Interesting item that went by this week while I was too busy to blog about it:
An excellent, uncharacteristically long post over at Instapundit about the subprime mortgage crisis and, somewhat peripherally, Senator McCain’s recent comments on the matter. One especially interesting reader comment:
According to many in congress and social commentators, one of the main causes of the subprime mess was mortgage brokers doing loans for people that we knew could not repay the loan.
As a mortgage broker if I had a customer sitting in front of me who qualified for a loan (according to lender guidelines in place at the time), I was supposed to tell them that I was not going to do a loan for them because I don’t think they will make their payments? Can you imagine the uproar if lenders and brokers did that to customers? Especially if the customer happened to be a minority. It comes down to a case of brokers being damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Worth reading the whole thing for a variety of comparably interesting perspectives on what’s happening. And be sure not to miss this excellent 2006 SNL sketch guest-starring Steve Martin. I had never seen it before myself, but the radically “new” idea being pitched pretty well sums up what my approach to credit has been all my life: if you don’t have the money now, don’t buy it! I don’t know to what experiences I might owe my natural aversion to spending beyond my means, but it has certainly served me well. Buying a house, of course — especially in California — is one purchase for which the need to borrow money is nearly unavoidable, barring truly extraordinary business or investment talents. But even given that, one does have a choice about whether and under what conditions to proceed. A couple of years ago, the assortment of house prices and lending instrument terms being offered in the SF Bay Area entered the realm of the truly absurd. I’m certainly glad I exercised restraint and didn’t buy then.
As for McCain, I’m generally inclined to like the guy better than any of the presently available alternatives, but I didn’t much appreciate his comments about “greedy people on Wall Street”, which Glenn Reynolds followed up on here, here, and here. As James Taranto put it in the WSJ:
He seems to view the making of money — that is to say, the production of goods and services that people want, and the act of supplying them through voluntary exchange in a free market — as a less than honorable pursuit.
Certainly, I feel obliged to point out, this is not the point of view I would choose if I were assembling my idea of an ideal candidate from scratch. But I’m a practical man, and politics is rightly enough the art of the possible, not the ideal. I’m still sad about Fred Thompson having withdrawn his candidacy, as are others, but even as my first choice he wasn’t someone with whom I agreed on all issues. If anything, I appreciated his straightforward honesty about his convictions, whether I agreed with him on a particular philosophical point or not. Much preferable to crowd-pleasing evasion and fungible, poll-driven responses-du-jour in my book.
In any case, Fred’s bowed out of the race, and all the write-in votes the country has to offer seem unlikely to change that. So for now at least, I’m with McCain. I’m no big fan of McCain-Feingold, or of his recent, left-echoing “econo-baiting”, but he’s got it right on the one issue that overrides all others for me: seeing things through to a tenable conclusion in Iraq, and showing the Jihadists who mean with demonstrated determination to bring harm to the United States and the West at large that we will not back down.
Update 2/3: If he doesn’t win re-election to the Czech presidency on February 8th, can we draft Václav Klaus?
It hasn’t been my intent for Fearless Dream to become a “link blog” or sort of “backup RSS feed” for Eject! Eject! Eject!, and it’s high on my freshly minted, unabashedly optimistic 2008 To Do list to put some serious time into writing about the ideas that I’ve been continuing to turn over in my mind and gather in note files and on bits of paper. But I can’t resist the compulsion to point out, even if for the third time in a row, that Bill Whittle has come through yet again with another characteristically excellent, must-read, on-point essay: “Forty Second Boyd and the Big Picture”.*
Find a comfortable chair, as this one’s a two-parter, but rest assured that the destination is well worth the journey. By part 2 I was, as I’ve certainly found myself before on many occasions with Bill’s incomparable writing, on the edge of my proverbial seat, my heart aglow.
By all means, ignore the following and go directly to Bill’s site to read the whole thing… But I can’t resist quoting for well-deserved emphasis one of the many gems of expression contained in Bill’s essay. It’s vital that we think about these points until they really sink in, because we owe it to our fighting men and women and to the people of Iraq not to give up.
I think the Surge has had spectacular success not because of the additional troops so much as for the fact that when the media and the Democrats demanded we cut and run… we did not cut and run. We doubled down. When the calls for defeat and dishonor were at their loudest – sad to say a not unwarranted street rep we had made for ourselves – somehow, somehow we simply just hung on and gave them not a retreat but a charge.
Jesus Christ, but that must have gotten someone’s attention. Yes, the Surge is working. But I believe it is not a surge of boots that is doing the work so much as it is a surge of hope.
And hope… well, hope is a dangerous thing. For every day that Iraq returns not only to normal but to free normal is a day remembered. It is a day to which other, darker days may be compared.
Every day of success, every newly opened shop, every school and soccer game free of secret police and each and every night devoid of the terror of arbitrary arrest and execution is something to lose. It is something the murdering bastards of al Qaeda cannot give but can only take away. We have taken their sword from them. They wield it now only against themselves. They will do it, too: more pain and more death are coming, for that is all they know how to do. But hope walks the streets of Baghdad now, hope in the form of decent and brave young men and women who have held a line against all odds and perhaps bought with their courage and their blood the time we need for that hope to spread.
I certainly share Bill’s admiration and appreciation for our deeply heroic and courageous men and women in uniform, who are daily putting their lives on the line for worthy ideals that are well worth fighting for, as well as for the superb reporting work that independent journalists such as Michael Totten and Michael Yon have done, telling both our soldiers’ stories and the stories of the Iraqi people as they persevere in a shared struggle to build a stable free society and a future worth having. It has become my chief regret in life that I have not served my country in the armed forces. I heard the call when war came to New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on the calm, still morning of 9/11, and after much soul-searching came to believe (quite possibly with an unmerited sense of self-importance, and/or as a rationalization for simple lack of courage) that there was some other way I would be able to help more effectively, by putting my best effort forth in the crucial battle for hearts and minds. I have thus far done but a shamefully infinitesimal fraction of what I set out to do, of what I feel duty-bound to do, in that regard. But this is a new year, a gift of time, and with it another chance to summon my best effort, to begin to repay to whatever extent possible the profound debt I owe to those who have made my life possible, to the country and culture of liberty that I hold dear.
* Links updated 2009-10-29
Independent journalist Michael Totten posted another of his exemplary reports from Iraq a few days ago, on the state of things in Ramadi in particular and Anbar province in general — well worth reading in its entirety to get a more detailed insight into the situation there than most of the news outlets provide.
Sadly, we just today lost Sahawa al Anbar leader Sheikh Sattar, who, as Michael described in his most recent dispatch, has been a key figure in helping to drive al Qaeda fighters out of Anbar and pacify the region:
Nineteen Arab tribes led by sheikhs live in Anbar Province. In June of 2006, nine of those tribal sheikhs cooperated with the Americans, three were neutral, and seven were hostile.
In October of last year the tribal leaders in the province, including some who previously were against the Americans, formed a movement to reject the savagery Al Qaeda had brought to their region. Some of them were supremely unhappy with the American presence since fighting exploded in the province’s second largest city of Fallujah, but Al Qaeda proved to be even more sinister from their point of view. Al Qaeda did not come as advertised. They were militarily incapable of expelling the American Army and Marines. And they were worse oppressors than even Saddam Hussein. The leaders of Anbar Province saw little choice but to openly declare them enemies and do whatever it took to expunge them. They called their new movement Sahawa al Anbar, or the Anbar Awakening.
Sheikh Sattar is its leader. Al Qaeda murdered his father and three of his brothers and he was not going to put up with them any longer. None of the sheikhs were willing to put up with them any longer. By April of 2007, every single tribal leader in all of Anbar was cooperating with the Americans.
The remaining Sahawa al Anbar leadership vows to fight on, as well they should, but this is certainly a tragic loss of a man who was making a positive difference in Anbar.
I’ll be at work today, but will try to follow events in the blogosphere and post links here when I can.
Looking back on my 2006 and 2005 memorial posts, I’m struck by how little seems to have changed in my perception of our general mood, the challenges we face, and the shape we’re in. I hold out hope that things will improve (what can I say, I’m an optimist), but I regret to say it doesn’t seem likely that the situation will change anytime soon.
September 11, 2001 – We must not forget.
Via Instapundit, Jonah Goldberg on 9/11, Six Years Later:
If I had said in late 2001, with bodies still being pulled from the wreckage, anthrax flying through the mail, pandemonium reigning at the airports, and bombs falling on Kabul, that by ‘07 leading Democrats would be ridiculing the idea of the war on terror as a bumper sticker, I’d have been thought mad. If I’d predicted that a third of Democrats would be telling pollsters that Bush knew in advance about 9/11, and that the eleventh of September would become an innocuous date for parental get-togethers to talk about potty-training strategies and phonics for preschoolers, people would have thought I was crazy.
…
But it’s important to remember that from the outset, the media took it as their sworn duty to keep Americans from getting too riled up about 9/11. I wrote a column about it back in March of 2002. Back then the news networks especially saw it as imperative that we not let our outrage get out of hand. I can understand the sentiment, but it’s worth noting that such sentiments vanished entirely during hurricane Katrina. After 9/11, the press withheld objectively accurate and factual images from the public, lest the rubes get too riled up. After Katrina, the press endlessly recycled inaccurate and exaggerated information in order to keep everyone upset. The difference speaks volumes.
…
There are plenty of arguments one can have about the Iraq war and the uses and abuses of 9/11, but I think what a lot of people fail to realize is that the disagreements over the Iraq war are expressions of divisions that long predate it. The culture war, red vs. blue America, Bush hatred, Clinton hatred, and radical anti-Americanism poisoning much of the campus Left: All of these things were tangible landmarks on the political landscape long before the invasion of Iraq.
It has certainly seemed that way to me.
Also, David Rusin at Pajamas Media asserts that we should not only remember 9/11, but remain [constructively] angry about the events of that day and their aftermath.
Victor Davis Hanson:
It’s been nearly six long years since a catastrophic attack on our shores, and we’ve understandably turned to infighting and second-guessing — about everything from Guantanamo to wiretaps.
But this six-year calm, unfortunately, has allowed some Americans to believe that “our war on terror” remedy is worse than the original Islamic terrorist disease.
We see this self-recrimination reflected in our current Hollywood fare, which dwells on the evil of American interventions overseas, largely ignoring the courage of our soldiers or the atrocities committed by jihadists. Our tell-all bestsellers, endless lawsuits and congressional investigations have deflected our 9/11-era furor away from the terrorists to ourselves.
Reflections on the anniversary at neo-neocon:
I was hardly alone in thinking that some sort of permanent change towards greater unity had occurred. Everyone, Republican and Democrat, seemed somber and serious, interested in fighting this evil that had existed for many years but seemed newly competent in its ability to inflict harm, and far more viciously hate-filled than had ever before been appreciated.
Gerard Vanderleun—writing shortly after the shattering and powerful experience of watching the towers fall from a close vantage point as he stood amidst the crowd that had gathered on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade—expected change as well, that Americans would be filled hereafter with “a terrible resolve” and a unity of purpose, as in WWII. And this thought was shared by many, including me.
Perhaps, as Norman Podhoretz writes in this new piece on the sixth 9/11 anniversary, it might finally be the end of widespread America-hating on the Left, and the defeat of the “Vietnam syndrome.” He himself hoped for it. But he also knew the Left very well, far better than I:
On the one hand, those who thought that we had brought 9/11 down on ourselves and had it coming were in a very tiny minority–even tinier than the antiwar movement of the early ’60s. On the other hand, they were much stronger at a comparably early stage of the game than their counterparts of the ’60s (who in some cases were their own younger selves). The reason was that, as the Vietnam War ground inconclusively on, the institutions that shape our culture were one by one and bit by bit converting to the “faith in America the ugly.” By now, indeed, in the world of the arts, in the universities, in the major media of news and entertainment, and even in some of the mainstream churches, that faith had become the regnant orthodoxy.
But even Podhoretz didn’t foresee how quickly they would regroup, how strong they would get, and how closely they’d follow the Vietnam template of the 70s. In fact, the only thing that seems to have prevented a repeat of those years (at least, so far) is the fact that the antiwar group lacks enough votes in Congress to override a Presidential veto.
A stirring remembrance at Cox and Forkum
9/11 memorial video [alternate link]
Remember. Always.
Omar and Mohammed have aggregated election reports over at their weblog, Iraq the Model (many pictures included).
Starting from 7 am all the polling centers in Babylon opened their doors to receive the voters, the turnout was light in the first three hours but it increased after that in a good way.
The first voter was a disabled man, Jasim Hameed (65) he attended at 6:30 am and insisted on being the first one to vote.
When he put the paper in the box said “I’m here at this early hour to challenge the terrorists who want to kill the democratic process in Iraq and I want to encourage the healthy people to vote.”
Some would say I’m overly optimistic. I’d say I’m in good company.
UPDATE: Mohammed has added a post-election follow-up that includes some reflections sent in by a friend of his:
From 59 to 64 to 70%…in one year our people have proven that the future belongs to them and not those whose claws scarred Iraq’s neck.
A few bombs and some bullets, that’s all what the terrorists could do to interrupt the carnival in Baghdad. The people heard the explosions but those weren’t loud enough to distract the marching hearts from their destination. I saw our policemen yesterday showing their hearts too when they refused to wear their armors, maybe because they didn’t want to let anything stand between our hearts from theirs.
…
It was a day of happiness for Iraqis and a day of loss for the strangers who thought their camels brought them to a land void of patriots.
It is a day we will await to come again for four long years…to do the right thing again or to correct the mistake if we did one yesterday.
Anyway, I believe we left a mark on the face of history, a purple mark that will not be forgotten easily.
God bless Iraq and Iraq’s friends throughout this world. It wasn’t our day alone; it was your day too.
