Well, since she’s resigning as governor of Alaska, perhaps she could relocate to South Carolina and contest the 2010 race? After the Vanity Fair hit-piece and the interview with Runner’s World I wouldn’t have expected her to withdraw from the fight to establish herself as a public figure. Nevertheless, in the wake of the whole Mark Sanford fiasco I think many people are going to be a lot more cautious about giving pols a benefit of the doubt when it comes to erratic or confusing behavior. I’m sure there’s more to come….

The recent crises in Iran and Honduras have produced plenty of rhetoric in Washington, very little of it constructive or relevant to actual US interests. Official statements do remind us of the vision of history held by the governing classes and diffused among the population at large.

Commenting on the post-election riots in Iran last week, Sen. John McCain said that the US must be on “the right side of history” in doing something (what, exactly?) for “human rights and values”. McCain mentioned the Prague Spring and the Greek War of Independence as precedents justifying his demand for a more confrontational line.

Meanwhile, in response to the Honduran army’s removal of that country’s leader Manuel Zelaya, President Obama was quick to warn,

“We do not want to go back to a dark past…We always want to stand with democracy.”

In the worldview of people from Obama to McCain, history is a glorious march forward, a progressive arc into the radiant future demanded by reason and built by individuals like protestors and human rights activists (according to left-liberals) or corporate titans, consumers and the men and women of the US armed forces (according to right-liberals). The dark ages have ways of reappearing in other countries to temporarily impede the forces of progress, but the dialectic must inexorably advance, whether by trade talks and dialogue, or sanctions and bombardment. It’s just a matter of time, you see, before they’ll be drinking Pepsi and enjoying fabulous parades and “reproductive rights”. They’ll eventually evolve to our more enlightened state, the thinking goes, and we’ll help them along the way.

The historicism implicit in the mindset of our elites derives from Left-Hegelianism and a debased, secularized imitation of Christian eschatology, topped off with a liberal-democratic endgame articulated by Francis Fukuyama. What has come to be generally known as Whig history and its theory of progress are rarely if ever challenged in mainstream society. After all, before the financial crisis the supply of credit was supposed to be practically unlimited, and economic expansion was guaranteed by its own logic.

Here’s an idea: perhaps the administration could formulate a ground-breaking new doctrine of benign intervention in which the democratic revolution, since its legitimacy is obvious to all, would be consolidated and protected. That way, the advance of history in “developing” nations like Afghanistan would never be in doubt.

While a little McCain goes quite a long way, he made one other telling statement regarding Iran:

“America’s position in the world is one of moral leadership,” the senator said. “It’s not about what takes place in the streets of Iran. It is about what takes place in America’s conscience.”

It is indeed all about us. A way of thought that places at the center of existence man and his process of becoming, the movement toward sacrosanct liberation and equality he has divined by his own reason and will, is truly a function of cosmic narcissism.

Heather Mac Donald expresses some frustration at Mark Sanford’s antics the past week. Here’s what he told the Associated Press:

In emotional interviews with the AP over two days, he said he would die “knowing that I had met my soul mate.” He also said he had “crossed the lines” with a handful of other women during 20 years of marriage, but not as far as he did with his mistress.

“This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story,” he said. “A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.”

This is just too much information, and is unbecoming. We’ve all had difficult break ups. It’s distressing, and one isn’t always in one’s right mind, but if you have a job or classes life continues. If Sanford keeps talking up Maria Belen Chapur as his “soul mate” in the public record he’s undermining any reasonable chance of reconciliation with his wife. But you don’t always do the reasonable thing after a difficult break up.

As the blogosphere has taught us, the “Green Revolution” is all about democracy and human rights and was fomented, no doubt, after the Iranian people began reading up on Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, and Catholic Social Teaching. Problem is, the Greens’ Great Leader isn’t exactly ideal in the global-friendship-of-the-peoples department—after the Iran-Iraq war, it seems, he ordered the murder of 5000 political dissidents. While the beltway sees a new dawn for American influence in the Middle East, for me the whole thing’s beginning to look like a replay of the 2004 Orange “Revolution”: Western journalists think it’s all about them and fawn over a leader they know nothing about. And I wouldn’t be surprised if we soon learn that the Green and Orange charades were funded by the same people.   

[Hat tip: Stacy at maxkeiser.com]

Kevin Gutzman alludes to genetic evidence pointing to a strong likelihood that Thomas Jefferson fathered at least one of Sally Hemings’ children. Why strong likelihood as opposed to 100% certainty? The genetic test in question focused on the Y chromosome, which is passed exclusively through males, and Jefferson naturally shared his Y chromosome with his brother. So it is certain that some of the descendants of Sally Hemings derive from the Jefferson lineage, but not necessarily Thomas Jefferson. But there’s a way to establish full certainty: obtain a sample of Thomas Jefferson and Randolph Jefferson’s genetic material from the family burial ground. Genetic material has been obtained from 40,000 year old Neandertal finds, so I presume that men buried ~200 years ago would be a relatively easier. The goal would be to compare the total Y sequence of the Jeffersons and the Hemings who are presumably descended from them. For “government work” brothers do share identical Y chromosomes passed down from their fathers, but, every human has a unique suite of new mutations which are distinctive. So there should be identifying genetic mutations on the Y chromosome which can be used to separate the putative descendants of Thomas and Randolph Jefferson.

On a broader note, this principle means that many people do in fact have good evidence of their descent from one particular man centuries in the past, Lord Somerled. We also now have circumstantial evidence now in relation to the putative descendants of Genghis Khan and Muhammad (through Ali and Fatima). One point to keep in mind in relation to the lines of Hemings who were eliminated from descent from the Jeffersons: a fraction of individuals in any given patrilineage are often of another paternity. So there might have been an interruption of the line. In rare surnames there is often a pattern whereby ~50% of the men are descendants from the same man (what one would expect), but ~50% are descendants of hundreds of other men. This is evidence of the “interruption” process over the generations.

Tomorrow (July 1), the assembly of non-Left creative types living in NYC known as “The Manhattan Project” will be holding its monthly debate at Lolita Bar, right in the heart of the Lower East Side. And this one’s gonna be a humdinger! “Is America Economically Doomed?” is the question for the evening. Arguing “No, we’re all gonna be just fine,” will be Bryan Harris, political journalist and author of a book on gay marriage. Arguing “Yes! Quick go convert your backyard lawnmower into a personal helicopter from which you can ambush S&M Goth dudes on go-carts who’re hoarding all the precious, precious gasoline in this toxic wasteland that once was known as America!” will be yours truly.

The festivities begin at 8 PM. The gracious Todd Seavey will host. Don’t miss it! 

Jack Hunter and I have a new podcast up on the Mark Sanford scandal and what it means for the future of the GOP, “Big Government Republicans,” and the Ron Paul movement.

Hear it all here. 

There was always good reason to doubt whether Mark Sanford was the right man to lead the Ron Paul revolution in 2012. Many Paulistas were talking up this prospect because Sanford was apparently more “mainstream” and “legitimate” than the Good Doctor, yet held almost all of his views.  But this pretty much means he was a guy who said a lot of libertarian-sounding things, and did some libertarian deeds, while staying on reasonably good terms with the GOP establishment. And though “Big Government Republicans” might rejoice at Sanford’s demise, let’s not forget that the governor ultimately endorsed John McCain for president—even if he couldn’t find much of anything good to say about him—and on FOX News he announced that he defers to Newt Gingrich on major foreign policy decisions…

I also doubt Sanford would have actually brought more people to the liberty movement than Dr. Paul would have. Sanford’s certainly a handsome man, but he’s rather uninspiring, and sometimes rambling, as a speaker; he lacks Paul’s peculiar kind of charisma (avuncular charm) and hasn’t immersed himself in economics and political philosophy quite the way Paul has. 

Sanford earned everyone’s respect vetoing hundreds of state bills and rejecting Obama’s “stimulus” money. But whether he had the right stuff—and, quite frankly, whether he was really radical enough—to take over the Paul movement remains to be seen. 

(Also,  I’m tolerant of quirkiness; however, stories (perhaps apocryphal) of the governor forcing his staff to use both sides of post-it notes and his “hobby” of drilling holes in his backyard with a hydraulic excavator, into which neighbours sometimes fell (!),  would have raised a lot of eyebrows.)

All this being said, I don’t think Sanford’s momentary infidelity should disqualify him from political leadership. As Paul Gottfried and I joked yesterday over the phone, if Stanford were our president and he stopped engaging in insane wars and various “diversity” and “economic stimulus” programs, and stopped taking our money to fund such nonesense, then we wouldn’t give a fig if every Sunday morning he had to shuttle various mistresses out the backdoor of the White House or was being linked in the tabloids to Lindsey Lohan. That scene from Franςois Mitterand’s funeral, in which the president’s widow walked hand-in-hand with his mistress, might be a bit too laissez-faire and, well, French for us, Anglo-Saxon roundheads; however, the American political system would be much improved if we all stopped thinking of politicians as celebrated representatives of our most cherished moral virtues, and instead as inherently suspect creatures whom we trust about as far as we can throw. 

There are, of course, times when it’s right and meet to attack politicians for hanky-panky, such as when Paul Wolfowitz got his new girlfriend a six-figure salary at the World Bank, or when Bill Clinton messed around with a government intern in the oval office and then lied about it under oath; however, I’m generally of the mind to tell my national leaders: “Go screw around with whomever, just get out of my life.”

The Sanford scandal is also highly instructive for what it reveals about how the GOP establishment operates. As Jim points out, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has been one of the big winners—after taking over Sanford’s post with the Governors Association, he now has to field questions about his presidential prospects: “[Oh gee, well, my word!] I can’t just say flatly ‘no’”... Barbour, of course, has the “moral” cred to appeal to the Religious Right as well as the beltway connections to assure everyone in power that nothing in Washington will really change. Ever. The neocons, in turn, can stop fretting over whether they should try to co-opt Sanford, or else reject him as a dangerous anti-government extremist, and instead just wash their hands of him and move on to the rehabilitations of multi-divorcees Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich.

A recent blog in the WaPost from Chris Cillizza, which Jim also brought to my attention, indicates that a certain other South Carolina politician might benefit from Sanford’s demise:

Ridding oneself of a political rival while seeming polite and upstanding in the process—Gutsy! Kissing up to Obama in order to get a liberal reporter to label you a “national leader”—Priceless!! 

I guess Graham should be given some credit for not throwing Sanford completely under the bus. But then, this is one guy who definitely doesn’t want to encourage reporters to inquire too closely into politicians’ private lives…

The left wing president of Honduras has been ousted and President Obama has shown “deep concern.”  Venezuela and Bolivia have condemned the coup.  “The West,” such as it is, has condemned it.  Hugo Chavez has been making some rumblings about military action.  The reaction is about what would be expected, the usual song and dance about democratic norms and the furrowed brows of the Great and the Good that result when the gun that lies behind all political power is briefly viewed from behind the curtain.

However, as the Wall Street Journal reports, there is more here than just another military coup in Latin America.  Jose Manuel Zelaya was executing a fairly blatant power grab.  He was opposed by both the courts and the congress, and the constitutionally designated second in command took power, pledging to hold the regularly scheduled elections. The country is not in chaos and the new regime seems fairly united.  From where I sit now in this extremely early stage, it looks less like a coup and an attempt to set up a junta than it does like a law enforcement action. 
 
We can expect the usual moans about democracy and the military staying out of politics.  The discomfort with the situation in Honduras is an outgrowth of the usual clichés that allow the velvet glove to slip over the mailed fist of managed democracy.  Perhaps I am just cynical, but as we have seen in the advanced democracies of Europe, referendums and elections are only respected when hoi polloi reach the correct decision as defined by the political class.  When they don’t, the vox populi is gleefully ignored or openly scorned, the chosen representatives are banned or marginalized, and sometimes the voters are openly insulted.  Even if there is a formal choice, it is one increasingly meaningless, as the media (sometimes run or funded by the state) manipulates the facts to benefit chosen candidates, legal obstacles mysteriously appear against certain parties and movements,  and mass immigration and the welfare system create an ever growing class of state dependents on income transfers, special privileges, and general government meddling.  The term democracy, used the way it is today, is not a system of government distinguished by popular elections, certain constitutional or human rights, and representative governments.  It is a system of left wing orthodoxies holding together and granting legitimacy to a huge redistributive state apparatus.  It is hard not to be cynical when the likes of Chavez, Castro, and Clinton all join forces to bemoan its fall. 

While the democracy regime is a huge topic in its own right, let’s look at the limited example of Honduras.  If we accept for the moment the claim of the new government that they were protecting the constitution, what was the politically correct alternative they should have taken?  More petitions?  Protests ?  Judicial verdicts that the president would ignore?  Democratic means hold no answers when the supposedly democratic regime can ignore any check from within the system.  The military therefore had to take action from outside the system to protect the constitution.  However, the international norm, and certainly the norm in the United States, is for the constitution to be treated as the “goddamned piece of paper” that serves as the window dressing for the people who think there is any limit on the power of the state.  For my own part, I see no reason why a leader who breaks the law should be protected from consequences because of the mystical power conferred by conning his way into office, particularly considering that he seems to have little support for his actions now.

This obviously has theoretical implications for us.  Our own military takes an oath to no leader, but to the Constitution.  It is no stretch to imagine that American military officers hold their oath to the Constitution more sacred than most politicians.  The danger from a politicized and alienated military in America has been the subject of an award winning essay within the military, alluded to in best selling books, and even a facebook group with thousands of members where military members are taking pledges not to enforce certain hypothetical laws.  At the same time, since Washington put on his spectacles at Newburgh, Americans are rightly uncomfortable with the military in any kind of a political rule. That said, the ideal of the neutral, professional military Samuel Huntington described in the “Soldier and the State” seems to require a responsible ruling class or at least a ruling class not actively at war with its own country, something missing in much of the Western world.  If such a regime were to take power in America and was fortified in office through “democratic” means, how could republican government be restored except by action on the Honduran model?   

The march of the Left through Latin America has hit an unexpected roadblock.  In the past, the United States was all too willing to violate the independence of our southern neighbors to beat down Communist insurgency (and to be fair, make the world safe for United Fruit).  It will be interesting to see if President Obama and his Secretary of State renew the American tradition of interventionism and political pressure, this time to force the return of the “democratic” leader, regardless of the seeming wishes of the Honduran people.  If they do, it will reveal the threat that the Honduran precedent poses to the lie that freedom and modern “democracy” are the same thing.

Steve Sailer analyzes the Supreme Court’s verdict—for Ricci, against Sotomayor. 

The Takimag discussion of the case can be read here and here.