Stromata Blog

Must Palestine Be Judenrein?

One evident area of disagreement between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel is the “expansion” of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. The President reportedly insists that not another building be constructed; the Prime Minister wishes to allow new dwellings to accommodate “natural growth”, that is, to make it possible for settlers’ children to set up their own households when they reach adulthood.

To a man from Mars, the difference would seem petty, yet we all know what is behind it. In the absence of the Palestinian factions, who are too divided to enter into talks with Israel, President Obama is de facto negotiating on their behalf and making the demand that they would make: that any future Palestinian state be judenrein. Israel is 20 percent Arab, but it is intolerable that “Palestine” be so much as two percent Jewish. It must be like the other Arab lands, from which virtually all Jews were expelled after the refounding of Israel in 1948.

It’s strange that we don’t find the American stance on this point appalling. After all, a Presidential candidate who belonged to a social club that kept Jews out would be driven from public life. How is it that a President can, without rebuke, argue for an anti-Jewish policy abroad? Shouldn’t it be elementary that Jew-hatred is utterly repugnant to the United States, that we will neither promote nor acquiesce in it? And doubly not when the Jew haters hate us, too. Have we forgotten already the photos taken on 9/11, showing jubilant Palestinians dancing in the streets?

Leaving principles aside, from a purely prudential, “realist” perspective, doesn’t the Palestinians’ unwillingness to accept a small proportion of Jews in their midst tell us a great deal about whether they are willing and able to form a peaceable polity that will eschew continued violence against Israel? If a “settlement” will be merely a prelude to further warfare, what purpose will it serve?

Barack Obama did not, of course, invent this aberration from American ideals. He likes to repudiate his predecessors. Here’s his opportunity to do so with complete justification. Let him announce that the U.S. favors free Jewish emigration to the West Bank, with only the caveat that the settlers may someday have to live as good citizens of an Arab majority state. If that is too great an imposition for Palestinian sensibilities, they can have that state on the Greek Kalends.

If the Policy Is Right, Does the Rhetoric Matter?

President Obama’s speech on the Guantanamo detainees and other aspects of the Global War on Terror Overseas Contingency Operations Against Man-Caused Disasters called to mind Lord Byron:

And still she strove, and much repented,
And saying, “I will ne’er consent”, consented.

The President strove to repudiate the policies of his predecessor, repented that our country had so lost its moral compass as to institute them, shouted (rather than just whispered), “I WILL NE’ER CONSENT!”, and then – consented to the strategy and tactics of George W. Bush. As Charles Krauthammer summarizes:

Within 125 days, Obama has adopted with only minor modifications huge swaths of the entire, allegedly lawless Bush program.

The latest flip-flop is the restoration of military tribunals. During the 2008 campaign, Obama denounced them repeatedly, calling them an “enormous failure.” Obama suspended them upon his swearing-in. Now they’re back. . . .

Cosmetic changes such as Obama’s declaration that “we will give detainees greater latitude in selecting their own counsel.” Laughable. High-toned liberal law firms are climbing over each other for the frisson of representing these miscreants in court.

What about disallowing evidence received under coercive interrogation? Hardly new. . . . Under the existing rules, military judges have that authority, and they exercised it under the Bush administration to dismiss charges against al-Qaeda operative Mohammed al-Qahtani on precisely those grounds.

Along the same lines, President Obama will exercise the same authority as President Bush to decide which enemy combatants (suitable euphemism under construction) are too dangerous to let go; they will be kept in custody indefinitely, if not at Gitmo, then somewhere else equally isolated and secure.

All in all, the substantive differences between the Presidents on these issues are thinner than the proverbial dime. And not just on these:

Observers of all political stripes are stunned by how much of the Bush national security agenda is being adopted by this new Democratic government. Victor Davis Hanson (National Review) offers a partial list: “The Patriot Act, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, military tribunals, Predator drone attacks, Iraq (i.e., slowing the withdrawal), Afghanistan (i.e., the surge) – and now Guantanamo.”

Jack Goldsmith (The New Republic) adds: rendition – turning over terrorists seized abroad to foreign countries; state secrets – claiming them in court to quash legal proceedings on rendition and other erstwhile barbarisms; and the denial of habeas corpus – to detainees in Afghanistan’s Bagram prison, indistinguishable logically and morally from Guantanamo.

So the question arises, the President having taken over so much of George W. Bush’s program, shouldn’t those of us who agreed with that program be embracing him, just as Don Juan embraced the “ne’er consenting” lady? If the policies are right, does it matter that the rhetoric is ahistorical and absurd?

To a certain extent, it doesn’t. I’m not going to make common cause with the ACLU types, who are as vehemently opposed to military tribunals and indefinite detention under this Administration as under the last. The Obama habit of leveling classless insults at those who came before him grates, but it isn’t a reason to oppose him when he’s right.

Nonetheless, the way in which the President has chosen to address counterterrorism stores up grave problems for the future. He has endorsed hard-nosed measures with one breath while with the other he excoriates them as unconstitutional and immoral. The Bush Administration argued that the President has the right, in time of war, to capture enemy fighters, hold them without charges or trial, and, if they have committed crimes for which trial is appropriate, try them outside the civilian court system. Those are rights that every wartime President has exercised, most of them more forcefully and arbitrarily than President Bush.

The Obama Administration repudiates such reasoning. Indeed, it denies that a war is in progress. What, then, is its justification for imprisoning anyone who has not at least been duly charged with violation of a criminal statute, and for denying those who have been charged the right to a speedy trial before a civilian court? Is it nothing more than Salus populi esto suprema lex? If so, President Obama is assuming powers that no previous President – and most especially not the last one – has ever asserted: a general authority to protect the public safety by any means that seem to him necessary.

If the President possesses extraordinary powers as commander-in-chief in wartime (as I concede he does), it is vital that their basis, and the context in which they can be exercised, be limited. Otherwise, a President really is indistinguishable from a dictator. When Calvin Coolidge was in office, lawlessness was rampant. Should he have rounded up New York and Chicago mobsters, thrown them into Alcatraz for indefinite terms, tried Al Capone before a military commission, and otherwise quelled the mafiosi “by any means necessary”? Barack Obama, on his own rationale, can’t explain why not.

In essence, he has proclaimed that he will lawfully carry out acts that he believes to be inherently unlawful. I am in favor of the acts but can scarcely defend them on any grounds except the ones that the actor has rejected. If he himself has some clever rationale that doesn’t involve illimitable increases in Presidential power, he hasn’t told us what it might be.

The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

That familiar quotation doesn’t apply to every case, but to this one it does. By doing the right thing – following in the footsteps of the Bush Administration – without setting forth good reasons, the President will stultify his ability to keep on doing it. At some point, judges or subordinate Executive Branch officials or his own conscience will rebel. He will then face three stark alternatives: to admit that the loathed and despised Bush-Cheney war criminals were righteous defenders of our liberties, to set several hundred terrorists free and hamstring our defense against renewed attacks, or to assume unashamedly the office of dictator. I cannot imagine Barack Obama choosing any of the three. Yet he will have to take one. Voting “present” will not be an option.

Guantanamo: The Sequel

President Obama has, to use that overworked poker metaphor, doubled down on closing the Guantanamo Bay terrorist prison. He’s sticking to his hasty decision and to the corollary of moving the inmates to the U.S. mainland, for trial in the civilian courts, trial by military commission or indefinite detention without trial. The sole justification offered for this course of action is the supposedly beneficial impact that it will have on our country’s reputation.

Both Houses of Congress have rejected this quarter-baked plan by overwhelming majorities. The President has now committed himself to reversing legislative opinion, which will first require reversing public opinion. If he can do that, he will almost measure up to his own estimation of his political and rhetorical skills.

So let’s suppose that he gets his way. What’s more drearily predictable than the response of the folks he’s trying to impress? The same leftists and Islamofascists who railed against Guantanamo will denounce civilian juries as prejudiced, military tribunals as kangaroo courts and “supermax” prisons as medieval dungeons. To some extent, they may have better material to work with than before. I’d be very surprised if conditions at, say, Florence, Colorado, are a fraction as humane as at Guantanamo:

Most cells’ furniture is made almost entirely out of poured concrete, including the desk, stool, and bed. Each chamber contains a toilet that shuts off if plugged, a shower that runs on a timer to prevent flooding, and a sink missing a potentially dangerous tap. Rooms may also be fitted with polished steel mirrors bolted to the wall, an electric light, a radio, and a television set that shows recreational, educational and religious programming. These privileges can be taken away as punishment. The 4 in (10 cm) by 4 ft (1.2 m) windows are designed to prevent the prisoner from knowing his specific location within the complex because he can see only the sky and roof through them. Telecommunication with the outside world is forbidden, and food is hand-delivered by correctional officers.

The prison as a whole contains a multitude of motion detectors and cameras, 1,400 remote-controlled steel doors, and 12 ft (3.66 m) high razor wire fences. Laser beams, pressure pads, and attack dogs guard the area between the prison walls and razor wire.

Eric Rudolph, the Olympic Park bomber, lamented in a series of 2006 letters to a Colorado Springs newspaper that the ADX is meant to “inflict misery and pain.”

All of that is just fine with me, and I’m unimpressed by Eric Rudolph’s whining. But think about how these security measures will be described by left-wing British newspapers and al-Jazeera – and how the New York Times will react when mufsidun complain about their “misery and pain”.

How does the ledger balance? On one side, the President weakens his own country’s moral authority by agreeing with the slanders spread by our enemies. On the other, he takes steps that will inspire a new round of anti-American protest. This can can’t be kicked very far down the road. At some point, Barack Obama must either defend the essential rightness of America’s post-9/11 anti-terrorist policies (much as Richard Cheney has) or openly join the nutroots and give free rein to our enemies. I’m confident that he’ll stop short of the latter, but life will be easier if he recognizes reality now, keeps Guantanamo Bay in operation, and acknowledges that George W. Bush did indeed display foresight, as well as wholly rational fear, when his Administration fashioned the policies that have kept us safe for seven years.

Further reading: Arthur Herman, “The Gitmo Myth and the Torture Canard”
Fred Barnes, “Obama Blames Bush”

Can Anybody Figure This Out?

Faced with an odd phenomenon, it may be hard to come up with a true explanation, but it’s usually a breeze to devise a superficially plausible one. For once, though, I am stumped.

A friend happened to visit a hospital emergency room in Auburn, Washington, twice in the same day (for a sufficiently minor emergency that the doctors felt comfortable about telling him, after a couple of hours’ wait, to come back later). The first time was near midnight, the second near noon. At midnight, all of the patients, except himself and one other, were black. At noon, all but one were white.

Why the discrepancy? Race can hardly be a factor that determines when in the day people suffer accidents and other medical emergencies. Nor is self-segregation very likely: Does a white guy, even white bigot, who sprains his ankle at 11:00 p.m. wait till the “black shift” is over before seeking treatment?

Though it surely isn’t socially significant, an answer to this puzzle would be welcome. It doesn’t have to be a correct answer, just one that is remotely credible. Any ideas out there? (But no, Mr. Hodges, it is not the fault of George W. Bush.)

Back from the Mountains

For the benefit of all the (two or three) people who may be wondering where I’ve been (or hoping that I’d stay away): After dealing with a few retirement-related matters, I spent the past few days a third of the way up Mount Rainier, one of the few places in the continental U.S. to which the radio, television and the Internet do not reach. At Paradise Inn, I’m pleased to say, there were few signs of economic malaise (more guests than I’ve seen on opening weekend since before 9/11) and none of Global Warming. Heavy snow fell for a couple of days before the Inn’s opening last Friday. Then came a nice, sunny weekend, a somewhat less sunny Monday (rain in the evening – boo!), and snow again on Tuesday (huzzah!). All in all, both the snowpack and the weather were ideal for my kind of leisurely hiking (which more athletic types might describe as strolling in snowshoes).

The only newspaper available – and therefore the only source of news of the outside world – is the Tacoma News-Tribune, whose idea of a scoop is, to borrow a line once applied to another provincial publication, “Pierce County dog chases Pierce County cat over Pierce County fence.” Hence, I spent several happy days without being reminded of our country’s ongoing transformation from federal republic to banana democracy.

I did devote a few moments’ reflection to the fact that John Edwards was inadvertently right: There are two Americas, if not quite in the sense that he meant.

What convinces me of the reality of the national bifurcation is the commentary on Barack Obama’s first few months in office (just short of four de jure, about six de facto, since the outgoing Administration, in contrast to its predecessor, made no trouble for the incoming one). In one America are those who think that the new President has already achieved greatness, that he has inspired Americans to undertake a vast, beneficent transformation of our way of life. The praise that emanated from the media when his term of office reached its one hundredth day surpassed anything ever said about any other President at so early a point and was notably devoid of restraint and reserve.

In the other America, Barack Obama is little more than a buffoon, noteworthy for blunders large (the inept and still largely incomplete filling of executive positions) and small (Gordon Brown’s unplayable DVD’s, “Scare Force One”, the bow to a minor Arab despot). As for actual accomplishments, American interests have suffered almost unbroken reverses abroad: Pakistan is in parlous condition; the Afghan campaign is making no visible progress (as shown by the abrupt decision to “fire the manager”); Russia, ignoring its pledges, has continued and expanded its partial occupation of Georgia; it is also displacing American influence in central Asia; Iran and North Korea are more truculent than ever and have imprisoned U.S. citizens; the President’s allies in Congress have sparked a trade war with Mexico; Venezuela’s dictator has seized American property without compensation. Our biggest foreign policy success since January 20th is the defeat of four Somali pirates.

At home, no one doubts that the President inherited a dire economic situation. To date he has made it more dire. This year’s federal budget deficit will exceed the total deficit of all the years of the Bush Administration during which “spendthrift” Republicans controlled Congress. In return, we have an unemployment rate as high as what Obamaconomists said it would be if Congress did not adopt their policies. Has ARRA (pronounced “error”) created or saved even one nongovernment job? The evidence in its favor is pretty thin.

According to polls, about a third of the electorate strongly approves of President Obama’s performance, and a third strongly disapproves. Among the rest, mild approval outnumbers mild disapproval. The views of two of these thirds make sense: the strong disapprovers, because the Administration’s record so far is dismal, the middle group, because it’s very early to form definitive judgments.

The remaining third, the most heavily represented among mainstream columnists and commentators, obviously evaluates performance on a different basis from the rest of us. The President can satisfy it merely by Being Barack Obama. He is like a rock star whose fans scream jubilantly as soon as he appears on stage and keep up such a racket that no one can hear his music.

How long will this infatuation last? Particularly if the next several months are as full of setbacks as the first few? Some of the media have noticed that the President is prone to homeopathic gestures (proposing “cuts” – most just shifts from one line item to another – of half a percent from a federal budget nearly twice as large as last year’s), ill-planned gestures (announcing the shutdown of the Guantanamo Bay prison without any idea of what to do with the terrorists held there), broken campaign promises, subservience to labor union interests, sloppy personnel decisions (Tim Geithner through Charles Freeman and a host in between), threats against the private sector, and mean-spiritedness toward his political opponents. Those characteristics are not harbingers of a successful Presidency. I wouldn’t have thought them compatible with a popular one either. It may be, though, that I don’t understand the Other America.

Now that I’m back in touch with events, I see that things didn’t go too badly in my absence. The first news items that I noticed were the slaughter of the California tax-hike referenda (even Nancy Pelosi’s district voted “no”), the Senate’s refusal to approve funds for closing Gitmo, and the Indiana’s treasurer’s decision to refrain from future purchases of the bonds of banks and auto makers that have taken TARP money (the Obama Administration’s strong-arming of Chrysler’s creditors having cost the state nearly $6 million).

Not every event was so heartening. There was, for instance, the President’s decision to destroy the domestic automobile industry through preposterous CAFE standards. I’ll be sorry to see American cars go the way of the Yugo, though their demise will be a great boon to our friends in Canada and Mexico. I foresee lots of dealerships springing up in Vancouver, Windsor, Mexicali, Matamoros, etc. College students will earn spending money driving cars from the sellers’ lots to American buyers’ homes. Who knows? Perhaps this is what Mexico needs to displace the drug trade from its economic niche.

A Jack Kemp Anecdote

Even before Jack Kemp passed away, he was starting to get the Left’s standard treatment of dead conservatives, viz., how much superior they are to living specimens. When Mr. Kemp was the intellectual leader of the Republican Party, I never heard a liberal utter a favorable, or even a neutral, word about him. Now they tell us that they’d stop demonizing the Right if only more of us were like Jack.

I already know what they’ll say about Newt Gingrich 30 or 40 years from now.

This observation, which I’m sure hundreds of others have already proffered, is only the prelude to a Kemp anecdote reported in today’s WSJ Political Diary (which you, too, can have delivered to your e-mailbox for less than eight dollars a month).

By way of background, the writer was 11 years old in 1996, living in a very liberal Philadelphia suburb. His fifth grade social studies class staged a mock Presidential election, in which students took the parts of political figures. He was the only volunteer to understudy Bob Dole.

The Clinton campaign was winning early votes, giving away buckets of “free” Halloween candy. As I approached the first speech I’d ever give in public, my Dad went to the library to help me with research. He came back with Jack Kemp’s vice-presidential acceptance speech from that August, tossing it on the table.

Who was Jack Kemp? Until then, I knew him only as Bob Dole’s campaign buddy. But I started reading and soon threw out what I was going to say. Kemp’s speech inspired me to actually think about ideas and their power in politics. “Our convention is not just the meeting of a party, but a celebration of ideas,” he said. “Our goal is not just to win, but to be worthy of winning.” He used imagery, and not just empty imagery: “Our friends in the other party say the economy is moving forward, and it is. But it is moving like a ship dragging an anchor, the anchor of high taxes, excessive regulation and big government.”

The following week, my opponent, clad in a suit with flour peppered in his hair for that Clinton gray, stood at the podium and promised the moon and the stars. I quoted Kemp. We shook hands, and he left, tossing candy. And, against all suburban odds, the Dole-Kemp ticket won at Fallsington Elementary that year. Thank you, Mr. Kemp.

Is This Cramdown Necessary?

Finding contradictions in the Obama Administration is about as shocking as finding gambling at Rick’s Café, but here is a point that I haven’t seen elsewhere.

The Administration is working hard to put 40 percent of General Motors and 55 percent of Chrysler into the hands of trust funds to provide medical benefits to retirees. As has been widely noted, these trusts will be effectively controlled by the United Auto Workers union, which will appoint half the trustees. The other half will ostensibly be “independent”. It will be an immense surprise if most or all of them don’t see eye-to-eye with the UAW, and just one will be enough to give the union appointees a majority, by the exercise of which they will be able, as a practical matter, to direct the management of both companies.

These trusts were set up some time ago in an effort to cap the auto companies’ open-ended obligation to pay for gold-plated health insurance for retired union members. The deal was that GM, Chrysler and Ford would each contribute several billion dollars but after that would have to put in nothing more. The trustees would then attempt to match benefits to the available assets.

President Obama wants to keep as much of this arrangement intact as possible, to the detriment of creditors who would ordinarily rank higher. Well, he feels empathy for elderly auto workers, I suppose, but is this cavalier attitude toward creditors’ rights necessary? The President, as he frequently tells us, intends to enact fundamental reforms that will make health care cheaper, better and more abundant. His party has the votes to muscle his program through Congress. Why, then, can’t the funding of the GM and Chrysler trusts be cut back or eliminated altogether? Is the problem that they’re designed to address so pressing that it justifies stiffing individuals and institutions that lent to the companies in good faith reliance on the legal position previously accorded to secured creditors?

There are some obvious possibilities: The President is blindly loyal to organized labor, regardless of the merits of its demands. Or he has little confidence in his own health care ideas. Or he viscerally dislikes the “creditor class”. Or perhaps a bit of all three. If anyone has a more plausible explanation, I’d be happy to hear it.