Hatchplug

No one has ever accused me of conventional musical tastes.  Despite that, I think most everyone will like this, even if you haven’t heard anything like it before.  A wonderful break from work on a Friday.

It is right and customary for the Executive to claim credit for all that passes which is good, and (after some transition period) for all failures during his tenure to be laid at his feet.

So now, it follows that those in the new Administration (and its media accomplices) who were long willing to blame everything on POTUS 43–seemingly everything from Global Warming^TM to Why They Hate Us^TM to the decline of the English language (as seen from the widespread acceptance of “till” when “’til” is meant)–seek to sort the good from the bad, assigning the former to The One and the latter to his predecessor. 

But for how long?  Let’s play 6 Degrees of Bush (or Cheney, as appropriate) Hatred Blame:  when you read a news account or hear a story of how something is wrong, bad or uncomfortable, see how few degrees of separation you can find between one or more purported causes perpetrated by President Bush, and the painful effect now suffered (assuming the media hasn’t already connected the dots for you)? 

Right now the average must be close to one.

I’d offer my own view, but the inestimable Victor Davis Hanson has already said what I would have, only far better.  See it here.

At the end of what seems like each breathless recounting of President Obama’s decision to close the detention facility at Gitmo*, reporters add something to the effect of “most of the detainees have not been charged with a crime.”

This is as wonderful sleight-of-hand.  Of course most detainees have not been charged with crimes.  They are not being held as criminals.  Yes, some have been (and will be) subsequently charged, but they are not there for jaywalking or any conventional law enforcement reason, and the normal civilian presumption that a charge should promptly follow detention does not apply.  They are unlawful combatants, a status analogous to POW status, except that as the detainees are not members of any state’s army (among other prerequisites), they are not entitled to POW status (although based on last year’s round of Gitmo cases at the SCOTUS, that distinction is increasingly meaningless).  The Geneva Conventions provide that combatants can be detained for the duration of hostilities.  Last time I checked, we were still in at least two shooting wars, so don’t be surprised that they are still being detained.  (It is an open question as to how widely the conflict leading to their detention should be defined.)  Don’t blame the U.S. for having to detain for years on end an unrepentant Sudanese caught fighting us in Afghanistan, or for the recalcitrance of the Taliban; I’m sure our soldiers would like to be done, and what few taxpayers are left would prefer to have our wealth spend on just about anything else. 

Is it lazy, merely incompetent or outright agenda-pushing that reporters add the “no charges filed” non-sequitur, and is there no news editor who understands, or can be bothered to learn, this difference?  

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*  Well, probably, unless his army of lawyers is unable to find a place to keep the detainees until they are released….  As residents of a remote island under U.S. jurisdiction but without a seat in congress or a well-established proxy/interest group, those living on Guam should be very nervous.

It should surprise no one that an administration headed by two lawyers (and fairly unaccomplished, as such) would begin to change U.S. policy not just in substance, but more generally (and pervasively) from its choice of systemic approach.  President Bush and Vice President Cheney viewed things from the perspective of, and informed by, their experience in business.  The current officeholders have scarecely had private-sector employment since they graduated from law school. 

American lawyers are schooled to (among other things) make complex analogies and parse fine differences, and are later trained to articulate those differences in within a well-established framework that has evolved to remarkable complexity over many hundreds of years.  (In contrast, lawyers are not trained in leadership or political history.)  Our framework (if imperfect) serves a purpose in that it provides a common (if occasionally low) standard of laws and process for resolving conflict among the members of our society.  Lawyers–even ones that did not practice long but drank enough of the Kool-Aide served by their law professors–are comfortable with that system, and unfortunately, it seems that they want to solve problems exclusively within that system, i.e., to the exclusion of other methods. 

Carpenter::Lawyer  as  nails & wood::laws & lawsuits

Only, there are other ways.  Indeed, there are times when only other ways are preferable or possible.  As when we seek to protect ourselves from  persons who are not members of our society (or possibly, any recognized society).

So, inevitably, President Obama bought into the notion that our legal system was not only the desirable, but more importantly, the only system to use for dealing with unlawful combatants we manage to capture.  But such a position is really just legal arrogance–the arrogance that the U.S. legal system is the one-stop shop for solving problems, wherever they may arise.  Such is not the case.  Legal action has no purchase for those who are free to ignore its writs–dictators and despots, or to individuals whose motives lead to inherently asocial behavior and are willing to die for it.  Of course, these are not members of our society, they do not benefit from our social compact, and our legal system was not designed for them.  Of course.

It seems that for the nonce President Obama is willing to risk U.S. security to endear himself to those overseas who either want any non-U.N. interventionist policy hobbled or do not accept that some groups and individuals will have irreconcilable differences with the West, and at home to placate the left-most quarter of his electorate. 

If untested, the country will probably survive this indulgent accomodation to interest groups who are not responsible for U.S. well-being.  I am confident that if tested, even someone with President Obama’s limited experience will quickly find, as President Bush did, that problems can also be addressed through the direct application of power by states.  It is not a tool to be used for every situation, but it is the right tool for some.

The Philadelphia Inquirer isn’t really my hometown newspaper.  That is, Philadelphia isn’t really my hometown, and the Inquirer is no longer much of a newspaper.  Despite my hopes that new ownership would raise standards, it seems that they will continue to play “kick-the-can” down the road of mediocrity and bias followed by most papers I’ve read.   (Worth noting is that its investigative series are very well done, if predictable in subject matter.) 

Sadly, the opinion/editorial pages are just second rate.  Editorials seem to span the range of opinion from the conventional left all the way to the to the reflexive left.  Opinion pieces seem to be chosen with little care, and during the election cycle it seemed that any academic was fit to print, regardless of whether the subject was in an area of their expertise.  (It goes without saying that there is little fact-checking, even of the most tendentious claims.)  Yes, they have Charles Krauthammer and Jonah Goldberg to discomfort those on the left who aren’t used to being challenged on their assumption (much less conclusion), but is there really no local conservative willing to present a local perspective?  (Don’t insult me with any “Smerconish is a conservative” balderdash.  Only a NE liberal would believe that.  Populist?–perhaps, but certainly not a principled conservative.)

It is not realistic to expect the Inquirer to be a conservative paper.  Is it too much to ask that it present a more interesting liberal perspective, and a more robust conservative one so that even its liberal readers understand the range of views in an honest presentation?  Of course it is, sadly even when the owner is an alleged conservative.  (Bias within the news reporting is a subject for another post.)

By the way, what good is it to amass enough wealth to spend it on a media property whose positions consistently undermine your other business interests and political beliefs?  A cynic might say that the owner’s job is just to ensure that management sells enough papers to be profitable, and that to do so in the Philadelphia area means to tilt to the left.  Fine.  But let’s please have it be thoughtful, and with a better perspective on the right. 

I won’t hold my breath.  

The chatterers (left and right) are busy equivocating and excusing Treasury Secretary nominee Geithner.  Although his nomination is instructive in pointing out that President Obama is not Midas, and his vetters are fallible, his nomination isn’t really worth opposing.  (In a similar vein, I think the Senate should confirm any nominee who is not manifestly unqualified; let the President suffer–and be seen to suffer–the consequences of mediocrity begotten from politically compromised choices.)  As for Geithner, there is no excuse available to a person of his standing for his failure to pay the self-employment tax he owed while working at the IMF.  However, that is a personal failing, and as much as it pains me to say, I’d rather have someone who will be subject to higher scrutiny due to known past infractions (is there any doubt his 2008 return will be air-tight?) than find out who the runner-up choice for Treasury is in a time of economic crisis.

Don’t get me wrong:  it is nice to be admired by others, especially those we hold in high regard or who can help us achieve what we want.  But on a national level–and as a matter of national policy–admiration is no substitute for commitment or action. 

So when I hear that the U.S. will have an easier go in the world because we now have a President Obama, much more to the liking of the glitterati in Hollywood, the Eurocrats in the vassal states west of the Urals and the masses elsewhere who want the benefits of U.S. policies and actions without the burden of the attendant costs, I say:  I hope you are right.  However, I don’t think that any country worth having as a friend or fearing as an enemy changes policy based on something as shallow as the personality of the head of state. 

Wake me up when Germany allows its troops to conduct real combat missions in Afghanistan, when the British fund a navy worthy of their obligations (much less their heritage), when China leads a humanitarian mission larger in scope than any mounted by Switzerland or when NATO doesn’t really stand for “Needs Americans To Operate.”  

Making a most auspicious day less so (at least in the eyes of the many), Hatchplug commences.  I hope the entertainment and insight outweigh the disappointment.  But as the TRADOC commander once told me (at approximately 140dB), “Hope is not a plan.”  A good thing to remember, today especially.