Andrew C. McCarthy's Blog, page 61

Paul Ryan with Mark Levin

On his radio show, Mark just said Rep. Ryan will be joining him at 7:30pm to talk about the Obama speech. Live stream is here.

UPDATE: Here is the interview.

Keeping faith

 Ramesh has suggested that a bit of reflection will tell me I was “oversensitive” in responding to Andrew Stiles on the budget deal. Ramesh is not only very smart but ever the gentleman – I plead guilty, and thank him for not just telling me to stop being such a boor. I’d have had that coming. Andrew Stiles is a good colleague and a good guy. Regardless of how exasperated I may have been, I owed him better than the tone in which I made some of my points. I apologize for that – both to Andrew and to our readers.

I stand by the points I made, though. On that score, I said that (a) it would be absurd to try to use a shutdown over the 2011 budget in order to try to enact the ambitious Ryan budget plan, (b) the Ryan plan’s stated goals for 2012 and beyond are not what the ongoing 2011 budget battle is about, and (c) the “hard political work for achieving Ryan’s goals has barely begun.” I even added that I am not as enthralled by the Ryan plan as many of my NR colleagues seem to be. Somehow, Ramesh has translated this as "I think McCarthy the only person I know, including Paul Ryan himself, who considers the full enactment of the Ryan budget plan in this Congress as a test of Republican seriousness." I don’t take this as a put-down, but it is a mistake.

Ramesh is right about this much: I certainly did propose as a test of Republican seriousness. It was, however, a teeny bit more modest than the impossible one he describes. The test was simply this: Would the GOP do the very meager thing they pledged to do: Slice a relative pittance of $61 billion in spending from a budget of nearly $3.6 trillion? Not Ryan’s Hope to slash trillions from Obama’s long-term projections, but merely to keep faith with a promise to pinch a little over 1 percent from this year’s tab.

Nor do I believe, as Ramesh suggests, that pundits become GOP apologists just because they disagree with my conclusion that the Republicans sold out their $61 billion promise for $38 billion – or is it $28 billion? or $14 billion? or $8 billion? or, to borrow Ramesh’s gentle phrase, some other “different short-term legislative outcome.” I do think it is a big mistake – as we’re seeing yet again today – to set the Republicans’ bar for quitting and “living to fight another day” too low. They seem always to find a way to go lower … and their leaders have an irritating way of expecting you to applaud them while they do it. (See, e.g., Andrew’s report, here.) But it is not the low expectations that bother me – for I had low expectations. What I’ve found most objectionable about the coverage is how little it seemed to matter that the GOP had broken a commitment, so soon out of the gate, so central to why they were elected.

Let’s put aside the fact that the commitment on spending was exceedingly modest. At the time they made it, they trumpeted it as part of their “Pledge to America” – and it sure seemed to be significant around here. Back then, during the stretch-run of the 2010 campaign, NR’s editorial, “We’ll Take the Pledge,” described the GOP’s extensive set of promises as a “shrewd political document,” couched in “praiseworthy” rhetoric. The editors noted that the pledge “promises budget restraint. Domestic discretionary spending would be cut back to ‘pre-bailout, pre-stimulus’ levels, and then its growth would be capped – generating hundreds of billions in savings.” There were lots of other promises, too, about TARP, and an honest accounting of exploding entitlement spending, and so on.

Obviously, no one expected that this was all going to be accomplished in four months. Still, there was no admonition to be realistic regarding how little could be accomplished. The editors instead praised the pledge for daring to be even “bolder” than the GOP’s 1994 “Contract with America.” At the very least, it was to be expected that Republicans would make a bold, good faith effort to get done what it was possible to get done in four months.

Have they keep faith with that pledge? I don't think so, and I would have expected the people who took it seriously to be more angry about that.

Re: McCarthy v. Stiles -- A Response to Dan Foster

Dan, I’ve already had plenty to say, but at the risk of further trying our readers’ patience -- to say nothing of the patience of my fellow passengers on the Acela -- I will respond to your points in the order you make them.

1. If we don’t think responsible representatives in a democracy should take big political risks and can, by the force of argument, move public opinion in their direction, I do not understand what the point of having National Review is. Put aside that in the 1990s, a GOP Congress overcame a rhetorically gifted left-wing Democratic president and a hostile media to achieve welfare reform and balanced budgets. Put aside that we’ve been able to stop many of Obama’s worst policy preferences by being right and moving public opinion despite Obama’s rhetorical gifts, his accommodating media, and -- at least early on -- his extraordinarily high approval numbers. If we no longer believe that compelling arguments boldly made can make possible what was previously thought impossible, why are we in business?

2. I’m starting to feel like I am talking to the wall, but I’ll say it again: There is no money. We are broke. We’re far afield from what I started talking about, which was not an impossibly ambitious effort to solve all our financial woes in one fell swoop but a starkly modest insistence that the Republicans should do what they promised to do and cut $61B rather what is said now to be $39B. (And as Dan notes, in referring to the defunding of new IRS agents, even the $39B in “cuts” is an exaggeration since, using Washington math, “cuts” include not just actual spending reductions but the mere cancellation of what would otherwise have been spending increases.)

If you are telling me there are not another $22 billion that can be cut from a multi-trillion dollar budget, I think that’s absurd. But even if you want to change the subject to how you eliminate deficit spending rather than just do the paltry thing the GOP promised to do, the fact that we have no money to sustain the desired budget ought to be somewhat relevant, don’t you think? To my mind, you are asking the wrong question. The right way to look at this is that we can no longer afford to run deficits. The fundamental question is not “What do we cut?” It is “What can we afford to spend?”

I heard Rep. Cantor on Fox Sunday make the astounding claim that Republicans were just trying to do what a family has to do to tighten its belt in trying times. But a family that is already in swimming in debt first makes the determination not to borrow any more. Then it says, “Let’s look at how much money we have coming in, what obligations we are believe we must pay, what obligations we think we should pay if we can swing it, and what other things we’d like to buy if there’s anything left over.” The only things I see that we absolutely have to pay are (a) interest on the debt, since our credit is not just a matter of honor but crucial to our ability to borrow if there is a true crisis (e.g., Pearl Harbor, 9/11); and (b) national security (real national security -- I’m not talking “Muslim outreach” here), since that is the primary function of the federal government. Entitlements are in the category of “what we believe we must pay” -- but like everything else, they are subject to the availability of money, and if there is not enough money to pay them, they have to be cut.

The rest resolves itself in accordance with what those accountable for allocating and spending judge to be the priorities -- but always with the caveats that these officials are limited to the money we have coming in and that they will be politically accountable if they spend that money foolishly (e.g., if they neglect domestic security or the integrity of the currency to do, say, health care and eduction -- things that can be done and done better by others). But please don’t tell me about “non-defense discretionary spending” targets in a proposed budget that reflects someone’s dreams. If there is no money there is no money. If we can’t afford things, they have to be cut regardless of how we feel about that. You figure out what your means are and then you plan to spend. You don’t figure out your dreams and then plan to borrow -- not when you’re tapped out.

3. The distinction between a budget and a continuing resolution does not change what I say above. I think you are missing the big issues (no money, things are too complex and time consuming because government is doing way more than government ought to be doing) in a morass of process. But again, we’re talking in the short term about something very narrow: an unfulfilled promise to cut another $22B. It is in that context that I have raised the longer term challenge to stop and then roll-back deficit-spending until we reach a point where our debt is like the mortgage on the family home -- not so unreasonably large that we have to go further in debt to make the payments.

I hear what you’re saying about the “context” in which it’s appropriate to make major changes – that is why I thought Andrew’s point about using a shutdown to force resignations of top Democrats was so ludicrous. Yet, I also look over at the Democrats and see a party that would use a C.R. or any other available vehicle -- legal or, as Wisconsin reaffirms, illegal -- to achieve gigantic changes supported by their activists. It can’t be that only one of the boxers fights by the Marquis of Queensbury rules.

4 & 5. The fact that unsavory changes and practices have degraded the constitutional framework that makes the House supreme on matters of spending does not mean that this framework was not a worthy idea, and one that still serves a worthy purpose. That purpose is the one Dan accurately describes: to vest responsibility for public spending in the political actors closest to the public that is expected to foot the bill. With due respect, if Dan finds that terrifying, it is because he finds the potential abuses inherent in the republican form of democracy terrifying. I don’t.

All systems can be abused, but I think this one is vastly preferable. The American people are basically conservative and don’t want radical change unless and until there are radical problems that must be dealt with. If the House does something rash, if it tries to jerk the ship of state willy-nilly by, for example, taking over one-sixth of the economy with a terribly unpopular health-care plan, the people throw them out. That serves as a valuable lesson to sitting House members not to get too far out in front of where the public is – you don’t shrink from trying to make your case on the crucial issues of the day, but you also don’t try to force down people’s throats something they don’t want. And when you have been elected because spending is out of control and Obamacare is unpopular, it gives you a lot of political wind at your back to deal with out of control spending and Obamacare.

In any event, I have a lot more confidence in that People/House dynamic controlling the “functioning of government” than I do in a bunch of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats and judges telling us how government must function -- whether we like it or not. And I also have more confidence in the People/House dynamic than I do in having House members abdicate their responsibilities on spending to presidents and senators who face the voters far less often and thus don’t feel the same pressure of accountability.

Finally, I accept Dan’s contention that more than $39B may not have been possible – but only if we add: without shutting down the government for a few days, or perhaps longer. I don’t accept that it was not possible to force a modest additional few tens of billions in cuts (at the very least, $22B) out of an annual budget as monstrous as the one under which the federal government now operates. And I don’t agree that it was inconsequential for the Republicans, in their first opportunity to demonstrate resolve on the issue that got them elected in record numbers, to shrink from doing the little they promised to do. I don’t disagree with Derb’s take -- he will no doubt correct me if I have misunderstood him, but I don’t see how what I am saying is different from what I take him to be saying. 

On the Budget Deal, a Response to Andrew Stiles

 In his Whoopee GOP! response to my post on the budget deal, I’m surprised Andrew Stiles forgot to include Speaker John Boehner’s talking point about how “we only hold one-half of one-third of the government.” That’s the one to which the rest of us are supposed to nod solemnly and have the good grace not to mention that, under that quaint document known as the Constitution, all spending by the federal government -- every last cent of it -- originates in the House of Representatives. A government that is trillions of dollars in the hole can only add another trillion-and-a-half (or more) to the debt if the House proposes it or otherwise allows it to happen.

On the matter of GOP talking points, let’s consider another one that the speaker prefers to mouth than to think through: When Democrats controlled the House, as well as the two other political components of government -- the Senate and the presidency -- that are responsible for appropriating and spending public money, they failed to enact a budget for the current fiscal year. Well, yes, that was a political calculation -- what Andrew might call a “fail-proof strategy” given the public mood (desirous of dramatic spending cuts) and the Democratic appetite (calling for ever increasing spending). But, to cite a matter of both reality and constitutional law that Republicans now prefer not to mention, their talking point means that There is no budget for 2011. The GOP is not in the position of tweaking something that is already operable. When there is no budget, the party that controls the House gets to start from scratch.

It is a lunatic Washington convention, and thus it is conventional wisdom, that starting from scratch somehow means starting from last year’s baseline funding for all federal programs and, from that premise, deciding what to increase, what to cut, or what to leave in cruise control. But as a matter of fact and law, starting from scratch means starting from zero. It means that the budget deal that has just been announced -- the deal that will run a $1.5 trillion dollar deficit added to over $14 trillion in debt (a lowball figure that does not account for tens of trillions more in unfunded liabilities) is not just the Obama budget. It is the Republican-controlled House’s proposed budget that the Democrat-controlled Senate will approve and President Obama will declare victory in signing.

From the start, the Boehner GOP leadership has acted as if the lack of a budget for this year is a terrible burden because, in their telling, they are required to make the adult choices about where to slice President Obama’s last budget. That’s absurd, even if establishment GOP chatterers buy into the narrative. News flash: The House can stop whatever spending it chooses to stop. The constitutional power of the purse is the power to say no. Saying no can entail shutting down the government if the other political actors in the process are unwilling to go along with the spending proposed by the House and the House is serious enough to stick to its guns.

In the ongoing drama, we have learned that Republicans are not willing to shut the government down because there is political risk – or, worse, that they are not willing to shut the joint down because, despite having a strong case about insolvency to make to a public increasingly alarmed about insolvency, they are too timid or inept to make it. In the common parlance, that is called “blinking.” That Andrew may be “thoroughly unconvinced” that Republicans have “somehow” blinked does not change that blink is exactly what they have done. That is not a “notion,” Andrew. It is a fact, and it can’t be spun away. And speaking of spin, let’s get to some of the more fatuous examples one is apt to read anyplace.

Employing some shrewd analysis, Andrew infers -- from my not exactly subtle argument that the Republicans could have won a better deal -- that I have made an “assumption” that “Republicans could have won a better deal, could have gotten more of what they wanted, refusing to move an inch off their original $61 billion and allowing the government shut down.” Well, yes, Andrew, you got me on that one. And, remarkable as it may seem, that is the point of a shutdown -- of the House using its constitutional power to say “no” to a White House and Senate that want to drive us drive us deeper into insolvency. I’d have thought that was elementary, at least here at National Review. But then I read this mindboggling passage:

How would that work exactly? President Obama would say, “Okay, you guys are serious, here’s another $21 billion”? Really? If that were such a fail-proof strategy, why stop there? Why not demand the full repeal of Obamacare, the immediate enactment of Paul Ryan’s budget and the resignations of Pelosi, Reid, Obama et al?

I’m disappointed that Andrew evidently thinks I am an imbecile. But okay, let me explain “exactly” how that would work. Republicans refuse to agree to a budget that funds the Obama Left’s agenda items, or at least refuses to fund them at the levels proposed by Democrats. There is, of course, downside to doing this because small government conservatives are not no government conservatives. When government is shut down -- even though it’s never really completely shut down -- it is not only the absurdly extravagant spending that is cut off; also stopped is some spending that we would all agree is essential. That is why there is political risk involved. Contrary to Andrew’s assumptions, however, responsible leadership is not always on the look-out for a “fail-safe” strategy, nor is it paralyzed by polls -- taken before a shutdown has happened, much less is explained -- that tell us what “independents” are thinking. When responsible leaders are elected to leadership positions precisely because they have convinced voters that there is a spending crisis, they take the meaningful action the Constitution puts them in a position to take. Because they are in the right (i.e., because this is a real crisis, not one they have manufactured for political purposes), they are also confident that they will be able to move the polls in their direction by boldly explaining why their actions are not extreme but, in fact, are the only rational response to the straits we are in.

In this instance, here is the calculation that ought to be made: (a) there … is … no … money; (b) therefore, the interest on what we borrow to spend at current levels is already catastrophic even if another $1.5 trillion is not added to our tab; (c) quite apart from the fact that some of the countries to which we owe this mountain of debt are not our friends, every day we allow this death-spiral to continue we are stealing from our children, our grandchildren, and the future prosperity of our country; (d) the risk of shutting down some of the essential spending that government must do is thus outweighed by the benefit of stopping the obscene spending; (e) the dire straits just described are real, not something concocted for political advantage, and therefore you should be confident that you can win the debate by convincing skeptics on points just described; and (f) winning the public debate will make the other political actors in the equation (Obama and congressional Democrats) cave, even though the (decreasingly influential) mainstream media is with Obama (see, e.g., closing Gitmo, civilian trial for KSM, and myriad other Obama flip-flops).

So no, Andrew, it’s not a matter of, presto, President Obama suddenly says, “Okay, you guys are serious.” It’s a matter of Republicans in the House actually doing the hard work they were elected to do, a matter of making it pluperfectly obvious that they are serious. So, for example, Republicans could explain to the President that $61 billion in spending cuts -- a goal that was always dismally unserious in light of the hole, the canyon, we’re in -- was nothing more than the bargain price they were willing to settle for in order to avoid a government shutdown. They could tell the President that if the government has to shut down because he fails to agree to a budget with this embarrassingly modest level of cuts – cuts that won’t cover two months’ borrowing in a budget that still disastrously adds $1.5 trillion to the national debt -- the price (the amount of cuts demanded for government to reopen) goes up. Then, they would have to show they meant what they said by sticking to it. Obama comes to realize that if he does not settle, his priorities will not be funded, period -- this is not going to be one of those faux dramas where, somewhere down the road, all the money not spent while government was shut down gets restored. The daily non-running of the government becomes money saved so that more is available to pay down the debt.

Andrew’s most vapid point is that there is no difference between a shutdown strategy for achieving spending reductions and a shutdown strategy for such goals as the full repeal of Obamacare, enactment of the Ryan plan, or the resignations of Pelosi, Reid, and Obama. The strategy I am describing is tailored to achieve a constitutionally valid objective that is in line with the political realities and appetites of the moment. At issue is a budget debate for fiscal 2011. It is not an occasion for repealing Obamacare, though it should be an occasion for defunding it -- Obamacare would remain on the books and the fight to repeal it would await a more appropriate vehicle. I am not as big a fan of the Ryan plan as some conservatives are, but even if I were, it’s stated goals are not what the 2011 budget battle is over and the hard political work for achieving Ryan’s goals has barely begun -- it’s not close to being ready. And no one is looking for top Democrats (two of whom were just reelected) to resign; we have constitutional processes for unseating politicians with whom we disagree, namely, elections. That is not something responsible leaders try to achieve in an unrelated battle over an annual budget -- unless they intend on discrediting themselves and undermining their position on the budget.

Evidently, Andrew can’t imagine independents “rallying to the Republican cause” because he doesn’t see any material difference between positing a bulletproof shutdown case that $39B in spending cuts is utterly inadequate and positing a ludicrous shut-down case that President Obama, Senator Reid, and Majority Leader Pelosi must resign. Maybe that’s because he assumes the inevitable media megaphone for the Left’s “death-to-granny” demagoguery will always work. Regrettably, I think that’s the way GOP leadership sees things, too -- that they are no more capable of making the compelling case than the stupid one, and that, even if they were more adept, the public is too brainwashed by the media to grasp the difference. That’s probably why, when Republicans last controlled all political components of budget-making, they ran gargantuan budget deficits that appear tame only by Obama standards. It’s why I never took their pledge seriously and why I’m convinced they’ll always promise to fight next time but never actually do it.

The GOP’s $61B in cuts was serious in only one sense: It was something they promised to do -- a meager promise, but a promise nonetheless. When push came to mild shove, they abandoned it. And what’s especially pathetic is the rationale for abandoning it: $61B was such an inconsequential promise as to be a pittance not worth fighting for in light of the vastness of the debt. But don’t you worry: next time, why, they’ll really, really fight to the death -- or until the mainstream media says nasty things about them, whichever comes first.

More on the budget deal

With Neil Cavuto on Fox, Mark Levin asks whether the $38B or so in cuts are real.

At Red State, Hogan on Republican "austerity."

You're kidding, right?

With due respect, I think those who are praising the budget deal are deluding themselves. Under circumstances where we are trillions of dollars in debt, the GOP just caved on its promise to cut the relative pittance of $61 billion in spending because it's just not worth fighting for more than the half-pittance of $40 billion Democrats claimed was their drop-dead number. "Drop dead" meant daring Republicans to shut the government down (which, as we know, doesn't actually shut the government down). The Republicans blinked. 

For me, this is no surprise -- as I've said several times (see, e.g., here and here), I don't think they're serious. But I want to make a point about how strange this praise of Boehner & Co. is. A mere four months ago, the big controversy in conservative and Republican circles was whether the GOP had reneged on their vaunted pledge to cut $100B in spending in the current fiscal year because they had seemingly come down to $61B. As I noted at the time, there was no question that, if you looked at the fine print of the pledge, the commitment was $61B -- but that if you looked at reality, both $61B and $100B were laughably unserious. No matter. Folks around here pooh-poohed my criticism and insisted that a $61B pledge was a sober first step, showing real fortitude about getting our fiscal house in order.

So now they've stopped short, significantly short, of that purportedly serious step, and the reaction is, "We won!" You've got to be kidding me. The only thing Boehner won is future assurance that GOP leadership can safely promise the moon but then settle for crums because their rah-rah corner will spin any paltry accomplishment, no matter how empty it shows the promise to have been, as a tremendous victory.

And what's the rationale for settling? Why, that these numbers are so piddling -- that the $21 billion difference is so meaningless in the context of $14 trillion -- that it's best just to settle, make believe the promise was never made, make believe we didn't flinch, and put this episode behind us so we can begin the "real work" of the next promise, the Ryan Plan.

Regarding that plan, you're to believe that the captains courageous who caved on $21 billion -- and who got elected because of Obamacare but don't even want to discuss holding out for a cancellation of $105 billion in Obamacare funding -- are somehow going to fight to the death for $6 trillion in cuts. Right.

I look forward to next year, though, when the commentariat will no doubt be swooning over the just announced Ryan Plan 2.0. That will be an even more fantabulous, intellectually serious proposal to cut, oh, say $12 trillion (of course, if promises don't mean anything, why stop at 12?). By then, the same pundits will be warning that the Republicans must not shut down the government to hold out for Ryan 1.0's trifling $6 trillion. After all, we'll have the real serious business of Ryan 2.0 to attend to, and the Obama Democrats will be offering to meet Boehner halfway with a swell, good faith counter-offer of $27.50 in spending cuts.

$27.50? Why, of course. Why should Democrats go to $30, or $30,000, or $30 billion? After all, when you're swimming in a multi-trillion dollar sea of red ink, you'll always be able to say it's all chump change, not worth squabbling over. And when the GOP is always promising to fight next time, it will seem so rightwing whack-jobby of us to demand that they fight this time.

So three cheers for the GOP's steely resolve in achieving a whopping $40 billion in spending cuts. Better yet, ten cheers: one for each of the ten days it will take Leviathan to borrow more than this budget deal cuts.

We're There to Help

Last week in the northern province of Faryab, two more American soldiers were murdered by one of the police officers they are in Afghanistan to train. As my friend Diana West calculates, that brings to 17 the number of U.S. troops killed in just the last four months by the Afghan security forces they are mentoring. The total climbs to 22 when the killings of other Western troops are factored in.

None of this is new. It is just an uptick. This is how it is in a tribal, fundamentalist Muslim society that regards nothing with such hostility as another civilization’s attempt to assert and imprint itself -- just ask the Soviets. If our Afghan expedition seems all the more pointless now, nearly a decade after the U.S. invasion, it is because we long ago stopped pursuing the American interests that brought us to that hellhole. We came to dismantle al-Qaeda and its Taliban hosts. We’ve stayed -- and stayed, and stayed -- to make life better for a population that despises us.

#ad#The mounting military casualties do not account for at least seven humanitarian-aid workers also murdered in recent days by rampaging Afghan Muslims -- if one may use that double redundancy. The throng of assailants stormed the victims’ U.N. compound in Mazar-e-Sharif after being whipped into the familiar frenzy at Friday prayers. The dead, just like the American soldiers, came to Afghanistan to make life better for Muslims. For their trouble, they were savagely slaughtered, with two treated to decapitation, a jihadist signature.

“When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield,” instructs Allah, “strike off their heads.” That is from Sura 47:4 of the Koran -- or what is so preciously called “the Holy Qur’an” by Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan. To underscore the point, Sura 8:12 of this same Holy Qur’an finds Allah assuring that if Muslims would just “smite ye above their necks and smite all their fingertips off them,” it would help Him “instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers.”

You’ve got to hand it to Allah: All that smiting and instilling terror works. General Petraeus is so terrified of what rampaging Afghan Muslims might do next that he could not bring himself to utter a word of criticism for their barbarity. Instead, as he offered condolences to the victims’ families, his wrath was targeted at Terry Jones.

Jones is the pastor of an obscure Christian congregation in Gainseville, Fla., where he ceremonially burned a Koran last month. Mind you, it is standard practice to torch Bibles in Muslim countries, where apostasy from Islam is a capital offense and where proselytism of any creed other than Islam is forbidden. About that noxious practice, General Petreaus hasn’t made a peep -- which goes a long way toward explaining why our military itself actually confiscated and destroyed Bibles in Afghanistan last year. It’s not Bible burning and Muslim rampage that get our commander’s goat. It’s Terry Jones. “We condemn, in particular, the action of an individual in the United States who recently burned the Holy Qur’an,” Petraeus thundered in a statement issued jointly with Mark Sedwell, the Obama administration’s ambassador to NATO.

Of course, it wasn’t Jones who butchered and beheaded the U.N. workers. It was Afghan Muslims, stoked by the same Islamist ideology that has Afghan security forces killing the Westerners who struggle to civilize them -- the ideology that is the mainstream in this cradle of al-Qaeda. In fact, it is not even accurate to say that Jones incited the Afghans. His Koran-torching stunt took place on March 20. The murderous riot did not occur until nearly two weeks later -- only after the natives were whipped up not just by the fire-breathing Friday imams but by the inflammatory rhetoric of Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

#page#Karzai is no fool. The U.S.-backed corruptocrat has surveyed the field and found that the only hope for clinging to power in a rabidly anti-American country is to bash Americans. He has no intention of finding himself tossed under Obama’s bus along with former “valuable allies” like Hosni Mubarak and Moammar Qaddafi. Better to be a “reformer,” the title reverently bestowed on Syria’s ruthless dictator, Basher Assad, by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. If you want the promise of President Obama’s “mutual respect” and coveted platforms like Columbia University, better to lead the “Death to America” chorus like Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. That way, your share of the “mutual” respect never has to be paid.

#ad#Karzai also knows he has the perfect foil in Petraeus. The general is reliably mum on the nexus between Juma prayers and Juma decapitations, between mainstream Islamic teachings and jihadist attacks on Western forces. He is captive to the progressive fantasy that such atrocities are inherently anti-Islamic, that the Koran couldn’t possibly mean what it says, that mainstream clerics who tout its combustible suras couldn’t possibly be right, and therefore that Muslim savagery must be rooted in some other cause, such as Gitmo -- which the general has called a “lingering reminder” of the many American “missteps or mistakes in our activity since 9/11.”

When Petraeus rushed to follow the bien-pensant crowd in absurdly citing an American’s burning of a book as the cause of, rather than a pretext for, the Mazar-e-Sharif massacre, it wasn’t the first time. In June 2009, as his new commander-in-chief was announcing “a new beginning” in America’s relationship with the ummah, Petraeus was right there to help with the spadework. On cue, he chimed that the Bush-era United States had taken “steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions.” It was now “important again to live our values.”

Except they’re not “our values.” They’re the pieties of the “international community” with which the general identifies. Swallowing whole its narrative -- a narrative that recent Middle East unrest has left in tatters -- Petraeus next blamed America’s problems in the region on “enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors” and the “anti-American sentiment” created by “a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel.” The message was clear: Let’s not choose sides between an authentic Western-style democracy that has been a faithful friend to the United States and the virulently anti-Western sharia-philes bent on Israel’s destruction. God forbid our values should bear some vague resemblance to our principles.

General Petraeus is the standard-bearer of what critics -- myself included -- have alternatively called the Islamic “democracy project” and “nation building.” Both labels are misnomers, though. The exercise in Afghanistan is actually post-nation building, and it’s got little to do with democracy in the Western sense. To the contrary, the final product is meant to reflect the image of its midwife, the craven, morally vacant international community. For principled democracies to form a community with totalitarians and rogues, they have to check their principles at the door. Once that decision is made, how easy it becomes to betray those principles -- freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, economic liberty, personal privacy, equality before the law -- in a culturally neutral indulgence of Islamist depravity.

So, the architects build a post-nation where Islamists -- who want to replace nation-states with a global caliphate -- declare Islam the dominant religion and install freedom-killing sharia as their fundamental law. They frame the West, its bygone principles, and the pursuit of its interests as affronts to the international community. That community’s vanguard, like the Islamist vanguard with which it partners, has little use for the nation-state, aspiring to replace national sovereignty with international humanitarian law -- an organic, increasingly sharia-friendly corpus that is said to override any mere nation’s constitution and democratically enacted laws. It is for the Islamist post-nation that American soldiers die while American taxpayers foot the bill.

General Petraeus and Ambassador Sedwell ended their castigation of Terry Jones with the inevitable please-love-us entreaty: “We further hope the Afghan people understand that the actions of a small number of individuals, who have been extremely disrespectful to the Holy Qur’an, are not representative of any of the countries in the international community who are in Afghanistan to help the Afghan people.”

No, by no means let us be disrespectful toward the “Holy Qur’an,” which is so kindly disposed toward us. And surely, with Petraeus’s predecessor, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, having pronounced that Afghanistan is not our war, and with the Obama administration now paying tens of millions of dollars to underwrite Karzai’s peace talks with the Taliban (the enemy we were told we needed to escalate troops to repel), it is abundantly clear that our troops are in Afghanistan primarily “to help the Afghan people.”

But that raises two questions. First, why should we give a damn about the Afghan people? And second, why are we sacrificing American blood and American treasure to build an Islamist post-nation that hates America?

—  Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

Jen Rubin Diagnoses General Petraeus's Appalling Statement on 'Holy Qur'an' Burning

. . . and in addition notes his penchant for making embarrassing assertions. Her summation:

 How then to explain Petraeus’s embarrassing deference to jihadist murderers? In light of his earlier gaffe on Israel I think there is something larger at play than a single incident and the desire to mollify the population around his troops. Petraeus is steeped in the ethos of what passes for elite foreign policy opinion and jargon. The notion that Israel’s “intransigence” poses a danger to the United States and that we mustn’t do things to get the jihadists “mad” at us are both straight from the same playbook used by State Department and liberal academics. We think of the Defense Department constantly at odds with State. And that is certainly the case on a range of turf issues. But modern generals are now ambassadors, negotiators and PR men. Unfortunately, in those roles they tend to mouth the very same pabulum that the State Department churns out.

Why Is the Continuing Resolution Issue Time Rather Than Subject Matter?

Author: 
Andrew C. McCarthy

Since we are now down to the juvenilia of fighting over one-week continuing resolutions (CRs) incorporating budget cuts that are laughably tiny given the red sea of debt we are in, I have a question: Why is time rather than subject matter driving this train?

That is, why do GOP stop-gap proposals anticipate funding all of Leviathan (minus a sliver so small as to be undetectable in a gargantuan, multi-trillion dollar monstrosity of a budget) for X number of days (7 this time) only to ensure that we have the same kabuki dance a week from now?

Is there a reason why the GOP can't propose a subject matter-driven CR rather than a time-driven CR?

In other words, why can't they say, "We will provide X amount to be allocated to the following items from now to the end of the fiscal year" -- and then specify the items (e.g., debt service, national defense, social security, defense, FBI, etc.) that are essential enough to warrant continued federal spending during a debt crisis? Wouldn't that show that the GOP is serious about funding a limited government? Wouldn't it put the onus on the Democrats to justify shutting the government down in order to force spending on functions many Americans don't believe government should be performing at all?

Concededly, I am no budget wonk, and I may be missing something here. But I'd love to know why our side has to play by their rules. Making time rather than subject matter the driving force of negotiations and public debate allows the Left to play this as the GOP shutting down "the government." The Dems have no need to defend unconscionable spending on a lot of nonsense. Moreover, this approach buries the issue of the $105 billion that was sneakily allocated to implement Obamacare -- the radical program whose unpopularity historically propelled the GOP to a majority in the House.

Why can't our guys say, "Look, we don't want to play this week-to-week game. Here's the list of things we're willing to fund from now until the end of the fiscal year. We have an open mind about the rest, but it's on you to make the case that particular items of spending are necessary despite our financial straits."

And yes, I know the other side would never agree to this -- at least not willingly, not until public opinion forced their hand. But isn't that the point? Shouldn't we be doing something purposeful to shape public opinion?

State Dept: Hey, we want to condemn the burning of the Holy Koran too!

Author: 
Andrew C. McCarthy

Were they distracted by the secular democratic uprising that has the Muslim Brotherhood on the verge of taking power, or maybe that Mohammed El-Baradei threat to declare war on Israel? Whatever it was, the U.S. embassy in Cairo has finally gotten around to joining the condemnation parade involving the "burning of the Holy Koran." Here's the statement:

The Ambassador and staff of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo condemn the burning of the Holy Koran that occurred several days ago in the state of Florida by a small group of individuals who represent no one but themselves.  Since the founding of our nation, the United States has upheld the principles of tolerance and respect for religious freedom.  Millions of Muslim-Americans practice their faith freely throughout the United States and enjoy the full rights guaranteed to them by our laws and constitution.  Public condemnation of this event has come from a variety of organizations representing the diverse religious traditions that flourish in the United States. 

As I mentioned yesterday, bibles -- I wouldn't dream of calling them "Holy Bibles" -- are torched in Muslim countries all the time and have been ordered destroyed by our own military commanders in Afghanistan in order not to offend the delicate sensibilities of Muslims, whose sharia prohibits the proselytism of religions other than Islam and calls for the killing of Muslim apostates. Does the State Department in Cairo condemn any of that? How about the burning of Coptic churches, the persecution of Copts, and the recent "secular, democratic" campaign during which Egyptians were widely urged to vote in favor of quick elections because that would enable better organized Islamist groups to keep the Copts in their second-class place (an admonition that appears to have been quite persuasive given the Islamists' 77-23 percent victory margin)? I somehow don't recall much in the way of U.S. embassy condemnation.

I'd mention that that the embassy, like General Petraeus and other American officials, doesn't condemn the killing of human beings carried out by Muslims over the burning of a book, but by now you have to ask, what would be the use?