Well, don’t I feel stupid!  The Rumi referred to in my Arabic workbook is Ibn al-Rumi, a fact which I completely ignored as I was writing my earlier post.  That would explain why they refer to him as being of Byzantine background, because Ibn al-Rumi was of Greek descent and did live in the 9th century. 

In fairness, this Ibn al-Rumi was, as I have discovered, a native of Baghdad and has a rather indirect connection to Rum in any case.  This makes the claim about a “Byzantine background” for him a little odd.  Next time, I’ll be a bit slower to jump to conclusions.  Such are the perils of the blog.

Last week, our NBC/WSJ poll showed President Bush at his lowest approval rating since taking office — 29 percent. It just got lower. A Newsweek poll out today shows that just 26 percent of all Americans – only about one in four — approves of the job Bush is doing; 65 percent disapprove, including a third of all Republicans. ~MSNBC

After I had noted that Mr. Bush’s ratings have plummeted below the Truman Line, I happened on an old item from before the midterms that seems even more relevant now:

In the midterm elections of 1950, the president’s party, the Democrats, lost 29 House seats and six Senate seats. Eerily, those numbers are in the plausible upper reaches of the Beltway consensus about the amount [sic] of seats Republicans will lose on Nov. 7.

Those numbers are eerily similar to the 31 House seats and 6 Senate seats that changed hands in ’06.  That lends a little more support to the idea that this upcoming election is going to be more like 1952 than it will be like 1968.  Immigration, Imperialism and Insolvency, indeed. 

1952 was obviously a win in the presidential election for the non-incumbent party, but what does another 1952 portend for Congressional elections?  In 1952, the Republicans gained 22 seats in the House and two seats in the Senate.  If the Democrats were to duplicate that next year, they would have 255 in the House and 53 in the Senate.  However, there is good reason to think that ’08 is going to be more of a bloodbath for the Congressional GOP than 1952 was for the Democrats.

Since Bush’s ratings are now potentially on the verge of going into the sub-Nixon basement, a place so dark and dank that no one still alive knows what it might mean for the upcoming election, 1974 seems more and more plausible as a point of comparison.  Taking into account all of the normal caveats (gerrymandering is worse, incumbency is harder to overcome, etc.), a 1974-like 48-seat loss by the GOP would certainly push them back towards late 1970s-era numbers in the House (154).  The GOP lost 3 Senate seats that year as well, which seems like a more reasonable number of Democratic pickups next year between the open Colorado seat and vulnerable moderate Republicans all over the map.

Ambinder compares the foreign policy proposals of Edwards and Romney and finds them to be strikingly similar.  There is certainly something to this, since they have a number of similar items, and I will say more on this in a minute.  If it is also true, as Hiatt argued earlier this month, that Obama and Romney are both robustly interventionist and largely on the same page in defining the American role in the world, that means that the relative “outsiders” or “reformers” in the “top tiers” of the two fields are all as firmly ensconced in the foreign policy consensus of Washington as the three establishmentarian goons are.  That is not really surprising, but it is interesting to see it confirmed so clearly and in such a way that the consensus can even embrace that great “leftist” Edwards and the jingoes on the other side.  If George Ajjan is right (he is) that Obama and Romney’s respective Foreign Affairs articles are demonstrations of embarrassing naivete and ignorance consistent with their general worldviews, this probably doesn’t speak well for Edwards, either, since he seems to be so close to Romney. 

But there is actually something to one element of Edwards’ position that makes me think, bizarrely enough, that he may be slightly less horrible than the other five media-supported candidates.  Edwards has explained his “bumper sticker” criticism with the following:

The war on terror is a slogan designed only for politics, not a strategy to make America safe. It’s a bumper sticker, not a plan. It has damaged our alliances and weakened our standing in the world. As a political “frame,” it’s been used to justify everything from the Iraq War to Guantanamo to illegal spying on the American people. It’s even been used by this White House as a partisan weapon to bludgeon their political opponents. Whether by manipulating threat levels leading up to elections, or by deeming opponents “weak on terror,” they have shown no hesitation whatsoever about using fear to divide.

This makes a good deal of sense, since this is what the administration has done.  It has taken a threat, which is quite real, and exploited it for maximum political gain in the most cynical and appalling ways.  Romney seems to approve of this sort of fearmongering and has perfected his Anti-Jihadism For Dummies rhetoric by being able, in the best semi-educated fashion, to rattle off the names of foreign groups and countries about which he knows nothing.  In practical terms, however, it isn’t clear what the big differences–besides, obviously, Iraq–between the foreign policies of the leading six candidates are.  The biggest difference may be between the others and Giuliani, of course, since he doesn’t have a foreign policy that goes beyond talking about himself and what a wonderful leader he is.

According to a new study by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s sociology department, Americans are generally positive — even optimistic — about the word ‘diversity,’ but when asked, even those working in the field of race relations have trouble describing diversity’s value and stumble when giving real life examples.

The desire to appear color-blind leads most Americans to prefer the standardized language of diversity-speak when addressing issues of race, rather than the other way around. The researchers conclude that American diversity-speak is a sort of ‘happy talk,’ an upbeat language in which everyone has a place, everyone is welcome and even celebrated. ~University of Minnesota press release

Via Steve Sailer

The best part of the release had to be this finding:

Also regardless of race, Americans’ definition of diversity places white people at the neutral center and all other groups of people as outside contributors.

That should give everyone pause.  Multicultis who believe that they are engaged in anything other than a rather embarrassing tokenism need to reflect on this conception of diversity that everyone seems to share.  Others who claim to prize imagined diversity but lament the disordering consequences of actual diversity should reconsider their embrace of the “happy-talk.”  Obviously, entire books could be written about the absurdity of any group of people constituting a “neutral center.”  No group of people is a “neutral center,” nor should any group of people, however vaguely defined, wish to be.  A “neutral center” is effectively an open space, a blank canvas, a shell without content, waiting to be improved upon and filled by something else.   

Perhaps more valuable for future discussion is this part:

The study also found that most Americans use platitudes when describing diversity. “The topic of race lies outside the realm of polite conversation,” said Bell. “Everyone in the study — regardless of race, political affiliation and even level of rhetorical ability — had real trouble talking about the inequities and injustices that typically accompany diversity in the United States.”

Dave Weigel reports that Hewitt’s Victory (for Democrats) Caucus has all but sputtered and died.  So much for the rise of the conservative MoveOn!  Perhaps someone pointed out to Hewitt how amazingly stupid it would be to actively subvert his own side in what will already be an extremely difficult election for Republicans.  On the other hand, that probably would have just encouraged  him to keep doing it.  My guess is that he has a book to promote and he has to do the rounds on behalf of his magnificent fraud of a candidate for President, so he can’t be bothered with enforcing the party line.

The Rove GOP has encouraged explicitly religious criteria for policies and candidates.  Why would this strategy not backfire against a non-evangelical Christian? ~Andrew Sullivan

Yeah, all of this prejudice against Sam Brownback is outra…oh, wait, he’s talking about Romney, who isn’t a Christian.  He is a Mormon.  Obviously.  That strikes me as being slightly relevant to the question at hand, since at least that claim about Mormonism’s non-Christian nature is actually easy to substantiate.  The argument Romneyites and those opposed to anti-Mormonism need to make is that it is somehow actually wrong for Christians to refuse to vote for non-Christians on primarily religious grounds.  They can’t make such an argument without slinging the charge of bigotry, which is a charge that is for the most part ridiculous and unfounded, and so they either don’t talk about it or they just whine about how unfair it is.

Nobody else has a proxy-theocolonial relationship with nonstate terrorist armies. ~James Poulos

Nobody except Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Venezuela, and Albania, to name a few that spring to mind (you could certainly argue the “theo” part for Venezuela, but everything else fits)–unless we don’t count the funding and arming of terrorist proxies who wage jihad or (allegedly) fight for Christ.  That doesn’t even get us into the rest of Africa.  East and Central African states that engage in this kind of proxy support for terrorist armies, who wave the Bible with one hand and carry an AK with the other, are virtually a dime a dozen.  Like everything else related to Africa, this is Not Supposed To Count, because we know that the only threats to international stability come from Muslims in very specific parts of the world.

Nobody else is working so diligently and flauntingly toward nuclear armament.

Except for North Korea.

And nobody else is publicly advocating the obliteration from the planet of another state.

So the one thing that might be said to be unique about Iranian foreign policy is that its elected, relatively powerless President, who does not set Iranian foreign policy and has no control over its arsenal, has given uniquelyaggressive speeches.  Well, in that case, let us tremble and be afraid.   

Update: Plus, there’s also this to consider.

A reader has alerted me to the pending nuptials of this blog’s heroine, Rani Mukherjee, to director Adi Chopra.  As much of a blow as this is, I congratulate them (shaadi mubarako) and offer this final tribute to Rani, mera dil ki rani, mere sapno ki rani.

Update: Alex Massie gives me a reason to hope that the first reports are untrue.

Consider a somewhat different case, a stylized representation of history. Say instead of “low-skill” Mexican workers migrating in large numbers to the United States we were instead talking about Scots-Irish United Statesians migrating from the American South into hospitable regions of northwestern Mexico [sic]. And let’s say these women and men were relatively “high-skill” as compared to the relatively sparse indigenous population. A group of Mexicans, determined Rawlsian nationalists, are concerned about the long-term consequences of this “high-skill” influx. Some hysterically conclude that the Americans have long-term irredentist designs, and that the “Texicans” are bent on secession or filibuster.

Now, my strong suspicion is that Will Wilkinson, as an active and vocal participant in Mexican public life, would forcefully argue that the Texicans have every right to settle in northwestern Mexico, and he’d have a strong case. (Moreover, I sense he’d be firmly opposed to an armed Mexican intervention designed to prevent the “Texicans” from seceding, particularly if a majority in the relevant region endorsed independence.) Of course, this migration is taking place in a context that raises a whole host of non-obvious questions.

Now, there is a powerful rejoinder to this fairly silly example, namely that Mexican immigrants in the United States do not have the relative power or influence they’d need to have as consequential an effect on, say, the territorial integrity of the United States. I mean, as we all know Mexican immigrants come to the United States to work and succeed, and they come because they are mostly supportive of U.S. institutions and even mores, which more or less allow them to work and succeed. ~Reihan Salam

Reihan’s monster post written in response to Will Wilkinson is worth a look, though it is as vast as the open spaces of Texico itself (I’m one to talk about long posts!).  This discussion of Texicans is interesting, since it reminds us of a few things.  First, it reminds us that political culture is an important factor for determining how well immigrants and natives will get along, and may be the source of future conflict or separatism if the rival cultures are sufficiently at odds.  The Texicans believed that they were defending their rights under the Mexican constitution by rebelling: they had a tradition in which there was a well-practiced right to rebel that they had inherited from the early republican American generations, while their counterparts on the other side took a less enthusiastic view of conservative revolution.  The actual causes of the Texan War of Independence also remind us that immigration into marginal lands or border territories of a large state can, over a period of time, lead to increased friction between center and periphery that can lead to outright rebellion in the event that the center seeks to (re)assert control over the borderlands.  This is what happened in the actual rebellions of the 1830s, which occurred not only in Texas but in Rio Arriba in New Mexico and in California.  Where the local rebels in the latter two cases failed, the Texicans succeeded because they were better organised, had a coherent political inheritance that informed the structure of their rebel government and enjoyed a supply of men and materiale from U.S. territories to the east.  Centralist policies were the proximate cause, but fundamentally divergent political cultures were ultimately the reason for the conflict. 

Today few are really contemplating the rise of Aztlan or anything comparable, but then again forty years ago no one supposed that Kosovo would ever be majority Albanian or in any danger of breaking away from Serbia and being recognised as an independent state.  Demographic and ethnic changes actually do matter to political life, since they remake the nature of the polity by transforming who the citizenry is. 

It is perhaps a little easier to acknowledge this and recognise it as a problem when it is happening elsewhere, but the same processes occur all around the world.  We are not immune from history; our so-called “melting pot” is not some cauldron for cooking up magical recipes that free us from the consequences of mass lawlessness. 

In the end, armed struggle may not be necessary at all for the new settlers.  Secession and/or irredenta may be unnecessary as well, since the means for advantageous political transformation are readily within reach for those who become citizens here.  There is no need to take forcibly what you can vote in your own control.   

A future citizenry may have absolutely no interest in any of the freedoms we still attempt, however ineffectively in many cases, to preserve, or a sufficiently large number of citizens will be willing to endorse the worst in demagoguery and authoritarianism if it gets them what they want.  This is always a danger in democracy, but it seems particularly unwise to engineer things so as to maximise the likelihood of this outcome.  This is what open borders advocates seem willing to see created–for the sake of so-called “rights.”

Once again, they [conservatives] are enchanted by the banal. They seem unmoved by his [Thompson’s] lack of accomplishment in any field of endeavor other than acting.  The highlights of his Senate record seem to be a single bill to track wasteful spending, an ineptly run investigation on illegal Chinese campaign contributions and stewardship of a McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill that most of them despise. ~Jennifer Rubin