Author Archives: Doug Badger

The President, His Critics And the Politics of Impatience

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What do these two men have in common? More than you might think. [Credit: Politico]

What do these two men have in com­mon? More than you might think. [Cred­it: Politico]

“But what I’m not going to do is just wait.  I think it’s fair to say that I’ve shown a lot of patience…But what we can’t do is just keep on wait­ing.”  Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Novem­ber 5, 2014

The Con­sti­tu­tion offers no rem­e­dy for pres­i­den­tial impa­tience. Pres­i­dents, Mem­bers of Con­gress and judges are some­times con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly required to “just keep on wait­ing.”  And that is some­thing office­hold­ers of both polit­i­cal par­ties seem increas­ing­ly unwill­ing to do.  When it comes to cir­cum­vent­ing the rules to achieve the polit­i­cal objec­tives of the moment, the Pres­i­dent and some of his most stri­dent con­ser­v­a­tive foes are soulmates.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Tales From The House al Qaeda Built

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Turmoil at the Department of Homeland Security, an agency established in response to the 9/11 attacks, continued last night when Secret Service Director Julia Pierson resigned under fire. [Credit: cbc.ca]

Tur­moil at the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty, an agency estab­lished in response to the 9/11 attacks, con­tin­ued last night when Secret Ser­vice Direc­tor Julia Pier­son resigned under fire. [Cred­it: cbc.ca]

The house al Qae­da built — a sprawl­ing new head­quar­ters for the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty, an agency cre­at­ed in response to the Sep­tem­ber 11 attacks — was sup­posed to open next year.

It’s just a bit behind sched­ule.  Its open­ing is now slat­ed for 2026, 21 years after plan­ning began. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

President’s Iraq Strategy Avoids Doing Nothing … But How Will It End?

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A Libyan rebel for whom we provided air support celebrates in 2011. Today those same rebels have reduced the country to bloody chaos. Will our bombing in Iraq and Syria produce a better result? [Credit: The Guardian]

A Libyan rebel for whom we pro­vid­ed air sup­port cel­e­brates in 2011. Today those same rebels have reduced the coun­try to bloody chaos. Will our bomb­ing in Iraq and Syr­ia pro­duce a bet­ter result? [Cred­it: The Guardian]

The black flag of jihad flies over much of the coun­try.  City after city has fall­en to islamist insur­gents.  Mil­i­tants burn hous­es and attack eth­nic minori­ties and jour­nal­ists.   The pop­u­lar­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ment, pow­er­less to stop the onslaught, appeals for out­side help.  Fear­ing that the coun­try is fast becom­ing a “ter­ror­ist hub,” a West­ern gov­ern­ment this week sought to “mobi­lize the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty” to launch a war against the jihadists.

Iraq?  No.  Libya, a coun­try where we con­duct­ed airstrikes in 2011 in sup­port of an odd assort­ment of ground forces that includ­ed more than its share of mis­fits and fanatics.

If that strat­e­gy pro­duced such a mis­er­able result in Libya, can we rea­son­ably expect it to work in Iraq and Syr­ia? Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Hamas And Progressivism

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Hamas fighters celebrated the arrival of Islamic law in Gaza in 2007. But the group, a darling of progressives, still has not succeeded in destroying Israel. [Credit: Telegraph.uk]

Hamas fight­ers cel­e­brat­ed the arrival of Islam­ic law in Gaza in 2007. But the group, a dar­ling of pro­gres­sives, still has not suc­ceed­ed in destroy­ing Israel. [Cred­it: Telegraph.uk]

“The time will not come until Mus­lims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Mus­lim! there is a Jew hid­ing behind me, come on and kill him!”  Hamas Char­ter, Arti­cle VII

“Under­stand­ing Hamas [and] Hezbol­lah as social move­ments that are pro­gres­sive, that are on the left, that are part of a glob­al left, is extreme­ly impor­tant.”  Berke­ley Pro­fes­sor Judith But­ler

The war that pits Israel against the pro­gres­sive social move­ment known as Hamas has returned to dor­man­cy.  The most recent out­break of blood­shed did not end with rocks and trees turn­ing Jews over to their Mus­lim pur­suers for exter­mi­na­tion.  The glob­al left will have to wait for his­to­ry to progress to that geno­ci­dal out­come. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Why We Won’t Destroy The Islamic State

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Our Shiite allies in the war against the terrorist Islamic State [IS] also have a taste for terror, which is one reason why we probably won't destroy the IS. [Credit: Getty Images]

Our Shi­ite allies in the war against the ter­ror­ist Islam­ic State [IS] also have a taste for ter­ror, which is one rea­son why we prob­a­bly won’t destroy the IS. [Cred­it: Get­ty Images]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma seems to have found his inner neocon.

This past week, he called on the world to unite behind a “com­mon effort to extract this can­cer,” as he char­ac­ter­ized the Islam­ic State [IS].  Our ever-bel­li­cose chief diplo­mat shunned metaphors and spoke more direct­ly.  The IS, Ker­ry said, “and the wicked­ness it rep­re­sents must be destroyed.”

Thus did our lat­est incur­sion into Iraq, which began as a mis­sion to res­cue Yazidis trapped on a moun­tain, become some­thing more.  But words are cheap.  War is cost­ly.  The Pres­i­dent lacks the resolve to make good on his threat to extract the can­cer that is the Islam­ic State.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Iraq: In Search Of An Organizing Principle

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The President has decided to fight jihadists threatening to kill Yazidis with bombs instead of hashtags. But it's not clear why. [Credit: Business Insider]

Sun­ni rad­i­cals are threat­en­ing to mas­sacre an obscure eth­nore­li­gious group known as Yazidis.  The Pres­i­dent has decid­ed to fight the jihadists with bombs instead of hash­tags. But it’s not clear why. [Cred­it: Busi­ness Insider]

“Great nations need orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ples, and ‘Don’t do stu­pid stuff’ is not an orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ple.” For­mer Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton.

Anoth­er August.  Anoth­er flir­ta­tion with war.  In the psy­chodra­ma that is the Oba­ma Pres­i­den­cy, our hero vac­il­lates between war and peace, detach­ment and inter­ven­tion, rid­ing out the storm and steer­ing into its teeth.  The rest of us are left to guess whether he will respond to the next human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis with bombs or hash­tags.  There is, as Mrs. Clin­ton notes, no “orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ple” to lend coher­ence to our for­eign pol­i­cy. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Lawsuit Boehner Should Bring

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The House has authorized the Speaker to sue the Administration for overreaching in its Obamacare implementation. He should sue over its corporate welfare provisions. [Credit: rightspeak.net]

The House has autho­rized the Speak­er to sue the Admin­is­tra­tion for over­reach­ing in its Oba­macare imple­men­ta­tion. He should sue over its cor­po­rate wel­fare pro­vi­sions. [Cred­it: rightspeak.net]

Hi Chet –
After speak­ing at length today with Jeanne and our oth­er pol­i­cy folks, I do not think I have any more to add. They seem to have giv­en you 80 per­cent of what you request­ed and I am not in a posi­tion to sec­ond guess there [sic] analy­sis.
Sin­cere­ly,
Valerie

“Valerie” would be Valerie Jar­rett, one of Pres­i­dent Obama’s clos­est advis­ers. “Chet” would be Chet Bur­rell, CEO of Care­First Blue Cross. In the April 15 email, Jar­rett advised the insur­ance exec­u­tive that he would have to live with 80 per­cent of what his indus­try asked the White House for.

A month lat­er, the Admin­is­tra­tion relent­ed and gave the indus­try 100 per­cent of what it asked for – a reg­u­la­tion that will involve the give­away of an addi­tion­al $1 bil­lion in tax­pay­er funds to insur­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Oba­macare exchanges.

If the Speak­er intends to file a law­suit against the Admin­is­tra­tion for abuse of pow­er, as a res­o­lu­tion adopt­ed last evening by the House autho­rizes him to do, he should sue over this. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

When Dead Men Rule

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G.K. Chesterton worried that our predecessors would have too little influence on our politics. But Gene Steuerle says that they have too much. [Credit: christiancompletely blog]

G.K. Chester­ton wor­ried that our ances­tors would have too lit­tle influ­ence on our soci­ety. But a new book by the Urban Insti­tute’s Gene Steuer­le says that they exert too much con­trol over our pol­i­tics. [Cred­it: chris­tian­com­plete­ly blog]

“Tra­di­tion means giv­ing votes to the most obscure of all class­es, our ances­tors.  It is the democ­ra­cy of the dead.” – G.K. Chester­ton

Chester­ton fret­ted that mod­ern democ­ra­cies might show too lit­tle def­er­ence to past gen­er­a­tions.  But accord­ing to the Urban Institute’s Gene Steuer­le, the very oppo­site is true: in Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy, dead men rule. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Time For A Course Correction In Ukraine

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The ser­i­al provo­ca­tions and diplo­mat­ic blun­ders that have has­tened Ukraine’s slide into chaos and mis­ery took a still more trag­ic turn last week when a com­mer­cial air­lin­er car­ry­ing 298 pas­sen­gers and crew was downed over east­ern Ukraine.

The car­nage should serve as a chill­ing mes­sage to Rus­sia and its West­ern antag­o­nists that the time has come to change course.  If so, the inci­dent could mark the point at which Ukraine’s bleed­ing stops and its heal­ing begins.  Read more.

War on Women: Dispatches From The Front

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The latest skirmish in the "war on women" took place this past week in the Senate. [Credit: ACLU]

The Sen­ate was the scene last week of the lat­est skir­mish in the war on women, one of sev­er­al con­trived con­tro­ver­sies man­u­fac­tured by the polit­i­cal class. [Cred­it: ACLU]

Resolv­ing con­flicts is a core func­tion of gov­ern­ment.  Incit­ing them is a core com­pe­ten­cy of our polit­i­cal class.

The habit of inflam­ing pas­sions for polit­i­cal pur­pos­es was on dis­play again this week in the US Sen­ate. Wednes­day’s show vote osten­si­bly con­cerned the right of women to receive “free” birth con­trol from their employ­ers.  But the leg­is­la­tion, as its authors sure­ly knew, would not become law.  If it did, it would result, not in employ­ers buy­ing more con­tra­cep­tives for their employ­ees, but in more work­ers los­ing employ­ment-based health insurance.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →