Now questioned by Alan Keyes, who is calling Obama a communist into the bargain. Keyes really should have mentioned this when he moved to Illinois in August 2004, to lose to Obama in November. (Does this mean I can call Keyes a reactionary carpet-bagger?)

With thanks to Talking Points Memo.

Pork.  Unlike other Israeli (and American) governments, this is real pork, not the metaphor; he received indirect support from the party of the secular, ex-Russian, Israeli, who like non-kosher butchers. (Since he is also depending on support from the Orthodox parties, this should be fun; he's asking Kadima to form a government of national unity, and we'll see how well that works.
 
Thanks to Matthew Yglesias, who has a better illustration; but he repeats much of the article he comments on.

Ah, the dear dead days of 1894. In thinning out my books (anybody want a Latin dictionary, cheap?) I found The Ascent of Man, by Henry Drummond, which, after making the point that the fitness of a species includes the ability of the species to live for others. (And yes, it cites that eminent biologist and and anarchist, Prince Kropotkin.) Drummond was Professor of Natural Science at the College of the Free Church of Scotland, than which it is hard to be more evangelical.


Is there no ground here where all the faiths and all the creeds may meet—nay, no ground for a final faith and a final creed? If all men could see the inner meaning and aspiration of the natural order should we not find at last a universal religion—a religion congruous with the whole past of Man, at one with Nature, and with a working creed which Science could accept ?      

The answer is a simple one: We have it already. There exists a religion which has anticipated all these requirements—a religion which has been before the world these eighteen hundred years, whose congruity with Nature and with Man stands the tests at every point. Up to this time no word has been spoken to reconcile Christianity with Evolution, or Evolution with Christianity. And why? Because the two are one. What is Evolution ? A method of creation. What is its object? To make more perfect living beings. What is Christianity? A method of creation. What is its object? To make more perfect living beings. Through what does Evolution work? Through Love. Through what does Christianity work? Through Love. Evolution and Christianity have the same Author, the same end, the same spirit. There is no rivalry between these processes. Christianity struck into the Evolutionary process with no noise or shock; it upset nothing of all that had been done; it took all the natural foundations precisely as it found them ; it adopted Man's body, mind, and soul at the exact level where Organic Evolution was at work upon them; it carried on the building by slow and gradual modifications; and, through processes governed by rational laws, it put the finishing touches to the Ascent of Man.

His effort at a children's story is The Monkey that Would not Kill, here/

Rob Farley remarks that he was surprised that Mahan and the Influence of Sea Power on History is absent from Herring's book (and he does use bookplates; his lost copy turned up anonymously at his office) . Mahan's not quite absent: Herring does note that he influenced Teddy, and his presence at the Second Hague Convention (he even manages to suggest, but not state, Mahan's contribution to torpedoing it).

But these are single sentences. The main reference (a paragraph, on p 303) claims that Mahan only provided a rationale for a pre-existing movement. One wouldn't know why Herring says this from his own book; he first mentions the fleet expansion movement with a quote from Mahan himself (the only other reference to him), and next mentions it in connection with the Italian crisis of 1891, after the first Influence was published.

The solution, as often, is to look at Herring's sources. For this, he cites Doenecke's The Presidencies of James A. Garfield & Chester A. Arthur, which dates the movement back into the Hayes administration, when Navy captains, and a Philadelphia ship-builder called John Roach, began to call for a larger fleet. That's not an ideological movement; that's a lobbying campaign, of the sort we have seen all too frequently  since.  Nor was it much of a lobbying campaign; despite getting Arthur's support, the naval funds were only appropriated on March 4, 1885, the last hours of Arthur's presidency.

The new ships were, Doenecke says, two cruisers and two destroyers (cf. Herring, who says they were three cruisers) , and Roach got the contract for all four. (He was low bid, and Doenecke says it was honest.)  

Doenecke's treatment is itself based on Walter La Feber's New Empire, and reading them has shown me why Herring is so bland. He insists so much that all the nineteenth century Secretaries of State were expansionist that he omits what La Feber showed: that they were expansionist in different directions by different means.

For example, Blaine advocated a Pan American Conference when he was Secretary in 1881, because he thought the United States could employ the Conference for leverage in Latin America. When Garfield was shot, Arthur dismissed Blaine, who belonged to another wing of the GOP on domestic issues (like civil service) and replaced him with Freylinghuysen, who was Arthur's  ally. Freylinghuysen scuttled the conference, because he didn't want to run the risk of the United States being bound by it.

These are both expansionist positions; but they are contrary in practice;  Herring obscures this. Instead of any of the three sentences above, he says the Conference was dismissed "largely through [nameless] spite" and goes on at length about Blaine's greatness and others' lack of greatness. This is not helpful.

The Washington Post reports that the Blue Dogs continue trimming the stimulus from its present inadequate amount, but not by much. Meanwhile, McCain, of Arizona, proposes half a stimulus (literally: 425 billion) concentrated on  corporate tax cuts.

Tempting as it is to make cracks about his age, I think the fundamental insouciant corruption of Charles Keating's Senator is the real point here. At least this buffoon isn't President.

The Japanese have not caught up with Bernie Madoff; the Japanese creative enterpreneurs are still promising their dupes 36% returns (and world power, when the conman becomes real famous). How 1990s.

I copy this from osewalrus , so many of you will have seen it; but I encourage you, especially those from Maine, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, and other states encumbered by an apologetic Senator of a compromising kind, to do the same:

Sometimes I do something useful. It would be nice to have spelt Hermeticum correctly, though.

Ruth Marcus, fresh  from explaining why we  shouldn't  prosecute  torturers, now explains why Michelle Obama shouldn't mind   "Sweet Sasha" and "Marvelous Malia" dolls. After all, it's good for black self-esteem; and anyway, when Marcus exploits her own children's cuteness for her column, why should Mrs. Obama mind somebody else exploiting hers?

Possibly: because it's somebody else?  After all, we couldn't suggest that some mothers would prefer not to see their children exploited at all.

The judge, Army Col. James Pohl, said his decision was difficult but necessary to protect "the public interest in a speedy trial."
 

The attack on the Cole was nine years ago, and the man on trial has been in the hands of the Saudis and the United States for seven of them. Isn't it a little late for this dubiously constituted court to be disobeying the President for a speedy trial now?

In the world of the Wall Street Journal and the Hoover Institution, there is no truth, and the argument of Locke and Mill and Paine (men of the opposition all of them) depended on the power of the Anglo-American navies.

On the contrary, the appeal of Locke and Mill and Paine depended on the force of their arguments.  All three of them said this; I quote Mill below. (And if they are wrong about this essential point, the value of spreading their texts is doubtful.)  


As a mere matter of fact, this would, I think, surprise Paine most, since he wrote when the Prime Minister had an arrest warrant out for him and the President had abandoned him to a foreign prison.  

With thanks to Juan Cole, whose book on Napoleon i must review.

Added: This did, however, get to me to reread Representative Government,  a useful reminder that Ajami has as little to do with Mill as the Gospels have to do with the First Crusade riding red to the fetlock through the streets of Jerusalem:
And Mill is arguing here against social and economic determinism, not against proselytism by military force. I hope such minds as Ajami are treating Locke and Mill and Paine as mere flags, to be flown over whatever aggression suits him; otherwise we have here the doctrine of Robespierre and Lenin, that men must be compelled to be free.

Of the shoe thrown at George Bush. This should not be surprising.

Hat off to Digby, who comments
 

General Cannonhat and  Lucrezia Mongfish.

As A Tiny Revolution puts it:

INSANE BILLIONAIRES: Let's kill everyone and take their money!

SANE BILLIONAIRES: I like the way you think. I really do. But if we keep everyone alive, and working for us, we'll make even more money, in the long term.

INSANE BILLIONAIRES: You communist!!!

So from a progressive perspective, you always have to hope the Sane Billionaires win. Still, there's generally a huge chasm between what the Sane Billionaires want and what progressives want.
 

This may not be complete, all of the time; indeed, it isn't. But all too much is true all too much of the time; as the current effort to kill the stimulus unless it becomes tax cuts witness.

Despite being identified as  1901-1913,  the ninth chapter of Herring's From Colony to Superpower  doesn't actually say much about Taft, perhaps more about his stay as proconsul in the Phillipines than about his Presidency. The final act of the Nicaraguan soap opera was delayed until 1911, but beyond that, there are some mentions about "dollar diplomacy."

This was the American invention of the role later undertaken by the IMF, the offer to some small country of enough loans to resolve its debts,on the condition that the rescuer control the small country's public finance. Taft seems to have adopted it, like anti-trust as domestic policy, by generalizing what TR did when he was in that mood.

Doubtless, there will be claims that Obama isn't President because he wasn't sworn in using the Constitutional oath; this will be from the same people that claim the Sixteenth Amendment was never ratified, and therefore they don't have to pay income tax.

Fortunately, Obama's people were persuaded to have the Chief Justice come over and do it again:

“Are you ready to take the oath?” Chief Justice Roberts said.

“I am,” Mr. Obama replied. “And we’re going to do it very slowly.”

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath.  Nope, not unless you count Grover Cleveland twice (or maybe Taft); but I can see the speech-writers going back and forth on this one. Do you quote, correctly, gild refined gold and paint the lily  in a speech intended to convince? You will distract the audience.

(Speaking of which, did you hear Roberts bobble the administration of the Presidential oath? he said President to the United States, but I think Obama knew better. I feel so confident that the Supreme Court knows the Constitution.)

Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].  Those ain't Washington's words; it's from the first Crisis, by Tom Paine. Is it good that we have a President who quotes Paine? or is it worse that he would prefer not to admit it? As always, time will tell.

I missed some of Warren's invocation, but as far as I could tell, he spoke no word of intolerance. On the other hand, like the invocation at Gettysburg by Thomas H. Stockton (on the day of a certain minor speech by another President) it was a prayer that wanted to be an oration. So was Lowery's, when it didn't want to be a protest song or Strong's concordance; between them they took up more time than President Obama did. (And I think Warren got the daughters' names wrong.)  

I saw this with undergraduates. Biden's oath was an applause line, oddly enough; it may be that it was noon, since Warren made the proceedings run late; it may be "preserve protect and defend the Constitution", which would be nice. 
 

Addendum: This collection of speech-writers' responses suggests that we don't have the quality of speech-writers we used to;  one of them fell for the suggestion that the quote was Washington's. Another of them says that Obama checked his history with David McCullough; I hope not, but if so he got it right; Congress did bail out of Philadelphia before the Battle of Trenton.

And the honeymoon was over before the inaugural, if this piece of mischief is any indication; well, maybe Obama will rein in his optimism.

But above all, that was a Democratic speech, with its recognition of everybody, not just the few, the rich and the well-born. Whether it was a Democrat with valiant new fixes (like Lyndon Johnson) or a Democrat of compromises going along with The System (like, well, Lyndon Johnson, vintage 1967) we shall see, like the Paine question above.  The Nation has recognized the quote; we'll see when our Liberal </irony> Media does.

Fox News at work:

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is your favorite Scripture that you kind of lean on that sort of keeps you going?

GARRETT: Obama's answer not exactly rooted in Scripture but in the ballpark.

OBAMA: -- the Golden Rule. It's very simple. I mean, it's a very simple concept. I think what he asks of me is that I treat my brother as -- and my sister -- as I would have them treat me.

I suppose this might  mean nothing more than that Obama did not quote the KJV literally. But this will be their Senior White House correspondent.

Hat off to Media Matters.

A post which asks the question, among others: Suppose it were Michelle Obama who had had a little addiction problem. Would her husband have been nominated, much less elected?

From an article on Jeb Bush:
Brad de Long has figured this oddity out: the elder Bush was actually saying "I unleash Chiang" [Kaishek], the right-wing cliche of his time. I share his perplexity that Jeb, who speaks of Chang as " a mystical warrior.... somebody who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society" does not appear to have caught on to what his father was saying; certainly the reporter hasn't.