Weekend Update

McLaughlin Group Update. Lawrence is missing in action again. This election cycle has been very, very hard on him and we fear that the trauma has left lasting scars. Or maybe he's working on those secession plans. Peter Beinart* of the New Republic was in to replace Mr. O'Donnell. Alas, it was not a felicitous exchange for the viewers or even the audience, if the picture on your TV was not functioning. The dominant first topic was a critique of America's response to the tsunami emergency. Predictably, Peter and Eleanor ajudged our performance as agonizingly slow and painfully inadquate and morally reprehensible: once again the U.S. loses the moral high ground in a crisis to [insert your favorite Scandinavian country here, then add all of the others plus the E.U.] based on some ridiculous per capita assessment of donations pledged by governments. Never mind that things will look quite different when all of the figures are added up and private donations are taken into account. Never mind that this is just a lot of meaningless compassion posturing: when all is said and done, will anyone report how little of the billions donated and pledged was actually ever received by those it was intended to help? More on this later. And never mind that Germany's extreme generosity ($680 million over 5 years) would be tragically unnecessary if the U.S. Navy and for that matter, Australia's armed forces, weren't able to get to the affected areas immediately. Note to Peter: familiarity with present value calculations would be helpful here. Instead of opportunity cost, however, substitute cost in human lives. Let's say you just won the Lotto--$680 million dollars! If you wait for 5 years, you can have all $680 mil but you'll be dead. Or, you can have a lump sum payment of $350 mil today and you'll be alive in five years. Hmmm.... tough choice. Are you still waiting for that Norwegian Rapid Reaction Force to save your bacon, Peter?

MG Whine time: the biggest disadvantage to Mr. Blankley's added heft is that he can't leap out of his chair fast enough to put Mr. Beinart out of our misery (the visual: Wicked Witch of the East after the house landed).

*Mr. Beinart has written several post-election articles that have angered his compatriots on the left (always a good sign). One of the articles is reminiscent of Ann Coulter's Treason because it traces liberal credibility on national security back to the rise of anti-communism. He tries to make the case that because some liberal organizations and news outlets repudiated communism they could legitimately call themselves defenders of freedom and democracy. Democrat politicians that did so, of course, had no problem getting elected during that era. Yes, the latter is true as far as it goes, but since the left famously fell off the anti-totalitarianism wagon in the 60's (really, cover provided by hawkish politicians went away), they have lost credibility in the arenas of national defense, social policy, and economic policy. He argues that liberalism needs to be fundamentally reshaped by September 11 in the same way that it was in 1947, in response to a new kind of totalitarianism. OK, at least he gets the point about national security. But he's really bucking the trend: the vast majority of liberals are quite comfy with the whole notion of totalitarianism in a vague, soft-focus, kind-of way. From the doctrinaire liberal point of view (please see Eric Alterman, "A Reply to Peter Beinart," The Nation), nostalgia for the days of Truman means that McCarthy may have had a point. May even have been right. We are so happy when we can find common ground for Ann and a bona fide liberal intellectual elitist. We would even go so far as to say they would make a cute couple but that would only be half true.