Repartay

As an addendum to my earlier post concerning the legal troubles of young Marcus Epstein, I offer Bay Buchanan’s utterly stomach turning defense:

With respect to the incident I have been asked not to comment by Marcus’ attorney since the case is still pending.  But putting the incident aside, the stories about Marcus were for the most part inaccurate and incomplete.  Yet, the left wing bloggers ran with this little factoid because the assailant worked for organizations associated with Pat Buchanan and Tom Tancredo.   

What happened next was a modern day lynching by a faceless, angry, ignorant mob who reveled in the collective assault on their victim.  They had wounded an adversary and drawn blood — without pausing to ask how so talented a young man could have found himself in such a mess.  

“But putting the incident aside…”

Just to briefly review the “incident” Buchanan asks to “put aside,” this “talented young man” planted a karate chop on a black woman he ecountered on the street after calling her a Nigger. And he’s being lynched by “left wing bloggers.”

If you feel like raising your blood pressure to an even higher level, check out the comments section to this atrocious piece.

In the wake of North Korea’s newest missile test, many on the more hawkish right have renewed their call for a tougher stance toward the regime, advancing the possibility of increased military presence in the Korean peninsula. Bill Kristol commented that “targeted air strikes” might be an effective deterrent against North Korea’s consistent belligerence. On Fox News, Charles Krauthammer recently argued that Obama should encourage Japan to produce a nuclear arsenal, thereby shifting regional influence away from Beijing. The Wall Street Journal even weighed in, rebuking the “futility” of Obama’s (and GW Bush’s) diplomatic overtures and advocating the US send a “very clear signal” instead.

I think that preventing North Korea from augmenting its nuclear capabilities is both an admirable and essential objective. Already, the international community has observed an emerging rapprochement between Iran and Kim Jong-Il, who fairly recently shared nuclear technology. Without question, this is an unbalanced regime with little to no regard to international order.

Unfortunately, in my view, there is little to nothing the United States can unilaterally accomplish without sacrificing major strategic interests and alienating regional allies. In particular, the Chinese government clearly has no desire for heightened American influence on the peninsula, an area they perceive as their sphere of influence. Although officials publicly declared their government to be “resolutely opposed” to North Korea’s nuclear program, I think Kim Jong-Il’s regime has assumed a useful role for China. As a rogue, potentially nuclear state, North Korean deterrence has attracted much of the region’s military investment, establishing missile defense as an attractive option for Japan and South Korea—neither of which have traditionally maintained strong relations with China.

Additionally, the autocratic state has created a convenient buffer between South Korea’s more western, market based economy and China’s managed communist-capitalist hybrid. By not sharing a border with South Korea, China can avoid a political and economic proxy struggle that would likely emerge with one of America’s strongest allies. Moreover, unless Korean reunification produces a miraculous pull out of American GI’s, a large US military presence bordering China would undoubtedly rankle Beijing.

Most significantly, it simply does not appear the United States has the leverage to convince the Chinese otherwise. On numerous issues, China has levied its considerable influence to aid American objectives. For instance, despite China’s unambiguous interest in re-asserting their political influence over Taiwan, the Pacific island remains (largely) autonomous—primarily due to its close alliance with Washington. Economically, it would also be highly imprudent to offend the same government currently financing President Obama’s ambitious economic policies. Just weeks after Tim Geithner kindly suggested that China stop deflating its currency, he travelled to Beijing to kiss the Don’s ring in contrition.

Simply put, I just don’t believe the United States presently has the bargaining chips necessary to convince Chinese officials that military action would serve their interests. Pumping North Korea with just enough aid to sustain their tepid economy helps ensure that China holds all the cards, so to speak. It’s not a conclusion I’m eager to advance, but I think it best reflects the regional and international dynamic concerning North Korea.

Jake Foley = Total Douche

It has come to my attention that the aforementioned Christopher Walken Twitter page is an elaborate hoax. Suffice to say, I am devastated.

For the record, I would also like to publicly shame my “friend” Jake Foley for excitedly sending me the link and assuring me that it is “totally real.”

Thanks douche.

There’s been a great deal of debate recently over the heightened visibility of Rush Limbaugh, the GOP’s favorite l’enfant terrible, since the Republican Party has assumed the opposition role in Washington. In particular, much of the left has been positively joyous over Rush’s apparent ascension to, as Rahm Emanuel put it, the “intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”

Naturally, the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress have been all too happy to bestow this titular honor on Mr. Limbaugh. A recent Politico article even links his re-emergence as a partisan icon to the work of political strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville, who have actively advised Democrats to draw rhetorical connections between Limbaugh’s controversial persona and Republican leadership. After a poll revealed the pundit to be even more divisive than Obama’s controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright, Carville saw an opening: “It’s great for us, great for him, great for the press,” he said to Politico regarding Rush’s augmented visibility, “The only people he’s not good for are the actual Republicans in Congress.”

I’m not so sure.

Amidst all the uproarious laughter towards Rush and his assertion that “better policy ideas” will not beat Democrats, Jon Chait makes a very necessary point: what if Limbaugh’s celebrity maintains its height while the stock market maintains its lows? There’s no doubt the GOP of 2009 has become woefully irrelevant after a truly awesome eight years, but if markets continue their trends downward, 2010 and 2012 might be unexpectedly difficult times to sell 2-4 more years of Democratic economic policy.

Chait explains:

I think it’s pretty clear that the Democratic comeback since [2006]  has had next-to-nothing to with developing ‘new ideas’ and almost everything to do with Republican failure, the state of the economy, and a really effective presidential nominee. [Y]es, Democratic ideas proved more popular, but they really were the same basic ideas the party had advocated for years.

 

Limbaugh, then, is narrowly right. The GOP’s fortunes are essentially an inverse function of the Obama administration’s fortunes, which is turn depends almost entirely on the state of the world economy.

As cynical as it sounds, I have to agree with Chait’s argument. While governing philosophy clearly influences voter opinion, a marginally reasoned alternative to a policy or politician perceived to be a failure is the source for most electoral successes. FDR emerged from Hoover; Reagan emerged from Carter; Obama emerged from Bush. I don’t question the political abilities of any of these men, but there’s little doubt their policies took shape as a direct repudiation of their predecessors’ shortcomings.

Thus, a problematic “what-if” appears. What if the economy continues to deteriorate and digs into Obama’s (admittedly still high) approval rating? The sad truth is that we could witness the illustrious party of Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity and plumbers with high school diplomas regaining power. With the notable exception of John Huntsman and Charlie Crist, this Republican Party has not seemed to absorb any lessons from November 4^th, 2008. They have remained a broken record of strident anti-government, homophobic and anti-immigration talking points from their dusty culture war encyclopedia. As David Brooks recently put it, “The only thing more scary than Obama’s experiment is the thought that it might fail and the political power will swing over to a Republican Party that is currently unfit to wield it.”

If the economy reamins this bad, Rush and the gang may just get the chance.