 2011. "To me, the funniest – and most revealing – part of the entire affair is the argument that Britain will suffer for its ‘isolation.’ The nicer version of the argument holds that the EU is about to make a lot of rules – or, to be more exact, about to make even more rules – that will be bad for Britain, and Britain needs to be at the table to mitigate the damage they’ll do. The less nice version of the argument is that the EU, long generous and forbearing towards an ever-wayward Britain, will now lose patience and wreak a mighty vengeance upon it. Given the EU’s current difficulties, this makes me chuckle. No matter which version of the argument is proffered, though, it comes down to the underlying assumption that the EU is akin to a hostage-taker who punishes disobedience by his captives. That may be so. But if it is so, why stick around at all?"

If It Happened Here, What Would They Say?

The German 'Kebab Murders', Heritage Foundation Foundry, December 16, 2011. "What if in America there was a gang of neo-Nazis who, over the course of 14 years, murdered 10 people, nine of them “foreigners” and one a policewoman? What if the gang had also carried out a nail-bomb attack in an immigrant neighborhood? What if immigrant (in this case, Turkish) households and apartments were attacked with Molotov cocktails and spray-painted with Nazi SS symbols?"

Arms Trade Treaty Truths Revealed

Hypocrisy Alerts on the U.N.’s Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation Foundry, December 16, 2011. "There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about the arms trade. One is that lots of nations supply arms to terrorists and dictators as a matter of policy, or because they simply want the money. Another is that many of the world’s nations do not control their own borders, or their own territory, and so are in no position to control the arms trade. Neither of these problems will be addressed by a treaty that, according to its own draft text, is supposed to be “non-discriminatory.” In other words, the treaty is at once supposed to encourage nations to be more discriminatory in their arms exports to other nations, and to be applied without discriminating against anyone. The U.S. is not going to leave the Second Amendment issues aside, but even if it did, the treaty’s internal hypocrisy is an excellent reason to believe that it’s not worth backing."

On Cluster Munitions, Stay the Course

U.N. Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons: What the U.S. Should Do, with Steven Groves, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #3434, December 16, 2011. "On November 25, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), a U.N.-based process through which participating nations adopt protocols to regulate or limit the use of conventional weapons, failed to reach agreement on a new protocol to regulate cluster munitions after four years of intensive negotiations. The U.S. had backed the new protocol but was defeated by a group of nations that have joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). The U.S. should recognize that the time is not ripe for any further negotiation. It should not attempt to restart the CCW process, nor should it sign the CCM. Rather, it should stay the course on its existing policy of phasing out less reliable munitions."

The Second Amendment and the UN Arms Trade Treaty

Why the U.S. Should Be Concerned About the Domestic Effects of the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #3430, December 13, 2011. "Negotiations for a new U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) are supposed to be finalized in July 2012. Some of its supporters argue it would have no “impact on the ability of individuals within the United States to acquire and possess firearms.” Even if this is true, it is not the only reason to be concerned about the treaty. But if the treaty comes before the Senate, its domestic effects will be of central importance. While the treaty is not yet complete, analysis of the current draft demonstrates that there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about its potential domestic effects."

Demography Is Not (Political) Destiny

Can There Be An Enduring Systematic Advantage in American Politics?, Centre for Policy Studies, December 12, 2011. "The quest for an enduring systematic, demographic advantage in American politics is doomed to failure. The evidence of the past 200 years is that, while one party or another can enjoy a temporary advantage, the nation is too large, too diverse and too mobile for either side to win in an enduring way. In other words, in American politics, there are permanent battles, but no permanent victories through demography. If one side does have an enduring advantage, it lies not in demography, but in the steady expansion of the bureaucratic and administrative state, which inherently favors the left and which threatens to make the normal governing activity of Congress steadily more irrelevant."

The Euro Deal: Building A Better Titanic

Why the Euro is Fighting a Losing Battle, with Sally McNamara, Foxnews.com, December 10, 2011. "The entire Eurozone economy hardly grew at all in the third quarter. This is not just a symptom of the crisis: it is a fundamental cause. Even if Greece abandons its fiscal sovereignty, it will still be 30 percent less competitive than Germany. A new European treaty might buck up the markets for a bit, but it won’t resolve the underlying issue. The EU’s effort comes down to promising to build a better Titanic next time: it does nothing to help the current passengers."

American Geographic and Electoral Mobility

Americans Move, But Will the Result Change?, Centre for Policy Studies, December 8, 2011. "The political effects of this shift are equally stark: in 2012, the Republicans will gain a net total of six electoral votes, if the states vote as they did in 2008. Of course it is unlikely that the state votes will remain unchanged, but the fact remains that President Obama will have to run harder in 2012 just to stay in place. The long-run trends of American geographical mobility are telling, slowly, against him."

Deficit Hawks and Deficit Chickens

Obama Plays the Card of Financial Responsibility, Yorkshire Post, December 2, 2011. "Playing the responsible spender card is shrewd from another point of view. Americans naturally look on Congress with a degree of disdain, while according the President the respect that goes with his office. Right now, the American people have no particular affection for Obama, but their opinion of Congress could hardly be worse. By positioning himself as the adult in the room, Obama plays to the American tendency to view Congress as a collection of squabbling children."

Why Obama's Coalition Is Collapsing

Obama Goes Back to Base As Support Ebbs Away, Yorkshire Post, October 27, 2011. "It’s a good thing for the President that he has the power of incumbency, because he doesn’t have much else going for him. The coalition that won him the 2008 election has fragmented, and it cannot be pulled back together again. Many of the individuals in it will undoubtedly support Obama in 2012, but the broader sense of purpose is gone."

Who Gets the Job Done?

Force, Not Law, Got Qaddafi, Contentions, October 24, 2011. "Dan Pipes observes that Qaddafi is the sixth former tyrant to be tracked down like a common criminal in the past decade – Milosevic, Karadzic, and Mladic from Serbia, Hussein in Iraq, Bin Laden in Pakistan, and now Qaddafi. Very true, but what stands out to me about this list is that none of these successes had much to do with Nuremberg-like processes, the International Criminal Court, or the U.N., no matter how much responsibility is attributed to them."

The Ends of Dictators

Comparing Qaddafi and Mussolini, Contentions, October 24, 2011. "They were both centers of cults of personality, relentlessly occupied in trying to stir up trouble, bitterly hostile to democracy and to every manifestation of liberalism, with an overblown crackpot ideology that masqueraded as a self-sufficient cure for all ills, and a brutal regime that was treated far more seriously than its accomplishments or the skills of its leader merited."

Are the Conservatives Too Unpopular?

Do Britain’s Conservatives Need More ‘Decontamination’?, Contentions, October 13, 2011. "The virtues of competence, which the Economist dismisses as “quibbles,” have in fact been central to Tory victories since the 1870s. Telling the Tories that they will win by getting nicer isn’t just unsupported by the evidence of 2010, where Cameron’s decontaminating A-List candidates, selected for winnable seats, did relatively poorly. It’s not supported by the history of the modern Conservative Party. What it comes down to is the Economist’s dislike, in particular, of Conservative Euroskepticism."

Nation-Building in 2012

Major Foreign Policy Addresses in the U.S. Campaign, Centre for Policy Studies, October 13, 2011. "Until Friday, as I noted last month, foreign policy played a mostly indirect role in the 2012 election campaign. In a way, that is no surprise: U.S. elections are rarely won or lost on foreign policy. But considered another way, it is a surprise. There is less daylight than one might think between conservatives on domestic issues: no creditable Republican candidate campaigns for bigger government, more regulation, and higher taxes. Foreign policy offers all the candidates an opportunity to stake out distinctive ground in an area that belongs particularly to the Oval Office."