Popular Sovereignty

Andrew Sullivan has been doing yeoman's work covering the Iranian protests, protests I hope one day will be truly known as the Green Revolution. This is perhaps the most dramatic popular uprising since the fall of the Soviet Union. The reaction of some in the mainstream media, Fred Hiatt, and many neoconservatives (e.g. Marty Peretz, the folks at the Corner) have all been very revealing. I though the whole point of the neocon project was democracy in the Middle East and a more secure America? When they see the demands of the people for freedom coming from within the Axis of Evil, why the long faces? Why the seeming desire for and acceptance of the charade of the Ahmedijad "win"?

Polling: Baseball's Stat Star on Campaign '08 | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008 | Newsweek.com

Polling: Baseball's Stat Star on Campaign '08 | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008 | Newsweek.com: Line of the Day: "From the start, Silver took pride in myth-busting the MSM, which has tended to reduce 2008's complex calculus—delegate distribution, demographic coalitions—into not-quite-true narratives."

I.e., you are paying for us to spin you bullsh#t.

The Catholic Vote

How Catholics are divided, via George Packer and Pat Buchanan:

Nixon was coldly mixing and pouring volatile passions. Although he was careful to renounce the extreme fringe of Birchites and racists, his means to power eventually became the end. Buchanan gave me a copy of a seven-page confidential memorandum—“A little raw for today,” he warned—that he had written for Nixon in 1971, under the heading “Dividing the Democrats.” Drawn up with an acute understanding of the fragilities and fault lines in “the Old Roosevelt Coalition,” it recommended that the White House “exacerbate the ideological division” between the Old and New Left by praising Democrats who supported any of Nixon’s policies; highlight “the elitism and quasi-anti-Americanism of the National Democratic Party”; nominate for the Supreme Court a Southern strict constructionist who would divide Democrats regionally; use abortion and parochial-school aid to deepen the split between Catholics and social liberals; elicit white working-class support with tax relief and denunciations of welfare. Finally, the memo recommended exploiting racial tensions among Democrats. “Bumper stickers calling for black Presidential and especially Vice-Presidential candidates should be spread out in the ghettoes of the country,” Buchanan wrote. “We should do what is within our power to have a black nominated for Number Two, at least at the Democratic National Convention.” Such gambits, he added, could “cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half.”

Statistic of the Day

Based on homicide rate and census info. If you are a black man born in East Baltimore, there is a 13% chance you will be murdered. From this conversation. What would happen if you figured in all the other negative results that await those born in East Baltimore (prison, drug overdoses, accidental death, etc.)?

Fafblog! back to save the universe.

A little bit of Iraq war debate inside baseball, but hilarious and dead on is Fafblog! back to save the universe. Thanks to Brad DeLong for the pointer.

The Indispensable China Guides

James Fallows has spent some productive time in China, with the three most interesting items I have seen in the past year all coming from his pen/keyboard.

China Makes, The World Takes
The $1.4 Trillion Question
Poverty, Superpower, and Semisuperpower

The Great Semisuperpower of China

Managing the rising power of China and other emerging nations, and managing the reaction of established powers response to that, is the great question and challenge for leaders throughout the world in the 21st century. Here are some on point thoughts on China from Jim Fallows, the semisuperpower.