Pistorious Gets to Run

It looks like the double amputee sprinter may get a chance to run in the Olympics after all:

LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius won his appeal Friday and can compete for a place in the Beijing Olympics.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the 21-year-old South African is eligible to race against able-bodied athletes, overturning a ban imposed by the International Association of Athletics Federations.

CAS said the unanimous ruling goes into effect immediately.

“I am ecstatic,” Pistorius told reporters in Milan, Italy. “When I found out, I cried. It is a battle that has been going on for far too long. It’s a great day for sport. I think this day is going to go down in history for the equality of disabled people.”

Despite the ruling he still has an uphill climb. He’s been focusing heavily on his appeal and hasn’t been training as much:

“A lot of the time we’ve had this year we’ve devoted to the court case,” Pistorius said. “Now when I get home, my time can be dedicated to training. I am going to have to start thinking about getting my body in shape in order to run those [qualifying] times. I am hopeful there will be enough time but it is going to be very difficult.

His other chance would be to make the South African relay team, which wouldn’t require him to run the Olympic qualifying time, which he hasn’t gotten yet.

This is great news. Pistorious is an inspiration to people all over the world and the IAAF’s contention that the blades he uses to run are somehow an advantage, despite the fact that he has no legs below the knee, defied logic. I’ll be glad to see Pistorious get a chance to run for the Olympics.

This E:60 feature on Pistorious is about the best overview of his situation I have seen.

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George Bush’s Gift to Obama

Obama, responding to Bush’s appeasement shot:

Well I want to be perfectly clear with George Bush and John McCain – if they want a debate about protecting the United States of America, that’s a debate I’m ready to win, because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for.

“…in the Bush-McCain worldview, everyone who disagrees with their failed Iran policy is an appeaser. And back during his “No Surrender” tour, John McCain said anyone who wants to end the war in Iraq responsibly wants to surrender; he even said later on that he would be ok keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years, but yesterday he said our troops could be home by 2013. He offered the promise that America will win a victory, with no understanding that Iraq is fighting a civil war. Just like George Bush, his plan isn’t about winning, it’s about staying, and that’s why there will be a clear choice in November: fighting a war without end, or ending this war. Because we don’t need John McCain’s prediction about when the war will end – we need a plan to end it.

McCain’s support of Bush’s comments tie him irrevocably to Bush. By condoning Bush’s attack McCain looks like just another acolyte of Bush’s foreign policy ideas. If that is what the general election ends up looking liker, there is no way he will lose.

Hypocrisy on Hamas

Today, after George Bush’s cheap shot at Barack Obama while speaking before the Israeli Knesset John McCain said:

All I can say is: If Senator Obama wants to sit down across the table from the leader of a country that calls Israel a stinking corpse, and comes to New York and says they’re gonna, quote, “wipe Israel off the map,” what is it that he wants to talk about? What is it that he wants to talk about with him?

And the belief that somehow communications and positions and willingness to sit down and have serious negotiations need to be done in a face to face fashion as Senator Obama wants to do, which then enhances the prestige of a nation that’s a sponsor of terrorists and is directly responsible for the deaths of brave young Americans, I think is an unacceptable position, and shows that Senator Obama does not have the knowledge, the experience, the background to make the kind of judgments that are necessary to preserve this nation’s security.

However,

Two years ago, just after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections, I interviewed McCain for the British network Sky News’s “World News Tonight” program. Here is the crucial part of our exchange:

I asked: “Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?”

McCain answered: “They’re the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it’s a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.”

Certainly doesn’t look good for John McCain.

What did Neville Chamberlain Do Wrong?

What an idiot. He’s got nothing beyond screaming appeasement 500 times. Pathetic.

Backlash?

John McCain, in the New York Times Magazine article on his foreign policy evolution:

McCain is known for being a gut thinker, averse to overarching doctrines or theory. But as we talked, I tried to draw out of him some template for knowing when military intervention made sense — an answer, essentially, to the question that has plagued policy makers confronting international crises for the last 20 years. McCain has said that the invasion of Iraq was justified, even absent the weapons of mass destruction he believed were there, because of Hussein’s affront to basic human values. Why then, I asked McCain, shouldn’t we go into Zimbabwe, where, according to that morning’s paper, allies of the despotic president, Robert Mugabe, were rounding up his political opponents and preparing to subvert the results of the country’s recent national election? How about sending soldiers into Myanmar, formerly Burma, where Aung San Suu Kyi remained under house arrest by a military junta?

“I think in the case of Zimbabwe, it’s because of our history in Africa,” McCain said thoughtfully. “Not so much the United States but the Europeans, the colonialist history in Africa. The government of South Africa has obviously not been effective, to say the least, in trying to affect the situation in Zimbabwe, and one reason is that they don’t want to be tarred with the brush of modern colonialism. So that’s a problem I think we will continue to have on the continent of Africa. If you send in Western military forces, then you risk the backlash from the people, from the legacy that was left in Africa because of the era of colonialism.”

The United States faced a similar obstacle in Myanmar, McCain went on, shaking his head sadly. “First of all, you’d have to gauge the opinion of the people over time, whether you’d be greeted as liberators or as occupiers,” McCain said. “I would be concerned about the possibility that if it were mishandled, we might see an insurgent movement.” He talked a bit about Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he called “one of the great figures of the 20th century,” but then wondered aloud if the American public would support a military intervention.

Really? I know that colonialism in Africa has long gotten more attention than colonialism elsewhere, but does John McCain really not know about the impact of colonialism on other regions of the world, including the Middle East? Does McCain not realize that the current Middle Eastern borders were drawn by the British and the French after World War I? That our actions in Iraq have been “tarred with the brush of modern colonialism” by al-Qaeda and our other enemies in the region? That Burma itself was a part of the British Empire until 1948?

I largely agree with this by Matt Yglesias.

Actually, though, I think McCain’s not alone here. Very few Americans (even American elites) seem to recognize that most of the “pro-American” regimes in the region — all the monarchies, basically — just are colonial regimes set up by the British imperial authorities. Eventually, the United States took over from Britain as the foreign underwriter of those regimes. But to understand U.S. policy in the region and how the U.S. is viewed, you need to understand that Jordan and the G.C.C. aren’t just autocracies, they’re autocratic creations of the British Empire and CENTCOM is seen as the successor to the Colonial Office. Meanwhile, the “anti-American” or “radical” regimes in Syria, Iran, and (formerly) Iraq all have their origins in rebellions against colonial regimes. The Egyptian regime shared those anti-imperialist origins, but eventually switched sides and joined Team America.

President’s Question Time?

John McCain:

I will ask Congress to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the Prime Minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of Commons.

Well that’s an interesting idea. It would definitely help McCain live up to his pledge that his “administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability.”

On the one hand, direct questioning from members of Congress would definitely make the President more accessible and subject him to tougher scrutiny than ever before. On the other hand, questioning by Congress would more often than not degenerate into a way to score cheap political points and wouldn’t be terribly illuminating. In any event, it would make for great political spectacle.

Lying to the American People

Perhaps because he’s realized that Iraq is a terrible drag on his chances to be elected president, John McCain is now pledging to end the war in Iraq in his first term.

“By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom,’’ Mr. McCain said at the Columbus Convention Center. “The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced.’’

This simply isn’t possible. McCain is positing a world where in less than 4 years Iraqis have stopped wanting to kill one another. A world where Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds have settled long-standing political and ethnic disagreements and come together to form a “functioning democracy.” A world where Iraqis have decided they are no longer perturbed by the presence of American troops in their country.

The world John McCain is imagining simply isn’t going to happen. Creating a stable, functioning democracy will take decades. Political reconciliation will take decades. McCain’s vision of ending the war in 4 years is fantasy.

Virgil Goode Just Can’t Stop

Virgil Goode really is having a tough time recently. The other day he went on a bizarre rant against Muslims. Now, I see that he’s signed on to a bill that would outlaw in vitro fertilization.

H.R. 4157, which Representative Broun refers to as the Sanctity of Human Life Act, might more accurately be entitled the Zygote Political Enfranchisement Act or the Anti-Fertility Act. The legislation has been written by Congressman Broun in order to define a human egg created in the United States from the moment of fertilization, through its development into a fetus ready to be born, as a complete person with full legal rights and constitutional protections equal to that of any other American citizen.

Under Broun’s proposed law, this award of full legal protections to all fertilized eggs, even one created just one minute ago, would be given regardless of the ability of the fertilized egg to implant in a womb and grow to become a baby. H.R. 4157 states this very directly:

“the life of each human being begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, irrespective of sex, health, function or disability, defect, stage of biological development, or condition of dependency, at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.”

A fertilized egg must be given all the legal protections of a person, irrespective of health, function or disability? That means that even if a fertilized egg or blastula (a tiny hollow ball of human cells post-fertilization) is somehow determined to have a terrible genetic disease, it would nonetheless have to be given full medical treatment in order to make sure that it survived to be born. If that treatment was not given, its parents could be criminally charged with child abuse or neglect.

Think about in vitro fertilization, and you’ll see how absurd this new law would be. The way that in vitro fertilization works is that many eggs are fertilized, and then sorted, so that healthy fertilized eggs are separated from the unhealthy ones. Under Paul Broun’s law, the unhealthy fertilized eggs would have to be implanted in a woman’s womb, just like the unhealthy ones. Remember that the law says that “health” and “function” are irrelevant. So, even “fertilized” eggs in which the nucleus of the sperm and egg somehow failed to unite to create a genetically coherent union would have to be implanted in a woman’s womb as if they were viable.

This is what Virgil Goode is offering? This is just a crazy as Bob Marshall’s plan a couple of years back to bar unmarried women from having in vitro fertilization treatments. It really is a miracle a guy this crazy could not only get elected to Congress, but continually get reelected.

Hat Tip: Democratic Central

Virginia’s Transportation Problem

Virginia has a transportation problem. Traffic is badly clogged in both Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads and the primary funding mechanism in Virginia’s 2007 Transportation Bill was largely struck down by the Virginia Supreme Court in March. That was after the other funding mechanism in the bill, the abusive driver fees, had to be repealed because of voter backlash. Virginians have been complaining about transportation for years now and the General Assembly has completely failed to deal with the issue. As of now, not only does Virginia lack adequate capacity on its roadways, but it is facing a shortfall in funds for road maintenance.

But Virginia’s General Assembly is getting another chance to get transportation right. Governor Kaine has called for a June Special Session of the Assembly to deal with transportation. Everyone more or less agrees agrees what needs to be done. As a coalition of Virginia business groups said,

“We believe the Commonwealth’s transportation infrastructure is a critical component of its economic success and the quality of life of all Virginians. Additional investments of at least $1 billion annually must be made to sustain maintenance and construction costs,” the letter said. “The most appropriate solution is a package of revenue generators that are simple, sustainable, and sufficient and accrue from broad-based revenue options.”

The only question is how to raise the $1 billion a year Virginia needs.  Governor Kaine just proposed his plan to raised the needed money. He wants to increase the sales tax by 1 percent in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, raise the grantor’s tax, a tax on home sellers, from 10 cents per $100 of assessed value to 35 cents, increase the sales tax on cars by 1 percent and increase the annual car registration fee by $10.

So what is the Virginia GOP’s response? According to the Washington Post:

Del. David B. Albo, a Fairfax Republican involved in transportation negotiations, said Kaine’s plan had a “0.000 percent chance” of winning approval.

Many see Kaine’s tax proposal as a way of reaching out to Republicans in the House of Delegates. According to Jim Bacon, a conservative Virginia policy blogger,

Kaine appeared to adopt key elements of the plan — a motor vehicle sales tax, a vehicle registration fee and a grantor’s tax — because House Republicans embraced them last year when they crafted HB 3202, although not in precisely the same configuration. In his naivite, the governor no doubt assumed that if GOP legislators liked those levies last year, they would be OK with them this year. So, how did those charges become so unpalatable all of a sudden? It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that they are just opposed to anything that Kaine might propose?

Republicans aren’t the only ones who are down on Kaine’s plan. Liberals like Raising Kaine and Not Larry Sabato have blasted the plan, arguing that the sales tax increase is overly regressive and will hurt the working poor.

I largely agree that the sales tax isn’t the way to go. To begin with, it’s regressive. Sales taxes hit the poor the hardest and increase their tax burden as a proportion of their income the most.

Secondly, it has absolutely no connection to the people who will use the roads that are built with it. It will tax everyone at the same rate regardless of how much they use the roads or what choices they make. Jim Bacon is right in that “This highway funding mechanism will do nothing — repeat N-O-T-H-I-N-G — to encourage drivers to seek alternate modes of transportation or otherwise change the behavior that has created this crisis in the first place.”

Thirdly, the sales tax is only increased in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. Now, I know there is a somewhat compelling argument to be made that since NoVa and Hampton Roads are the localities that need transportation improvements the most they should pay for it. It’s a logic that is probably very persuasive to Delegates from the rest of Virginia. But that logic is wrong. Every year, NoVa and Hampton Roads pay far more into state coffers than they get back. Taxpayers in these two regions have subsidized the rest of the state for decades. It is time they finally got some help back from the rest of the state to pay for transportation improvements that will improve the economic climate in NoVa and Hampton Roads, which will in turn increase the amount of tax money they send down to Richmond to subsidize the rest of the state. It’s an everybody wins scenario.

Lastly, its already been rejected. In 2002 Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads had the opportunity to pass a referendum which would have increased their regional sales tax. The referendum failed miserably. Now Kaine is trying to bring back a solution that citizens rejected directly and put it through the General Assembly.

A gas tax increase would be a far better solution. As Lowell at Raising Kaine wrote:

Virginia’s gas tax is among the lowest in the nation and hasn’t been raised since 1986, which  means that inflation has seriously eroded its value.

Currently, the Virginia gas tax constitutes only about 5% of the total price at the pump, and that percentage is declining all the time.  Looked at the other way around, every 1-cent-per-gallon increase in the gas tax raises about $65 million per year. This means that to raise $860 million per year, the gas tax would have to be raised about 14 cents per gallon. This may sound like a lot, but to put it in perspective, the overall price of gasoline has risen more than $2.20 per gallon since May 2002 — about 16 times the 14 cents per gallon mentioned above.

A gas tax benefit would have other benefits too. It would reduce the demand for fuel slightly, thereby helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It would be paid directly by the people using the roads, making heavier users pay more and allowing people to save on the taxes my making different choice in how they get around. Senate Democrats are on board for a gas tax hike. They passed one last session and are willing to do it again. However, its the no tax GOP who is unwilling to even consider a gas tax hike.

One final criticism. Kaine’s plan doesn’t envision any way to prioritize what projects get funding, beyond repairs to existing roads come first. To quote Bacon yet again,

No objective methodology for setting priorities. Nothing in this bill requires the commonwealth to establish an objective methodology for prioritizing projects based on their effectiveness at mitigating traffic congestion. There is nothing to prevent the usual suspects with the most to gain from boring into the political system like beetles into tree bark, canoodling administrators, making donations to elected officials, attending obscure public hearings, and bird dogging projects through the bureaucratic maze.

There is at lest one real positive in the Kaine plan. The grantor’s tax increase would be dedicated to a Transportation Change Fund, which would “increase investment in transit, rail, and innovative solutions to reduce traffic congestion like teleworking and ridesharing.” That is a major improvement over the way things are done. That would put about $155 million annually into mass transit, which would help create alternatives to driving for Virginians.

Kaine is at least trying here. He’s been willing to anger his political base, including the blog that was created to elect him, in order to propose a plan he had reason to think would be palatable to GOP lawmakers. But the House Republicans are saying “no” once again. It is pretty sad to see. Kaine was elected on an unambiguous platform of transportation reform. He’s now in his third year as governor and has yet to get a long-term, workable plan passed. Every time he has tried he has run into the roadblock of House Republicans. Even when the State Senate was in Republican hands Kaine was able to work with them and come to agreements. Yet the only thing House Republicans have proposed thus far is what turned into the awful 2007 transportation compromise that has already been almost entirely struck down or repealed. And Republicans wonder why there are only a handful of them left in Northern Virginia.

I’ll leave the end of this post to Jim Bacon. Virginians should take Kaine’s imperfect plan as a jumping off point. He has moved the ball forward at least somewhat on transportation and hopefully it won’t all come to naught again. Bacon addresses his list to “no tax” Republicans. But it really goes for everyone. Here’s what we need.

(1) Create a mechanism for actually raising money. We can’t build a transportation system for the 21st century with fiscal tricks and legerdemain.

(2) Be sustainable over time, and they need to be structured so that legislators can’t lay their hands on the tax money for other purposes.

(3) Display a direct and transparent nexus between who pays and who benefits from transportation projects.

(4) Address the “demand” side of the transportation equation, in other words, incentivize people to seek alternative means of mobility and access.

(5) Incentivize citizens and developers to adopt more transportation-efficient human settlement patterns.

Why be Upset about This?

So, Conservatives are in a huff about the Bush administrations new guidelines to avoid legitimizing terrorists.

Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, are telling their people not to describe Islamic extremists as “jihadists” or “mujahedeen,” according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. Lingo like “Islamo-fascism” is out, too.

The reason: Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates.

For example, while Americans may understand “jihad” to mean “holy war,” it is in fact a broader Islamic concept of the struggle to do good, says the guidance prepared for diplomats and other officials tasked with explaining the war on terror to the public. Similarly, “mujahedeen,” which means those engaged in jihad, must be seen in its broader context.

U.S. officials may be “unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims,” says a Homeland Security report. It’s entitled “Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims.”

It’s been clear to smart people for a long time that using inappropriate language to describe the “Global War on Terror” can actually be counterproductive in fighting al-Qaeda. Richard Clarke was one of the first to make this argument publicly when he slammed President Clinton for legitimizing bin Laden by publicly talking about him. Now the Bush administration seems to have finally gotten that calling terrorists “jidadis,” or “mujahedeen” can legitimize them, whereas calling them Islamo-fascists can not only offend Muslims but can give them credibility by portraying them as American enemies on par with Nazi Germany and Japan in World War II. The administration’s take away seems pretty accurate:

“We must carefully avoid giving bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders the legitimacy they crave, but do not possess, by characterizing them as religious figures, or in terms that may make them seem to be noble in the eyes of some,” [the Homeland Security report] said.

But as much this rebranding makes sense, some Republicans aren’t happy about it. Like Rick Santorum:

It’s official: We’re fighting . . . terrorists.

You can also call them violent extremists if you like, but never use jihadist or mujahedeen or Islamo-fascist to describe our enemy. These words are deemed pejorative and offensive, according to a recent Bush administration memorandum to federal employees whose jobs involve explaining our ongoing war to the public.

I didn’t get the memo, but the headline on the Associated Press story caught my eye. Two years ago at the National Press Club I challenged the president to go on a communications offensive here at home to redefine the war. I argued that using the politically correct expression war on terror was not only objectively false, but also dangerously misleading.

“We are not fighting a war on terror,” I said then, “any more than we fought a war on blitzkrieg in World War II.”

Blitzkrieg, of course, was a tactic. So is terrorism. In World War II, we fought against German Nazism, Japanese Imperialism and Italian Fascism - militarist, totalitarian ideologies that governed these societies and motivated believers elsewhere to rally and spread these movements across the globe. Terrorism isn’t a governing philosophy or organizing principle. It is simply a means to achieve an ideological end, in this case the spread of radical Islam.

I am sure Franklin Roosevelt’s candid portrayal of our World War II enemies offended many Germans, Italians and Japanese. But did this motivate our own recent immigrants from enemy countries to oppose America and the war? A few perhaps, but thousands of these patriots who came here for liberty joined our armed forces or the effort on the home front and defended it. My father, an 18-year-old Italian immigrant when the war broke out, was one of them.

But isn’t it accurate to say we are at war with terrorists? Yes, but misleading. We are not at war with Colombia’s FARC, Rwanda’s FDLR rebels, or Spain’s Basque separatists. We are at war only with terrorists motivated by Islam who view themselves as true followers, as self-described holy warriors.

But he’s not done there. Not content to rail against guidelines aimed keeping us from offending Muslims and giving al-Qaeda credibility, Santorum decides to insult some Muslims.

Our government in this memo is teaching us a politically correct version of the truth. For example, it tells us that democracy and Islam are compatible. But Islam is less compatible with democracy than is Christianity. Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” There was from the beginning a recognition of two realms - the sacred and the secular. From Islam’s inception there has been one realm. Islamic law (sharia) is the law of the government.

Santorum isn’t the only one. Rep. Pete Hoekstra actually introduced legislation to ban the new guidelines.

His amendment aimed to end what he called ‘McCarthyism in reverse” and “speech codes that encumber accurately describing the radical jihadist terrorists that attacked America.”

Santorum says that we need to fight an ideological struggle.

This conflict, like all great conflicts, is not just a military struggle. It’s an ideological struggle, as well. It must be fought in the hearts and minds of people at home and abroad. How can we win a battle of ideas if we don’t have the will to set forth what the enemy truly believes? How can we convince Americans it’s worth the long and great sacrifice to defend ourselves against this grave threat if we worry more about our image abroad than relating the real story at home?

Santorum’s problem is that he thinks that Muslims hate us because we are a democracy. He refuses to even consider the possibility that al-Qaeda has any other reasons for disliking the United States. He talks about educating Americans about “the ideology and motivation of the enemy.”

Yet he has no understanding of it himself. If he knew what he was talking about he’d know that al-Qaeda’s focus on the United States dates only from the mid-90s when bin Laden’s Afghan Arab organization of Soviet War veterans with Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Egyptian organization what was forged in the run-up to and aftermath of the assassination of Anwar Sadat. Zawahiri’s organization had traditionally focused on overthrowing what they considered the illegitimate Egyptian government.They shifted their focus to America because they argue that they have no chance of defeating their “near enemy,” the Egyptian regime or any other the other Middle Eastern regimes they consider illegitimate, when those regimes were propped up by the “far enemy,” the United States.

Instead he blathers on about Islam being incompatible with democracy. He doesn’t realize that the term Islamo-Fascism can insult all adherents of Islam. He doesn’t understand that calling al-Qaeda the mujahedeen and jihadists gives them credibility among the general population that can increase their recruiting. But then again, Santorum thought Iraq would be a good way to fight the war on terror. So perhaps, we shouldn’t be surprised that he’s this dumb.