Republicans up, Democrats down—for now

The New Neo Posted on by

A new Rasmussan poll indicates that the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats has gone down to 36% (a shift of minus-five since the beginning of 2009). Two percent of that drop has been this November alone. The percentage calling themselves Republicans has gone up to 33.1%, an increase of 1.2% in November, although there has been less growth in general in the Republican Party during the past year.

What has made up the difference is an increase in the number of Independents. That’s hardly surprising; disaffection with both parties is high. I’m an Independent myself, and likely to remain so in the foreseeable future. I don’t really think I could affiliate with a party again, except for the narrow purpose of voting in a primary.

So, are pollsters going to re-adjust their samplings of Democrats vs. Republicans accordingly when they do surveys? That’s one of the most difficult aspects of polls anyway—getting the proper proportions of respondents—and under- or over-representing certain groups is one of the easiest ways to skew things.

And about that 18-month exit date in Afghanistan…

The New Neo Posted on by

It is clear that the only reason for Obama to publicly disclose that 18-month exit date in Afghanistan was to address his own Leftist base and say to them: “please don’t hate me too much; this distasteful war thingee won’t last very long.”

It is also clear that the world also happens to be listening to his communication, including the enemy, the Afghans, and our allies and potential allies. The inescapable conclusion they must all reach is that Obama does not mean business. In strategic terms, that is a very bad thing for them to actually know, even if true.

So why telegraph it in this way? Because Obama puts his own political future before the good of the nation, the Afghan people, and the world. Funny thing is, I don’t believe it will work. If the chatter on the Leftist blogs today is any indication, his base is spitting mad at him.

[NOTE: This German wasn’t impressed by Obama’s speech, to say the least:

One didn’t have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama’s speech. It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly.]

Anne Frank: are people good at heart?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m currently reading Francine Prose’s Anne Frank: the book, the life, the afterlife. It’s about the process by which Anne Frank wrote and then rewrote her diary, with an eye to its ultimate publication, and how her father edited her two versions into a third, the one the world ended up knowing. Then Broadway and Hollywood got into the act, as well as writers such as Philip Roth, until the diary and its message had morphed quite a bit from the original (or, more properly, originals).

Most of us have read Anne Frank’s diary, or at least parts of it, in some form or other, and even those of us who did not are probably familiar with at least a few of its quotes, the most famous of which may be Anne’s observation: “in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

It’s instructive to look at the quote once again, embedded in its original context. When we do, we find it to be far more complex and dark than it appears when as a single famous sentence standing alone, just as Anne Frank’s achievements as a writer and thinker are far more complex than the simplifications popular culture have worked on her diary. Remember as you read the following that she was only fifteen years old when she wrote it [emphasis mine]:

Anyone who claims that the older ones have a more difficult time here certainly doesn’t realize to what extent our problems weigh down on us, problems for which we are probably much too young, but which thrust themselves upon us continually, until, after a long time, we think we’ve found a solution, but the solution doesn’t seem able to resist the facts which reduce it to nothing again. That’s the difficulty in these times: ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered.

It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually turning into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.

Anne Frank seems to take the long view. Hers is a consciously willed optimism that takes into account some of the greatest horrors the world has ever known, and includes her own untimely death, which she correctly foresees. Whether the peace and tranquility she ultimately envisions are temporary or permanent, and whether they are of this earth or beyond it, her message has nothing of the innocence or simplicity of a trusting child, although it has often been portrayed that way.

Obama faces the enemy at West Point: a day late and a dollar short

The New Neo Posted on by

In Obama’s long-awaited “hello I must be going” speech on Afghanistan, delivered at West Point, there were no real surprises.

We knew he would take the opportunity to bash the previous administration, ignore the influence of the surge on Iraq, and praise himself. We knew he would call up approximately 30,000 more troops while simultaneously emphasizing how quickly they would be withdrawn—an un-clever attempt to please both sides while actually pleasing no one, simultaneously conveying to ally and enemy alike his utter lack of resolve.

Did I say “enemy?” Obama didn’t. I read every single word of his speech but didn’t find that one. Actually, the only person who used the word “enemy” in the context of the speech was Chris Matthews, although he was referring—shockingly enough—to the cadets of West Point, who obstinately refused to feel the requisite leg-tingling Obamalove.

And lest you think that “hello, I must be going” was not a fair description of the president’s message, let me offer the following un-edited passage from his address:

And as commander-in-chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.

A great deal of Obama’s speech was dedicated to the idea that (a) this is a war in which our security is at stake; and (b) we need to save money for our domestic programs so we must fight it on the cheap. Now, I’m sure that financial considerations play a part in every war, but I cannot recall any previous Commander-in-Chief conveying this attitude so publicly and openly. All previous Commanders-in-Chief would have understood what a pernicious message it is, and how much weakness it conveys.

As Ace writes, “Obama to Troops: I Promise You I Will Furnish You With Every Resource You Need, So Long As What You Need Is Reasonably-Priced and Available as a Factory-Irregular from Marshall’s.” Not exactly “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty,” is it?

Obama’s emphasis on fiscal responsibility might be more convincing if his administration hadn’t been marked so far by a gargantuan spending spree, including a $787 stimulus bill that consisted mostly of pork for friends and supporters, and which failed to stimulate much of anything related to the economy. If the Afghan war is in our vital national interest and our national security is at stake, isn’t it odd that the heretofore spendthrift Obama shows such miserly reluctance to fund it?

[NOTE: For three excellent and more detailed commentaries on Obama’s speech, see this, this, and this.]

Climategate: how deep the rot?

The New Neo Posted on by

Climategate is endlessly fascinating; I could write and read about it all day if I let myself. It has many of the most suspenseful elements of fiction (Michael Crichton fiction, to be exact), but truth tends to be stranger—and to me, much more compelling.

The fact that Climategate is not in banner headlines in all newspapers, with several-hour-long specials about it on all the cable news networks, is excellent proof (as if we needed more) that the press is hopelessly compromised and playing coverup.

The ploy may or may not work. Even some liberal MSM outlets have been forced to deal with the news, although it has hardly been spotlighted. The NY Times, for example, has a piece on the subject today which, although not on the front page, it is at least somewhat fair in laying out the problems Climategate exposes. In the end, however, the author sums up with a dismissive, kneejerk “of course, AGW is still probably true” disclaimer.

This appears to be the new and acceptable mantra for those on the liberal/Left side who aren’t dismissing Climategate outright—that even though this particular crew (CRU) at East Anglia may be a problem, the science itself is not. That’s absurd, of course, but it fits in well with the “telling a higher truth” message that liberals and the Left have been using for quite some time to explain away inconvenient “lower” truths, such as the fact that the CRU research was a huge part of the foundation for the entire theory of AGW, and the data supposedly supporting the structure is reported by CRU as having been conveniently lost.

Throwing out that data has given new meaning to the term “garbage in, garbage out.” But hey, it’s gone now; no big whoop.

There do seem to be a couple of lone voices among the AGW faithful who understand that Climategate is serious and calls for some response. Surprisingly, one of them is arguably the most fanatic of AGW proponents, George Monbiot, the journalist who gave his name to the expression “moonbat.”

Monbiot’s commentary on Climategate is a fascinating document, showing a man confronting the possible collapse of his lifework, and facing it and denying it almost simultaneously:

I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can’t possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.

The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people’s denial. Pretending that this isn’t a real crisis isn’t going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We’ll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again.

It turns out that Monbiot is still at least somewhat of an idealist, and thinks his fellow AGW-supporters are, too. How well I know that feeling of utter aloneness, when it dawns on you that you’ve gone down a different (and more logical) road, and your buddies just aren’t following.

Monbiot’s position is the one I described earlier in this piece: to make Jones and the other CRU bigwigs the fall guys, but to keep belief in their findings intact. His entire worldview depends on it. But at least Monbiot (and Clive Crook, here) shows a modicum of intellectual integrity compared to those who dismiss Climategate as of no import at all

I’m hoping that knowledge of Climategate will build in the public at large, as well as outrage at the extreme politicizing of the field. Whether the whole thing is a Cloward-Piven crisis manufactured solely for political statist reasons, or whether it is merely a case of good scientists gone bad and then picked up by politicians for their own purposes, remains to be seen.

Unfortunately, the answer may never be known. But if the press was dedicated to doing what it should be doing—searching for the truth, wherever it leads—we’d at least have a chance of finding out.

[NOTE: In the comments section here you’ll find a good discussion of whether there is independent corroboration of AGW from sources that don’t rely on the CRU data. The gist is that no one seems to know at the moment. But it is an important question that needs answering.

And then, if there are such independent sources, all of their data and correspondence about it needs to be made completely transparent. Until this is done, there should be a moratorium on all legislation related to AGW.

Fat chance.]

Charles Krauthammer vs. Andrew Sullivan: no contest

The New Neo Posted on by

Oops, says Andrew Sullivan, as he feels the cold touch of Charles Krauthammer’s exquisitely sarcastic stiletto as it begins to eviscerate him.

Moral of the story: do not take on Krauthammer unless you’ve checked your facts. I doubt that Andrew will be coming back for another go-round at this particular target.

Krauthammer’s entire takedown of Sullivan is well worth reading. And his final summation of Sullivan’s usual modus operandi is priceless: leaping from nonexistent fact to blanket ad hominem without even a pause for a reality check.

Why Sullivan is still writing for the Atlantic is beyond me.

Lincoln’s asymmetric face: Parry-Romberg syndrome?

The New Neo Posted on by

lincolnface.jpg

Abraham Lincoln was an unusual man in a number of ways, not the least of them his startling and haunting looks. In person, he must have been an imposing but somewhat daunting sight. Impossibly tall and very thin, in his top hat he appeared even more so;

lincolnhat2.jpg

But it was his face that was and is especially memorable: gaunt almost to the point of being skeletal, it seemed to express the suffering of a nation torn by an exceptionally bloody civil war, and even the suffering of flawed humanity itself. Those deep-set eyes, those sunken cheeks, that profound weariness—all were etched on a physiognomy that already seemed old and archetypal even when he was a young man.

Why am I writing about this today? Partly as a respite from all the other news in the world—Climategate, Afghanistan, cop killings in Washington, and the pending travesty of a health care reform bill that promises to be far worse than the ills it is supposedly designed to cure. But the proximate cause was my finding this recent HuffPo article discussing the asymmetry of Abraham Lincoln’s face (see slideshow of photos at the link).

It’s not the first time that this phenomenon has been noted and commented on. In fact, in August of 2007, a retired ophthalmologist named Fishman studied life masks of Lincoln with modern laser scans and concluded that, “The left side of Lincoln’s face was much smaller than the right, an aberration called cranial facial microsomia.” Here’s more:

Most people’s faces are asymmetrical, Fishman said, but Lincoln’s case was extreme, with the bony ridge over his left eye rounder and thinner than the right side, and set backward…When Lincoln was a boy, he was kicked in the head by a horse. Laser scans can’t settle whether the kick or a developmental defect ”” or neither ”” contributed to Lincoln’s lopsided face, Fishman said.

Interesting stuff. But, for what it’s worth, I beg to differ with Fishman’s diagnosis. Here’s a page on cranial facial microsomia, which doesn’t appear to fit Lincoln very well (see also this) Lincoln’s problems affect a different part of the face, for starters. And his eye problems (Fishman mentions double vision) as well as his headaches, aren’t accounted for, either.

I have a different and more parsimonious notion of what ailed Lincoln. I believe he had a mild case of Parry-Romberg syndrome, a condition that usually arises in late childhood or the teen years, and causes one side of the face to begin to degenerate. I am uniquely positioned to make this diagnosis, since even though Parry-Romberg is exceedingly rare, I’ve had the unlikely experience of having been very close to two people (completely unrelated to each other) who have confirmed but mild cases of it.

In its more severe forms, Parry-Romberg causes much more facial deformity than Lincoln demonstrated. But in its milder manifestations, it fits the bill exactly. I recognized this in Lincoln many years ago. In Parry-Romberg, there is thinning of the underlying bone (often in the cheek and the eye socket), as well as atrophy of the subcutaneous fat involving the affected parts of the face. This latter phenomenon gives the appearance of accelerated aging on that side, an observation the author of the HuffPo post on Lincoln’s asymmetry makes. It also can cause the headaches and double vision from which Lincoln sometimes suffered, and can be the result of early physical facial/head trauma such as Lincoln’s kick by the horse.

As far as I know, I’m the only one to have offered this diagnosis. But Lincoln’s other ailments have received a great deal of scrutiny over the years. Did he have Marfan’s syndrome? (Probably not.) Did he suffer from depression? (Yes.) Did he have smallpox around the time he delivered the Gettysburg Address? (Maybe).

This is my own small contribution to the field of what ailed him, although none of it really matters all that much. What’s important are the words and deeds of one of the greatest—perhaps the greatest—president this country has ever had, a man of extraordinary depth, wisdom, and complexity. Would that we had someone of that caliber today.

Krauthammer on the Senate’s health care reform bill

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a great summary article by Charles Krauthammer on what’s wrong with the Senate health care reform bill, and how better to go about doing the job. Please send it out to all your friends.

[ADDENDUM: Somewhat unrelated, but here’s another fine article, this time on seven public perceptions about Obama that he will need to counter if he wants to keep his approval rating high.

Only trouble is, these impressions are not just spin, they’re based on what Obama has actually done. If he’s ever to correct them, he needs to do so with deeds rather than mere words. Even more important is the fact that, once a person has squandered the public trust, people remain suspicious. In Obama’s case, they should be.]