An Explanation Of Some People: They Are Just Mean S.O.B.’s

There are some folks who will only go into a knife fight against an unarmed opponent.  Such is the case of liberal bloggers going after some poor kid in the Miss Teen U.S.A. pageant.  (See here and here.)

The gist is Miss Teen USA 2007 finalist Lauren Upton (from South Carolina) was asked to explain why a large percentage of children in this country are unable to find the United States on a map.  Miss Upton first offers the suggestion that maybe kids don't have maps to look at.  She then seems to realize this isn't enough of an answer so she rambles on about Iraq and South Africa making, it must be said, very little sense. 

My question is, why should she know the answer to that question?  I think she would have been perfectly justified in saying "How the hell should I know?  If you all hadn't screwed up the public education in this country maybe we wouldn't be having these sorts of issues."

Of course, no one was expecting Lauren to have an actual answer.  The point of asking the question wasn't the content of her answer but her poise in responding to it.  In that she performed poorly.  She was clearly stumped by the question, but that hardly means she is "dumb as a box of rocks."

Of course, if she had responded to the question with some idiocy blaming the Bush administration and "No Child Left Behind" she would have been lauded from here to high heaven by the leftosphere, no matter how inarticulately she did so. 

I can only hope that those trashing this teenager have little exposure to children in their own lives.

Political Progress In Iraq?

You can count me "skeptical but hopeful." From Reuters:  Iraq's leaders agree on key benchmarks

Iraq's top Shi'ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political leaders announced on Sunday they had reached consensus on some key measures seen as vital to fostering national reconciliation.

The agreement by the five leaders was one of the most significant political developments in Iraq for months and was quickly welcomed by the United States, which hopes such moves will ease sectarian violence that has killed tens of thousands.

But skeptics will be watching for action amid growing frustration in Washington over the political paralysis that has gripped the government of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The apparent breakthrough comes two weeks before U.S. President George W. Bush's top officials in Iraq present a report on the country that could have a major influence on future American policy in Iraq.

It may be that Bush's public complaining (bitching?) about the al-Maliki government might just have kick started something useful.  Although, as we draw ever closer to next years Presidential election you might expect the Iraqis to be worried about lessening U.S. support in the future.  If a political deal is ever to be struck it is getting close to "now or never" time.

Iraqi officials said the five leaders had agreed on draft legislation that would ease curbs on former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party joining the civil service and military.

Consensus was also reached on a law governing provincial powers as well as setting up a mechanism to release some detainees held without charge, a key demand of Sunni Arabs since the majority being held are members of their sect.

The laws need to be passed by Iraq's fractious parliament, which has yet to receive any of the drafts.

Yasin Majid, a media adviser to Maliki, told Reuters the leaders also endorsed a draft oil law, which has already been agreed by the cabinet but has not yet gone to parliament.

But a statement from President Talabani's office said more discussions were needed on the draft oil law and constitutional reforms. Committees had also been formed to try to ensure a "balance" of Shi'ites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds in government.

The handling of oil revenues has long been a sticking point and it is here that the greatest skepticism is probably warranted.  No group controlling the central government will lightly relinquish such income.  In such cases last minute roadblocks to compromise are the rule, not the exception.

Still, the al-Maliki government may have just given the Bush administration the progress they needed before General Petraeus' report goes to Congress.  Congressional Democrats may rightly call it "too little accomplished too slowly" but they may also find it hard to turn their backs on it as well.

The surge was meant to provide breathing room for the Iraqi government. That it might do the same for the Bush administration would be decidedly unexpected.

Death By Historical Analogy

Historical analogy may just be the death of us all, especially when those engaged in it don't seem to know the actual history involved.  Today's case in point is this piece by John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt: The real analogy for Iraq

The civil war that is the most fitting historical reference point to Iraq today is the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). That war revolved around two main sides: one pro-democracy, the other pro-fascist. Neither side was particularly cohesive or well-organized. Both consisted of fractious coalitions of diverse organizations and agendas, many based on personality. It often looked more like a war of fragmented tribes and clans than modern organizations.

The simplistic partitioning of the warring factions into "pro-democracy" and "pro-fascist" camps does extreme violence to the actual historical situation.  Yes, the nominal conflict was between the "republican" forces, aligned with what was left of the Spanish government in 1936, and the "nationalist" forces, aligned around the military led proto-fascists.  However, to label the "republican" cause as "pro-democracy" is an outright falsehood.  Yes, many liberals in 1936 wished to maintain the existing constitutional order, but it is in no way clear that such sentiments were dominant.  (As can be seen by the repudiation of the "republic" by such thinkers as Jose Ortega y Gasset, Menendez Pidal, and Perez de Ayala.)  To argue the growing tide of anarchist and communist parties in the republic wished to maintain Spanish "democracy" is simple nonsense.  (It is telling that Arquilla and Ronfeldt's article never once uses the words "anarchist" or "communist.")  The actual political situation in Spain was not a dichotomous choice between democracy and fascism, but a teeming morass of various totalitarian visions and utopian schemes, where those few who supported traditional liberalism or Christian democratic politics were used when useful, discarded when not.

The Spanish Civil War became an arena for great-power competition; only two (America and Japan) remained aloof. Outside governments maneuvered overtly and covertly to reshape the dynamics within each side, including through infiltration and betrayal.

This gives a very warped view of the actual historical events.  In truth, the Western democratic powers, namely France and England, were very stand-offish.  In the earliest days of the conflict, when the liberal elements in Spain were rallying behind the republic, France and England withheld crucial support.  They were so afraid of getting involved against the rising tides of extremism, either attacking fascism or indirectly helping communism, that they did basically nothing.  This helped define the battle in Spain as a proxy battle between fascism (with the direct material support of Germany and Italy) and communism (with the less open but still direct support of the U.S.S.R.)  Now, it is an open question as to how efficacious French or English help might have been for liberal democratic forces in Spain, but certainly the withholding of open support ensured democracy would not survive.

And in the end, dictatorship won in Spain, partly because its vision of restoring an authoritarian past provided unifying glue for its forces. The pro-democracy side tried to rally around a utopian vision of the future, but it was not well-defined and provoked internal argument far more than solidarity. 

This gives you a sense of just how bizarre this piece is.  Arquilla and Ronfeldt must believe that no one reads Homage to Catalonia anymore.  I'm not sure if this identification of the communist and anarchist projects as being "pro-democracy" is the result of their trying to shoe-horn the Iraq war into this strained analogy, or if it represents the warped ideological vision of the authors.  Either way it can only be convincing to people completely ignorant of history.  Dictatorship "won" in Spain because, by the second year of the war, the conflict had become a battle of competing dictatorial visions and nothing else. 

Over at Power Line they have a similar take on this:

Arquilla and Ronfeldt draw a further policy lesson from the Spanish experience:

[I]t may be advisable to pull back from pressing for an American-style democracy in Iraq. Ending the Spanish Civil War resulted in the installation of a dictatorship for 40 years before Spain eventually transitioned into a liberal democracy.

This is an odd way to describe what happened in Spain. That country's civil war wasn't "ended" by some outside agency, resulting in the "installation" of a dictatorship. The Nationalists won the war, and Franco assumed dictatorial powers, as he had always intended. The truth is that democracy was probably not an alternative for Spain in the 1930s. The Republicans were led largely by Soviet agents and other radicals, and would no more have instituted a democracy, had they won, than Franco.

But why does that Spanish reality of the 1930s tell us what will happen in Iraq? In Iraq, there is a genuine democratic alternative; in fact, however one may evaluate its government, Iraq is already a functioning democracy. Iraq's experiment in self-government may very well fail, but the Spanish experience tells us nothing about that, one way or another.

In too many ways to count, the Iraq-Spanish Civil War comparison seems to be the wrong analogy, at the wrong time, for the wrong ideological reasons.