If Martians Landed On The Earth, Would Obama Given Them Human Rights?

Here's how a conversation might go between a columnist and the Obama campaign:

Q. I have a question about Obama's health care policies?

A. Did you review the materials on our website?

Q. Of course. But I was hoping for a few more specifics on when the candidate might impose a mandate....

But the act of picking up the phone and dialing a number? It's too much for our poor columnists and their overstressed dialing fingers? Which is why we get this type of stuff from Ruth Marcus:

To read Obama's exams is to get a glimpse of the supple intelligence he would bring to the presidency and to be impressed by his lawyerly capacity - perhaps even compulsion - to see the other side's argument and mine the weaknesses of his own case.

But it is also a reminder of Obama's essential elusiveness, and how little we understand about how the candidate himself would resolve these thorny problems....

Reading them buttressed my confidence in Obama's capacity to grasp the nuances of any question, no matter how complex. They also underscored my sense that, in the hardest cases, I'm not always sure where Professor Obama, or President Obama for that matter, comes down.

I dunno. Maybe it's just me, but if I were a Washington Post columnist and thought one of his exam questions was that pressing, I would call him up and ask him about it. Would that make for too short a column?

Anti-Obama Duplicity In The Washington Post

When I saw this unsigned editorial last night, my thoughts were, "It's no surprise that the author lacked the courage to attach his name to it," and "I'm tired, so I'll wait for others to reply to it." So far I've come across a post in Tapped taking on the Post's characterization of Obama's positions as "eccentric"

One wonders what word the Post will use to categorize McCain's policy when someone asks him whether he'll stick by his pledge to leave when Iraqi leaders request it. Peculiar?

and a TPM Election Central post taking on the Post's claim that Iraqi officials don't support Obama's plan. But I think a response should also be made to this claim:

Other Iraqi leaders were more directly critical. As Mr. Obama acknowledged, Sunni leaders in Anbar province told him that American troops are essential to maintaining the peace among Iraq's rival sects and said they were worried about a rapid drawdown.

Right now, the U.S. is maintaining the status quo in Iraq. The Sunni factions would like to regain control of the entire nation. They surely have some justifiable fear that if the U.S. pulls out, they might become subject to treatment similar to what they dished out to Shiite factions under G.H.W.B.'s watch after the first Iraq War, or given the short end of the stick on oil revenues. But the reality is, one of the reasons there is so little meaningful progress on political reconciliation is that right now the Sunni factions don't have to negotiate. They can stonewall, and fall back on U.S. protection. A drawdown, rapid or otherwise, could force them into a political compromise that gives them far less than what they want. But maintaining the status quo gets us no closer to any sort of compromise.

Also in the Post, Ruth Marcus lets us know that, in a military conflict and post-conflict occupation, the "reward of careful perseverance may become visible only in the long arc of history", something that of course can be said about any armed conflict. Unfortunately, it does not inexorably follow that continuing an occupation will inevitably make things better, nor does it inexorably follow that the costs (financial and otherwise) of continuing an occupation will outweigh the possible long-term benefits. (And we face those great unknowns even if we hand out lots and lots of candy to Iraqi children.)

Grasping A Bad Analogy

Ruth Marcus (sort of ) defends John Yoo, contending that his arguments in favor of torture and expansive executive power were amateurish and wrong, but that it would somehow be 'dangerous' if he were subjected to any professional consequence.

Yet the message sent to students by dumping Yoo would be even worse: that some opinions are too dangerous to express. Lawyers are used to staking a foothold on slippery slopes, but this one, with academic freedom at issue, is too treacherous to risk.

I would find that argument more compelling had Yoo made public pronouncements on torture. The controversy is over a confidential memo, something that the Bush Administration and probably Yoo himself would have preferred to have never entered the public realm. But on to the analogy:

The most useful analogy I've read on this subject comes from Princeton professor Deborah Pearlstein, who asked what Berkeley would do if a molecular biology professor "had written a medical opinion while in government employ disclaiming the truth of evolution," and continued to dispute the theory of evolution once he resumed teaching.

That's suggesting that Yoo's sole offense is bad scholarship. And you know what? I don't think that professors should be shielded from scrutiny, or from possible loss of position, if they engage in bad scholarship. Fundamentally, what good is a professor who is unable to grasp the subject matter of his supposed area of expertise? The better argument, attempted on the Volokh Conspiracy, is premised upon a defense of the scholarship.