First, Obama can’t deny that the surge has produced results. It clearly has. The violence in “unwinnable” Iraq is now down, and the gains that have been made are finally on a solid foundation.

What did Sen. Obama say about the surge?

We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality, uh, we can send 15,000 more troops; 20,000 more troops; 30,000 more troops. Uh, I don’t know any, uh, expert on the region or any military officer that I’ve spoken to, uh, privately that believes that that is gonna make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.

He also made this remark:

I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.

That was January of 2007. Later that year, Obama said this:

Here’s what we know. The surge has not worked. And they said today, ‘Well, even in September, we’re going to need more time.’ So we’re going to kick this can all the way down to the next president, under the president’s plan.

There’s no doubt that throughout 2007, when Sen. McCain was risking his political future in supporting the surge, Sen. Obama held the position that the surge would not, and could not, work. Now Obama has had to scramble away from that position in recent days. His position that even knowing what he knows now, he would not support the surge is preposterous—and by his own words is based on his dislike of Bush rather than substantive reasoning.

His statement to ABC News’ Terry Moran was that he would still be against the surge because “we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one I just disagreed with” is childish. His argument is that since he disagrees with Bush, he would do the opposite of what Bush did even if what Bush did was actually effective. It is tempting to remind Sen. Obama that Bush was elected President in the hope that he’d drop out of the race and spare us from more of his endless political vanity.

There is a reason why the surge worked. It worked because security is absolutely necessary for political compromise. The Sunnis and Sh’ia could never make political concessions when they had every reason to fear each other. You can’t have political compromise when the parties are trying to kill each other. That such a concept is radical to some is a little distressing and shows how political rhetoric has become so divorced from thinking about the real world. The surge worked because it helped restore order. Obama’s plan would have failed because it would have put the cart before the horse in terms. Pushing for political compromise would have been foolish when the Sh’ia feared al-Qaeda and the Sunnis feared the Sadrists. People don’t tend to make deals with people that they think are going to kill them.

If logic isn’t enough, that Obama is endorsing a virtual replay of the surge in Afghanistan should make it clear. To be fair, Afghanistan is not quite like Iraq. It has never been a truly “modern” country, and while it has had moments of peace, for most of its history it has been a place wracked with violent conflict. Obama’s strategy of replaying the surge in Afghanistan is probably the right call, but there is no reason to believe that Afghanistan is truly the central front in this war. Al-Qaeda isn’t in Afghanistan, they are hiding next door in Pakistan, where we cannot go.

If the surge supposedly didn’t really do the job in Iraq, why should it work in Afghanistan? The Afghan government is weaker than Al-Maliki’s. President Karzai has little effective control outside Kabul, and there’s no reason for many of the distant tribes outside the cities to submit to him. Afghanistan is a tribal state, not a democracy, and it will be generations (if not longer) before that will change. Defeating the Taliban is a good thing, but that doesn’t help us fight al-Qaeda, which is a different group entirely.

Don’t expect answers from the Obama camp. More vague platitudes about “hope” and “change” are enough to pack in the throngs of admirers, and that’s all he will deliver. With Obama, style and ambition continue to trump substance, and like Bill Clinton what matters is not what the best policy is, but what does the most to stroke the ego of the candidate. That kind of feckless egotism was fatal to American interests throughout the 1990 as al-Qaeda metastasized, Pakistan got the bomb, and America’s enemies saw us as a venal paper tiger. They say that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. A President who fails to learn from history can doom us all.

Proving that the other half haven’t been paying attention, The New York Times has refused to print an op-ed by Sen. McCain responding to Obama’s Iraq piece. The Times refused to print the piece partially on the grounds that McCain would not specify a timetable withdrawal—denying him the right to uphold his own position.

If the roles were reversed, the left would be demanding a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine and rushing to hold Congressional hearings. For the right, the Times being a sycophantic propaganda organ of the left is about as surprising as the sun rising in the East. Yet having a media that is uncritical of one candidate or party is hardly a good thing for a democratic society. The American people are losing faith in the media, and for good reason. The media is supposed to be a watchdog against spin and deception. Now, they’ve become a virtual one-party state, leading to the Balkanization of the media into left and right as people wanting to get both sides are left to pick and choose.

The Times’ snub of McCain is just a symptom of a larger problem of media bias. The media is not fulfilling its function, and yet they can’t see why they are bleeding money and readership by the day. When half of the electorate can’t trust you to be objective, it’s not surprising that they’re not interested in hearing what you have to say.

Were his policies actually sound it would be one thing—but Sen. Obama makes the same predictable mistakes that Democrats keep making, and contradicts his own positions more than once:

In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness.

But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and we’ve spent nearly $200 billion more in Iraq than we had budgeted. Iraq’s leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.

Sen. Obama said that the surge would fail and that there was no long-term military solution. Like the rest of the Democratic leadership, he misunderstands the purpose of the “surge.” Security is an absolute prerequisite to political reconciliation. People who have every reason to fear their neighbors have no reason to engage in political compromise. Obama’s policies would have taken Iraq into utter chaos. Without the breathing room that the surge provided, Iraq’s descent into civil war would have continued unabated. On the surge, Sen. Obama was categorically wrong, while Sen. McCain’s political bravery was constant and recent events have vindicated his then-controversial stand.

As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.

We may be able to remove our troops in 16 months, but only if the conditions support it. To do otherwise is irresponsible. Obama’s insistence on an arbitrary timetable is much like Prime Minister Maliki’s—unrealistic, designed for domestic consumption, and quickly to be abandoned.

There is little doubt that the security gains are making a withdrawal more tenable each day—and now Sen. Obama is going against his own position his own policy of “immediate” withdrawal and embracing a weakened plan that will likely happen regardless of who takes office. It is a better bet for the country to embrace someone who was right from the beginning than someone who is running against their own policies from only a few months ago.

Sen. Obama also misunderstands the conflict in Afghanistan as well:

Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been. As Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently pointed out, we won’t have sufficient resources to finish the job in Afghanistan until we reduce our commitment to Iraq.

If Afghanistan is not the central front in the war on terror then al-Qaeda was unaware of that “fact” as they themselves believed that it was. Sen. Obama forgets that al-Qaeda is an Arab group. It’s heart is not in Afghanistan, but in the Arab world. Obama’s plan to defeat al-Qaeda by reinforcing Afghanistan is analogous to saying that you would raid the gangsters at their hideout after they had already left.

The rise in violence in Afghanistan is a byproduct of our victory in Iraq. The skills we have learned in years of vigorous counterinsurgency will serve us well in Afghanistan and in future conflict. We do need to reinforce Afghanistan, but not because of al-Qaeda. The Taliban are a threat, but only to the Afghans. We have a moral imperative to help them, but that does not make Afghanistan central to this war.

Pakistan is the major breeding ground for al-Qaeda, and the reason that it is that al-Qaeda knows we can’t risk the fall of the Musharraf government to take them out. Thanks to Pakistan’s nuclear capability, no sane President would authorize a cross-border raid and risk the outbreak of World War III unless absolutely necessary. Having troops in Afghanistan at best puts them closer to al-Qaeda, but as close as that border may be, it is still too far to do much good.

A truly enterprising journalist would ask Sen. Obama why al-Qaeda would risk going into Afghanistan, a country that is crawling with US and allied troops, when Pakistan offers them a relatively safe haven. Sadly, few journalists are that enterprising.

In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.

For a poker player, Sen. Obama has an obvious tell. Whenever he talks about something negative his political adversaries are saying about him, chances are he is telegraphing his own political weaknesses. The facts remain, Sen. Obama’s position up until it became political expedient was that we should surrender in Iraq. He changed his position when it he needed to paint an image of himself as being tough on terrorism. The American public cannot be sure where the political winds may take Sen. Obama. If the going gets tough in Afghanistan (as it likely will), can we trust Barack Obama not to give in?

Sen. McCain took a politically brave stand when it was not expedient for him to have done so. He took the heat because he was willing to stand on principle. While Barack Obama pre-judged the surge (as he now pre-judges the current situation), John McCain stood firm. McCain demonstrated political bravery, while Sen. Obama continues to change his position.

There is a reason why so many more Americans trust John McCain as Commander in Chief—because McCain has already shown a willingness to take the hard stands. Behind Obama’s rhetoric lies the reality of a neophyte politician who doesn’t want the facts to get in the way of his spin. We don’t need more of that in Washington. A true leader takes a stand based on a principle higher than political ambition. McCain has consistently done so, and that is why for all of Sen. Obama’s tough words, his logic is weak.

The cover is supposed to be a reflection on the supposed “right-wing smear machine” that the left loves to invent, but ends up being a case of friendly fire from the left wing. Its crude stereotype of both Obama and those with legitimate questions about his choice of associations manages to be offensive on a bipartisan level.

It is ironic that the ones that have been using the “fear tactics” that The New Yorker decries are not from the right. Sen. McCain treats Sen. Obama as He Who Must Not Be Middle-Named lest anyone accuse him of racism. The money spent by GOP-leaning 527 groups is a pittance compared to what is spent by groups like MoveOn.org, and the truly harsh attacks against Obama tended to come not from the “vast right-wing conspiracy” but from the paranoid mind of Sen. Clinton—who ironically enough invented the idea. Sen. Obama constantly lashes out against a “smear machine” which exists largely in the minds of the Senator and his supporters.

If Obama were smart, he would embrace his heritage and defuse the “Muslim” issue. The more he runs, the more he looks like he has something to hide. It seems unlikely that people who won’t vote for a candidate with a Muslim middle name are numerous enough to matter or sufficiently likely to vote for Sen. Obama to be bothered with. Obama should run on who he is—someone who is multicultural and can reach out to the rest of the world. The political costs of such a move are unlikely to hurt him, and the potential benefits are substantial. Why not proudly announce that he is Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a Kenyan Muslim who is a committed Christian and American, just as many Americans of foreign descent are? To hear him boldly proclaim his heritage defuses the issue and lets the political debate refocus on what matters—not false issues of patriotism, but substantive questions of judgement, integrity, and experience.

Snow was truly one of a kind, someone who could operate in Washington yet never seeming to share in the cynicism that runs through the town. His optimism, his courage in facing cancer, and his amazing talent made him a truly irreplaceable man.

Kathryn Jean-Lopez of National Review says it with heartbreaking eloquence:

As for the rest of us, Tony Snow talks in that interview about “a depth of happiness” that cancer made possible in his life — he became closer to his wife, his family, being forced to think about the eternal things in a new way. The rest of us ought to sign off of our computers, turn the Blackberry off, and be with our loved ones — totally present — living this day as if it might be your last.

“God put us on earth to help each other,” Snow told Gregory. Consider these days of reflection on the example of Tony Snow as his help to all of us.

“When you die, you graduate,” Snow told Gregory. Happy Graduation Day.

For example, he offers this message on taxes:

You pay plenty in taxes already. It’s not just about the cash, but about freedom. You need to invest in your business, pay your mortgage and pay for your kids’ education. Government already has too much money, and it spends it on mission-creep rather than the ‘public good.’ By the way, we are NOT going to increase taxes on your grandchildren by engaging in reckless debt spending, either.

That is the sort of message that the GOP needs to be sending. Confidence in government is at an all-time low—the Democratic argument that government is fundamentally broken, so let’s have more of it should be a non-starter. Obama’s great personal magnetism betrays yet another out-of-touch liberal.

But if the Republicans think that calling a spade a spade will win them the election, they’re dead wrong. Sticking Obama with the “liberal” label—even if richly deserved and completely accurate—is not going to be enough to swing the election. The GOP needs to have a real agenda.

Even though conservatives are balking at Sen. McCain’s efforts to speak out on global warming—and for good reason—at least he’s trying to set the agenda. The Lexington Project is the sort of forward-looking strategy that voters are looking for. The GOP needs to be a party of ideas, and the party leadership has to realize that calling the other guys names won’t work for them any more than it worked for the Democrats in 2002 and 2004. We need not only to say that we have conservative values, but make conservative values relevant to the American voter.

Why is a market approach better for health care? Because, as Mr. Greenhut explains, markets lower costs and make goods and services more available. But that isn’t enough, even though it’s true. What the GOP has always had a problem doing is taking those facts and turning them into a narrative. A market is an abstract concept… people respond to things that are within their own experience. The right narrative is that market-driven health care is like going to the neighborhood grocery store while government-run health care is like standing in a bread line. While that’s a rough analogy, it’s effective.

In a fair world, being a staunch conservative would be enough to win a Presidential election. This world isn’t fair, and politics is especially unfair. It is not enough to parade one’s conservative bona fides and call the other guy a liberal extremist. The way to win an election is to play, as Mr Greenhut puts it, to the “politics of aspiration.” For all the talk of the greatness of Ronald Reagan, the GOP seems to be having a tough time capturing the spirit of American optimism that motivated his campaign.

There is one thing that Mr. Greenhut is wrong about, though. This country shouldn’t be punished for the GOP’s transgressions. An Obama administration would be an unmitigated disaster for this nation. We don’t need another radical Supreme Court justice putting their whims above the rule of law. We don’t need higher taxes during an economic downturn. We can’t have radicals further using the machinery of the administrative state to reduce our freedoms even more. That doesn’t even touch on issues of free trade, energy policy, and other critical matters.

The GOP needs to get its act together. Years of fiscal irresponsibility and institutional incompetence have taken their toll on the Republican Party. The stakes in this election are too high not to embrace an agenda of substantive change. The GOP needs to not only stand on its values, but make those values accessible to those who don’t yet share them.

The GOP can win on the “politics of aspiration”—so long as they aspire to something higher than just skating by.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Now, I don’t think that Sen. Obama is the sort of type who will have his followers marching through Poland any time soon—but this kind of unthinking devotion to a candidate does not belong in a democratic system. The politics of personality is inherently anti-democratic as it puts the value of the leader above the value of the people.

It’s hardly unusual to see a candidate inspire their partisans—that’s what a good politician does. What is so unusual about Obama is the level of fervor that surrounds him. He is treated like a rock star in a way that even Clinton was not. The Obama campaign is less a traditional campaign that it is a movement. Political campaigns are, or at least should be, about ideals. The Obama movement is about nothing deeper than some vague vision of “change”—a value that could mean everything from marching through Poland to changing the national anthem to “Kumbaya” and inviting Osama bin Laden to a nationwide love-in. “Change” is an empty slogan, the intellectual equivalent of junk food—filling, but never offering anything of substance.

And if it were just about “change” there’s no reason to suspect that Obama would be ahead. Every candidate in this race talked about change. The real force behind the Obama campaign is not mere change, but force of personality. That is what gives Obama his political power, but it is also what makes him such a troubling force. We don’t need more uncritical worship of political figures in society, we need more individualism and vibrancy.

It’s as though Obama supporters have woken up with Brain Slugs attached to them. Instead of thinking rationally about the candidate, we have people people adopting his middle name on Facebook

. Instead of rationalizing one’s political choices, we have a bandwagon effect on a nightmare scale.

So what’s the problem? A few people have a political crush? It cuts deeper than that. Those who put their trust in politicians are quickly crushed—and make no mistake, Obama is nothing more than a typical politician when all the rhetoric is put aside. Just witness his contortions on gun control, and his change of heart on telecom immunity. Like any politician, he will say what needs to be said to get elected, and he is doing exactly what a jaded Washington insider would do—which is hardly change one can believe in. When his followers learn that he’s just another pol, all that energy and enthusiasm will quickly fade away and be replaced by even greater apathy—political movements based on personality typically do not last long.

Of course, the other alternative is more troubling. People who need a Leader tend not to be thinking all that rationally. At the risk of breaking Godwin’s Law yet again, even if Sen. Obama is far removed from the sort that would have people burning books, a cult of personality is not compatible with democracy. Not only that, but we’re already getting some disturbing indications of a mob mentality.

One should never put one’s trust in the political class. On one end it breeds disappointment, on the other zealotry. The Obama movement is the first real mass organized political movement of the 21st Century, and if it is the model for those to follow, American democracy may not emerge intact. It won’t be Obama who leads us there, but his little cult of personality is putting us down that path.

For all the commentators calling Heller “judicial activism,” it’s anything but. It restores the original intent of the Framers in drafting the Second Amendment. In fact, even Justice Stevens admits in his dissent that: “The question presented by this case is not whether the Second Amendment protects a ‘collective right’ or an ‘individual right.’ Surely it protects a right that can be enforced by individuals.” What is most intriguing from a lawyering standpoint is that Justice Stevens’ dissent is written on Scalia’s grounds. Only Justice Breyer uses the typical policy-laden arguments of Court liberals. Justice Stevens’ dissent, like Scalia’s majority opinion, is based almost solely on the question of original intent.

Does this suggest that originalism will be the dominant mode of constitutional interpretation used by the Court? It seems doubtful, but the fact that Stevens waged his war on Scalia’s battlefield is interesting.

Stevens’ dissent was quite well done, but ultimately Scalia’s dissent seemed to have a firmer grasp on history. The language of the Second Amendment is less than clear, but the idea that the phrase “keep and bear arms” is confined solely to having weapons to be used for the militia seems historically and linguistically obtuse. Justice Scalia puts it wryly:

In any event, the meaning of “bear arms” that petitioners and JUSTICE STEVENS propose is not even the (sometimes) idiomatic meaning. Rather, they manufacture a hybrid definition, whereby “bear arms” connotes the actual carrying of arms (and therefore is not really an idiom) but only in the service of an organized militia. No dictionary has ever adopted that definition, and we have been apprised of no source that indicates that it carried that meaning at the time of the founding. But it is easy to see why petitioners and the dissent are driven to the hybrid definition. Giving “bear Arms” its idiomatic meaning would cause the protected right to consist of the right to be a soldier or to wage war—an absurdity that no commentator has ever endorsed. See L. Levy, Origins of the Bill of Rights 135 (1999). Worse still, the phrase “keep and bear Arms” would be incoherent. The word “Arms” would have two different meanings at once: “weapons” (as the object of “keep”) and (as the object of “bear”) one-half of an idiom. It would be rather like saying “He filled and kicked the bucket” to mean “He filled the bucket and died.” Grotesque.

Scalia knows how to twist the knife a bit.

The majority opinion hints that the Second Amendment applies to the states as well. What’s odd about Heller is that the Court never discusses the issue of how D.C. should be treated. That issue was a major issue in the D.C. Circuit, but does not get raised by the Court. It is possible that the Court will settle the issue of incorporation in a later case.

And make no mistakes, there will be later cases. The Court has only provided one step, and the various sides will end up hashing out the rest.

Still, this is a good day for our Republic. Once banished, constitutional rights rarely return. To see the Court affirm that the Second Amendment recognizes an individual right to keep and bear arms is to see the Court reaffirm the values of our Founders. They incorporated the common-law right of self defense into the founding of this Nation, and for good reason. The Court has not made law, nor have they violated principles of stare decisis. They have done what the Court should do—”say what the law is.” Marbury v. Madison, 5 US 137, 177 (1803). The law is that individual American citizens have the right to keep and bear arms. That conclusion is not a conclusion of five Justices, but an affirmation of what the Bill of Rights says. Those who take issue with that conclusion should not take umbrage at the Court, but at the Founders who made that decision in 1783.

To follow the Court’s session, SCOTUSblog’s live coverage will provide instant results and links to the opinions.

My prediction: a clear majority of the Justices will decide for the individual rights interpretation. A closer majority will decide the issue of what standard of review should be used—and there may not even be a majority on that. Either the standard of review will be narrowly decided to be strict scrutiny, or we’ll see a plurality opinion that allows for some reasonable regulation of firearms along the lines of the Solicitor General’s amicus brief.

Gun owners will be happy that the Court has recognized the Second Amendment for what it is—but if the standard of review is too lenient, then it may be less of a victory than some had hoped. My guess is that the Roberts Court is not about sweeping changes, and will temper the individual rights aspect of the decision with than a less than searching standard of review.

UPDATE: Affirmed 5-4. Individual right upheld. More this evening.

The sad reality of the situation is that just about the only way to fix the situation is to put a bullet in Robert Mugabe’s head and start from scratch. Of course, that isn’t going to happen. Zimbabwe, like Burma and other hellholes are allowed to fester because it is in virtually no one’s self interest to do a damn thing to help.

The tragedy in Zimbabwe will continue so long as Mugabe continues to remain in power—and if he dies, his cronies will likely rip the country apart in brutal internecine warfare in the quest to succeed him.

It would be wonderful if there were a global peacekeeping force to deal with situations like this—ostensibly, that’s what the UN is supposed to do, but they are too incompetent and corrupt to be trusted with the job. If you doubt that proposition, visit Srebrenica sometime and see how well the UN had done there.

We like to say that as a world community we stand strongly against genocide. The sad truth is that we just let it happen. All our international law and lofty principles mean nothing if they are never applied.

Obama is playing to his liberal type by exploiting the politics of envy to try and “soak the rich,” but in terms of actual policy, to do so would be economic suicide. It would encourage people to either A:) work less and be less productive or B:) shield their assets from taxation. (Or perhaps a combination of the two….)

The fact is that $250,000 is hardly filthy rich these days. The people that Obama will hurt with this punitive taxation will be the small business owners that employ 50% of the American workforce. They will be less inclined to grow their businesses and less inclined to hire new workers—because the marginal utility of the extra work just went down dramatically. If the benefit of working 10% harder is a 2% increase in income after Uncle Sam takes his bite, it makes little sense to work harder. Because of that, we lose the benefits of that extra labor.

The bottom line is this: it will become much more difficult for people in the middle class to move up the socioeconomic ladder. For Warren Buffet or Bill Gates, an army of lawyers and accountants can shield income while the boss pats themselves on the back for their “social responsibility.” For the average owner of a small flower shop or coffee house who can’t afford those kind of tax shelters, it means that moving to that next level is more of a curse than a blessing. For an economy that is based on the promise of upward mobility, such punitive taxation is anathema.

Obama’s plans make no economic sense. Instead of shoring up entitlements, he would dramatically expand them. For all of the talk about how McCain is a clone of Bush, Obama seems to want to take the worst policy ideas of the Bush Administration (Medicare Part D, steel tariffs, more government spending) and do more of it.

Obama is running as a doctrinaire Michael Dukakis-style tax and spend liberal. Even though this is unquestionably a Democratic year, a lot of voters will be smart enough to see that Sen. Obama seems to want to punish those with the audacity to hope to build themselves up economically.

Carlin was one-of-a-kind. Anyone can be raunchy, but Carlin was the rarest combination: raunchy, but smart. His barbs were pointed, and they always hit their target.

As he once observed:

The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What’s that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating …and you finish off as an orgasm.

George Carlin may not have gone out that way, but he certainly had one hell of a life.

Al-Anbar Province, once the center of violence in Iraq and a pipeline for terrorists, guns, and money is now a place of relative tranquility. The reason is simple: US resolve helped empower Iraqis to fight terrorism:

The U.S. military assault on Fallujah in 2004 yielded a significant U.S. victory both in moral and tactical terms, David Bellavia, a former staff sergeant with the U.S. Army who served with the First Infantry Division for six years, said in an interview.

“I call it my generation’s Normandy because it identified for the enemy what the American fighting man was all about,” he said. “They completely underestimated us and had this idea that because we couldn’t use our technology, we wouldn’t have intestinal fortitude to see the battle through, but this is what ultimately delivered us.”

In 2005, Bellavia received the Conspicuous Service Cross, the highest award for military valor in New York state. He is also the author of “House to House,” which chronicles the Battle of Fallujah in graphic detail.

The Rumsfeld strategy, while based on a sound premise, was ultimately based on the wrong premise. The worry was that more troops would mean more casualties, which emphasized the worries of American politicians rather than what really mattered—the security of Iraqi civilians. Even during the darkest days of the war, brave and resourceful military commanders like Col. H.R. McMaster were developing the tactics to fight and win in Iraq. In Fallujah, we demonstrated that we would not back down. That lesson was brought home time and time again, until finally the Iraqis started joining our side. Once that began to happen in a significant fashion, al-Qaeda was damned.

This ABC News report puts the usual spin on the good news: sure, violence is down, but will it last. What the media, Sen. Obama, and the rest of the antiwar partisans fail to understand is that the reduction in violence is the direct result of our fortitude on Iraq. For all of the President’s legion of faults, especially in the conduct of this war, his stubbornness may have saved Iraq from a humanitarian nightmare that would make Darfur look like nothing. His stubbornness and our military’s skill, combined with the bravery of the Iraqi people have paid off with a great peace dividend.

This peace will last so long as national reconciliation is in the interest of all the parties. The Sunnis are outnumbered. They tried violent resistance and were nearly ethnically cleansed. The Shi’ites also know that violence does not help them. They have political leverage, and because of that they have the most to lose if Iraq flies apart. They may have the numeric superiority, but if they start a civil war, the Sunnis will end up back in bed with al-Qaeda, and even if the Shi’ites win, it will be at a great cost, and would cause Iraq to fall into the hands of the Iranians. Iraqi and Iranians share a common religion, but nothing else.

Iraq can be peaceful, not because of some noble ambition, but because of enlightened self interest—and that is the most powerful force in the universe.

Yet all this could be undone by a public more interested in bread and circuses than world peace. The Democratic Party, by playing to the basest isolationist and xenophobic interests, is threatening the progress that has been made. A premature withdrawal from Iraq would undermine all this progress. If the US leaves, the Iraqis cannot yet keep the peace. A US presence is a necessity to provide the Iraqis with the security needed for progress. The argument that the US presence somehow undermines Iraq’s progress is ridiculous on its face—Iraq has made great political progress, and that progress is only possible because the Iraqis have security. If the Iraqi people cannot be secure in their homes, how can they possibly be expected to trust each other? I, for one, would love to see Sen. Obama spin his way out of that question.

Contrary to the ignorant and arrogant arguments that Iraqis are not pulling their weight, they are making great strides towards restoring the greatness of the nation of Iraq. Day by day, the Iraqis that work towards the betterment of their nation and fight against terror bring Iraq closer to the days when Baghdad can once again be a center of learning and commerce and a great world city.

We in America must never belittle their sacrifice. In a spirit of solidarity, we must continue to support our Iraqi allies in their fight against terror and oppression. Instead of giving them up, we should continue to support their struggles—after all, we were once a struggling young power as well.

It is fair to ask what we are fighting for. What we are fighting for in Iraq is this: that one day a joint US-Iraqi biotechnology venture can discover a cure for cancer, AIDS, or another terrible affliction. That some day, in a place like Darfur, US and Iraqi peacekeepers can work alongside each other again to restore another war-shattered country. That some day, Iraq will become a brother nation to us, an ally as great as those we liberated 60 years ago.

That dream is within the grasp of both the people of the United States and Iraq—but only if we do not let our short-term politics interfere.

One thing I know for sure, St. Peter is in no position to give Tim a hard time at the gate. If there is any delay whatsoever, look for Tim to sit the onetime fishermen and early church organizer down at the table and with that smiling but tenaciously prepared look ask, as heavenly PowerPoint goes up on the screen of judgment: “Isn’t it true, Peter, that earlier on the night before he died, you denied him three times, and yet here you are today the keeper of the gate of the kingdom. How do you explain that?” Like so many other guests on Meet the Press when confronted with the thoroughness of Tim’s preparations revealing an undeniable inconsistency of their own words, I suspect Peter might be tempted to bob and weave his way to some sort of answer. Advice to the first pontiff: Don’t try it. Just wave Tim on through—he more than deserves it.

There aren’t many journalists with the professionalism of Tim Russert, a man who created the real “no spin zone” long before any of the pretenders to the throne. He was relentless, but fair, and our media needs more of his kind.

I remember the floods of 1993 in Des Moines, and it’s hard to believe that there could be a flood worse than that. Yet it looks like Iowa is getting soaked again. Hopefully waters will recede soon and the long process of rebuilding can begin.

Chief Justice Roberts, in his dissent (joined by Justices Alito, Thomas, and Scalia) explains why this decision is both overly broad but also unsatisfying to all:

So who has won? Not the detainees. The Court’s analysis leaves them with only the prospect of further litigation to determine the content of their new habeas right, followed by further litigation to resolve their particular cases, followed by further litigation before the D. C. Circuit—where they could have started had they invoked the DTA procedure. Not Congress, whose attempt to “determine-through democratic means—how best” to balance the security of the American people with the detainees’ liberty interests, see Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U. S. 557, 636 (2006) (BREYER, J., concurring), has been unceremoniously brushed aside. Not the Great Writ, whose majesty is hardly enhanced by its extension to a jurisdictionally quirky outpost, with no tangible benefit to anyone. Not the rule of law, unless by that is meant the rule of lawyers, who will now arguably have a greater role than military and intelligence officials in shaping policy for alien enemy combatants. And certainly not the American people, who today lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation’s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges.

Justice Scalia’s dissent was blistering—even by his standards:

And today it is not just the military that the Court elbows aside. A mere two Terms ago in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U. S. 557 (2006), when the Court held (quite amazingly) that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 had not stripped habeas jurisdiction over Guantanamo petitioners’ claims, four Members of today’s five-Justice majority joined an opinion saying the following:

“Nothing prevents the President from returning to Congress to seek the authority [for trial by military commission] he believes necessary. “Where, as here, no emergency prevents consultation with Congress, judicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our Nation’s ability to deal
with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengthens the Nation’s ability to determine—through democratic means—how best to do so. The Constitution places its faith in those democratic means.” Id., at 636 (BREYER, J., concurring).

Turns out they were just kidding.

Indeed they apparently were. Like Lucy pulling the football from Charlie Brown, the Supreme Court has told both the elected branches of government that they call the shots. If there were some strong constitutional logic behind this decision it would be one thing. But the majority opinion even admits that the law is at best murky on the issue of whether a foreigner has ever been granted habeas rights when they are outside the sovereign territory of the United States (and even that contention flies in the face of the weight of authority that decisively holds that they have no access to the writ). Undeterred, the Court chooses to dramatically rewrite settled precedent nonetheless. If prior cases had eviscerated and overruled the key Supreme Court precedent in Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 (1950), this decision has rendered it a nullity.

The goal of our courts is not to make the law, but to follow the Constitution. This decision is not grounded in the jurisprudence of the Constitution, but of the whims of five. Justice Scalia puts it bluntly, but accurately:

Today the Court warps our Constitution in a way that goes beyond the narrow issue of the reach of the Suspension Clause, invoking judicially brainstormed separation-of-powers principles to establish a manipulable “functional” test for the extraterritorial reach of habeas corpus (and, no doubt, for the extraterritorial reach of other constitutional protections as well). It blatantly misdescribes important precedents, most conspicuously Justice Jackson’s opinion for the Court in Johnson v. Eisentrager. It breaks a chain of precedent as old as the common law that prohibits judicial inquiry into detentions of aliens abroad absent statutory authorization. And, most tragically, it sets our military commanders the impossible task of proving to a civilian court, under whatever standards this Court devises in the future, that evidence supports the confinement of each and every enemy prisoner.

The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today.

I certainly hope that it will, but if certain members of the judiciary have their way it will be as a tyranny of the few. Our country is, and should be, a nation of laws, not men. It is sad that we are elevating the whims of five Justices over the will of those who are responsible to the people.

And even though the iPhone 3G is faster and thinner, and has GPS, I’m not sure about the upgrade. It’s not the phone, but the way in which AT&T and Apple are ruining the iPhone experience that’s keeping me away.

The first iPhone could be activated at home. The process of buying a iPhone was easy. No in-store activations meant that even on the first day, there was no problem getting through the line. You brought the phone home and could connect it to AT&T’s cellular network from the kitchen table. It was a great experience, and made the iPhone the easiest phone to buy.

That won’t be the case with the iPhone 3G. Instead, it’s back to the old in-store activations. That means that it will take 10-12 minutes per person to activate the new iPhone. No leisurely unboxing for buyers, but a lot of waiting. The first day will be brutal if people will have to wait for activations.

A 3G iPhone is a long awaited device, but if Apple and AT&T can’t deliver the experience that they did with the first iPhone, they’ll have a harder time capturing the same magic. With the data plan for the iPhone 3G being $10 more per month, a $199 iPhone, while still cheap, isn’t quite the deal it would seem.

The iPhone is moving into the corporate world, but sadly, the prices and the efficiency of getting service is starting to look a bit too much like the other commodity smartphone vendors out there, not like the Apple experience we’ve come to expect.

But at least one Republican has reason to cheer. The Minnesota DFL has nominated Al Franken to be their candidate for the U.S. Senate. That is good news for Republican incumbent Norm Coleman.

Franken, the unfunny comedian “satirist” is the sort of person who will do quite well in the ideologically homogenous bastions of Twin Cities leftism, but will go over like a fart in church elsewhere. Minnesota already made a mockery of the political process once—and at least Gov. Ventura had some executive experience as mayor of a Twin Cities suburb. Franken cannot even claim that. We don’t need a “satirist” in the Senate—in truth it’s already a joke—what we need is a responsible adult to represent the interests of Minnesota.

Sen. Coleman is not a conservative ideologue by any means, and some conservatives dislike him for that. However, he has the right instincts, he has shown a willingness to engage in unpopular but necessary political battles such as UN reform, and he has demonstrated an appropriately Senatorial level of intellectual curiosity. I had the chance to hear him speak before an intimate audience a few months ago, and even some of my liberal friends (one of whom asked him a rather tough question that he answered forthrightly) came away impressed.

This may be a Democratic year, but it is not so Democratic that the DFL can put just anyone into consideration. Against a moderate, thoughtful Republican like Sen. Coleman, the thin resume and ideological extremism of Al Franken will quickly become grating. That doesn’t mean that the Senator doesn’t have a fight on his hands, but it is a fight that can be won.