Logical Fallacy of the Surge

There's an outrageous logical fallacy being blindly perpetuated by the American press that I just have to comment on. The situation in Iraq has improved, meaning that the average number of people dying from violence every day is down about 30%. (If you can call that improvement). The press has said to itself that since the reduction in violence occurred about the same time as the surge, the surge must be responsible for the reduction.

There is absolutely NO proof of this. It's the equivalent of saying I danced for rain on Thursday and it rained, therefore my dance worked. We have no way of knowing what things would be like without the surge. But there is ample evidence that things like the Awakening of the Sunnis, the hollowing out and walling of Baghdad, the ethnic cleansing that already occurred having run its course, and the containment of Al Sadr may well have had the same effects without the Surge. In fact, perhaps if we had withdrawn in 2006, things would be even more stable then they are now, no more targeting of Americans, Iraqis forced to cooperate, etc. It is quite clear that we will never know because historical conditionals are impossible to prove. No one will ever know if the Axis would still have lost without Pearl Harbor.

So please, members of the press, show that you have at least a basic grasp of logic. Replace the phrase "the reduction of violence due to the Surge" with "the reduction of violence which coincided with the Surge."

Nomination Predictions

A lot of people have been asking this week who benefits most from Huckabee likely winning Iowa, Guiliani or Romney. The answer is exceedingly simple: Huckabee himself.

Others are criticizing Obama for harboring the dream to be president for a long time. I'm sorry, but I've known a lot of people who would like to be President, and its hard to believe that most politicians wouldn't jump at the chance. The trait that separates naked ambition from a dream to be President is the willingness to say or do anything to get elected.

This past week we've seen the shift everyone's been waiting for. On the Democratic side we're seeing the shift away from Hillary as people start to sit down and realize that she's the least electable of all the Democratic candidates. Well, not least, she sits right between Dodd and Kucinich on the electability scale. On the Republican side, Huckabee has grabbed the mantle of the religious right and made a dash with it far away from the other candidates. The title for the fiscal right probably goes to McCain (I suppose Thompson's next, but one of these days he'll get around to having that press conference where he announces that he's dropping out of the race) and I think at this point he's actually the best bet to stop Huckabee.

If Huckabee and Obama win Iowa, they'll get a nice 10-20 point bounce which will be more than enough to give them New Hampshire, SC, and almost all of the Feb 5th states. And this underscores the whole problem with the polls everyone's been following all summer. They don't matter. Finding out what message resonates with voters when they start paying attention matters, and matters enough to move poll numbers in dramatic fashion if you have the platform to get that message out. Obama and Huckabee, the most optimistic of the candidates, have the right message. Lucky for us, with the exception of McCain, I think they are their parties' best candidates (although I think Richardson would make a better president than Obama). As others have observed, Obama seems to be coming to where he is at exactly the right moment in our country's history, and I think the presidency will easily be his.

Politics of Celebrity

It's becoming a problem in America. If Hillary Clinton were to win the 2008 election it would mark the sixth consecutive presidential election won by members of one of two families, the Bushes and the Clintons. Of the three leading Democratic contenders for the nomination, one has served seven years in the Senate, one six, and one three. Of the three, only Obama has any political experience at all outside of being in the Senate unless you count Clinton's time served as first lady where her main accomplishment was offering a disastrous health care proposal. The leading Republican candidate has never served in a national or gubernatorial office and resigned the Iraq Study Group to give paid speeches. Meanwhile candidates like Biden, who has been a Senator for 34 years and is Chairman of Foreign Relations, and Richardson, who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize four times and has served as UN Ambassador, Secretary of Energy and Governor of New Mexico, are struggling mightily to gain traction. Why?

We're developing a sort of rotating cult of personality in America. Experience is beginning to matter less in a President than his celebrity, substance less than appearance. It's a dangerous phenomenon and one with no ready solution. That's because the easiest way to fix the problem is for the media to start doing a better job of more accurately portraying the candidates and of treating the race less as a popularity contest and more as a serious decision. But the media, and its obsession with celebrity and ratings and entertainment, is the chief cause behind this phenomenon in the first place and shows no sign of change. Making the ability to raise money a much less important part of the equation would also help, but there's very little hope of that happening either. I admit, this is one of many problems I just don't see a solution to.

I will say this, though. Next time you hear someone say they don't know whether or not to support Obama because he's so inexperienced, point out that his two main rivals only have three years more experience than he does in the Senate, and that he's served in government longer than either of them. Mention Richardson's credentials, especially about the Nobel Prize nominations, I bet that will wow some people. Maybe working together, we can offset this disturbing trend.