Mike Allen reports that Obama’s tapped Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State. I’m skeptical of the pick, and I think she’d make a better Secretary of Defense. The military loves her, and it would allow Obama to name the first female SecDef.

Hillary is a fighter. She’s cold, calculating, and remorseless — the kind of person you want to represent you if you’re being taken to court. Some say it’s better to have her inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in, which I can appreciate, but let’s not forget that there’s no real Republican opposition right now, which means that as intra-administration conflicts inevitably arise, and the media delights in reporting them, things are liable to get pretty ugly.

Remember Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, renting out the Lincoln Bedroom, selling sensitive satellite and missile technologies to China? Well, Hope and Change just brought those folks back into the cabinet room.

In two months, Rahm Emanuel is going to learn what it’s like to lose control of the message.

When it comes to the war on drugs, here are two awfully good reasons not to be a supply-sider:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The CIA obstructed inquiries into its role in the shooting down of an aircraft carrying a family of U.S. missionaries in Peru in 2001, the agency’s inspector general has concluded.

The inspector-general’s report said a CIA-backed program in Peru targeting drug runners was so poorly run that many suspect aircraft were shot down by Peruvian air force jets without proper checks being made first.

Unclassified portions of the report were made public for the first time on Thursday by U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, who criticized the CIA for the “needless” deaths.

These ludicrous policies got started in Clinton’s second term, when he brought Barry McCaffrey out of retirement to become the new drug czar, and apparently the Bush administration continued them. Unless the plane had been on the outskirts of a major population center, and there was good reason to believe it had weapons of mass destruction on board, there’s simply no excuse for something like this.

This sounds like pretty big news: “NASA scientists have discovered enormous underground reservoirs of frozen water on Mars, away from its polar caps, in the latest sign that life might be sustainable on the Red planet.”

Rod Dreher, with a little help from Alasdair MacIntyre, pins the source of the impasse in the gay marriage debate: a loss of a shared teleology, hence much of the mutual outrage we’ve been seeing on this issue (and others, too): “We no longer possess a belief that marriage has a purpose beyond itself, that it signifies something greater than the will of individuals wishing to be married. This is the result of a radically individualist culture that views ethical truths as little more than statements of preference. What we’ve lost is, to use a philosophical term, a teleology – that is, the belief that our actions are all geared toward a final goal, and must be judged by whether or not they lead toward, or away, from this goal. Absent a shared teleology, however general, our politics become even more fractious and combative, as rational argument – which democratic deliberation requires – becomes all but impossible.”

A U.S. judge has ordered that five Algerians captured in Bosnia after the September 11th attacks be freed from Guantanamo. My colleague Chris Boucek does groundbreaking work on counterterrorism and detainee issues at Carnegie, and I drew on his expertise in my remarks at last night’s AFF roundtable.

So they say, anyway, at Bild.

A video and song extolling the virtue of “Big Underpants“, aka China Central Television’s physics defying headquarters in downtown Beijing. (H/T to Kelani Chan for the link and translation.)

Richard Epstein: “Today’s harsh skirmishing over Prop 8 starts from the common assumption that the state has the right to issue marriage licenses, so that the only question worth asking is whether it can discriminate between gay and straight couples. But to the libertarian, the antecedent inquiry is whether the state has any proper role in issuing marriage licenses at all.”

…be someplace else.

In related news:

This is the kind of story a reporter would die for:

A MAN caught near Nobbys Beach with his penis in a pasta sauce jar led police on a 20 kmh car chase, Newcastle Local Court heard yesterday.

Police drew their weapons when they suspected Keith Roy Weatherley, 46, was armed.

Instead, they found him partially clothed with his genitals in a jar, a police statement said. . . .

Police believed Weatherley was doing something with his hands in his lap and thought that he might have a weapon. . . .

They found a 750-millilitre jar around his penis and noted that Weatherley attempted to continue “pleasuring himself in between bouts of wrestling”.

A search of his car uncovered pornography, a home-made sex aid, women’s stockings and a Jack Russell terrier.

(Hat tip: JG)

Larison asks why Evangelicals are being blamed for the GOP’s failures. They have been the least influential segment of the party in recent years, despite being numerous and reliable (or perhaps because of it, no?). He suggests it was because:

they were too wedded to the Bush administration and its failed record, and they were too dependent on reciting the trite slogans they heard on the radio and read in syndicated conservative columns.

Andrew Sullivan asks:

And why were they so trusting of Bush and unable to see his flaws, Daniel? You have to see the link between the fundamentalist psyche and the suspension of critical judgment in the Republican party for the past eight years. A non-born-again president would never have been allowed to get away with it.

Larison is right that they’re reliable and not influential. That’s what happens to political groups who join coalitions for negative reasons rather than any positive support for their platform or ideology. They don’t vote for Republicans; they vote against Democrats. Republicans only attract the religoius conservative vote to the extent that Democrats are portrayed as—and, more important, to the extent that they actually willingly play the part of—the Boogeyman on the Left in the culture wars (e.g. the “Party of Death” who will sacrifice your First Amendment religious liberties on the altar of enforced acceptance of gay marriage). There’s a reason that white, married, Christian support for the Republicans began to surge in the late ’60s and ’70s, after all. That era saw the heating up, especially with Roe v. Wade, of the culture wars. (H/T Andrew for the study that shows this).

In other words, Evangelicals clung to Bush more out of fear that the other side wanted to make war with their most cherished beliefs. Obama got this, and so he and the Democratic Party put on a less threatening face to these voters, which was why they chipped away at Evangelical support for the GOP in November (aside from the fact that Evangelical support for Bush had been declining even before 2006; so much for “blindness”).

Part of what may be misdirecting Andrew’s ire in this case is that he’s overestimating Evangelical support for the specifically foreign policy elements of the Bush era. “Blame the Evangelicals” was a game many engaged in once the war began to turn sour, yet Evangelical support before the war (I remember it being at about 77 percent) wasn’t all that much greater than overall support for the war. I remember this prediction James Kurth made all the way back in 2005 ($ubscription required for full article, sadly):

The Evangelicals supported the Bush democratization project because it was a Bush project, and they were already committed to his policy (or more accurately his rhetoric) on cultural and social issues. Conversely, some human rights proponents supported the Bush democratization project because it was a democratization project. They opposed Bush on just about every other policy, especially those involving cultural and social issues. Indeed, the human rights proponents have despised the Evangelicals, and the result has been an unstable coalition of support for the Bush foreign policy.

For the most part, Evangelical Protestants have not considered American foreign policy to be one of their priority political issues. They were utterly indifferent to U.S. democratization efforts under the Clinton Administration. If democratization should come about in a foreign country, Evangelicals will be pleased, all the more so because it might open up the country to missionary activity. (In this respect, China now appears to be an especially promising field for evangelization.) But Evangelicals think that such openings will come about through God’s work and not through their own political actions. Certainly, Evangelical Protestants who take their Bible seriously know that Jesus Christ is the light of the world and that to see America as this light is a form of idolatry and heresy.

Still, as the foreign policy of the Bush Administration draws closer to a debacle, someone will have to take the blame. This will particularly be the case in the election campaigns of 2006 and 2008. Democrats and liberals will attack Republicans and conservatives. The latter two groups, in turn, will have a strong incentive to distance themselves from the Bush presidency and from the Evangelical Protestants, “the religious Right” who so strongly and so carelessly supported Bush when he led America into a reckless adventure in the Middle East. Democrats and Republicans, liberals and secular conservatives will agree that the Evangelicals are to blame. The real architects of the Bush foreign policy will go on to other things and will be forgotten, if not forgiven, because they do not threaten Democrats and liberals on the cultural and social issues that mean so much to them. The Evangelicals do threaten the liberals on domestic issues, however, and the opportunity to marginalize them by blaming them for a foreign policy debacle will be irresistible.

Which is kinda what’s going on in this case, no? So there’s really no need to engage in any psychoanalytic talk about some sort of “fundamentalist psyche.”

As for the GOP’s Evangelical problem, which Larison and Sullivan (quoting another poster) call the “oogedy boogedy” problem, I submit to you that it’s just that: a pre-rational, “ick factor” distaste of Bible thumpers by Republican faux-elitists. Republicans can indulge in that “ick factor” animus only at the peril of becoming the permanent minority party.

Matt Yglesias thinks that conservative opponents of the Big 3 Bailout are more worried about the liability of pensions on the car companies than executive pay. And he’s probably right. Because the pension costs of GM and the rest are crushing those companies. Let’s look at GM.

GM has a CEO who, in 2007, made $15.7 million. I noted previously that GM’s pension liability in 2004 was $89 billion, and that the health benefits for those same retirees was $64 billion. When broken down by year, these numbers add up to a $1,600 legacy cost per car. What is the cost of the CEO’s salary, per car? Well, they expect to sell 11.7 million cars in 2009, which would put the CEO liability at right around $1.50 per car. So yeah, I’d say the cumulative effect of those legacy costs is a bigger deal than the (ridiculously overpaid) CEO.

Leaving all that aside, though, I defy Matt to provide one example of a bailout opponent who says that the Big 3’s management deserves to keep their jobs. For example, here’s Mitt Romney calling for a restructuring in which legacy costs are pared down and management gets the boot. I don’t think there’s a single serious person who says “Yeah, get rid of the pensions for those middle class shlubs, but give the executives raises!” That’s asinine. Nobody thinks that. But simple math states that the pension costs are a far, far bigger problem for GM and the rest than what one idiot CEO makes.

Anyone in DC tomorrow who likes (or hates) this blog should swing by The Fund for American Studies (1706 New Hampshire Avenue NW) for an AFF Roundtable featuring Doublethink alum James Poulos and current Conventional Follyer David Donadio among other interesting, garrulous, friendly people. We’ll be debating what foreign policy on the Right means after this momentous election, and how we should be thinking about the way forward in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Drinks are at 6:30, panel begins at 7pm. If all goes reasonably well, we’ll continue the debate in some bar around Dupont afterwards. If things go catastrophically awry, we’ll just go to a bar and drink in silence. Either way, you don’t want to miss this.

Roundtables are free for AFF members and $5 for non-members. If you intend to come, please try to RSVP to cindy@americasfuture.org.

See you there!

I must admit to some perverse amusement at the fact that Joe Lieberman is holding onto his committee chairmanship, if only because Kos thinks this is cause enough to primary a sitting majority leader. Here’s what I honestly don’t understand, however: the claim that Lieberman is some sort of knuckle dragging right winger. Writes Ezra:

Lieberman’s slingshot into the furthest reaches of the far right was always a sadly transparent reaction to his rejection by the left. Human beings do not enjoy criticism. They gravitate towards affirmation.

Lieberman is pro-choice, pro-union (both teacher and AFL-CIO), and opposed the Bush tax cuts in ‘02. The reason McCain ended up with Sarah Palin instead of Joe Lieberman as the VP pick is because Lieberman is very liberal. The only issue he’s really conservative on is the war; he thinks winning the war on terror is an important goal. In fact, he thinks it’s the defining issue of our times. That led him to support the candidate who favored the surge, the strategy that seems to have (gasp) stabilized Iraq and given us some hope of exiting the country with honor and leaving behind a useful ally. It does not make him a member of the “far right” by any reasonable definition of the phrase.

Yes, it’s cute on some level, and my relatives keep telling me the subject looks like a young me, but I suddenly have a newfound appreciation of the pro-communist Arab regimes of the Cold War. After all, what could be more newsworthy than a young Jewish kid eating treif on mommy’s credit card?!

Everyone’s a critic, and apparently it’s never too soon to start.

That’s why David Fishman, an Upper West Sider who turned 12 last month, decided to take himself out for dinner one night last week. His parents had called him at home to say they were running late, suggesting that he grab some takeout at the usual hummus place.

Hummus, again? David thought he could do better than that.

He had recently passed by the newly opened Salumeria Rosi, a few blocks from his home, and had been intrigued by the reflective black back wall, the cuts of dried pork hanging from the ceiling, the little jars of cured olives and artichokes adorning the walls. If it was O.K. with his mom (and it turned out it was), he wanted to try that instead. . . . .

Nobody at the restaurant seemed terribly impressed by Tony Danza, but David Fishman — now that was something. People tried not to stare, but couldn’t help themselves. Where were his parents? Was he enjoying the food? Cash or credit?

Normally passionate for seafood, David ordered a specialty of the restaurant, a prosciutto, as well as what the menu called una insalata di rucola e parmigiano. “Good variety,” he wrote in the leather-bound notebook he brought along, restaurant-critic-like. “Softish jazz music. Seem to enjoy kids but not overly.” In other words, no cloying smiles or insulting offer of grilled cheese.

(Hat tip: JB)

I’ve been wondering whether the whole Hillary for Secretary of State thing might just be a feint — floating her name to pay her back for services rendered — but after speaking to people in the know, I now think there’s a very real possibility she’ll be the pick.

It’s hard to deny that naming Clinton would let an awful lot of air out of the Hope and Change balloon before the new administration even takes office, but I confess, there’s also a good argument for it. As my colleague Tom Carothers points out, Obama is going to face a very thankless first couple years in foreign policy, and it’d be nice for him to be able to step back and say “I’ve put someone serious on it.”

Though there’s inevitably continuity from administration to administration — and there often should be — it’s important to the country for new teams to repudiate their predecessors, at least initially. A large part of the appeal of Obama’s victory lies in the fact that he puts a fresh new face on the country, and allows us to expiate for our national sins without really turning all that much from old our ways.

Hillary seems to me a much more appropriate pick for Secretary of Defense, a job that involves more fist, and less face. But I’d like to see Bob Gates stay on, and I don’t know where else Obama could realistically keep a Republican (or at least a guy who’s served in a Republican administration) in his administration.

I’m having a hard time understanding why Andrew Sullivan still thinks Hillary Clinton should be Secretary of State. CNN has it right, I think, that Bill Clinton’s international business dealings in the past 8 years would compromise her independence.  Obama, you’ll recall, ran on a (now rapidly disintegrating) promise that he wouldn’t have lobbyists in his administration.  Well, Bill Clinton has become just about the biggest lobbyist in the world.  Remember this story?  Henry Kissinger is right that nominating a strong cabinet Secretary shows strength and confidence, but there’s a difference between strength and confidence and utter recklessness.  It might look magnanimous at first, but by bringing Clinton in at State, Obama would open his administration up to constant scandal, and being undermined by the Clintons whenever his foreign policy differed from theirs.  Her positives would wear off soon, and all her negatives would stay.

This man appears to be off his gourd.

John McWhorter had a characteristically thoughtful and serious piece on Obama’s election in Forbes a few days back. Don’t miss it. I’m sorry the Sun won’t be around to carry his column anymore, but it’s good to see Forbes running him, and I hope it’ll be a regular occurrence.

(The piece also contains a hilarious typo that only 3,000 people live in Vermont, as opposed to 3,000 black people, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Looks like the government is giving up trying to regulate the online poker industry. I might have to fire up my long-dormant PokerStars account and give it a test run. Things have probably changed a little over the last two years.

h/t to Jacob Sullum