Michael Tomasky's blog | Comment is free

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} // ]]> </script> <ul id="blog-posts-excerpts"> <li class="first date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Friday 10 July 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/10/sarah-palin-peggy-noonan-journal" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky takes a look at Peggy Noonans column about Sarah Palin}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">And before we sign off for the weekend, back to you-know-who</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>I really wasn't going to write anymore this week about ______, but lo and behold here comes Peggy Noonan - Peggy Noonan! - today with an absolutely <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124716984620819351.html">paint-peeling column</a> in the Journal about her. You must must must read it.<br/> <br/>She structures the column quasi-catechismically, starting most paragraphs with a facile assertion made on ______'s behalf by her defenders and then reducing it to shards. This one is probably the most delicious:</p><blockquote><p>"Now she can prepare herself for higher office by studying up, reading in, boning up on the issues." Mrs. Palin's supporters have been ordering her to spend the next two years reflecting and pondering. But she is a ponder-free zone. She can memorize the names of the presidents of Pakistan, but she is not going to be able to know how to think about Pakistan. Why do her supporters not see this? Maybe they think "not thoughtful" is a working-class trope! </p></blockquote><p>Bravo, Margaret. I haven't much to add, either to that (especially since I made much the same point earlier this week!) or to this thought in an email from a friend, who puts it very insightfully:</p><blockquote><p>It's interesting that no one seems to hate Palin with more gleeful intensity than Kathleen Parker and Peggy Noonan... You wouldn't think that there was much more to say about Palin, but never has the point that Palin is not "working class," but someone's clumsy idea of working class, been said so clearly, in rebuttal to Douthat, Kristol, etc. It's as if these two conservative women (who can both be a little wacky) have the skeleton key to the whole sexual and class politics of the GOP right.</p></blockquote><p>So true, so true. In contrast, I was rather surprised this week to discover that Matthew Continetti, a young conservative at the Weekly Standard magazine who's generally regarded as being in the possible-heirs-to-David-Brooks camp (thoughtful, NPR-approved conservative), is evidently <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/09/continetti.palin.career/?iref=mpstoryview">coming out with a book</a> next spring called "The Persecution of Sarah Palin." <br/> <br/>Hey, cash in while you can. People will forget eventually. Dana Milbank wrote one of the most ignorant political books in <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/02/books/books-of-the-times-on-the-campaign-trail-but-not-after-election-day.html?scp=8&sq=%20Dana%20Milbank%20&st=cse">recent American history</a>, and today he's the toast of the Washington MSM. NPR execs will someday offer Continetti's airtime as proof of their "open-mindedness."</p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/10/sarah-palin-peggy-noonan-journal?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky takes a look at Peggy Noonans column about Sarah Palin}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-350122485 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">21.07 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/10/audra-shay-young-republicans" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Why Audra Shay is the perfect choice to lead the Young Republicans}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">She sounds perfect to me</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>It seems that the national Young Republicans group is convened in Indianapolis, preparing for tomorrow's big vote on the group's next leader. It further seems that the front-runner is one Audra Shay, a 38-year-old (young? There's hope for me!) Louisianan.<br/> <br/><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://gawker.com/5311792/young-republican-leader-audra-shay-is-crazy-illiterate-racist?skyline=true&s=x I">Via Gawker,</a> see that Audra has quite a knack for the witticism. One shimmering example:<br/> <br/></p><blockquote><p> The story, as of Monday: a Facebook friend of Audra commented, "obama bin lauden is the new terrorist....muslim is on there side .....need to take this country back from all these mad coons.......and illegals." And Audra responded: "You tell em Eric! lol." <br/>Audra unfriended some people who complained about her reaction, but not racist Eric himself. </p></blockquote><p><br/>At the Daily Beast, <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-10/the-gops-young-hatemonger/">John Avlon has a good deal more</a>. Here's one worthy of Swift or Wilde, I'm sure you'll agree:<br/></p><blockquote><p>In October 2008, in the wake of news that an effigy of Sarah Palin was being hung outside an affluent Hollywood home as an offensive Halloween decoration, Shay replied, returning to the "LOL" style that she employed after the "coons" comment: "What no 'Obama in a noose? Come on now, its just freedome [sic] of speech, no one in Atlanta would take that wrong! Lol."</p></blockquote><p><br/>As you might expect, a woman of such rare gifts of drollery is also a consummate master of the language. Here's a riposte she fired off to a Facebook dissenter:<br/></p><blockquote><p> "I think that you are ignorant if you believe this man is anything but anti american. He freely rights [sic] about Marxist philosophies. I never called him a terrorist, but if his policies are socialist (which they are) then what would you call him? His actions speak very loudly and his actions are very anti american. You just can not get past it. You might not like it but the truth is what it is." </p></blockquote><p><br/>You get the picture. Avlon reports that Shay appears to have already locked in the support of more than enough delegates needed to win the post. There is a rump movement hoping to push her out of the race or defeat her, but that group is evidently facing challenges:<br/></p><blockquote><p>At least one state delegation has called for Shay's resignation from the race, but ugly anonymous emails about her chief rival's support for same-sex civil unions have been circulated online to stem the tide (no word on how this jibes in young conservatives' eyes with Dick Cheney's support of gay marriage).</p></blockquote><p><br/>So this will be worth watching. Frankly, I don't see the controversy. Sounds to me as if she represents modern conservative values magnificently and she's perfect to head the Young Republicans. In fact I hereby endorse her! All the way with Shay.</p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/10/audra-shay-young-republicans?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Why Audra Shay is the perfect choice to lead the Young Republicans}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-350121059 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">19.43 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/10/barack-obama-photo-g8" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Did Barack Obama look at a young ladys backside at the G8?}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">And this is supposed to hurt politically?</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>There's a bit of hubbub over whether Obama, in the<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.buzzfeed.com/akdobbins/obama-looks-doesnt-touch"> instantly famous picture</a> really was checking out that young lady's backside. Drudge is running big with it, under the (I admit) funny headline "Second Stimulus Package!"<br/> <br/>However,<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/?id=2922741&ref=fpblg"> if you at the video</a>, not just the still, things get a bit murkier. It seems he may merely have been looking down at some steps.</p><p>In either case, I have trouble seeing the political problem here. Especially in the former case. I don't quite get why Drudge is trumpeting this.</p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/10/barack-obama-photo-g8?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Did Barack Obama look at a young ladys backside at the G8?}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-350109249 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">16.52 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/10/john-ensign-mistress-parents-gift" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{John Ensigns parents give his mistress and her family a hundred grand}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">I guess you never stop being your parents' kid</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>Amusing news here that John Ensign, the GOP's latest aide-shtupping solon, shanghaied his parents into <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.rollcall.com/news/36646-1.html ">paying the woman</a> and her family $96,000.<br/> <br/>First of all, this looks a little bit legally or ethically funny, or at least cheesy, as we Yanks say. The parents wrote just one check, for the above amount. Yet somehow or other it got divvied into eight payments of $12,000 each. Why? Because $12,000 is, under IRS rules, the maximum allowable cash "gift" that is exempt from federal taxes. <br/> <br/>Elderly parents trying to spend down their estates give such gifts to their grown children all the time. But this is a somewhat unusual application of the practice. <br/> <br/>The piece I linked to above quotes a criminal attorney as saying the gifts are legal. However there may be a catch. The gifts were made to the mistress, her husband (a former Ensign employee), and their two children. That's fine on the surface, but the IRS looks askance at such spreading of the wealth if it can be determined that in fact, the money was really intended for a single beneficiary, but spread around simply to avoid tax liability. How does this smell in that light?<br/> <br/>And second: what kind of 51-year-old man lets his parents pay his mistress a hundred grand? Sheesh. </p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/10/john-ensign-mistress-parents-gift?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{John Ensigns parents give his mistress and her family a hundred grand}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-350109046 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">16.48 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/10/happy-birthday-tesla" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky: The great Tesla}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">The great Tesla</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>I see there's a nice (unbylined) <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jul/10/tesla-electricity-inventor-birthday-anniversary">piece </a>in today's Guardian about the legacy of the great Nikola Tesla, who was born on this date in 1856.</p><p>Tesla is quite fashionable these days, what with a rock band and an innovative car maker bearing his name, but I knew him when. </p><p>You see, I'm Serbian on my father's side (go ahead, start in, you won't say anything I haven't heard before). When I was a kid, dear old Dad -- Serbs are fairly intense about ethnic pride -- made sure I knew who every famous person was with Serbian blood.</p><p>You were surprised to learn last week when Karl Malden died that <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.topix.com/forum/world/serbia/TNE9L721G34GH57TU">he was a Serb</a>? Please. Old old news in the Tomasky household. Naturally, to Dad, the fact that Malden tended to be relegated to supporting roles had less to do with his bulbous nose than with his beleaguered ethnicity, a treatment to which Serbs alas were accustomed.</p><p>Tesla really was a genius, and Dad was right as rain on this point, which the G's report picks up:</p><blockquote><p>When Americans tell the story of Thomas Edison, the famous inventor of the gramophone, and whose name is usually attached to the invention of the light bulb, Tesla's name is frequently left out.</p></blockquote><p>Too true. </p><p>By the way, if you've never heard of Tesla Motors, based in the American southwest, check out <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.teslamotors.com/">the web site</a>. It's a really innovative company (non-union, but you can't have everything). The cars are gorgeous. The sedan starts at around $50,000, but they say they have plans to introduce a model maybe in the high $30,000's in the next couple of years.</p><p>Finally, on the subject of famous Serbs, I met <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milla_Jovovich">Milla Jovovich</a> at a party once. She was absurdly beautiful. But she wasn't all that interested in talking about her ethnic heritage, and in truth neither was I, so the conversation petered out pretty quickly.<br/></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/10/happy-birthday-tesla?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky: The great Tesla}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-350091598 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">12.55 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Thursday 9 July 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/09/jim-demint-obama-nazi-germany" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Republican senator compares Obamas America to Nazi Germany}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">So hard to keep track</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>Here I've been thinking that we liberal Obama types were Bolsheviks, but according to South Carolina GOP Senator Jim DeMint, we are in fact Nazis. From <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://washingtonindependent.com/50152/demint-america-is-where-germany-was-before-world-war-ii ">Dave Weigel of the Washington Independent</a>, who quotes DeMint thusly from an appearance he made last night in Washington, plugging some new thing he's apparently passing off as a book:</p><blockquote><p>Part of what we're trying to do in "Saving Freedom" is just show that where we are, we're about where Germany was before World War II where they became a social democracy. You still had votes but the votes were just power grabs like you see in Iran, and other places in South America, like Chavez is running down in Venezuela. People become more dependent on the government so that they're easy to manipulate. And they keep voting for more government because that's where their security is. When our immigrants get here, they're worried, because they see it happening here.</p></blockquote><p>I really, really wish he'd mentioned a specific number of years before WWII. Do you think he even knows what year Hitler took power? Do you think he's read anything about the Reichstag elections in the Weimar Republic? Anything, beyond some propaganda pamphlet someone probably handed him at a town hall meeting with constituents one time? <br/> <br/>It's true that I have been noticing lately, in the streets of Washington, the Democratic Party's vast and malevolent private army, the Pinkshirts, holding increasingly menacing marches and rallies, clashing with the armies of the state, staging putsches in smoke-free wine bars from Columbia Heights to Georgetown. You surely took note of last week's bonfire of Ann Coulter books at 13th and U. It was quite an event. So he's clearly onto something here. Thank God for courageous warriors like DeMint to set the historical record straight.</p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/09/jim-demint-obama-nazi-germany?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Republican senator compares Obamas America to Nazi Germany}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-350057212 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">18.32 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/09/obama-approval-rating-drop-economy" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky on Obamas opinion polls}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">On Obama's opinion polls</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>His approval numbers are down to <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.realclearpolitics.com/?state=noad">the high 50s</a>, and so sometimes on cable TV, naturally, this constitutes a collapse.<br/> <br/>This is chiefly about the economy. Period. It was Bush's mess. Now it's becoming Obama's mess to average voters. I have to say, that's understandable.<br/> <br/>And wasn't all this entirely anticipate-able? I anticipated it, and I'm sure others did too. One always knew that the economy wouldn't start rebounding til next spring or summer. So what should we have expected to happen in the second half of 2009, as unemployment figures rose (something we also knew would happen)? Obviously, Obama was going to start losing some support. He'll keep losing more by year end for sure. <br/> <br/>It was always my feeling that in political terms, as long as the economy actually does begin to bounce back by next summer, in time for the midterms, the politics would be basically fine over the long haul. As long as Obama and Dems can campaign next year saying, credibly, that we're getting back on track, things will work out. The Senate numbers still favor pick-ups under those circumstances. Also, as the economy rebounds, so will Obama's numbers.<br/> <br/>So it's going to be a long fall. Passing some big legislation would certainly help. Failing to pass it would hurt, but it probably wouldn't hurt as much as some liberals think, because this is still mainly about the economy. <br/> <br/>Some liberals are panicking, and some conservatives are starting to gloat. But really. This happened to Reagan. Terrible recession, and he got creamed in the first midterms. Went on to be a fairly consequential president.<br/> <br/>If I were in the WH, the one thing I'd be saying is: Get out there and give speeches. Not town halls, which bring out his less appealing professorial side. Speeches. Highlight stimulus gains. Thump the tub on health care and the climate bill. The guy can rev people up as we know. As I've written before, why they so rarely have him out there doing it is a mystery.</p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/09/obama-approval-rating-drop-economy?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky on Obamas opinion polls}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-350051785 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">17.13 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/09/michaeljackson-peterking-culture-war" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky: Peter King, living in the past}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">How Peter King actually hurt himself</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>I don't necessarily disagree with Peter King, the conservative Long Island Congressman who <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/08/peter-king-on-calling-mic_n_228337.html">called </a>Michael Jackson a "pervert" and a "child molester." His tone was self-regardingly bombastic, as his tone often is (which is too bad, because King can also be wittily insightful in that very Irish way). But was he really that wrong?</p><p>Yes, Jackson was acquitted. Yes, his million-dollar lawyers did a fine job of hacking up the credibility of the accusing witnesses. But I think it's fair to say that for many of us, whether this provides proof positive of Jackson's complete innocence is open to question. </p><p>He did write those two massive checks to the two other families. And he admitted that he invited young boys to sleep with him in his bed. That alone is just sickening.</p><p>Which gets to the real problem here. Child molestation isn't interchangeable with most other crimes. It's not something that can euphemistically be dubbed an eccentricity or even a dark side. And while it can be explained by one's own screwed up childhood, it can't be excused by that. </p><p>Child molestation is pretty much the single sickest single thing an adult human being can do. While I'd stop short of speaking as if I had absolute proof in this case, I have to admit I'm with King to some extent: I've been astonished reading some of the commentary that has danced around this question and treated child molestation as if it were roughly morally the same thing as, oh, shooting heroin (because musicians are often damaged and self-destructive) or some other felonious crime. It is not.</p><p>All that said, back to King. He may be running for Senate in New York next time around against Kirsten Gillibrand. Some commentary about King's comment has assumed that he's speaking in perfect pitch to "Reagan Democrats," who know right from wrong and don't go in for all this nonsense about Jackson being a genius.</p><p>But that's wrong too! Thriller and Bad sold a hell of a lot of copies. Loads of Reagan Democrats had to buy some of them. It would have been the case in the New York state of 1989 or maybe even 1999 that King's view would have represented the views of a huge segment of the population.</p><p>But it just isn't the case in 2009. That kind of culture-warrior politics still plays on Fox, and still resonates with maybe 30% of voters. But no longer with 45% or 55%. The way some pundits still lean lazily and reflexively on these 20-year-old tropes is kind of astonishing in its own way.</p><p>We're in (most of the time) a post-culture-war era, the distinguishing fact of which is that most people have quit taking sides on these questions. They see both points. They value Shakespeare, but they see the point of teaching Richard Wright, too. They think excessive political correctness is silly, but they don't despise it. And they think Michael Jackson may well have been a big perv, but they see that the man was indeed quite talented.</p><p>It's an age of synthesis on these questions. Most people can, it turns out, hold two thoughts in their heads at the same time. Rigid conservatives can't stand this of course, but everyone else is just fine with it and living life, paying less and less attention to outbursts like King's.<br/></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/09/michaeljackson-peterking-culture-war?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky: Peter King, living in the past}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-350031609 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">13.13 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Wednesday 8 July 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/08/stimulus-money-obama" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Obama should do more to show America how the stimulus money is being spe}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">They should have been doing more of this</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said the other day that he didn't see where this stimulus money was going. Joe Biden is responding, <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/economy/biden-to-highlight-stimulus-spending-in-boehners-back-yard/">reports Greg Sargent</a>, by going to Cincinnati tomorrow, right near Boehner's district, to highlight a formerly abandoned factory that's being redeveloped with stimulus-bill money.</p><p>They should have been doing a lot more of this -- Biden, and of course Obama himself. It was always clear: the average person never really sees the billions. They might see, you know, a repaved highway, a new exit ramp, a new city bus, and think "Oh, that's a nice thing," but the accompanying thought will be something like "Well, I see those assholes finally got something accomplished," and he or she won't stop and bother to think about where the money came from. </p><p>So, since people don't sit around looking for opportunities to praise the federal government, the federal government has to bring these things to their attention. It was all too easy for the stimulus money to be mocked as nonexistent, and the White House should have done a better job of anticipating this.</p><p>Substantively of course, the bottom line is that the stimulus should have been larger, but Republicans and weak-kneed moderate Democrats made that impossible. Even so, it was large enough that it is doing some things out there, but the p.r. operation around those things is weak. </p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/08/stimulus-money-obama?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Obama should do more to show America how the stimulus money is being spe}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-350000487 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">21.37 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/08/obama-nuclear-weapons-policy" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Obama is focusing on eliminating nuclear weapons and not on eliminating }&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">The Obama Doctrine: soooo boring</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>Joe Cirincione, a very sharp foreign policy analyst here in Washington, has <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-cirincione/an-obama-doctrine-emerges_b_227905.html">picked up the scent </a>of an Obama Doctrine taking shape in the POTUS's remarks and actions in Russia, viz.:</p><blockquote><p>Obama shifts away from the neoconservative notion that the problem is not nuclear weapons but a few bad states that have nuclear weapons. Obama's threat trio is not countries that may someday have weapons, but the countries that have actually exploded them since the end of the cold war, irrespective of their political orientation: India, Pakistan, and North Korea. This group includes allies, friends and foes.</p><p>That is his point. It is the same point made by past presidents including Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan. Obama returns to this basic understanding that it the weapons themselves, not certain regimes, that must be eliminated. In order to prevent a nightmare world of "10 or 20 or 50 nuclear-armed nations" that may not "protect their arsenals and refrain from using them," he says, "America is committed to stopping nuclear proliferation, and ultimately seeking a world without nuclear weapons."</p><p>He underlined his core message: "This is not about singling out individual nations -- it's about the responsibilities of all nations." <br/>In Prague, in Cairo, and now in Moscow, we are witnessing the emergence of an Obama Doctrine. A world view guided by universal compliance with democratic norms and the rule of law; policies driven by the convergence of shared interests and responsibilities; and a statecraft that does not shirk from the application of military force when necessary but promotes America's interests with respect for other nations and the strength of joint enterprise. </p></blockquote><p><br/>Yes, yes, yes. All nice and responsible. But it's so much less exciting than the "we call the shots and blow you up if we want to" doctrine! War was war in those days, and men were men, as my old Brit cinematic hero<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Aubrey_Smith"> C. Aubrey Smith</a> put it in The Four Feathers (have you taken my advice and rented that yet? Shame on you!). </p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/08/obama-nuclear-weapons-policy?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Obama is focusing on eliminating nuclear weapons and not on eliminating }&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-349999332 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">21.13 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/08/coal-west-virginia-july4festival-invaded" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky: Appalling video}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Come let us reason together</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>Click on <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjc7Jg_gMy0">this link</a> to watch a lovely piece of video (4:16) taken in West Virginia on the Fourth of July. </p><p>The event was the 23rd annual Mountain Keepers' Festival, hosted by Larry Gibson, who is a leading anti-mountaintop mining activist. I met Larry last year. He's a real West Virginian, not some snooty college-pudding type who's getting into other people's business. He has land southeast of Charleston that's been in his family for generations, and by cracky he's protecting it. Incredibly admirable guy. The festival is a gathering of like-minded folks.</p><p>As you will see, some, uh, uninvited guests -- employees, apparently, of one of the mountaintop-removal companies -- appear. They start, uh, dialoguing with the revellers. Suffice it to say that their idea of debate wouldn't get them very far at your famous old colleges. And yes, for those of you who require such warnings: tons of foul language.</p><p>This will give you a sense of what things are like down there. Not pleasant.<br/></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/08/coal-west-virginia-july4festival-invaded?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky: Appalling video}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-349965807 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">12.48 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/08/healthcare-congress" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky: Worth noting on healthcare}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Interesting healthcare development</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>You folks understand that if you're really really really into healthcare policy and politics, you're supposed to be reading my friends <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/">Ezra Klein</a> and <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_treatment/default.aspx">Jonathan Cohn</a>, right? Right. Thought so. Good.</p><p>It's not this blog's style to do every little in and out, but here's an interesting development that I thought I should point out to you, which was <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.rollcall.com/news/36546-1.html">reported </a>yesterday:</p><blockquote><p>Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday ordered Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to drop a proposal to tax health benefits and stop chasing Republican votes on a massive health care reform bill.</p><p>Reid, whose leadership is considered crucial if President Barack Obama is to deliver on his promise of enacting health care reform this year, offered the directive to Baucus through an intermediary after consulting with Senate Democratic leaders during Tuesday morning's regularly scheduled leadership meeting. Baucus was meeting with Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) Tuesday afternoon to relay the information.</p><p>According to Democratic sources, Reid told Baucus that taxing health benefits and failing to include a strong government-run insurance option of some sort in his bill would cost 10 to 15 Democratic votes; Reid told Baucus it wasn't worth securing the support of Grassley and at best a few additional Republicans.</p></blockquote><p>Could the Senate Democrats actually be stiffening their spines here? That would be rather amazing. And yes, everyone would prefer a bipartisan bill, but if that's impossible, well, it's impossible. That's up to the handful of quasi-reasonable GOPers.</p><p>Baucus is a vexing figure. As my other friend Matt Yglesias is <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/07/telling-max-baucus-what-he-already-knows.php">always noting</a>, Baucus is the second most powerful politician in America on the question of healthcare reform; arguably, given the way our system of government is set up, the first-most important, at least right now.</p><p>He's the king of the jungle, but he continually acts more like some slow-footed creature about two thirds of the way down the food chain. It's bizarre.</p><p>It's good to see the Dems toughening. Where the 60 votes come from on a strong public option, I still don't know. This is the ballad of the Democratic moderates, which I'll sing another time.<br/></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/08/healthcare-congress?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky: Worth noting on healthcare}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-349965043 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">12.36 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Tuesday 7 July 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/07/cold-war-american-foreign-policy" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{What would history be like if the US refrained from the coup-sponsoring }&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Alternate Cold War history</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>I was surprised by some of the comments on the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/06/robert-mcnamara-vietnam">McNamara post yesterday</a>, especially by the handful of people who were blowing a gasket because I used phrases like "I haven't read it in a while, but..." I use phrases like that all the time on this blog. Why the sudden perturbation yesterday?<br/> <br/>I eventually figured out that after the news of McNamara's death hit the wires, people must have Googled "McNamara" and "war criminal" hoping for the goods. They were directed to my post (nice SEO work, London!) and expected to find the authoritative takedown. But it was just a blog post. By a guy who, as his regular readers know, admits often that he doesn't remember things like he used to.<br/> <br/>But I did go do a smidgen of reading last night in relation to the real point of the post, which was that Vietnam as an American tragedy really started under Harry Truman, when Dean Acheson refused to reply to Ho Chi Minh's letters seeking American support for his uprising and new government. Ho was a Communist, to be sure, having lived in Moscow in the 1920s. But (look, that's two sentences in one paragraph that I've started with "but"!), in 1945, in a deal with the Chinese, he agreed to dissolve the Vietnamese Communist Party and accept a coalition government. It was around this time that Ho importuned Acheson and Truman.<br/> <br/>There was a debate in American diplomatic circles in those days about this question of whether the US should support leftist (but not Communist) nationalist movements, and a debate specifically about socialists. The "soft" school of thought was that socialism was the strongest line of defense against communism, and thus that the US should support socialist regimes in the right cases. The "hard" line was the socialists were just communists in gestation anyway, so give 'em no quarter. The debate was serious enough that, as I noted yesterday, the Truman White House refused to approve the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran, which Eisenhower and Dulles approved in 1953. <br/> <br/>Water under the bridge is water under the bridge, but I've nevertheless wondered sometimes what history might have been like if the US had refrained from getting into the coup-sponsoring game. Suppose Mossadegh would have nationalized the oil fields, and Arbenz in Guatemala and coffee and fruit plantations, without American protestation. Yes, it seems impossible to imagine, but wow, what a different world. No Vietnam war, that's for sure.</p><p>As it happens I tripped across this quote from Clark Clifford, who was a special assistant to Truman at the time, who said, <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.gmapalumni.org/chapomatic/extras/ho.htm">vis a vis Ho's requests:</a></p><blockquote><p><br/>"It was more the attitude that now that the Second World War was over, we would attempt to help the nations of Western Europe reconstruct. France had owned Indochina. The reason they'd lost it was due to Japanese aggression. We were, I believe, attempting to take those steps which would tend to return areas of that kind to the status quo. I don't recall taking part in any kind of discussion or policy debate about whether we should assist the French in their colonial or imperialist attitude. I would be rather surprised if there was much of a debate in that regard because it seemed to me to be the rather settled policy that we were attempting to return conditions to those that had existed prior to the changes that had taken place in the Second World War as the result of Communist aggression--Communist or Japanese aggression." </p></blockquote><p><br/> <br/>In other words, they didn't even think much about it. Vietnam was French, not Vietnamese. Everybody knew that. Aaarrgghh. As fate would have it, Clifford succeeded McNamara as SecDef under LBJ, so he lived to deal with the consequences. This was in the last year of Johnson's term, and Clifford, to be fair, did generally support reducing the number of US troops; a halt to the bombing in the fall of 1968; and the Paris Peace Talks.<br/> <br/>Re the talks, it's not well-enough known, by the way, that the US and North Vietnam had in essence reached terms, but that one of LBJ's negotiators in Paris, a chap called Kissinger, secretly was reporting back to the Nixon campaign, and whispering to the VC's that they could get a better deal with Nixon, so why don't they just wait out the American election? The war continued for another six years. Nicely done Henry.</p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/07/cold-war-american-foreign-policy?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{What would history be like if the US refrained from the coup-sponsoring }&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-349924487 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">18.25 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/07/sarah-palin-department-of-law" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky on Sarah Palins latest gaffe}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">How can I possibly stop?</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>People, if the woman insists on continuing to provide material like this, how on earth can I stop writing about her?<br/> <br/>She spoke with ABC news, which just posted the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=8016906">lamentable results</a> this morning. Here's the salient passage:</p><blockquote><p>But as for whether another pursuit of national office, as she did less than a year ago when she joined Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the race for the White House, would result in the same political blood sport, Palin said there is a difference between the White House and what she has experienced in Alaska. If she were in the White House, she said, the "department of law" would protect her from baseless ethical allegations. </p><p>"I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out," she said.</p></blockquote><p>Oh yes, of course. The good old Department of Law. Uh...there is no Department of Law. There's a Department of Justice. And, in the White House, there's an Office of Special Counsel. </p><p>But - and this is in some ways the more interesting point, aside from the basic stupidity - it is neither institution's role to "automatically" throw out ethics allegations against the chief executive. I can understand that maybe that's how it seemed to her in the Bush-Cheney era. But that really isn't how it works.</p><p>Just remember as we go forward, and please excuse my language, but: Are we really going to have to endure serious talk about the national ambitions and chances of a woman who doesn't even know that the United States of America has a fucking Department of Justice?</p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/07/sarah-palin-department-of-law?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky on Sarah Palins latest gaffe}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-349912396 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">15.55 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/07/russia-nato" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky: Dissolve NATO, sez I!}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Does NATO still matter?</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>It seems that Obama has accomplished a thing or two, in theory at least, over in Russia. The commitment to a new agreement on further arms reductions by the end of the year is excellent.</p><p>As this <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_and_USSR_nuclear_stockpiles.svg">chart </a>shows, the 1991 agreement really did make a difference. Between them, the US and Russia have destroyed at least 40,000 warheads since then, maybe more. <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons#Estimated_worldwide_nuclear_stockpiles">The current numbers</a> are about 9,400 for my team and 13,000 for the Russkies, so there's still a ways to go. (By the way, my British friends, why do you have only 180 while the French have 300?)</p><p>All well and good. But I hate <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/world/europe/08prexy.html?pagewanted=2&hp">this</a>:</p><blockquote><p>Mr. Obama said he supports the right of countries like Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO despite Russian opposition. "America will never impose a security arrangement on another country," he said. "For any country to become a member of NATO, a majority of its people must choose to; they must undertake reforms; and they must be able to contribute to the alliance's mission. And let me be clear: NATO seeks collaboration with Russia, not confrontation."</p></blockquote><p>NATO is a military alliance, and as I wrote last spring when the Georgia battles were ongoing -- if Georgia were in NATO, the US (and the UK) would in theory be committed to military intervention to defend two provinces in Georgia. That's nuts.</p><p>If the theory is to spread far and wide this military alliance of democracies, then Russia herself should be enticed to join. That's heresy to the foreign policy establishment, but the foreign policy establishment (by and large; there are of course many exceptions) has misapprehended post-Cold War US-Russia relations pretty much from the beginning, it seems to me. </p><p>But I'd go so far as to argue that maybe NATO has outlived its usefulness. It was a Cold War alliance. It did one good thing in the post-Cold War era, which was to provide a basis for collective Western action against Milosevic in Bosnia. </p><p>So maybe you could argue that a Europe-based multinational force is still needed to address such situations in Europe as they may arise. Fine. But if that's so, why does such an outfit need to be called NATO, and why in the world does it need Georgia and the Ukraine? </p><p>The real reason of course is just to surround Russia and check her power. But that seems to be built on some sort of idea that contemporary Russia has the same kind of expansionist aims that Soviet Russia did. Is that actually the case?</p><p>There still needs to be a vehicle through which the US and European countries can deal collectively on matters that arise in Europe, but this kind of NATO expansion into areas well beyond the "North Atlantic" kind of harkens back, to me, to the way we took Kennan's containment policy, always intended as he noted to apply to Europe only, and kept applying it more and more expansively around the world. </p><p>As McNamara's passing reminded us yesterday, we all know <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.afvn.tv/ProjectJenny/vietnam.gif">where that ended up</a>. What I'd rather see out of Obama is some bold thinking about the next generation of alliances. It's probably too early in his administration to unveil anything like that, but I do hope he's thinking along those lines, thinking about alliances for the 21s century rather than the 20th.<br/></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/07/russia-nato?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky: Dissolve NATO, sez I!}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-349896441 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">13.00 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" date-posted "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <p class="date"> Monday 6 July 2009 </p> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/06/robert-mcnamara-vietnam" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky on the legacy of former US defence secretary Robert McNa}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Robert McNamara</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>So old <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara">McNamara</a> has gone to his reward. I was rather surprised listening to the radio on the way in that they didn't say the words "war" and "criminal," since it's long been not a fringe but a legitimate mainstream question as to whether McNamara was such during the Vietnam years. He all but acknowledged it himself.<br/> <br/>He did acknowledge it, in fact, in Errol Morris's amazing documentary "<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.errolmorris.com/film/fow_transcript.html">The Fog of War</a>," but the admission there had to do with World War II and the civilian conventional bombing of Tokyo, of which he was an architect. The key reflection:</p><blockquote><p>I don't fault Truman for dropping the nuclear bomb. The US-Japanese War was one of the most brutal wars in all of human history – kamikaze pilots, suicide, unbelievable. What one can criticize is that the human race prior to that time – and today – has not really grappled with what are, I'll call it, "the rules of war." Was there a rule then that said you shouldn't bomb, shouldn't kill, shouldn't burn to death 100,000 civilians in one night?</p><p>LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?</p></blockquote><p>Well, the difference is that the winners make the rules, that's all.<br/> <br/>It's been several years since I've seen the film, but as I recall (correct me if I'm wrong), he didn't quite cop to the charge re Vietnam. He drifted off into reflective silence. <br/> <br/>Is it possible to think that someone was probably a war criminal and yet also is in some regards a sympathetic or at least complex figure? McNamara did show some public remorse for his actions and was pretty clearly tortured on some level in his later years. I wouldn't put him in Kissinger's class, quite. Vietnam had many fathers, and life is complicated. <br/> <br/>The Vietnam "problem" dates back, if you really want to dig into it, to 1947, when Ho Chi Minh wrote at least two letters to then-Secretary of State Dean Acheson basically saying: Look, I'm in Paris now, but one of these days I'm going back to Saigon and I'm going to lead this nationalist movement for independence, and we'd like your support. <br/> <br/>Acheson never so much as wrote him back. That was the crucial error - America could have placed itself on the side of nationalist liberation movements rather than against them, and those movements (or many of them anyway) would not have been drawn to Moscow, possibly. And Acheson was normally more far-sighted - he was steadfastly against the CIA-led coups in Guatemala and Iran that the successor Eisenhower administration undertook. But he wasn't going to cross the French on Indochina for some reason. It's been a while since I've read all this, but it's likely the case that he needed French backing on some other matter, I guess.<br/> <br/>All this is fascinating history that's not often told. We think "Cold War" and we tend to think of hardened belligerence, but in fact there was - for a time - an intense debate in the US establishment about how that war should be prosecuted. Things might have been different, although it was probably inevitable that the hard-liners won.</p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/06/robert-mcnamara-vietnam?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky on the legacy of former US defence secretary Robert McNa}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-349847533 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">15.23 BST</span> </div> </li> <li class=" "> <div class="blog-excerpt"> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/06/sarahpalin-resignation-future" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky: The Embarracudahs future}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">The Embarracudah's future</a> </h3> </div> <div class="trailtext"> <p>As you might imagine, I've given a fair amount of thought over the weekend past to Sarah Palin (which seemed a fitting way to spend my time since I already had a bad toothache and a worse cold). And I've come to the conclusion that maybe I've misjudged her.</p><p>Maybe she's not a congenital lair. I now think, instead, that she's so besotted with herself that she isn't even aware she's lying.</p><p>She actually thinks, I now believe, that she<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.reuters.com/article/sarahPalin/idUSTRE5624VW20090703"> told the truth last Friday</a> when she expectorated that nonsense about how in resigning she was taking one for the team, as it were, passing the ball off just as an unselfish point guard is supposed to do. I loved the post-analogy money quote:</p><p>"I thought about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks: travel around the state, to the Lower 48, maybe, overseas on international trade -- as so many politicians do," Palin mused. "And then I thought: That's what's wrong. Many just accept that lame-duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck and 'milk it.' I'm not putting Alaska through that." </p><p>Filleting Palin in the Washington Post, <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/04/AR2009070402254_pf.html">Ruth Marcus aptly seized on</a> the "unjustified air of selflessness with an unjustified sense of self-pity" contained in the line. If I'd written in my befogged and pre-enlightened state on Friday, I'd have gone on about what an utter lie the statement was. </p><p>First of all, name three governors who fit in that category. I bet no one can name even one. Perhaps she has some Alaskan/s in mind whose records I don't know. Fair enough. But even in those cases, I'd be more than willing to bet that they didn't make themselves lame ducks –the timeline is crucial – barely more than halfway into their first terms.</p><p>Palin was <em>making herself</em> into a lame duck by preparing to announce that she'd not seek a second term. She saw the potential problem, I'll give her that. But she hit upon an easy fix. Instead of acknowledging and finessing the obvious truth of the matter –that she was becoming a quitter, chickening out of a job the people of Alaska hired her to do for four years – she found a way to make herself the hero of the story.</p><p>Where I've changed is that last week, I'd have described all this as a cunning mountain of lies. But now, I think she actually believes that she's done the selfless and heroic thing.</p><p>The general speculation in the liberal blogosphere over the weekend has been that more scandal-scuffed shoes are ready to drop in the near future, perhaps even <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1910152/sarah_palin_federal_indictment_fears.html?cat=62">a federal indictment on embezzlement charges</a>. </p><p>That'd be just fine, but I'm not sitting around wishing for it. In some ways it would just make her even more of a martyr (a question for debate: what crime would the Embarracudah have to commit for her faithful to lose faith?). </p><p>And remember, the last indictment brought against an Alaska Republican was <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/it_sounds_like_the_decision.php">a pretty shabby one</a>. She's already Moses to 25% of the country. She beats a federal rap and she becomes their <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubin_Carter">Hurricane Carter</a> too.</p><p>Is she really out of politics for good, as <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/03/sarah-palin-out-of-politi_n_225619.html">Andrea Mitchell's sources</a> were saying over the weekend? I guess it's possible. I have no reason to doubt that she's a loving mother, and she does have a bunch of kids who need her attentions, so it's within the realm of possibility that she's capable of putting their interests before hers. She'll make millions of dollars on this "book" project and whatever else she pursues, ensuring her and the kids comfortable lives and inheritances. And she'll draw adoring crowds wherever she goes for a long time.</p><p>But I'm not sure that's enough. Like most people, I'm pretty certain she wants to run for president in 2012.</p><p>And you know, if she spent the next two-plus years in serious study of federal and global issues and actually tried to learn some things, I'd say good luck to her. Lack of experience per se isn't disqualifying. Barack Obama was inexperienced. The difference was he was familiar with substance. History is full of successful inexperienced presidents and unsuccessful ones with resumes stuffed like Christmas turkeys, from both parties.</p><p>But of course, she won't bother. She's already sold on her own unique luminosity. Luminous ones, especially those who think they're doing the Lord's business, don't need to learn about issues. </p><p>And on a more pedestrian level, I would bet that quitting her gig will hurt her more than it will help. For one thing, she couldn't even stand to stay in the kitchen in far-off Anchorage when it got hot, so how would she handle the national heat? She handled it pretty poorly last year, but undoubtedly she blames the rest of the world for that. </p><p>For another, political operatives are wary of potential employers who seem unstable. She's likely to have trouble assembling a good team.</p><p>None of this, of course, will stop her. She'll ask for the ball back. In fact she'll demand it. The Republicans are plenty screwed up right now, but even they probably have enough sense to try to keep her off the court and coalesce around some other candidate.<br/></p> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/06/sarahpalin-resignation-future?commentpage=1" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky: The Embarracudahs future}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-349838817 commenting-closed pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-byline"> <span>Posted by</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={blogBylineContributor}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={blogBylineContributor}{1}">Michael Tomasky</a> <span class="timestamp">13.08 BST</span> </div> </li> </ul> </div> </div> <div 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automatically on this page">Tomasky talk: Huffington Post asks Republicans if Obama is American-born</a> (85) </li> <li> <span class="rank">2.</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/28/congress-healthcare" title="Video will start automatically on this page">Raise your hand if you're shocked</a> (43) </li> <li> <span class="rank">3.</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/30/healthcare-reform-poll" title="Video will start automatically on this page">No wonder healthcare is hard</a> (39) </li> <li> <span class="rank">4.</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/29/blue-dog-democrats" title="Video will start automatically on this page">How nervous should those Blue Dogs be?</a> (25) </li> <li> <span class="rank">5.</span> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/30/liberals-healthcare-reform-obama" title="Video will start automatically on this page">Anger on the left</a> (13) </li> </ol> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div id="blog-related-links" class="capsule"> <div class="capsule ed-zone "> <div id="" class="tri trail trailblock"> <ul class="tri trail trailblock"> <li class="major-heading first"> <h2> Full coverage </h2> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky+world/barack-obama" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Barack Obama}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Barack Obama</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky+world/johnmccain" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{John McCain}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">John McCain</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky+world/sarahpalin" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Sarah Palin}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Sarah Palin</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky+world/joebiden" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Joe Biden}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Joe Biden</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-elections-2008" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{US elections 2008}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">US elections 2008</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/america" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{CIF America}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Cif America</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/america" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Guardian America home}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Guardian America</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaeltomasky" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Michael Tomasky}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Michael Tomasky: full archive and profile</a> </div> </div> </li> </ul> </div> </div> <div class="capsule ed-zone external-links"> <div id="" class="tri trail trailblock"> <ul class="tri trail trailblock"> <li class="major-heading first"> <h2> Michael's blogroll </h2> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://mediamatters.org/altercation/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Eric Alterman}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Eric Alterman</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Huffington Post}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Huffington Post</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://ezraklein.typepad.com/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Ezra Klein}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Ezra Klein</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.dailykos.com/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Daily Kos}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Daily Kos</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Andrew Sullivan}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Andrew Sullivan</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://talkingpointsmemo.com/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Talking Points Memo}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Talking Points Memo</a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="trail-caption"> <div class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/" name="&lid={trailItemImageAndTrailText}{Matthew Yglesias}&lpos={trail}{1}" class="link-text">Matthew Yglesias</a> </div> </div> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div id="blogs-calendar"> <div class="capsule"> <h2>Michael Tomasky's blog weekly archives</h2> <div id="calendar-container"> <table title="Calendar for July" summary="Calendar for July" id="calendar"> <thead> <tr> <th colspan="7" scope="col"> <strong class="month">Jul 2009</strong> <a title="Previous month" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jun/29/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Previous}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{1}" class="previous"> <img src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/static/77051/common/images/calendar/left_arrow.gif" alt="Previous" height="18" width="19"/> </a> </th> </tr> <tr class="month-nav"> <th scope="col" title="Monday" class="first">M</th> <th scope="col" title="Tuesday">T</th> <th scope="col" title="Wednesday">W</th> <th scope="col" title="Thursday">T</th> <th scope="col" title="Friday">F</th> <th scope="col" title="Saturday">S</th> <th scope="col" title="Sunday" class="last">S</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr class=" has-links "> <td class="not-this-month first">29</td> <td class="not-this-month ">30</td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jun/29/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 1}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{2}">1</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jun/29/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 2}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{3}">2</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jun/29/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 3}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{4}">3</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jun/29/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 4}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{5}">4</a></td> <td class="last"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jun/29/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 5}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{6}">5</a></td> </tr> <tr class=" active has-links "> <td class="first"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/06/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 6}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{7}" class="today">6</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/06/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 7}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{8}">7</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/06/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 8}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{9}">8</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/06/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 9}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{10}">9</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/06/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 10}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{11}">10</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/06/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 11}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{12}">11</a></td> <td class="last"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/06/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 12}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{13}">12</a></td> </tr> <tr class=" has-links "> <td class="first"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/13/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 13}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{14}">13</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/13/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 14}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{15}">14</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/13/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 15}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{16}">15</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/13/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 16}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{17}">16</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/13/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 17}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{18}">17</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/13/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 18}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{19}">18</a></td> <td class="last"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/13/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 19}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{20}">19</a></td> </tr> <tr class=" has-links "> <td class="first"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/20/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 20}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{21}">20</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/20/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 21}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{22}">21</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/20/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 22}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{23}">22</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/20/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 23}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{24}">23</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/20/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 24}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{25}">24</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/20/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 25}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{26}">25</a></td> <td class="last"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/20/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 26}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{27}">26</a></td> </tr> <tr class=" has-links "> <td class="first"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/27/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 27}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{28}">27</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/27/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 28}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{29}">28</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/27/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 29}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{30}">29</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/27/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 30}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{31}">30</a></td> <td><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/27/week" name="&lid={calendarNavigation}{Calendar 31}&lpos={calendarNavigation}{32}">31</a></td> <td class="not-this-month ">1</td> <td class="not-this-month last">2</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> </div> </div> <div class="latest-cif-posts capsule"> <h3 id="cp-scott-promo"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree">comment is free…</a></h3> <h4>Latest posts</h4> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"> // <![CDATA[ if (isExternalSystemOn("pluck")) { insertStyleSheet('styles/wide/pluck-on.css'); } // ]]> </script> <div class="latest-content"> <ul id="cif-auto-trail-block"> <li> <div class="byline"> <div class="trail-text"> <span class="date"> 1hr 41min ago </span> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/31/inpraiseof-lubna-hussein-sudan" name="&lid={latestCifPosts}{Editorial: In praise of… Lubna Hussein}&lpos={trail}{1}">In praise of… Lubna Hussein</a> </h3> <strong>Editorial:</strong> Lubna Hussein's example should be a spur to independent-minded women wherever they are in the world <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/31/inpraiseof-lubna-hussein-sudan?commentpage=1" name="&lid={latestCifPosts}{Editorial: In praise of… Lubna Hussein}&lpos={trail}{2}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-351014993 pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </li> <li> <div class="byline"> <div class="trail-text"> <span class="date"> 1hr 41min ago </span> <h3> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/31/trevor-phillips-race" name="&lid={latestCifPosts}{Response: We cannot rely on the government to enforce anti-discriminatio}&lpos={trail}{3}">We cannot rely on the government to enforce anti-discrimination laws</a> </h3> <strong>Response:</strong> A single commission is needed to advance equality and human rights for all, says <strong>Linda Bellos</strong> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/31/trevor-phillips-race?commentpage=1" name="&lid={latestCifPosts}{Response: We cannot rely on the government to enforce anti-discriminatio}&lpos={trail}{4}" class="comment-count-info pluck-init-inline comment-count-id-350995313 pluck-commentable"> <span class="link-comment-count"></span><span class="link-comment-count-words"></span> </a> </div> </div> </li> </ul> </div> <div class="latest-comment"> <h3>Comment from the paper</h3> <ul class="tri trail trailblock"> <li class="normal live first odd"> <div class="linktext"> <p> Ellie Levenson: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/30/feminism-choice-matriarchy-libby-brooks" name="&lid={tagCombiner}{Is this really womens lib? | Ellie Levenson}&lpos={trail}{1}">Barbie can be a feminist, too</a> </p> </div> </li> <li class="normal live "> <div class="linktext"> <p> Martin Kettle: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/jul/30/law-lords-supreme-court" name="&lid={tagCombiner}{It took 142 years, but at last Bagehot has got his way | Martin Kettle}&lpos={trail}{2}">It took 142 years, but at last Bagehot has got his way</a> </p> </div> </li> <li class="normal live odd"> <div class="linktext"> <p> Simon Jenkins: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/30/weather-forecasts-prediction-casualties-helmand" name="&lid={tagCombiner}{This pseudo-science is best left to private firms, and not paid for by u}&lpos={trail}{3}">The Met Office thinks August will be wet. 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class="jobs"> <li class="odd"><h4> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/job/883934/associate-director?RSSSearch=0&gusrc=gu_jobs_box_Comment is free&link=Comment is free_jbx_vac" name="&lid={jobsBox}{Associate Director|Comment is free}&lpos={jobsBox}{2}">Associate Director</a></h4> <p><span class="employer">think search and selection.</span> <span class="location">ethical healthcare pr - associate director - mate….</span> <span class="wage">£375-425 per day.</span> </p> </li> <li><h4> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/job/892952/records-manager?RSSSearch=0&gusrc=gu_jobs_box_Comment is free&link=Comment is free_jbx_vac" name="&lid={jobsBox}{Records Manager|Comment is free}&lpos={jobsBox}{3}">Records Manager</a></h4> <p><span class="employer">audit commission.</span> <span class="location">bristol.</span> <span class="wage">£33,692 - £39,272 pa + excellent benefits.</span> </p> </li> <li class="odd"><h4> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090731004650/http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/job/887215/international-exhibition-sales-exeutive-technology-show?RSSSearch=0&gusrc=gu_jobs_box_Comment is free&link=Comment is free_jbx_vac" name="&lid={jobsBox}{International Exhibition Sales Exeutive - Technolo&hellip;|Comment is free}&lpos={jobsBox}{4}">International Exhibition Sales Exeutive - Technolo…</a></h4> <p><span class="employer">dragonfly.</span> <span class="location">international exhibition sales exeutive - technolo….</span> <span class="wage">£20000 - £22000 per annum + Bonus.</span> </p> </li> </ul> <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ function doSearchAllSubmitUK( form ) { var jobsSectionToSearch = ''; var freeText = ''; var searchTextField = document.getElementById( 'freetext-searchalljobs' ); var keywordElem = document.getElementById( 'keyword-searchalljobs' ); var isSectionSearch = function() { return jobsSectionToSearch != ''; } var textIsModified = function() { if( 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