The Great Schlep and jolly 5769!

I am not a big fan of Sarah Silverman, who I find more crass than funny. It took a lot to sit through the whole of Jesus is Magic. I did enjoy the Silverman v. Jimmy Kimmel sing-off featuring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Now, comes another tiny step toward Silverman’s long-shot redemption. The Great Schlep campaign wants Jewish grandchildren to visit their grandparents in the sunshine state (“a little man named Al Gore got f****d by Florida”) and get them to vote for Barack Obama (“our last chance for ending this reputation as the assholes of the universe.”) The site provides talking points on the whole black thing, Israel and other foreign policy issues. Unfortunately, I couldn’t open the PDF. Perhaps Rosh Hashanah traffic.

Anyways, here’s Silverman making her pitch and happy 5769!



Tip of the hat to Mindy Gold over at Moment Magazine’s blog.

Palin's impatient (and wrong) foreign policy teacher

Sarah Palin's anticipated interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson is now being publicised by some in the media as conclusive proof of the Governor of Alaska's lack of foreign policy experience. At one point of the interview Gibson asked Palin if she agreed with the "Bush doctrine". Her answer ("In what respect Charlie?") is being mocked as evidence of Palin's ignorance, an ignorance to be expected from a woman politician who, quite obviously for Gibson and many others, has no business in contending for the vice presidency of the United States.

According to the creator of the term, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, Palin was right in demanding from Gibson a clarification of his question. Gibson's characterization of the "Bush doctrine" as purely a doctrine of preemptive war is wrong according to Krauthammer:

It's the third in a series and was superseded by the fourth and current definition of the Bush doctrine, the most sweeping formulation of the Bush approach to foreign policy and the one that most clearly and distinctively defines the Bush years: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world. It was most dramatically enunciated in Bush's second inaugural address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

Krauthammer centers his criticism in Gibson's perceived exasperation on defining the Bush doctrine for Palin and how this issue has been overexploited by the pundits to further dicredit McCain's VP pick:

Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.

De facto foreign policy

The New York Times today reports that Asian stock markets rose two to four percent after the U.S. Treasury's announcement that it was transferring control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to conservatorship. While a defensible domestic intervention to prop up Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in a down economy and a severely wounded mortgage system, the U.S. government's decision to take over the mortgage giants is, in fact, de facto foreign policy. It is de facto foreign policy because this seemingly domestic policy has the unintended effect of subsidizing foreign central banks' investments in dollar-denominated bonds. Inadvertent foreign aid certainly is not good foreign policy (regardless of the domestic soundness of the recent government move)!

Due to the lack of financial discipline by the Bush administration, which is fighting two wars and cutting taxes at the same time, the funds must come from somewhere. Enter Asian central banks like People's Bank of China. These banks are much too integrated with the U.S. financial debt structure for their good and for our good.

The Asian central banks know that this is not a particular good time to ride the tides with the U.S. economy, yet they are addicted to cheap money and competitive markets for their exports. What about the U.S.? We rely on Asian and other foreign funds to fuel the ever growing national deficit and consumer indebtedness. The size and distribution of Freddie Mac debt holdings is case in point. The same article reports that "while central banks around the world have historically accounted for a quarter of purchases of Freddie Mac debt, their share rose to 37 percent for debt issued since 2006... The bulk of those purchases appear to have been by Asian central banks, which have been buying dollar-denominated securities at a record pace to slow their currencies' rise against the dollar and thus preserve the competitiveness of their exports." NPR's Morning Edition suggests that the U.S. is in a bind because who else would "recycle Americans' dollars" to feed our appetite for more "things we can't afford."

Even in our interconnected world, it is worrisome when American domestic policies become foreign policies by default rather than by thoughtful design.

Newsflash: Alaska is next to Russia!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Americans favor governors over senators when picking their presidents even though the latter tend to have much more foreign policy experience. Nevertheless, it is important for all presidential and vice presidential candidates to affirm their knowledge of and interest in foreign policy to the American public.

Sometimes, valiant efforts to do so backfire. Back in 1999, George W. Bush infamously flunked a quiz on foreign affairs when he was asked to name the leaders of such exotic hot spots as Chechnya and Taiwan. Clearly, such things don't really matter in determining the outcome of elections, but I doubt that any other candidate will concede to answering similarly brazen questions ever again. Pity.

One of the biggest criticisms of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, John McCain's recently-picked running mate, is her lack of foreign policy experience. Steve Doocy, of Fox News, was trying really hard to find something,anything, to refute the claim and came up with: "[T]he other thing about her, she does know about international relations because she is right up there in Alaska right next door to Russia." Who knows, perhaps you do get a better view into Putin's soul from Juneau than Washington.

Republicans are somewhat undercutting their own argument about the importance of foreign policy experience by picking her. However, I doubt that Democrats will gain many points on this one since, ultimately, Barack Obama is still at the top of the ticket and his foreign policy experience is minimal. Obama's best bet is to argue, as he has been doing, that he knows enough to do better than the current mess. It is a very, very low bar to cross but John Kerry, a person infinitely more experienced, failed, and I am not sure if Obama will be any different.