Saturday, December 17, 2011
What Matters This Week
Hey, what matters to me is that I got to the Bat Mitzvah on time -- she did great -- despite a rather more adventurous than usual trip there. Which you all don't care about at all, but explains why I'm running a little late this week and why I don't really have any memory at all of what happened that mattered. Let's see...well, the war ended (formally) for the US in Iraq. That's something. Developments in Syria, still. Congress didn't manage to shut down the government, but also didn't get a lot of their work done (confirmations!). But really, I've had barely any sleep and I'm going to have to rely on you all for this one. So tell me: what do you think mattered this week?
Having had two nieces in that situation...good for you and good for her. I'm not sure anything else as important did happen.
ReplyDeleteas you noted earlier in the week, possibly the falling number of new unemployment claims will have a positive impact on Obama's chances of re-election next year. I think you also indicated that the Haley endorsement of Romney might matter in context of the GOP nomination fight.
ReplyDeleteImho, the gift of that drone and its stealth technology to Iran was certainly as noteworthy as that whole Abu Ghraib brouhaha. I'm skeptical that it was an accident. Security is too tight and there is too much redundancy in its safeguards for that to have been an accident. It is more likely that another traitor like Bradley Manning gave that drone to Iran, imho.
ReplyDelete"another traitor like Bradley Manning gave that drone to Iran, imho"
ReplyDeleteExcept that that doesn't make any sense. True there might be a secret/double agent situation; but outside that the likelihood of some benighted young drone pilot handing his craft over to the Iranians is far less than the likelihood of a successful cyberattack. We've already seen reports of several successful cyberattacks against the drone program, and drones will always be particularly vulnerable to cyberattack because they are cybernetically controlled.
In any case, it would be a spectacular intelligence failure on the Air Force's part. But we're getting used to those, aren't we?
What else mattered.
ReplyDeleteLibya definitely matters - the factions are coming apart now that everyone's eye is off the ball, and we're headed for a much bloodier and less stable end as a result. I don't want to assert that it's going to be the new Somalia - there is too much oil for that to happen - but we are headed for a uniquely unstable period. The battle for the airport is turning into the mother of all brouhahas.
Europe finance/economy, of course, as you always point out. That probably tops the list. The most important aspect of this is France.
Egypt might also top the list. The Islamist-army alliance is brewing. Things may yet turn out very, very badly.
Probably the death of Christopher Hitchens. Without his surpassing wisdom and unmatched erudition, how will the West survive? /sarcasm
ReplyDeleteRe: The drone in Iran. Anon said,"...there is too much redundancy in its safeguards for that to have been an accident." As a former employee of a defense contractor, I'm more surprised when things go right than when they go wrong. Revisit Morton Thiokol and the Challenger disaster if you need a reminder of our safeguards.
ReplyDeleteGetting a budget until next fall is a big deal (and perhaps a sign that the GOP decided that budget brinksmanship was a loser for the party). The ongoing fight is going to be about a payroll tax cut that almost everyone wants to see continued; it's not a strong issue for republicans. If (pray, if) if the employment situation continues to improve, we may begin to see stories about the deficit situation improving. Romney has sort of admitted a huge problem for his campaign, namely that Barack Obama cannot be attacked as a bad guy, but only as someone who is in over his head. To the extent the economic picture is steadily improving by the spring (which is a big *if*), Mitt Romney will have no argument for his candicacy. It cannot be said enough that the Republican Party has no argument for his leadership, no policies, and no vision. In the absence of the incumbent being awful, that ain't gonna work.
ReplyDeleteGonna have a "what mattered this year?" wrap-up?
ReplyDeleteIf so, here's my early submission of candidates: http://t.co/piXZs0mK (Don't worry just a Reuters video)
"Romney has sort of admitted a huge problem for his campaign, namely that Barack Obama cannot be attacked as a bad guy, but only as someone who is in over his head."
ReplyDeleteIf Romney takes this attitude with him through primary season, he's gonna get horsewhipped. Well more than half of the people who will actually be pulling the levers in those primary elections think the President and First Lady are some species of demon or fifth columnist. And they are motivated, highly motivated. Obviously, it's almost surely well less than half of registered Republicans who think this... but the people who will be pulling levers? They don't want to hear this at all!
To Tybalt: I agree that Romney's primary campaign has suffered from a general lack of energy to change the direction of the country, but his primary opposition is so pathetic that he's likely to emerge the nominee unless something truly crazy happens. I actually think the enthusiasm problem among the base that you mention is more of a problem in the general election. Assuming Romney, who doesn't inspire the far right to begin with, campaigns in the fall on a platform of "Obama's a good guy, he needs to be benched for the rest of the game," I just think a bunch of conservatives would either stay home or vote for a third party if one is available in their state. I think Romney would have to pick a right wing hero as his running mate (remember McCain and Pain?) to keep conservatives interested in the election.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, to the extent the Romney ends up relying on over-the-top, blatently false attacks on Obama (as he already has done) he will further alienate certain groups from the GOP (professionals, young people, the well-educated). This happened as a result of Pain also. The Republicans need to stop lying and need political theory that espouses something better than war abroad and lower wages at home. Until they do that, they don't deserve to win any elections.
Romney has been recently saying that Obama is intentionally undermining the country. So yes, Romney is portraying Obama as a bad guy, not simply as in over his head. It's just that because he hasn't been doing it quite as fervently or constantly as his rivals, and because of his reputation as a moderate, lots of people just aren't noticing. This is what worries me most: he seems to be getting away with rhetoric that in the past would have been dismissed as hateful or deranged, simply because his opponents are so much more extreme it makes him seem mild by comparison. It's like the old Onion article about the "Iraqi Gandhi" who criticizes the 9/11 hijackers for destroying both towers.
ReplyDeleteKylopod-
ReplyDeleteBut I think that when he says stuff like that, he wins no converts and discredits himself with more people than the number of people he energizes. I could be wrong. I absolutely agree that he's going to get soft treatment from some in the press who just don't want to play the role of referee. At the same time, too many over-the-top attacks are going to lead Romney to a "lipstick on a pig" moment like from 2008 when the campaign story became that McCain was running a silly campaign. Truthfully, the best hooks on Obama are that he hasn't taken the human toll of the recession seriously enough, was too late to propose more measures for the economy, and that his policies have been timid compared to his rhetoric. I'm not sure Team Romney wants to make those arguments.
Gingrich's plateau and his moving towards "judicial extremism" instead of focusing on economic issues to bolster his conservative credentials. This should more marginalize him even if it helps with some in the base.
ReplyDeleteThough Romney may be in a similar position to McCain in '08, as the "moderate" in a party of crazies, I think the two men have radically different temperaments and campaign styles. McCain was erratic and impulsive, Romney is cautious and calculating. I sense Romney trying to strike a balancing act, using just enough extremist rhetoric to remain viable in the GOP primaries, without harming his general-election prospects more than necessary. It's not so much about impressing people or winning converts as it is about staying alive as a candidate by trying to come off as acceptable to as many voters as possible, while painting his rivals as unacceptable. He's not aiming to be loved, just to be tolerated, and that's his basic strategy both in the primaries and the general election.
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