Liberals seem to prefer giving through government

Because when it comes to charity, conservatives give a lot more.

Iraq tours shortened (back) to 12 months

National Public Radio is a great news source and they promise news with context.  So it was an extreme disappointment to hear them parrot the Bush Administration's horn toot that Iraq tours of duty will be reduced to (the original) 12 months.

See, in April 2007, the Bush Administration increased tours of duty from 12 to 15 months as part of the "surge."

Go ahead and let the President have a quote about "helping soldiers and their families," but for God's sake tell the truth, too.  This isn't some sort of special benefit or policy, it's restoring the tours of duty to the length that soldiers actually signed up for. 

Oh, and "it won't apply to troops now serving."

Liberal media, my ass.

Wellstone!

Four years ago, one of the greatest senators from the great state of Minnesota died in a plane crash just a week before his re-election. Often called the "conscience of the Senate," Paul Wellstone was a passionate believer in social justice, peace, and family values. His vote against the Iraq War resolution in the waning days of the campaign represented just one of his many stands on principle and one that would likely have led to his re-election.

If you're in the Twin Cities area, it's easily worth the cost of admission to see the Great American History Theatre's production Wellstone!, recalling the life of the much beloved senator from Minnesota. There are several times that actor Kris Nelson is so much in character that one can almost hope the Senator himself has returned. Viva Wellstone!

Conservative foreign policy has failed - so what does that leave us?

It's an interesting era in American foreign policy. Conservatives, long critical of liberal multilateralism, have finally had their time in the sun. Unfortunately, nobody was wearing sunscreen. The Iraq War has shown that unilateral nation building falls flat; Abu Ghraib has disgraced American principles of justice; and pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol has merely set us back years in tackling climate change. Perhaps it's unfair to mention that attempts to halt the nuclear amibitions of Iran and North Korea (remember them?) have gone nowhere.

But Peter Beinhart writes in the New York Times that "for all their practical failures, conservatives have at least told a coherent political story, with deep historical roots, about what keeps America safe and what makes it great."

Beinhart summarizes the conservative foreign policy as supreme confidence in American principles: "In a one-superpower world, [conservatives] argued, America no longer had to tailor its foreign policy to the wishes of others...[the] willingness to indulge governments that would not bend fully to American principles and American wishes was yet another sign that Americans did not truly believe in the righteousness of their cause."

Obviously, the belief that America can lead a benevolent empire has proven false, a promise fallen into the shadow of enormous hubris. But does America have an alternative vision?

Beinhart continues, "Liberals, by contrast, have offered adjectives drawn from focus groups and policy proposals linked by no larger theme...these disparate, worthy proposals are not grounded in an account of the world America faces, or the sources of American strength." In other words - no.

It wasn't always so. The post-World War II Marshall Plan was the pinnacle of liberal foreign policy, as was Cold War containment of Communists and the avoidance of nuclear war. So where are the liberals?