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I started reading It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, whom I’ve always liked. I’ll leave it up to your interpretation which candidate this year most resembles Berzelius Windrip.

Senator McCain should send a message that, if elected, he intends to keep Robert Gates as SecDef. The man “gets it” and there are too few like that.

UPDATE:

Favorable reaction to the Gates speech from John Robb, Charlie at Abu Muqawama, Dr. Chet Richards . Purpleslog wants deeds and not words.

My friend Bruce Kesler, who keeps a sharper eye on the fine details of American politics than I do, is dead square right in a recent post at Democracy Project that I reproduce here in full:

Hidden Foreign Contributions Affect US Elections

US election law forbids non-Americans to contribute directly to federal candidates, and qualified donations above $200 are available to public scrutiny. There is a huge loophole – or, more correctly, shroud – over contributions by foreigners to US non-profits, who heavily shape public discussion affecting our elections – and other policies. (There’s, also, some indication that the $200 cut-off for full disclosure of contributions to our campaigns may be another loophole being exploited by some foreigners.)

IRS Form 990 generally requires that non-profits list contributors and their addresses who give $5000 or more. However, non-profits are not required to publicly divulge who they are (with the exception of private foundations and 527’s).

Non-profits include 501(c)(4)’s, which are estimated to spend in 2008 well more than the $424-million that 527’s spent to influence the 2004 elections.

Another area of concern is donations made by foreigners to our universities. Although New York State requires that such contributions be revealed, there is no enforcement and filings are often not made.

In Britain, it is estimated, more funding comes from the MidEast for Islamic Studies departments than from the government.

Ministers labelled Islamic studies a “strategic subject” and said the “effective and accurate teaching” of it in universities could help community cohesion and counter extremism.

Similar concerns have been raised in the US about the influence of MidEast contributors on our universities’ curriculums, and the faculty who influence public discussion. See here and here, for examples.

Former presidents Carter and Clinton have received tens of millions in donations, and more, from foreign sources for their foundations, yet the public knows very little about from whom or how much. Meanwhile, Carter and Clinton take frequent public stands on public policy and candidates for office.

A draft has been released of a revised IRS Form 990. It increases exposure on governance issues, but retains the shroud over contributors to non-profits. At the very least, foreign contributors should be revealed publicly, at least for amounts over the $200 of election laws.

You can send your comments to the IRS during the comment period. It’s as simple as an email to Form990Revision@irs.gov

Bravo to Bruce for highlighting this important but generally unrecognized problem. 

One of the ironies of Beltway incumbent preferred campaign finance regulation like the odious McCain-Feingold law is that it manages to combine restrictions of the political activities and free speech rights of American citizens while granting opacity to wealthy foreigners who seek to influence political discourse here through generous donations to foundations, educational organizations, think tanks, universities, presidential libraries and other institutions that shape our intellectual life. It is completely understandable, given the potential impact of American policies on the rest of the world that other states and their sundry notables would seek to make their voice heard here. To a certain extent, when it’s above board public diplomacy and cultural exchanges, it’s even a good thing. What’s unacceptable is that foreign interests can often buy such influence – which is what they are really doing – under the radar or even behind the shield of legal secrecy. If some of our finest universities were people then they would have already had to register as foreign agents a long, long, loooooooong, time ago.

The same might be said of some former presidents. Or of presidential candidates.

The answer here is not to go on a fruitless legal jihad to ban foreign money, which at times does get turned toward humanitarian or genuinely educational purposes but to require radical transparency of our think tanks, universities, charities and other institutions enjoying tax deductible status but are dedicated to indirectly influencing the political process or policy formation. If an American institution or scholar wants to shill for the Wahabbi Lobby by working for a tank on the take from a senior Saudi prince, or accept grants from PLA-affiliated Chinese corporations, Japanese billionaires, mobbed-up  Russian “businessmen” or other foreign sources, fine, but a highly visible disclaimer to that fact ought to be mandatory. If Carnegie or AEI or Harvard departments are advising presidential candidates on Mideast policy then contributions emanating from that region are relevant to the discussion.

If accepting the check in public is cause for dismay then there’s a word for what’s really going on:

Graft.

I’m really surprised that I have not seen or read more about the fact that the major candidates for the presidency are all members of the world’s most exclusive club. Our last presidents to be elected directly from service in the United States Senate were Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Warren G. Harding. Neither man’s record as Chief Executive is likely to inspire confidence in the Senate as a training ground for future commanders-in-chief.

The Senate was intended by the Framers of the constitution to be the repository of the Republic’s wisdom – or at least it’s elder statesmen that the states saw fit to send to Washington. A saucer, to cool the hot-tempered passions that periodically engulf democracies until common sense and experience can prevail. Time has a different speed in the Senate chamber, one set to a more courtly age and the Senate has killed far more legislation by it’s tempo than by filibusters or votes.  Senators, by habit of legislative mind and capacious ego are institutional relics of the deference society that once prevailed in the colonial period and in the antebellum South. Accustomed to relative splendor and the exercise of authority without much in the way of responsibility, senators are better suited to be members of the British high aristocracy of the 18th century – say an Earl or Viscount – than a modern administrator or leader.

The managerial incapacity is amply demonstrated by the fact that senators, excepting the aforementioned JFK, invariably run poorly organized, gaffe-prone, presidential campaigns.  In the last half-century, we have seen John Kerry, Bob Dole, George McGovern and Barry Goldwater go down in electoral flames in the general election, two by epic landslides.  Senator Dole has the distinction of losing twice on the national ticket and two other occasions in the primaries, which may be some kind of record ( see Richard Ben Cramer’s fantastic What It Takes: The Way to the White House). In the same period, four Vice-Presidents who were former senators – Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Al Gore – also went down to defeat and the one who managed to win the presidency, Nixon, did so narrowly against Humphrey. Nixon’s campaign skills may have made the grade only through sheer practice, brutally hard work and the bizarre circumstances of a chaotic, three-way contest in 1968. 

In the current contest, Senator McCain prevailed, despite an uneven political record, over a wealthy empty suit and a goofily named hillbilly to claim the Republican nomination. Senator Clinton, once the presumed nominee, presided over a tone-deaf campaign marred by savage infighting and counterproductively grandstanding antics by former president Bill Clinton. Senator Obama coasted on charisma, eloquence, symbolism and the genius of David Axelrod until the Rev. Wright eruption sidetracked his escalating momentum. Obama will go into the general election facing far more intense media scrutiny, under the shadow of an unfolding Illinois scandal involving his former patron, political fixer Antonin “Tony” Rezko, which is likely to engulf other Democratic politicians here, notably Governor Rod Blagojevic.

Are any of these candidates ready for prime time ?

Kicking Russia out of the G-8 is simply, spectacularly, dumb. What genius gave him that advice?  A club of market democracies is great. Form one.  But this crackbrained nostalgia for the Evil Empire though, is the yearning of old men misremembering what they consider to have been the moral simplicities of their youth.

McCain needs to take a good, hard, look at his foreign policy team – the real team of day to day insiders –  while the Obama-Clinton slugfest allows him to fine-tune matters under the media radar. I have a hard time imagining that George Shultz and Henry Kissinger suggested that we kick the Russians in the nuts as an opening move of a McCain administration.

One war at a time John. One war at a time.