The Right Coast |
|
|
Thoughts from San Diego on Law, Politics, and Culture
Right Coasters
Gail Heriot Saikrishna Prakash Michael Rappaport Maimon Schwarzschild Thomas Smith Christopher Wonnell Email Us Gail Heriot Saikrishna Prakash Michael Rappaport Maimon Schwarzschild Thomas Smith Christopher Wonnell Links Andrew Sullivan Atlantic Blog The Buck Stops Here Corporate Law Blog Crescat Sententia Crooked Timber Curmudgeonly Clerk Daniel Drezner En Banc EveTushnet.Com FreeSpace How Appealing Instapundit Law and Econ Blog Little Green Footballs Legal Theory Blog The Leiter Reports Marginal Revolution Overlawyered Pejmanesque ProfBainbridge.Com Punishment Theory Rasmusen Weblog SFA Politics & Relig Southern Appeal SpoonsExperience USS Clueless The Volokh Conspiracy The Yin Blog Archives The Bear Flag League Aaron's Rantblog (LA) Absinthe & Cookies Accidental Jedi (Fres) Angry Clam (LA) Baldilocks BlogoSFERICS (Expat) BoifromTroy (LA) CalBlog (Los Angeles) California Republic Citizen Smash(SD) Cobb (Los Angeles) Daily Pundit (SF) Dale Franks e-Claire(Northern CA) Fresh Potatoes(Orang) Infinite Monkeys The Interocitor (LA) The Irish Lass (Sacra) Left Coast Conserv. Lex Communis (Fres) Master of None (LA) Miller's Time (Sac) Molly's Musings (SD) Mulatto Boy (LA) Howard Owens (Vent) Pathetic Earthlings) Patio Pundit Patterico's Pontifications(LA) PrestoPundit (Orange) QandO Right on the Left Beach Shark Blog (Expat) Slings and Arrows (SD) So. Cal Law Blog (LA) Tone Cluster Window Manager Xrlq (Orange) 
|
May 13, 2004
Success in Iraq? By Tom Smith Interesting post at Belmont Club. I agree that Iraq is something out of Hannah or Kipling novel. I think it's possible the Marines and many others may be pulling off the very difficult task of isolating and defeating Sadr. Belmont Club has been very good at explaining how intricate the task has been. Most of the right wing blogosphereists who have been complaining about how we were not coming down hard enough on the insurgents have seemed pretty ignorant to me. As Plato once said, you have to kill the fleas without killing the dog. Or maybe not Plato, but you see the point. I'm not sure exactly why, but I am feeling pretty optimistic today about the whole Iraq mess. The American people are not showing many signs of the despair and flight the unpatriotic left so ardently wishes. I never cease to be amazed at how profound the ignorance of the American Left is of the character of the country they're so keen to undo. Maybe I could run a sideline business giving tours of America to leftists who want to understand it. We could go wild boar hunting in South Carolina, go to minor league baseball game in Arizona, a church picnic in Nebraska around harvest time . . . They would realize it's going to take more than prison abuse stories to get The American Masses to throw up their hands and run shreiking from the room. But as usual, I digress. Barring some major new revelations, I don't see Rummy getting pushed out. Bush's poll numbers are not great, but show remarkable strength under the circumstances. And, it looks to me like Sadr and his minions are about to get crushed, slowly, but crushed. When that happens, I think there may be a rebound effect, a sense of "Gee, we're pretty good at this after all." All this could be utterly wrong. I am the guy who thought "It really is a new economy!" and bought into NASDAQ at 4700. But I think there's a decent chance that pompous defeatist frogs such as George Will, hysterical chipmunks such as David Brooks, and the whole managerie of venomous creatures that is the Most Extreme Animals show of the American Left, are in for a surprise. UPDATE: As usual, I'm just a radio, picking up the waves in the blogosphere. |