A View from South Carolina

As a new resident of SC, I get to vote in the upcoming Republican primary. It will be a new experience for me; this time my vote might actually make a difference. Not only is SC early in the calendar, but the race has not become a foregone conclusion. With that, several observations:

1. The political ads are entirely unhelpful. Totally. I am sure that there are boatloads of professionals thinking about them and designing them, but they help me not one whit. I get it that Rudy plans to stand tough on terrorism, but frankly, none of his opponents seem to really be soft on that. I admire McCain's early heroism, but so does everyone else. Basically, I have a hard time thinkng that many votes are being moved by these things.

2. Pretty much all the commentary boils down to "Buh?" No one knows what is going to happen. Everyone can make up some scenario that is as unlikely as any other. I understand most of these people feel compelled to appear on television all the time to keep up their street cred, but how many different ways are there to say "I got nothing"?

3. Everyone who covers politics on CNN needs to switch to decaf.

4. Why isn't there some way to say to Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich that it was fun having them around but they have been voted off the island? It makes no sense that Biden, Dodd and Richardson are gone, and we still have to pay attention to the man Dennis Miller calls the "Travelocity Gnome" of politics. Ron Paul is simply deranged. Has anyone actually thought about what it would mean if we abolished the Federal Reserve? Who is this guy?

5. We see the Ron Paul blimp around Myrtle Beach a lot. I don't know why.

6. What sense does it make that SC has a Republican primary on the 19th, but the Democratic primary on the 26th? Why is that a good idea?

More news as it develops.

Where are the profiteers?

Particularly from the Edwards campaign, I keep hearing about these elusive profiteers. I have spent a long time as a lawyer in private practice representing corporations, and I am now an in-house general counsel, and I have yet to meet one of them. Instead, I keep meeting corporate officers who are trying to run their companies the best way they can, meet the competition, and give a decent return to their shareholders, most of whom are, directly or indirectly, the American people. Like any large group of people, some of those I have met are nice; some are not. Some seem more charitable or humane than others, but, as a group, they stack up pretty well against, say, lawyers or journalists or politicians.

So where are these evil profiteers? In fact, what does that even mean? The goal and purpose of a for-profit company is to make profits. When they continually lose money, corporate officers are criticized and fired, and rightly so. So are they somehow evil because they are just doing the very job for which they have been hired? Are they deficient because a free market system is driven by the profit motive?

Frankly, I have no idea.

New England Patriots

OK, but seriously now, is this a great team or what? Yes, I know it won't mean as much if they don't go all the way, but even so, there is something about this team that is special. And this comes from someone who rooted for, and won a certain amount of money on, the undefeated Dolphins team. That last pass play from Brady to Moss was an all-time highlight. Not just because it was a great play, but because it happened right after the very same play failed.

Brady is one of the great quarterbacks, not because he is flashy, but because he is so consistent. He is the perfect QB for his coach. I can't wait for the playoffs.

The Tectonic Theory of Diplomacy

I had a recent argument about the effects of the Bush Administration's diplomacy on the position of the United States in the world. I was not defending this diplomacy as such; instead, I was asserting that day-to-day diplomacy, or even year-to-year diplomacy only has impact at the margins. what really makes a difference are the fundamentals that underlie the relations of nations.

This position was met with some skepticism. I still think it is true. The ambassador to the UK could vomit on the Queen's shoes (or the President could vomit on the Japanese prime minister's lap) and it would just be laughed off as a merry prank. On the other hand, The United States could give billions of dollars to Egypt every year -- wait, it does give billions to Egypt every year -- and it can barely get Egypt to send a foreign minister to a meaningless meeting in Annapolis. In my view, this is easily explained. At the end of the day, the UK and the US are natural allies. They may spat about things, but their interests are too much in common for any long-term split to exist, regardless of any single event. On the other hand, Egypt simply can never get too close to the US. No matter how accommodating the US is, Egypt's interests and the US's interests are too dissimilar for any real long term alliance.

What do you think?

Vietnam: Third and Fourth Thoughts

I was brought up on the standard story: Vietnam was an unmitigated disaster. It was a war that was unwinnable and was an example of American hubris and inability of the American military to overcome an indigenous revolution. This is still the dominant narration in America; it certainly is among mainstream Democrats and the mainstream media and academics. It is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Intermittently, there have been claims that the war was winnable, or even was in the process of being won. These revisionist views are based on a variety of theories, most of which I am unable to fully follow, in part, no doubt, because I have not spent much time trying to do so. Further, there is always something a bit difficult about most such counterfactual recountings of history; they tend to assume that the author can change one side of the equation and assume that the other side would not have changed. In fact, of course, a change in strategy by the US would also have provoked a change in strategy by the North Vietnamese, China, and others who had a role in the outcome of the dispute.

This brings me to the third thought, raised independently in two different articles I have read in different contexts. In a nutshell, the argument is as follows. Yes, the war in Vietnam was unwinnable. That does not mean, however, that it was a failure. Instead, the fact that the US was willing to contest in Vietnam created breathing room for other countries in Asia to develop into viable, non-Communist countries. This idea, raised by, for example, the former prime minister of Singapore, does have something to say for itself. In retrospect, the entire Cold War
was really a long-term holding action. In that context, even conflicts that ultimately resulted in losses might have had value in the same way that a fighting retreat anticipates giving ground, but making each gain costly. By the time the Vietnam War was over, the Soviet Union had already lost substantial momentum internationally and had begun to ossify and mainland China was losing some of its initial revolutionary fervor.

My fourth thought, however, is that this story still is too simple. Suppose Eisenhower had held to his original position, and given the French no support whatsoever, but had instead given some support to Ho on the condition of distance from the USSR? Or suppose Kennedy had found a way to pull the other Asian countries together without getting deeply involved? Things might have turned out as well or better at much less cost in life to both sides.

I have no answer at this point. Perhaps the only point is that the first story may not be the only story, or it may require more nuance. Only time will tell.

Iowa Primary

Even people I respect have no idea what is going to happen in the Iowa primary. At this point, my view is that everyone should just stop and wait to see what happens. There is just no benefit to making more wild-ass predictions. No wonder people get tired of the elections; by the time they actually happen, it seems like we have already lived through them about a hundred times.

Two other points. First, I hope Ron Paul loses so badly we can finally escort him off the public stage. Enough is enough. Even setting aside the questionable character of some of his supporters, he is just a loon. Second, is there any chance that any candidate will actually admit that he or she did much worse than expected? Do we really have to listen to every single candidate claim victory?

Just a Quick Thought About Hiroshima

Before anyone talks to me about Hiroshima, they have to be prepared to talk about Okinawa and Manchuria. I just wanted to point that out.