Feb 15th 2012, 15:03 by Lexington
WHEN he wants to relax, the man most likely to be the next leader of China enjoys watching American basketball on television. He has fond memories of his brief stay with an American family in Iowa more than a quarter of a century ago. There he saw local corn farming and was deeply impressed by America's hospitality and industriousness. So, at least, Xi Jinping, China's vice-president, told the Washington Post in written remarks on the eve of his state visit this week.
It is therefore a bit of a boon that Mr Xi is not yet China's leader, a job he is expected to inherit in stages starting towards the end of this year. That freed the White House to concentrate on what officials acknowledged was more of an "investment in relationship-building" than a meeting of substance. For Mr Xi it is also a test and rite of passage. Party factions and military leaders need to be sure that their chosen man has what it takes to do business with the prevailing superpower without any hint of kowtowing.
Yesterday Mr Xi met Mr Obama in the Oval Office on Valentine's Day. He was lunched and dined by Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, and called on the Pentagon, the Chamber of Commerce and Capitol Hill. But in an American election year the bonhomie has its limits. With Mitt Romney blowing hard on Mr Obama's alleged softness towards China, the administration had to toss some scolding into the mix as well. So Mr Xi was told that China's rise came with new responsibilities. The Americans want China to let its currency appreciate faster, observe the "rules of the road" on trade and intellectual property and fall in line with Western pressure on Syria. The administration is still livid about China's decision to join Russia in vetoing UN Security Council action on Syria earlier this month. And it gave Mr Xi the usual scolding about China's terrible record on human rights at home.
As for the Republicans' criticisms, has Mr Obama really been so soft on China? In the Atlantic this month, James Fallows offers a ringing defence of the president's "strategic pivot" to Asia (and a more nuanced defence of his first term as a whole):
Two years after Obama’s “humiliating” visit to Shanghai and Beijing, U.S. relations with China were a mix of cooperation and tension, as they had been through the post-Nixon years. But American relations with most other nations in the region were better than since before the Iraq War. In a visit to Australia late in 2011, Obama startled the Chinese leadership but won compliments elsewhere with the announcement of a new permanent U.S. Marine presence in Darwin, on Australia’s northern coast.
The strategy was Sun Tzu–like in its patient pursuit of an objective: re-establishing American hard and soft power while presenting a smiling “We welcome your rise!” face to the Chinese. “It was as decisive a diplomatic victory as anyone is likely to see,” Walter Russell Mead, of Bard College, often a critic of the administration, wrote about the announcement of the Australian base. “In the field of foreign policy, this was a coming of age of the Obama administration and it was conceived and executed about as flawlessly as these things ever can be.”
Maybe, though citing Sun Tzu is a bit of a stretch. It is hard to see why China should be terrified by a few hundred marines training in Australia. But how much of substance has really changed in the relationship? In recent weeks China has jailed prominent dissidents and cracked down hard on protesters in Tibet and Xinjiang. Armies of censors still seal China off from large parts of the internet. The country's internal politics remain opaque: the West barely understands how President Hu Jintao gets on with his prime minister, Wen Jiabao, let alone about the mysterious recent feuding between the new cast of princelings about to take the stage. To begin with at least, Mr Xi is expected to act as first among equals inside a cautious politburo that is no less paranoid about America than America is about China.
In state visits like this, most of the speeches consist of cautious boilerplate. At the State Department's lavish and interminable lunch yesterday, your blogger's attention was in danger of wandering as he tucked into his soy-marinated Alaskan butterfish and eight-treasured rice packet. But Mr Xi did say this:
China is the world’s largest developing country, while the United States is the largest developed country. To build a new type of co-operative partnership between two countries like ours is a pioneering endeavor with great and far-reaching significance. There is no precedent for us to follow and no ready experience for us to refer to. We can only do what Mr Deng Xiaoping said, “Cross the river by feeling the stones.” Or what Secretary Clinton once quoted: “When confronted by mountains, one finds a way through. When blocked by a river, one finds a way to bridge to the other side.” A Chinese pop song goes like this: “May I ask where the path is? It is where you take your first step.”
A bit hackneyed, perhaps, but a pretty fair description of the state of affairs.
Feb 13th 2012, 17:13 by Lexington
OVER at CQ Roll Call, our sister publication, the estimable David Hawkings tells you precisely how much attention to pay to the president's budget proposal. Short version: no real action till December's lame-duck session of Congress.
Virtually everything in that summary has been proposed by the president before and stopped by congressional Republicans before. That dynamic won’t change before the election. The GOP majority will push through a budget resolution through the House this spring that will project more assertive deficit reduction mainly through something similar to the Medicare revamp Paul Ryan promoted a year ago. Of course, it will call for retaining the Bush tax rates. In the Senate, the Democratic majority won’t ever put a budget proposal on the floor — neither the president’s nor its own. But McConnell will be able to force a vote that symbolically rejects the president’s package (the result will be along the lines of last year’s 0-97 ballot).
That political positioning will keep Congress occupied into the spring, at which point attention will be focused almost entirely on appropriations — apportioning money to the programs that would feel almost all of the brunt of a sequester at the end of the year, which is emphatically on course so long as the president’s blueprint is stashed on a high shelf at the Capitol. (His budget would make the across-the-board cuts unnecessary, administration officials say.) While the sequester would dictate a $16 billion cut from Medicare starting in January, it would mandate $39 billion in cuts from non-defense appropriations and $55 billion from the military. There is almost no way, politically, for lawmakers to clear legislation before the election that would unshackle themselves from those strictures — and even if they did, Obama says he’d veto it. But there’s only a slightly better chance that before Nov. 6 lawmakers will be capable of agreeing on the tough choices that would take the place of the across-the-board cuts. That is why the seven weeks between Election Day and New Year’s Day look to be among the least pleasant in post-election congressional history.
Feb 9th 2012, 14:31 by Lexington
WHY figure out a compromise when you can fight a full-fledged new battle in the culture wars? The growing conflict between the Obama administration and the Catholic bishops seems entirely unnecessary.
At first glance, it looks as if two principles are in collision. Barack Obama has taken the principled view that all women need affordable access to the full range of contraceptive services and products, including the morning-after pill that pro-lifers see as a form of abortion. So under the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") Catholic and other religiously affiliated schools, universities and hospitals (though not churches and places of worship) will in future have to ensure that the insurance policies they provide for their staff include these services at no extra cost to the recipient.
The bishops are standing on another principle. They say that requiring such institutions to buy such policies for their staff is asking them to act against their consciences and a violation of their religious freedom under the first amendment. This is a wonderful battle into which the absolutists on both sides of the culture wars have now merrily piled. The Republicans in particular suddenly have the evidence they previously lacked for their preposterous claim that the president is fighting a "war on religion".
Many secular laws trump religious beliefs (for example, Muslims in America may take only one wife). But in the present case, as a practical matter, are these two principles really impossible to reconcile? It is surely not beyond the wit of man to find a way to make sure that all women have affordable access to contraception without demanding that Catholic institutions do something they find morally repugnant by buying such policies directly. Why not have such institutions help their staff find outside providers who can offer the full range of contraceptive services? Or give employees in these institutions the option of buying insurance through the new Obamacare exchanges designed to help the self-employed?
True, this might entail some personal inconvenience to those who work in Catholic institutions. But as Michael McConnell, a professor of law at Stanford, points out, you do not go to a kosher butcher and ask for a pork chop. America is lucky to possess alongside its public institutions a rich ecosystem of universities, schools and hospitals that are mainly secular in function, and serve all faiths, but are animated by atmosphere of religious vocation. That is a public good worth preserving -- and my hunch, since this has become a conspicuous part of the Republican election campaign, is that the White House will indeed find a way.
UPDATE: There's a fuller treatment of this subject in this week's print column.
Feb 8th 2012, 17:01 by Lexington
I HESITATE to challenge all those pundits who have returned to their drawing boards in shock after Rick Santorum's trifecta in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado. His victories, and Mitt Romney's poor showing, were undoubtedly impressive. Even Nate Silver, the horse race's supreme quant, now argues in the New York Times that all expectations have been upended and the race could now drag on for a long time.
That so? I'm underwhelmed. As Mr Silver himself acknowledges, Mr Romney made the mistake of over-confidence after his victories in Florida and Nevada and kept his powder dry this week. Meanwhile, these results saw the continuing decline of Newt Gingrich. (I'm enjoying watching him gradually disappear, like the smile on the Cheshire Cat.) As for Mr Santorum, he benefits both from last-non-Romney-standing syndrome (Ron Paul is in a different sort of game) and an engaging genuineness.
The trouble with Mr Santorum being engagingly genuine is that he is genuine about a range of intolerant social beliefs that almost certainly make him unelectable. Nor can either he or Mr Gingrich deploy the scale of resources that are needed for Super-Tuesday on March 6th, when 11 states vote at once. It is true that this has been a bad week for Mr Romney. The results are a reminder of his lack of popularity with the conservative base. But the things that make him unpopular with the conservative base are the very things that make him the most electable challenger to Barack Obama -- and the Republican Party knows it. To my mind, he still has the nomination in the bag.
Feb 3rd 2012, 15:17 by Lexington
IT IS becoming ever harder to write stories about Israel and its dispute with the Palestinians without facing accusations of bias. The New York Times is a particular target. But this article in Haaretz by the excellent Chemi Shalev brims with good sense. Some extracts, but it's worth reading the whole thing:
When you take the population of various countries and divide it by the number of times they are mentioned in Google News, you get a measurable index of media coverage per number of people. A random check carried out this week showed that there is one citation on Google News for every 50,000 Chinese or Indians, 20,000 Bangladeshis, 8,000 Pakistanis, 5,000 Russians, 3,400 Egyptians (in the midst of horrific soccer riots) or 1200 Syrians (although the regime in Damascus is doing its best to improve its rankings by steadily decreasing the number of living Syrians). But it takes only 300 Israelis for each Google News item on Israel, clear proof that the country is being singled out for disproportionate coverage.
But is this disproportion really such a bad thing?
... disproportionate coverage of Israel is, in many ways, the flip side and the natural outgrowth of the disproportionate support that Israel enjoys, especially in America. And the “double standards” are but a consequence, aren’t they, of the “shared values” that Americans and Israelis love to boast about. And bias, you must admit, can cut both ways. After all, the very same people who detect no bias when Republican presidential hopefuls fall all over themselves swearing their undying love for Israel, who sense no double standards when Palestinians are suddenly cast as “invented people” and who see nothing disproportionate in the fact that the time and attention devoted to Israel in the Republican debates usually corresponds to two and a half Chinas, with a Europe and India thrown in for good measure – these are usually the very same people who go bananas over a random sentence in a Tom Friedman article, who a man the battle stations when a critical Roger Cohen column is published, who cry Eureka! over each and every anti-Israeli citation, in the process drawing attention to often obscure publications that no one would have heard of otherwise.
... there is something profoundly post-Zionist and even “unJewish,” if you will, in the demand that Israel be held to the same standards as Syria or Egypt or Sudan or France or Britain or even the United States for that matter. Israelis used to have higher expectations and to demand better of themselves but are now becoming increasingly resigned to being just like everyone else, no worse, perhaps, but not much better either. Israel wants to be treated as “a nation like all other nations,” which, Jews know better than most, is nothing to be proud of.
Jan 24th 2012, 16:40 by Lexington
FOR those lucky enough not to be on the list, here are the headlines of just a few of this morning's press mailings from the Romney and Gingrich campaigns:
"Romney's crony capitalism".
"Romney for President releases new video: 'Mr Washington Insider'".
"Newt Gingrich: part of the problem".
"Politifact: Newt Gingrich 'took pains to avoid being subject to the rules' of lobbying."
"Missing: Newt's Freddie Mac papers".
"Mitt Romney's Top Conservative Achievements". (This mailing from the Gingrich campaign is blank.)
"Romneycare and Obamacare: what's the difference"?
"New York Times: Gingrich 'did many of the things lobbyists do'".
"Fact: Newt lobbied lawmakers on Medicare Part D".
"NBC News: Gingrich contract with Freddie Mac leaves questions unanswered".
"Fact Sheet: Newt Gingrich's Ethics Investigation Vindication".
"A history lesson on Newt the historian".
"Mitt Romney: a decade of failed leadership".
Et cetera, ad infinitum and, some might say, ad nauseam.
Jan 19th 2012, 14:56 by Lexington
THE almost certain departure of Rick Perry from the Republican nomination race this morning was not a terrific surprise. The real wonder was why the Texas governor changed his mind about giving up after Iowa. And even before the Iowa caucuses it had become embarrassingly clear that he lacked the qualities required to run for president. Though his horrible "oops" moment in November (when he couldn't remember the third government department he wanted to abolish) was the beginning of the end, there was a lot more to it than that.
In a series of debates Mr Perry showed a comprehensive and unforgivable ignorance of the world beyond America. First he seemed hardly to have heard about the existence of Pakistan (or, as he put it, "the Pakistani country"). In New Hampshire last week he seemed to say on the spur of the moment that he would send American forces back into Iraq. And in this week's debate in South Carolina he claimed that Turkey's government was run by "terrorists". Little wonder that he decided to spare himself another ordeal at the Charleston debate tonight. You have to wonder why a man of such towering ignorance ever thought he had the right to aspire to the White House.
The media have to ask themselves some hard questions too. That includes me. In July I wrote a print column arguing that his long record of success in state elections and the narrative he could spin around Texas's record of job creation would make him a formidable candidate. All I can plead in mitigation was that I was not alone. But the moral here is that the leap from the politics of a state, even a huge one like Texas, to the national level is a vast one. He should have stayed at home, and we should have been better at judging him.
Jan 15th 2012, 17:35 by Lexington
HAVING overdosed on campaign events in New Hampshire, I decided to skip South Carolina's GOP debate and tea-party fest in Myrtle Beach this weekend and headed instead for the Palmetto state's conservative up-country. As the home of Bob Jones University, Greenville seemed a good place to start, and turns out to be a very pleasant place to visit. On the way here I was told by local journalists and academics that the town's Main Street shows hints of cosmopolitanism, thanks to the arrival in recent years of big foreign companies such as BMW, Michelin and Fujifilm. I was told that I might even hear foreign languages spoken on the street - hardly a rarity in much of America but still worth remarking on in the South Carolina up-country.
In the event, the first thing I stumbled upon at Liberty Bridge, which spans Greenville's Reedy River, was a rally of about 70 Ron Paul supporters. Convened by Facebook, they had no speaker but kept up a chant of "Ron Paul revolution/Legalise the constitution" and were rewarded every few minutes by the supportive honks of passing drivers. Aaron Bishop, an IT worker who had spent six years in the army, was holding a child in one arm and a placard in the other. He expressed total support for the whole spectrum of Paul positions: America could no longer afford its foreign military bases, the states needed more freedom from the federal government and the Fed had overseen a horrible decline in the value of the dollar.
David Woodard, a conservative political scientist (and sometimes Republican consultant) from Clemson University, who has co-authored a book on free speech with South Carolina's Jim DeMint, the Washington champion of the tea-party movement, told me somewhat ruefully that there was strong support for libertarian ideas among his students. In 2008 Paul had come first in a campus vote. But this is still a deeply conservative place. Woodard runs the Palmetto poll for the university and was not at all sure that Mitt Romney could win in South Carolina. His instinct is that despite being a Catholic, Rick Santorum is widey admired by South Carolina's evangelical Protestant voters for staying true in his personal life to his socially conservative principles. Yesterday's endorsement by a majority of evangelical leaders meeting in Texas will certainly help him.
This morning being Sunday, I took a walk through the back streets of Greenville, and within a matter of minutes had been beckoned into a church service. This was GraceChurch, described in a pamphlet in every pew as "a non-denominational elder-led church whose mission is to make mature followers of Jesus Christ by equipping them for a life of spiritual passion that impacts their home, the community, and the world for Jesus Christ". The large church was packed, mainly with young white couples, and when I entered the congregation was watching a troubled young man called Brandon explaining on a huge screen how after a long period of bad decisions he had at last saved himself by giving his life over to God. The pastor himself turned out to be not much older. Miked up and wearing blue jeans, with a guitar perched at his side, he explained how the broken, evanescent thing we call life on Earth was nothing like the true life everlasting of the Bible.
Later I thought I would ponder all this over a latte in the excellent, indeed funky coffee bar, Spill the Beans, I had discovered above Reedy River the previous day. No go. Spill the Beans was closed, having been commandeered by Origins Worship, a religious group that meets there every Sunday morning for prayer and teaching. God is hard to escape in the South Carolina up-country.
Dec 19th 2011, 18:22 by Lexington
I'M ON holiday, but can't resist flagging up a long post from my friend the Liberal Curmudgeon taking down Newt Gingrich's argument on politicians and the judiciary. The substance of his argument is here, and this is his delicious introduction:
Professor Gingrich was at it again last week flashing his Official Historian's Membership Badge, this time to explain why President Historian Gingrich, "just like Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and FDR," would "take on the judiciary."
Before examining the professor's historical analogies, could I point out that unlike, say, being a chemist, physician, lawyer, engineer, accountant, plumber, tree surgeon, piano tuner, or barber, being a "historian" means absolutely nothing in terms of professional qualifications or special expertise?
The leading GOP candidate keeps brandishing the title "historian" as if this uniquely qualifies him to hold forth with authority about the American political system. ("I would suggest to you actually, as a historian, I may understand this better than lawyers," he told reporters last week in reference to his pronouncement of the invalidity of two hundred years of legal precedent establishing the power of courts to consider the constitutionality of laws.)
Well, as someone who has slung history with the best of them, I can reveal a little secret: anyone who can read can be a historian. In fact, the more you read, the better a historian you can be. Which is where Professor Gingrich runs into trouble.
Dec 17th 2011, 15:24 by Lexington
ACCORDING to Gallup, most Americans are not looking forward to the 2012 election campaign. Though 26% can't wait for it to begin, fully 70% can't wait for it to be over. For my part, I can't wait for it to begin. From the point of view of a journalist covering such a race for the first time, there is a lot to look forward to: a chance to travel the USA widely, the clash of larger-than-life personalities, and, in this cycle, a race that really is too close to call. It also helps to be a foreigner. Writing about a country that is not your own provides a degree of detachment, a luxury that American journalists covering their own politics are seldom able to enjoy.
I also suspect that covering the election will be a bit more uplifting than was writing about the past year in Washington. A year ago, just before taking a Christmas break, I posted this:
Like Rome before it was sacked by the Visigoths, Washington, DC, does not know quite what to expect when the 112th Congress convenes in January and the new Republican majority takes over the House. But as a temporary denizen of the nation's capital I feel a great foreboding. Didn't the Republicans campaign all year "against Washington"? In the eyes of the tea-partiers, isn't this place the moral equivalent of Tolkien's Dark Tower of Barad-dur? To judge by what they say, some incoming Republicans see themselves as descendants of Hercules, sent by outraged voters to clean the filth from the Augean stables. I'm seeking Christmas refuge in London, a capital city whose feral mobs mostly confine their wrath to aristocrats in their Rolls-Royces. But I'll return courageously with more mixed metaphors in January.
It has been kind of bad, hasn't it? Next month a colleague will be covering the Iowa caucuses. My own campaign will kick off in New Hampshire on new year's eve. Until then I am on holiday in London, taking a deep breath. Happy holidays to everyone, whether or not they're looking forward to the year ahead.
Dec 9th 2011, 23:12 by Lexington
RICK PERRY is only human, so you might be inclined to overlook his inability to remember the name of one of the nine judges on the Supreme Court, and maybe also his ignorance of the fact that there are indeed nine judges and not eight (the latest excruciating video is here). But if he cannot remember those things, you do begin to wonder whether he is familiar enough with the jurisprudence of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to declare quite so dogmatically that they are "activist". Moreover, I'm finding it harder to feel much sympathy for the Texas governor since he he embarked on his unpleasant campaign against gays. His ad on gays is now one of the most-disliked videos on YouTube. For readers with the appetite, Vanity Fair has published an intriguing profile of the governor. Bottom line: he's less nice than he looks, but also more "resilient". I wonder.
Dec 9th 2011, 18:27 by Lexington
I KNOW I'm in danger of over-dosing. But if you can bear to read one more piece on Newt Gingrich this weekend, please, please read this.
Dec 8th 2011, 17:03 by Lexington
YOU have to hand it to Newt Gingrich: he's a great performer. Yesterday he wowed an audience at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington, DC. It was all there: a cascade of historical allusions, lots of dates and references, citations of Camus and Orwell, and political gimmicks galore. He now promises that if Barack Obama does not accept his challenge to seven three-hour presidential debates in the Lincoln-Douglas tradition, he will follow the president's every speaking engagement next year, four hours later, to put his own view. There was the usual grandiosity: Judeo-Christian civilisation, it seems, has morally disarmed itself in the face of the coming decades of "long war" with radical Islam. He promised to appoint the pugnacious John Bolton as secretary of state. No more Mr Nice Guy, appears to be the message Mr Gingrich intends to send the world. In short, he was in fine, confident, demagogic form. Like others, I've been guilty of underestimating him.
As for the substance, that's a separate question. It was depressing for this long-time watcher of the Middle East to watch one Republican candidate after another heap completely uncritical praise on Israel and set the Palestinians' grievances and aspirations entirely at naught. I am an ardent supporter of Israel's right to exist, but the Palestinians need a state too, and helping them to statehood is the only way for Israel to earn acceptance in the region. Meanwhile, as I argue in my print column this week, the actual situation in the wider region is highly precarious.
Dec 8th 2011, 16:12 by Lexington
LIKE most people, I'd been assuming that the Republican field for 2012 was now set, and that the race was henceforth a matter of subtraction, not addition. But such is the flexibility of the nominating system that this may not be true. Take a look at this. Rhodes Cook argues that the elongation of this year's primary timetable makes it theoretically possible for a new presidential candidate to enter late - in early February, say - and still collect enough delegates to win. Mr Cook is not making a prediction, only drawing attention to a possibilty. But he does point to scenarios in which it just might happen:
Should Mitt Romney stumble badly in the January events in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, another establishment Republican could enter the race in early February and still compete directly in states with at least 1,200 of the 2,282 or so GOP delegates. Many of them will be up for grabs after April 1 when statewide winner-take-all is possible. Similarly, should non-Romney alternatives led by Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry fall flat in the January contests, there would be time for the conservative wing of the party to find a new champion to carry its banner through the bulk of the primary season.
Dec 7th 2011, 16:16 by Lexington
I WILL have more to say on the speech Barack Obama gave yesterday in Kansas. It seems he will be putting fairness at the heart of his re-election narrative. That's just fine: it's surely important to consider whether a society's legal and economic arrangements are fair. But this emphasis on fairness reminded me of a point I made more than a decade ago when I was The Economist's "Bagehot" columnist, writing about British politics, and Britain's then chancellor, Gordon Brown, decided that he too would bang on about fairness. My point was that fairness is in the eye of the beholder. It's a much fuzzier idea than equality, which has more explanatory value but is also more dangerous in political discourse. Sometimes, talk of fairness is a way to dodge the harder but necessary discussion about equality, and whether, and how much, governments should strive to impose it.
With apologies to American readers for any British parochialism:
Look at how Gordon Brown opened his speech. This, he said, was a budget for a “new economy” and a “new century”. It would end a century of “sterile debate” between left and right .... But was the century of debate between left and right really all that “sterile”? Only if you accept Mr Brown’s version of what the debate was about. He says that the argument was between “enterprise” and “fairness”, and that New Labour has ended this enervating quarrel by the simple expedient of declaring that both things matter after all. But this version of the past century’s quarrel is not quite accurate. The quarrel was not about fairness, it was about equality. And these words have different meanings.
Parliament contains a small awkward squad of Labour types, such as Lord Hattersley, Ken Livingstone and Tony Benn, who still dare to speak the language of equality. It is no surprise that the government itself prefers the word fairness. Whereas equality is a strong political idea whose meaning is clear, fairness (as any follower of the debate between “fair” and “free” trade will attest) is marvellously slippery. You know where an egalitarian government is coming from, what it wants to do and why it wants to do it. There are clear arguments to be made in favour of equality (relief of poverty, the encouragement of social cohesion); but there are also clear arguments to be made against imposing it (this is unnatural, unattainable, suppresses initiative, attempts self-defeatingly to create a sense of brotherhood by coercion). “Fairness”, by contrast, is a label a government can slap on pretty much any policy it chooses. Equality is measurable, fairness in the eye of the beholder. The left thought equality was fair; the right thought inequality was fair.
Thought? Still think, surely. Of the separate meanings of equality, only one has become uncontroversial: that for all their unequal endowments, people have equal worth: “A man’s a man for a’ that,” said Robbie Burns. Otherwise, far from being sterile, the debate about equality should have become more urgent with growing affluence. Once the state has rooted out absolute poverty, how much wealth, if any, should it confiscate to reduce inequality for its own sake? How much should it curtail individual freedoms—to purchase extra education, to pass on an inheritance—so that people have an equal chance in life? Is there some level beyond which inequality cannot be stretched without snapping the bonds that hold people together?
Whatever the answer, these are questions a government should frame clearly, not bury in the obfuscation of “fairness”. Still less should a budget be so subtle that nobody can divine whether, why or how much a government believes in redistribution. Mr Brown has his admirable preoccupations: to wean the unemployed off welfare and into work, to make work pay, to increase educational opportunity. But what he thinks more broadly about equality is a fog. Sometimes it suits him to pose as an instinctive egalitarian, held back only by the need not to frighten the middle class. At other times he basks in his reputation as the Labour chancellor who runs capitalism better than the Tories. Wonder about this apparent conflict and you will be told that these are no longer mutually exclusive alternatives. New Labour is the promoter of enterprise and (that flexible word) fairness alike, the previously perceived conflict between these things, which fired people up for a century, having now been revealed on closer inspection to have been “sterile” all along. This is brilliant politics, but it impoverishes political debate.
Dec 6th 2011, 16:24 by Lexington
SINCE when did a statement of the bleeding obvious become a sacking offence? Howard Gutman, America's ambassador in Belgium is under fire for having said that some of the rising anti-Semitism in the Muslim world is the product of the conflict in Palestine. Newt Gingrich—shocked, shocked—has called for the ambassador's dismissal. But nobody who has travelled in the Muslim world with even half an ear open can seriously deny that the ambassador is completely right. Many Muslims hate Israel, and since Israel is the Jewish state they extend this hatred to Jews to at large.
It is important to note, as does a careful analysis in Salon, that Mr Gutman did not condone this new form of anti-Semitism. He made a distinction between two forms of anti-Semitism. First, the old form:
There is and has long been some amount of anti-Semitism, of hatred and violence against Jews, from a small sector of the population who hate others who may be different or perceived to be different, largely for the sake of hating. Those anti-Semites are people who hate not only Jews, but Muslims, gays, gypsies, and likely any who can be described as minorities or different. That hatred is of course pernicious and it must be combated. We can never take our eye off it or just dismiss it as fringe elements or the work of crazy people, because we have seen in the past how it can foment and grow.
Next, the new form:
It is the problem within Europe of tension, hatred and sometimes even violence between some members of Muslim communities or Arab immigrant groups and Jews. It is a tension and perhaps hatred largely born of and reflecting the tension between Israel, the Palestinian Territories and neighboring Arab states in the Middle East over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian problem.
The ambassador then adds:
It too is a serious problem. It too must be discussed and solutions explored. No Jewish student – and no Muslim student or student of any heritage or religion – should ever feel intimidated on a University campus for their heritage or religion leading to academic leaders quitting in protest. No high school or grammar school Jewish student – and no Muslim high school or grammar school student or student of any heritage or religion – should be beaten up over their heritage or religion. But this second problem is in my opinion different in many respects than the classic bigotry – hatred against those who are different and against minorities generally — the type of anti-Semitism that I discussed above. It is more complex and requiring much more thought and analysis. This second form of what is labeled “growing anti-Semitism” produces strange phenomena and results.
You see a problem with this? Nor do I. The ambassador is condoning neither version of ant-Semitism. What is always reprehensible, however, is for someone to use the wicked actions of a few members of some religious group as a reason to discriminate against the group as a whole. This, you may remember, was what Mr Gingrich did over the so-called 9/11 mosque affair, when, in the mother of all non-sequiturs, he argued that American Muslims should not be allowed to build a mosque in Manhattan until Saudi Arabia allowed Christians and Jews to build churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia.
Tomorrow Mr Gingrich will spell out his views on the Middle East to a group of Jewish Republicans. As a Jew (like Ambassador Gutman), permit me to say: Oy Vay.
UPDATE: For an Israeli view, see this article on how Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's war hero and former prime minister, also thought that the Palestine conflict fed anti-Semitism.
Dec 5th 2011, 21:16 by Lexington
LOVELY sunsets, golden wheat, classical music. What's not to like about Newt Gingrich's America?
Dec 5th 2011, 20:51 by Lexington
IF THERE'S one thing Republican politicians agree about it is that they should repeal the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare". But as Ruy Teixeira of the Centre for American Progress notes today, that might not be the vote-winner they hope it will be. The latest numbers from the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll suggest that although more Americans (44%) oppose the law than favour it (37%), "by majorities ranging from 57% to 84%, they approve of almost all provisions included in the law". The sole exception is the individual mandate to purchase insurance, where just 35% are in favour.
Now it may well be that the Supreme Court will strike down the individual mandate on the ground that it is unconstitutional. Failing that, the Republicans say they will repeal it. But would they also repeal the rules that help poorer Americans to buy health insurance, require employers with more than 50 employees to offer health cover to their staff, and prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions? According to Kaiser, most Americans approve of these and other aspects of Obamacare. For reasons I've never completely understood, the Democrats made little effort before the mid-terms of November 2010 to explain or to defend the law on which they had expended so much time, energy and political capital. They just assumed it was a loser. They should consider trying harder in next year's campaign.
Dec 3rd 2011, 19:18 by Lexington
I DID no wrong but I'm off anyway. That in a nutshell was what Herman Cain said in announcing the "suspension" of his presidential campaign today and his adoption of "Plan B". Your blogger has no idea whether the always likeable former candidate was guilty of the charges of harassment and adultery laid against him. But if they were untrue, it shows an odd lack of mettle to have given up because of them. If they were untrue, you would think, his wife Gloria could have stood by her man and let him fight on.
Now we await Mr Cain's promised endorsement. He says he won't be endorsing an insider. That ought to rule out Newt Gingrich, who has made a career by leveraging his connections inside the beltway. But who then? Mitt Romney, former governor and present plutocrat, is no outsider. Jon Huntsman has had a more or less identical career. Michele Bachmann is a member of Congress, as is Ron Paul. Rick Santorum was a senator. Rick Perry is still a governor.
One jarring note in Mr Cain's closing remarks. Yet again, the complaint (implied on this occasion) that Barack Obama has as president been "apologising" for America. Mr Romney went so far as to call a recent book he wrote "No Apology". I consider this just one of those irritating lies about the president that his detractors hope to establish as truths by the mere act of repetition. Another one is the nonsense about Mr Obama not believing in American exceptionalism. Mr Obama has plenty of faults and made plenty of mistakes. These two happen not to be among them
Dec 3rd 2011, 18:18 by Lexington
GEORGE WILL on top form. I especially liked this:
Gingrich, who would have made a marvelous Marxist, believes everything is related to everything else and only he understands how. Conservatism, in contrast, is both cause and effect of modesty about understanding society’s complexities, controlling its trajectory and improving upon its spontaneous order. Conservatism inoculates against the hubristic volatility that Gingrich exemplifies and Genesis deplores: “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.”
Dec 1st 2011, 22:05 by Lexington
THE Web has upended almost everything. Why not the procedure for nominating a president? If you haven't already seen it, I recommend a visit to the website of Americans Elect, the outfit that intends to hold a nominating convention online next June, and put its presidential candidate on the ballot in all 50 states. There are objections to this idea, some of which I look at in my print column this week. Some see it as little more than a vehicle for Michael Bloomberg, should the New York mayor decide to run. But the idea is ingenious, and will have an impact on the race, even if it is not the impact it intended.
Dec 1st 2011, 21:44 by Lexington
LOVE him or loathe him, Newt Gingrich has changed the terms of trade in the debate on illegal immigration. His assertion that those who have spent long periods of time in the United States, attend a church or have brought up children here could not simply be chucked out is a welcome softening of the general Republican stance. As to the numbers, the Pew Hispanic Centre has just published a useful study of how many undocumented residents would be eligible for the Gingrich-style mercy.
The bottom line is that nearly two-thirds of the 10.2m unauthorised adult immigrants in the United States have lived in this country for at least ten years and nearly half are parents of minor children. About 45% attend religious services on at least a weekly basis, though it beats me why this should be a criterion.
Dec 1st 2011, 21:26 by Lexington
NOT the speediest of recoveries, but graceful ...
Nov 27th 2011, 15:01 by Lexington
HAVING made no secret of my own doubts about Newt Gingrich, I doff my cap to the candidate for having picked up the important endorsement of the New Hampshire Union Leader. They believe he will provide "the innovative, forward-looking strategy and positive leadership" needed by an America "at a crucial crossroads":
Newt Gingrich is by no means the perfect candidate. But Republican primary voters too often make the mistake of preferring an unattainable ideal to the best candidate who is actually running. In this incredibly important election, that candidate is Newt Gingrich. He has the experience, the leadership qualities and the vision to lead this country in these trying times. He is worthy of your support on January 10.
The Union Leader's endorsement is much sought after, though it remains to be seen whether it will dent Mitt Romney's lead in the Granite State. What strikes me most is how thin the paper's argument is. It implies that the former Speaker rather than the president deserves all the credit for the budget successes of the Clinton years and says nothing at all about the regiment of skeletons camping in Mr Gingrich's closet. Mr Romney will no doubt soon be filling in the gaps.
Nov 16th 2011, 18:05 by Lexington
HENRY OLSEN, a shrewd analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, has been arguing for a while that the Republicans are taking the votes of the white working class for granted as 2012 approaches. Now the Ohio recall referendum has given him some fresh ammunition. His key points (the whole piece is here):
The GOP base voter believes the deficit is as large a problem as the economy; the white working-class independent does not. The GOP base voter believes cutting entitlements is necessary to cut the deficit and that taxes on the rich should not be raised; the white working-class independent disagrees. The GOP base voter wants to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan; the white working-class independent wants to come home. The GOP base voter scorns Occupy Wall Street; the white working-class independent thinks the Occupiers have something of a point ...
... Despite all their advantages, Republicans won only 52 percent of the popular vote in the House last year. They achieved this total because of their record-high 63 percent to 33 percent margin of victory among the white working class. In other words, if the Republican nominee’s share of the white working-class vote slips below 60 percent, there is virtually no chance he will get a majority of the national popular vote in 2012. If the share slips closer to McCain’s 58 percent in 2008, Obama’s reelection is assured.
Mr Olsen also argues that Mitt Romney might be the candidate least able to fix the problem, and, in a separate piece, that Newt Gingrich has hit an enduring "sweet spot" among Republican voters. On that, I disagree, as this week's print column will argue.
In this blog, our Lexington columnist enters America’s political fray and shares the many opinions that don't make it into his column each week. The column and blog are named after Lexington, Massachusetts, where the first shots were fired in the American war of independence.
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