While most people in our nation are gearing up for Sunday’s Super Bowl between the Patriots and the Giants, there is also a political “Super Bowl” next week as 22 states hold primaries for the 2008 presidential election.

While not quite as amusing as Tom Brady visiting his supermodel girlfriend in New York, I did come across some interesting political news today.

The Weekly Standard’s P.J. O’Rourke has a brilliant piece in the conservative magazine’s latest issue.  His “Letter to Our European Friends Everything you need to know about our presidential campaign” is laugh out loud funny.

The difference between American parties is actually simple. Democrats are in favor of higher taxes to pay for greater spending, while Republicans are in favor of greater spending, for which the taxpayers will pay. In foreign policy, Republicans intend to pursue the war in Iraq but to do so with a minimal number of troops on the ground. This is not to be confused with the disastrous Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld policy of using a minimal number of troops on the ground to pursue the war in Iraq.

Speaking of conservatives, several leading conservatives seem to be openly unloading with both barrels against Senator John McCain, thus ignoring Ronald Reagan’s famous 11^th commandment, “Thou shalt never speak ill of a fellow Republican."  Check out this beauty in today’s Washington Times.

Mr. Hewitt also told the Associated Press yesterday that "Senator McCain is a great American, a lousy senator and a terrible Republican. He has a legislative record that is not conservative. In fact, it is anti-conservative." He said he would support Mr. Romney "if I was voting today."

While McCain was actually winning a hotly contested primary last night in Florida, Senator Hillary Clinton “won” the uncontested primary on the democratic side.  My friend at The Washington Note , Steve Clemons swings and misses when he writes:

Hillary Clinton -- despite those who say it didn't matter -- scored a win that matters. To some degree, Florida neutralizes the momentum Obama achieved in South Carolina and gets both back to a position where they both have tail winds going into February 5th.

Sorry Steve, but Clinton’s “win” does little, if anything to “neutralize” Obamamania.  Check out Dana Milbank’s piece in today’s Washington Post .

Cheering supporters? Check. Election returns on the projection screen? Check. Andrea Mitchell and Candy Crowley doing stand-ups? Check and check. In fact, the only piece missing from Hillary Clinton's Florida victory party here Tuesday night was a victory.

Yes, Clinton, as expected, beat Barack Obama by a wide margin in the Florida primary. But all the Democratic candidates had agreed months ago to boycott the contest after the Democratic National Committee stripped Florida of its delegates to punish the state for moving up its primary date. The result was a primary without purpose, a show about nothing.

But in a political stunt worthy of the late Evel Knievel, the Clinton campaign decided to put on an ersatz victory party that, it hoped, would erase memories of Obama's actual victory Saturday night in South Carolina's Democratic primary.

 

 

 

 

I'm taking a long weekend away from the Law of the Sea Convention and other related issues here in Jackson Hole, WY. My view from the Jackson Hole Gondola was a bit less clear this morning than in this picture, but it was wonderful nonetheless.

I've learned since arriving that it is common knowledge that this is Dick Cheney's "undisclosed location." Apparently, occasional visits by Air Force 2 accopanied by Black Hawk helicopters and a convoy of military vehicles did not go unnoticed in Teton Valley.

Another interesting story: after the 2000 election, cell phone service drastically improved throughout the valley. The rumor among locals is that the White House, knowing that Cheney planned to retreat here regularly, paid to vastly upgrade service. I don't know if it's true, but it seems utterly believable. Either way, the seemingly boundless availability of White House discretionary funds boggles the mind.

Back next week with more.

Scott Paul

How Paul’s Policies Would Punish, Not Protect

Presidential candidate Ron Paul wants to remove all foreign aid payments from the US Government budget. Sure, the US has funded nasty, anti-democratic regimes like General Musharraf in Pakistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, but our foreign aid programs quite often help people in dire situations. Cutting off all foreign aid could throw some countries into unnecessary civil strife or famine, and this would have real world consequences that Ron Paul seemingly does not take note of. Paul’s “non-interventionist” foreign policy would undoubtedly improve some countries’ situations, but we cannot therefore implement this ideological strategy across the board, and hope that the world gets better on balance.

Taking his isolationist stance one step further, Paul wants to end US involvement in the United Nations. As he reports on his campaign website, and as Citizens for Global Solutions has reported via the “’08 or Bust!” Campaign, Paul has said some quite radical things about the role of the United States in the world, including this tidbit :

“The more we involve ourselves with the UN, the more we entangle ourselves in the affairs of other nations to our own detriment. America has nothing to show for our 60 years in the UN except for tens of thousands of dead or injured soldiers, and hundreds of billions of wasted tax dollars. The 20th century-- the UN century-- was the bloodiest in the world’s history. We must stop fooling ourselves that the UN is an instrument of world peace.”

Sure, the American public will save some money by withdrawing from the UN, but there is a world out there that beckons our attention, and if we ignore it, it is sure to only become more instable. It’s possible for the United States to make positive changes in the world via the UN, but how can we make these changes if we cut ourselves off from the world’s largest civil society? Paul wants churches and nonprofits and corporations to do the reaching out on behalf of the American people, but perhaps these interests do not represent our nations. The neoconservative foreign policy that Paul wants to replace is not working well, but that does not mean that Paul’s ideas are our solution. Far from it. But the four or five percent of the Republicans who support Paul don’t seem to understand this. They represent a significant portion of American opinion which thinks that the US should go it alone—or better yet, just not go at all.

The truth is that in order to deal with global problems and undemocratic nation states, the United States must change the incentives around—and not delete them altogether  We must use aid to our advantage, and not simply shy away from our moral responsibility to make the world a safer and more humane place. We are the richest country on earth, yet we spend less than almost every other industrialized nation on foreign assistance as a percentage of GNP. So instead of funding regimes that harbor terrorists or their sympathizers (such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan), we should fund real democratic movements, and be proud of our actions. What’s not to like about helping out the right people, Mr. Paul? It surely is not impossible to make the world a better place.

It has recently come to light that the Canadian government has put the U.S. on a watch list for torture, according to an alleged report relating to Afghan detainees. This bold move - which drives home the level of concern amongst American allies about its interrogation policies as exercised at prisons such as Guantanamo Bay and CIA “black sites” around the world – apparently followed the investigation into the torture a Maher Arar . Arar, a Canadian software engineer was wrongly accused of having connections to terrorism and rendered to Syria where he was allegedly tortured for almost a year.

Despite this, however, there is a curious lack of voracity on the part of the Canadian government to intervene in the detention of the last remaining Canadian citizen in Guantanamo – Omar Khadr , who was only 15-years-old when he was captured in Afghanistan. Despite accusations of torture – accusations that the government of Canada is all too familiar with following the Arar case as reflected by the public apology and damages he received – it appears Canada is prepared to allow Khadr to go through the flawed U.S. Military Commissions process. Observers speculated that Ottawa may have tried to redact certain parts of the report that may anger allies, although this seemingly did not happen.

Nevertheless, it will stand to be seen to what extent such a move from a key U.S. ally will put additional pressure on the U.S. government to desist from certain cruel and inhumane interrogation practices.

By Tom Moran

Oops!

Sudan acknowledged Thursday that its troops shot at a United Nations convoy in Darfur, reversing an initial denial, but it in part blamed the peacekeepers saying they should have notified Khartoum of their movements.

I'll paraphrase: if you guys hadn't gotten in the way of our bullets, we wouldn't have had to shoot at you.

On a serious note, let's hope this is not a harbinger of what's to come in Darfur. I have to wonder out loud if this was an "oops" at all or rather a premeditated attack intended to suggest that Khartoum's ridiculous conditions for UNAMID -- that it not move at night and communicate about all other movements in advance -- are reasonable given the confusing conditions on the ground. In either case, an already difficult peace operation is becoming even more complicated.

Scott Paul

It’s taken me a couple of days to digest what transpired in the New Hampshire primaries on Tuesday. Not the results. The voters came out and made their voices heard by tabbing Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and John McCain (R-AZ) as their favorites in the Granite State.

What has been troubling to me is how the media failed to learn its lesson, not from the 2000 presidential election, but the 2004 election. As many cable news outlets – CNN, MSNBC, Fox and even the networks – took to the airwaves Tuesday evening, every anchor and pundit had the same information: there was a huge turnout on the Democratic side and exit polling was indicating a big win for Senator barrack Obama.

In the 2004 election between President Bush and Senator John Kerry, exit polling available to insiders indicated that Kerry would be the man taking the oath of office on January 20, 2005. I remember watching newscasts throughout the day in November of 2004, where pundit after pundit was talking about why President Bush had failed, without quite saying he had lost. Yet, when all the votes were in fact counted, President Bush had won a fairly solid re-election.

The exact dynamic occurred this past Tuesday. From Brit Hume to Keith Olbermann and every other anchor in between, to pundits from newspapers and talk radio, the narrative throughout the late afternoon and evening was all about the Obama wave. This wave story line was based solely upon information obtained from exit polling…and just like 2004, the information turned out to be wrong.

So what’s the answer?

To their credit, The Politico’s top two scribes penned the mea culpa of mea culpas.

New Hampshire sealed it. The winner was Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the loser — not just of Tuesday's primary but of the 2008 campaign cycle so far — was us.

"Us" is the community of reporters, pundits and prognosticators who so confidently — and so rashly — stake our reputations on the illusion that we understand politics and have special insight that allows us to predict the behavior of voters.

If journalists were candidates, there would be insurmountable pressure for us to leave the race. If the court of public opinion were a real court, the best a defense lawyer could do is plea bargain out of a charge that reporters are frauds in exchange for a signed confession that reporters are fools.

John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei also touch on the 2004 incident I mentioned above:

But the instinct to be even a couple hours ahead of the story is relentless. At The Washington Post, where we both worked, exit polls in 2004 had the newsroom busy working on Why Kerry Won stories—scrapped just minutes before publication as real returns made clear this was not in the cards.

I think the media needs to take a bit of advice that I often give to my five year-old son Matthew. "What's the magic word?" Patience.

The nation’s major newspapers are falling over themselves in order to describe last night’s wins by Senator Barack Obama and Governor Mike Huckabee as “historic” “an earthquake in the Midwest” and a “rejection of the political establishment" .

Now all of these phrases and glaring headlines may in fact turn out to be a harbinger of things to come. However, riddle me this Batman: How many non-incumbents have won the Iowa caucus and then gone on to be elected president? Answer: One. George W. Bush in 2000. Jimmy Carter did launch his candidacy in 1976 by his strong showing in Iowa, but even he finished second to “undecided.”

I am honestly not trying to be cynical. I am trying to be realistic. However, no one can dismiss the fact that Obama, the son of a Kenyan father, won an election in the heart of America while at the same time his father’s country was embroiled in rioting and killing over the results of a recent hotly contested and protested national election.

Last night was a good night for Obama and Huckabee and the people of Iowa. Now, let’s see what happens in New Hampshire…maybe then we can begin to “turn the page,” as Obama likes to say.

UPDATE: A visual of newspaper headlines from across the nation.

Citizens for Global Solutions is already on the record calling for the Security Council to sponsor a special investigation into the death of Benazir Bhutto.

On Wednesday, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), who was in Pakistan with Rep. Patrick Kennedy when Bhutto was assassinated, sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urging “…the United Nations, either alone or in conjunction with the Musharraf government of Pakistan, to appoint an investigating commission.”

I applaud Specter for writing the Secretary-General, but by asking for either the FBI or Scotland Yard to “undertake an investigation under the name of the United Nations”, Specter calls for the wrong play.  Scotland Yard has already been invited in by the Pakistani government, but the small team from the U.K. will operate in cooperation with the Musharraf government and that just won’t cut the mustard.

I think our Director and CEO Raj Purohit hit the right cord when he said:

“With Pakistani government collusion in her death a distinct possibility, the Security Council is the only body with the credibility to manage a truly independent investigation. An independent investigation is the first step towards the restoration of the rule of law in Pakistan.

“We believe that Detlev Mehlis, the former head of the U.N. International Independent Investigation Commission into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, would be an appropriate lead investigator. We further believe that he should work together with a senior Pakistani lawyer, such as Mohammad Yaqoob Khan, the President District Bar Association Lakki Marwat North West Frontier Province.”

 

I just got a note in my inbox with a full press release from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos. Chairman Lantos is apparently battling cancer of the esophagus and will retire at the end of his term. For his years of service, his dedication to human rights, and his thoughtful approach to foreign policy, Chairman Lantos deserves our gratitude and best wishes.

Scott Paul