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."

Taking Bentham Seriously

No, Utilitarians Are Not Nice, Contentions, September 27, 2011. "It is all very well to suggest that legislation should seek to do more good that harm. But the problem with applying utilitarianism to legislation, in Bentham’s day or ours, is that someone has to decide which ends serve the greater good, just as the Ivy League experiments require someone to decide who lives and who dies, and just as top-down legislation in the progressive tradition requires wisdom that no single person possesses. This vision presumes the goal of legislation is control and direction, not the promotion of freedom under law."

More Solipsism on Drones

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall . . . , Contentions, September 26, 2011. "But what comes through most clearly in Finn’s article is that the issues raising concern about military robotics are ethical and legal, not strategic. Unfortunately, the current emphasis on drones – both from enthusiasts and skeptics -- repeats the fallacy that Fred Kagan addressed half a decade ago: the way that the U.S. focus on military transformation in the 1990s tended to convert war into “killing people and blowing things up,” at the expense of defining and achieving political objectives that can be advanced with the use of force."

Not Money, But Democracy

The Soft Underbelly of Europe, Contentions, September 23, 2011. "The underlying problem in Europe is not financial, or even economic. It is that we are no longer in the historical era of nation-making, and the entire raison d’etre of the EU is, indeed, to oppose nationalism. As former Europhile Max Hastings has recently confessed, that itself is a kind of narrow-mindedness. But it is madness to try to build an economic and political super-state on a base of contempt for the popular will and regular condemnations of nationalism, which historically is the force that has created unified body politics. Europe is not paying the price for too much borrowing. It is paying the price for too little democracy."

Cohen is Wrong on Drones

Asking the Wrong Questions About Drones, Contentions, September 23, 2011. "The larger problem is not that using drones undermines the confidence of our allies in uniform. It is that drones vastly reduce our ability to fight a counterinsurgency campaign by protecting local populations and collecting intelligence that allows us to prosecute the war more effectively."

The 2012 Race Shapes Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy Enters the 2012 Race, Centre for Policy Studies, September 16, 2011. "What is more interesting, though, is the way that the Democratic defeat in NY-9, which the victorious Republican framed as a referendum on President Obama, shows how foreign policy is slipping into the 2012 race, at a time when all eyes seem to be focused on the economy."

On 9/11, A Decade On

9/11 Reflection: Ted Bromund, Yale Daily News, September 9, 2011. "I wasn’t scared by 9/11. What scared me after 9/11 was the reaction I saw at Yale."

Obama's Top Ten Errors on Libya

Obama’s Top Ten Errors on Libya, Centre for Policy Studies, September 1, 2011. "Instead of focusing on the unknown – for we do not know what will come next in Libya – and trying to judge the war by its aftermath, we should give thought to the known, and judge the war by the consequences it has already produced. Here, therefore, are the top ten errors of President Obama’s conduct of the Libyan War to date."

The Decline and Fall of Victorian Values

Riots Reveal to World How Britain Has Lost Its Values, Yorkshire Post, August 31, 2011. "As the liberal media are always eager to remind us – because it promotes moral relativism – Britain before the Victorians was a drunken and disorderly place. The Victorians couldn’t solve this problem completely, but they did enough to recast the British character, and to make it more than a stereotype. In modern Britain, this Victorian order has been broken down."

The Flaws of the Land Mines Ban

The Flaws of the Ottawa Convention, National Security Policy Proceedings, Spring 2011. "The Ottawa Convention looks likely to become another ABM Treaty or International Criminal Court: a commitment made by one administration that—because it poses dangers to our security and our sovereignty—will force a sensible future administration to spend a good deal of time, energy, and political capital setting it right. Indeed, if we are not careful now, it will become a commitment from which any future administration will find it very difficult to escape."

Government Of, By, and For Baldrick

Charge of the Light Brigade Shows How U.S. Gets It Wrong, Yorkshire Post, August 1, 2011. "Governments are far from cunning. In that, they are like most everyone, except moreso. The problem is not that people in government are particularly stupid, or more evil than normal. It is that they have more power than anyone else, and they think they know what to do with it. The light bulb we need most isn’t a fluorescent. It’s the one that goes on when people realize that government can’t do it all, and shouldn’t try to."

UK Defense Spending Increases Insufficient

U.K. Defense Spending Increases: Welcome, But Not Enough, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 26, 2011. "American commentators are beginning to react to a British announcement of a modest increase in defense spending. Any increase is welcome, but there is unfortunately a good deal less to this increase than meets the eye."

Senatorial Letter on Arms Trade Treaty

Forty-Five Senators Express Concern on U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 26, 2011. "On July 15, the U.N. wrapped up its third and final Preparatory Committee meeting on its Arms Trade Treaty. After a last gathering devoted to procedural matters in early 2012, the U.N. will call a concluding conference in 2012 to adopt the treaty and open it for national ratification. Unfortunately, while the most recent committee improved the treaty, it could not remedy the treaty’s fundamental flaws."

ATT Preparatory Committee: The July 2011 Update

The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty: Still Seriously Flawed, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #3322, July 21, 2011. "Previous meetings of the Preparatory Committee have made it clear that the treaty as contemplated poses serious threats to American liberties and interests, and to effective and serious diplomacy. The latest Committee meeting has not alleviated most of those concerns. But statements by both the Permanent Members of the Security Council and the European Union have at least reduced the supranational danger to U.S. sovereignty."

What Could Have Been in Libya

US Leadership Melts Away Into Sands of Libya Over Obama’s Foolish Humanitarian Foray, Yorkshire Post, June 24, 2011. "It didn’t have to be this way. Across the Middle East, the perception is growing that the U.S., in its haste to find the exit, has forgotten the ironclad rule of the region: reward your friends and punish your enemies. Instead, the U.S. is trying to pacify quarrels by slapping its allies down and allowing the worst of the dictators to slide by. From Obama’s perpetual jabs at Israel to his reluctance to speak out against the Assad regime in Syria, he is feeding the belief that the U.S. wants to bug out. A decisive NATO intervention against the Gaddafi regime would have demonstrated that West is not quitting, that it retains the will and the ability to act."

Obama and Commentators Speak. Please, Make It Stop

Nothing but Nonsense and Headaches, Contentions, May 26, 2011. "President Obama’s address to Parliament in Westminster Hall yesterday was of a piece with all his other major public statements. In fact, it was all of his other major public statements. Except for the boilerplate on Britain, it was the same speech he has been giving since his inauguration: unobjectionable generalities coupled with sketchy history, a rejection of false choices, and an assertion that everything he wants to achieve is modest, reasonable, and entirely in tune with the generalities, and thus barely counts as a choice at all. Will he ever get bored with false reasonableness?"

On Failing to Rise to the Occasion

Obama’s UK Speech: Rhetoric Cannot Substitute for Achievement, Heritage Foundation Foundry, May 25, 2011. "President Obama’s address to Britain’s Parliament in historic Westminster Hall was of a piece with many of his speeches: a mixture of soaring generalities and devils in the details, with some dubious history thrown in."

Question Time for Obama

What We’d Gain If Obama Had to Perform During Question Time in the House of Commons?, Fox News, May 25, 2011. "President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron spent part of yesterday playing ping pong, a sport that was invented in Britain. Cameron would have done better to introduce Obama to another of Britain’s distinctive institutions: question time in the House of Commons."