NOT A QUAGMIRE, BUT STILL DIFFICULT
Finally, intelligent argument about the difficulty of bringing Jefferson to Baghdad, and John argues below without using the word quagmire but being more substantive than the New York Times editorial page. I don't agree that the local Iraqis have fully rejected the legitimacy of the U.S./U.K. presence in Iraq (polls indicate almost 70% approval). Nonetheless, John is right about how expectations may need to be managed.

CHEESESTEAK FAUX PAS
John Kerry ordered a Cheesesteak in Philadelphia with swiss cheese. And what further horror is this, but he asked for lettuce and tomato. It's not a sub, grinder or hoagie. It's a cheesesteak, Senator. And look how he holds it. What a wuss. I guess they don't serve these things at the Heinz Country Club.

This is good news, though, for John Edwards, who now has time to figure out how to order so he can appear to be like "regular people."

FAIR & BALANCED JOURNALISM
The internet and bloggers in particular are making it more common to uncover factually incorrect, or otherwise just plain bad, journalism. Eric Muller pointed out how the New York Times just doesn't understand how the federal criminal appeals process works, but that didn't matter to the Times, which was just anxious to editorialize against John Ashcroft.

National Review Online has its Krugman Truth Squad to counter the inaccuracies and fabrications of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

And recently, the Times printed a correction to a story about military deaths in Iraq, which they had originally attributed to "military officials", even though the source was a single Private. No wonder the story was wrong.

I'm reminded of these things because of a simple piece of sloppy journalism. It doesn't rise to the level of the above journalistic malpractice, but it just shows that reporters don't really care about the most basic fact checking. From a story on FoxNews' trademark infringement lawsuit against Al Franken, I saw this jewel:

Fox News registered "Fair & Balanced" as a trademark in 1995, the lawsuit said.

AP writer Hillel Italie (which I can't believe is a real name) thought it important to attribute the claim. It is so easily verifiable, why attribute the fact to "the lawsuit says"? Well, here's the record of the trademark registration. Fox also registered "FAIR. BALANCED. UNAFRAID."

Update: Those last two links don't seem to work. Go to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, click on Search Trademarks, select "New User Form (Basic)" and search for FAIR & BALANCED. Still not that hard.

ARNOLD TO GOP:
"COME VIT ME IF YOU VANT TO LIVE"

As nearly everyone in the free world (and even Ithaca, the City of Evil) has heard, box-office superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced he is running for California Governor in the wake of the pending recall election of incumbant Grey Davis.

Early reports have Arnold, a Republican, holding a commanding lead in the polls. Given that California is the largest state in the nation, and given that Arnold is a Republican, you would think that every Republican on earth would be wildly ecstatic right now.

Unfortunately, that isn't so. As is, sadly, too often the case, a vocal minority of the GOP is working on shooting the party in the foot again.

Rather than rejoice at the possibility of a "Terminator Juggernaut" (which would be a great title for a movie, by the way), some on the right are complaining that Arnold isn't conservative enough.

Instead of uniting behind an electable candidate, they're whining that Arnold, who is, admittedly, a moderate to liberal Republican, is not "ideologically pure" enough for them. So they are throwing support at different candidates, including Bill Simon (who lost to Davis just last year--now there's a track record) and complete unknowns like Tom McClintock and Rebecca Jackson.

The Republicans who are doing so are, in my opinion, shooting themselves, and the party, in the foot, for a number of reasons.

First off, they forget that California is not a conservative state. A Republican presidential candidate has not carried the state since 1988. They are represented in the U.S. Senate by two of the biggest liberals out there, Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and in Congress by, among others, ultra-liberal Nancy Pelosi. Their Federal Appeals Court is the infamous Ninth Circuit, that banned the Pledge of Allegience. Two of its largest cities are Los Angeles (home to every Hollywood leftie from Barbra Streisand to Susan Sarandon) and San Francisco (nuff said). In fact, in California, Democrats outnumber Republicans by 1.5 million voters.

Therefore, the only way for the Republicans to win a governorship is to win over Democrats. And a conservative candidate is not going to do that. But Arnold, a more liberal Republican married to a Kennedy, and blessed with superstar charisma, can.

In addition, an Arnold win has repercussions for the entire nation. Because of its size, California can help decide the 2004 Presidential race.

As noted in Insight magazine, "a Republican governor would do wonders for President George W. Bush's effort to win California's 55 electoral votes in the fall of next year, say GOP activists..

Furthermore, an Arnold win is not just good for President Bush. It's bad for the Clintons.

The Chicago Sun-Times has reported that "[Former President Bill] Clinton has been [to California] a couple of times and is managing the [Davis campaign] by phone. If Davis survives, he'll owe it to the Clintons. Then, if Hillary jumps into the presidential race, she'll have the California delegates locked up as well as the ones in New York." On the other hand, if and when Davis loses, and Arnold wins, that's another nail the Clinton coffin, coming on the heels of the disasterous showings for candidates he supported in last year's House and Senate races.

So, to recap, an Arnold Schwarzenegger victory would give the Republicans the governorship of the largest state in the nation (and one the most liberal). It would help cement a victory for President Bush in 2004 and embarrass Slick Willie and the Hildebeast. So what's not to like?

Politics has always been the art of compromise...and about winning elections. Arnold may not be the most conservative candidate out there, but he's certainly the most electable. For that reason alone, Republicans ought to get behind him...or resign themselves to running behind the Democrats one more time.

Food for Thought.............Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy : End Minimum Sentences

Supreme Court justice says they take discretion from judges, forestall mercy

By Pete Williams
NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT

Aug. 9 — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy called on Congress Saturday to end mandatory minimum sentences, which he says are unwise and unjust, jamming U.S. prisons with young people who lose all hope.

KENNEDY’S CALL, in a speech prepared for delivery to the American Bar Association in San Francisco, is surprising, coming from a justice who is generally conservative on criminal justice issues.......

......The incarceration rate in the United States is about 1 out of every 143 persons. By contrast, Kennedy said, it’s only 1 in 1,000 in England, France, Italy and Germany

Another problem, according to Justice Kennedy, is that prosecutors can essentially dictate a sentence by deciding whether to bring charges that carry mandatory minimums.

“In my view, a transfer of sentencing discretion from a judge to an assistant U.S. attorney, often not much older than the defendant, is misguided. The policy gives the decision to an assistant prosecutor not trained in the exercise of discretion and takes discretion from a trial judge,” he said.

........His remarks come as many federal judges complain about new limitations on their ability to impose sentences that are lower than normal for a given crime. Restrictions on such “downward departures” were imposed in a law passed by Congress in April.

Since then, Attorney General John Ashcroft has directed the nation’s federal prosecutors to notify the Justice Department in Washington whenever judges issue sentences that fall below the normal guidelines. Officials will then consider whether to appeal the lighter sentences.

Kennedy, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, has been on the high court since 1988

They May Not Want What We Want For Them
Time for the neo-cons to consider the previously unthinkable: that the Iraqi's don't value freedom above other more historically-rooted forces of motivation. Order, tradition, family/clan, etc. -- these are enormously powerful motivators in the Middle-East. Neo-cons fallaciously assumed that Saddam was 80% or more of the problem. Oops,...looks like there are bigger forces at play over there.

Jeffersonian freedoms and personal liberties don't resonate in a country patched together from far more different interests than the colonies of early America. Simply removing the "bad guy" (and of course, he was) does not result in democracy. Nowhere near. We are now in the stage where the old suppressed hatreds and rivalries are starting to blossom again. Not hard to imagine how Iraqi's who barely remember the owrld before Saddam would gravitate to a religious or military strongman.

Without institutions that wield actual power, societies aren't societies at all. The power of credibility - which is ulimately the only power institutions wield - cannot be built by a foriegn power or a council. This cannot be done by an outside power, to whom true legitimacy and credibility (in the eyes of the occupied) are witheld. The U.S. would do well to start shifting the expectations of Iraq (and.....anyone remember Afghanistan?) to one of minimal reconstruction, passable elections, and US exit. This must be followed up by a public renunciation of power. We should then be prepared to take the high road when the elected government goes against us in order to show its independence. (Remember Turkey?) We will be forced to accept Iraqi decisions that come from a "democratic" government. Brent Scorwcroft warned us before the war.

It is not too early to start lowering the expectations for what the post-reconstruction Iraq means to us here at home. The reasons this matters are not related to any liberal "guilt". This matters because we, and nobody else, are going to face this sort of situation for the intermediate future.

Any one of you think that other nations will now be any less insistent that the U.S. MUST intervene here, MUST NOT intervene there? Ah, dreamers......... We needn't act/not act at the world's behest, but since it is U.S. interests, soldiers, dollars, and international standing at risk, shouldn't we as a nation take a good look at the total picture of invasion, regime change, reconstruction, etc.? This is a very different game than it used to be.