BeldarBlog

Boot scores

It's not often that I read an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times and conclude that I agree with every word — the substance, the tone, the historical and social perspectives, everything. But Max Boot's op-ed today, titled "George Bush Talks Big, and He Delivers," exactly nails it on Bush's foreign policy.  Key lines (but read the whole thing, registration req'd):

There is no doubt that Bush has made plenty of mistakes.

The mistake he has not made, however, is the most important of all: He has not lost his nerve.

(Hat-tip InstaPundit.)

Beldar's SOTU reaction

With respect to the foreign policy portions of the President's State of the Union speech, I expect to read critiques in tomorrow's mainstream media about Dubya trying to play "Daddy-figure" to the world — scolding Syria, almost inviting insurrection in Iraq, squinting at and impliedly criticizing Egypt and Saudi Arabia. That's a reliable snarky way to diminish the President while seeming not to endorse the state actors he was addressing.

But international relations are about competing national self-interests, not about warm fuzzies. Dubya was sending several very clear messages — Damascus, for example, is certain to have "gotten" the one directed to it, although what it does in response remains to be seen — and the message was indeed stern, but that doesn't equate to "paternalistic." Yes, indeed, I sometimes remind my kids, on the fortunately rare occasions when they've been behaving badly, that actions have consequences and some of those consequences may indeed come from me in my starring role as their papa. But when the global superpower's leader singles out your country for a message, it's not to appeal to some sense of childlike obligation or responsibility. Fathers aren't the only parties entitled to issue a "Shape up!" warning. And the consequences of Syria's continued support for terrorists go beyond being "grounded." All in all, I applaud Dubya's good use of his bully pulpit tonight to grab the attention of those state actors who might otherwise doubt America's resolve to fight the Global War on Terror.

My reaction to the domestic portion of the SOTU address is more mixed. I disclaim the actuarial and mathematical skills to assess the future financial soundness of the current Social Security system, but as someone on the tail-end of the baby boom, I have a general sense of the demographics and therefore a vague unease that makes me receptive to the notion of "reforms" for the system. And I also am a strong supporter of the President's "ownership society" meme. The Dems mouth the words about supporting more individual choice, but it's hard to identify any issue except abortion on which their policies match their words.

But I think Dubya is not necessarily guilty of, but still vulnerable to, the Dems' charge — made from political cynicism, but that doesn't mean it won't stick — that he's using fear over Social Security's solvency to create momentum to enact personalization/privatization. The Dems, of course, are the acknowledged past masters of whipping up hysteria over Social Security — hearing Harry Reid, as the self-proclaimed Senator From Las Vegas, talk about gambling with our seniors' security was absolutely hilarious — but if there's a compelling reason to believe that personalization/privatization will address and solve the solvency concerns, I haven't heard it explained yet in words that can penetrate my liberal-arts-major consciousness.

Like the ones over the Iraq War, the debate over personal accounts is going to be hot and divisive. I think the Administration would be better served by frankly acknowledging the fears the plan raises, and addressing those fears with specifics and hard numbers, along with the very appealing principles of personal choice and responsibility. And I'd frankly rather see the solvency and personalization issues de-coupled from one another, and the former perhaps deferred to the second half of Dubya's second term or to that of his successor.

About the Blogads on Beldarblog

My blogging expenses through TypePad are minimal, but last fall I decided to start accepting Blogads and to put up a Tip Jar link to defray them, and over the long term I've about broken even. That's fine with me, for as I've repeatedly written, I post mostly to scratch my own itch rather than as a commercial venture or even to please anyone else in particular. (Thus I feel relatively unentangled and guilt-free when I decide to take several weeks or even months off from blogging, as I did in most of January.)

The Blogads service allows bloggers to reject ads for any reason or no reason at all, but as I posted when I started accepting them, my acceptance does not imply any endorsement of the products or positions being advertised, and I've made very little effort to investigate any of the advertisers. There's some threshold somewhere that I wouldn't cross — and running an ad for al Qaeda or Holocaust deniers or offshore sexual enhancement drug vendors would all be well beyond that threshold, for example, wherever it is.

An ad that I accepted today threw up a red flag because it reads, "See the ad [Fox News Network] won't run." Now, I did follow the link from the Blogad, but I haven't thoroughly explored the linked website or watched whatever videos or read whatever manifestos it might provide, and I have absolutely no idea about the validity of any views it may express. I will comment that there's no First Amendment right for anyone to force Fox — or BeldarBlog or The New York Times or the National Enquirer — to accept an advertisement. And any media outlet, whether "old media" or new, is and should be free (within very broad limits) to set their own thresholds as to what advertisements it chooses to accept or reject.

Potential conflicts of interest and the power of advertising dollars (and other financial ties) to influence bloggers is another kettle of fish — one that's been much debated in the blogosphere recently, and on which I will likely comment further in my promised review of Hugh Hewitt's latest book. To the extent that accepting Blogads creates any potential for conflict of interest or advertiser influence over what I write, at least it's essentially self-disclosing; in other words, you the reader can presume someone's paying me at the (in my case comparatively trivial) rates you can also investigate by following the "Want your Blogad here?" links below the ads in my sidebar. Perhaps if the John Kerry campaign or one of George Soros' political action committees had started buying ads last fall while I was writing about the SwiftVets, you'd have had cause to wonder; but at least you'd also have had a basis for deciding for yourself whether my judgments and opinions had been affected or compromised.

The Internet, including blogs like this one, is a part of the international marketplace of ideas and products. And I'm a free-market enthusiast. But remember, please: Caveat emptor — buyer beware — and please don't assume that by accepting any ad, I've endorsed (or even closely vetted) the ideas or products being advertised.

Today's hot and not-so-hot headlines, and tomorrow's hot TV ad

I was bemused to note the order of the headlines in this morning's edition of the Washington Post online (which has since been reshuffled with news that's broken during the day today). The news of the incredibly successful and historic election in Iraq of course led the headlines, followed by news of SBC's planned acquisition of AT&T, further tsunami relief efforts, and so on.

Then deep down, way down in the "Other Headlines" section, just before a genuinely important story headlined "Bartender, Pour Me Another Cup — Perhaps Inevitably: Caffeinated Beer," there was a headline reading "Kerry Praises Campaign, Plans to Build on Effort: Democrat Wants to Keep 2008 Options Open" whose accompanying story reveals the following:

Former Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry ... in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday, praised his own campaign for coming close, and said he intends to "build on the campaign" by continuing to be a leading voice of the opposition.

"I lost, Tim, to an incumbent president by a closer margin than an incumbent president has ever won reelection before in the history of the country," the Massachusetts senator told NBC's Tim Russert. "And if you add up the popular vote in the battleground states, I won the popular vote in the battleground states by two percentage points. We just didn't distribute it correctly in Ohio."

The interview capped a series of events — including a trip to Iraq, a speech on health care and two mass e-mails to supporters — serving notice that Kerry wishes to retain the national voice he gained as his party's nominee during Bush's second term. Current and former advisers in recent weeks have said that Kerry's competitive instincts leave him inclined to seek the option of running for president in 2008, and that he intends to keep his profile sufficiently high to preserve that option.

Once again I find myself questioning WaPo's editorial judgment: The availability of caffeinated beer — predicted by an episode of The Drew Carey Show some time ago — is obviously a much bigger story than anything John F. Kerry might have to say these days, and should have been given preferential billing.

Still, even the comedic genius of Drew Carey would find it hard to improve upon Sen. Kerry for absurdity. He "lost by a closer margin than an incumbent president has ever won reelection before"? I think if we unmangle that syntax, he was saying that of incumbent presidents who actually won reelection, Dubya had the smallest margin, meaning (I suppose) that Kerry is less of a big-time loser than other losers who've lost to incumbent presidents, and less of a big-time loser than incumbent presidents who lost their reelection bids. I suppose that this (bad-)lawyer-speak tangle of thoughts and words is supposed to distract us from remembering, for example, about semi-incumbent loser Al Gore in 2000, and about actual incumbent loser Jimmy Carter in 1980.

The very best line, of course, is: "We just didn't distribute it correctly in Ohio." This sounds suspiciously like something that —

(a)	a Politburo chief might have said about slightly awry vote totals in a Soviet election in the mid 1970s;
(b)	an Iraqi Baathist political boss might have said about slightly awry vote totals in a Saddam Hussein election in the 1990s;
(c)	a Democratic party boss might have said about slightly awry vote totals from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas or Cook County in Illinois at any time during the past century; or
(d)	all of the above.

The correct answer, of course, is (d). But thus does the junior senator from Massachusetts attempt to pre-spin history's writ on where he will rank in the pantheon of famous losers.

Meantime, while Kerry struggles to stay in the news by a boondoggle visit to Iraq, (yet another) speech on healthcare, and two "mass emails," newly inaugerated President George W. Bush — basking in the glow of another noble gamble that's paying off bigtime as the Iraqis celebrate their successful elections — continues leading the nation and the (expanding) free world. For this, I am thankful. For John Kerry's drop into the marginal, also-ran headlines, I am doubly thankful. I withhold judgment on caffeinated beer until I've tried it, but there's a chance here of a gratitude hat-trick in today's news.

However, I sense a great potential here should American Express choose to revive its great advertising campaign of a few years ago. Amex could probably get a sweet package deal in Massachusetts on the specific actors they'd need. The TV commercial fades in with an overhead shot inside a neighborhood bar in South Boston, in which two guys in suits are trying to get the bartender's attention through a noisy, thirsty crowd. One tries putting on his tanker's helmet, and the other puts on his mystery CIA-guy hat from Cambodia, but it doesn't work for either of them.

Suddenly they're saved by a more familiar face, someone who crashes a path through the crush of bodies — nobody gets, or stays, between Teddy Kennedy and a bartender — and the crowd parts like the Red Sea before Moses' outstretched hands. And as the bartender goes to fetch their drinks, Teddy, Mikey, and John-Boy hold up their Amex cards to the camera and say in unison: "Do you know me? I ran for president in" —and they respectively finish their lines — "1980," "1988," and "2004!"

Then Teddy slaps down his Amex card on the bar and shouts, "Barkeep! Caffeinated beers for the house, on my Senate expense account!" Cut to a shot of Theresa standing at the end of the crowd, holding a pink poodle and wagging a finger at John while mouthing the words, "Decaf for you!" He rolls his eyes, but holds up his own platinum card and says, "The American Express card — don't leave home without it!"

No, Beldar hasn't been kidnapped by the wingnuts ...

Much thanks to the many people who've posted comments or emailed me inquiring about my long lapse in posting. I'm flattered and frankly surprised by the interest.

Nothing's wrong. I've still been skimming the blogosphere and the MSM, of course. Since the election, I just frankly haven't had much to say on the big topics that I thought really would be of much interest to anyone, though, or that others weren't saying as well or better than I could.

And my clients — who got "just enough" attention during September and October — deserved some more intense and sustained focus since then from the crusty old grey-bearded lawyer they've hired. However, I had a goodly sized international commercial litigation case that settled in mediation on January 3rd, and a somewhat less huge but very time-intensive one that settled late last week. There are still hot irons in the professional fire that need to be rotated, adjusted, and sometimes whacked upside my opponents' heads (metaphorically), but I hope to have some time for more regular blogging soon.

In particular, I'm about halfway through reading Hugh Hewitt's latest book, Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World, and hope to have be in a position to write a nontrivial review within the next week or so.

So if you haven't deleted BeldarBlog from your bookmarks yet, you might hold off a bit longer. And again, to those who've noticed my lengthy recent silence, thanks again for your interest!