Here is illustrated the flaw, or danger, of conservatism as a defense of legitimacy. It will necessarily devolve into a defense of any institution with legitimacy [bold mine-DL]. Mr. Hammer gives us the perfect hip-hop sturm to the Hank Paulson inspired drang of “too big to fail.” The line of legitimacy runs straight and true from Marshall’s McCulloch decision to Paulson’s trillion-dollar bailout. The central banking system encrusted with monied interest barnacles is, it appears, too legit, too legit to quit—and all efforts on its behalf are, ipso facto, necessary and proper. I doubt this is the kind of conservatism Bramwell has in mind. ~Fr. Jape

Old Jape is on the right track as usual.  This was precisely my concern when I first came across the “conservatism of legitimacy” argument that he is critiquing, since it seemed readily exploitable by presidential cultists and every ally of consolidated power, but Jape goes on to outline a different argument from this.  I may return to this second part later on, but first I wanted to make a point about institutional legitimacy. 

If the language of patriotism can be abused and twisted by nationalists and ideologues into an insistence on never challenging a particular government, as it often is to shut down dissent against abuses of power, the language of legitimacy can be deployed in corrupt ways to defend the abuses themselves and to justify every excess as necessary to the maintenance of institutions.  There is a superficial similarity between a “conservatism of legitimacy” and actual legitimists from the nineteenth century and earlier, who did invest particular institutions and even particular regime types with reverence, but this similarity disappears when we look closer at the reasons the legitimists gave for their loyalty to monarchy or to a particular dynasty.  Chief among them were divine sanction and legal tradition, which are the foundations of justified resistance against usurpers and tyrants.  As I have said before, to talk about institutional legitimacy without referring to the legal and moral traditions of a people is to reduce respect for legitimacy to a subservience to power.  Legitimism rightly understood contains within it the possibility of dissent and even resistance when necessary for the sake of the legitimate government defined in tradition when that government is under assault by any given set of rulers or magistrates that happen to be in power.  This sort of legitimism is what I understand the correct conservative response to be, which may have nothing at all to do with wanting to preserve institutions or defend regimes that overthrow the constitutional tradition of the country.

Thank God for Ron Paul.

Via John Schwenkler

At a defense conference in Munich, I saw him diagnose and confront Russian hegemony. ~David Brooks

I have no idea what the phrase Russian hegemony means in a world where our sphere of influence supposedly extends to Tshkinvali and Baghdad.  In a time when we have military bases in, military alliances with or military advisors for almost every country on Russia’s borders, talking about Russian hegemony is like talking about Zimbabwean wealth, Bolivian capitalism, Burmese freedom or Chinese democracy.  It is meaningless.  Of what is Russia the hegemon?  The SCO?  That is scary.  If we’re not careful, we might lose Nepal to their nefarious schemes.  In other words, in a column that is supposed to be praising McCain’s insights, Brooks draws attention to a principal example of a subject McCain does not understand and, worse yet, he doesn’t know that he doesn’t understand it.

I resent the reverse classism that Palin uses to justify her lack of experience in traveling abroad, as if only the children of the wealthy go to other countries in their youth.  Yes, those of us who have been privileged to come from families that could afford for us to travel overseas several times before the age of 43 are fortunate, but if she has spent so much time with book-learning about the rest of the world why is it that she doesn’t seem to know anything?  It should not necessarily be a problem that she has not traveled abroad, provided that she does know something about international affairs, but she manages to combine a lack of personal experience with a lack of knowledge about other countries.

Her answer in response to Couric’s question on Hamas and democracy in the Near East was simply pathetic.  There is no other way to put it.

But what is clear from Gallup Poll surveys is that many Georgians value the opposite political ties as those Western-minded Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili desires. Specifically, 41% of Georgians surveyed before the recent conflict between the two countries find their country’s relationship with Russia to be more important than their relationship with the United States. ~Gallup

Via Yglesias

Note that this survey was completed before the war in August.  It is the rational, self-interested response of Georgians to want to cultivate good relations with Moscow.  The confontational, pro-U.S., anti-Russian line that Saakashvili maintains is now supported by just 11% of the population.  There is clearly no public consensus that would back incorporation into NATO when NATO membership necessarily means pursuing a pro-U.S. stance at expense of good relations with Russia.  “Pro-Russian” sentiment is likely to grow from the postwar recognition that poor relations with Moscow cost Georgia a lot and American support benefits them very little.

The good news is that there is no rational reason why good Russian-Georgian relations should lead to worse U.S.-Georgian relations, and the only reason at all why rapprochment between Moscow and Tbilisi would harm our relations with Georgia is if we insist that Saakashvili’s hold on power is some non-negotiable, sacred principle.  If we were willing to acknowledge that a “pro-Russian” Georgian leader is not necessarily hostile to our interests, because we have no vital interests in the Caucasus anyway, that would help considerably.  A Georgian government that pursued the just interests of Georgia first could maintain friendly relations with Washington without becoming adversarial against Russia.  Unfortunately, that lesson was not learned before reconciliation between Tbilisi and the separatist regions became absolutely impossible, which means that any future Georgian government will be compelled in the end to abandon territories that it considers, with reason, rightfully theirs.

Update: On bloggingheads, Chris Preble and Heather Hurlburt discuss NATO expansion, Georgia and the moral hazard of extending security guarantees.

Inspired by James, an adaptation of Palin’s interview answers:

You don’t just walk into Washington, unless you’re a maverick like John McCain, who walks the walk and has been reforming Washington all along, which is why it’s so desperately in need of reform.  Its Beltway is guarded by more than lobbyists, which is why we must have that reform and that process of reforming also.  There is corruption there that doesn’t sleep much, it’s kind of wide awake; the Unblinking Eye is, you know, watching constantly and it’s very watchful.  It is an elitist wasteland, just full of earmarks and taxes and inefficiencies, and special interests also.

Let’s have incursions and strikes into Pakistan without their permission!  What’s the worst that could happen?  Oh, right:

Pakistani and American ground troops exchanged fire along the border with Afghanistan on Thursday after the Pakistanis shot at two American helicopters, ratcheting up tensions as the United States increases its attacks against Qaeda and Taliban militants sheltering in Pakistan’s restive tribal areas.

There is an unhappy pattern in Pakistani history of its military launching actions while its civilian leaders are elsewhere.  Zardari was in New York at the U.N. as of yesterday, so perhaps the military thought it could freelance a bit more while he was gone.  This is reminiscent of the attempted escalation of the Kargil war by Musharraf while Sharif was here meeting with Clinton, but there are the crucial differences that the Pakistanis warned us not to enter their territory without their permission and the Pakistanis will argue that they are repelling incursions rather than launching them.  However, the internal political dynamic seems to be similar.  Does anyone want to keep arguing that the administration’s policy here is sound?

If you put a zombie into suspended animation, has anything really changed?

Make it stop.

Update: Rod is a little underwhelmed:

She makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero.

I would like to imagine that the devoted fans of Sarah Palin, the people who believed her to be Reagan and Joan of Arc combined, who held out such hope for her as a future leader in the GOP and conservative movement, will be as irrationally and powerfully angry at McCain for putting her in the impossible position she is now in as they were enthusiastic about the selection of her in the first place.  As critical as I have been of her, I liked Palin too much to see her become McCain’s apologist and I still like her enough to wish that she could be spared all this.  Meanwhile, McCain’s election effort truly has become the MonDole campaign I once joked about. 

Second Update: Please, please, make it stop.

Third Update: One point in Palin’s defense.  She was defending the ridiculous claim that being near Russia affords foreign policy experience (yeah, and maybe growing up in the same city as Sandia Labs as a kid gives me the necessary experience to run NORAD), and as part of that she made a remark about Putin and airspace that wasn’t terribly clear.  As some of us know, the Russians have begun resuming long-range bomber flights over the Pacific and Arctic as another one of their P.R. demonstrations of resurgent military power, and the Russian planes are intercepted and escorted by American or NATO jets when they approach U.S. and Norwegian airspace respectively.  That is what Palin was semi-correctly, but confusedly referring to, so that is one thing that she got partially right.  Of course, as governor she has nothing to do with any of this, which just drives home how stupid the entire “close to Russia” argument is.  It is also guaranteed that is a Democrat from Alaska were on a national ticket, his relative proximity to foreigners would be considered proof of how marginal, out-of-touch and un-American he was.  The “close to Russia” claim is exactly the sort of dismissive, absurd thing that McCain’s people have to use, because you have to know that McCain’s advisors, most of whom are obsessed with foreign policy to one degree or another, find Palin’s lack of international experience even more horrifying than most journalists.  McCain’s own camp is so embarrassed about this that they have to concoct implausible connections between Palin’s role as governor and international affairs because they find her to be, to quote a certain ex-mayor, not cosmopolitan enough.

Fourth Update: Ross is not happy.

Fifth Update: Robert Schlesinger comments on Palin’s answer on the bailout:

It’s like a talking points machine gone out of control. Or magnetic poetry that you have on your fridge—in fact, you can try it at home. String together key words and phrases like “shore up the economy,” “reduce tax rates,” “healthcare reform,” and “trade” and see what kind of Palinisms you can create.