Gonzales rates being defended strictly because it would be an outrage if he lost his job over this manufactured scandal.  But the president shouldn’t be shocked that there isn’t exactly a tidal wave rushing to the attorney general’s defense. ~Andy McCarthy

Do tidal waves normally rush to the defense of people? 

I should think that Mr. Bush would be relieved  that this “scandal” has so far not generated any real political tidal waves headed at that very low-lying coastline of administration credibility.  Any mention of tidal waves in connection with this problem would probably not be appreciated at the White House.

Mr. McCarthy methodically lays out in his post all the reasons why this episode clearly shows just how incompetent Gonzales is and would, under normal circumstances, merit being shown the door, and then complains about how “infuriating” it is to have to defend him.  Here’s a suggestion: don’t.

Mr. Obama also set off some murmurs at his reception by talking about cynicism, which he alternately called the “biggest enemy” and “one of the enemies” of peace in the Middle East.

“One of the enemies we have to fight — it’s not just terrorists, it’s not just Hezbollah, it’s not just Hamas — it’s also cynicism,” Mr. Obama said. ~The New York Times

Whose cynicism?  Hizbullah’s?  Ours?  Olmert’s?  What is he talking about?  Is this the sort of thing he learned as an international relations major?  I didn’t realise that Columbia had a class on vacuous political rhetoric.

Pace Yglesias, Obama didn’t say anything favourable or sympathetic about the Palestinians by themselves in his actual AIPAC speech.  The remarks about Palestinian suffering, without any mention of Israelis, were in Iowa, while his actual AIPAC speech was as much of a party line speech on Israel as you could reasonably have expected him to give.  He does talk about getting out of Iraq, but otherwise he hits all the predictable notes, right down to the old “I took a trip and saw just how small Israel really is,” as if you could not have learned this by consulting a map.  Every politician who goes on that guided tour comes back with this same “revelation,” as if they had never given it any thought until that time. 

So, if taking on AIPAC in their house is what progressives wanted Obama to do, he failed miserably.  Indeed, if one looks at the transcript, the main references to Palestinians he makes are in the context of the general bromides about the two-state solution or explicit criticism of the recent Mecca agreement.  He did say something supportive of Abbas, which I suppose requires a certain amount of political courage at that venue, but it isn’t much.  As I noted before, the great would-be transformer of the nation doesn’t seem to have any interest in challenging the status quo in most areas of foreign policy.

Members of the main pro-Israel lobbying group offered scattered boos to a statement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that the Iraq war has been a failure on several scores. 

The boos, mixed with some polite applause, stood in stark contrast to the reception House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) received minutes earlier. Most of the crowd of 5,000 to 6,000 stood and loudly applauded Boehner when he said the U.S. had no choice but to win in Iraq. ~The Hill

But remember, folks, AIPAC and the Iraq war have nothing to do with each other, and there never was and still is no political pressure from any pro-Israel lobby on politicians with respect to Iraq.

Name a candidate for President with these characteristics:

1. worried about global warming.
2. anti-torture
3. thinks abortion is murder.
4. supports a guest worker program

There are three. Brownback, Huckabee, McCain. ~Hotline

With all respect to the folks at Hotline, what can it mean to say that Brownback and McCain are “anti-torture” when they both voted for the Military Commissions Act?  Incidentally, not one Republican Senator voted against this bill, and only seven Republicans voted against it in the House: Jones, Paul, LaTourette, Gilchrest, Bartlett of Maryland, Moran of Kansas and Leach.  Leach, of course, was not re-elected, but it may be worth noting that LaTourette and Gilchrest were also later among the Republicans supporting the anti-“surge” resolution.

Can it really be that the nauseating Marty Peretz has the gall to mock someone (in this case, his nemesis Matt Yglesias) for a typo?  Yes, he does have the gall.  This is the ignoramus who didn’t even know which party is in power in Australia when he writes a post about Australia.  This is the sorry excuse for an observer of world affairs who didn’t know anything about the internal politics of Thailand in his post about Muslim violence in Thailand.  This is the illiterate who doesn’t know the meaning of the words ultramontane and chiliastic and uses them to refer to Muslims!  This is the remedial English speaker who does not know the proper time to use ‘fewer’ instead of ‘less’.  The man has no shame.  I suppose we knew that, but this is sad even for Marty.  How pathetic do you have to be to snipe at your enemy for a typo?

For all the recent talk about fusionism, the one blend of fusionism that’s the most practical has been largely ignored: neoconservative hawks uniting with advocates of limited government to take on entitlement spending so that America has more money to spend on national defense, which is the primary function of government.  ~Philip Klein

That sound you hear is Ross and Reihan spurting their coffee on their screens in disbelief.  They might say, “It’s been ignored because that’s just crazy talk!”  They would say it less bluntly than that and would have more statistics, which is why they have full-time jobs doing this pundit thing and I do not.

There are at least a couple bigger problems with this idea than the electoral non-viability of such an alliance, but that is a good place to start debunking this designation of neocons and limited government types as the “most practical” fusionism.  I think some combination of a peace & neutrality foreign policy, coupled with a strong defense capability and “realist” assessment of threats to national security and a pro-family, cultural conservatism and a decentralist economic populism seems to me to stand a far better chance of building a majority and advancing sane and decent policies.  (It would be somewhat like the old Catholic corporatist parties or early Christian Democrats, or would be a sort of Swissified conservatism.)  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the foregoing is basically my view of things. 

I am not entirely persuaded, as Ross and Reihan are, that there is not much of a constituency for limited, small government conservatism, but I acknowledge that it is a hard sell at any time.  The combination of limited government with massive defense outlays and the prosecution of any number of wars would manage to combine two positions that are on their own normally political losers into one gigantic losing proposition.  Add in a socially liberal plank, as a Giuliani booster might be tempted to do, and, well, you would have the platform of a sort of pro-war libertarian party, which would have to be the single most unpopular set of positions out there.  Call it neolibertarservatism.  I can see the talking points now: “We should have private pensions, administered with the same kind of efficiency and intelligence that brought you the Iraq war!”  The stampede of people away from such an alliance would be stunning to behold.  Thousands would be trampled in the headlong rush to get away from this particular fusionism.

The two bigger problems I mentioned before are these: 1) a fundamental incoherence of a limited government philosophy at home and an activist, interventionist foreign policy overseas and 2) an abiding dislike that most limited government-cons and neocons now have for one another. 

The first was one reason why the Cold War guaranteed that small-government conservatism would never go anywhere, because the foreign policy part of the coalition always demanded and received precedence in all things.    Ramped-up domestic spending and new social programs are the price interventionists are willing to pay (or rather, they are willing to impose those costs on the people) to keep people back home sheepish and quiet while they build the empire.  It seems possible that limited government folks can hitch a ride on a neocon/big-government bandwagon and occasionally get some crumbs from the table, but the neocons don’t really believe in limited government and limited government folks, if pushed hard enough, don’t really believe that we should be running the planet or anything even close to it.  Both can see the irreconcilable opposition between their conceptions of the role and size of government.  As that opposition has become more and more obvious and more intense over the last ten years, I think they have really learned not to like or trust each other very much.  To cite a prominent example of how impractical such an alliance would be, David Horowitz, prominent neocon, evidently hates Ron Paul, hero to small-government conservatives everywhere, and I suspect Horowitz is not alone on his side in having a low opinion of Rep. Paul.  Ron Paul is a living reminder to the GOP of what they used to say they believed in, but in which most obviously do not believe now.  I’m sure many small government conservatives feel at least some degree of strong dislike for pretty much all neocons, whether for their warmongering or their statism at home or both.  Even if the ideas could theoretically be matched up, very few people in either camp, as far as I understand the camps, would want to have much to do with the other.  

In fairness, Mr. Klein acknowledges this gap in the next sentence:

I think, unfortunately, that the time for such an alliance was the aftermath of 9/11, and it’ll be hard to bridge the gulf that has developed between the two groups in the years since.

However, the only reason why the immediate post-9/11 moment would have been conducive to such an alliance is that limited government conservatives were panicked and outraged and fell into the waiting arms of state-expanding “national security” conservatives who never encountered something that was not the government’s business.  This alliance would be like a man proposing to a woman by saying, “Well, you’d better marry me, because you don’t want to be raped and murdered.”  Always charming, those neocons. 

Personally, I use the Corner as a check on whether an issue is actually hurting Republicans. If they don’t talk about it, it’s usually serious. If it’s really serious, they tell jokes. ~Andrew Sullivan

This is classically irrational Sullivan.  By this standard, there would be nothing but jokes about the Iraq war at The Corner.  No one would mistake me for someone who defends the intellectual integrity of most of the people at The Corner, but perhaps they aren’t talking about the prosecutor “scandal” because there isn’t very much to talk about. 

If today’s Post story was supposed to be some devastating body blow to the administration, I think I must misunderstand what a body blow is.  Is it good for Mr. Bush to have confirmed that the woman he thought should be on the Supreme Court is really as dense and unsuited to positions of great authority and power as everyone thought she was?  Not really, but more news about Miersian foolishness can only cause people to shake their heads and laugh that she was ever nominated to the Court.  This reflects poorly on Mr. Bush’s past horrendous errors in judgement, not on anything that has happened recently.  At this sad, sorry, late stage in Mr. Bush’s presidency, he has become such a risible figure that it is almost hard for me, after six years of going from mild suspicion to burning contempt, to get worked up over stories like this one.

Following the U.S. Attorneys “scandal,” I am surprised to find that there aren’t more of the usual flacks recalling that Clinton fired all U.S. Attorneys upon arriving in office in 1993.  They had no replacements, and their posts were left vacant for quite a while.  Everyone knows about this.  I am sure everyone knows about this because I remember it and I was only a kid at the time.  Okay, a kid who read The Economist and Chronicles, but still just a kid.  As the Post story tells us, even the hideous Gonzales knew better than to do something asstupid and harmful as firing all of the prosecutors at the start of the second term.

What about the fired prosecutors?  The Post says:

Only three of those eventually fired were given low rankings: Margaret Chiara in Grand Rapids, Mich.; Bud Cummins in Little Rock; and Carol S. Lam in San Diego. Two were given strong evaluations: David C. Iglesias in Albuquerque, who has alleged political interference from GOP lawmakers, and Kevin V. Ryan in San Francisco, whose firing has generated few complaints because of widespread management and morale problems in his office.

So four out of eight probably were dismissed legitimately for poor performance or poor management of the office.  As I was reminded recently by folks back in New Mexico, Iglesias was something of an absentee overseer of his office and almost completely bungled the Vigil prosecution (the first trial was a mistrial).  He very well might have been ignoring legitimate voter fraud cases, and there almost certainly were some–it’s New Mexico, for goodness’ sakes!  If his firing had good cause, that makes for five firings that were probably not really all that ethically objectionable.  If the prosecutor up in Washington state really did drop the ball on investigating legitimate claims of voter fraud in their very close gubernatorial election, maybe that firing was also legit. 

Of course, the administration has squandered all goodwill and trust, and people are right to trust nothing they say.  As some of us have been saying for years, these people are egregious liars.  Certainly, no one is happier than I am to see them brought low any which way, but it is bizarre that this is the administration decision that seems to have brought the roof crashing in upon them.  They have done so many far worse things through the years that it is hard to believe that firings that were possibly fairly routine have become the great scandal of our time.

Starting today, blogging will have to be cut back significantly.  Unlike previous (failed) attempts to get away from Eunomia, this time I will be out of town for some extended periods and will be increasingly busy in the coming quarter.  Thursday I go to Boston/Brookline for a conference on patristic studies, where I am talking about (what else?) monotheletism and St. Anastasios of Sinai (he was agin’ it, if you couldn’t have guessed).  The following weekend I will be down in my old college-day stomping grounds of Virginia for an ISI conference on liberty and community in the American tradition, where I expect I will be meeting a few of my blogging and magazine colleagues for the first time in the person.  Then comes the start of the quarter and the class that I will be working on as a T.A., followed by Holy Week and then shortly after that another ISI conference up in Mecosta.  In May, the medievalist conference at Kalamazoo awaits.  Happily, I got a head start on both conference papers earlier, so both have been ready for a while.

So, since time is limited this week, I do not have time to critique fully the piles upon piles of nonsense that D’Souza and Sullivan have dumped onto the Web this week.  Most people will not even bother to read this drivel, and I don’t blame them.  D’Souza threatens to dump still more text on those intrepid readers who dare to click the first two links.  Suffice it to say that no one espousing the mad, “if you can’t beat them, join them,” ecumenical jihad proposal of D’Souza would be allowed to write a defense at NRO or anywhere else on the jingo right if he were not blindly, unswervingly supportive of interventionist foreign policy.  Indeed, those who question or reject that foreign policy on patriotic and traditionalist grounds will sooner get raked over the coals and denounced with quasi-religious zeal than they will ever receive a fair hearing from these people, while the civilisational traitor D’Souza is held warmly to their bosom and gently comforted after all the mean things that have been said about him.  

The theocons can take care of themselves against Sullivan’s aimless rambling, but given the current atmosphere in which blaming the Christians seems to have taken on new importance for secular and “libertarian” conservatives they might not want to wait too long to dispute the conflation of their views with those of D’Souza, even when it is Sullivan making the argument.  Some of the less principled “atheist conservatives” might just pick up that argument and run with it, which will cause everyone a lot of headaches down the road.

Update: Ross has taken up the challenge, and knocks down Sullivan’s review without even having to warm up.

Endorsements by your average governor or senator are usually not that big a deal, especially from a state that does not have a significant role in the nominating process, but Louisiana Sen. David Vitter’s endorsement of Giuliani is a big positive for the Giuliani campaign, because it sends a message that Rudy is acceptable to social conservatives. ~Tom Bevan

The Vitter endorsement may or may not be important, but if it is it is not important for this reason.  Philip Klein, who is nothing if not pro-Giuliani, wrote about this endorsement:

One aspect of the story that hasn’t been mentioned in news accounts I’ve read is that in 2004, Giuliani campaigned for Vitter when he was seeking the seat being vacated by Sen. John Breaux. According to a New Orleans Times-Picayune article from back then, Giuliani headlined a $300,000 fundraiser for Vitter. This made me wonder whether with the Vitter endorsement we’re beginning to see Giuliani cash in some of the political IOU’s that he’s built up over the past three election cycles, in which he’s used his star power to campaign and raise money for many Republican candidates.

So Vitter may be representative of a trend we will start to see where some of the Republican pols Giuliani has helped over the past five years will come around and endorse him, which is not politically irrelevant.  But if, as Bevan says, Louisiana doesn’t play a big role in the nominating process (and it doesn’t) and these endorsements aren’t normally that big of a deal, Vitter’s reciprocation of Giuliani’s support is interesting but precisely not a real sign of social conservative approval.  If Giuliani raised that much money for every social conservative in office, he might get a lot of these endorsements that may be nothing more than repayment of a debt.  This seems to be an open case of a social conservative who owes Rudy paying off his debt.  I’m not sure this is necessarily the image a Brooklyn goombah wants to cultivate: “Senator, Mr. Giuliani would like you to show your appreciation of his loyalty over the years.  You know that Mr. Giuliani takes care of you, and he would hate to see anything happen to you.  It would be a real shame if something happened to you, you know, Senator?  Mr. Giuliani would be very upset.”