Choices

With regard to Iraq, anyway, our choice of president boils down to this, I think, outlined by Tony Blair yesterday. Quoted also by Andrew Sullivan -- from the Guardian:

Obviously there will be people who have never been convinced about the original decision. But the fundamentals of the situation in Iraq are absolutely clear. You have a government supported by the United Nations. You have got massive reconstruction. You've got an attempt to bring democracy to the country and you've got these people trying to stop it. I can understand why people still have a powerful disagreement about the original decision to go to war, but what ever that disagreement, surely now it is absolutely clear we have to stay and see it through. Because the consequences of not doing so is that global terrorism will get a tremendous boost. By contrast, if we succeed and defeat these people and help the Iraqis to get what the Iraqis want, then global terrorism will suffer a defeat.

Who says we don't need tax reform?

And I'm not talking about class-baiting concepts like taxing (or not taxing) the so-called rich. I'm talking about a system that nails people even when the receive an unexpected gift, as 276 members of Oprah's studio audience did last week. Even if they SELL the car to pay the taxes, they'll still owe taxes related to owning the car in the first place. Our tax system is insidious, pervasive and morally wrong. Read about it in OpinionJournal - That Gift That Never Stops Taking.

A Blogger's Creed

Andrew Sullivan in TIME Magazine. Long live the pajamahadeen.

A little clarification please...

According to The Washington Times: Nation/Politics:

Officials said recent intelligence assessments of the group, which is blamed for the September 11 attacks, state that an attack is coming and that the danger will remain high until the Nov. 2 elections and last until Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.

Isn't this the same as saying the danger be high until January 20? Why TWO dates? It's information like this coming from the government that makes terror alerts confusing, vague and ultimately, unbelievable. The report continutes:

Thus, details of the possible attack remain murky, but analysts say it is planned to be bigger and deadlier than the September 11 attacks, which killed 3,000 people.
Potential targets include the White House, Pentagon, U.S. Capitol and congressional buildings, as well as landmarks and business centers in New York, the officials said. The officials said that there is no specific information about targets.

Huh? Then how do we know what targets are likely? The naming of targets could just be the the WaTimes speculating, but that's not clear either.

Correction

OK, well, not lower than Joe McCarthy, but one point above. Even with Martha Stewart, though.

Kerry down for the count -- for the moment.

DRUDGE reports Kerry's poll number exceedingly low, but lower than Joe McCarthy? Pretty bad. The comparison is interesting, but Kerry's campaign seriously miscued on using the Vietnam war as the backdrop for his campaign. It always seemed weird that a guy who protested that war so vocally (and inappropriately) would try to use his service as a prime talking point. He's anti-war, but a hawk? He betrays fellow servicemen and then wants to lead them? Whatever you think of Kerry's politics, this just never computed for me. Yes, the war in Iraq is in trouble. Talk about THAT. And don't just tell us you're going to put together a REAL coalition (insults to the Poles, Germans, Spanish et al who helped us), and how GWB is WRONG. This is meaningless drivel, even if your main point is correct.

Kerry COULD get his points back in debates, but I'm not too sure at this point.

In Defense of the Electoral College

OpinionJournal has this today, bringing out some salient points against a pure popular election.

OpinionJournal Today.:

Yes, Mr. Bush underestimated the Iraq insurgency, among other post-invasion mistakes. It's worth recalling, however, that those who opposed the war warned instead of disasters that did not happen--a refugee exodus, uprisings in the Arab street, environmental catastrophe, civil war. While civil war is still possible, the single most important change in Iraq is that all but the bitter-end Baathists now support free elections and representative government. If this nation-building succeeds, the U.S. will have an ally in the heart of the Mideast and the Arab Muslim world.

Surely the easier political choice for Mr. Bush was to stop after toppling the Taliban, delaying any Iraq decision until safely re-elected. But assessing the risks and concluding that they can't wait is what we pay Presidents to do. The far greater temptation--and in a world of WMD, the far greater risk--is to find some excuse never to act. This was the Clinton pattern, and John Kerry's record suggests it would also be his.

It seems to me that the candidate with the better overall batting average in terms of predicting outcomes, and more importantly, with a penchant for actual ACTION in the face of world threats, is the one who deserves our support.