Rob's Politics Blog

I'm far from being a fan of Robert Novak, but I rather savor his latest column, which notes the waning of John Thune's star due to the decision to close Ellsworth Air Force Base. Novak casts the closures as the act of an indifferent White House, but the article inadvertently states as well that Thune's inexperience was a factor. :

When the year began, Thune's political future seemed unlimited. He was young (44), handsome, articulate, conservative. Now, he is becoming a ''Son of the Wild Jackass'' familiar to the Great Plains. Seeking separation from the White House, Thune came out against confirmation of John Bolton as United Nations ambassador and broke with Bush by opposing the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

North Dakota's Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, two of the most partisan Democrats in the Senate, were able to save Grand Forks Air Force Base even though it fell below Ellsworth in most measurements. Former Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogleman's firm received $400,000 from the city of Grand Forks to argue its case. An Air Force old boy exercised more clout than a rising GOP politician."

So, if Conrad and Dorgan could prevail on the executive branch, why couldn't the new golden child of South Dakota? South Dakotans replaced a general with a lieutenant, and they'll be feeling the consequences for some time.

Lord help me, I have to agree with Venezuela's ambassador, Bernardo Alvarez, to the U.S. on the subject of Pat Robertson's fatwa against Hugo Chavez. I think Chavez is a repulsive throwback and a regional problem, but when a man with Pat Robertson's influence calls for an assassination the White House has to do more than say that he doesn't represent US policy and that his remarks were "inappropriate." A strong condemnation would be a start.

From CNN:

Alvarez said the Christian Coalition, which Robertson no longer leads, claims some 2 million members and helped jump-start President Bush's 2000 presidential campaign after his New Hampshire primary loss to Arizona Sen. John McCain.

"Robertson has been one of this president's staunchest allies," he said.

"The United States might not permit its citizens to use its territory and airwaves to incite terrorists abroad and the murder of a democratically elected president," Alvarez said. "Venezuela demands that the U.S. abide by international and domestic law and respect its country and our president."

Nothing has damaged the reputation of the US in Latin American eyes so much as the perception that we unseated popular governments in Guatemala and Chile. Robertson has helped to invoke a real bogeyman and if the White House really cares about relations with Latin America it will need to do a lot more to distance itself from a man almost everyone would agree is a nutcase.

In one of the odder geopolitical developments of the year, Canada and Denmark are engaged in a territorial dispute over the Arctic territory of Hans Island, which is located just off of Greenland. A visit by Danish warships to the area earlier in the year has triggered the dispatch of two Canadian vessels as well.

Needless to say, the odds of this ever escalating to blows are slim - perhaps slimmer than the odds of the next pope being a Methodist. Still, disputes like these underscore one of the most unchanging elements of the international system. Despite a proliferation of treaties and transnational organizations, the nation-state remains king and nation states are - by inclination - inclined to get tetchy over even the slightest territorial issues.

Pat Robertson has called for the US to assassinate Hugo Chavez. Not quite a fatwa, perhaps, but still a clear violation of the 6th Commandment (you know, "Thou shalt not kill"). Why this man hasn't gone the way of Ezra Pound, I can only guess.

While one can access Dailykos through a sidebar link from this blog, I don't do that very often. Kos, for the most part, fights the good fight and during the election year, the blog was a valuable source of campaign information. It was also something of an echo chamber, though less so than mydd. Still, after the election ended, I found the echo chamber dynamic of these blogs a bit wearisome.

So, it is with profound weariness that I read of Kos's pronouncement:

Two more weeks, folks, before we take them on, head on.

No calls for a truce will be brooked. The DLC has used those pauses in the past to bide their time between offensives. Appeals to party unity will fall on deaf ears (it's summer of a non-election year, the perfect time to sort out internal disagreements).

We need to make the DLC radioactive. And we will. With everyone's help, we really can. Stay tuned.

The thing about political weblogs is that having ones own soapbox provides a real temptation to indulge in hyperbole or blowhard-like rhetoric. Kos should know this better than most after he posted - after the March 2004 lynchings of four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah: "I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them." This was a low and illiberal moment for a liberal blog.

Kos's moment of rage came over the DLC speaking against setting a deadline for an Iraq withdrawal. The notion that there needs to be a unified party position on this is troubling - not least because many reasonably think that setting a deadline is bad policy. It's certainly possible that a withdrawal date might be the kick in the pants that an Iraqi government might need to get its house in order - but a withdrawal date set by the Congress alone runs the risk of repeating the abandonment of Southeast Asia in the early 1970s, but with far worse results. We can't let Iraq become a terrorist cancer center. Kos may not like it, but the case against a premature withdrawal is not one he can dismiss with a few sentences.

The liberal blogosphere has experienced moments of sheer giddiness in the last few years - first over the Dean candidacy, then over its fundraising role in the election, and then again over Dean candidacy in the race for DNC chairman. With that has come a remarkable joie de combat that strikes an infrequent reader like myself as being a bit compulsive. Kos - better than the orthodox bloggers of mydd - understands the need for the Democratic Party to compete in all 50 states. It's therefore puzzling why he is so intent on making foolish pronouncements about the demise of the DLC. Liberal Democrats have a very hard time wrapping their heads around the notion that our party is a big coalition in which moderates or even semi conservative folk play a vital role. We may have very nasty internal disagreements, but it's good to remember whose team everyone is ultimately on. The issues that so convulse the blogosphere aren't going to be resolved overnight and there will be no victory over an organization like the DLC with its own base and resources. Kos might as well take on the black caucus, while he's at it. This sort of thing weakens my own appreciation for political blogging - making it seem like a lot of sound and fury signifying . . . well a lot less than it promises.

Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside Bush's Crawford ranch began as high drama, but is rapidly turning into something no one wanted to see: the spectacle of a human lost in paroxysms of grief. What else is one to make of her recent statements? It certainly isn't fair to expect Ms. Sheehan to be stoic in her grief, but there is something demeaning about televising her agonized declarations that Bush killed her son, even if she has sought this attention herself. Her protest has emotional resonance, but it seems increasingly to be the flailing laments of someone lost in grief. Someone needs to stop the cameras, stop the circus, and let this woman and her family begin the process of healing.

The Sahel region has been in the news quite a bit lately. The belated international reaction to famine in Niger has yet to make a substantive impact. A coup in Mauritania has, for one brief moment, lifted that country to the top of headlines.

The desert countries of the Sahel - in particular, Chad, Niger, Mali, and Mauritania - constitute an increasingly important region for American foreign policy. Weeks ago, the Washington Post reported on a Pentagon initiative to train armies in Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Nigeria, Morocco and Tunisia. An earlier piece by Robert Kaplan in the Atlantic Monthly profiled one such initiative in Niger, remarking that here US efforts were meeting with more success than they were in neighboring Chad.

Which is not to say that the Chadian initiative has been ineffective. As the Post article recounts, the Chadian army is known to have engaged an Al Qaeda linked group back in March 2004, doggedly chasing them, killing 28 and capturing 7 (the Chadians suffered 20 dead in the effort).

As a basic generalization about the countries of the Sahel - particularly the above four - one can say that they are very large, very poor, and - despite their relatively small populations (Niger is twice Texas' size with half of its population; Mauritania is slightly smaller with only 3 million) - ethnically fragmented. Weak central governments preside with difficulty over vast expanses of territory, with governance made more difficult by ethnic or religious divisions. The presence of uranium in the region - notably in Niger - gives us an added reason to be involved.

If Al Qaeda and similar groups are to be denied vacuums in which to operate, events like the Nigerien famine and the Mauritanian coup must face swift reactions. The Nigerien famine was ignored in the crucial early weeks; this late reaction may be insufficient to avert major loss of life. A success in fighting it would mark real progress in our efforts at public diplomacy - maybe not in Saudi Arabia, but certainly in the Sahel. The coup in Mauritania is more of a question mark - the deposed President Taya was no democrat, but prior coup attempts were staged primarily by Islamists. This is a development that will have to be closely monitored - neither Europe nor the United States could tolerate a new Taliban regime on the Atlantic.

The one plus that we have while operating in this region is that France is heavily invested in it and has its own interest in preserving stability and combating Islamists. In the best case scenario, shared efforts in the Sahel could help to slightly narrow the trans-Atlantic gap. Paris would certainly agree that we ignore this region at our peril.

John Bolton's recess appointment marks a dicey gamble on the part of the administration. Team Bush is no stranger to the fait accompli - indeed, these have worked for them more often than not. However, the recess appointment stinks of being a runaround. While the position of UN ambassador isn't one that Americans necessarily consider important, Bush's recourse to a recess appointment may well go over as just another example of White House hardheadedness. Bolton's own record of bureaucratic warfare and chasing people around in hotels makes him a particularly bad choice for a recess appointment.

The White House rationale is undoubtedly that Bolton, once installed in the job, will do reliable work, thereby justifying a lasting appointment when the next Congress convenes in 2007. Maybe their gamble will pay off. But John Bolton's cardinal vice isn't his timidity or intellectual eccentricity - it's that he's capable of becoming a frigging maniac. Team Bush underestimates Bolton's volatility and capacity for self-defeating behavior at its own peril - if he comes undone before 2007, this appointment will come back to haunt them.