The Democratic Leadership Vacuum

By Anthony Vitarelli

The political party that controls the White House has a consistent national spokesperson with assumed credibility to speak on behalf of the rest of his party. Only the President, having been elected by the entire nation, commands media coverage with his every word and compels ideological loyalty from those within his party.

Presently, the Republicans have made life difficult for the Democrats by largely lining up behind the words of President George W. Bush (a notable exception to this rule occurred recently regarding national intelligence gathering). Compounding this problem, the Democrats operate in the minority in both the House and Senate, preventing them from even setting an opposing agenda to the President’s. Simply put, the Democrats lack a national figure to present their message to the American people.

In the upper chamber, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid lacks the charisma and seeming desire to serve in that role. Moreover, his pro-life stance alienates him from rank-and-file Democrats. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin shows far greater promise for providing a national voice against the most egregious Bush policies--notably his conservative nominees to the federal bench--yet he lacks the media spotlight that would allow him to communicate that message to the larger American audience. Senate Caucus Chair Debbie Stabenow has unfortunately been unable to speak with a cogent voice on issues that would garner national attention.

On the other side of the building, a rift has been developing between House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer. The New Republic’s Michael Crowley highlights this division by noting the differing reactions to Representative John Murtha’s new proposal on the Iraq War. He writes that, “House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi endorsed the plan within days. Meanwhile, her deputy, Representative Steny Hoyer released a statement warning of a national-security ‘disaster’ if U.S. troops exited too quickly.”

The House leadership hinges upon the results of the 2006 midterm elections and the performance of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emmanuel. Under the leadership of Representative Pelosi, the Democrats have lost seats in the House, and her personal politics swing further left than most Democrats, leaving her unquestionably left of the average undecided voter in the United States. Although Representative Hoyer may more closely resemble the median American voter, he lacks the spunk and media savvy exemplified by the current minority leader. If the Democrats perform poorly in 2006, expect Hoyer to challenge Pelosi for her control of the House Democrats.

With his recent appointment to the Senate, former House Democratic Caucus Chair Bob Menendez will turn over his leadership responsibilities to current Vice Chair James Clyburn. Clyburn is a traditional choice, having paid his dues as the deputy under Menendez. However, a bolder move for Democrats would have been to elect outspoken and articulate Representative Jan Schakowsky (currently a chief deputy whip), in place of the more traditional Clyburn. In this decision, the Democrats perpetuate their inbred leadership model that allowed Harry Reid to assume the reins in the Senate after serving as Tom Daschle’s whip.

Even if the Democrats could coalesce around one of the aforementioned Congressional leaders, it remains uncertain whether any they muster an effective and clear opposition to the President. As the President’s approval rating has rebounded, Congress’s has continued to plummet. In their first reasonable move in some time, the Democrats selected Virginia’s Governor-elect Tim Kaine to deliver their official response to the President’s State of the Union address.

Kaine’s selection affirms one of two things. Either it signifies that Democrats realize that they need to present a moderate, eloquent Southerner with an affable manner to deliver their opposition, or they simply could not decide amongst the Congressional leadership who would receive the honor. Let’s hope it was the former.

Despite all this gloom, the frontloading of President primaries allows some optimism for Democrats, as they will likely have decided upon their new national spokesman by early 2008. Unfortunately, he or she will be criticized not only by the President but also by the newly selected Republican nominee for President--still leaving Republicans with a media advantage. It's time to get to work.

Given this inherent disadvantage, the Democrats must rely on the strength of their (currently nonexistent) message to sway voters away from the dominant GOP if they wish to have any hopes of regaining the House, Senate, or Presidency.

Wartime Powers

By Robert Samuel

"I can no more be persuaded that the Government can constitutionally take no strong measures in time of rebellion, because it can be shown that the same could not lawfully be taken in time of peace, than I can be persuaded that a particular drug is not good medicine for a sick man, because it can be shown not to be good for a well one. Nor am I able to appreciate the danger apprehended by the meeting [of the New York Democrats] that the American people will, by means of military arrest during the Rebellion, lose the right of Public Discussion, the Liberty of Speech and the Press, the Law of Evidence, Trial by Jury, and Habeas Corpus, throughout the indefinite peaceful future, which I trust lies before them, any more than I am able to believe that a man could contract so strong an appetite for emetics during temporary illness as to persist in feeding upon them during the remainder of his healthful life."

-Abraham Lincoln

In the War on Terror scandal of the week, President Bush has been accused of possibly unconstitutionally ordering the National Security Agency to tap international phone calls of suspected terrorists without prior judicial approval. This disclosure by The New York Times has created a firestorm from civil liberty activists, providing another example of Bush’s fascist reign in his crusading, imperialistic war against “terrorists.”

This criticism is ridiculous. Anyone with a reasonable understanding of civil liberties understands this. As Harvard’s Lawrence Tribe has said, “civil liberties are not only about protecting us from government. They are also about protecting our lives from terrorism.”

Wartime powers have always been complicated and controversial in liberal democracies. Political theorists have many times over discussed how governments checked by their own peoples can effectively fight wars where secrets must be kept and violence must be committed in the name of victory.

Seventeenth-century British thinker John Locke, who so influenced the Founders that he has been deemed “America’s philosopher,” is very clear about where he stands on the issue. According to Locke, the choice is: “The power [of the executive] to act according to discretion for the public good, without the prescription of the law and sometimes even against it.” Wartime powers are an existential question for Locke. For a liberal republic to continue to exist, in times of rebellion and invasion, the executive must act in ways to best preserve society. Locke believed it is "fit that the laws themselves should in some cases give way to the executive power, or rather to this fundamental law of nature and government, viz. that as much as may be, all members of society are to be preserved."

The Founders shared Locke's view of executive power. Alexander Hamilton makes the case most clearly in "Federalist #23." Here he argues that liberty and power are not at terminal odds with one another, and that the "vigor" of the government is necessary for security of liberty.

Abraham Lincoln is the American statesman who most artfully discussed executive power in wartime. Lincoln’s essential argument was that unconstitutional acts in peacetime were not necessarily so in times of war or rebellion. “The Constitution is not in its application in all respects the same in cases of rebellion or invasion involving the public safety, as it is in times of profound peace and public security,” Lincoln wrote.

President Bush thankfully has taken the same view of executive power as Locke, Hamilton, and Lincoln. If NSA wire-tapping stretches to anything non-terror related, Bush will clearly be completely in contempt of the Constitution. But while it is used in the name of preventing catastrophic terrorism, it is a necessary tool in preserving the same liberty we have to criticize Bush for nearly every action he makes in fighting Islamic fascism.

More than four years since 9/11, perhaps many Americans have forgotten the realities of the goals of terrorists. This is a war about our existence, not an effort to prosecute large-scale criminal acts. Law enforcement will never end terrorism. Only war executed by a robust executive can minimize this threat. Al Qaeda’s lack of territory, economic and military resources should not ease our fears about what they can accomplish. Osama bin Laden played no small part in bringing down the Soviet Union’s empire, and if our commander-in-chief’s hands are tied, it is not unforeseeable that he can bring down ours, as well.

Bin Laden’s Afghanistan jihad was the final straw that exposed the economic impossibilities of the Soviet system. America’s weakness in war is certainly not an economic one. If bin Laden can bring down America, it will be because overzealous civil libertarians use the Constitution to reduce the protection of the American people, rather than allowing the document to “provide for the common defense” as it promises. As Justice Robert H. Jackson observed, the Constitution “is not a suicide pact.”

Throughout its history, America’s statesmen have used necessary executive authority to protect its citizens. In 2005, George W. Bush should be allowed to do the same.

NOTE: Mackubin Thomas Owens’ article “War and Peace: Lincoln and Bush on vigilance and responsibility” greatly influenced this column. It can be found at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/528lbdmp.asp

Christian, Democrat. Democrat, Christian.

By Andrew Collins

It is well established that the present Republican Party is a coalition of three somewhat unlikely bedfellows: fiscal conservatives, libertarians, and social conservatives. Reflecting elite influence if not popular support, you could probably add neoconservatives to that mix.

While we have become accustomed to the alliance between these three (or four) factions, they are not necessarily natural partners. Many social conservatives crave exactly the kind of moral legislation that libertarians abhor. Fiscal and social conservatives are often at odds on foreign aid and social programs. And a neoconservative war of choice, costing as much as $1 trillion, is certainly not in the traditional fiscal conservative playbook.

Given the process of cramming disparate interests into a single platform, the Republican Party inevitably tilts toward one or two factions at the expense at the others. Traditionally, the party has preferred fiscal conservatism and libertarianism. Witness the laissez-faire 1920s, Eisenhower’s pro-business Republicanism, and Reaganomics. But the balance has shifted—done a 180, really—and social conservatism and neoconservatism rule the present day.

Under President Bush, the United States has faced the largest budget and trade deficits in its history. Last week’s domestic spying case merely affirmed the low priority the party places on civil liberties. Meanwhile, our Constitution is apparently due for a brush-off on the unlikely issue of gay marriage, and the Supreme Court will soon be one chair closer to overturning Roe v. Wade. Foreign aid is dispensed rather generously; condoms are not.

Considering where President Bush has made his substantive moves, one would have expected his 2004 campaign rhetoric to reach out to his underserved constituencies of fiscal conservatives and libertarians. But, oddly, the opposite happened. President Bush reached out to social conservatives and reiterated that whatever his party obligations, he would remain committed to them over all other factions. Puzzling, but explicable. The hidden reason for this strategy is that social conservatives—far more than the other Republican factions—are the most likely bloc to realign with the Democratic Party.

The vast majority of American social conservatives are driven by their adherence to some form of Christianity. And, in some ways, Christianity matches up better with Democratic principles than with Republican ones. This is not to say that the Democratic Party is the Chosen Party or that Pilate would have been a Republican, only that Christians would be expected to vote Democrat more frequently than current voting rolls suggest—and maybe, just maybe, a correction is nigh.

Democrats push for opportunity, equality, and compassion. Republicans push for tradition, liberty, and self-reliance. Objectively, which set of terms sounds more like Jesus’ teachings?

Republican success among socially conservative Christians is not entirely illogical. Like the Republican Party, many socially conservative Christians are vehemently against abortion and gay marriage. But they face a tradeoff: on the one hand is the party against abortion and gay marriage; on the other, the party of food stamps, public assistance, foreign aid, peace, environmental stewardship, no capital punishment, and taxes that take from the rich and give to the poor. From where I sit, the Republicans’ success in attracting Christians based on its few issues seems to have more to do with the party’s organizational and communications prowess than it does with its positions on core Christian interests.

All this is to suggest that if the Democratic Party makes a few changes, it could bring huge numbers of socially conservative Christians into the fold and fundamentally realign American politics. They are:

1) Embrace “faith based.” Democrats have long shied away from talking about religion, embracing the heroic work of churches and other religious organizations, and according religion the respect it deserves. Religion can be an enormously positive force in American life and should never be reflexively dismissed by Democrats as ignorant, googly-eyed mania.

2) Deal with abortion. As long as abortion is the most prominent ongoing political issue in America and the Democratic Party is stridently pro-choice, social conservatives will keep away. Some options for this include Hillary Rodham Clinton’s almost-but-not-quite-pro-life stance, Harry Reid’s (gasp) pro-life stance, putting the issue to a national referendum as per The Economist’s suggestion, or simply banning partial-birth abortions and other practices that are unpopular even within the party.

3) Watch it on the culture. Democrats are a culturally lively bunch. They run the gamut from brilliant to crass to brilliant/crass. But to win social conservatives’ votes, Democrats cannot taunt them with edgy, decidedly un-Christian displays of irreverence and profanity. This is not to suggest censorship, but merely that a campaign effort to woo socially conservative Christians might not go over well with people yelling, “F--k Bush!” every two seconds.

4) Gently remind Christians what they stand for. What does it mean to be a Christian? This varies for everyone. Love, compassion, tolerance, and charity figure prominently in my conception of Christian values. As a Christian, I find that the Democratic Party tends to embrace these principles more actively than the Republican Party does, and that is a major reason why I am a Democrat. Perhaps a thoughtful campaign urging Christians to reflect on their true values would go a long way.

The Republican-controlled House wants to cut $700 million in food stamps this holiday season. Is even one American child dying of hunger worth a gay marriage ban?

Let's Talk About Tax

By Anthony Vitarelli

With its thousands of pages of arcane rules and regulations, the US tax code befuddles most without CPA after their name. Over the years, Congress has added so many corporate tax breaks or arbitrary deductibles that most Americans do not realize their true taxable income and actually overpay on their taxes. According to the Government Accountability Office, the average American overpays $610 each year due to errors and missed deductions.

This unfortunate reality is most true for young workers, especially those filing their taxes for the first time. Rather than undergo the taxing (pun intended) process of learning the ins and outs of the US tax system, most will file for a standard deduction and be done with it.

On the other hand, corporations and the extremely wealthy have been getting away with actuarial murder. Many, paying only the “Alternative Minimum Tax,” have restructured their wealth or their business’s assets to present a façade to the Internal Revenue Service as to their true worth.

Of course, these crimes of accounting would surely be investigated, had the Clinton and Bush administration not stripped the IRS of their investigatory budget. Given the not-so-rosy public image of the IRS, these cuts must have seemed quite politically benign. What politician would defend the IRS? What American voter would vote a President out of office because of he did not adequately fund the agency that could audit honest, hard-working Americans?

The truth of the matter is that the IRS hardly audits anyone anymore. In fact, in 1997 the IRS audited 1.5 percent of all taxpayers; in 2001 that number had fallen to only 0.5 percent. The IRS estimates that if its had its full budget it could have recouped $300 billion in taxes from those intentionally seeking to evade taxation.

An effort to clarify IRS responsibilities and simplify the tax code generally was a cornerstone of President Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign. As with most items on his second-term agenda, however, the White House has recently leaked to the press that it will likely be waiting until 2007 or 2008 to begin working on comprehensive tax code reform.

The midterms in 2006 and ramp-up to the Presidential election have delayed every item on President Bush’s domestic agenda, including his central campaign promise to “reform our complicated and outdated tax code... to get rid of the needless paperwork... to make sure our economy is the most competitive in the world.”

President Bush has shown non-committal support for a number of options. These have ranged from Steve Forbes’s continued call for a national flat tax--one income tax for every American--to the even more regressive proposed national sales tax (in lieu of any income tax at all).

For the same reasons, these two proposals do far less to make the system more equitable than they do to put more money into the already fat pockets of America’s wealthiest individuals.

The flat tax would eliminate all exemptions and tax each individual’s income at the same rate. Sounds fair enough? Superficially, the concept of a flat tax is attractive for its simplicity and its seeming equity. In truth, this tax would dramatically shift the American tax burden to the poor by increasing their relative proportion of taxes paid.

Traveling further right along the political spectrum, the national sales tax would devastate the poor and the further absolve the rich from their tax liability. Such consumption taxes demand that consumers pay a tax on every item purchased, rather than on one’s total income. Consider, however, that poorer American use a far greater portion of their incomes for consumption--rather than savings or investments (which are not considered consumption). The de facto result of such a system is an income tax system where the percentage are flipped from their current progressive alignment. That is, under a consumption tax, the poor’s income is effectively taxed at a higher rate than incomes of the wealthy. Even the libertarian Cato Institute has issued a study attesting to the regressivity of such a proposal.

Such is the reality of a number of President Bush’s “ownership society” proposals. These regressive economic schemes, including the attempt to privatize Social Security, are unabashedly designed to benefit the wealthy by eschewing the well-being of the middle class and the poverty-stricken. Under the guise of positive phrasing, President Bush will try to reverse decades of progressive economic policy.

So, what to do? For starters, the United States could reform the tax code by actually promoting ownership.

The government can promote the ownership of skills and social capital by making all college tuition, every job training course, and every foreign language program 100 percent tax deductible. Similarly, the government should increase tax breaks for home ownership, with special incentives for those who choose to own homes in urban empowerment zones. The United States could also fully fund the IRS to ensure that taxes need not be increased because crafty accountants are avoiding the existing ones.

Each of these straight-forward proposals would employ the tax code to increase social equity--not play President Bush’s game of reverse Robin Hood.

Why Conservatives Must Fight (and Are Necessary)

By Robert Samuel

As The National Review publishes its 50th anniversary issue, it is worth reflecting on some existential questions for conservatives. As George Will said at the magazine’s 30th anniversary, Review “is the most influential journal of all-time.” The magazine sparked a movement that one can argue directly led to Barry Goldwater’s presidential nomination in 1964 and Ronald Reagan’s presidential election in 1980. In an age of extreme multi-culturalism and moral relativity, it was not inevitable nor necessarily politically wise for the Republican Party to swing to the right in the 20th century’s middle years.

But with the platform of the National Review, conservatives united around ideas that would eventually become part of the public discourse.

Whether one is liberal or conservative, one should be thankful for this turn of history. Conservatives have defended and perpetuated the traditions and values of the West in times of unpopularity and uncertainty. This completely contrasts with the lack of judgment the liberal intelligentsia showed in supporting the Revolution of 1917 and defending the social policies of the Soviet Union throughout much of its tyrannous reign. In hindsight, it is almost incomprehensible how individuals like Khrushchev, Mao, Castro, Nasser, Pol Pot, and Mengistu received far more implicit support from Western elites than Churchill, de Gaulle, Thatcher, Reagan, or John Paul II.

As a new 50 years of challenges beckons upon us, the “ancestral voices prophesizing war” are again here. Though a totally different threat with an altogether different ideology, there is a certain familiarity and predictability in their statements. “O God, destroy the usurper Jews, the vile crusaders and infidels. O God, destroy them along with their supporters,” said the Muslim Brotherhood’s Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi in a comment typical of him and his movement. And as Jemaah Islamiyah leader Abu Bakir Bashir said while in jail for the 2002 Bali bombings, “[Muhammed taught that] Islam must win and Westerners will be destroyed. If they refuse to be under Islam, it will be chaos. Full stop. If they want peace, they have to accept to be governed by Islam.”

Just as some elites once blamed the behavior of the Nazis and the Communists on the injustices of the West, so, too, are Westerners blamed for Islamic extremism by the likes of Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore. And to say these fringe thinkers have no affect is greatly untrue. As Christian Churches are deemed illegal in Saudi Arabia, European hospitals and schools are removing crosses as to not offend Muslims. It has not yet gone this far in America, but too many similar double standards still exist. For example, the extreme left supports the celebration of homosexuality in America and supports those that stone homosexuals in Iraq.

It is up to conservatives in American and in Europe to insure society does not venture any further on this most dangerous of paths. Liberals are necessary to aide society as to which traditions to continue and which to leave behind. Conservatives are necessary to insure any traditions are kept at all. The classically liberal community that our founders created arranges a society that can just as easily be defeated from within as from an external threat. For National Review to last another 50 years, it must insure that Michael Moore and his ilk do not ruin us in ways Osama bin Laden or Adolph Hitler never could.

Universally Thinking, Part II: Advocacy Politics

By Andrew Collins

In the United States, as in many other countries, politics is predicated on a system of constituency and advocacy. Elected officials advocate for their constituents, as defined by geography. Nonprofit organizations advocate for a cause or group. Corporations advocate, directly or through lobbies, for themselves.

Our advocacy-based system has served us reasonably well, it could be surmised. Relentless competition has warded off complacency and led to an emphasis on results. The constituencies with the most human and/or capital resources tend to thrive—an appropriately democratic state of affairs.

But as with all systems and conditions—from the fundamental to the ornamental—it cannot hurt to see whether they can be optimized, altered or even replaced wholesale. No political system should remain immune from analysis, including our advocacy model. Let us imagine the possibilities.

An alternative model could focus on reforming a specific aspect of the advocacy-based system: for example, information wielded by nonprofit interest groups. At present, nearly every conceivable need and want is represented by an interest group that advocates whole-heartedly and single-mindedly. A fair housing organization, for example, fights for fair housing and typically nothing else. This can often mean the selective use of data, or, more commonly than nonprofit advocates would like to admit, manipulation or outright fabrication of data. This distorts the political process and creates inefficiency.

Requiring registry of data could change the situation dramatically. Under this policy, no government entity could use data unless it were entered and confirmed with a central data bank and assiduously analyzed for validity. This would limit advocates’ ability to distort information; it also might eliminate their raison d’être. It would lead to a far more technocratic policymaking process, valuing good policy over the persuasive and manipulative powers of a well funded, well populated, or informationally creative nonprofit agency. Truth would no longer be a laughable concept. The role of a nonprofit would be to selectively research, not cull selective results from broader research; this would cut down on research costs and thereby improve efficiency.

The downside of a data registry is that it would risk stifling the dynamic competition that serves as one of the sector’s major strengths. How many groundbreaking reports have resulted from a gun-rights group attempting to counter a study by gun opponents, and vice versa? And the volume of research could decline or necessitate more public funding, which could damage the public good.

A more extreme but still limited modification of an aspect of our advocacy system would be the infusion of oligarchical elements into an area of policy. Take trade. The status quo involves competitive advocacy from farm lobbyists; unions; corporations; consumer advocates; the U.S. Commerce, State, Agriculture, and Treasury Departments; and other interest groups. The result is a wholly unsatisfying state of affairs in which restrictive tariffs and lopsided policies diminish the sum of national wealth, harm developing countries even more grievously, and result in highly inequitable distribution of resources.

An oligarchic alternative would be to turn trade policy and redistribution of resources to a board of eminent, broad-thinking economists. The key is that the board would not be comprised of representatives from various interest groups, because that would merely transpose the problems of an advocacy system into a less democratic forum. The board would be comprised of individuals thinking broadly about the most efficient, desirable policymaking strategies and then executing them. This would likely mean free trade and limited taxes, adjusted for externalities and accompanied by redistribution of gains from trade to provide a cushion to workers and others who might be harmed. Economically speaking, a direct transfer from one group to another is more efficient than a tax-based redistribution that results in a heavy deadweight loss. Job training programs, certain exceptions, and political considerations would also be factored in to perfect the system.

The downsides of partial oligarchy? Almost too numerous to name. First of all, it is not democracy. Who would appoint the board of eminent gray economists, and would it reflect that person’s biases and interests? The economists could be wrong. They could have hidden personal or professional interests. They could be bribed. The board could make Americans feel powerless, even if it made them better off economically in the long run. The system would challenge the foundation of our political system—that the people rule. It could precipitate intergroup conflict or even revolution.

Truth be told, our advocacy-based system has served us well and may be better than most other forms of political interaction. But perhaps there is still a place for broad thinking in political life, a vision to which the uncertain opposing forces of advocacy should ultimately aspire. It will be a job of this and subsequent generations to figure out the role of universal thinking in American politics—with the courage, one would hope, to perpetually polish our shining city on a hill.

Iraq and the Tory Party

By Robert Samuel

To Americans, Iraq is not Vietnam.

But it is for the British.

Militarily and culturally, Iraq will not induce any penetrating change as Vietnam did in America. That conflict was far bloodier and far more of a military disaster than Iraq ever will be. But the effect the Mesopotamian mess has had on British politics is eerily similar to what occurred in the United States in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Logically, unpopular wars should help the left. But, in the long-term, Vietnam aided the Republicans, and it seems Iraq will aid Britain's conservative Tory Party. The signs are already apparent.

The reasons the fallout from Vietnam benefited the Republicans are two-fold. The obvious reason is that, despite Nixon's mishandling of the war in the early '70s, the Vietnam War was the war of the Democratic Party. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson was overwhelmingly elected and the Democrats owned large advantages in both houses of Congress. These elected leaders bore the largest blame for America’s most unfortunate war, both with the electorate and the historians.

The second reason—and the far more illuminating factor—was America’s reaction to the anti-war movement. Americans ultimately did not support the Vietnam War, but the popularity of the tactics and personality of the anti-war movement was even more depressed.

When the Democratic Party nominated the ultra-liberal George McGovern in reaction to the war, many patriotic, pro-military Democrats voted for Nixon. These groups included Socialists for Nixon and the followers of popular Washington Democratic Senator, Henry Jackson.

Though Jackson remained a Democrat his entire life, many of his supporters made the complete switch to the Republican Party just in time for the Reagan Revolution. More importantly than party affiliation, this group changed the American intellectual climate in ways that benefited the right. This group, who felt deeply about social issues while also favoring a robust foreign policy, is known today by the somewhat disparaging term “neoconservatives.”

There are many signs a similar process is occurring in Britain. It is now quite common in the UK to find members of the liberal chattering class promoting international markets, selection in schools, and the election of right-wing governments in foreign countries. In these scholars’ writings, one can detect a similar disgust for the liberal mainstream that neoconservatives had in American publications in the 1970s.

Perhaps the most elucidating symbol of the comparison is the founding of the Henry Jackson Society in England on November 22. Just as American Jackson supporters eventually supported right-wing American policies, many liberals are defecting to the right in places like London and Oxford. Jack Kampfner of the New Stateman provoked outrage when he labeled many British,liberal supporters of the Iraq War neoconservatives. If one strips away the negative connotations of the word, it is difficult to argue against Kampfner’s description.

The growing power of this group was exemplified with David Cameron’s election as Tory Party Leader. Many of Cameron’s advisers are signers of the Henry Jackson Society’s Statement of Principles, and Mr. Cameron himself is an unabashed supporter of the Iraq War.

Cameron is 39 years-old with political skills nearly as impressive as Tony Blair’s. In his intruductory press conference with Blair, Mr. Cameron could not have appeared more impressive. With the Labor Party reeling, it is only a matter of time before the Tory Party becomes “the natural party of government” once more.

Many believe the difficulties with the Iraq War have spelled the end of neoconservative influences in American foreign policy. The war may have only been the beginning of such influences in Britain’s international relations.

Universally Thinking, Part I: Reimagining the 'We'

By Andrew Collins

Politics, always ubiquitous in America, has become practically synonymous with society. The main section of most newspapers could be renamed the “politics section.” Student senates, upper-management checks and balances, and fixed terms on organizational boards are obvious examples of life imitating politics. And politicians are the stars of our cultural zeitgeist.

But politics is not life. And when it comes to how we see the world as individuals, taking on a politician’s perspective can skew our priorities and values. The most widespread example of this is when ordinary people forget that politicians represent a specific geographic region of people, whereas we are private citizens of the universe. A politician must advocate for the district, city, county, state, or country he/she represents, but a person can identify with myriad communities as small as a family and as large as all humankind. But this is seldom appreciated. In practice, the false restrictions we place on our affiliations and advocacy, imitating politicians, has skewed American policy and society in sometimes detrimental ways.

Take Iraq. Critics on the right and left constantly appeal to American interests, American soldiers, and the American future. The Bill O’Reillys of the world say questioning Iraq policy hurts our troops’ morale. The Michael Moores of the world say we should bring our boys home. Both points are worthy of discussion, but few commentators seem very concerned about the 25,000 or so Iraqis who have died in the war, nor the fate of the 26 million Iraqis whose fate depends on the success of the U.S.-led coalition. If Iraq’s future is even mentioned, it is typically only tangential to showing American resolve or asserting that President Bush is a dangerous nitwit.

An America-first attitude is natural and desirable for domestic politicians and, to some degree, the pundits who serve an exclusively American audience. But it would be odd for ordinary citizens to consider such arguments comprehensive or even persuasive in the absence of other considerations.

And yet, all too often, that is precisely what happens. Op-ed writers, debaters, and armchair strategists think of the Iraq War and other international issues as if they were sitting in the Oval Office as a representative of the American people, rather than in their own homes as members of all kinds of communities of varying size.

The Iraq War is not the only topic on which ordinary Americans slip into a politician’s limited mindset. Protectionists are fervent in their legitimate concerns about American job displacement, but have a blind spot when it comes to the dire unemployment in the developing world that results from restrictive U.S. trade policies. And a majority of Americans are wary of international environmental accords, seemingly preferring short-term U.S. economic benefit to long-term, diffuse ecological and economic benefits for the entire world. Many Americans, it would appear, would rather have a small gain for the people of their country than a larger gain for people elsewhere in the world. People are rightfully free to make their own value judgments, but it is strange to prioritize the lives and livelihoods of one’s countrymen given the mutable, arbitrary, and essentially illusory nature of national boundaries and the wide range of affiliations that one can claim.

There are some prominent exceptions to the America-first phenomenon among individuals. Christian conservatives have, as a bloc, tended show extraordinary concern for the plight of struggling peoples in the developing world. They are among the most generous Americans when it comes to private donations, the most willing to push for increased U.S. foreign aid, and the most forceful in advocating for humanitarian interventions. Some old-fashioned "bleeding-heart liberals" are similar in viewing people across the world as equally deserving of rights and opportunities as Americans.

A famous motto and story suggest the approach of viewing all lives and livelihoods as equal, no matter what one’s nationality. The motto is, “Think globally, act locally,” and the key clause is “think globally.” The world does not stop at the 49th parallel, and a cry of suffering is the same in any language. Families exist everywhere, and every worker needs a job to feed his or her family—whether in Thailand or Tuscon. It is also important to act locally; there is always a way to make a difference on global issues without leaving your town, or at most your state. But “think locally” has never been and will never be a motto for individuals. Leave that to the politicians.

The story is from the Gospel of Luke. Jesus told a parable of a man passing between villages who was beaten and left for dead. Several of his countrymen passed but did not stop to help him. Finally, a Samaritan—a foreigner, whose kind was neither understood nor liked—came and helped the injured man to safety. Rather than view the injured man as separate and somehow unworthy of love or equal treatment, the Good Samaritan treated the foreigner as an equal human being and sacrificed his time, energy, and personal safety to rescue this injured traveler.

Said Jesus: “Go and do the same.”

Reality Check

By Anthony Vitarelli

Facing mounting criticism from Congressional Democrats, as well as the American people as a whole, President Bush spoke to the nation on Wednesday to discuss the United States’ strategy for victory in Iraq.

To be fair, President Bush’s speech, for the first time, sounded like he actually knew what was going on in Iraq. He correctly identified that the insurgency against US forces is not a unified effort, but rather a disaggregated combination of “rejectionists, Saddamists, and terrorists.” He outlined a three-part strategy to secure victory in Iraq consisting of political institutions, consistent security, and economic development.

This all sounds terrific.

But is any of this new? Did anyone learn anything from the President’s speech other than the fact that he apparently has begun to watch CNN and listen to his generals on the ground? Surely, this is an auspicious development, but anyone who claims that his speech or the 35-page Strategy for Victory in Iraq is replete with new policy or innovations solutions is fooling himself.

Mainstream media newspaper reports highlighted the instances in Wednesday’s speech where President Bush acknowledged the shortcomings in Iraqi police training, as if the President acknowledging the actual state of affairs is independently newsworthy.

In contrast, the New York Times editorial board summed up the developments nicely with their editorial, “Plan: We Win.” They write, “The document and Mr. Bush's speech were almost entirely a rehash of the same tired argument that everything's going just fine.”

We knew this was coming through. We knew it before the 2004 election, when former Wall Street Journal national affairs reporter Ron Suskind penned his truly remarkable piece, “Without a Doubt,” in which he profiled the President, his faith, and his immutable decisiveness.

When discussing intelligence matters with a senior advisor to Bush, Suskind had the following conversation:

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Apparently, it seems that since the United States has become an empire in his mind, President Bush has chosen to create his own reality in Iraq.

Unfortunately, his reality is not the same as the reality of the 2,000 families of soldiers who have died serving a mission with no clear exit strategy – a mission premised upon intelligence that has since been debunked and led to the indictment of the Vice-President’s chief of staff.

That reality does not translate to students whose federal financial aid dollars are being cut because the Pentagon has spent $223 billion to fight this war.

The President’s reality differs from those on Medicaid or food stamps, whose benefits are being slashed in the name of “deficit reduction” because the US needed spending offsets after America’s wealthiest citizens received $3.9 trillion in tax cuts.

So what then is the President’s reality?

He has become sheltered by his advisors and disdains his naysayers to the point where he cannot distill even the slightest truth from their criticisms, despite saying Wednesday that “we should not fear the debate.”

This is a dangerous state of affairs that eerily echoes the President’s mindset concerning the Katrina disaster. His advisors fed him insufficient information as to the severity of the humanitarian crisis, and he assumed all was well.

But is it possible that President Bush cannot realize how badly things are going on the ground in Iraq? Certainly, the President understands the strategic shortcomings in immediate withdrawal, but he also rejects any semblance of compromise. He remarked, “I will settle for nothing less than complete victory.”

Cutting and running helps no one, but Mr. President, the United States may never be able to achieve “complete victory.” If that is the case, when are our armed forces coming home?