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."

On Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, Uniquely American, Contentions, October 6, 2011. "Jobs may at times have denied that technology could genuinely change life, but as President Obama said in his statement yesterday, he “exemplified the spirit of American ingenuity” and “changed the way each of us sees the world.” On the subject of change, the last word belongs to Jobs. When he sought to recruit Pepsi’s John Sculley – an ill-fated hire – to become Apple’s president in 1983, Jobs’ legendary pitch to a reluctant Sculley was pure and true: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”"

How Much Do European Move Around?

European Mobility and the Euro, Contentions, October 6, 2011. "One regular criticism of the Euro has long been that Euroland is made up of, as Milton Friedman put it, “different countries [with] different languages, limited mobility among them, and they’re affected differently by external events.” A recent column by Jay Cost brings home just how low that mobility actually is."

Competence Matters

Obama’s Leadership is Devaluing the West, and We Will All Pay the Penalty, Yorkshire Post, October 3, 2011. "If governments want to succeed on big matters, they need to get the small ones right. So much of the everyday work of governing is tiring and dull, but it is important. Managing programs, proposing bills, and dealing with the legislature is the price of winning last time, and the stuff of victory next time. President Barack Obama is failing on the small stuff, and it is dragging his administration down in a big way."