Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Wednesday Goodies

1. Johns Hopkins professor Eliot Cohen (whom I had at Harvard many years back) rips Walt and Mearsheimer. (HT: LGF, who btw is outstanding today)

Inept, even kooky academic work, then, but is it anti-Semitic? If by anti-Semitism one means obsessive and irrationally hostile beliefs about Jews; if one accuses them of disloyalty, subversion or treachery, of having occult powers and of participating in secret combinations that manipulate institutions and governments; if one systematically selects everything unfair, ugly or wrong about Jews as individuals or a group and equally systematically suppresses any exculpatory information -- why, yes, this paper is anti-Semitic.


2. HAMAS LIES. Making nice to the UN here; true colors here.

3. Larry Sabato, the UVa politics guru weighs in on DeLay (from yesterday)

My guess is that Tom DeLay took a cold, hard-headed look at the facts of the upcoming election, and he realized that ex-Rep. Nick Lampson (D) was likely to win. That’s my own evaluation of the polls in his district, added together with DeLay’s sub-par performance in his party primary, and the burden of ex-Republican Rep. Steve Stockman running as an Independent. DeLay didn’t want to go out as a loser, and he didn’t want the Democrats to gain his seat. Probably, a respectable GOP candidate can hold that seat now — -though we’ll have to wait and see who is selected. The person had best have few ties to DeLay.

On the whole, this is a plus for the GOP. DeLay would have been the focus of a thousand media stories in the fall general election, making the Democrats’ ‘culture of corruption’ point for them. Now he’s out of the autumn headlines, unless the Ronnie Earle trial drags on or DeLay is indicted in the Abramoff scandal. It was in DeLay’s personal interests for him to drop out, but he also did his party one last favor.


4. A new Secretary of the Treasury? Today's SecTreas needs to be a markets guy and not a captain of industry. The Bush administration is notoriously weak here. Between Hank Paulson and Stan O'Neal I think Paulson is the clear choice. Stan O'Neal came up the brokerage side of the business but to be chief at Goldman you HAVE to be OUTSTANDING.

5. Is a return to federalism an answer to the polarization of the American electorate? Fascinating piece though I am not sure I agree with all of it.

But an era where deep and fundamental moral questions divide the nation is in need of a revival of federalism. Federalism supplies the expansion joints that make America supple rather than brittle; make it a bridge that can ride out hurricanes without falling to pieces, that can sustain enormous twisting, turning, and tearing forces without cracking.

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