Greg Sanders

Tigh / Roslin '08 (not an endorsement)

Ross Douthat notices the similarities but it takes a correction from a reader to get it right.

Jonathan Last comes through with the perfect pop-culture analogy.

Update: Except, as a reader notes, that Tigh-Roslin is even more perfect - though rather less reassuring.

I went Googling for a relevant picture and found that there's already articles and a campaign site.

Image from http://www.tighroslin.com/

I'm really amazed how well this fits.  Roslin was near the bottom of the line of succession as Secretary of Education which seems roughly on par, experience wise, with being Governor of Alaska.  She also is a favorite of the religious and has banned abortion, although I think her personal attitudes are far more feminist than Palin's.  Tigh is a navy man, a great guy to have at your back in a fight, has a bit of a temper, and was an abused P.O.W. although his experience is more recent.  Also their administration shows no understanding of economics.

Obvious lessons: The lesson for anyone who has noticed the McCain parallel is that he'd make a poor President.  The Roslin examples suggests that we shouldn't underestimate Palin just yet.  I don't think we'll have that much trouble beating her, but lets not get cocky.

Convention time

I'm up in Maine visiting Acadia National Park among other things.  Having a pretty good time and enjoying the convention at night.  Missed the first night, but was impressed by the speeches by Sen. Clinton as well as the one by the Gov. Napolitano.  Although my favorite line was from Bob Casey that McCain's support for Bush means that "he's not a maverick, he's a side kick."

Tonight's been even better so far.  Pres. Clinton did a superb argument for Obama's qualifications and the most disciplined speech I've ever seen him give.  Best line, we can convince more people "with the power of our example than the example of our power."  Sen. Kerry was freaking on fire tonight, lots of good lines against McCain, he should really be used as a surrogate and get some payback for 2004.

Probably going to bed before Biden is up, but since I haven't commented yet, I think he's a good choice.  He doesn't really consolidate a key issue or double down on change.  However, he's got good experience and knows foreign policy issues cold.  He's not always right, he was too supportive of the war in Iraq and his partition proposal isn't actually popular there.  However, the surge practically speaking is a soft partition strategy, that's what the whole Sons of Iraq mean in practice and why integrating them with government forces will be such an issue.  On other issues he was the leading proponent of the Violence Against Women act and commutes by train from Delaware, good stuff there.  So I think he's qualified to be President, but the main trait he'll bring to campaign is that of happy confident warrior.  I can't wait to hear the equivalent of his "A noun, a verb, and 9/11" jab against Giuliani.

The party formerly known as Communist

I’m sure I’ve harped on this point before, I know I do it in person, but the Chinese Communist party isn’t really Communist in any meaningful sense. Ezra Klein cites Nick Kristof on this point:

Nick Kristof’s column on China overplays how rapidly their development is actually progressing (Westerners will not have to know the difference between "guanxi and Guangxi" for a long time yet), but it makes one point that doesn’t get enough emphasis. "Communist leaders used to actually believe in Communism; now they simply believe in Communist Party rule."

...Unlike Russia, China isn’t particularly interested in the expansion of its governance structure or idelogy. Rather, they want to make a profit, and become a more powerful regional player. Within that context, they do plenty of bad things, and should come in for plenty of criticism. But the implication that they post some sort of ideological threat is fairl off-base. Not only is their government’s ideology, at this point, extremely muddled and opaque, but they’ve shown no real interest in anything but the greater glory, and more rapid economic advancement, of China. So far as anyone can really tell, that’s the ideology they’re actually trying to export, and while it has its problems, it’s unlikely to become the national mission of many non-Chinese countries.

I agree with all this, although I don’t think that completely dismisses fears of the rise of a new authoritarianism. The Chinese model would not lead to a hostile block of countries necessarily, but it might attract people and particularly leaders of other nations to attempt to achieve China’s economic progress and reject or at least stall by decades democratization. This is true even with China’s underlying problems, there’s a lot of poor countries out there with deep issues that haven’t achieved anywhere near the decades of 8% plus growth China nor have they lifted tens of millions out of absolute poverty.

I think the Olympics show both some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese system, more on that later.

Lies my printer told me

Back at the apartment my printer has been out of commission for nigh on six month because it ran out of color ink. In its infinite wisdom, the printer decided that this means it shouldn’t be printing in black and white either. Farhad Manjoo has a good piece in Slate about how to fight back against the worsening trend of printers pretending they’re out of ink:

Eventually I came upon a note on FixYourOwnPrinter.com posted by a fellow calling himself OppressedPrinterUser. This guy had also suspected that his Brother was lying to him, and he’d discovered a way to force it to fess up. Brother’s toner cartridges have a sensor built into them; OppressedPrinterUser found that covering the sensor with a small piece of dark electrical tape tricked the printer into thinking he’d installed a new cartridge. I followed his instructions, and my printer began to work...

In the long run, though, the printer companies’ strong line against cartridge makers seems destined to fail. Buying ink and toner is an enormous drag. Having to do it often, and at terribly steep prices, breeds resentment—made all the worse by my printer’s lying ways. Some companies are realizing this. When Kodak introduced a new line of printers last year, it emphasized its low ink costs. Kodak claims that its cartridges last twice as long as those of other printers and sell for just $10 to $15 each, a fraction of the price of other companies’ ink. When my Brother finally runs dry, perhaps I won’t replace the toner—I’ll replace the printer.

Sounds good to me, I’ll check out that Kodak line. Read the whole piece for more tips.

And it's official

Jane Perlez of the NY Times Reports:

Under pressure over impending impeachment charges, President Pervez Musharraf announced he would resign Monday, ending nearly nine years as one of the United States’ most important allies in the campaign against terrorism.

Speaking on television from his presidential office here at 1 p.m., Mr. Musharraf, dressed in a gray suit and tie, said that after consulting with his aides, “I have decided to resign today.” He said he was putting national interest above “personal bravado.”

And with that, we can move Pakistan fully back into the democratic states column. That isn’t to say this will be a panacea, Pakistan has had elected leadership before, including many of the current party leaders, that have failed their country. But the way the removal of Musharraf went down, first pressure from the courts then from the parliament may strengthen democratic norms. Hopefully the courts issue will be easily resolved now as there was no way the chief justice and Musharraf would both be in the government again.

As for the implications for the U.S., we can actually probably expect less of a carte blanche when going after the Taliban or Al Qaeda in Pakistani territory. I hope in the mid-term getting Pakistan’s house in order will make the north west territories issues easier to handle. Of course, we’re also going to need to get a deal between Pakistan and Afghanistan, in some ways Pakistan can benefit from an unstable neighbor.

Good news for a change

Pakistan’s military dictator Perez Musharraf has apparently worked out conditions for stepping down according to Pakistan’s Daily Times (via Ackerman). His opponents in the Parliament had started impeachment proceedings, although given the 2/3s majority needed they were far from a sure thing. The deal is he gets immunity from prosecution. That seems reasonable to me, Musharraf is no Pinochet, he’s certainly done violence to the constitution and has repressed some protests, but I’m not aware of anything that could land him before the International Criminal Court for example.

Ackerman notes that you should believe it when you see it, but it does seem quite likely now. The Post’s reporting adds an interesting note on the U.S. end:

The White House is thought to be split on how strongly to back Musharraf, especially since the call for his impeachment. But while Vice President Cheney is often cited as Musharraf’s principal backer in Washington, officials there said that Cheney now agrees that the president should be cut off. They said that it was Bush who had not committed to a final break with someone he still considers a counterterrorism ally.

"The vast majority of the U.S. government has moved beyond their original attachment to Musharraf," one official said.

I’m guessing this is because President Bush is more sentimental and personality based. Cheney probably figures that Musharraf’s utility is at an end and will instead seek to develop ties with other figures in Pakistan’s military.

After the cut, Ackerman has some interesting thoughts on what’s next:

You make the call

Is the following abstinence advocacy or just fair warning for would be engineering students?

Via Yglesias who got it from the Poor Man Institute.

Man on Wire

In August of 1974 Philippe Petit and friends put in motion a plan to allow him to tightrope walk from one tower of the World Trade Center to the other. The new documentary Man on Wire describes what lead up to that crazy attempt and how it went down.

The Washington Post review by Ann Hornaday does a good job summing things up, so I’ll just add a few comments. First, the documentary can be fairly exciting because it tells the story of a caper using all the dramatic trappings of caper flicks. I love that sort of movie, and the removal of violence from the equation doesn’t make me enjoy it any less. They use a mix of recreations, original footage, and interviews to dramatize the whole story, I think the balance works pretty well although I wasn’t always sure what was original and what was recreated.

Most will know the outcome, but there’s still room for suspense about how it happened and what role all the supporting team played. The one thing the film doesn’t tell you is what everyone has been up to in the subsequent years. The ending gives a quick summary of how relationships were changed, but that’s about it.

I really can’t see myself taking part in something like this, just for the art and challenge of it. But I am glad the world has people that will.

Picture of an earlier wire walk from http://www.manonwire.com/

De-escalation

Thank goodness.

TBILISI, Georgia, Aug. 12 -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday he was halting military operations in Georgia because they had accomplished their end, although explosions continued to rattle the now largely abandoned town of Gori...

"The security of our peacekeepers and civilians has been restored," Medvedev said, referring to Russian arguments that the incursion was needed to repel a Georgian offensive in South Ossetia. Russian officials have claimed that a Georgian push into the province last week claimed 2,000 lives, including those of more than a dozen Russian peacekeepers stationed there.

Obviously Putin still runs the show, but I don’t see President Medvedev making this kind of announcement if it wasn’t going to happen. This isn’t over by any means, the fighting is still ongoing, but it looks as if the Russians aren’t going to go for total conquest or deposing the Georgian government.

(Brought to my attention by Dylan Matthews over at Ezra Klein’s blog)

Escalation

The situation in Georgia is getting worse as Russia bombs well past the disputed region and may be seeking to overthrow the elected (albeit somewhat problematic) Georgian President. President Bush is appropriately strengthening his rhetoric, Georgia is calling for a cease fire at this point, Russia has achieved any objectives it could proportionately seek regarding the break-away province of South Ossetia.

U.S. interests and values do not demand action on behalf of South Ossetia against the Russians. It’s an ugly situation to be sure, but also a complex one. However, the situation is rather different for Georgia proper. We need to figure out what tools at our disposal we’d be potentially willing to use, more bluffing won’t do, and at the same time determine what we’re willing to trade. Calling for international peacekeepers on the South Ossetian border is all well and good, but I don’t see it happening unless we’ve got more international support or are willing to put a lot on the line. That said, it’s a fine opening position. Realistically, we should probably be willing to trade influence over the breakaway province for protection for Georgia proper.

This situation has arisen in large part because the U.S. has written checks that we can’t cash. Matt Yglesias ably summarizes a good Fred Kaplan piece on why Georgian President Shakashvili foolish sent the troops into South Ossetia. In short he thought, thanks to all sorts of support and signals from the U.S., that we’d be willing to bail him out. Here’s the wrap from Yglesias:

This highlights, I think, some of the limits of the kind of bluff-and-bluster approach to foreign policy that seems popular among conservatives these days. Or, rather, it highlights the fact that popular as bluster-based policymaking is on the American right it can have some extremely high costs and that, tragically, a large proportion of those costs can wind up being borne by the people who were nominally supposed to be the beneficiaries.

Other classic cases include the Shi’a uprising after the first Gulf War and Hungary’s uprising back in 1956 against the Soviet Union. For an instance under a Democratic President, you could probably include Saddam’s attacks into Kurdish areas under Clinton. That said, Shakashvili greatly overreached even what we had said, Georgia did not get fast tracked into Nato and we’re tied down in two wars. Even with what support he was given, the attack into South Ossetia was highly ill advised. However, it shouldn’t cost him his Presidency until elections or constitutional removal procedures come into play.

Georgia, Georgia, the whole day through

I think Gregory Djerejian has had the best post I’ve read on the matter. Key points:

First, let us disabuse ourselves from the notion that Mr. Saakashvili (head of the government in Georgia) is some glorious democrat (the election he barely won in January included irregularities, and there continues to be endemic corruption
in Tblisi). Second, let us recall that many south Ossetians and
Abkhazians are not particularly keen to live under Tbilisi’s yoke,
indeed some prefer Russian influence to predominate there for the time being. Third, if there is any truth to Russian allegations that there are some 1,500 fatalities in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali--and they were caused by a major initial over-reach by the Georgian military (we will need to wait for more details to emerge)--expect many more brutish bombardments like the Russians apparently have conducted in the Georgian town of Gori, alas. Fourth, some context: ever since the overly hasty recognition of Kosovo went live, Putin has been very keen to intimate what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, having personally threatened Saakashvili that Russia would formally recognize as independent states Ossetia and Abkhazia.

His final point is that Saakashvili really screwed up here by launching an offensive to resecure Ossetia. I do think it’s important that we keep Russia from taking over neighbors, but there’s a difference between Georgia proper and breakaway republics that have function autonomy. First priority here should be de-escalation and stopping the killing.

Medium Large is back

One of my favorite on again off again surreal humor web comics is back in play. Medium Large by Francesco Marciuliano(of Sally Forth) who is a good bit more trippy in web form and has a lot of terrific meta-humor.

Check it out.

Full citizenship

Ta-Nehisi Coates, a great blogger now on the Atlantic, has a great point that I hadn’t seen before. There’s already been a fair amount of discussion out there on racism versus racial resentment. I tend to agree with the idea that when you see race relations as a zero-sum game you tend to get into racism, and that sort of attitude long pre-dates affirmative action.

The newer point gets to the question of why immigrants should have to deal with America’s racial baggage. Whole argument is worth reading, but here’s the key point:

Let us jouney to the heart of things--what the "immigrants didn’t do it" defense offers is an a’la carte brand of citizenship where one gets to pick and chose what you will or won’t claim. Here is fellowship on the cheap--scarfing down hot dogs and cheering for fireworks on the Fourth of July(despite the fact that said commenter’s forbears did absolutely nothing to liberate the country) while slinking away when the subject of slavery or Jim Crow arises. I should thank the heavens that I had nothing to do with the forced removal of the Native Americans. But I recognize that I live in Manhattan--on land that I didn’t settle. Moreover, I certainly had nothing to do with the murder of millions of Jews by the Third Reich, but I’m quite proud that my taxes help pay for the Holocaust Museum. Either you’re an American, or you are not. If you are, welcome to the family--the entire family.

Ethnic cleansing in Iraq

While the Anbar awakening, the truce with Sadr, and the Surge are widely cited as chief drivers of reduced violence in Iraq, there’s also some discussion on the impact of ethnic cleansing (or sectarian cleansing in this case). Namely, that in Baghdad pre-surge sectarian groups consolidated their control over various neighborhoods, driving out or killing members of other groups. The goals of these sectarian killers had been largely achieved pre-Surge, which suggests that the drop in violence in Baghdad may also have occurred in part because the bad guys had what they wanted.

Steve Biddle, Michael O’Hanlon, and Ken Pollack pushed back against this argument in Foreign Affairs

It is worth noting that separation resulting from sectarian cleansing was not the chief cause of the reduction in violence, as some have claimed. Much of Iraq remains intermingled but increasingly peaceful. And whereas a cleansing argument implies that casualties should have gone down in Baghdad, for example, as mixed neighborhoods were cleansed, casualties actually went up consistently during the sectarian warfare of 2006. Cleansing may have reduced the violence somewhat in some places, but it was not the main cause..

However, as Spencer Ackerman among others notes, this makes no sense. Of course ethnic cleansing leads to more violence while it’s occurring, the question is whether the violence dropped after the polarization of Baghdad neighborhoods was done. I suspect what they’re responding to is the no longer widely discussed idea of partitioning Iraq. It’s a fair argument to say that partition might provoke further ethnic cleansing and thus cause a great deal of violence even if it ultimately stabilizes the situation. But that point is irrelevant to the discussion of the recent drop in violence in Iraq. Regardless, Ackerman goes on to make a more important point:

But there’s actually a broader point to make. Ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity. The U.S. quite rightly intervened in the Balkans in the 1990s to stop it. The horrors of ethnic cleansing are unfathomable to those who haven’t experienced them. What you really, really shouldn’t do is treat other people’s ethnic cleansing as a debaters’ point. It’s perverse, isn’t it, the way that ethnic cleansing that occurred during a U.S. occupation can be treated so nonchalantly by Washington polemicists.

China and human rights

So as the security Olympics approach, it’s quite clear that China hasn’t kept any of its promises to the International Olympics Committee and in fact is cracking down harder than usual. This isn’t particularly unexpected, there have been cases where concessions have been won from the Chinese, typically the release of political prisoners, but lately we seem to be having trouble even getting that.

I don’t believe the problem is that it’s impossible to get improvements; however, I do believe that it is an area where the Chinese government can be counted on to bargain hard and backslide whenever they can. An obvious answer is to play hardball back. However, in many cases that’s likely to antagonize the nationalism of the Chinese people. The way we pick these battles, our criticism often come at times when they don’t have much support in China proper.

I think an effective agenda pushing for slow reform in China would have to pick its battles and tactics much more effectively. That said, it’s simply a difficult agenda, that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile, but there’s more areas for leverage when it comes to trade, the environment, etc.

Good (old) news on the gay marriage front

So from mid-July I see that apparently the constitutional referendum to ban gay marriage in California is now running 9% points against. Considering the initial polling was running weakly on the yes side, that’s a great turnaround that happened pretty fast.

Interestingly, Kevin Drum notes that the age demographics aren’t that strongly divided on this one. That might get to the specific make up of California’s electorate, but it’s still surprising.

Too soon to put this one in the bank, but not a bad position to be in at all.

Traffic accidents in China can be community events

Back when I did my thesis, I read about a half-dozen or so protests that were started by traffic accidents. Typically these were clashes where the people on the street, as it were, didn’t feel the accident was justly resolved for example a hit and run or police protecting some powerful person.

However, I hadn’t actually scene the available mechanism until James Fallows put some pictures up on his blog. This is a much more ordinary case, but you can see how more could develop.

Goodbye old Beijing

The fiancee found this great article in the Sun on the changes in Beijing that matches up with what I’ve heard and some of what I saw on my trip.

But what of the old Beijing?

Historic neighborhoods along ancient roads,called hutongs, once stretched from Tiananmen Square more than a mile in every direction. Tiny dwellings with shared courtyards and a labyrinth of narrow alleyways kept neighborhoods tight-knit. With family-owned businesses filling out the communal patchwork, the centuries-old design, distinct to Beijing, was a testament to functionality, if nothing else.

Now 70 percent of the hutongs that existed only 50 years ago are gone.

According to the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, 1.5 million Beijing residents have been displaced in preparation for the Olympics. Only 2,700 were displaced in Athens, host of the Summer Games four years ago, according to the same report. An average of 60,000 Beijing homes per year has been demolished since 2006.

They definitely are a part of the historic character of Beijing, but those in higher value areas, especially this one near Tiananmen Square can easily be replaced by developments of much greater value. This gentrification forces people to the edge of the city, which may well be inevitable, but they also tend to get a raw deal monetarily which is basically the default case in a wide variety of Chinese land development sitautions.

Aside from property rights and over civil law protections, there’s a major urban design problem here. China often intentionally copies changes in the West and is picking up many of our mistakes. Notably the move to groups of blocks contained by large roads, car oriented development, and rejecting the merits of classic courtyard designs even if hutongs themselves don’t scale. (This was really brought home to me by a presentation at the National Building Museum, but I don’t have the speaker’s info handy). Fortunately the city is also built three new subway lines for the Olympics, so there is good news as well. The actual Olympic village and supporting developments do seem like smart growth, although whether they pull off their goals seems like it will depend a lot on post-Olympic implementation.