You can also follow the liveblog on my Twitter feed if you are so inclined.

Post-Speech Reactions

This was a workmanlike speech that was delivered well. What’s striking about the speech is how much President Obama sounded like President Bush. Some of the rhetoric was downright stirring. I’m (obviously!) disinclined to like the President, but I found myself mostly liking this speech.

But the weakest part was the part discussing the economy. For one, it was a digression from the topic of the speech. And for another, it was too generic to mean anything. What does Obama intend to do about the economy? Because what’s been done so far hasn’t exactly done much good.

Stephen Green drunkblogged the speech and found it rather bland, other than some stirring rhetoric. I’m not so sure that it was that bad—the President let himself show just a crack of emotion, which helps him.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) found Obama’s speech to be “awkward”.

Apparently Rachel Maddow is positively livid that President Obama had anything good to say about President Bush. I have to admit, if Obama’s pissed off Maddow, that makes me like him more.

Lawprof William Jacobson distills Obama’s speech into one sentence.

At The Daily Kos, praise for the economic section of the speech. What’s interesting about that section is how mushy-mouthed it really is? Exactly what is meant by the President’s desire to “strengthen the middle class?” It’s a boilerplate phrase, which is probably why some want to read more into it than is actually there.

Off-topic, but tonight’s liveblogging was brought by this great liveblogging plugin for WordPress. It’s a great plugin, and the Twitter integration was a definite plus. I highly recommend it.

In speaking of Twitter, the speech wasn’t even one of the trending topics. I’m not sure very many people were paying attention to it.

Jonah Goldberg found much of the speech to be “offensive.”

Setting the Record Straight

But first, it’s important to set the record straight. We would not be able to be removing our combat troops from Iraq had we not successfully quelled the sectarian violence in Iraq. In short, without the surge back in 2007, Iraq would not be nearly as stable as it is now. The surge worked. It reduced sectarian violence.

Because the U.S. worked with Sunni leaders, Iraqi Sunnis helped us remove al-Qaeda in Iraq. This lead to the death of al-Qaeda leaders like Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi and more recently Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. While there are still al-Qaeda affiliated splinter groups in Iraq, they are nowhere near as powerful as they were in 2007.

Because the threat of al-Qaeda in Iraq was eliminated, the radical Shi’ite groups lost support. Iranian-backed radicals like Moqtada al-Sadr couldn’t use the fear of al-Qaeda to win over Iraqi Shi’ites. Instead of leading a Shi’ite civil war, Moqtada al-Sadr ended up being discredited. His band of thugs, the Mahdi Army, are no longer a major threat to the future of Iraq. Al-Sadr himself was forced to flee to Iran out of fear.

All of this was due to the surge—not just the fact that we added more troops, but we used better tactics to protect the Iraqi people and improve their security and their living conditions.

There are two reasons why Iraq never flew into civil war in 2007: the bravery of the Iraqi people and the bravery of the U.S. and coalition troops.

The Real Obama Record On Iraq

Notably absent from these reasons in President Obama. His record on Iraq is a record of being fundamentally wrong from the beginning. Then-Senator Obama was an ardent opponent of the surge from the very beginning. He is on record as saying that not only would the surge not work, but the added troops would have increased tensions in Iraq.

As a candidate, Obama strongly opposed the surge throughout 2007 and into the 2008 campaign. His position was that the U.S. should begin immediately removing troops from Iraq. Had President Bush listened to Obama then, there would have been a power vacuum in Iraq that would have turned the country into another Somalia.

In fact, Obama had said that even after it was clear that the surge was working, he still would have opposed it.

But Obama has subsequently changed his tune. He tried to scrub his prior criticisms of the surge from his campaign web page. And it would be only a few years after Obama ripped the concept of the surge to shreds that he would endorse the very same policy—but that time applying it to Afghanistan. President Obama may have opposed the surge when he was a candidate, but now he seeks the credit.

He deserves little credit. He can’t say that he fulfilled any campaign promise to withdraw from Iraq: in fact the timetable for US withdrawal was set before Obama took office. It was the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that set the withdrawal date, not President Obama. Regardless of who had won in 2008, the situation would be the same. It was the surge that allowed the U.S. to draw down its forces in Iraq without creating a dangerous power vacuum that would have destabilized the entire region.

Now, if President Obama gives full credit to the troops without politicizing the issue, he’ll have set the right tone. But Obama’s statements must be set against Obama’s record on the war. He was wrong on the surge. The surge worked. The security of the Iraqi people was a necessary precondition to any political rapprochement. Obama’s preference for a “diplomatic surge” would never have worked.

No matter what Obama says tonight, the real heroes in this conflict and the American, coalition, and Iraqi soldiers, police, and security forces that put their lives on the line day in and day out to secure a better future for Iraq. If the President acknowledges this, he deserves credit. But if he tries to spin Iraq into a political victory for himself, it will backfire on him. This isn’t Obama’s victory, this is a victory for Iraq. We should never let the President forget that.

Of course, that means that you’ll need to use a recent-generation browser to view the site. I’ve tested it on Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and the latest versions of Internet Explorer. If you’re using an older version of Internet Explorer (7, or God help you 6), you probably won’t get the site as it was intended. But it should still be readable and usable. And if you’re on an iPhone or Android device, you’re golden—the site should work just fine on latest-generation mobile devices.

And since everyone else is doing it, I figured it was time for this site to jump on the social networking bandwagon as well. So you can use the “Share/Bookmark” link at the bottom of each post to post articles here on Facebook, Twitter, or any number of social networking sites.

Of course, there will undoubtedly be much tweaking of elements as time wears on, as well as additional features. I’m never quite satisfied with a blog template. If you see any problems with the template, feel free to email me at comments – at – jayreding.com.

I’m hoping that this new design will last as long as the one it replaced. Each site template this site uses has been created by hand rather than built from a modified prepackaged template. That’s because I believe that this site should be unique and not use the same template or design everyone else is using. I can’t promise it will be that way forever—as I continue my career my spare time keeps getting shorter and shorter. But for now, this design is 100% hand-crafted pixels. I hope you enjoy it.

The Fox News host had promised that the rally, billed as a celebration of American values, would be an explicitly apolitical event. And so it came to pass: save for an occasional “Don’t Tread On Me,” banner, the crowded Mall was nearly free of political signs and T-shirt slogans, and there was barely a whisper of the crusade against liberalism that consumes most of Beck’s on-air hours.

Instead, Beck served up something considerably stranger. This was a tent revival crossed with a pep rally intertwined with a history lecture married to a U.S.O. telethon — and that was just in the first hour.

There was something innately Tocquevillian about the rally. The focus wasn’t on President Obama’s agenda or winning elections, but on restoring American values. In that sense, it was a deeply conservative rally in a sense deeper than the traditional meeting. It wasn’t a rally for Republican politicians, rather a rally for small-r republican values. In that sense, Beck seems to be aiming for something higher than just transitory partisan gain. His rally was exactly what was advertised, an attempt to restore the honorable values of America’s founding.

First of all, the idea that this was some racist meeting is prima facie ridiculous. It’s a silly media narrative, and nothing more. Beck’s decision to hold it on the anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” address was not necessarily the wisest—but Beck went out of his way to honor Rev. King and his legacy, including giving honors to a black pastor who was present when King spoke. The cheap shots about race say more about the media’s obsessions than it does about Beck’s message.

But I’m not a Glenn Beck fan—his show always seemed like a strange mix of bizarre conspiracy theories mixed with Beck’s maudlin performances. Quite frankly, it seems as though there’s something not quite right with the man.

At the same time, I have to give him some credit. Beck is not an easy man to characterize. He seems legitimately interested in big ideas and isn’t afraid to discuss them on-air. To see a conservative media personality hawk a book is not new—for that book to be F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom certainly is. Beck isn’t like the usual crop of conservative media stars—he is provocative, but he’s far more audacious. He doesn’t just want to see Democrats defeated in elections, he wants to remake the national character.

But Beck has a rather sordid history, having been one of the first radio “shock jocks” before his conversion to both Mormonism and political conservatism. His on-air histrionics and his occasional forays into conspiracy theory detract from his message. Unlike Rush Limbaugh, who brings a showman’s instincts to his radio program, Beck sounds more like a tent-revival preacher (which may explain the tenor of this weekend’s rally). Beck’s sometimes bizarre chalkboard rants, his on-air histrionics, and tenor of his show are hard to get used to, especially if one is not inclined to accept his message.

Glenn Beck is not an easy man to pigeon-hole. He seems to understand, as too few conservatives do, that if the conservative movement is to thrive, it has to be based on something more than opposition to Obama. Beck’s show isn’t afraid to point viewers to important works in conservative political though. But at the same time conservatives should think critically about his message: there are times he veers into Bircher territory.

Beck is undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with, and those who dismiss him offhand likely are underestimating him. Certainly the media narrative that Beck is a nutcase, a racist, a bigot, etc. is the product of the typical left-wing smear campaign levied against anyone popular on the right. But Beck is a polarizing figure, and in order for him to get his message out, he has to do more than preach to the converted. Restoring America’s honor is a worthwhile enterprise—but it remains to be see whether Beck’s movement can build upon its successes. If it becomes yet another conspiracy-minded movement based largely on opposition to Obama, or worse a cult of personality surrounding Beck, it will fail. If it becomes a movement that stands on enduring principles, it may succeed. Skeptical as I am about Beck, this weekend was more the latter than the former. If Ross Douthat has underestimated Glenn Beck, so too perhaps have I.

Economists argue over the reasons for the growing inequality—changes in taxation, increasing trade, weaker unions, stagnant minimum wages, and growing immigration have all been flagged. Perhaps the most important, according to Harvard professors Claudia Golden and Larry Katz, is that although technological progress requires the labor force to have ever greater skills, our educational system has not kept pace by providing the labor force with greater education and skills. While a high school diploma may have been sufficient for our parents, an office worker in many knowledge-based industries today can’t get hired without an undergraduate degree. Yet, according to Golden and Katz, rates of graduation from high school in the United States have barely budged since the 1970s, and neither have male graduation rates from college. For the middle class, that has meant a stagnant paycheck and growing job insecurity, as the old well-paying, low-skilled jobs with good benefits disappear.

There’s something to this: to get a decent job these days, one is practically required to have a four-year college degree. Employers won’t hire you without it. But the simple fact of the matter is that most people don’t need a four-year college degree. How much of that education is wasted? Is it really necessary for someone to spend four years partying, barely passing mediocre classes, delaying their ability to earn income for themselves, and taking on massive amounts of debt to do it? This process ends up leaving entire generations starting out in debt and without valuable skills. A college degree is simply a poor proxy for real-world skills. How many college graduates can’t balance their own checkbook. How does a humanities degree prepare one to be a manager? How many people actually use their degree unless they go into a specific profession?

All of that does create income inequality. We push people into getting an expensive degree when they don’t need it, and substantial portions of their income go into paying off that debt.

Ultimately, we have to take a new look at education in America. But that’s not easy. We have to reform K-12 education in this country—but good luck doing that if the teacher’s unions don’t get their demands met. We have to reform higher education, but right now student lenders, public and private universities, and educational companies all want to keep the gravy train running as long as they can. And the public has taken the idea that “education is fundamental” to the extreme—assuming that a college degree from a four-year institution is necessary to do jobs that don’t remotely require it.

And of course, most (but not all) of that pushback comes from the left, especially the politically powerful teacher’s unions.

Rajan is at least partially right: income inequality can be a problem, although it’s a stretch to say that it’s the cause of the crash. He’s also right that many of the steps that politicians have taken to address it have failed. If we want to have a country in which people have less debt, we can’t just look at housing or credit: we have to look at educational debt as well. And with the housing market, we are in the midst of a higher-education bubble, and that bubble is threatening to pop.

If we really care about income inequality, we need to stop pushing everyone into a one-size-fits-all system that leaves them with tens of thousands of dollars in debt before they ever have a chance to start working. Whether that means emphasizing technical and vocational education, whether that means more emphasis on non-traditional students, or whether that means tying student loans to academic performance, every option needs to be on the table.

Silver also finds that the possibility of a Republican Senate takeover is not that far off:

The Democratic majority is in increasing jeopardy in the Senate, according to the latest FiveThirtyEight forecasting model. The Democrats now have an approximately 20 percent chance of losing 10 or more seats in the Senate, according to the model, which would cost them control of the chamber unless Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, who is running for the Senate as an independent, both wins his race and decides to caucus with them.

In addition, there is an 11 percent chance that Democrats will lose a total of nine seats, which would leave them with 50 votes, making them vulnerable to a defection to the Republican Party by a centrist like Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut or Ben Nelson of Nebraska. On average, over the model’s 100,000 simulation runs, the Democrats are projected to lose a net of six and a half Senate seats, which would leave them with 52 or 53 senators. (Even though the G.O.P. primary in Alaska remains too close to call, that outcome is unlikely to alter the model.)

I wouldn’t go so far as to predict that the GOP retakes the Senate this cycle: while a 20% chance is better than none, it’s not likely. But some of the polls in California, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Washington show a possibility of the GOP taking those seats—and if that happens, then it’s sayonara to Democratic control of Congress.

All the signs point to this being a “wave” election—and even a 7-seat loss is more than typical for a midterm election. But if this wave is as big as it could be, then the Democrats are in deep trouble. Their House majority is likely to fall, and if they lose the Senate, Obama becomes a lame duck.

In the end, gridlock is the best thing that could happen to this country. If no major bills can be passed, much of the uncertainty that’s killing the markets will be lifted. If businesses can be safe in knowing that there won’t be a major regulatory overhaul (like cap-and-trade/tax) they will be more likely to start expanding again. Divided government helped the US in the early 1990s, and while Barack Obama isn’t the triangulating centrist that Bill Clinton was, a Republican Congress will at least curb some of Obama’s excesses.

Back in April, FiveThirtyEight, a Democratic-leaning but still valuable polling site, looked at the generic ballot measure to predict a possible 50-seat loss for the Democrats. Here’s how pollster Nate Silver explained it:

So, for example, if the House popular vote were exactly tied, we’d expect the Democrats to lose “only” 30 seats on average, which would be enough for them to retain majority control. It would take about a 2.5 point loss in the popular vote for them to be as likely as not to lose control of the chamber. So Democrats probably do have a bit of a cushion: this is the good news for them.

Their bad news is that the House popular vote (a tabulation of the actual votes all around the country) and the generic ballot (an abstraction in the form of a poll) are not the same thing — and the difference usually tends to work to Democrats’ detriment. Although analysts debate the precise magnitude of the difference, on average the generic ballot has overestimated the Democrats’ performance in the popular vote by 3.4 points since 1992. If the pattern holds, that means that a 2.3-point deficit in generic ballot polls would translate to a 5.7 point deficit in the popular vote — which works out to a loss of 51 seats, according to our regression model.

Back in April, the GOP had only a narrow lead in the popular vote. As of today, the Republicans have an average lead of 4.5 on the generic ballot measure. In October 1994, just before the historic 1994 GOP sweep that netted the GOP 54 seats, the generic ballot measure was tied according to Gallup.

What does this mean? If the GOP actually has a 4.5% advantage on the generic ballot, we can use Nate Silver’s historical model to predict the GOP’s possible gains. Adding 3.4% to that 4.5% lead yields us a 7.9% GOP lead in the national popular vote. By Silver’s methodology, that would equate to GOP gains of around 60 House seats.

The GOP currently need 39 House seats to retake the majority, assuming no GOP losses. There are a handful of vulnerable GOP House seats, but even with those, a swing of 60 seats would be more than enough for the Republicans to take the House.

Some Objections

As always, there are some objections to this model. Critics of the generic ballot point out that individual races aren’t between “Generic Republican” and “Generic Democrat.” That is, of course, true. But ultimately, the generic ballot measure does give an accurate prediction as to overall results. Now, in order to get something more than a back-of-the-envelope calculation, you have to fit the data to accommodate the makeup of the various Congressional districts. But this year, the Democrats are defending a lot more Republican-leaning districts than in past years. Even when the data is fitted (which FiveThirtyEight is doing now), it’s likely that a GOP takeover of the House will still happen.

There’s also the question of whether these numbers are still good. Has the electorate changed dramatically since previous elections, due to demographic shifts? Possibly, but this election will not be like 2008. The young and minority voters that helped lift Obama into office are not nearly as energized as they were two years ago. They’ve gone back to their traditional voting habits. Midterm elections do not tend to look like big Presidential election years—and if the Democrats are counting on the Obama coalition to materialize now, they’re going to be disappointed.

Finally, there’s the argument that the Tea Party will alienate moderates and help the Democrats. That’s certainly what the left want to believe, but so far it hasn’t happened. The one race where that’s a factor is Nevada’s Senate contest between Sharron Angle and Harry Reid. Angle is, to be honest, a lousy candidate, but one that’s learning as she goes. That race went from a sure-fire GOP pickup to a toss-up, but it’s not in the bag for Reid either. The Tea Party isn’t going to save the Democrats because Tea Party activists are more likely to back Republican candidates than to stay home. And so far, the national mood is more on the side of the Tea Partiers than it is on the Democrats. The Tea Parties are simply not a big enough negative to the Republicans to hurt them.

The Voters Are Mad As Hell, And They’re Not Taking It Anymore

The most important factor that will hand the Republicans control of the House is the national mood. Voters are angry. They feel like they were ignored in the health care debate. They are sick and tired of a Congress that lectures them while letting Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters run free on the taxpayer’s dime. In 2008, they were promised hope and changed. Now millions are unemployed and feeling hopeless about the future. Nothing has changed in Washington, it’s as broken as ever. President Obama’s numerous vacations adds to the sentiment that he simply doesn’t care.

Voters are angry, and the Democrats are the party in power. The Democrats failed to listen to voters, preferring to slur them as “teabaggers” and “racists.” Now they face the wrath of an electorate that’s ready to send a message to Washington.

The good news for the GOP: this anger will give them the House. The bad news? If they don’t do better than the Democrats in the next two years, that anger could be turned on them.

As Barack Obama sees his ratings descend toward the high 30s, he is increasingly described as the second coming of James Earl Carter Jr., whose presidency, gone but hardly forgotten, lives on in masochists’ minds. The comparison is unkind and not quite on target: This is less Carter II than the lost presidency of Michael Dukakis, which seemed a sure thing at this date 22 years ago, and from which we were saved by the elder George Bush.

Of course, no one thought Dukakis could be the messiah, but in other ways the connections are strong: both creatures of the liberal Northeast and of Harvard, with no sense at all of most of the rest of the country; both rationalists who impose legalistic criteria on emotion-rich subjects; both with fixed ideas of who society’s victims are, which do not accord with the views of the public; and both with a tin ear for the culture and a genius for creating wedge issues that split their own party. Obama has the Carter naïveté in foreign affairs—treating allies like foes, and vice versa—but it is the Dukakis campaign that provides the better parallel.

She has a point: President Obama managed to glamour the American electorate in 2008 without really giving anyone a sense of who Barack Obama is. He allowed himself to be a kind of empty vessel into which millions of Americans poured their hopes and aspirations. It was a tremendously successful strategy for getting elected, but it hasn’t worked since. The American people don’t want the President to be an empty vessel, they want the President to stand for something. And where Obama has taken his stands have all been on issues that are deeply popular with the American people.

Obama had the benefit of the charisma that Dukakis lacked, but Emery is right in pointing out that at the end of the day, President Obama is a doctrinaire liberal. His vision of the relationship between the American people and the state is a fundamentally left-wing one. President Obama was elected to be a post-racial, post-partisan centrist that would unite the country, heal the wounds of the Bush years, and move America forward. Nearly two years into his presidency, racial tensions are high, partisanship is worse than it was under Bush, and America is mired in economic doldrums. President Obama has lost nearly half his approval among independents precisely because he simply hasn’t governed like the way he promised.

Obama clearly wanted to be a transformational President, but the reality is that a President, no matter how talented, cannot transform this nation. Transformational leaders like FDR and Reagan came along at the right time with the right resonant message. Obama is trying to turn a center-right country into a country that reflects the values of the academic left.

It’s not surprising that he’s failed. Had Obama run as the conventional, doctrinaire academic liberal that he is, he would not have won. Now that he’s in office and acting just as the right said he would, it’s clear that Obama’s allegedly “transformational” Presidency is transforming his positive approval numbers into negative ones.

No, they’re not. They’re actually one of the most “progressive” corporations out there. They give generous benefits to same-sex partners, and have sponsored local and national GLBT events.

So why in the world is Target “anti-gay?”

Because they had the temerity to donate to Republicans. But not even directly. Target gave $10,000 to a pro-Republican PAC called MNForward. MNForward is supporting Tom Emmer, the Republican candidate for Governor of Minnesota. And allegedly Emmer is somehow “anti-gay”, despite taking the very sensible position that the real issue here is jobs, not battles over cultural wedge issues. Not only that, but MNForward isn’t a social-issues organization: they are expressly about pro-business issues like taxes and regulation.

So, to these radical left-wing agents provocateurs, Target is “anti-gay” despite not being remotely anti-gay because they gave to a group that supports a Republican candidate for governor who doesn’t care that much about gay marriage. And somehow, that justifies an astroturfed smear campaign against Target.

If all of this sounds more than a little idiotic, you’re right. It is.

The reality is that the gay rights issue is a convenient bludgeon. These groups, largely funded by Emmer’s opponent, Mark Dayton, are just out to intimidate Minnesota corporations so that they no longer feel safe donating to Republican or conservative organizations. It is, to be blunt, a campaign of fear and intimidation designed expressly to prevent Minnesotans from participating in the political process. If the right had done it, the cries of “MCCARTHYISM!” would echo from the rooftops.

But this sort of behavior is par for the course from the radical left-wing, who have used such campaigns successfully in the past. Sadly, it appears that Target is buckling under the pressure, having “apologized” for their donation. This sort of behavior only encourages these groups.

These groups, especially the execrable MoveOn.org, represent the most disgusting part of American politics. Stewed in the juices of Alinskyite activism, they have a no-holds-barred attitudes towards political intimidation, and will do nearly anything to support the radical left in this country. Their values are representative of the farthest and most radical reaches of the Democratic Party.

It’s time they were called out for what they are. A smear campaign won’t stop me from shopping at Target—if anything, it makes me want to go there more as a sign of solidarity. And like cockroaches, these groups scurry when the light is shined upon them. Mitch Berg, one of Minnesota’s greatest natural resources, has been doing amazing work in tracking these groups down and exposing their astroturf campaigns and where their funding is coming from. The mainstream media doesn’t do this kind of in-depth journalism anymore, and so it falls on talented and dogged amateurs to do it. I assume that everyone who reads this humble site also reads Shot in the Dark, but if you don’t, you damned well should.

In the end, Minnesotans of both parties should stand against this kind of political intimidation. Target is not “anti-gay” for giving a donation to a Republican group any more than they are “anti-Christian” because they have a strong corporate commitment to gay rights. Here in Minnesota we don’t slam our neighbors because they disagree—and MoveOn.org’s disgusting tactics will probably alienate far more moderate Democrats than it will impress. Minnesota isn’t New Jersey, and we rightfully have a low tolerance for hardball politics. We don’t need a bunch of radical left-wing activists attacking one of our most important employers in the middle of an already-painful recession. These tactics won’t play well here, and Minnesota’s voters should make it clear to all Minnesota politicians: regardless of party, we will not tolerate political intimidation. MoveOn should move on somewhere else.

The passage of the health care bill was a Pyrrhic victory for the Democrats. They sold their souls for a watered-down version of the single-payer European-style system they wanted and will likely lose the House as a result. The health care bill was the classic version of why laws and sausages are made in much the same way. It was an unholy mish-mash of bad ideas wrapped in false promises, and presented as though it were the greatest bill ever. It was a 2,700 page monstrosity that has already begun wreaking havoc with private employers. What the Democrats failed to realize is that many employers have their open-enrollment periods in November—which means that the immediate effects of the health care bill will be felt right around Election Day. When employees, who are already struggling, learn that their insurance premiums are going through the roof and their HSAs are less useful than before, that’s not exactly going to make them happy.

The economy is the albatross around the Democrats’ necks. Unemployment is stuck at 9.5%, and the real figure (counting unemployment, discouraged workers, and workers taking the only jobs they could get) is more like 20%. We’re facing a crisis of unemployment. And the reaction from the Democrats has been to do exactly the wrong things. More taxes, more regulations, more social experimentation. The results have been predictable: the level of joblessness is at crisis levels. We can’t have a functioning economy when we’ve got a developing underclass that are essentially shut out of employment. If this trend continues, the effects on both our economy and society will be dire.

As I write this, the last combat troops are leaving Baghdad. Remember when Sen. Harry Reid said that the war was “lost?” Thank heavens that we didn’t listen to him. We still have 50,000 troops left in Iraq, and we may have close to that number in the country for a very long time. The truth is that Iraq’s journey is just beginning. But what has happened in Iraq is something extraordinary: in 7 years Iraq has gone from the iron grip of tyranny to a failed state, to a developing nation that has the chance to prosper and flourish. The future of the Iraqi people is now in their hands, as it should be. We can and should help where asked, but now the main threat to the future of Iraq isn’t related to terrorism, but corruption. That may be a more dangerous enemy than al-Qaeda, but the Iraqi people have the ability to fight corruption and establish a better life for themselves. I cannot, nor can anyone else, say whether or not they will succeed in rebuilding their country. I hope and pray they will. But a chapter has been turned, and a battle has been won. Our military did an amazing job under intense pressure. We have never fought a war quite like this, and the conflicts of the future will be far less deadly because of the lesson’s we’re learned in Iraq.

Afghanistan is another story. I don’t know if we can “win” in Afghanistan. I’m not sure what the goal is—other than to keep the Taliban and al-Qaeda at bay. Can we rebuild a nation that’s never really been a nation in modern times? I’m not so sure that we can. Especially not when elements of the Pakistani government are working to destabilize Afghanistan. Yes, we need more troops and a better strategy to have any hope of success—but we also need to realize that Pakistan is part of the problem, and to find ways of ensuring that Pakistan is an ally rather than an enemy.

Finally, some site news. I’m planning on revamping the site in the next few days to have a new HTML 5 template that will look great on all sorts of devices from Droids to iPads. So forgive the dust as that transition gets underway.

Grokking the iPad

One of the reasons why the technical elites seem to look down their nose at the iPad is because it’s not intuitive what the iPad really is. The iPad is not a laptop replacement. Yes, it replaces many, if not most, of the functions of a laptop, but it’s not designed to replace a primary computer. The iPad has to be connected to iTunes before it can be used the first time. The iPad isn’t the right device if you want to use Photoshop or write a thesis—although it can edit images and has a decent word processor. It is what Steve Jobs said it was back in January 2010—it is a device that sits between a laptop and a smartphone/iPod.

The critics argue that it’s just an oversized iPod touch. In many ways they’re right—but that misses the point. The iPod touch is a fantastic gadget, and it sells like hotcakes. It has a huge base of users. So when Apple says in regard to the iPad that “you already know how to use it” they are absolutely right. Coming from an iPod touch or iPhone to an iPad is basically seamless. The only learning curve comes from getting used to the larger virtual keyboard. And it is that vastly expanded screen space that makes the iPad different. Calling it a bigger version of the touch ignores what being a bigger iPod touch entails—it opens up new uses for the device.

For example, watching video on an iPhone is possible, but painful. The screen is just two small at 3.5 inches. But on an iPad, watching video is a dream. The iPad’s screen is naturally suited to it in a way that the iPhone’s is not. The same is true for web browsing. The iPhone browser is great, but when you expand the screen real estate to the size of the iPad, web browsing becomes much more natural.

That’s what makes the iPad so ineffable. It’s hard to describe the feeling of sitting on a couch with an iPad and just surfing the web. It feels incredibly natural. It’s completely effortless. That’s the advantage of the iPad: it takes the familiar touch-based interface that millions already know and loves and gives it much more room. Handling it in the store doesn’t give the full experience—the iPad is a device that isn’t instantly intuitive, but once you understand it and get a feel for it, you just get it.

Giving the Deskop the Finger

Here’s where the revolutionary part comes in. The iPad is the future of computing. That’s not hyperbole, it’s based on the nature of the device.

Since the late 1970s, computers have all followed the same basic metaphor. You have arbitrary files in a hierarchical file system. Graphical user interfaces all tend to use “windows” representing applications that are controlled with a pointing device. There’s a “desktop” underneath where files and application shortcuts can be saved. When Xerox PARC came up with this metaphor in the 1970s it was revolutionary. Everyone, from Apple to Microsoft to Linux, copied that metaphor.

From a computer science standpoint, it makes sense. From a user’s standpoint, it doesn’t. The desktop metaphor is just not that intuitive. For example, take the task of trying to find a picture from vacation. Is it on the desktop? Is it is ‘My Documents\My Pictures’? Or did it end up in ‘C:\Program Files\Some Application\Some Arbitrary Directory\Timestamp\Vacation Photos’? Various operating systems have tried to make it easier to find files, but it can still be a pain.

The iPad jettisons that whole metaphor. There’s no “desktop” on the iPad, just a space for applications, and only applications. If you save a picture to the iPad, it’s in a common repository and nowhere else. All the videos are in the video application, all the music is in the iPod application. The user never thinks of interacting with “files” stuffed into a hierarchical file system. That file system is there, underneath everything, but it’s been shrouded from view.

And, most critically, there’s no pointing device. The benefits of multitouch interfaces are obvious. And the iPhone OS that runs the iPad was built especially for multitouch devices. Microsoft’s efforts shoehorn multitouch into Windows 7 have failed, because there’s a fundamental difference between an OS designed for touch and one designed for a pointing device. Apple understands this, and has designed the iPhone OS to be built for multitouch and nothing else.

The old desktop metaphor made sense back when it was invented and used. But it no longer makes sense for a device like the iPad. What makes the iPad so revolutionary is that it proves the desktop metaphor is no longer required. The touch metaphor has replaced it, and the touch metaphor has much more potential for innovation than the desktop metaphor did.

What about Freedom?

The critics say that the iPad isn’t a liberating device—you’re stuck playing in Apple’s sandbox when you use it. That’s only half true. Yes, the App Store requires you to play by Apple’s rules and Apple’s rules alone. But there’s a good reason for this, and even then the App Store is not the only thing that makes the iPad shine.

First there’s the issue of iPad apps. Apple has gotten a lot of heat for their policies on how apps are approved and how they may be created. Some of it is admittedly deserved. But the purpose behind these rules is valid: Apple wants the iPad to just work. Right now a user can install any iPad app without fear of crashing their system. There’s no need for installers—every app is in its own self-contained sandbox. There’s no need for uninstallers—when you get rid of an app it goes away completely. There’s no fear in adding apps to the iPad in the way that many users fear adding apps to their computers. Apps can be disposed of quickly and easily. To the user, this is liberating. The iPad is a computer than no one fear to break.

Yes, that means that developers must follow Apple’s rules. And yes, Apple has admittedly been less than consistent in how they enforce those rules. But the rules are not arbitrary. They are to control the platform, but not just to the benefit of Apple. This walled-garden approach benefits users as well.

The iPad is not a closed ecosystem though. Remember when Google announced their Chrome OS project? The tech world swooned at a tablet that did nothing but run web apps. Think of the iPad being a version of that tablet with an additional proprietary app store bolted on. The iPad can run any given web app, and it runs them well. The same technology that powers the iPad’s browser also powers the browser for Android devices. And Google’s Chrome. And the new Blackberry 6 browser. That means that the iPad is part of a huge meta-platform that can run web apps that run across just about every device out there. Web apps won’t necessarily replace native apps—at least not yet, but they do give developers virtually unlimited freedom.

Screw Flash

But the iPad doesn’t run Flash! So what?

I’ll be blunt. Flash is a pile of crap. I don’t miss having Flash on my iPad, because I don’t even use Flash on my desktop. The Mac OS X version of Flash is slow, buggy, and annoying. I have Flash content blocked by default on every one of my computers, and virtually never unblock it.

Flash is old technology. It belongs in the scrap heap with Java Applets and Microsoft’s Active X. The future lies in HTML5, a completely open standard not controlled by any one company. Flash is a dead man walking, but Adobe has yet to figure that out.

Now, I could be wrong. Maybe Adobe will get Flash working so well on Android that Apple’s devices will be at a competitive disadvantage because they won’t run all the great apps written in Flash.

And maybe a naked Angelina Jolie will parachute into my backyard with a suitcase full of $100 bills.

Flash is a dying platform that’s being quickly overtaken by better and more advanced technologies. Steve Jobs is right to chuck it out. The App Store does not need a bunch of slow, buggy, third-rate apps that depend on Adobe’s notoriously slow development cycle when Apple updates iPhone OS. Apple’s been down that road before, and they’re not doing it again.

The lack of Flash isn’t a glaring omission from the iPad, it’s a feature. The web will embrace HTML5 long before Apple feels the need to embrace Flash. If Adobe were smart, they’d be embracing HTML5 too. There are enough good and innovative developers at Adobe that they could do it if they’d stop staring into the rearview mirror.

Welcome to the iPad World

The iPad is a revolutionary device. It is just as polished as Apple’s other offerings, and being based on mature technologies, it’s more polished than a first-generation product normally is. It’s a device that once used quickly becomes indispensable. The critics tend not to understand it, and keep trying to compare it to devices that are not comparable. Just like the original iPhone, the critics will end up owning one or more of them in a few years.

The iPad is the future of computing. The desktop metaphor is no longer the only game in town. Apple is betting their future on the idea that computing will become less about desktops and laptops and more about small devices connected to the “cloud” of internet-based applications. And just like the iPhone, Apple has taken a product that hadn’t yet had a breakout devices and created something that will have everyone else scrambling to catch up. Even if Apple somehow fails (and the one million iPads sold in a month say that’s not going to happen), they have left their mark on the industry. Look at the iPad. That’s what computers of the future will look like.

What’s In A Name?

The “iPad” moniker was a bad call. Yes, it’s already the butt of jokes. Yes, it falls in line with “iPhone” and “iPod”, but it’s too close to the latter. But then again, a rose with any other name would smell just a sweet, right? Even if the rose sounded vaguely like a feminine hygiene product.

Flash In The Can

I’ve heard plenty of moaning about the lack of Flash. This shouldn’t have been a shock. Apple does not like Flash. It’s proprietary. Flash on OS X performs terribly. For a lengthy take on why the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad will likely never support Flash, see John Gruber’s piece on Apple, Adobe, and Flash.

The other big question is why does the iPad need Flash? To view video — it already does that, and with better performance than Flash. Yes, it doesn’t view all web video, but as Apple’s multitouch devices continue to proliferate, I’m guessing a lot of sites will abandon Flash rather than abandon those devices. (And yes, that includes the porn sites that are probably the reason many want Flash on the iPad…)

To play web games? For one, Apple offers plenty of games through the App Store. Not only that, but many Flash games wouldn’t even work on a multitouch device — especially anything that needs keyboard input. Flash games would suck on multitouch devices.

For ads? The fewer obnoxious ads, the better.

For more interactive web pages? The real solution would be to embrace open web technologies like HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. Those technologies aren’t controlled by one company, unlike Flash.

Winners And Losers

The biggest losers in all this could very well be Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Sony. They’ve all heavily invested in e-reader devices, and the iPad makes a lot more sense than those devices. E-Ink screens are nice, but if the iPad makes for a good enough reading device, it won’t matter.

The saving grace for them is that they have the opportunity to create their own reader applications for the iPad. (I’m guessing that both the Kindle and Barnes & Noble reader applications for the iPhone will work on the iPad.) I’m guessing that Amazon sells the Kindle hardware at a loss, in the hopes of making up the difference in book sales. Does Amazon care whether they sell books on the Kindle or the iPad? Probably not. The question is whether Apple cares that third-parties are selling books on their platform. I’d wager they don’t care — Apple isn’t in the publishing business, they’re in the hardware business.

The winners are probably publishers. The iPad gives them some great opportunities to have e-books proliferate in the same way that multitouch apps have. That’s a win for an industry that’s facing some very bad times.

Looking Ahead

Apple is heavily invested in multitouch, and the iPad is just another example of that. It’s an opportunity to fundamentally transform computing. These devices abstract away old concepts like file systems and a hierarchy of folders. The old metaphors can finally be swept away: no more folders, no more mouse cursors, no more file managers, not even windowing systems. This is the face of 21st Century computing: and Apple is setting the trend.

The iPad is just another device, one of the first in a long series of devices. It’s likely to be extremely popular, and is very well designed. But ultimately, it reaches beyond that: this is about redefining the way we use computers. Apple has paved the way, and while others are trying to catch up, the iPad proves they’re still running one step ahead.

UPDATE: John Gruber observes a point I missed: Apple now makes their own blazingly-fast mobile processors. Apple’s acquisition of chipmaker P.A. Semi seems to be paying off. Apple is a hardware company at its core, so designing their own chips is a wise move.

Politics

• President Obama’s popularity will remain mired below 50% throughout most of the year.
• The Democrats will lose more the 40 seats, putting the GOP in control of the House.
• In the Senate, Democrats will not fare much better. Majority Leader Reid will lose his seat, following in the footsteps of Tom Daschle. Chris Dodd also loses his seat to a GOP upstart. Same with Blanche Lincoln.
• The health care bill will be signed into law, and will be a major albatross around the necks of Democrats.
• The Democrats, rather than moving towards the center, will lurch left as the “netroots” convinces many in the party that the reason for the 2010 defeat was because the party was insufficiently “progressive.” The Democrats will end up in the same position the Republicans were in a year ago.
• But Republicans should be wary as well. They will have won not on their own laurels, but because of disgust with the current Congress.
• Cap and trade will be DOA as Congress gets increasingly worried about the political backlash.

International

• The protests in Iran continue in fits and starts, weakening the foundations of the regime. The Iranian government continues to brutalize its own people, while the West does little of consequence to stop them.
• President Obama launches further military action in Yemen to try to remove al-Qaeda.
• A major economic collapse in the EU shakes the foundation of the Euro.
• Gordon Brown faces a vote of no-confidence in Parliament, causing the him to call new elections in the UK.
• The situation in Afghanistan remains unsettled, but the addition of U.S. troops helps calm some of the tensions.
• Iran will come closer to testing a nuclear weapon, and will likely have the capability of doing so by the end of 2010.

Economics

• Unemployment will remain high throughout the year as discouraged workers reenter the workforce. This will be a huge political problem for the Democrats in the 2010 cycle.
• The price of gold and other hard assets will continue to skyrocket on inflation fears, leading to a mini-bubble in asset prices.
• The government will continue with bailouts of major companies, despite President Obama’s focus on debt reduction.
• The national deficit will continue to skyrocket as Congress is unable to restrain spending.

Society/Culture/Technology

• Apple will announce their tablet in early 2010, with a 10-inch touch screen and optional 3G wireless through Verizon rather than AT&T. The tablet (probably not called the iSlate) will have a major effect on the e-reader market, although Amazon will counter by making Kindle content available on the new device. Critics will complain that the price point is too high, but the device will sell like hotcakes anyway.
• E-Books will begin to outsell physical book copies.
• The reality TV show craze will finally, mercifully die off as people get sick of the them.
• Web series will continue to take off from being largely low-budget affairs to being more like regular TV shows. Shows akin to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog will receive much critical acclaim and will begin to supplant conventional TV.
• “Steampunk” will go from a small subculture to the next major popular phenomenon. Things like home canning, writing letters on fine stationery, and Victorian styles will become increasingly popular.
• The death of the newspaper industry will not stop, even though many papers start reconciling themselves with the digital world.

Politics/National

• President Barack Obama’s popularity with the left will bleed away as he moves to governing as a centrist.

  Correct: Late in the year, liberal dissatisfaction started growing, as the President chose to double down on Afghanistan and failed to back the public option in healthcare. While liberals still tend to support the President, Obama has not given them everything they want, and that has not made the liberals very happy.

• Card check legislation will be narrowly defeated in Congress, preserving the rights of the American worker to a secret ballot.

  Not Quite: Card check has been pushed off until next year, where it may well be defeated, but it hasn’t yet gone away as a political issue.

• The Republican Party will continue to spend a year in the wilderness, while the seeds of political renewal will come from outside the party structure.

  Correct: The GOP remains mired, but the real energy lies in the Tea Party movement. The media paints the Tea Partiers as a radical fringe, and some of them undoubtedly are. However, they have energy and motivation, and that can make all the difference. Whether the GOP likes it or not, they will have to ingratiate themselves with the Tea Party movement and capture that energy in a constructive way. Doing so without alienating the vital center will be difficult, but it’s not impossible.

• Vice President Biden will say something incredibly stupid, creating a great deal of tension between him and President Obama.

  Duh: Predicting a Joe Biden gaffe is like predicting that the sun will come up in the east.

• Congress will continue to be unpopular as the economy continues to backslide and more and more scandals mount. By the end of the year, faith in American government will be at a new low.

  Again, Duh: Congress continues to be wildly unpopular with the American electorate, and sweetheart deals, political payoffs, and rampant corruption are to blame. People regard Congress with the same level of distaste they do with plague rats and filthy diapers—and who can blame them?

International

• Iraq will be a bright spot as its nascent democracy continues to develop. Rather than terrorism, its main problem will be corruption and governmental issues. Iraq will start looking less like Lebanon and more like Jordan in terms of its development. The media will basically ignore Iraq, even though there will be no major U.S. troop drawdowns until mid-year at the earliest. President Obama’s Iraq strategy will be a continuation of the existing strategy, not a clean break from the Bush years.

  Correct, More or Less: Iraq has not been in the news much this year. Partially because it is no longer politically expedient, and partially because what’s going on there doesn’t make good news. Parliamentary maneuvering isn’t as sexy as blood in the streets. It is very interesting to note that 57% now say the war in Iraq has been a success, a marked reversal from last year. Yes, it is true that Iraq has a long way to go before it’s as developed as Jordan, but there are many positive signs. There will still be bombings and attacks, but the biggest problem Iraq now faces has less to do with terrorism and more to do with politics. In many ways, beating corruption and political paralysis is harder than beating back al-Qaeda, but Iraq is unquestionably better off now than it was under Saddam’s brutal reign.

• Israel will again stop short of destroying their enemies, slowly backing down after token military actions on the ground in Gaza. Seeing another Lebanon, the Israeli people will reject Kadima and elect Netanyahu as Prime Minister.

  Correct: Operation Cast Lead beat back Hamas, but Gaza remains a problem for Israel. As a result of Kadima’s perceived weakness, Binyamin Netanyahu has able to lead a coalition of right-wing parties as Prime Minister.

• India and Pakistan will be at the brink of war throughout the year, but neither side will pull the trigger. This issue will dominate Secretary of State Clinton’s efforts throughout the year.

  Incorrect: Pakistan is more concerned with the Afghan border than with Kashmir. While it is true that Pakistan has been a major issue for Secretary of State Clinton, so far the India-Pakistan tensions aren’t the most pressing issue.

• Iran will test a nuclear weapon, leading Israel to formally announce that they possess nuclear weapons and that they will use them if necessary. Israel will work to expand ts fleet of ballistic missile submarines.

  Incorrect: Iran is almost certainly much further ahead on weapons development than the West thinks, but so far they have not tested a weapon. Sadly, it appears that this prediction could come true next year. The West does not have enough leverage to prevent Iran from going nuclear.

• Russa’s Gazprom state-owned oil company will collapse, causing massive unrest in the country. Vladimir Putin and his puppet Dmitri Medvedev will use the unrest to further restrict freedoms and consolidate their own power.

  Incorrect: Gazprom remains a powerful tool of the Putin regime, and thanks to its control over much of Europe’s natural gas will likely remain so for the near future.

• Due to oil prices plummeting, Hugo Chavez will be deposed in a bloodless coup.

  Sadly, Incorrect: Chavez will only be removed by a coup, but that seems far-fetched at this point. Chavez seems set to be the 21st Century version of Fidel Castro, much to the detriment of the Venezuelan people.

Economics

• The recession will not go away in 2009.

  Correct: This one was probably a given.

• Obama’s $1 trillion stimulus bill will narrowly pass on a party-line vote. It will not stimulate the economy, but will cause further job losses as small businesses prepare for the worst.

  Correct: Instead of saving jobs, the unemployment rate reached double digits. The “stimulus” has failed on its own terms, failing to create new jobs and leading to yet another “stimulus” bill. The massive increase in national deficit—$1.4 trillion this year alone—will have negative economic effects that far outweigh any benefits of all the spending. The fact remains that the Keynesian multiplier is a myth, and $1 of government spending will not produce even $1 of growth.

• The Dow will sink below 8,000 and not stay above that level for most of the year.

  Incorrect: The Dow has rebounded to above 10,000, although how much of that growth is sustainable over the long term is an open question.

• By the end of 2009, the U.S. will face double-digit unemployment, economic recession, and massive deflation as the credit markets remain frozen.

  Partially Correct: We’ve hit the double-digit unemployment figure and are still in recession. However, it looks like inflation rather than deflation is going to be a problem. By opening the spigots, the Fed has helped ease the credit crunch. The problem is that they have nowhere else to go. With the national debt continuing to rise, running the printing presses is not a sustainable option.

• Congress will pass a protectionist trade measure that will have massive ripple effects throughout the world economy. The European Union will push for the WTO to punish the U.S. for their actions. Rather than improve our relations worldwide, America will be disliked ever more intensely across the globe.

  Not Yet: I’m somewhat surprised that the U.S. hasn’t pushed a major protectionist trade measure quite yet. But, much to his credit, Obama has not been a full-fledged protectionist. As politically expedient as it is to bash China and trade in general, the U.S. economy is too dependent on trade for Congress to start re-enacting Smoot-Hawley.

• The one bright spot will be that consumers begin shedding their debts and living more fiscally responsible lifestyles.

  Correct: Consumer debt continues to fall, as people continue to try and pay down their debts.

Society/Culture/Technology

• The last MacWorld will announce the iPhone Nano, a new Mac Mini, and a quad-core iMac. It will be revealed that Steve Jobs is in fact unwell, which will cause Apple shares to slide. However, the corporate culture that Jobs has created will keep Apple innovative.

Partially Correct: Steve Jobs was in fact unwell, having received a liver transplant last year. The iPhone Nano is probably not going to happen, and is probably a bad idea. Better Mac Minis and quad-core iMacs did appear, but later in the year. Instead, new unibody MacBooks were the big announcement at MacWorld 2009.

• Microsoft will release Windows 7 by years-end. It will be better than Vista, but still not sell well due to the decline of the industry.

  Partially Correct: Word is that Windows 7 is selling very well compared to Vista, but Vista did not have good reviews. Windows 7 is much better than Vista, but that’s not saying much. With Apple continuing to do very well, Microsoft’s OS dominance means less and less. The future is mobile, where Microsoft is an also-ran compared to BlackBerry, Google’s Android, and the iPhone and iPod touch.

• The economic downturn will cause a widespread cultural re-examination. Church attendance will climb as people look for stability in their lives.

  Uncertain: In general, church attendance does increase in bad economic times, but there isn’t much evidence that this is holding true now. I’m somewhat surprised that there’s not more definitive evidence on how this recession is affecting church attendance.

• The New York Times will file for bankruptcy protection. Liberal investors will save it from falling, but circulation will continue to drop.

  Partially Correct: It was only a bailout by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim that kept the Times alive, but even then the paper teeters on the edge of bankruptcy. The economics of the newspaper business will not get better any time soon—if ever—and it remains to be seen how the Times will survive in the coming years.

• Star Trek will be a major hit as the public rejects the gloomy outlook of other summer films. Chris Pine will become a breakout star from his role as James T. Kirk.

  Correct: J.J. Abrams reboot of the franchise was a hit, the highest-grossing Trek film ever. Chris Pine’s Kirk was a star turn (as well as Zoë Saldana’s role as Uhura). Star Trek breathed new life into the franchise, and while it wasn’t the deepest Trek film, it was a hell of a great ride, and it was one of the best films of the year.

• A major network will announce a new series to be aired entirely on the web rather than through traditional channels. It will be a major hit and the start of a new trend away from traditional media towards online distribution.

  Incorrect: I’m waiting for this to happen. Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was a pioneer for online distribution, but so far the major networks haven’t yet embraced the idea of an online-only series. The time is right to do this, but the networks remain stuck on the idea that legacy media has to be the star. There are plenty of web series (like Felicia Day’s wonderful series The Guild) that prove that web distribution can work. The question is when the major networks will “get it.”

Eight years later, and we have returned to a sense of complacency. The horrors of that day have become less visceral with age. We have, in some sense, fogotten the lessons we learned that terrible day. We have slipped back into the mentality of pre-9/11 America, when shark attacks and Gary Condit were more important than the barbarians at our gates.

We cannot be so complacent. Despite our best efforts, many of those responsible for these inhuman acts are still at large. Afghanistan is still threatened by the Taliban. Pakistan, a country possessing nuclear arms, still has the sword of Damocles over its head as the lawless frontiers continue to incubate terror.

The events of that day eight years ago changed our world. We owe it to those who died to never forget, and never allow this kind of barbarism to reign free again. The long war has not ended. Eight years ago, a city of millions mourned the loss of 3,000. The next attack could see it the other way around. We cannot bear that cost. We must be unflinching in our defense of our values and unyielding in our determination to fight groups like al-Qaeda.

We must never forget what happened eight years ago, or it will happen again.

Yet exactly what does the American people get for this expenditure? On the bright side, the beleaguered automotive industry gets yet another shot in the arm. But that cheery argument repeats the common mistake that I addressed two weeks ago: Using tax dollars to stimulate one industry necessarily impairs the recovery prospects of everyone else. To make matters worse, some stimulus payments are just outright gifts, because lots of last week’s eager sellers might have traded in their clunker in the near future anyhow. And no one has a clue as to how many miles would be put on these clunkers anyhow.

The problem with the “Cash for Clunkers” program is that it won’t provide much stimulus, but it will burn through billions in in taxpayer dollars. Is the possible increase in overall gasoline efficiency worth the $1 billion now spent and the billions more that may be spend reviving the program? It’s doubtful we’ll know, because the actual results don’t matter. Congress is essentially buying support by raiding the public fisc under dubious pretenses.

Two thousand years ago, the called it panem et circenses—but “Cash for Clunkers” seems to have much more consonance, even if the concept remains essentially the same.

The President got elected largely on his ability to transcend the racial politics of the past. He presented himself as a post-partisan healer who rejected the transparent race-baiting of a Jesse Jackson or an Al Sharpton. It was one of the reasons why the Obama campaign went to such lengths to bury Obama’s association with the viciously racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright—because it undercut the narrative they wanted to portray.

Now, Obama has waded right back into the politics of racial polarization with his attack on a veteran Cambridge police officer.

All this will do is polarize the country. The police officer can hardly be accused of being a racist—he taught classes on stopping racial profiling, tried to save the life of NBA star Reggie Jackson, and has a sterling record on the police force. Yet the President, without knowing all the facts, accused him of “acting stupidly” and insinuated that race played a factor in the arrest.

Based on the police report of the incident, race did play a part. Prof. Gates’ racist diatribe, not his attempting to get into his own house, is what got him arrested. The mere sight of a white police officer legitimately trying to do his job was met by a tirade by Gates. If anything, it was Gates who “acted stupidly.” Perhaps not stupidly enough to get arrested, but stupidly enough that he was hardly a victim in all this.

By taking sides in this matter, the President was walked right back into the fields of racial polarization. He has diminished his office by attacking a law enforcement officer without knowing the facts—and even if Sgt. Crowley was at fault, the President should not have injected himself into the matter in the first place.

This may not sink the Obama Presidency, but it does hurt him. He came into the Oval Office with the noble goal of being a President for both Black America and White America, a President that would try to heal racial divisions. Now, he has helped to open another racial wound in this country. He “acted stupidly” in doing so, and it may well end up costing him politically at a time when he’s already starting to take political heat.

Charles Krauthammer has a deeply thoughtful piece on the Moon we left behind:

But look up from your BlackBerry one night. That is the moon. On it are exactly 12 sets of human footprints — untouched, unchanged, abandoned. For the first time in history, the moon is not just a mystery and a muse, but a nightly rebuke. A vigorous young president once summoned us to this new frontier, calling the voyage “the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.” We came, we saw, we retreated.

That we ascended to the stars, but then turned our backs to them shows just how foolish our society can be.

Apollo was probably unsustainable, but had we allowed space to be another place where human creativity, ingenuity, and daring could have thrived rather than a sterile “commons” visited only by state actors, our present could have looked much more like the future depicted in 2001.

If an alien race were to come to Earth and see what we have done—or not done—in the past 40 years, I doubt they’d understand it. How a civilization can pull back from such a dazzling achievement would be beyond the understanding of any rational creature.

That solution will not work.

For one, there aren’t enough “rich” people to make up for the current deficit. We could raise taxes to 99% and not came close—and then the rich people would either cease to be rich, or get their assets out of the country faster than you can say “Nancy Pelosi.” What you would have would be capital flight on a truly nightmarish scale.

In order to make up that kind of shortfall, you would not have to tax only the Bill Gateses or Warren Buffetts of the U.S.—you’d have to start taxing everyone who makes a decent living. Our professional classes are already taking a huge hit in this economy—engineers and lawyers are applying for $10/hour jobs because of the economic downturn. If we start taxing them, they will buy less, they will use less services, and the ripple effect will continue right on down the line. It will make the economy worse rather than better.

Taxing the “rich” isn’t going to solve this mess, nor is more government intervention. The sad state of our economy is due to too much government intervention and far too much debt, both public and private. In order to fix this mess we all need to start spending in line with our realistic priorities and not spending money we don’t have.

Taking more money from people with their heads barely above water and giving it to an irresponsible government is not a solution for this economy; it is economic suicide.

Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard…

Here are lessons of the Sarah Palin experience, for any aspiring politician who shares her background and her sex. Your children will go through the tabloid wringer. Your religion will be mocked and misrepresented. Your political record will be distorted, to better parody your family and your faith. (And no, gentle reader, Palin did not insist on abstinence-only sex education, slash funds for special-needs children or inject creationism into public schools.)

Male commentators will attack you for parading your children. Female commentators will attack you for not staying home with them. You’ll be sneered at for how you talk and how many colleges you attended. You’ll endure gibes about your “slutty” looks and your “white trash concupiscence,” while a prominent female academic declares that your “greatest hypocrisy” is the “pretense” that you’re a woman. And eight months after the election, the professionals who pressed you into the service of a gimmicky, dreary, idea-free campaign will still be blaming you for their defeat.

All of this had something to do with ordinary partisan politics. But it had everything to do with Palin’s gender and her social class.

Douthat has it exactly right: Sarah Palin was despised by the left because she represents a culture that is alien to the left’s worldview. She’s a female, she’s attractive, she’s actively pro-life, she’s rural, she’s plain spoken, and she’s conservative. To the left, such a thing just should not be. She embodies values that stand in very clear contrast to those of the left, and were she to obtain national popularity she could be very influential.

The former governor was not prepared for the race in 2008, and the McCain campaign did an extremely poor job of preparing her for what she would face. Douthat is right that she would have been wise to turn down McCain’s offer, although it is understandable that she did not.

But, Douthat notes, Palin is still relatively popular. She has a net positive approval rating, even after 10 months of constant fire. If Palin wanted to return to politics—and perhaps she does not—a Sarah Palin that had spend some time learning policy and crafting her positions could still be a potent political force.

Right now the lesson of Sarah Palin is that if you’re not prepared for the national stage you will be eaten alive. But there is a possibility, however small, that the lesson down the road might very well be that counting Sarah Barricuda out is a very unwise idea.