Paul Krugman: Will the Levee Break?

Paul Krugman analyzes the odds of Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives:

Will the Levee Break?, by Paul Krugman, Storm Surge, Commentary, NY Times: The conventional wisdom says that the Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives next month, but only by a small margin. I’ve been looking at the numbers, however, and I believe this conventional wisdom is almost all wrong.

Here’s what’s happening: a huge Democratic storm surge is heading toward a high Republican levee. It’s still possible that the surge won’t overtop the levee — that is, the Democrats could fail by a small margin... But if the surge does go over the top, the ... Democrats [will]... probably win big. ...

Unless the Bush administration is keeping Osama bin Laden in a freezer somewhere, a majority of Americans will vote Democratic this year. If Congressional seats were allocated in proportion to popular votes, a Democratic House would be a done deal. But they aren’t...

The key point is that African-Americans, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, are highly concentrated in a few districts. This means that in close elections many Democratic votes ... simply add to huge majorities in a small number of districts...

My back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that because of this “geographic gerrymander,” ... the Democrats need as much as a seven-point lead in the overall vote to take control.

No wonder, then, that until a few months ago many political analysts argued that the Republicans would control the House for the foreseeable future, because only a perfect political storm could overcome the G.O.P. structural advantage.

But what’s that howling sound? Every poll taken this month shows the Democrats with a double-digit lead in the generic ballot question... The median Democratic lead is 14 points.

And here’s the thing: because there are many districts that the G.O.P. carried by only moderately large margins in recent elections, a large Democratic surge — one only a bit bigger than that needed to take the House at all — would sweep away many Republicans holding seats normally considered safe. If the actual vote is anything like what the polls now suggest, we’re talking about the Democrats holding a larger majority in the House than the Republicans have held at any point since their 1994 takeover.

So if the Democrats win, they’ll probably have a substantial majority. Whether they’ll be able to keep that majority is another question. But be prepared to wake up less than four weeks from now and learn that everything you’ve been told about American politics — liberalism is dead, whoever controls the South controls Washington, only Republicans know “the way to win” — is wrong. (Are we seeing the birth of a new New Deal coalition, in which the solid Northeast takes the place of the solid South?)

The storm may yet weaken. ... If that happens, will it mean that Republican control is permanent after all?

No. Bear in mind that the G.O.P. isn’t in trouble because of a string of bad luck. The problems that have caused Americans to turn on the party, from the disaster in Iraq to the botched response to Katrina, from the failed attempt to privatize Social Security to the sudden realization by many voters that the self-proclaimed champions of moral values are hypocrites, are deeply rooted in the whole nature of Republican governance. So even if this surge doesn’t overtop the levee, there will be another surge soon.

But the best guess is that the permanent Republican majority will end in a little over three weeks.

_________________________
Previous (10/9) column: Paul Krugman: The Paranoid Style
Next (10/16) column: Paul Krugman: One Letter Politics

Comments

[dryfly]

I think PK is smoking the good stuff. I wish he'd share some with me.

I just don't see any evidence of that buzz out on my travels across much of Middle America. It isn't playing in Peoria quite like it is in the Belt Way.

And I get what he's saying about the gerrymandering - see it & get it. I also understand the anger & frustration in Blue America. But I don't see much of that EXCEPT in Blog Land and until that results in real votes I'm skeptical.

Given that, my guess is GOP loses a little in the House but still holds control comfortably and NOTHING happens in the Senate - no change.

I think Paul needs to take a road trip to some place like Eastern Iowa or Northern Missouri. It will be a far different view than his campus or the NY Times.

[dissent]

I've heard the anger from loyal Republicans in Colorado. But, once burned, twice shy, & I've been twice burned. I won't believe it until it happens.

If the Dems don't get the House, I think the discontent brewing in this country may spill out in highly unpleasant ways. The plain fact is that govt will not represent the will of the people, if in fact it is true that the majority of the vote goes to Dems but the breakdown into districts means the Repubs take it. Our Founding Fathers gave us a system in which rural areas are over-represented in Congress. You push this lack of fair representation far enough and hard enough and something breaks. What's doing the pushing is massive job and income loss, bloody and brutal war, mortgaging the countries future - the real big bad stuff. Thousands of Americans have died simply because the Repubs are in power. (Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.) If this goes on without a break, something will give.

[anne]

"Bear in mind that the G.O.P. isn’t in trouble because of a string of bad luck. The problems that have caused Americans to turn on the party, from the disaster in Iraq to the botched response to Katrina, from the failed attempt to privatize Social Security to the sudden realization by many voters that the self-proclaimed champions of moral values are hypocrites, are deeply rooted in the whole nature of Republican governance."

Precisely, and there the tragic lunacy of Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, always Iraq however much Republicans try to hide the issue around a horrid jingoism.

[calmo]

anne is right. Krugman though, prefers the levee allusion

Here’s what’s happening: a huge Democratic storm surge is heading toward a high Republican levee. It’s still possible that the surge won’t overtop the levee — that is, the Democrats could fail by a small margin... But if the surge does go over the top, the ... Democrats [will]... probably win big. ...

It's a thinly disguised reference to Katrina and the hurricanes that did not reappear as many had feared. Krugman may feel that he has to call this election event like someone betting on the outcome of a future scheduled sporting event --in order to appeal to those who wrapped up in scheduled events (the perils of forward-thinking).
No, we want to put Iraq under the rug, in the back closet, outside with the dog and ponder other possibilities...like whether those voting machines will show the same problems as last time.
Thank you anne for reminding us about reality.

[anne]

Nicely expressed. Never have we fought a war and while doing all we can to deny that we are fighting a war other than for the intermittant sake of driving fear and nationalism.

[Movie Guy]

Paul Krugman - "So even if this surge doesn’t overtop the levee, there will be another surge soon."

What a gutless copout.

If the Democrats can't take control of the U.S. House and Senate this time, the Demo machine needs to pack it in. Good grief.

The Republicans have done everything possible to hand the elections to the Democrats. The only thing missing is a lesbo affair.

Demowhiners need to muster up their courage and go vote. The whole Congress is being handed to them on a platter.

[anne]

Offensive language is needless as well as being offensive.

[anne]

A devastating analysis and critique:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/10/55_deaths_per_y.html

October 13, 2006

55 deaths per year (2 from violence) before the invasion. Among those households, 168 deaths per year (92 from violence) since the invasion.
By Brad DeLong

The Lancet study of deaths in Iraq. 47 neighborhoods. 1849 households. Among those households, 55 deaths per year (2 from violence) before the invasion. Among those households, 168 deaths per year (92 from violence) since the invasion. Scale up those sampling results to a population of 5 million households, and you have your 600,000 direct and indirect civilian casualties of war number.

And the press coverage is... incompetent and unbelievable... Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?... For example:

Here we have William Arkin of the Washington Post trying to trash the Lancet study:

600,000 Iraqis Killed By War, Credible? - Early Warning: Johns Hopkins demographers... knew that they'd need their flak jackets.... Overall, the response has been largely predictable: Tons of press coverage, those who oppose the war or represent "human rights" interests embrace the numbers, lamenting the "human cost" of war; those who support the war effort... condemn the findings....

So is there a right answer here... can reasonable non-partisan people feel comfortable with the conclusion that Iraq has suffered some 15,000 violent deaths a month every month since the U.S. invasion, some 500 deaths a day?

I think not....

There are two numbers that need to be considered in coming to a conclusion about the Hopkins' study: The raw number of deaths, and the comparison to pre-war deaths, that is, what would have been expected were there not an invasion in 2003. In the ways of sampling sizes, standard errors, reliability, and validity, the John Hopkins team claims being 95 percent certain that their 600,000 number is right. The true number -- the margin of error -- ranges from 400,000 to 900,000 deaths overall.

"To put these numbers in context," one of the study's authors says, "deaths are occurring in Iraq now at a rate more than three times that from before the invasion of March 2003." ...

[anne]

Before leaving this morning, I listened to a brief public radio news summary of the week and the Johns Hopkins-MIT-Lancet study was not mentioned. Nonetheless, many have heard and read and know and understand the terrible seriousness. Brad DeLong gives us a typically excellent methodology analysis.

[dissent]

NPR has become a hack radio station. Not long ago they had an 'expert' on global warming hold forth with 'Don't worry, Be happy,' because we could just move our wheat farms to the artic as global warming becomes more severe. I have not listened since.

What really gets me about these right wing hacks, from Bush on down (did you get a load of how he came to the defense of Hastert? My god, get a clue!) is they don't realize they can't trade on their credibility while scamming the public indefinately - credibility is a limited resource, and it runs out. It's NOT true, anne, that it is Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. Darn near everything they've done has been a scam or botched. They've plumb run out of credibility needed to govern. That's the real story of the Foley scandal.

[Bruce Wilder]

I fear that the levee is the Constitution, and what has topped the levee is the reactionary will to power.

The Constitution created a system of divided government and checks and balances, which results in a pendulum politics, where, for every action, there is a reaction, and where an increasingly radical politics begets opposition from irate moderates.

The Republican Party has been driven for 30 years by radicals, and they've pushed the country and the Constitution about as far as the country can go without breaking. They have been in near total control for five years, and are close to locking down their control, not just of the Executive and the Congress, but of the News Media and the Judiciary, as well.

The Foley scandal has been an odd business, but, typical of the work of our incompetent, right-wing Media, it is as much a distraction as an expose. The economic situation is discouraging only if you are inclined to take the long view; in the moment, most people are doing OK. Gas prices are low. Most people are not on the blogs, and are appallingly ill-informed. The evangelicals will go out and vote Republican as always, vote for torture and corruption and hypocrisy and feel good about themselves, and plenty of Democrats in Massachusetts and California will vote in Districts where it will change nothing.

I see the irate moderates rallying, but I don't see that they have overwhelming strength.

I fear that the Democrats will fail, and should they fail, it won't be just the Party that packs it in, it may well be the Republic.

Only if the Democrats take at least nominal control of the House and close the difference in the Senate to two, so that the remaining three moderate Republicans hold the Senate balance, will the politic process continue. If there are Democrats with the power of investigation, then the tide of reactionary authoritarianism may be turned. Bush will not be able to secure a reactionary, authoritarian majority on the Supreme Court and in the Federal judiciary as a whole. A lot corruption will be exposed; there's a chance that some of the thugs in the Republican Party will be hounded from power.

But, I am not as optimistic that another "storm surge" of opposition will follow, should the Democrats fall short. The pendulum-swinging politic process setup by the Constitution may well have come to a complete stop. Without a Democratic majority returned from the country, the judiciary will not resist the repeal of habeas corpus. Democratic politicians clinging to office will not grow courageous in the face of an unresponsive ballot box or an unfailingly right-wing Media.

[dryfly]

Nonetheless, many have heard and read and know and understand the terrible seriousness.

I think if you poll the folks in rural Iowa or Northern Missouri - you'll find a whole lot of people have never heard of the study & have no idea what you are talking about.

You might say they don't matter but the places who have heard of the study, know the 'seriousness' (like areas around MIT or JHU) are already blue and getting them bluer isn't going to win the house or the senate.

On the contrary places like rural Iowa are predominantly working class & conflicted... semi-blue and semi-red. My guess is they go red again this time because Iraq, while troubling to them is NOT their whole world.

And right now the Dems are not speaking to them at all. GOP panders to them for sure & they resent it but the Dems aren't even on the distant horizon.

Dean's 50 state project is a noble effort but they have a lot more work to do. It's too little too late for this cycle. It had to have happened a year or two ago at the latest to have been able to capitalize on this election.

I am very much convinced this election will be a big fizzle from the Dems point of view... even as MG says the GOP has all but handed it to them. Too little, too late.

I hope I'm wrong but I doubt it.

[anne]

An intelligent objection which we are not able to properly assess as yet, but may learn more about in these coming few weeks.

[johnchx]

Perhaps I'm crazy, but I think that a Democratic majority in the House in 2007-08 would be a disaster for American liberals. Why? Because the name of the game, for the next 24 months, would be "blame sharing."

Currently, the GOP bears absolute and complete responsibility for the terrible policy results we've seen since 2001. Iraq, Katrina, the budget deficit, the trade deficit (if you belive that the two deficits are related), et cetera. They can't successfully share blame with the Democrats, because the Democrats have no power at all.

If the House changes hands in November, that will change. We'll see a parade of ridiculous and terrifying proposals emanating from the White House and the Senate -- whopping tax cuts, yet more erosion of civil liberties, you know the drill -- for the House Democrats to block. Then, they'll tell the country that the reason for the next terror attack, the next recession, the next diplomatic failure, etc., is that the Democrats (traitors!) blocked this-or-that vitally important initiative.

Politics: it's all about who gets the blame.

[nedlink]

Hey MG, I get the impression that you are a Bush worshipper, and that you adore the GOP and its reactionary politics. (Correct me if I am wrong.) What so attracts you to them? The warmongering, the lying, the corruption, the disdain for those who are not rich, the sleazy dishonesty, both intellectual and moral, the incompetents they have put in power and keep there through thick and thin? Or is it something else? Give us a hint, please do.

[outsider]

What Iowa housewife would admit to voting for Hillary?

Gives tacit approval for her husband to play with his secretary.

Then there is the Diebold voting machine...

[Movie Guy]

nedlink - "Hey MG, I get the impression that you are a Bush worshipper, and that you adore the GOP and its reactionary politics."

You have no clue.

nedlink - "Correct me if I am wrong.) What so attracts you to them? The warmongering, the lying, the corruption, the disdain for those who are not rich, the sleazy dishonesty, both intellectual and moral, the incompetents they have put in power and keep there through thick and thin? Or is it something else? Give us a hint, please do."

You have just named some of Demo reasons why the Republicans deserve to be driven from Washington, D.C. But I don't think have a clue about what warmongering really means from a historical perspective.

The problem I envision is that the Democrats will flounder once back in power. They probably will waste a good opportunity to right the ship. Pelosi and Reid are too weak and disorganized to lead the Congress. And real leadership in the Demo ranks isn't the party's strong suit. No bench depth.

I do support an all out campaign to disrupt the major terrorist and Islamic radical groups. On this front, the Administration along with the support of the Republican majority in the Congress have failed to accomplish a number of needed domestic initiatives, many of which should have been gap-filled by the State governments. If one was to give the Administration and Congressional majority credit for what has been undertaken, I would give them a 40% effort rating - max. On the international front, the Administration and global partners have accomplished quite a bit on a number of fronts, but it's generally not public information. All the nations involved have tracked and eliminated some of the funding sources, but they haven't finished the job.

It's clear to me that the NATO will bolt and run from Afghanistan at the first opportunity. While Democrats can continue to say that they want the U.S. to stay the course and plus up troop strength in Afghanistan, it's likely that push will fade quickly to retreat no later than 2009 or 2010. This, in turn, raises the question why the question as to why an occupation was undertaken in the first place if tracking and pursuing terrorists and Taliban forces across the border to Pakistan wasn't in the original plan or successive plans.

Invading Iraq set the stage for losing the entire Middle East, and we're on course to watch that happen. Immediate withdrawal will guarantee a regional implosion. A slow withdrawal might save the major players in the Middle East for perhaps a few years - ten at most, but the Middle East "moderate" national leaders will eventually be driven out. So, we risked too much with the Iraq gamble.

We can act like there is plenty of difference between Democrat and Republican leaders on the U.S. trade front, but that's mainly bunk. Anyone who has carefully watched the Demo and Repub trade moves over the years knows that there's not much difference on that front. The transnational corporations rule that game.

The Demos have to prove their worth on the domestic front while concurrently revamping foreign policy (and their effort will ultimately prove to consist of many ill-conceived, naive moves), so our best hope is to kick back and watch what unfolds in Europe on terrorist and Islamic fronts. Europe will take the brunt of that hit first. If the Demos intend to be reelected, they have to not only address the budget deficits but also move forward on initiatives that the majority of U.S. voters embrace - whatever those initiatives will be.

The Repubs do not really appear to desire to remain in power, so the door is open.

If the Demo voters and leaders go all out to capture the U.S. House and Senate, toppling the Repubs shouldn't be that difficult. Perhaps some of the endless whining will be turned into positive legislative action. If not, the Demos will be turned out in 2008.

Neither political parties are that impressive. But the Repubs need to be driven out. They have earned a quick exit.

[Movie Guy]

That should read "neither political party is that impressive".

[Independent Thinker]

As a 100% independent, the problem I have with the dems is their current platform is "We're not Bush/Republicans." People rather stick with the Evil they Know than the one they do not. Clinton won in 1992 for a couple of reasons, First and foremost people were hurting as the economy was in a recession. People vote with their wallet. Second he had a clear plan on how he would fix the economy and very effectively communicated that plan. Going back to 1980 Reagan won by projecting hope to a country that lost the belief in itself.

IMO the government functions best when Congress is controlled by one party and the Presidency by another. Only then do the true checks-and-balances work.

For those who hate our rural over-representation "problem" keep in mind that that authors of the Consitution were strongly opposed to factions controlling the government and oppressing the minority opinion. In my home state of Oregon the urban-rural culture clash is probably larger here than just about any other state. As a result Oregon's paid the price as the Portland metro area dictates policy. The rural areas of the state are hurting economically as Portlanders try to "protect" them from themselves through various mandates and regulations. In other words a strict popular vote isn't necessarily a good thing.

In the end we need a balance, it's time to break up the political monopoly. I'm affraid that unless the dems come up with a message of hope and ideas, not just "we're not republicans" they will fall short of their goal.

[RN]

What we are witnessing is what happens to a democracy with an uneducated populace.

Until people wake up and start demanding more than Jesus talk or "dump the Republicans" talk, this country remains screwed.

The crap the American people have tolerated, and have let themselves be talked out of the seriousness of by pondscum like Rush, Hannity and O'Reilly, defies belief. One example of thousands, how is it that a president who says he'll keep allowing American kids to be killed even if everyone disagrees with him up to his wife and his dog doesn't get immediately impeached?

The Republicans in congress (and the people who elected them) are genuine filth that they show no outrage over the behavior of the last 5 years and allowed this all to go on.

And Movie Guy shows an intellectually dishonest level of disingenuousness to claim the Democrats should be doing much differently now. Anyone with a "clue", to use his terminology, recognizes how absurdly closely statements and actions have to be held to the vest in this environment in order to keep the Rove "kill" machine from spinning it into something stupid Americans read as bad, and the person who says it as unelectable. I mean geez, if they can take down folks like Murtha or the retired generals, they can certainly take down an intelligent Democrat who comes up with a reasonable but politically impossible (thanks to the flaming pile of excrement they've created for us) suggestion for the kinds of radical changes required to turn this Titanic around.

Get a "clue", Movie Guy. Let's get some sane people elected first, let's get majorities so they're at least further from the talons of the Republican attack machine, and then in relative safety we can worry about and validly critique how they express solutions.

[Richard]

Perhaps I'm crazy, but I think that a Democratic majority in the House in 2007-08 would be a disaster for American liberals. Why? Because the name of the game, for the next 24 months, would be "blame sharing."

Of course it will be. Since when in politics has the blame game not been played.

But I do have faith that, by and large, Americans will remember that it was George Bush who push so hard to go into Iraq, who pushed so hard to overlook conflicting WMD reports, who pushed so hard on allies to obtain their buy-in (and failed) and who unilaterally chose to go into Iraq anyway. No president in the last 50 years has so brazenly beat the drum for war, pushing congress, his own party and allies to support the bandwagon. No, the blame game will not fully take, for George has this war on his own hands, and the blame for it will not easily be transfered to others.

And to the extent that GWB is considered an exemplar of fundamentalist Christian conservatives is the extenet to which conservatives as a whole will be tarred with the image of Bush. In fact, my prediction is that conservatives will try running away from the evangelical base towards the libertarian base, with disasterous results.

[Bruce Webb]

It amuses me when people say that Democrats don't have a plan. We do, it is just that we have been bamboozled into believing we cannot afford it.

Social Security, Universal Health Care, Pell Grants, Head Start. All proven programs, all programs with near universal approval, all Democratic programs. It is just that the Republicans have managed to prevail on the truly insane notion that tax cuts increase revenues longterm and that we can't NOT afford Star Wars, and so are just forced to cut these programs.

Democrats will not be able to get increases in the top marginal rate into law in the next Congress, but they can defund the more ridiculous items of defense pork and begin to fix Medicare Part D. Moreover the Democratic Party has a secret weapon, a proven weapon that the Republican Party managed to sideline for the last 10 to 20 years. It used to be called the Third Rail of American Politics - touch it and the result was instant political death. Well friends there is plenty of juice surging through that rail and once the American people wake up to the fact that the Republican Party has simply been lying to them about this amazingly popular program I predict the whole politcal room will be filled with the smell of roasting elephant.

What is that program? That will have to be a S(SA)ecret until the time comes.

[nedlink]

MG, I am glad to have your clarification. I wonder where I got the idea that you were for the Iraq war. Your prior posts, perhaps? In any case, you seem to me to have changed your tune on a number of issues and it is always gratifying to see a person who is able to learn. You may be too pessimistic not to say premature about the Democrats' ability to govern. I'd wait to see before I rushed to call them failures.

[Movie Guy]

nedlink,

I haven't changed my opinion on anything that I have posted previously. Not on any issue.

The Demos will need new Congressional leadership within the first year of goverance to have any meaningful success. Pelosi will never carry the day. Reid, well...you have to be kidding. Neither of these individuals is capable of keeping the ball rolling.

Bruce Webb,

Universal Health Care is a proven program in the USA?

[nedlink]

MG, you haven't? I wonder why I have such a strong recollection of your support for the war in Iraq and the Bush policy in general in the Middle East. I don't have time to go back and sift through all your comments, so I will leave it up to the board whether you were not gung ho for the war previously. In any case the stupidity of Bush's invasion is now so screamingly evident I doubt anyone, whatever their previous stance, can deny it. And more, while Bush & Co. were falsely claiming Iraq had WMD that endangered us, N. Korea was busy developing them and now has exploded one of them. As a result Bush has egg and more all over his face. What an adolescent doofus he is.

[calmo]

Johnchx, should the Dems not gain any ground with these mid-terms, would you say that the GOP really do own the government? That elections after this (some claim I'm already late with this observation) will only be a formality? I for one will be mighty depressed and would prefer to see those levees breached.
Nice interpretation of those levees Bruce Wilder.

[Movie Guy]

nedlink,

You don't understand quite a bit. Or you are conveniently "forgetting" it.

I never supported the invasion of Iraq. But once my government made that decision, I realized that the action would require either success however measured and accepted as such globally, or a political vehicle by which to exit without crashing the "moderate" states in the Middle East. If the U.S. convinces the Iraq government to shift to partition, then the U.S. can exit within a relatively short period without risking collapse throughout the Middle East. This has remained my position.

Your understanding of the Iraq capability under Hussein to reestablish any armaments within a two to three year period of time once the UN sanctions were lifted appears to be missing. And, yes, Iraq was well on the way to having the UN sanctions lifted. Read up on it.

More to the point, you appear to not understand the threat that Hussein presented to the Middle East region and, more importantly, to the neighboring states. This issue was addressed by the Clinton Administration and Bush Administration. If you don't understand this point, then perhaps you don't understand the Carter Doctrine and subsequent supporting actions by the follow on U.S. administrations regarding the Middle East.

What I provided many months ago was a presentation of what I believed was the Bush Administration policy for the Middle East and Eurasia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran). I provided plenty of government source links for anyone to research or read. The readers were afforded the opportunity to draw their own conclusions. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Similarly, you appear to be operating under the misconception that the U.S. alone could do anything about North Korea's nuclear weapons development program. There will be no military action on North Korea. A military option was never in the cards. The Bush Administration wisely adopted the six party talks strategy after the obvious and anticipated failure of Carter/Clinton appeasement actions and roughly $5 billion in various forms of aid and technology from 1994 forward. North Korea skirted around the phony agreement by creating their weapons grade material at another, undisclosed facility. Meanwhile, Carter received the Nobel Prize for Peace. What a joke, particularly after Carter/Brzezinski set the U.S. on the path to create Middle East insurection and secretly funded (beginning in 1979) the creation of what became the Taliban and al Qaeda as well as causing the deaths of 1-2 million people in Afghanistan.

I have no doubt that any future Demo administration will reverse course and pull the U.S. back from a number of agressive actions on the terrorist front, substituting appeasement measures and other buyouts (which will fail). It is for this reason that I recommend attention be focused on forthcoming events in Europe as relate to terrorism and Islamic population unrest. There are foreign intelligent reports indicating that al Qaeda and other Middle East based terrorist/fundamentalist groups have every intention to step up attacks on and insurections within Europe. I expect such events to unfold within the next five years at an increasing rate.

[anne]

We must leave Iraq immediately, but that we will not leave Iraq immediately is reason alone to vote only for candidates who stand against this insane forever war.

[nedlink]

MG if you were not for the Iraq war you sure fooled me. And you still speak with the words of the warmongers, about the "threat" Hussein posed (nil in fact), and calling the anti-war people "appeasers." I would say if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and so on (substitute warmonger for duck, of course), it probably is a duck (warmonger.) I also am amused by your attempts to blame the present mess on Carter and Clinton. You really take the cake, bozo.

[lonesome moderate]

If nothing else, the above comments are a perfect illustration of how even an unpopular war can be good politics. This can't possibly be an accident--Bush and the rest of the Sopranos must have calculated, or intuited, that even a disaster would leave their opponents so divided that they couldn't help but remain in power.

[anne]

No; there is no problem with division, complete division, on an issue that was destined to be and has been so disastrous for Americans; an issue over which defenders of war and colonization have given no way to those who are for peace. Division is fine and necessary, when the physical, psychological, material and moral lunatic tragedy of Iraq is considered.

[Movie Guy]

nedlink,

You need to work on your reading skills. My position on Iraq was made clear long ago.

You lack of knowledge of U.S. foreign policy for the Middle East does not surprise me. The Carter Doctrine was put into place on January 15, 1981, days before Carter left office. It has been the generally adopted foreign policy since that time.

That you know little if anything about what occurred in 1979 under the Carter Administration on the Afghanistan front, or how the 1994 North Korea-U.S. agreement and subsequent violations played out also doesn't surprise me.

That you appear to remember nothing about the Clinton Administration statements regarding Hussein's threat to the Middle East region and his neighbors, including those statements that I have posted on this blog, is par for the course.

You are either a childish clown poster or you really don't have much of a background in recent historical events.

[nedlink]

MG, you underestimate what I know just as you underestimate your obvious biases. You seem unaware of the fact that the Clinton administration, whatever it may have said, didn't DO anything as stupid as invading Iraq on the grounds of trumped up lies. Your penchant for dredging up, helter skelter, comments from previous decades and trying to blame them for the stupidities of the Bush administration is obvious, I think, to all. And sleazy to boot. Odd how so many expert people have written books that overwhelmingly disagree with your point of view. Are they all ignoramuses? I think we all know where you are coming from.......the Neocon Ziolobby. You must be terribly upset that all your ideas are now coming apart in the Middle East. Billy Kristol commented early on to the effect that "if we don't succeed in Iraq" it will be a disaster for us (he meant the Neocons). Now go figure. LOL.

[anne]

Ethnic stereotyping and name calling is flatly wrong and harmful.

[nedlink]

Anne: you are completely right about Iraq. But what can one make of someone like Blair who has been mouthing the Bush line of "staying the course" and then flipflopping to now saying he agrees completely with the head of the British armed forces who says they must get out "soon?" Or the US military, some of whom say that we must withdraw and others who say we must stay indefinitely? I think it is clear that the disaster in Iraq has so addled the brains of our leaders that they have no idea what to do. As a result, they will do nothing, letting the killing simply go on and on while they helplessly look on mouthing their non-sequiturs and ludicrous stupidies.

[anne]

I understand your worry completely, though I do not at all understand the psychology of Tony Blair. Try to get at the psychology of Blair gradually, for this will be important in retrospect.

[nedlink]

Anne: Your post confuses me. Was it meant for me? Is "Neocon" an ethnic expression? I thought it applied to a group of conservatives of mixed ethnic background. Is applying it to someone "name calling" or simple statement of fact and identification, like Democrat or Republican? Do Neocons not exist? Does the Zionist lobby not exist? If it does, are we prohibited from mentioning it? Please clarify.

[nedlink]

Good comment from the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1922825,00.html

[nedlink]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/
0,,1922825,00.html

The site cuts off part of the link, so I have used two lines for it.

[anne]

Ethnicity is not political identification. There are hundreds of millions of Muslims of every possible accomplishment and belief, including 2 Nobel Prize winners in the humanities this year. So, I would never think to generalize about Muslims. Similarly with Jews or Christians. Ethnicity does not tell us of belief structure, as political identification is generally supposed to. I meant the comment gently but definitely.

[anne]

As to the argument, however, I am completely sympathetic.