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From reader Chris, of the USMC. Ties in well with prior discussions here of the need for cultural-educational-cognitive renovation in American society and the marked inadequacy of the current elite: 

National Affairs -“Keeping America’s Edge” – Jim Manzi

….Reconciling these competing forces is America’s great challenge in the decades ahead, but will be made far more difficult by the growing bifurcation of American society. Of course, this is not a new dilemma: It has actually undergirded most of the key political-economy debates of the past 30 years. But a dysfunctional political dynamic has prevented the nation from addressing it well, and has instead given us the worst of both worlds: a ballooning welfare state that threatens future growth, along with growing socioeconomic disparities.

Both major political parties have internal factions that sit on each side of the divide between innovation and cohesion. But broadly ­speaking, Republicans since Ronald Reagan have been the party of innovation, and Democrats have been the party of cohesion.

Conservatives have correctly viewed the policy agenda of the left as an attempt to undo the economic reforms of the 1980s. They have ­therefore, as a rhetorical and political strategy, downplayed the problems of cohesion – problems like inequality, wage stagnation, worker displacement, and disparities in educational performance – to emphasize the importance of innovation and growth. Liberals, meanwhile, have correctly identified the problem of cohesion, but have generally proposed antediluvian solutions and downplayed the necessity of innovation in a competitive world. They have noted that America’s economy in the immediate wake of World War II was in many ways simultaneously more regulated, more successful, and more equitable than today’s economy, but mistakenly assume that by restoring greater regulation we could re-create both the equity and prosperity of that era.

The conservative view fails to acknowledge the social costs of unrestrained economic innovation – costs that have made themselves ­powerfully apparent in American politics throughout our history. The liberal view, meanwhile, betrays a misunderstanding of the global economic environment.

…. The level of family disruption in America is enormous compared to almost every other country in the developed world. Of course, out-of-wedlock births are as common in many European countries as they are in the United States. But the estimated percentage of 15-year-olds living with both of their biological parents is far lower in the United States than in Western Europe, because unmarried European parents are much more likely to raise children together. It is hard to exaggerate the chaotic conditions under which something like a third of American children are being raised – or to overstate the negative impact this disorder has on their academic achievement, social skills, and character formation. There are certainly heroic exceptions, but the sad fact is that most of these children could not possibly compete with their foreign counterparts.As the lower classes in America experience these alarming regressions, wealthier and better-educated Americans have managed to re-create a great deal of the lifestyle of the old WASP ascendancy – if with different justifications for it. Political correctness serves the same basic function for this cohort that “good manners” did for an earlier elite; environmentalism increasingly stands in for the ethic of controlling impulses so as to live within limits; and an expensive, competitive school culture – from pre-K play groups up through graduate school – socializes the new elite for constructive competition among peers. These Americans have even re-created the old WASP aesthetic preference for the antique, authentic, and pseudo-utilitarian at the expense of vulgar displays of wealth. In many cases, they live in literally the same homes as the previous upper class.

Read the rest here.

One law for them, another for the rest of us.

Courtesy of Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.) and Richard Durbin (D- Daley Machine).

I’ll be frank, as I am short for time until Dec. 7th, so I riffed this straight from SWJ Blog  which also posted a critique by Robert Haddick here.

My reader’s digest take – the president split the difference between the myriad factions in the national security community in a way that ultimately leaves his options open. A cautious, calculating, choice unless he gave General McChrystal carte blanche on new black ops inside Pakistan. That would not be unimportant – al Qaida safe houses in Quetta and rural Baluchistan blowing up would not be insignificant.

For what it is worth, in terms of domestic politics, President Obama is well to the right of the Democratic Party on Afghanistan, at least in terms of the activist base. The self-described “progressives” are not happy tonight.

That was my two cents. Fire at will in comments section….

ADDENDUM:

Will there be a “Revolt of the Progressives?” Here is one reaction to the speech from an important leftwing blog.

Goldman Sachs and other banksters wrangled swine flu vaccines ahead of most medical workers and high risk patients. Nice.

Do not hold your breath waiting for a Congressional investigation or a New York Times or Newsweek expose of how this happened and who is responsible. Much like when we endured the ridiculously laudatory coverage of the death of the corrupt and not especially pro-American Benazir Bhutto,  whose Ivy League matriculation and socializing with the American elite decades ago ensured her enduring American political support, plenty of MSM senior editors went to school with these guys. And the congressional staffers with their sons.

The Greco-Roman historian Polybius is instructive on this matter. He writes in his The Histories :

Rise and Fall of Aristocratic Rule

15    But as soon as the people got leaders, they cooperated with them against the dynasty for the reasons I have mentioned; and then kingship and despotism were alike entirely abolished, and aristocracy once more began to revive and start afresh. For in their immediate gratitude to those who had deposed the despots, the people employed them as leaders, and entrusted their interests to them; who, looking upon this charge at first as a great privilege, made the public advantage their chief concern, and conducted all kinds of business, public or private, with diligence and caution.

16    But when the sons of these men received the same position of authority from their fathers-having had no experience of misfortunes, and none at all of civil equality and freedom of speech, but having been bred up from the first under the shadow of their fathers’ authority and lofty position-some of them gave themselves up with passion to avarice and unscrupulous love of money, others to drinking and the boundless debaucheries which accompanies it, and others to the violation of women or the forcible appropriation of boys; and so they turned an aristocracy into an oligarchy. But it was not long before they roused in the minds of the people the same feelings as before; and their fall therefore was very like the disaster which befell the tyrants.

The Oligarchy of Good Feelings is here.

ADDENDUM:

Dan of TDAXP has sharp commentary and additional links on this disgusting story of insider corruption.

Of course, we should not be surprised. Recall during the Anthrax terror attacks how Senators, staffers and connected Beltway bandits who were not exposed to Anthrax, hoarded Cipro for themselves while the postal workers who had been endangered by bioterrorism received nothing? The mail guys were only peons of course. Not like they went to Harvard Business School or Yale Law or anything….

UPDATE:

Fabius Maximus takes issue with how the media, and by extension, myself as well, have characterized this issue:

More media madness: rich fat bankers get flu vaccine while children die!

It is a good counterpoint and worth reading – though I still find the damage control effort of the public health official cited  by FM to not be terribly convincing, the program would at least seem to be legal. Whether scarce vaccines should be distributed this way is another issue.

Some politics of foreign policy and war… 

An implicit theme of the “no drama” Obama administration is “You can trust Democrats with National Security“.

Until, of course, there is a roll call. Funding the Obama administration’s strategic policies in Afghanistan and Iraq are going to have to pass with Republican and Blue Dog Democrat votes as the graying, liberal,  Boomer Democrats in Congress relive ( for the 1000th vote) the one time they waved an anti-war sign on the quad back in ’69 after toking up a doobie in the dorm hall, and vote in a bloc against the leader of their party. Good. I hope they make an enormous media production out of it featuring the most extreme crazies in their caucus making abrasive, tone-deaf, comments on national television.

In 2010, the GOP ( if they have any political sense – a long shot at this juncture) may be running campaign commercials on how their Republican members stood solidly with the president against al Qaida when their Democratic counterparts did not.