Pakistan; The Next 7

Pakistan is quite likely to be the single most difficult item in [the] new president’s inbox.

--Richard Haass, President
Council on Foreign Relations

The U.S. had hoped Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan and her installation as prime minister following next month’s parliamentary elections would have stabilized an anti-extremist, pro-Western government in that important country. Her assassination threatens to make Pakistan instead the world’s potentially most frightening nuclear power. The nation has over 33 million males under 15, most of them poor, many headed for unemployment.

Pakistan itself, with 165 million, is the world’s sixth largest nation, though eighth in our population ranking, because we count the European Union as two countries of equally large size. Pakistan and six other large nations just outside our Big 8 make up the “Next 7”. Collectively, the “Next 7” have 13% of the world’s people, 7% of its wealth and, because the grouping includes oil-rich Iran and Canada, 28% of world petroleum reserves.

None of our “Next 7” are European Union countries, because the EU—all of it—is represented by its two Big 8 representatives. By contrast, two term members of the current 15-member Security Council are EU nations (Belgium and Italy).

Adding the Next 7 to the Big 8 gives us a Top 15 that accounts for 70% of the world’s people, 4/5ths of its wealth, and nearly 2/5ths of its oil. The Top 15 together represent Asia (5 nations), Europe (3), North America (2), Latin America (2), the Middle East (2), and Africa (1).

If we care about people—population—not flags, we should create and support this Top 15, which if it worked together, could truly benefit the world’s masses.

Religion in America

It’s Christmas.

America benefits from religious freedom, and the competition generated between various beliefs, including secularism. Today, however, our nation isn’t in a sweet spot. The political divisions between Republicans and Democrats parallel the divide between those who attend church regularly and those who live outside the church. The recent Des Moines Register Iowa Democratic presidential debate underscored this point. On the Fox television screen, pollster Frank Luntz posted a real-time graph that tracked his Democratic focus group’s response to the debate as it unfolded. Viewers watching the graph could see focus group reaction to each speaker’s words, just as the candidates’ answers left their mouths.

When Joe Biden [picture] mentioned attending church and quoted words from a hymn he sang on Sunday (here at 2:37 of Part 4), the focus group’s negatives plunged through the floor. Judged by the group’s response to Biden, Democrats are uncomfortable with politicians who bring their personal faith into political dialogue. And probably Republicans react the opposite way; many are drawn to candidates who discuss their personal faith.

Because religious/cultural differences parallel our nation’s political divide, it will be harder to unite America in 2008.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Big 8

The Big 8 represent 56% of the world’s people, 72% of the world’s wealth, and a hold relatively small share (9%) of the world’s oil reserves. Henry Kissinger, saying the Security Council doesn’t represent “current realities,” has called for a similar grouping of leading world nations.

The current Security Council has five permanent members. The U.S., China, and even Russia should be permanent members. But today, so should India, Brazil and Japan. Adding the three non-European powers would enlarge the permanent membership to eight. So what about the UK and France? Should they be there? Not as individual nations with only 60 million people each. Permanent membership for the UK and France is a historical anachronism left over from World War II. United Germany has more people, and is more economically powerful.

The European Union, with 500 million people, 27 countries, and an economy twice the size of #2 China, could fill two permanent seats. So the permanent 5 would then become the Big 8, with two EU representatives, the U.S., China, Russia, India, Brazil and Japan. The Big 8 collectively represent Europe (3 seats), Asia (3 seats), North America, and Latin America. That mix is far better than today’s Security Council permanent members, or the so-called "Group of Eight," a largely white, European-origin group made up of the U.S., the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Canada, and Japan.

The world has changed since 1945, and even since 1975, when the “Group of Six” (Canada and Russia came later) was formed. It’s time the world’s leading nations honor the change, include China, Japan, India and Brazil, and reduce the ranks of Europeans and North Americans.

The Big 8, The Top 15

Here’s our latest look at the world’s 15 most important nations. It’s a revised version of the current UN Security Council, and we call the top group, an updated version of the Security Council’s five permanent members, the Big 8. The remaining 7 countries include 5 of the 13 most populous nations, and two others with large economies and significant oil reserves.

The revisions incorporate data from the World Bank’s revised list [look up "ICP" at link] of the world’s largest economies, based on GDP Purchasing Power Parity (PPP GDP). The Bank’s revised list came out December 17. We have also updated population totals and looked again at oil reserves. As we explained when preparing last year’s Top 15 list, our point total also gives credit to nations with a nuclear weapons capability, even though doing so truly is an undesirable way to measure world power.

Our biggest change from last year is recognizing the European Union as a political entity. We leave it to the EU to determine how to fill its two allotted seats. Right now, the UK and France are permanent members of the Security Council, while Germany, bigger and more powerful, is not even on the Council, and Italy and Belgium are term members until next year. The EU should decide for itself whether the UK and France hold permanent seats in what would be our Big 8, or whether the EU should rotate membership to include Germany and Italy. The EU’s combined strength and size does justify its holding two of the Big 8 seats.

If all people are equal, then it’s time to recognize that 70% of the world’s people live in 15 nations with—except for Nigeria and Bangladesh—significant economic clout. These Top 15 (if we agree the two EU representatives account for the entire EU) also have nearly 4/5ths of the world’s wealth, and nearly 2/5ths of its oil reserves. Once this group starts meeting, the world will be able to take effective collective action. The UN can continue as a forum for the remaining 177 nations.

Person of the Year? Not.

On “Person of the Year,” TIME blows it again.

I said an Arctic iceberg. TIME named Al Gore first runner-up. Close. Close.

Putin? Why, for having oil? Sarkozy wasn’t even a runner-up, and Petraeus was fourth runner-up, after J.K. Rowling. TIME doesn’t recognize great leaders when they’re staring its editorial staff in the face.

TIME's Ed Board meeting; something like this. “We can’t name Petraeus! Are we going to tell everybody we’re wrong on the war? No way! Well, so how about we pick a villain then, in the tradition of Hitler, Stalin, the Ayatullah? That’ll keep us away from any ‘Why not Petraeus?’ stuff. Yeah, a real villain. But Chaney. . .well, it just hasn’t been his year. Not enough mean in '07. Hey, but how about Putin??? Yeah. Putin!”

Person of the Year

He’s the obvious choice. In an era when so many leaders disappoint, Petraeus grabbed a hold of the biggest problem facing America, and in a matter of months whipped that baby into submission. He is the Chester Nimitz, John Pershing, and U.S. Grant of our latest war, a leader who made a difference, a real hero. In the classic tradition of TIME “men” of the year, he single-handedly changed the course of history.

Will TIME choose Petraeus “Person of the Year”? They are more likely to select an Arctic Ocean iceberg. But if TIME picks Nicholas Sarkozy instead of Petraeus, I will forgive them.

"Recession? Happy Days!"

The odds for a recession dropped today, because of an unexpected rise in retail sales. Still, the watch is on for economic bad news that will displace Iraq bad news in paving the path to Democratic victory.

One guy who's got this all right is New York Magazine columnist Kurt Anderson. Tongue firmly planted in cheek, Anderson lays out the truth: Democrats love bad news. Or as the article’s sub-head says, “The surge is working! Yikes. Stem cells can be harvested embryo-free! Boo-hoo. A recession in the offing? Happy days are near again.”

According to Anderson:

 every four years, we “put on our own special pair of red plastic decoder glasses that enable us—force us, really—to . . . scan each day’s headlines [asking] . . . Is it bad for the Republicans?”

 the New York Times’ front-page lead . . . warned of “intensifying worries that the economy may be headed for recession.” Total bummer, right? Yes … um … unless you’d prefer that a Democrat be elected president next year. Since the Civil War, whenever the economy was in recession at election time, the opposition party has won the White House.

 for Democrats, every news story pointing to imminent economic ugliness is a gift. Such is our duplicitous American version of Leninism lite: The worse, the better—but don’t ever say so. Our cynical Bizarro selves must remain closeted.

Thank you, Mr. Anderson, for opening your closet door!

Obama Time

David Brooks feels the nation’s zeitgeist has changed. To Brooks, Obama’s call for voters to reject fear, partisanship and textbook politics and vote for a new era of national unity—a call in tune with our new zeitgeist—helps explain Barack’s rising popularity. Brooks attributes our changed mood to Iraq’s dropping from the headlines, the Iran threat’s possible decline, reduced Israeli-Palestinian tensions, Pakistan’s avoiding implosion, and Hugo Chavez’s reversal in Venezuela. Brooks could have added to his list North Korea’s stepping back from confrontation.

Ellen Goodman worries Brooks could be right about Obama. In her weekend column, Goodman goes after Obama as could only someone worried history has passed her by. Goodman writes Obama “described boomer politics with something close to disdain as a psychodrama ‘rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago', and. . . [called] Hillary [one who’s] ‘been fighting some of the same fights since the '60s.’” Ouch!

To Goodman, those were fights worth fighting. “The '60s opened up huge and important conflicts. It was . . . about . . . black and white relationships, male and female relationships, gay and straight relationships, all kinds of authority and our place in the world.”

Goodman believes “the campaign against any Republican will take place in the fray. . . [I]n an era of ugly politics. . . [w]e don't need healing but resounding defeat. . . [That means we need a] bulldozer [who] can't be kissed into submission.”

Hillary.

Iraq Surge Success Continues

Here’s our latest monthly, highly abbreviated version of the Iraq Index, published and updated twice a week by Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution:



Americans Killed in Action, Iraq (monthly average)
2003: 32
2004: 59
2005: 56
2006: 58
2007: 67
November: 33

Americans Killed in Action, Vietnam (monthly average)
1965: 128*
1966: 420
1967: 767
1968: 1140
1969: 785
____
* = First U.S. combat troops arrived in Vietnam, 5.3.65
Vietnam table compiled by Galen Fox using Defense Department sources.

Crude Oil Production (m. bbls./day)

Prewar Peak: 2.50
Goal: 2.10 (Revised downward, 1/07)
actual: 2.40 (11/07)

Electricity (megawatts)

Prewar: 3,958
Goal: 6,000
actual: 4,120 (11/07)

Since our last monthly report, the American KIA total rose from October's 28 up to 33. Still, that KIA total is, except for last month, the lowest since March 2006, and the recent two-month total of 61 is the lowest bi-monthly American KIA total since February-March 2004. [Please note: the number of KIA is almost always lower than the media-reported total of American deaths, which covers all causes, including non-hostile. Our Iraq and Vietnam figures are KIA only.] American deaths in Iraq are the monthly statistic most closely watched to measure how the war is going.

Our other indicators continue to show success. Oil output is up to its highest daily total since October 2004, and is the fifth-highest oil daily output average for any month since the war began. Once again, revenue from oil exports is the highest ever except for the previous month--a pattern that suggests a month's lag in compiling the revenue total, meaning the November revenue total will be a new Iraq record once we see the first Brookings' report in 2008. Iraq's oil revenue gains are of course helped by record prices for crude on the world market.

As for electricity, here output is down for November--falling to 4,120 megawatts from October's 4,725 megawatts. But electricity usage drops with the temperature. The U.S. interim national target for Iraq is 10-12 hours of electricity a day. Iraq topped that figure in both October and November, the first time that's happened for two months in a row since October-November 2005.

All these measurements portray progress in Iraq.

This blog follows Iraq-related news fairly closely, as does the world. About one-fifth of our blog entries deal with Iraq. Here they all are:

Pew: Public Sees Progress in War Effort (12.2.07)

What’s in the Times’ Washington Bureau Water Cooler? (11.21.07)

Facts on the Ground (Reprise) (11.12.07)

Succeeding in Iraq (11.5.07)

Is War Necessary? (10.30.07)

War: Answering the Euro-Democrats (10.29.07)

In-Your-Face Media Bias (10.8.07)

An Excellent Month in Iraq (10.2.07)

AP Cooks the Books on Iraq (9.10.07)

ABC’s Raddatz Cues Up Reid on How to Blacken Petraeus (9.7.07)

Iraq: KIA Down on Eve of Petraeus Report(9.7.07)

Can Friedman let Iraq go? Maybe not. (8.22.07)

Iraq: American KIA Surpass 9.11 Total (8.4.07)

Quitting the War on Terror (7.14.07)

Quitters (Part II) (7.12.07)

Quitters (Part I) (7.10.07)

Iraq Surge Comes with a Price (7.8.07)

Iraq Death Toll Reaches New High (6.7.07)

Why White House May Cave on Iraq (5.27.07)

Damning Bob Kerrey with Faint Praise (5.27.07)

Thank Heaven for Bob Kerrey (5.22.07)

What to Do About the Islamic Threat (5.9.07)

Iraq Surge Costs American Lives (5.7.07)

Losing Iraq = Bad News for U.S. (5.4.07)

Backlash Times 3 (4.20.07)

Iraq: Light at the end of the tunnel? (4.18.07)

Hope in Iraq (4.17.07)

Al-Qaeda: Bigger than Ever (4.17.07)

Iraq: No Measurable Progress (4.11.07)

Early Stage Iraq Surge Brings Little Change (3.8.07)

Common Myths about Iraq (2.11.07)

Iraq: Oil Production Target Lowered (2.5.07)

The Answer is More Democracy (1.30.07)

Baker-Hamilton Support Iraq Troop Surge (1.30.07)

Iraq War Loss is Democrats’ Gain (1.9.07)

Iraq: Is Winning that Hard? (1.8.07)

Iraq: December a Bad Month; 2006 a Bad Year (1.4.07)

Gore’s Running Mate: More Troops in Iraq (1.3.07)

Hey, Look, Patton! (12.12.07)

Do We Need to Win? (12.10.06)

Iraq: November better for Americans (12.5.06)

Uncle Sadr (11.29.06)

If Iraq is Vietnam, Where is Uncle Ho? (11.27.06)

Media on Iraq: Losing is Winning (11.21.06)

Iraq: Worst Month in Years (11.7.06)

For all Iraq items posted before November 2006, go here.

God Lives

The Economist has a special section on religion. As an answer to globalization's challenges, religion’s coming back, a theme in line with Tom Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999), and touched on in this blog’s “computers v. culture”. The world’s biggest religions—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism—are larger than ever, and Islam’s extreme version is a truly serious threat to globalization. Secularism, once thought the wave of the future, is a North American-Western Europe exception to a picture that has seen Christianity grow from 10 million to 400 million African believers in the 20th century, and China moving toward becoming the world's largest Christian nation by 2050. As The Economist puts it, modernization was thought to lead to secularization, but in fact modernization means pluralism, or different religions (including Atheism as a choice).

Nationalism followed the Age of Faith, and it dominated world history from 1648 to the Berlin Wall’s 1989 fall. We are now in the era of globalization, with religion in its shadow, making a comeback.

Pew: Public Sees Progress in War Effort

Pew Research has the first solid evidence I’ve seen that the public is accepting evidence of the Iraq surge’s success.
According to Pew,

there has been improvement in how both Democrats and Republicans view the war. At the lowest point in February, 51% of Republicans said things were going well. Today, 74% of Republicans say the same. And . . . the proportion of Democrats expressing a positive view of the Iraq effort has doubled since February (from 16% to 33%). [In addition,] 41% of independents offer a positive assessment, while half say things are not going well. In February, 26% of independents expressed a positive view of . . .Iraq.

Pew also found that “improving” has replaced “mess” as the most popular single-word description for Iraq.

Why are these men laughing?

Neither Bush nor Ehud Olmert nor Mahmoud Abbas have the clout to deliver a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. Hamas takes out Abbas if he compromises, and likewise the Israeli right wing takes out Olmert if he makes concessions. When Ariel Sharon went into a coma, the leader who could have achieved peace with Palestine left the scene. So even though Bush has nothing to lose, even though Iraq’s improving security situation gives the U.S. more clout, even though Syria really does want peace with Israel, and even though Hamas’ shift to Gaza offers Abbas latitude he didn’t expect to have in dealing on the West Bank, these guys just aren’t the three to make it happen. Not the British in 1948. Not Bush in 2008. (Ouch! Sixty years!)

Politics is always local in the sense that a leader weak at home can’t make the compromises that move history forward.

U.N. Security Council Doesn't Work

Henry Kissinger has some comments about how poorly the current U.N. structure serves international security needs:

The Security Council must be reformed, since it does not represent current realities. . .India, Japan, Germany and Brazil are not included. Yet this reform is unlikely, since it would either involve expansion of the veto-wielding permanent membership--rendering the Security Council even less capable of decisive action--or elimination of the veto, [which] would be unacceptable to the United States and the other four permanent members. But some change is necessary. The Council itself is breaking down--the interests of its permanent members are not parallel enough to permit a unanimous decision. . .

Kissinger’s comments are in line with this blog’s more detailed, earlier discussion of who really counts in world affairs.

U.S. economy fundamentally sound.

New York Times columnist David Brooks is impressed with Summers’ warning about where the U.S. economy is headed. But he offers several points of optimism, admittedly from a longer-term perspective:

 the World Economic Forum and the International Institute for Management Development produced global competitiveness indexes, and once again they both ranked the United States first in the world. . . it leads the world in . . .higher education and training, labor market flexibility, the ability to attract global talent, the availability of venture capital, the quality of corporate management and the capacity to innovate.

 The U.S. . . has successfully absorbed more than 20 million legal immigrants over the past quarter-century, an extraordinary influx of human capital. . .Birthrates are relatively high, meaning that in 2050, the average American will be under 40, while the average European, Chinese and Japanese will be more than a decade older. . .The U.S. standard of living first surpassed the rest of the world’s in about 1740, and . . . the country has resolutely refused to decay.

 Between 1991 and 2007, the U.S. trade deficit exploded to $818 billion from $31 billion. Yet . . . during that time the U.S. created 28 million jobs and the unemployment rate dipped to 4.6% from 6.8%. . . Every quarter the U.S. loses . . . seven million jobs, and creates a bit more than seven million . . . the essence of a dynamic economy.

U.S. Financial Distress

Larry Summers, the former Harvard president who earlier was Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, is worried about where the U.S. economy is going. He makes these cautionary points (comments no Harvard president, even Summers, would utter in public):

1. forward-looking indicators suggest that the housing sector may be in free-fall from what felt like the basement levels of a few months ago. . . nationwide house prices could fall from their previous peaks by as much as 25% over the next several years. . . it is hard to believe declines of . . . this magnitude will not lead to a dramatic slowing in . . . consumer spending . . .

2. only a small part of the financial distress that must be worked through has yet been faced. . .the rate of foreclosure will more than double over the next year . . .total losses in the American financial sector would be several times the $50bn or so in write-downs that have already been announced, [spreading] to the credit card, auto and commercial property sectors.

3. the capacity of the financial system to provide credit in support of new investment on the scale necessary to maintain economic expansion is in increasing doubt. . . powerfully demonstrated last week when the yield on the two-year Treasury bond dropped below 3% for the first time in years.

So Summers offers these recommendations:

1. the Fed has to get ahead of the curve and recognise – as the market already has – that levels of the Fed Funds rate that were neutral when the financial system was working normally are quite contractionary today.

2. policymakers need to [adopt] non-traditional [measures], given how much of the problem lies outside bank balance sheets. . . The priority [is] maintaining the flow of credit.

3. [we need to maintain] demand in the housing market to the maximum extent possible. The government . . . needs to assure that there is a continuing flow of reasonably priced loans to credit worthy home purchasers.

What’s in the Times’ Washington Bureau water cooler?

News of Iraq’s improved security situation has reached the New York Times—at least its Washington Bureau. Michael Gordon, its military correspondent, has written that attacks in Iraq had declined to the lowest level since January 2006, “adding to a body of evidence. . . that the violence had diminished significantly since the United States reinforced troop levels in Iraq and adopted a new counterinsurgency strategy.” The Gordon article quotes Brookings’ Michael O’Hanlon, another Washington insider, saying “These trends are stunning in military terms and beyond the predictions of most proponents of the surge last winter.”

Of still greater significance, Washington-based Timesman Tom Friedman has quietly signed on to the guardedly more optimistic view of how things are going in Iraq. Here’s how Friedman words it:

 It’s clear that the surge by U.S. troops has really dampened violence in Iraq. . .The surge has made Iraq safe. . . for an ‘A.T.M. peace’. . . the Baghdad government. . . as an A.T.M. cash machine — supporting the army and local security groups and dispensing oil revenues to the provincial governors and tribal chiefs from each community.

 Can the informal arrangements they’re cobbling together reach a level of stability that would enable a major drawdown of U.S. forces next year? I don’t know. My Iraq crystal ball stopped working a long time ago. I’m taking this one step at a time. Right now what is indisputable is that we are seeing the first crack in years in a wall of pessimism that has been the Iraq story.

Whoa! Friedman back to hoping for an Iraq win?

Will Sarko beat the unions?

In the heart of Old Europe, an event of historic proportions. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is attempting to face down the unions that have held French democracy hostage for over a century. Shortly after coming to power this past Summer, Sarkozy made it clear he would have to break union power in order to reform France. Now the transit workers are striking France, costing the country roughly $500 million a day. According to the International Herald Tribune, these are the facts:

 Sarkozy: "We will not surrender and we will not retreat. France needs reforms to meet the challenges imposed on it by the world.” Sarkozy warned that the walkout must halt before it brought "the economy to its knees," and he cited the millions of French people who "are exasperated by being held hostage. . . You have to think of all those who have to go to work."

 The strikers: railroad, subway and bus workers; energy workers and employees at the Paris Opera; air traffic controllers; newspaper printers; primary and high school teachers; firefighters, weather-service employees and staff of the Bank of France. Threatening to go out: Air France pilots.

 How it’s going: demonstrators mobilized about 30% of the 2.5 million civil service employees. There were signs train workers were going back to work—fewer than 30% of the workers for the national railroad, SNCF, and the Paris transport network, RATP, were absent Tuesday, compared with 61.5% on last week’s walkout opening day.

Hollywood Goofs

Here’s the truth. The war in Iraq is unpopular. But Hollywood’s anti-Iraq movies are even bigger bombs. “The Kingdom,” in its 8th week, grossed a mere $102,000, a feeble stab at the $70 million cost to make it. But at least “The Kingdom,” wisely marketed as an action flick, grossed $47 million in the previous seven weeks. The other four anti-war pics have together grossed but $28 million (see chart), and one of the four—“Rendition”—is gone after only four weeks. Yikes!








Chart extrapolated from: LA Times, 11.19.07

Even more amazing, stars of the movies are Oscar winners and A-listers Reese Witherspoon [pictured], Meryl Streep (twice), Jake Gyllenhaal, Tom Cruise, Robert Redford, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper, Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon, and Charlize Theron. What gives?

USA Today commentator Jonah Goldberg offers his reasons for Hollywood’s missing its mark, among them:

 Hollywood cares less and less about what Americans think of their products because . . . Hollywood shifted its aim to foreign markets. Denouncing the war isn't only good marketing in Europe, it's the fastest route to critical acclaim.

 Perhaps the studios of yesteryear knew something today's moguls don't. . .Americans don't like to see America and her troops run down, even during an unpopular war.

To Goldberg, the following illustrates how little Hollywood understands America today:

When Peter Berg tested “The Kingdom” on Americans, he was horrified when the audience cheered when the FBI killed the terrorists at the end. "Am I experiencing American bloodlust?" the director agonized.

Polarized News Junkies

I have argued (here and previous) that mainstream media control the national agenda. The intensity of their effort to retain control suggests to me a fear that control is slipping away, a fear given indirect support by Markus Prior’s recent book on Post-Broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections. The author first describes a golden age of television news, when TV “consisted essentially of three networks, and many people watched news. At the height of the broadcast era, from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, almost half of all Americans watched one of the three network newscasts at 6:30 p.m. on a regular weekday evening.” Prior calls people of that era “politically informed, at least on some basic level.” During that time, network television helped end the Vietnam war, remove Nixon from the White House, and bring down Carter as well.

In his look at the same period, James Q. Wilson found that while the mainstream media changed middle class American views on Vietnam, their impact on working- class people proved less significant, a finding Wilson attributed to the media’s realizing they were serving a mass audience, and restraining their overt bias in order to hold that audience. Wilson believes today’s niche-marketed media, no longer with a mass audience, more freely express their true views.

As for Prior, he writes that the population currently watching network news is below 10%, and identifies 20% of the TV audience as happy enough with cable and other news to make news their preferred viewing choice. He’s worried about the lack of political participation of the other 80%—those who get their news from Leno, Letterman, or nowhere. People who follow the news re-enforce their partisan views with their preferred niche choices. They help make politics confrontational. The less partisan uninvolved, by voting in reduced numbers, deny America the benefit of their more moderate, middle-of-the-road sentiments.

Academia's PC Rot

"White culture is a melting pot of greed, guys, guns, and god."

--From University of Delaware’s August 2007 "diversity facilitation training" program for resident assistants (RAs).

You know what I object to most? Giving "melting pot" a bad name.

The irony of what’s happening on college campuses is that in the name of diversity, the marketplace of ideas that used to distinguish a great university is giving way to an ideologically rigid world view that brooks little dissent. This from the National Journal’s Stuart Taylor Jr., who says he has “never been conservative enough to vote for a Republican presidential nominee.”

According to Taylor:

 One Delaware University RA report classified a young woman as one of the "worst" students in the residence life education program for saying that she was tired of having "diversity shoved down her throat" and responding "none of your damn business" when asked "when did you discover your sexual identity?" Said Kelsey Lanan, a 19-year-old sophomore, "it seemed like they were trying to convince us we were racist and sexist and were horrible people".

 "At least in the humanities and social sciences," Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein wrote in a 2004 essay, "academics shun conservative values and traditions, so their curricula and hiring practices discourage non-leftists from pursuing academic careers. The quasi-Marxist outlook of cultural studies rules out those who espouse capitalism. . . If you think that the nuclear family proves the best unit of social well-being, stay away from women's studies."

 the 88 Duke professors who signed [the] April 2006 ad in the school paper spearheading the mob rush to judgment against falsely accused lacrosse players included 80% of the African-American studies faculty; 72% of the women's studies professors; 60% of the cultural anthropology department. . .

 Duke literature professor Grant Farred has produced . . . a monograph styling Houston Rockets center Yao Ming, a native of China, as "the most profound threat to American empire." In the fall of 2006, Farred accused hundreds of Duke students of "secret racism" against "black female bodies" because they had registered to vote. . . to defeat rogue Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong. . . [Now] Cornell [has] hire[d] away and tenure[d] Farred. . ."We are very enthusiastic about Professor Farred, whose work everyone in this department has long admired," remarked Cornell English Department Chairwoman Molly Hite.