Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Andrew Sullivan is not conservative, no matter how much he or the media likes to claim he is.  He started out libertarian with some rightish leanings and had a full-on David Brock-style conversion to leftist identity politics over GWB’s opposition to gay marriage.  His policy positions since then have not deviated significantly from the DNC party line.

A lot of conservative support is also due to white guilt.  This is especially true when referring to those like Charles Murray and Peggy Noonan.  These individuals want to go out of their way to prove that they are not racists.  They buy into the peculiar idea that Barack Obama will unite America.  It is my adamant conviction that his whole campaign revolves around the manipulation of guilt tripped whites.

To me, there’s almost nothing worse in the realm of politics than somebody who pushes vigorously for a war and then pulls support for that war when it proves a tougher slog than they’d bargained for.

It reminds me of that old JFK quote that “Victory has a thousand fathers.  Defeat is an orphan.” Well, I can sympathize with principled opposition to the Iraq War.  I’ll take Obama at his word that he disagreed with it from the get-go (though I wonder if he’d have voted present had he been in the Senate at the time).

But people like Andrew Sullivan, Chuck Hagel, Joe Biden, John Edwards, John Kerry, and (yes) William F. Buckley (RIP) make my blood boil.

Whatever happened to the virtue of finishing what you (at least helped to) start?  The time for choosing whether to oppose or support a war is when it’s being planned and debated.  Men are being sent off to kill and die in service of something—that’s not exactly the kind of thing where you eventually do your best Gilda Radner impersonation and say “Never mind!”

If you have issues with the execution of the war you supported, then the proper way of airing your criticisms is the way John McCain did:  say what you think is being done wrong, either privately or publicly, and work to make it better.

I can’t read Andrew Sullivan anymore.  And that pains me, because he can be insightful.  But he completely lost my respect when he vociferously and lucidly advocated for a war that he himself wasn’t prepared to see through to successful completion.

Scott, unwillingness to persevere through difficulty has nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with Sully’s (or my) turning against this war.  We both supported the war initially because we made the colossal mistake of believing President Bush about Iraq:  WMD’s, involvement in the 9/11 plot, connections to Al-Qaeda.  I believed all of it, as did Sully.  Finding out that every last word of it was false turned us against the war, and for that matter against the Bush Administration altogether.

Prof. Bainbridge, I’ll take you up on your bet, because I believe Obama is smarter than President Bush, smarter in two specific ways:

1) Obama employs advisors who present a wide range of viewpoints that he doesn’t necessarily share.  He wants to hear alternative views, and doesn’t fire people for disagreeing with him.

2) Obama is willing to admit when he is wrong, and when he discovers that he is wrong he will not pigheadedly persist in his wrongness hoping that it will someday magically turn right.

What do you want to bet?

I don’t see how the bet you propose really captures it.  Conservatives who, like Obama, opposed the war from the beginning (or now wish they had) could justifiably take that shared opposition as a proxy for for judgment, level-headedness, sound non-interventionist instincts, or what have you even if all the major presidential candidates proposed to do exactly the same thing going forward.  Of course, the leading candidates propose no such thing.  Conservatives who think the war as it’s being fought today should be brought to an end as quickly as possible would still be justified in their support for Obama so long as he favors a smaller American commitment at the margin. 

Is there a wide expectation among conservatives who support Obama that he will end the war immediately and leave no combat troops in Iraq?  I haven’t seen evidence of this, though I understand it was the source of some measure of support for Ron Paul, who just might have.

Joel, Bush never once said that Iraq was involved in 9/11. Not once, ever. He spoke of Saddam’s terrorist connections, not Al Qaeda connections. And, as it turns out, Saddam did in fact have connections to many terrorist groups,including AQ. If you read the actual Pentagon report that was recently released, and not just the media interpretation of it, Saddam was supporting branches of AQ, although they probably didn’t work on any ops together.

I don’t want to rehash here all the 2003 stuff. I understand legitimate opposition to the war, but your basing some of your dislike of Bush on things that didn’t even happen.

I think you have to vote on how you think the candidate will perform from now going foward.  Whose idea of objectives you agree with.  I don’t think Obama cares what happens in Iraq, as he clearly could care less about fighting the war on drug dealers and at least helping our ally in South America with something as easy as a trade agreement.  Which jobs are we going to lose to Columbia, oh and which jobs did we lose to Mexico.  His and Hillary’s anti-Nafta vote is ludicrous.

It is interesting that Congress called for the conflict in Iraq and I still understand exactly why they did and find that the Congressional leadership depended very little on recent evidence from the Bush Administration.  That document starts by looking at 1991 and building from there, which is at least a couple of geological ages in the political environment.  Fascinating reading, that… still is, really, not that anyone actually bothers to read the document that sets the Nation to war.

Looking at the history of warfare I recognized that this was a small forces operation, similar in size and scope to the US experience in the Philippines (1901-11) and Haiti (1915-34).  Those offer extreme studies in contrast with the first being messy, horrific and generally successful (although the folks on Mindanao still have some hard feelings about not getting independence).  The second was done by the book, with lots of pre-planning and political oversight all over the place.  And failed.

The actual hard fighting, as in main force opponents organized into divisions and such, was going to be fast as the RG was not much of a fighting force.  After that would be the messy part...and what Congress required was something on the order of performing a miracle with one hand tied behind your back while skipping rope and juggling chainsaws.  It was a laundry list that required *Congressional Support* and did not get it.  Thus, like in the Philippines and Haiti we went to do it on the cheap.

And there are complaints?  About the stingiest, least grateful, least understanding Congress in history that sends the fighting forces out with brave words and no backing?  And a booming economy to boot?  Battlefield decisions and grand tactical decisions are one thing… lacking the logistics backing of your Nation is quite another.  As Rep. Murtha pointed out in the earl 1990’s, it is up to Congress to make sure the armed forces are supplied… even with things the President didn’t ask for.  So where were these brave backers of our armed forces that sit Upon the Hill?  Oh… they *criticized* how things weren’t going well due to the lack of things they were to supply.

Even if you disagreed with what sent us to war, at least, if the Nation does send its citizens to fight, we can supply them properly, no?

Now that we are outperforming average time to the half-life of a COIN campaign, far and above the expectations of everyone involved, I expect that we are on a decent timeline to regularization of ties to Iraq as an independent Nation.  Does 60-80,000 troops sound right for 2010?  Depends on what Iran, Syria and a few independent actors in various criminal and terrorist organizations *do*, now, doesn’t it?  Because those two neighbors are not what I would classify as being in a stable position.  Strange how no one mentions these outside factors as determining events… we can only do what we can to help Iraq stand up and fend for itself.  If we dare to hope that democracy can change the outlooks of people who have never had it, we may survive… if we run from that sort of hope and change, then we deserve what is coming to us, cowards to stand up for the founding ideals of the Nation.

stace, Bush never said Iraq had a role in 9/11.  Cheney did, more than once.  And many of their subordinates, and many of their lapdogs in the conservative media.  If Bush didn’t agree with this, why didn’t he say so?  Likewise for the AQ connections, which they claimed existed, but which didn’t at any significant level (as you acknowledge, they “didn’t work on any ops together").

Your, and many other Republicans’, attempts to relieve the Bush Adminstration of responsibility for their many and repeated lies about Iraq during the runup to the war (and for that matter *during* the war) are the reason that the R party is in decline today.  It is hard to imagine how any political movement in a free country could discredit itself more thoroughly than the R’s have done under President Bush.

I, myself, changed my voter registration from R to I five years ago, and then from I to D this year.  Not just because of President Bush, but because of the R party’s total willingness to follow him over a cliff.  Your posting illustrates the problem.

So an anti-Iraq war conservative should do what?  Vote for McCain?  What would the bet be on force levels then?

But at least with Obama the STRATEGY changes - McCain has no strategy for Iraq - just talking points on tactics.

With Obama there is a chance of a responsible withdrawal.  With “My frieds, there are going to be other wars” MCCain there is the likelyhood of more misadventures.

You’ve certainly focused on the key issue: is there a material difference between McCain and Obama on foreign policy?  If I am convinced there is, I might actually vote for Obama. If not, either McCain or the Libertarians.

Ian S. is spot on about Sullivan not being a conservative. No person who has slavishly embraced the Obama campaign like he has can be considered “conservative”. He may have a personal conservatism, but from an ideological standpoint, he is about as “conservative” as the publisher of HUSTLER magazine. He has allowed his gay marriage bile and his issues on the Iraq War/gays in uniform push him progressively more leftward. These days, he inhabits the same neighborhood on the ideological spectrum as Tony Blair, and not Margaret Thatcher (his supposed heroine). Stop putting him in the same orbit as someone like Buckley or Goldwater!!

Who’s less likely to have troops in Iran in 2010?

I’m sincerely conservative. Running an empire is not.

That’s why I’d vote for a pile of dog crap rather than anyone with Republican behind his name in 2008

Jeff, Sully believes in limited government, strong defence, and free trade.  He opposes abortion and believes that the free market is more trustworthy than any government.

He also supports gay rights, for reasons that spring readily to mind if you know his biography.  And he opposes the Iraq war.

I would argue that opposing the Iraq war is more conservative than supporting it (since we have no vital national interest there) though obviously others may differ on that point.

But if those two deviations from conservative orthodoxy are all it takes for a man to be compared to Larry Flynt, then Reagan’s big tent is truly gone.

(This is from an email I sent over to Glenn Reynolds after seeing this post mentioned there, which I thought I might replicate here as well)

With regards to your post about Professor Bainbridge’s proposed bet on troop levels in Iraq, it turns out that Intrade already has betting markets on a Democrat/non-Democrat being president and US troop levels in Iraq on 30 June 2010:

http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/common/c_cd.jsp?conDetailID=565198&z=1207605951435
http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/common/c_cd.jsp?conDetailID=565199&z=1207605996872

The contract defaults to 0 if a Democrat or non-Democrat (respectively) is not elected President, otherwise it gives a pay-out of NumberOfTroops/2000.

Currently DEM.PRES-TROOPS.IRAQ has a price of 42.5, while NONDEM.PRES-TROOPS.IRAQ has a price of 33.2. Intrade’s contracts on the presidential election are giving an estimated probability of 0.591 of a Democratic president, 0.408 for a Republican president. If I’m doing my math correctly, that means the market estimates that if a Democrat is elected, (42.5 / .591) * 2 000 = 143,824 US troops will be in Iraq in 2010. If a non-Democrat is elected, an estimated (33.2 / 0.408) * 2 000 = 162,745 troops will remain.

There’s also some interesting contracts on the presidential winner and oil futures, government debt, etc. It’s worth noting though that these
particular contracts are still fairly low-volume, so their estimates may not be as accurate as some of the more popular contracts.

Joel, for the record, I was never a fan of Iraq. I have spent the last few years of my Army career seeing that meat grinder psychologically eviscerate too many off my friends, and for that reason alone, I hope Karma settles the score with the folks behind it.

As for Sully being for gay rights, so what? Does that earn im some sort of medal? I’m gay and in uniform (until August, then I put the party clothes away), and I know having talked with a lot of my fellow service members who are gay (and on the right ideologically) that the majority of them really wish Sully would shut the hell up about us. He goes on these self-righteous rants about discrimination against gays in the military, yet he’s never lived our lives, he will never know the sacrifices we have had to make--not just for this nation, but also to ourselves in having to box away a part of our psyches. When he beats his chest and goes on about how wrong it is, me and a lot of my gay military friends just wish that he and the rest of these gay pundits would shut up, because at the end of the day, we see most of them as poseurs.

His contortionistic defense of Obama at every turn is nauseating (the flaccid speech Obama gave about Rev. Wright was praised by Sully, although if you actually pay attention to the text, Obama was VERY much trying to change the subject). Since Sully has a Ph.D, I know the man is not stupid, so he should know that the majority of Obama’s policy proposals are securely on the left of the spectrum. A conservative really should not be advocating those viewpoints, yet a supposed one is. Sully in my mind (and at this stage in his life) is nothing more than Arianna Huffington with male genitalia--an ideological opportunist with the constancy of a wind sock.

Finally, if my Larry Flynt analogy offended you, too bad. Get over it, my dear.

Joel,

I certainly can’t speak to your feelings.  But Andrew’s were published, regularly, as he shifted from one of the most vociferous defenders of the war on the Internet to somebody who favors a precipitous retreat.  So I can speak quite intelligently to his transformation—and I can say categorically (and can defend with direct quotes) that it had nothing to do with “believing President Bush about” WMDs, Iraqi involvement with 9/11, etc.

You’re just flat wrong on that.  In truth, his souring began with Abu Ghraib, and it progressed from there.  Again, his writings are still archived out there for anybody to read—I suggest you read them (he’s not anti-abortion, either...so you’re obviously less familiar with him than you let on).

Go read the column Chuck Hagel and Joe Biden co-wrote in the WaPo prior to the invasion—warning people that it would be a tough slog and that it would require perseverance.  A lot of the war’s initial supporters should have heeded that advice, including its authors.

Scott, you are correct re: Abu Ghraib.  I should have mentioned that but forgot.  Abu Ghraib was indeed a crucial ingredient in both my and Sully’s transformations from Bush supporters to Bush opponents.

So I guess the ingredient list for our transformations looks like this, in order of priority:

1) Lies.  (WMD’s, 9/11, AQ)
2) Torture.  (Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, secret sites)
3) Ineptitude.  (Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, the economy, Social Security, immigration, climate change, Homeland Security, TSA, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Meiers - damned near everything Bush has touched)

Others can quibble about what order to place these things, and I am thoroughly familiar with the sickening Republican arguments that torture is justified and shouldn’t be on the list at all.  At any rate, these are the main reasons that Sully and I turned against the Iraq war and against the Bush Administration.

Bottom line:  it wasn’t because the war was difficult.

Those of us who don’t see “gay marriage” on the list are quite amused at the attempts to C-Andy’s-A.  He started turning about 10 seconds after Bush told Diane Sawyer that he’d sign the federal marriage amendment.

No matter, everyone knows the deal with St. Andrew.  He is, after all, spokesman for “conservatives in favor of a dollar tax hike per gallon of gasoline, John Kerry, Barack Obama, gay marriage, and the legalization of anabolic steroid usage”. 

Quite the collection of “conservatives” that he leads.  What, twelve people?

Whoops, I must’ve been “vile” towards St. Andrew.  Time for a self-congratulatory ‘a reader writes” segment.