Eye on the Watcher’s Council

As you may know the members of the Watcher’s Council each nominate one of his or her own posts and one non-Council post for consideration by the whole Council. The complete list of this week’s Council nominations is here.

I am especially gratified that David Kilcullens post from SWJ Blog, “Understanding Current Operations in Iraq”, was nominated by someone else. I think it is a significant post and planned to nominate it myself but I thought that Michael Yon’s recent post was of sufficient importance and timeliness that I nominated it instead. I’ll vote for Dr. Kilcullen’s post as my secondary non-Council preference.

The Glittering Eye, “That Reason Should Rule”

Will emotions inevitably overrule our judgments? If that’s the case, we’d best get used to the idea of a substantial diminution in the freedoms to which we’ve become accustomed and a substantial increase in the taxes we’ll be paying. I believe that it’s possible to reign in our irrational selves but it doesn’t happen automatically or without discipline and practice. The notion that one of our political parties is the party of reason and comity while the other is the party of appeals to fear or greed and division is poppycock.

Big Lizards, “Spin City Here We Come”

Girding his loins for 2008, Dafydd ab Hugh makes his proposals for how Republicans can position themselves to the best electoral advantage. I’ve predicted since 2003 that both Republicans and Democrats would be running against George W. Bush in 2008 so I think that he’s whistling in the dark.

Done With Mirrors, “With Snark”

Why does the blogosphere employ so few rhetorical and literary forms? I’ve never tried but I suspect the common forms and devices could be enumerated rather quickly. Callimachus skewers the most common form, the snark, masterfully deploying a form I’m surprised we don’t see more of: the diatribe. I tend to employ a form that’s, unfortunately, rather rare in the blogosphere, the lecture, occasionally verging into homiletics. It’s my nature.

It might be fun to use a variety of different forms deliberately, just for practice. “The curse” is a form that you don’t see too often (it doesn’t mean just using coarse language).

The Colossus of Rhodey, “Democratic Debate Thy Name is ‘Irony’”

Hube fisks the “debate” of the Democratic presidential hopefuls. Calling these group press conferences (or, in the case of the last “debate”, pep rallies) debates is beyond me.

Soccer Dad, “The Terror Under the Carpet”

A key problem with rendering harsh judgments, even when they’re true, is the effect they’ll have on your future options. They’ll either paint you into a corner or run the risk of making your future decisions imcomprehensible. That’s been the problem with U. S. policy towards China. The political rhetoric of the 1950’s and 1960’s with respect to China was so harsh that, when Richard Nixon began our major course correction in the 1970’s, it was impossible to reconcile past judgments, present realities, and future hopes. Now our policy, rhetoric, and news coverage of China are nearly completely unmoored from reality. That, I think, is the problem that Soccer Dad draws attention to in his submission for this week. If Hamas is a terrrorist organization (as I think the evidence supports) and it gains control of what passes for legitimate government in the Palestinian territories, how do you treat it? My approach to splitting that baby is to point out that democratic processes are impossible under the conditions that obtain in the Palestinian territories, where the major political parties are both armed bands of thugs. The mainstream press on the other hand is twisting itself into a corkscrew trying to justify the processes and parties at work.

Bookworm Room, “Condescension As Bigotry”

I think the word that Bookworm is searching for here is “paternalism”. The horrible conundrum for the Democratic Party is that the paternalism that now dominates the party’s attitude towards African Americans impedes the party’s ability to effect policy that will actually improve the circumstances of African Americans and, indeed, is increasingly a substitute for such policy.

‘Okie’ on the Lam, “Live Earth’s Al Gore—a Pompous Piece o’”

Okie is, er, highly critical of an opinion piece by former Vice President Al Gore published recently in the New York Times.

Cheat Seeking Missiles, “Quote of the Day: Islamophobia Edition”

I think there’s a very, very narrow sense in which newly minted British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is correct: terrorism and Islam absolutely should not be equated. Most especially by Muslims. And, until we know more details about the who and why of the recent abortive attacks I agree that it’s prudent to avoid offering judgments about those things. However, there’s a reality with which we should all come to terms: although not all Muslims are terrorists, the overwhelming preponderance of terrorists are Muslims. We need to achieve a balance between making statements that are prejudicial and becoming completley unmoored from reality. It seems to me that Gordon Brown has erred in the former direction. Laer, in his submission for this week, is more critical.

Rhymes With Right, “Libby Commutation”

Like practically every other commentator, Greg is critical of George Bush’s commutation of the sentence of Scooter Libby and in this post he gives his whys and wherefores.

The Education Wonks, “This I Believe”

Edwonk present his (her?) personal political manifesto with the great bulk of which I’m in complete agreement.

Joshuapundit, “Guess Where Your President Was Wednesday Morning…Inshallah”

Freedom Fighter is highly critical of President Bush’s appearance at the recent rededication ceremony at the Islamic Center of Washington. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia presents a tactical and strategic challenge to coping with the problem of Islamist terrorism. We need to be very cautious in dealing with the KSA and I agree with FF that Mr. Bush in particular and the Bush family in general are too cozy with the Saud family by half. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t vote for him in 2000.

On a somewhat picayune point, isn’t inshallah said of future events rather than past ones? I believe that the expression that FF is looking for is mashallah, “Praise Allah!”

Right Wing Nut House, “Cage Match: Assimilation vs. Multiculturalism”

Spurred by a recent study by Robert Putnam on the shortcomings of diversity as a workable strategy for creating communities, Rick Moran contrasts the record of multiculturalism unfavorably with that of assimilation. I have little to add other than to note something that’s obvious to me: sad and unfortunate as it may be there is no substitute at hand that can replace social stigma as a device for social management in a free society. The error is when social stigma crosses the line into law or policy not the social stigma itself.

Well, I’ve decided which posts I’ll be voting for this week. Which posts would get your votes?