I’m told that among those you’ve recognized before me was my friend Don Rumsfeld.  I don’t mind that a bit.  It fits something of a pattern.  In a career that includes being chief of staff, congressman, and secretary of defense, I haven’t had much that Don didn’t get first.  But truth be told, any award once conferred on Donald Rumsfeld carries extra luster, and I am very proud to see my name added to such a distinguished list.  

To Frank Gaffney and all the supporters of Center for Security Policy, I thank you for this honor.  And I thank you for the great energy and high intelligence you bring to as vital a cause as there is – the advance of freedom and the uncompromising defense of the United States.

Most anyone who is given responsibility in matters of national security quickly comes to appreciate the commitments and structures put in place by others who came before.  You deploy a military force that was planned and funded by your predecessors.  You inherit relationships with partners and obligations to allies that were first undertaken years and even generations earlier.  With the authority you hold for a little while, you have great freedom of action.  And whatever course you follow, the essential thing is always to keep commitments, and to leave no doubts about the credibility of your country’s word.

So among my other concerns about the drift of events under the present administration, I consider the abandonment of missile defense in Eastern Europe to be a strategic blunder and a breach of good faith.  

It is certainly not a model of diplomacy when the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic are informed of such a decision at the last minute in midnight phone calls.  It took a long time and lot of political courage in those countries to arrange for our interceptor system in Poland and the radar system in the Czech Republic.  Our Polish and Czech friends are entitled to wonder how strategic plans and promises years in the making could be dissolved, just like that – with apparently little, if any, consultation.  Seventy years to the day after the Soviets invaded Poland, it was an odd way to mark the occasion.

You hardly have to go back to 1939 to understand why these countries desire – and thought they had – a close and trusting relationship with the United States.  Only last year, the Russian Army moved into Georgia, under the orders of a man who regards the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century.  Anybody who has spent much time in that part of the world knows what Vladimir Putin is up to.  And those who try placating him, by conceding ground and accommodating his wishes, will get nothing in return but more trouble.

What did the Obama Administration get from Russia for its abandonment of Poland and the Czech Republic, and for its famous “Reset” button?  Another deeply flawed election and continued Russian opposition to sanctioning Iran for its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

In the short of it, President Obama’s cancellation of America’s agreements with the Polish and Czech governments was a serious blow to the hopes and aspirations of millions of Europeans.  For twenty years, these peoples have done nothing but strive to move closer to us, and to gain the opportunities and security that America offered.  These are faithful friends and NATO allies, and they deserve better.  The impact of making two NATO allies walk the plank won’t be felt only in Europe.  Our friends throughout the world are watching and wondering whether America will abandon them as well.  

Big events turn on the credibility of the United States – doing what we said we would do, and always defending our fundamental security interests.  In that category belong the ongoing missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the need to counter the nuclear ambitions of the current regime in Iran.  
 
Candidate Obama declared last year that he would be willing to sit down with Iran’s leader without preconditions.  As President, he has committed America to an Iran strategy that seems to treat engagement as an objective rather than a tactic.  Time and time again, he has outstretched his hand to the Islamic Republic’s authoritarian leaders, and all the while Iran has continued to provide lethal support to extremists and terrorists who are killing American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Islamic Republic continues to provide support to extremists in Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories.  Meanwhile, the regime continues to spin centrifuges and test missiles.  And these are just the activities we know about.

I have long been skeptical of engagement with the current regime in Tehran, but even Iran experts who previously advocated for engagement have changed their tune since the rigged elections this past June and the brutal suppression of Iran’s democratic protestors.  The administration clearly missed an opportunity to stand with Iran’s democrats, whose popular protests represent the greatest challenge to the Islamic Republic since its founding in 1979.  Instead, the President has been largely silent about the violent crackdown on Iran’s protestors, and has moved blindly forward to engage Iran’s authoritarian regime.  Unless the Islamic Republic fears real consequences from the United States and the international community, it is hard to see how diplomacy will work.

Next door in Iraq, it is vitally important that President Obama, in his rush to withdraw troops, not undermine the progress we’ve made in recent years. Prime Minister Maliki met yesterday with

President Obama, who began his press availability with an extended comment about Afghanistan.  When he finally got around to talking about Iraq, he told the media that he reiterated to Maliki his intention to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq. 

Former President Bush’s bold decision to change strategy in Iraq and surge U.S. forces there set the stage for success in that country.  Iraq has the potential to be a strong, democratic ally in the war on terrorism, and an example of economic and democratic reform in the heart of the Middle East.  The Obama Administration has an obligation to protect this young democracy and build on the strategic success we have achieved in Iraq. 

We should all be concerned as well with the direction of policy on Afghanistan.  For quite a while, the cause of our military in that country went pretty much unquestioned, even on the left.  The effort was routinely praised by way of contrast to Iraq, which many wrote off as a failure until the surge proved them wrong.  Now suddenly – and despite our success in Iraq – we’re hearing a drumbeat of defeatism over Afghanistan.  These criticisms carry the same air of hopelessness, they offer the same short-sighted arguments for walking away, and they should be summarily rejected for the same reasons of national security.

Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission.

President Obama has said he understands the stakes for America.  When he announced his new strategy he couched the need to succeed in the starkest possible terms, saying, quote, “If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged – that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.”  End quote.

Five months later, in August of this year, speaking at the VFW, the President made a promise to America’s armed forces.  “I will give you a clear mission,” he said, “defined goals, and the equipment and support you need to get the job done.  That’s my commitment to you.” 

It’s time for President Obama to make good on his promise.  The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger.  

Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries.  Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.

Recently, President Obama’s advisors have decided that it’s easier to blame the Bush Administration than support our troops.  This weekend they leveled a charge that cannot go unanswered.  The President’s chief of staff claimed that the Bush Administration hadn’t asked any tough questions about Afghanistan, and he complained that the Obama Administration had to start from scratch to put together a strategy.

In the fall of 2008, fully aware of the need to meet new challenges being posed by the Taliban, we dug into every aspect of Afghanistan policy, assembling a team that traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, reviewing options and recommendations, and briefing President-elect Obama’s team.  They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt.  The new strategy they embraced in March, with a focus on counterinsurgency and an increase in the numbers of troops, bears a striking resemblance to the strategy we passed to them.  They made a decision – a good one, I think – and sent a commander into the field to implement it.

Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced.  It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.

It’s worth recalling that we were engaged in Afghanistan in the 1980’s, supporting the Mujahadeen against the Soviets.  That was a successful policy, but then we pretty much put Afghanistan out of our minds.  While no one was watching, what followed was a civil war, the takeover by the Taliban, and the rise of bin Laden and al-Qaeda.   All of that set in motion the events of 9/11.  When we deployed forces eight years ago this month, it was to make sure Afghanistan would never again be a training ground for the killing of Americans.  Saving untold thousands of lives is still the business at hand in this fight.  And the success of our mission in Afghanistan is not only essential, it is entirely achievable with enough troops and enough political courage.

Then there’s the matter of how to handle the terrorists we capture in this ongoing war.  Some of them know things that, if shared, can save a good many innocent lives.  When we faced that problem in the days and years after 9/11, we made some basic decisions.  We understood that organized terrorism is not just a law-enforcement issue, but a strategic threat to the United States.  

At every turn, we understood as well that the safety of the country required collecting information known only to the worst of the terrorists. We had a lot of blind spots – and that’s an awful thing, especially in wartime. With many thousands of lives potentially in the balance, we didn’t think it made sense to let the terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered them at all.  

The intelligence professionals who got the answers we needed from terrorists had limited time, limited options, and careful legal guidance. They got the baddest actors we picked up to reveal things they really didn’t want to share.  In the case of Khalid Sheik Muhammed, by the time it was over he was not was not only talking, he was practically conducting a seminar, complete with chalkboards and charts.  It turned out he had a professorial side, and our guys didn’t mind at all if classes ran long.  At some point, the mastermind of 9/11 became an expansive briefer on the operations and plans of al-Qaeda.  It happened in the course of enhanced interrogations.  All the evidence, and common sense as well, tells us why he started to talk.  

The debate over intelligence gathering in the seven years after 9/11 involves much more than historical accuracy.  What we’re really debating are the means and resolve to protect this country over the next few years, and long after that.  Terrorists and their state sponsors must be held accountable, and America must remain on the offensive against them.  We got it right after 9/11.  And our government needs to keep getting it right, year after year, president after president, until the danger is finally overcome. 

Our administration always faced its share of criticism, and from some quarters it was always intense.  That was especially so in the later years of our term, when the dangers were as serious as ever, but the sense of general alarm after 9/11 was a fading memory.  Part of our responsibility, as we saw it, was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America … and not to let 9/11 become the prelude to something much bigger and far worse.

Eight years into the effort, one thing we know is that the enemy has spent most of this time on the defensive – and every attempt to strike inside the United States has failed.   So you would think that our successors would be going to the intelligence community saying, “How did you did you do it?  What were the keys to preventing another attack over that period of time?” 

Instead, they’ve chosen a different path entirely – giving in to the angry left, slandering people who did a hard job well, and demagoguing an issue more serious than any other they’ll face in these four years.  No one knows just where that path will lead, but I can promise you this: There will always be plenty of us willing to stand up for the policies and the people that have kept this country safe.  

On the political left, it will still be asserted that tough interrogations did no good, because this is an article of faith for them, and actual evidence is unwelcome and disregarded.  President Obama himself has ruled these methods out, and when he last addressed the subject he filled the air with vague and useless platitudes.  His preferred device is to suggest that we could have gotten the same information by other means.  We’re invited to think so.  But this ignores the hard, inconvenient truth that we did try other means and techniques to elicit information from Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and other al-Qaeda operatives, only turning to enhanced techniques when we failed to produce the actionable intelligence we knew they were withholding.  In fact, our intelligence professionals, in urgent circumstances with the highest of stakes, obtained specific information, prevented specific attacks, and saved American lives.  

In short, to call enhanced interrogation a program of torture is not only to disregard the program’s legal underpinnings and safeguards.  Such accusations are a libel against dedicated professionals who acted honorably and well, in our country’s name and in our country’s cause.   What’s more, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation in the future, in favor of half-measures, is unwise in the extreme.  In the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed.

For all that we’ve lost in this conflict, the United States has never lost its moral bearings – and least of all can that be said of our armed forces and intelligence personnel.  They have done right, they have made our country safer, and a lot of Americans are alive today because of them.  

Last January 20th, our successors in office were given the highest honors that the voters of this country can give any two citizens.  Along with that, George W. Bush and I handed the new president and vice president both a record of success in the war on terror, and the policies to continue that record and ultimately prevail.  We had been the decision makers, but those seven years, four months, and nine days without another 9/11 or worse, were a combined achievement: a credit to all who serve in the defense of America, including some of the finest people I’ve ever met.  

What the present administration does with those policies is their call to make, and will become a measure of their own record.  But I will tell you straight that I am not encouraged when intelligence officers who acted in the service of this country find themselves hounded with a zeal that should be reserved for America’s enemies.  And it certainly is not a good sign when the Justice Department is set on a political mission to discredit, disbar, or otherwise persecute the very people who helped protect our nation in the years after 9/11.  

There are policy differences, and then there are affronts that have to be answered every time without equivocation, and this is one of them.  We cannot protect this country by putting politics over security, and turning the guns on our own guys.  

We cannot hope to win a war by talking down our country and those who do its hardest work – the men and women of our military and intelligence services.  They are, after all, the true keepers of the flame.  

Thank you very much.

I had the good fortune to get to know Mr. Safire a little over the past few years, and am personally feeling a little short-changed this evening.  I had hoped for more.  He was, as you might imagine, not a warm and fuzzy type.  You needed to bring your A game to any encounter with him, or risk him shooting you a look and saying, “That’s enough time”–in other words, it’s time for you to leave.  But he was also insightful and witty and generous.  Conversations could be like seminars, not only on events but also on the proper way to describe them.

It is comforting that much of Bill Safire survives in his extraordinary corpus of columns and books.  I have had reason to do a careful reading–and re-reading–of Before The Fall this year. It’s quite the cautionary tale of life in the Nixon White House.  And by chance, I happened to spend a fair amount of time last week sifting through his 1974-75 columns.  As the country endured Watergate and all the associated fall out through the first year of the Ford presidency, you might expect Safire to have gone out of his way to support the new administration.

He did no such thing.  He hammered away week in and week out as those all too human beings–many of whom had been his colleagues–attempted to govern.  Reading the columns in sequence makes a fascinating chronicle of our country struggling through a terrible time politically, economically, socially–in almost any way you can imagine.  Right or wrong, Safire stuck to his guns, as he would in the decades to follow, defending his principles in that studied and refined prose that is a lesson to all of us. 

After I did my research last week I had some questions for him, but as he might have said had I called tomorrow to ask for a meeting, “Does this have to happen? It’s really all in the columns.”  Indeed, it is.  That is something for which we can all be grateful.

In Ambassador Bolton’s view, it is not a pretty picture.  He graded President Obama’s performance as ”absent.”  As Bolton pointed out in his remarks, the administration is pursuing a course of “Neo-Isolationism,” the point of which appears to be withdrawing American forces and refraining from using American influence around the world because such actions might be objectionable to the global community.  Ambassador Bolton noted that while President Obama has declared he believes in “American exceptionalism ,” the President followed up that assertion by saying he believed in it just as he suspects “that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”  By this logic all countries are exceptional in their own view–which should make everyone feel good–but the problem is that then no country is truly exceptional, including America.  This approach, Bolton surmised, has been the guiding principle that unites the President’s repeated offers to negotiate directly with Iran, enabling of the dog-and-pony show that was former President Clinton’s visit to North Korean, and eagerness to cede power to the International Criminal Court–while presiding over the evisceration of the Defense budget.  Ambassador Bolton was particularly outspoken on the current situation in Honduras, in which the administration is siding with Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro and against Honduras’ constitutional process.  He gave that situation “an F.  No question about it.  This is a disgrace.”

After the lecture, Ambassador Bolton graciously granted Redstate an exclusive interview to follow up on the formation (or lack thereof) of foreign policy by President Obama’s national security team, Hugo Chavez’ mischief-making around the globe, and the ramifications of the Obama administration’s policy towards Israel.  Click here to listen to the full podcast.

Professor Rahe’s book is the first of three that I will be recommending for summer reading in preparation for the RedState get-together in Atlanta on August 1st. Judging from the covers, this trio might not seem the lightest of reading but fortunately all three authors prove in their own styles that substantive reading doesn’t have to be a long, hard slog. And all three of them have important lessons for us in this lazy, off-election-cycle summer.

Over the months since the 2008 election, conservatives of all stripes have searched their souls and wrung their hands and gnashed their teeth over the apparent demise of our movement. Various proposals to reinvent, repackage and/or rebrand conservatism have been widely offered. My thought is that we might productively, with the assistance of these three excellent books, strive for another “r” word—renaissance.The word renaissance carries a number of meanings. Literally, it means “rebirth.” It is generally associated with the intense interest in classical antiquity that emerged in Italy at the beginning of the fourteenth century. But as Erwin Panofsky pointed out in his Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, what we think of as the Italian Renaissance is just one in a long series of encounters with the classical past that continue to this day.

In our current quest, we might find Professor Panofsky’s work instructive. I think we are right to recognize that the contemporary version of conservatism has, at least judging from the results of the last two election cycles, become exhausted and sterile. But it does not necessarily follow that conservatism is dead. It seems to me that what we might do is revisit the past to forge our own vision of the future, one that is suited to the twenty-first century. To return to Panofsky’s example, just because he didn’t paint like Raphael doesn’t mean Cezanne didn’t understand antiquity in his own right. He just responded to it differently.

And so we come to Professor Rahe’s new book. His premise is that in the work of the eighteenth and nineteenth century Swiss and French philosophers Montesquieu, Rousseau and Tocqueville we find the origins of classical modern political theory designed to ensure the liberty and rights of the individual—a movement which is, as Rahe notes, itself yet another reinterpretation of the lessons of classical antiquity.

For those of us not blessed with the kind of rigorous education offered by Rahe and his colleagues at Hillsdale College, the opening section of Soft Despotism provides a thorough grounding in their political philosophy. Through this section I was struck by the aspects of their thought that seems to have particular resonance for our situation today—resonance that for me was most profound in the sections on Tocqueville.

It may seem curious that a Frenchman who was born 204 years ago would have much to tell us about twenty-first century America, but I find Alexis de Tocqueville eerily prophetic in his identification of the cult of equality that characterizes the American approach to democracy. I find him more appealing than Montesquieu and Rousseau—although that may stem from too little exposure to Montesquieu and too much to Rousseau in another context. In any event, Tocqueville has something to say to us, notably:

Without fear, he trusts in his own strength, which to him appears sufficient for all. An individual conceives the thought of some enterprise; this enterprise has in itself a relation with the well-being of society; the idea that he should address himself to the public authority for the purpose of obtaining its help does not even occur to him. He makes his plan known; he offers to execute it; he summons the strength of other individuals to the aid of his own strength; and he engages in hand-to-hand combat against all the obstacles. Often, without a doubt, he succeeds less well than if the State was to take his place. But in the long run, the general result of all these individual enterprises greatly exceeds that which the government would be able to accomplish. (I.i.5, p. 78)

It’s a passage to make you think a bit—it might seem to go against the grain to admit that the State could do some things better, given its enormous resources. But the point is that the greater good is actually better served by the sum of individual rather than collective activity. It requires, however, self-generated effort by the individual.

Soft Despotism is more than historical analysis of long-departed white European males. In the conclusion of the book, Rahe bravely makes a leap that few historians are willing to take these days, and applies the lessons of the past to the present day. For him, these are not dead texts isolated in their own time; they are living documents that we can revisit in order to confront our own dilemmas.

The thing about “soft” despotism as opposed to other kinds of despotism is that it is not necessarily inevitable. It is not created by natural or man-made disaster. It is rather self-inflicted by societies that have come to a point of exhausted surrender to the naturally-expansionist tendencies of the state. In Professor Rahe’s analysis, the United States has arrived at the brink of this abyss. We had thought that the fall of the Soviet Union had created a world in which the trend towards liberty and democracy would naturally evolve, but we were perhaps wrong. Rather than march on towards freedom, the victorious west has drifted in the opposite direction. Complacency has replaced urgency.

Rahe here makes what may be his most powerful contribution. We have on our library shelves tomes that foretold this unfortunate trend, and that contain the seeds of ideas that can help us combat it if we have the will. True, it is a tall order, but not an impossible one. We have an opportunity now that is uniquely our own to revisit the origins of what we understand as conservatism and take our own lessons—not the lessons that resonated in 1952 or 1980 but those that speak to 2009—to heart. We can look at the menace of encroaching government control that manifests itself in ways big and small and seriously consider how this is stifling the spirit Tocqueville so admired.

It is greatly to Professor Rahe’s credit that he has taken this material off the dusty shelves and put it freshly into our hands—and that he has done so with such vigor and passion as well as scholarly rigor.

In the course of our conversation, Rahe emphasized the need for “vigorous local government”—in other words the form of government best suited to respond to the needs of the individual rather than the collective, and so foster prosperity. He pointed out that the social democratic state is an entity that “eats its own seed corn”—it has nothing to plant that will grow in the future. He proposed that two events that have occurred since President Obama’s inauguration illustrate both his thesis of a drift towards soft despotism, and his proposed means to combat it. They are the infamous DHS report identifying potentially dangerous domestic terrorists, and the April 15th “tea party” protests against excessive taxation and government race.

In the first case, Rahe pointed out that the rights and privacy of individuals were being targeted in the name of the collective good. After all, everyone hates terrorists, right? But the people in this report aren’t actually terrorists. They are people who are likely to feel strongly against the policies that result in the social democratic state and so they are “softly” blacklisted not by overt attack, but by the suggestion that such people are dangerous and need to be controlled for all of our good.

Professor Rahe did, however, find “hope” in the tea party protests, which speak to the Revolutionary sprit that forged this country. They were relatively small, local affairs that expressed the needs and opinions of the few rather than the many—needs and opinions that would most effectively be handled by a knowledgeable and responsive local authority rather than a distant, once size fits all central government. They suggested that parts of the populace are still willing to take action and stand up for themselves, rather than surrender to the state. As he concludes, “Let our motto be, as once it was, ‘Don’t tread on me!’ And let our virtue be individual responsibility.” (p. 280)

So, people, Memorial Day has passed. The summer reading season is here. Get cracking, and let’s discuss in August.

Caption this.

While these are all interesting topics, for me the eye opener of the call was Mr. Walters’ optimism about the current situation in Mexico.  As he pointed out, the United States has a rare partner in Felipe Calderon who is looking to the US rather than to other regional powers to partner with him in battling rampant gang violence.

Mr. Calderon came to office in a squeaker of an election in 2006, but his narrow margin of victory has not led him to govern in a timid, conciliatory fashion.  He has confronted the drug gangs and the violence we see today is their push back against his aggressive policies.  Mr. Walters sees in President Calderon the kind of ally we found in Mr. Uribe–and so a potential partner in resolving the current crisis and moving forward with a mutually productive alliance that will contribute to the security and prosperity of both nations.

Mr. Walters also discussed some of the ways the US could assist Mexico short of flooding the country with American troops.  For example, the US can assist with the prosecution of extradited drug criminals, thus removing bad actors and reducing the strain on the weak and frequently-compromised Mexican judicial system.  As Mr. Walters discussed, the willingness of the Calderon administration to cede this responsibility to the United States and to freely share information indicates Mexico’s interest in strengthening ties with the US.

Critics might point out that the United States has not had much success in finding serious partners in previous Mexican presidents.  It is true that there were high hopes for the relationship between former Presidents George Bush and Vincente Fox that were not realized.  The charismatic and handsome Mr. Fox, who might have played the President of Mexico on TV if he did not actually hold the office, did provide some assistance to the US but he never emerged as the sort of partner that is needed to combat the violence that is spilling onto both sides of the US-Mexican border.  Mr. Calderon appears to be made of sterner stuff.  He resents the implication that his nation is failed, or “ungovernable,” and asks the US to work with him to solve the problem rather than to offer handouts or put up a wall between the two countries.

So what is the new American President to do?  After all, this is an administration that has vowed never to let a serious crisis go to waste, and it seems that in the Mexican crisis there is a rare opportunity to make substantial progress for US interests in Latin America.  Unfortunately the opportunity may be slipping through our fingers.  Today we have the disturbing news that the Obama administration is continuing a pattern of protectionism by restricting trade with Mexico–a move that is in violation of NAFTA and which will have unfortunate consequences for Mr. Calderon, who needs both the economic support provided by free trade with the US and to bolster the image of US-Mexican cooperation so that his citizens will support his pro-US policies.  Mexico has responded by slapping tariffs on 90 US imports.

While the Obama administration says it is taking a strong stand in support of Mr. Calderon, its early actions appear to be ones that undermine, rather than strengthen, this critical relationship.  Hopefully Secretary Clinton’s timely visit to the region later this month will reverse the disintegrating trend of US-Mexican relations.  Mr. Walters pointed out that President Calderon has only one six-year term in office, and there are no guarantees that his successor will offer a similar opportunity.  The clock, as he said, is ticking.

Today, however, there is some good news.

“Big Pharm” poster child Pfizer announced it is halting the phase three trial of its new pancreatic drug Sutent.  Generally you might think that’s bad news–that the drug causes some hideous unforeseen side effect.  But no, in this case it is because Sutent is so effective that the FDA has taken the rare step of hurrying the drug to market to help those currently suffering from the disease.

I don’t claim to be an expert on the development of pharmaceuticals, but it seems to me that Stutent is a good example of the sort of creative innovation that can take place in the drug industry (among others, come to think of it) when it is incentivized to bring new products to market.  Maybe these companies should do long, expensive and potentially risky reseach out of the goodness of their hearts–certainly those who have eagerly demonized the big drug companies seem to think this is the preferred model–but the fact is that they are more likely to do it if they are going to make a profit. 

There has been a disturbing lack of new products in the pharmaceutical research and development pipeline recently.  Maybe that’s just serendipity, but maybe it reveals the dampening effect the threat of socialized medicine has had on the industry.  Why make the investment if you can’t market your invention? 

For the moment, however, Pfizer is up 7% in pre-market trading.  Good for them and good for us.

Then I had another thought, which is that with the successful airstrikes over the past few months, we must be getting much better target-identifying intelligence in the region.  And how many of these targets can there be?  After yesterday’s successful mission, can the eliminaiton of Usama bin Laden be far behind?

Now I would be delighted to see Usama captured and another blow struck to al Qaida.  But wouldn’t that be a stick in the eye of Mr. Bush, and a huge coup for President Obama?  Wouldn’t it vindicate the softer, gentler action against terrorism that he has proposed?

Based on this line of reasoning, I will venture a prediction:  UBL will be eliminated or captured within six weeks.

Come up with your own predictions and consider this an open thread.

Ha. Famous last words. It turned out I was just pregnant with our first child.

As a result, I was very obviously with child on 9/11. I had been out of the country for much of the spring and summer and not really hard-wired into American politics. I was certainly paying attention and I was pleased with the people the new President had brought on board–some familiar names to me (Cheney, Powell) and some new ones (Rumsfeld, Rice). It’s funny now to think back to a time when I didn’t have a clear sense of who Don Rumsfeld or Condi Rice were. In any event, it seemed a big improvement over the Clinton-Gore years, and the President was achieving his legislative goals. But I was preoccupied with the little critter I was gestating, and with trying to organize myself professionally for the big coming change, and not as focused on doings in Washington, D.C.

Then 9/11 happened. Everyone has their story of where they were and what they were doing–mine isn’t particularly dramatic. It’s ironic that I was on the phone with my mother who was in New York and neither of us knew as the first plane hit because we had turned off the TV volume to talk to each other. She figured it out later when she looked out the window. I heard about it on the car radio driving to the gym and called my brother–we had a brief moment of panic because we couldn’t remember if my father was to be at the World Trade Center that day or the next day but as it turned out his meeting was to be 9/12. And then the second plane hit and I remember my moment of realizing it wasn’t a random accident but an attack. Then the plane hit the Pentagon. Then the plane went down in Pennsylvania.

It’s easy now to take for granted how relatively smoothly the government ran that day. Things could have come apart at the seams but they didn’t. The still-smoking Pentagon remained open for business. The President was back in Washington in a matter of hours. The Congress came out on the front steps of their building and sang. My most powerful memory is of the Battle Hymn of the Republic being sung a few days later at the National Cathedral with the noise of the bulldozers in Manhattan in the background.

Being pregnant was, in a word, fraught. I was never much into people touching my stomach and now strangers would come up to me in the street and pat me and wish me luck and say how great it was to see someone pregnant–to see the promise of new life amid all the violence and death. I referred to myself as the Circle of Life. I remeber sitting on the couch of our family room with a dear, very liberal, academic friend and having him earnestly tell me how culpable he thought Iraq was in 9/11. I remember even more liberal academic friends admiring the jaunty American flag I had attached to the attena of my car. I remember reading a Peggy Noonan column about all the American flags that people were sporting and how they would become frayed in time and eventually not be replaced.

I had my little girl as American soldiers were fighting in Afghanistan.

Noonan turned out to be prophetic, as the wave of patriotism that brought the nation together after 9/11 has scattered to the wind and the majority of the country rarely thinks of it. The President, of course, has not had that option as memories have faded and attention turned elsewhere. It will be interesting to see when–and if–we can come to resolution on the event and on the man who is inoxerably linked to it in the coming years.

9/11 is still unfinished business, as that hole in lower Manhattan attests. It’s like a cavity. We can’t seem to get it together to fill it. Lots of other memorials have been planned and executed during these past eight years–the WWII monument on the Mall and the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon, for example. So it’s not that we can’t build something at Ground Zero–I have come to the conclusion that we don’t want to. We’re still unsure about the meaning of 9/11 and so can’t figure out how to memorialize it. There was no such internal conflict at the Pentagon. As the Department of Defense saw it, it was attacked, its people were killed, and the next day the Department got up and went about the business of responding to this act of war. But New York was different. Was it just a one off–a random fluke? Or was it the beginning of something huge the scope of which we don’t yet know? Even more disturbingly, was it somehow our own faults?

These questions continue to haunt the country as we say good-bye to the leader who hauled us through that day and the difficult years that followed. The event came to define him, but if we can’t understand 9/11 how can we understand George W. Bush? I think that for me, as for most Americans, George Bush remains something of an enigma. Things that seem so clear to me–for example, why we went into Iraq and how terrible things might be for us now if we had not–don’t seem to occur to most Americans, at least in part because the President was never able to convincingly convey them. I can’t figure out why–we can blame a malignant press or an incompetent communications shop but Ronald Reagan had both those things and still managed to get his message across.

I am beginning to conclude that George Bush is both the creation and the victim of circumstance. After all, without the circumstance of 9/11 it seems this man may never have been required to grapple with far greater challenges than confronted his predecessor. And without the circumstance of the 2000 election and Katrina, he might never have morphed into the vicious characature that most Americans believe him to be.

In a way, having George Bush as our President during this challenging and unsettling period has been a luxury for America. Bad things have happened–the 2000 election, 9/11, Katrina, the financial metldown, that don’t have an easy scapegoat. So it’s been very easy for half the country to conclude he’s not really the President–should never have been President in the first place–and so not have to think seriously about what he has had to face or what he has tried to do about it. “Bush” became a convenient punching bag for a disgruntled peacenik who lost her son to war, for a city that had been a victim of neglect and corruption so long that it didn’t care any more who got hurt as long as someone paid, for a population that wanted to go back to a “peace dividend.” After all, Bush is a stupid entitlement kid who doesn’t really belong in the office. A spoiled brat. A simpleton. A frat boy.

It seems to me that blaming Bush has become a convenient excuse to avoid looking in the mirror. The picture of what we became, I would argue after 1988, is not a very pretty one. But in striking out at Bush we don’t have to look too closely at ourselves. We can buy into the easy fantasies that make it unnecessary to support the war in Iraq when times got tough–after all, Bush and Co. lied us into it. We don’t have to confront as a society how we let the corruption and racism inherent in the Lousiana political system leave the most vulnerable members of of their community incapable of dealing with a predictable natural disaster. The scene in the Superdome was Bush’s fault. We don’t have to own up to how each and every one of us are culpable for the current financial mess because we have been borrowing and spending so wildly beyond our means for years. That’s Bush’s fault. He should have stopped it. He should have created a system where you couldn’t get that second mortgage or were turned down for a car loan.

Our President turned into our own private Portrait of Dorian Gray–the image on whom all our excesses were visted while we remain pure and blameless. But now the tables will turn and Mr. Bush won’t be around for us to kick any more. He will be replaced by something even more smooth and flawless than our image of ourselves.

You know, I have never heard Mr. Obama talk about where he was on 9/11.

For me, in assessing the Bush presidency, the bottom line is that he brought us to the end of his term intact. There was no second successful attack. Like FDR after Pearl Harbor he took the fight to those who attacked us in Afghanistan and to those who might be a source of future aggression. An the result has been a protected homeland. That’s a tangible result for which I will forgive much, and I will never begrudge him my support.

Most who still harbor some respect for the President have given up on getting most of our countrymen to see what we see, and have moved on to the “history will judge him more kindly” meme. I tend towards that camp, although I’m not holding my breath. Such a reassessment will have to battle against all the “articles of faith” that have become accepted truths, and no one seems to care how illogical or short-sighted they are. History is a funny, fluid thing and the Bush who emerges in a decade or so may be no closer to the original than the rehabilitated, heroic Harry Truman of recent memory.

A serious reassessment will have to take into account the President’s real faults. Still to be puzzled out is why he would have the strength to attract two of the most experienced and serious elder statesmen in the Republican party to his cabinet, but ultimately keep counsel with the the least-experienced and weakest member of his administration? Why he avoided decision making because when he had to make decisions he could do so effectively and decisively? How could he stray so far from the fiscal conservatism that should be a bedrock of our party?

These are all difficult questions, and in the results of this most recent election, I think we see strong evidence that the country is tired of struggling with them. We don’t want to puzzle through the hows and whys of 9/11. We don’t want to recognize the fact that as a nation we were strongly in favor of toppling Saddam Hussein, and that our will has been done for better or ill. We don’t want to investigate who should have fixed those levies and when. We don’t want to think about the credit cards we snapped up like potato chips. We want to believe that the next eight years will not bring us disasters, be they manmade, natural or financial. Maybe that is the root of the “hope” everyone is embracing on the theory that as the hated Bush leaves, everything will change.

Maybe it will. And maybe there will be none of those pesky, unforeseen catastrophies to ruin our new golden age. But should the storm be gathering just beyond tomorrow’s rosy horizon, it seems to me we might find ourselves missing the man who has toiled on our behalf for eight years.

So while those sitting on Oprah’s comfy couch or on the chic swivel chairs at MSNBC might crow with delight that at last an “era of competence” is being ushered in (this observation courtesy of Kelly Ripa’s house husband, the former Matteo Santos on All My Children but other geniuses and experts have weighed in with similar sentiments), that we are finally going to be safe and fair and solvent and best of all, respected abroad, I worry that the reality Mr. Obama will confront next Tuesday is more daunting and frightening than they think. It might not be quite as effortless to save us from our own failings and weaknesses, or from the threats from outside, as Mr. Obama may make it seem.

As we move into this vaunted new era, I will say a prayer for the new President that he find the strength to turn his promises into reality. I would also like to say a simple thank you to President Bush. He has slogged through the muddy, unglamorous trenches for the past eight years, and he has done far more good than harm. It was quite a journey for me personally as now I look at two beautiful children who will, God willing, continue to grow up in our wonderful country with a greater respect for the sanctity of life, and with 50 million more people in this world joining them in freedom. I only hope that when his successor leaves the White House in four or eight years, we can say as much of him.

Thanks and Godspeed, Sir.

Apparently the President Elect is chafing at the bonds of his new position that brings with it, among other things like the awesome responsibility of leading the free world, 24/7 security and press coverage.  The press, in particular, rankles as they note down mundane details like what he eats for lunch and snap innumerable pictures of him at work and play.  Now Mr. Obama knows that these idiots have their uses–after all, they do tend to push the most flattering pictures of him to the fore, and even his mundane details have a certain glamour (he orders his sandwiches on 12-grain bread!).  But can’t they understand that while tracking his every move may be their bread and butter, they shouldn’t be so, well, so very eager?  Can’t they operate with the same insucient, effortless cool that Mr. Obama effects and observe the delicate rules of just-so-far-and-no-farther?

It seems they cannot.  I fear that when Mr. Obama discovers that, even for him, the real news is made when he stumbles rather than glides, it may be something of a shock to his system.

Bizarro Update (with thanks to Adamsweb): So Mr. Obama understands that pictures of him golfing in paradise might be a little grating to many Americans these days, but his solution is not to, you know, not play golf.  His solution is to try to get the press corps drunk so they’ll stop taking the pictures.  Charming.

Or, along the same lines, why is it so terrible for harried executives to save time–and quite frankly in the grand scheme of things not spend that much money compared to what we really face–by travelling by private aviation when the man elected to preside over this mess frolics in the lap of luxury?

Now I know that Mr. Obama hails from Hawaii and no one blames him for going home for the holidays.  But does he have to revel in such such a luxurious rented mansion and be photographed participating in such elitist sports?  Was there no lesser house on offer? 

I suppose that his apologists will now argue that it’s not Mr. Obama’s fault that he now needs to travel with security and support staff that make a more modest dwelling impractical, but when did these same commenters, wearing their critic’s hats, ever extend such understanding to President Bush?

I have to wonder, when even Paul Krugman is raising a bushy eyebrow and scolding that “symbolism matters,” just how in touch this future President is with the terrible financial challenges that will bedevil our nation next year?

I know charitable donation dollars are in short supply this season, but if you have $5 or more to share this is a great cause to support–and if you’re so inclined, you can put together school-supply packages with your children.  I can’t think of anything activity more truly in the spirit of Christmas.  If you can make a donation, I suggest you make it in honor of Mr. Sinise’s Medal.  Thank goodness America still has her heroes.

The Carter Center could not be reached for comment.

The President-Elect could not be reached for comment.

It is in a way refreshing to see the Kennedys dispense with that boring and pointless exercise called “elections” in their fiefdom of Massachusetts. But if this is true, it would be too bad that Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has to follow in the footsteps of the many women shoved to the side in the name of the Kennedy family’s entitlement to do whatever they want.

Karl Rove has done this. (in the issue of Newsweek that also features Redstate,yeah!). I find myself pretty much in agreement with his points, and thinking that I preferred 2000, 2002 and 2004 to the last two rounds. I know everything ever associate with the current President is supposed to be anathema, but I have to wonder if we have anyone better at managing and organizing and motivating at the grass-roots level.

What do you all think?