It seems President Bush’s failure to exert much downward pressure on spending at home applies to the UN too. Thanks mostly, it seems, to various Bush-inspired initiatives, the UN’s administrative budget for the coming year is going to be 25% higher than the previous year. A lot of the additional spending flows from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, although some of it is also going to various typical UN projects, including a conference on racism in South Africa which Canada has already decided to boycott because of anti-semitic themes.

The UN headquarters is also getting a makeover, which reminds me of the John Bolton quote that “if the UN secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference” – I wonder if it might be best and cheaper all around to do that than renovate the place? Might cut down on some of that massive spending too.

Hopefully our next president will take the rampant spending both domestically and at the UN more seriously, and take actions to reduce that spending rather than allowing it to continue to balloon at the current alarming rate…

One of the ongoing fallacies embraced by the liberal left is that if we just talked to our enemies we could solve a lot of our problems without needing to resort to war. While it had a little more apparent merit in the days of Neville Chamberlain and Hitler (though it obviously failed even then) it seems particularly naive in the days of Islamic terrorism.

Alan Dershowitz, writing in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago, explained the root of the problem as follows:

The two basic premises of conventional warfare have long been that soldiers and civilians prefer living to dying and can thus be deterred from killing by the fear of being killed; and that combatants (soldiers) can easily be distinguished from noncombatants (women, children, the elderly, the infirm and other ordinary citizens).

Both of these, he explains, have been turned on their heads by the modern breed of terrorist and in particular the suicide bomber, especially when she is a woman. When you can no longer assume that your enemy prefers life to death, all bets are off. And the idea that you can reason with someone who is both willing to deliberately die and to erase the line between civilians and soldiers is completely ridiculous. Such people are not going to be bound by the sense of honor which has somewhat perversely characterized military relations for the last several hundred years.

What good does talking to such a person do?  Any perceived concessions wrung from terrorists during a negotiation are worth even less than the “piece of paper” Neville Chamberlain brought back from Munich. And any real concessions are likely to lead to much larger concessions on the part of the Americans doing the neogitation. The only language terrorists understand is the one they themselves speak – violence and death.

The  situation was summed up nicely in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict by this cartoon – I once saw a more sophisticated version, but this one tells the same story:

How do you deal with such an organisation? Unfortunately, the answer is to respond with sufficient force and such a strategy that you are able to overcome the competitive advantage that such asymmetric warfare presents. But the answer definitely isn’t to talk more.

While searching for the above cartoon I also came across this one, which is fitting too.

Toby Harnden on the UK’s Daily Telegraph has written a speech he wishes Mrs Spitzer would have given. While I’m not sure I’d go as far as to say I wish she had given it (I think there is merit in trying to keep working at a marriage even when one partner has clearly gone off the rails) it would be refreshing if one of the jilted wives in these many cases actually said what so many of them must be thinking, and followed through in the way suggested by this speech.Here’s a quick taster:

My name is Silda Wall. Until yesterday, I was called Silda Spitzer but I have now reverted to my maiden name. I will not be Hillary Clinton. I will not be Wendy Vitter. I will not be Dina McGreevy. I am free of you.

…

Your arrogance and utter depravity are summed up not by just your actions with prostitutes – as disgusting as they were (the actions, not the prostitutes – I bear no ill will towards these women) – but by the fact that you wanted me to be beside you as you resigned, to look devastated and broken as I stood by my man.

You saw me as a prop to justify your unfaithfulness and start your rehabilitation. You assumed I would forgive you. But no, I will not countenance that. You are on your own.

One assumption about Romney has been that if he (or anyone else) were selected as McCain’s VP, he would be in pole position for a run at the presidency next time around (whether 2012 or 2016). Most people trumpet this as if it’s received wisdom, but how much sense does that really make?

Incumbent VPs from the last 70 years fall into one of several categories:

• Succeed sitting president through death or resignation (Truman, Johnson, Ford)
• Seek and win nomination, win election (Nixon, Bush)
• Seek and win nomination, lose election (Humphrey, Nixon, Mondale, Gore)
• Seek and fail to win nomination (Quayle)
• No running for presidential office (Cheney, Rockefeller, Barkley)
• Resign while in office (Agnew)

Eight of these 13 men have therefore gone on either to be the nominee of their party or president, which seems good odds. But of those, four lost at least their first attempts to be elected to the presidency, and three became president through no fault or merit of their own. Just two of them – Bush and Nixon – actually won election in their own rights.

The records in office of those that did become president are not stellar:

• Truman may be the exception, at least in some eyes, although he failed to win re-election for a second term
• Johnson (who failed to be elected to a second term in his own right and presided over several miserable failures)
• Nixon disgraced the office and his party
• Ford replaced him and unsurprisingly failed to be elected in his own right even once
• Bush won on Reagan’s coattails, but again failed to win a second term.

Taken together, none of this suggests either that VPs are more likely to be elected than anyone else (for example former Governors, who have been elected four of the last five times), or that they make particularly good presidents when they are elected. Romney, Huckabee and others (especially John McCain) should all bear this in mind.

Now, part of the problem is the kind of men chosen as VPs, often more for the states they can bring in, their unlikeliness to challenge the candidate in the personal dynamism stakes, and the balance they bring to the ticket rather than any admirable qualities they possess in their own rights. Romney might prove the exception to that rule, although Huckabee arguably fits the mold better in some ways. But anyone assuming that the Vice Presidency is the best path to the presidency is making a shaky assumption at best. I’m glad to see that Romney is also setting up a PAC to elect Republican candidates as a way of shoring up his other main option for setting himself up for 2012.

There has been a growing stream of articles over the past couple of weeks talking about Romney as a possible VP candidate. My own view has always been that he wouldn’t accept it – he’s been running the show wherever he was (Bain Capital, the Olympics, Massachusetts, his Presidential campaign) for 20 years or so, and playing second fiddle to a guy with whom he shared so much animosity during the campaign just seemed unlikely.

But, it appears that he may be willing after all. The reason must be that he wants to position himself as the leading contender for the presidency in four or eight years’ time, and thinks this is the better approach. Regardless of whether he and McCain won or not, he’d get lots of time in the public eye, be seen as someone willing to do what’s best for the party (that’s the tone of his remarks in this interview). This is certainly a cheaper and in some ways easier option than the alternative of spending four years in the wilderness burnishing his conservative credentials by starting a foundation of some kind. But he’ll be miserable being the VP unless he’s given some sort of substantive role after all his executive experience over the last several years.

And all this also begs the question of whether McCain would even ask him. But with Rove and others pulling for it, it’s not such a long shot at this point.

I came across a reference recently to something called Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem and followed a link to the Wikipedia article on this topic. The theorem is named for Kenneth Arrow, who posited that it is impossible for a society of any size to make collective choices (e.g. through voting) that will reflect the underlying choices of the individuals who make up the society. There is a complex mathematical proof accompanying the theorem, which is given in some detail in the Wikipedia entry, but it’s actually also pretty intuitive.

Since there are often two serious choices in an election – Democrats versus Republicans, usually, in the US – and since the two parties often offer policies which are in effect opposites (raise taxes vs. lower taxes, permit vs. ban abortion, etc.) the election of candidate from either party alienates those who voted for the other. That’s the extreme, but the Impossibility Theorem also suggests that even if you simply have three options and individuals are able to rank them by preference, it still isn’t possible to have a solution which is optimal for society as a whole, since even if Option A comes out top, there will be members of society for whom Option A was the third (i.e. last) choice.

What does all this mean in practical terms? Well, it means that, no matter how well we exercise our civic duty, we will frequently find ourselves on the losing side and therefore feel frustrated that we have expressed our preferences but not apparently influenced the result. This is the problem behind at least some voter apathy (ironically, a sense that there is little difference between candidates is another), but it is also a factor behind dictatorships and even violent movements within democracies. Groups which constitute a minority in electoral terms but nonetheless have significant membership become frustrated when they are consistently thwarted in their aims by the electoral process, which gives power to the majority. After a time they become disillusioned with the process and seek to enforce their will through alternative means, whether seizing power by force, engaging in terrorist acts designed either to enforce their will or exact vengeance for non-compliance, or through some other method.

This is the charge democracy is most vulnerable to: that although it produces results which are acceptable to a majority, that can leave over 49% of society feeling disenfranchised. However, as Winston Churchill said, “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” As flawed as democracy can be, it is still the best method for ensuring that a majority, and not a vocal or violent minority, dictates societal outcomes. This November, no doubt, there will be many who feel frustrated once again at the political process, but in all likelihood none of these people will feel strongly enough to effect a change in the underlying system of representative democracy, the great national experiment which can indeed “long endure” despite its flaws. And in the context of the violence which is typical during and after elections in some of the other nations of the world, that is a miracle in itself.

Fiscal responsibility hasn’t been mentioned much in this year’s presidential campaign outside of discussion of the Bush tax cuts (which McCain voted against initially but has since supported). But it’s got to be one of the biggest issues that Republicans need to address if they want to retake Congress. The fact that they’ve been so weak on fiscal responsibility (i.e. lowering government spending and taxes) has allowed the Democrats to neutralise the traditional advantage Republicans have on the economy (and even overtake them in this regard in some polls) and has been a big part of the reason they retook Congress two years ago.

I think Romney should have gone after the Republican Congress harder on this – it would have been a nice stick to beat John McCain with since he’s been right there in the thick of it (though arguably not one of the worst culprits). But I think he was hamstrung in this and in other matters by the fact that he wanted to be supportive of President Bush, who hasn’t done the Republicans any favors in this department either aside from those tax cuts, never vetoing a single pork-laden spending bill during the entire time Republicans were in charge.

At this point McCain needs to make this a campaign issue, but the Republicans (planning to stay) in Congress also need to really take it on board and ensure they send a strong message on the issue to voters between now and November.

Ed Morrissey (erstwhile of Captain’s Quarters, now at Hot Air) has written several good pieces on this whole issue over the last few weeks which are all worth reading. The Republicans have had a mixed record even over that short period, but they really need to tighten up and close ranks on this issue. They also need to put some serious reformers in prominent committee positions to give them some clout to clean things up. At this point, it’s 50/50 at best as to whether they’ll make any headway on this point in time for this fall’s elections.

So Mike Huckabee’s finally out of the race, now that McCain appears to have crossed the 1191 delegate line. There’s a nice bit of revisionist history in the CNN piece covering this piece of news:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee bowed to “the inevitable” and dropped out of the Republican presidential race Tuesday night after an improbable run for a politician little known beyond his home state a year ago.

I think it’s been “inevitable” for some time at this point. Now it’s moved from being inevitable to being a cold hard fact. If he stayed in it at this point it would have been evidence of insanity, nothing more.

Huckabee went on to best former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, by then the GOP front-runner, in the Iowa caucuses January 3, placing him among the top tier of Republican hopefuls.

I don’t recall anyone from CNN (or any of the other main news organisations) calling Mitt Romney the GOP front-runner at the time. Helpful for them to concede this fact now.

He lagged behind Romney and McCain in the next round of contests, in New Hampshire and Michigan, and trailed McCain in South Carolina. However, his victories in West Virginia and the Deep South states of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and his native Arkansas in the February 5 Super Tuesday contests helped force Romney out of the race.

It’s those last few words that grate here. Romney wasn’t forced out of the race: he pulled out when it was clear that staying in was likely to be unproductive, but at the time he had more votes and significantly more delegates than Huckabee. Huckabee has now been forced out of the race by the sheer fact that McCain has won, but to suggest that Huckabee forced Romney out of the race is a gross overstatement. Huckabee did siphon away enough votes from Romney to make it hard for him to beat McCain, of course, but Romney wasn’t forced out any more than Huckabee was.

It then goes on in the next paragraph with this:

“Over the past few days, a lot of people have been trying to say that this is a two-man race,” Huckabee told supporters that night. “Well, you know what? It is, and we’re in it.”

Which suggests that Huckabee said this after Romney pulled out, and it therefore made logical sense at the time. Of course, he said this on a night when Romney was still way ahead of him and it was bravado at best and downright dishonesty at worst.

And the article finishes off with this:

“To have gone this far and outlasted so many others, I think is a remarkable story. Wish it would have ended differently, but it is what it is,” Huckabee said.

Huckabee’s exit leaves anti-war Texas congressman Ron Paul, a former Libertarian presidential candidate, as McCain’s sole active opponent.

If by “outlasted” Huckabee means “had the temerity to stay in even when he had no chance of winning despite urging from most of the party to pull out already” I guess that statement is accurate… The last paragraph is a doozy too – in what sense is Ron Paul an “active” opponent of McCain? Hasn’t he completely stopped campaigning? And isn’t the fact that he hasn’t officially conceded more about the fact that he’s stopped paying attention to the presidential race than about the fact that he’s still in it?

At any rate, glad Huckabee can add to 1191 and that he’s finally out of it and backing McCain. Wonder what’s next for him. He doesn’t seem to be considered by most of the commentators as a VP candidate, but a lot of Huckabee followers seem to think that’s the logical next step.

Obama is now plagued by two quasi-scandals: the Rezko case and the NAFTA case. But the irony with both is that the purported scandals themselves are pretty tame – what’s really getting him is the fact that he and his campaign have not been truthful or open about them. In fact, the latest evidence suggests Obama is trying to run as far away from them both as possible. There’s a good summary of how this has panned out in relation to the NAFTA story here. It’s as if Obama has been such a carefully stage-managed candidate that the only response his campaign has when things like this come up (as they do, inevitably, even with the most squeaky clean campaign) is to deny and run.

In some ways, the timing here is similar to the Times story about McCain – it may all come together just too late to make any difference in the primary election, but it has the potential to still be out there for the general election, with the Rezko trial in particular throwing up fodder for more stories on the Rezko-Obama relationship.

So, Hillary Clinton was on the Daily Show last night. And John Stewart opened the interview as follows:

John Stewart: Senator, let me get right into this. This election is about judgment. Tomorrow is perhaps one of the most important days of your life. And yet you have chosen to spend the night before talking to me. As a host, I’m grateful, but as a citizen I’m frightened. Your response?

Hillary: It is pretty pathetic…

Now both John Stewart’s line and hers got a good response from the audience. But aren’t both actually pretty close to the truth? Shouldn’t we be worried that this is how a candidate chooses to spend the last few hours before a major election? And isn’t it a bit pathetic that she does? At least with Leno (and possibly Letterman) you get tossed softballs. But Stewart’s whole point, as Hillary pointed out, is to “make fun of” his guests (same goes for Stephen Colbert). Is there any way you can win in that situation? Is there any way you actually get something positive out of that experience that helps you in your campaign?

There was at least a certain cool factor to Bill playing his saxophone on the late night circuit. But what does Hillary get out of this? And it’s not Hillary alone – anyone without a great on-the-spot comic brain and good one-liners well prepared and well delivered is going to flounder and come out second best on a show like this. The deck is stacked against the guest and in favor of the host just as much as tables in Vegas or Atlantic City. It really does say something about the candidates’ judgment (and desperation) when they’re willing to do it anyway.