Quote(s) of the Day

First, Megan McArdle on Julian Assange:

Julian Assange seems to have fallen prey to what I call Supply-Sider's Disease, a little-known, yet surprising widespread psychiatric disorder in which people become convinced that things they very much want to do from strong moral convictions, must therefore have no downside.

The whole post is worth a read and the last graf screams truth.

Second, an excerpted Thomas Mallon, courtesy of Hitch:

Washington novels, such as they are, tend to be found on racks at National Airport, the raised gold letters of their titles promising a bomb on Air Force One or a terrorist kidnapping of the First Lady. There’s a reason for all the goofiness. A serious novelist must take his characters seriously, regard them as three-dimensional creatures with inner lives and authentic moral crises; and that’s just what, out of a certain democratic pride, Americans refuse to do with their politicians.

Hitchens' City Journal article on the search for the great DC novel is simply excellent top to bottom.

Sorry blogging has been light non-existent recently -- been buried in research.

Have a good weekend!

From the People Who Brought Us WWI and the Yugo...

The following is a letter I wrote to some foreign policy wonk friends of mine. It is in regard to a piece by Hitch in Slate about Kosovo and my personal feelings about U.S. recognition:

For a semester in undergrad, I studied (what was then still a crumbling) Yugoslavia and I also was a student and then TA in a class on Russian/Soviet Foreign policy -- so while I do not even pretend to know as much about FP or even Yugoslavia/Serbia et al., as either of you, I feel I have more than an average lay-person’s grasp on the situation there and the history.

I read [Cato vice president for foreign policy and defense studies Ted Galen Carpenter's] statement on the US recognizing Kosovo, and I must respectfully dissent. I don’t necessarily take the Hitchens line, and I understand the pragmatic problems with recognizing Kosovo in the face of Russian animosity, but it seems to me that if we are to be supportive of freedom, taking an unpopular position (from Serbia and Moscow’s vantage point) on Kosovo is not the worst thing in the world. Certainly, backing the righteous sovereignty of a nation is not a “colossal foreign policy blunder,” at least in this situation. (Taiwan notwithstanding) We can’t promote freedom simply when it is most convenient for us – and this recognition is certainly not coupled with any defense alliance. Thus, the act of recognition is simply an acknowledgement of a free people making a decision to be autonomous – which is the hallmark of our founding.

For all its authoritarian crackdowns and reaping of the financial benefits of oil revenue, Russia does not appear to be in any real position to back Serbia with anything but the obligatory saber-rattling they are so wont to do. Their recent dealings with Great Britain only support the idea that they really aren’t interested in good ties with the West, and that as the Siloviki continue to solidify a perpetual hold on power, the erosion of friendly relations is – in my opinion – nearly a foregone conclusion at this point. So let them rattle their sabers – Kosovo should be autonomous and we should formally back their play. I do not believe that we should turn our back on freedom just because the Kremlin would prefer it.

Now, if this becomes an armed conflict – which I think would have been more likely without the US recognition – I am not behind US military intervention. That said, airstrikes would probably come if Serbia got uppity about this. BUT…

If we had not recognized Kosovo, Serbia could more comfortably believe that any conflict would be viewed by the US as an internal matter for us to stay out of, as we did with Russia and Chechnya. As it stands now, the idea of sustained aerial bombardment from US forces would probably deter Serbia from earnestly seeking to reclaim Kosovo. Of course, we are not obligated to protect the Kosovars – but the Serbs’ memory isn’t so short as to forget what it feels like to be on the wrong end of the American military and are probably not anxious to relive the experience. And without guarantees of any real backing from Russia—which I don’t think is coming— the Serbs would have to be insane to try to forcibly take Kosovo. I’m not putting it past them, but I think it’s less likely after US recognition.

Someone Else Fed Up With the Right's Indifference on Race

An excellent piece by Hitchens excoriating Huckabee, Paul, South Carolina and the press. An excerpt:

Thus, as well as crassly behaving exactly like someone "from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," former Gov. Huckabee of Arkansas deliberately aligned himself with the rancorous minority who are still not reconciled to the idea that South Carolina may not officially consecrate racism and slavery and secession. "Your flag"? What an insult, not just to the descendants of slavery but to the many, many other loyalists and Unionists who fought and died to bring their state back into the Union. And what is the point of the "outside the state" slur? Wasn't this exactly what Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas used to say, as if to make it seem that all was hunky-dory in his own tight little dominion until them goddam "outside agitators" arrived? In the end, as Gov. Huckabee may or may not recall, the 101^st Airborne Division, most of them "outsiders" not from Arkansas, had to be sent by a Republican president to integrate the schools of Little Rock. That was a lot of trouble and expense that the big-mouth rednecks put us all to, but it was worth it. It's insufferable to hear this glib idiot make a mockery of it now in order to try to get the Klan vote in South Carolina.