The shameful state of veterans’ healthcare has just been exposed. ~James Forsyth

It is true that the extremity of the shabby treatment doled out to veterans is something that was not widely known before the exposes on Walter Reed were published, but anyone who has ever had a friend or family member in the VA hospital system already knows how fairly miserable the services for veterans are.  This is a function of very poor resources and poor management of the VA.  That the conditions are even worse than many of us imagined possible for returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan simply puts an exclamation point on a longstanding complaint against this administration.  The dreadful way that it has reduced veterans’ benefits at the same time that it has thrown more and more soldiers into intense combat has been something that some have noticed for years.  The public’s general indifference to or ignorance of the tens of thousands of seriously wounded veterans has been a black mark against the entire country.  The media have not completely dropped the ball in this area, and lately they have done some good work in focusing on the treatment of the wounded, but they have not made it much of a priority.  Obviously, pro-war commentators have never had much to say about these wounded soldiers, since their numbers and the gravity of their injuries bitterly mock the idea that this war has been relatively low in its human costs on the American side.

As to whether a Thompson entry into the race would harm Romney’s chances of winning the nomination, of course it would. His entry will also make the hill steeper for McCain and Giuliani. ~Dean Barnett

Let’s start out with the positives: Fred Thompson is a pretty decent actor, and as I recall he was mostly all right when he was in the Senate.  Of course, right there is a big problem: he hasn’t been in Washington as an elected official in a few years.  He is just about as fresh in the political world today as that other Thompson running for President (Tommy), and he has less of a record to run on.  What exactly is his election slogan?  Is it “I replaced Al Gore in the Senate, but I am not Al Gore”?  Obviously, he has followed the herd on foreign policy and has lately even distinguished himself by jumping on the “Libby is a victim” bandwagon, so there are many reasons why I would be unenthusiastic about a Fred Thompson run. 

But the idea that he would have some sort of major impact on the race one way or another is bizarre.  Does Fred Thompson have some vast army of loyalists that no one has ever noticed before?  How did he suddenly supposedly become a major player in the GOP, when he has lately been “that funny guy who is in Law & Order“?  Saying that Thompson’s entry would “make the hill steeper” for anyone is a bit like saying that the entry of, say, Larry Craig of Idaho would throw the entire field into disarray.  I’m sure this sort of talk is flattering to Fred Thompson and his fans to think so, but it simply isn’t true.  No one thinks that a surprise Max Cleland campaign would create big problems for Democratic candidates, and no one is even suggesting such a thing because it would be so bizarre and pointless.  Besides, Fred is probably making more on Law & Order than he would if he even managed to win, and he almost certainly would have a better time acting than being the guy saddled with all the woes that the next President will inherit.

Neoliberals often have an air of perpetual youthfulness about them, but they are now in their 40s, 50s and even their 60s, and a younger generation of bloggers set off a backlash. If you surf the Web these days, for example, you find that a horde of thousands have declared war on the Time magazine columnist Joe Klein. ~David Brooks

That does have something to do with a generational shift from (failed) neoliberalism to a more combative progressivism.  It also has a lot to do with Joe Klein writing and saying any number of phenomenally foolish things about all subjects that draw the ire of all self-respecting bloggers everywhere.  In this sense, the war against Joe Klein is simply a war of relatively more insightful, interesting people against a dreary consensus journalist.  It is like what would happen if conservative bloggers declared war on David Brooks. 

More representative of the neoliberal/progressive fight would have to be the short-lived spitting contest between the Kossacks and The New Republic.  Even though Lieberman won the election, TNR pretty much lost the contest for the loyalty of Democrats, as its downwardly spiraling circulation and recent change in management show.  A generation gap doesn’t entirely explain the collapse of neoliberalism.  No less than neoconservatives, neoliberals have been wrong, either morally or practically or both, about every major question of the last fifteen years, and it is this serial wrongness and Democratic political weakness and failure that have pushed neoliberalism towards extinction.

Mitt “Innovation and Transformation” Romney sucks up to the Cuban community in Florida, and Barack “Transform Our Country” Obama makes it clear that he will do whatever AIPAC wants. 

Romney said, “I look forward to the day when the stain of Castro is finally washed from the soil of Cuba.”  As, I expect, do most people who give any thought to the matter. (Incidentally, I had attempted to write a post on The Lost City several months ago, but my browser crashed and I didn’t return to it, but in it I talked about its strong similarities to The White Countess as an anti-ideological, anti-revolutionary movie that functions as a kind of antidote to Casablanca-style romanticisation of causes and political violence.) 

What this Romney statement represents is really the reiteration of a worn-out, absurd policy of embargo that today stands no closer to eliminating the party dictatorship in Cuba than in the 1960s.  Embargoes and sanctions isolate a country and reinforce the power of the party or dictator in power, not least by giving the government a plausible foreign foe to demonise and blame.  Support for the embargo of Cuba is one of these unreasonable litmus tests that an influential ethnic lobby has imposed on the foreign policy of the United States out of a sincere, perhaps originally admirable, but nonetheless effectively misguided attempt to bring down the Castro regime through external pressure.  After nearly five decades of this approach, which has failed as badly as any policy has ever failed, it is surely time to try something else.  The rest of the world pays no attention to our bizarre preoccupation with embargoing Cuba, and we are simply postponing the day when commerce and travel to Cuba begin again.  I don’t see how that benefits Cuban-Americans, and I certainly don’t see how it makes the condition of the people in Cuba any better; it definitely doesn’t hasten the end of the communist dictatorship there. 

However, as will happen with politically influential ethnic lobbies in the setting of foreign policy, the powerful interest and commitment of a relative few will outweigh the basic indifference of the overwhelming majority.  Because of this, a bad policy will be preserved because its defenders are far more willing to punish a candidate over deviations from the policy than supporters of a new policy are likely to rally around a candidate.  That leads us to the other candidate who groveled before a different influential lobby. 

Obama referred to the AIPAC meeting as a “small gathering of friends,” and referred to the captured Israeli soldiers from last summer as those who have been “kidnapped.”  (As a few have pointed out, soldiers in wartime are not “kidnapped” when they are seized, but are captives and prisoners of war.)  He spoke of the “unique defense relationship” between the U.S. and Israel (a phrase that is so ripe for mockery that it is hard to know where to start–it is certainly unique!), and he recited the propaganda version of the Lebanon War without any suggestion that Israel erred at any point in the scale or nature of its response.  He even went so far as to say:

Yitzhak Rabin had the vision to reach out to longtime enemies. Ariel Sharon had the determination to lead Israel out of Gaza. These were difficult, painful decisions that went to the heart of Israel’s identity as a nation.  

However, as I think many Israelis would acknowledge, Gaza has never been seen as being at “the heart of Israel’s identity as a nation” and it does not possess anything like the same symbolic or Biblical associations that are used to justify the ongoing occupation and settlement of the West Bank.  Even for the more nationalistic in Likud and those on the farther Israeli right, while withdrawing from Gaza may not have been popular with them, Gaza never did possess quite the same ideological significance as the claims to the other occupied territory.  It was politically controversial, but it was relatively easy as a matter of national identity for Sharon to order the withdrawal from Gaza.  At every point in the speech when Obama could have demonstrated some shred of that new and “transformative” politics he always talks about but never delivers, he settled for the easy, comfortable and safe path.  That’s good for fulfilling the ambitions of an ambitious pol, but it is neither impressive nor interesting.  Anyone looking for Obama to demonstrate anything like independence on questions of Near East policy and foreign policy more generally will, as usual, be disappointed.

A woman needs Bush like a fish needs an interpretive dance act?

Via Politico and The Plank

“That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture,” Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday. ~AP

The “persecution of our migrant brothers”?  Clearly, these folks don’t know who they’re dealing with.  If only they knew just how non-persecutorial Dobleve is, they might reconsider their ritual cleansing and give him a hero’s welcome instead.  There are still the wars, I suppose, so maybe they could purify the land of just those war-related “bad spirits” and be done with it. 

However, in spite of this, I believe that Mr. Bush might be able to find some common ground with the Mayan priests.  It is said of classical Mayan religion:

The life-cycle of maize lies at the heart of Maya belief. This philosophy is demonstrated on the Maya belief in the Maize God as a central religious figure. The Maya bodily ideal is also based on the form of the young Maize God, which is demonstrated in their artwork. The Maize God was also a model of courtly life for the Classical Maya.

If this holds true today, Mr. Bush could make an appeal to Mayan traditionalism by promoting ethanol, as he has been doing all over Latin America.  Sam Brownback really needs to get on the ball with his fightfor Mayan rights.  As this would suggest, it would be the perfect marriage of his ethanol pandering and his bleeding-heart need to meddle in the affairs of other countries.

Only America can produce people this happy. ~William Tucker

Because only the American government sends so many of its people away from their homes to godforsaken, foreign deserts?

Of Tucker’s report, Wlady at AmSpec’s blog asks:

What does it say that on arrival at Baghdad International he has to wait long hours before it’s safe under cover of dark to be transported to the Green Zone?

Cue Hugh Hewitt: “It says that the surge is working!”

And then there are his personal peccadilloes. Just this week, Gingrich revealed that while Clinton was being hounded by congressional Republicans because of his dalliances with a zaftig valley girl, Gingrich himself was engaging in an extra-marital affair. When this information gets added to the shabbiness that surrounds his first divorce, an unflattering portrait emerges. ~Dean Barnett

How does someone “reveal” something that has almost certainly been common knowledge among politicos for a decade?  How do we “add” this information to what we already knew about Gingrich, when it has been part of what we’ve known about Gingrichfor a long time?  In short, how little attention has Barnett been paying over the years if he finds this information either new or remarkable?  There’s an even a Marvin Olasky column from 2002 that talks about Gingrich’s affair. 

Besides, it’s Gingrich–how could this surprise anyone?  After all, this is the guy who has classy divorce down to an art form:

Marianne and Newt divorced in December, 1999 after Marianne found out about Newt’s long-running affair with Callista Bisek, his one-time congressional aide. Gingrich asked Marianne for the divorce by phoning her on Mother’s Day, 1999.  

Since his fall from grace (more on that in a bit), Newt has steadily contributed to the conservative movement where we’ve needed it most – intellectually. ~Dean Barnett

Yes, where would we be without Gingrich’sdeeply intellectualscreaming about WWIII (or is it XII by now?) and his promises to provide every Pashtun a laptop*?  If I had to pick just one person who has debased and reduced conservatism more than Gingrich, it would be difficult.  There probably are a few who have done more damage to the specifically intellectual climate of the conservative movement, but he certainly gave it the old college try.

* He didn’t actually promise that, but it is the sort of foolish idea that he would come up with on a regular basis.

What makes McCain’s conversion all the more tragic is that it’s plainly not working. He has spent the last three years plotting to make himself the candidate of the GOP establishment that he once attacked. But, as the Wall Street Journal reported, “2008 is shaping up as the worst presidential year in three decades to be the candidate of the Republican establishment.”

His career since then has indeed resembled a certain famous Jedi. He began as a crusader for justice. Soon he realized that he needed to acquire more power in order to accomplish his noble goals. But over time, his pursuit of power became the goal itself, and by the end he lost his capacity to differentiate between right and wrong.

This is not Luke Skywalker here. This is Luke Skywalker’s father. But at least Darth Vader attained his position before the Death Star exploded. ~Jonathan Chait

By the strange logic of Rick Perlstein, this Chait denunciation of McCain should prove that McCain is now a “real” conservative because his former admirers on the left have now savagely turned on him.  Romney and Romneyites seem convinced that there is a media conspiracy to get Romney and that this conspiracy is proof of Romney’s conservative bona fides.  However, as is the case with McCain, this is simply a case of political observers seeing through transparent (or, as Yglesias put it, “freakishly transprent”) lies and pandering.  Unless Republican voters wish to claim that the two most obviously two-faced candidates in the race are the “real” conservatives (which seems unwise), they would do well to let McCain and Romney implode and find someone else who is not Giuliani.