The brilliant and personable R.J. Pestritto comments in today's Wall Street Journal on the connection between Glenn Beck's message and his own academic study of American Progressivism. I've chewed over the subject once in person with Prof. Pestritto and I'm excited to continue it here. In the Journal, Prof. Pestritto praises commentators like Beck and Jonah Goldberg who have reworked his critique of the Progressives for a popular audience. But contra Beck, Pestritto argues that Wilson, TR, and the rest of the American Progressives were not socialists. Actually, they saw socialism and democracy as two related expressions of a single principle. Pestritto quotes Wilson:

"In fundamental theory socialism and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members.... Limits of wisdom and convenience to the public control there may be: limits of principle there are, upon strict analysis, none."

Given the clarity and force of these remarks, Pestritto continues, the Progressives -- and Progressivism today, alive and well -- are fair game. Here, there is no room for squishes. Pestritto singles out Ricochet's own Matt Continetti, who has written that "progressivism is a distinctly American tradition." "In fact," writes Pestritto, "it was anything but." Progressives, Pestritto quickly shows, borrowed whole cloth from European academia. Sure enough, the evidence is clear: Wilson and other Progressives gobbled up the transatlantic intellectualizing of French and German political and social theorists who cashed out their ideals in quasi-systematic terms.

But I'm not convinced that means liberal progressivism is alien to America. (You might see how this skepticism resonates with my comments earlier about how Obama's enemies can't understand him unless they understand his Americanness.) Tocqueville famously called Americans 'practical Cartesians' who didn't need to read Descartes because they were already living out his principles in everyday life. Whereas Europeans had to come up with theories about how to order society in a democratic age -- and then had to apply those theories to their people, using state power, from the top down -- America and democracy grew up naturally together. The American social order rose freely, from the bottom up. Rather than the enforced artifice of Cartesian philosophy, Americans enjoyed the organic social arrangements that pointed in the direction of Cartesian principles.

Living the American way of life, to generalize the point, made it possible for Americans to become conscious of their way of life -- what it was, what it implied, where it lead, and how to perfect it. Look back at certain trends in American thought from about 1830-1880, and you'll see how this worked with liberal progressivism, too. Before the Civil War, the Whigs advanced an agenda appealing to the professional classes and promoting government-driven cultural modernization, financial centralization, and economic development. After the Civil War, radical nationalist proto-progressives praised Lincoln for turning America into a single unit while downplaying his commitment to the ideals of the Founding. Meanwhile, transcendentalist Yankees, including Emerson and especially Whitman, wrote the founding texts of a romantic, almost religious faith in the democratic life that have given brainy progressivism a pulsing heart right up through the Obama era. These strands of distinctly American thought set the table for the formal Progressivism to follow.

Arguing that the Progressives pulled off a Europeanizing coup is akin to insisting that Americans were not a psychotherapeutic people before they discovered Freud. What the Progressives did do for the first time was succeed in politically institutionalizing the worldview they shared. That was the coup. But it's impossible to understand how they could have done so by focusing on the alien aspect of Progressive doctrine. And it's impossible to do the same today with Obama and his policies.

That's the big question, this morning, about the Tea Party's effect on the Republican party. It's a ludicrous question, as Yuval Levin explains over on NRO:

Remember, what happened in Delaware may put in jeopardy the party’s chances of winning Joe Biden’s old senate seat, and perhaps of coming back from a 10-seat deficit in the senate to win control of the body. That these things—not to mention a Republican takeover of the House, and a large number of governorships, state legislatures, and local offices—are even imaginable two years after Obama’s election is simply and utterly staggering. And they are imaginable in large part because of the very mood and activity that have gone under the Tea Party label.

But one of the things I keep hearing -- from smart people -- is that "we" keep electing RINOs. "We" keep nominating and electing squishy non-conservative go-alongers, who wind up in the House or Senate and compromise away the core ideas of their supporters: smaller government, lower taxes, leaner regulatory structures, and common-sense values. So when a firebreathing fresh face pops up -- like Christine O'Donnell in Delaware -- she's an almost irresistible choice for people who want real change.

But the "people" won't elect the next senator from Delaware. That'll be done by the "people of Delaware," who chose Joe Biden to represent them for years and years and years. Who elected Mike Castle -- RINO though he may be -- to be their governor.

It's really not debatable whether the Tea Party has done more harm that good. It's been an immensely powerful force in turning the tide against Obama's brand of big government socialism. But it can't turn the tide against simple math. If Republicans are ever going to take back the Senate, they're going to have to do it with some squishy RINOs on the team. Especially from solid blue states. It's as simple as that.

We've been asked by the folks over at 10Questions to solicit the help of the Ricochet community in submitting questions to ask candidates running in 46 of the nation's most competitive midterm races because they're severely lacking conservative voices in formulating the questions. Here are more details:

On September 21st, the top 10 questions in each race will be submitted to the candidates, who will respond via YouTube. This is part of an experiment called 10Questions, a project of the Personal Democracy Forum (with generous support from the James S. and John L. Knight Foundation).

Go to 10Questions.com, select your state, pick a race, and ask the candidates anything. Mobilize your community to vote on your question and others. On September 21st the top 10 questions in each race will be submitted to the candidates. In the final weeks before Election Day, you'll then have the opportunity to vote on whether or not the candidates answered your questions.

From a nonpartisan standpoint, this is a system that's built to reward substantive and thoughtful questions as well as responses — in addition to the criteria for voting on answers, there's also no time limit to the responses from candidates, and the candidates are explaining their positions directly to voters, not exactly in competition with one another.

Head on over to 10Questions and submit some tough questions!

Scampering around Manhattan yesterday, I only just now got to the latest offering in the New York Times by my friend—my often stubbornly mistaken friend—David Brooks. It’s all well and good, David argues, for Republicans to use this election to beat back Obama’s effort to expand our already gigantic federal government. But after that? Republicans will simply have to grow up and…come to terms with our already gigantic federal government. To quote him:

The social fabric is fraying. Human capital is being squandered. Society is segmenting. The labor markets are ill. Wages are lagging. Inequality is increasing. The nation is overconsuming and underinnovating. China and India are surging. Not all of these challenges can be addressed by the spontaneous healing powers of the market.

I’d love to hear what folks here at Ricochet have to say about this. Shall I put the conversation in motion?

BROOKS: The social fabric is fraying.

He’s got that part right. But does he honestly suppose the welfare state hasn’t already made matters worse? Has he never heard of Charles Murray’s Losing Ground?

BROOKS: Human capital is being squandered.

And the government can allocate it more efficiently than the market? Is he kidding? What does he suppose was the lesson of Hong Kong, which in during the second half of the last century went from a sparsely populated and impoverished set of rocks to a dense, vibrant center of free markets and free trade?

BROOKS: Society is segmenting.

Not sure what this means. Does he mean to argue that we’re more segmented today than we were when, say, Toqueville visited us? When differences among regions, among trades, between urban and agricultural populations, and between slave and free were truly stark?

BROOKS: The labor markets are ill.

Again, what does he mean? And whatever he means, does he truly mean to suggest that government can dispose of labor more efficiently than markets?

BROOKS: Inequality is increasing.

Income inequality does indeed seem to be increasing, but all the studies of which I’m aware suggest that this is in large part because of increasing returns on human capital—that is, on education. From which it follows that we need to improve our schools—vouchers, anyone?—not expand bureaucracies in Washington.

BROOKS: The nation is overconsuming and underinnovating.

Overconsuming? By what standard? David is really, really smart, but I’m not quite sure how somebody with two deadlines a week has time on his hands to figure out just how much a nation of 300 million ought to consume. What makes this odder, of course, is that the savings rate over the last couple of years is actually up. Underinnovating? Well, if the feds weren’t soaking up quite so much capital, there might be a little more available for R&D. But are we really doing all that badly? When did he last purchase a cellphone designed in India? Apple may manufacture its products in Asia, but move its design shop to Asia? Unthinkable.

BROOKS: China and India are surging.

Why is this bad? Are we to feel prosperous only as long as others remain poor? He opposes inequality within the United States but wishes to perpetuate it between the United States and other nations?

And with that, over to Ricochet.

Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization. - George Bernard Shaw

The Portland Press Herald has formally apologized to readers for covering on their front page peaceful Muslims celebrating the close of Ramadan on 9/11, instead of covering events remembering the terrorist attacks.

This sparks a debate over the proper function of newspapers.

I suppose on the one side folks who skew toward completely objective reporting (is there such thing?) might say, "If that's what is happening on that day, report it."

On the other hand, editors live for a reason. Some might say the sensitivities of the day impose themselves on the events of the day. The 9/11 remembrance coverage should have dominated the front page.

So was this an editorial blunder, or was the paper acting properly for reporting what they saw going on around them?

Should peaceful Muslims object to the apology for having to take a back seat due to the actions of Islamo-fascists whose values they don't share?

Wow. Have the editors at Time Magazine taken one to many dips in the cool-aid hot tub? First this. Then this. How desperate has Time Magazine become to compete in an e-reading economy? I expect to see European editions with these covers, but not here. Even if the articles are more balanced than the covers, and in reference to the latter issue it's not, they are hateful. And sadly effective, because I noticed them. And how offensive to publish the latter during the High Holy Days. Or would they say topical? And even more incendiary during Peace Talks. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know...again.) As a lover of antiquities, it's nice to see Yellow Journalism making a comeback.

Yesterday, in addition to being a big election day around the country, was also my daughter's first-ever formal religious education class. She's 6.

At our local Catholic church, there are some 1,900 kids in the religious ed program. They don't fool around. Even for first graders.

On Day One, she informed me, they learned about God and Jesus in their hour-long afternoon class.

"Jesus died on a cross," she told me matter-of-factly. Then, adding with a hint of scandal, "They didn't feed him!"

Even though she seems to think of Jesus's death as a sort of cautionary neglected pet tale, I'm confident she'll learn all the complexities of the Passion soon enough.

"Oh!" she noted. "We also prayed the rosemary."

I'm here in the airport at Brussels waiting for my connecting flight. I've got a hot travel tip for all of you: Jet Airways. That was one of the nicest transatlantic flights I've ever had. I'd never heard of them before. I just bought the ticket because it came up on Priceline. (Actually, my mom bought it: She was my secretary for a day and she did a great job. I'm thinking of giving her a promotion.)

Jet Airways is an Indian carrier, and they're flawless. It was a beautifully maintained plane; the seats seemed to have more legroom than most; they've got exquisitely well-mannered ground staff and flight attendants, excellent food--the service in economy was equivalent to many airlines' business class. Two thumbs up for Jet Airways. The difference between them and all the other airlines I've flown lately was night and day.

I spoke recently to a historian whom I greatly admire. He was of a gloomy kidney--pessimistic about the future of the West, resigned to the idea that the future belonged to China and India. I was a bit depressed myself after that conversation. But if this airline represents India these days, they really deserve to own the future.

So you win, India, fair and square. What's Mumbai like these days?

O'Donnell 53% - Castle 47%.

Kevin Williamson over at the Corner has an interesting take.

My Ricochet time is limited this week as I attend to my Trustee duties on behalf of Michigan’s Hillsdale College. I’m proud to be the Vice-Chairman of the Board, and we’re celebrating the opening of the Kirby Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington this week. If you think most colleges and universities offer courses on the Constitution, think again. Even a long-time shop teacher can use the fingers on one hand to count those that do.

There’s a delicious irony to this college’s presence in the Capital, because Hillsdale is nearly unique in its refusal to accept any financial aid from State or Federal governments. With no money there are no strings, leaving Hillsdale freer to do things like teach future leaders about the Constitution. You might think governments would welcome having one less institution to subsidize, but, in fact, many in the educational establishment look upon us with distrust. After all, who are we to think we’re more qualified to run a college than the wise folks in D.C.? Heck, what if the idea spread? What would they do with all their compliance forms? What if they had to move into the—gulp!—private sector?

Anyway, I encourage you to take a look at what Hillsdale’s up to. I’m proud to be a tiny part of what this amazing institution is accomplishing and the way in which it’s going about it. It may be a small Liberal Arts school in a small town in Michigan, but its influence can be felt nationwide. Hillsdale is one of the few things that can make me neglect my friends at Ricochet for a week.

Your must-read for the week is Reihan Salam:

On Monday, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, and Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, published an essay in the Wall Street Journal arguing that the electorate faces a choice between a free enterprise system and European-style social democracy. A number of thoughtful commentators, including columnist David Brooks of The New York Times, have taken exception to Ryan and Brooks, arguing that they ignore important aspects of the American tradition and that they fail to give due regard to the value of an energetic and effective government.

The bottom line -- you have to go read Reihan's post to get the full monty -- is, I think, quite simple: it's true that an obsession with small government can blind folks on the right to the upside of able public service. BUT: the question, as Ryan and (Arthur) Brooks make clear, is which dream we're dreaming. The self-styled 'postmodern bourgeois liberal' theorist Richard Rorty used this language of dreams, and though he's on the opposite side of the fence as I am, folks on the right shouldn't feel any awkwardness or embarrassment in embracing that formulation. It's exactly as Ryan and Brooks say. The decisive issue is the ideal that guides our policymaking.

As I said earlier, the competing ideals are liberty versus servitude. A servile life can be very healthy and safe. My well-intentioned liberaltarian friends want to insist that the reality of public policy shows us that freer markets and more left-like redistributive regimes can skip hand in hand down the high road, as they do in, say, Denmark. Setting aside the issue of scale, which Reihan ably addresses, the larger matter is a civilization-scale decision point: is our policy-driven yeoman's work oriented toward the dream of a better kind of servitude or a better kind of liberty? The choice of ideal guides us in the moment-by-moment, deal-by-deal to and fro of policymaking.

Any talk of a 'city on the hill' -- whether a liberal or conservative utopia -- is fatuous without reference to the conceptual lodestar we look to for guidance. Cut to the bone, there are, as Tocqueville recognized, two lodestars on offer: equality in servitude or equality in freedom. In democratic times, there is no third dream. There might be a third way -- a middling or pragmatic negotiation between the two. But without reference to one dream or the other, there is only blundering. This is the 'new culture war' that Brooks, rightly, is hammering on. Back to Reihan:

Politics is not always about highly technical debates concerning progressive price indexing. It is often about shaping our shared normative understandings, and, as Ryan and Brooks argue in their Wall Street Journal essay, our shared aspirations for the kind of society we’d like to live in. And on those grounds, at least, Ryan and Brooks are offering an attractive alternative to a society that looks first to the federal government to solve problems.

Politics not only shapes our 'shared normative understandings', otherwise known as our culture. It reflects and embodies them. The fury on the right these days is reflective of an effort by powerful folks on the left to capture and de-politicize American politics so as to command the culture to bend to their will. For all I know, they have the best of intentions. I don't think there's any doubt that the most motivated smart people on the left really are spending their time and energy trying to bring about the most just, least cruel society they can imagine. The problem is simple: they're dreaming the wrong dream. It's wrong because it's consummated in servitude. It's not an evil dream, of course; we all long for peace and repose and security and a good pension, especially in these troubled times. But it's a city that shines at the end of a misbegotten road.

Small government is not an end in itself. It's a means -- to the particular dream of freedom that makes it worth our while. If folks on the right can't articulate that dream, all the politics and policy and posturing in the world will be for naught. This isn't a recipe for political utopianism. There's plenty of room in the Republican party for more or less 'establishment' types. (Call them what you will.) It is a recipe for re-dreaming the dream of liberty, in keeping with one of our most vibrant and many-faced traditions. Because that, after all, is the American Dream. Isn't it?

On a sweltering summer night last year, while sitting in the sleeper of my truck, I read a fascinating article titled, Do Liberals Crave A Master? Andrew Thomas opened the article with this little blast:

Contemporary liberals, having abandoned the belief in God-given inalienable rights, masochistically crave a worldly master. This master is a sadistic god-substitute who will provide the stern discipline needed to force economic equality and "fairness" by requiring painful sacrifices and bestowing government-created rights onto obedient and acquiescent groups of left-leaning masochists.

That article came to mind again today, as I heard news that brings into stark reality the extent of the threat we must defeat in November. If nothing else motivates you, your family, your friends, acquaintances, etc., to get to the polls,…how does the prospect of losing your retirement sound? Evidently, the administration and it’s fellow travelers in Congress are weighing plans to confiscate your retirement. Want to read that sentence again? Go ahead,..I’ll wait right here. ….Okay, ready to proceed? From Peter Raymond, at American Thinker, we learn that an estimated $7.835 trillion in IRA, 401K, 457, and 403b accounts is just sitting there stirring the Pavlovian juices of the left.

The idea first surfaced during the Clinton administration, but was aborted in the face of the 1994 election. But it has been revived, and according to the article, it would take the following form:

Expect to see terms such as "retirement income protection" thrown around. It is highly likely that such a program would be implemented in steps to help overcome public opposition. The US government plan is to eventually take ownership of all assets in IRAs and 401K accounts and replace them with US government "Treasury Retirement Bonds." In the October 2008 hearings, it was proposed that these bonds pay a 3% interest rate. Another major change is that, upon retirement, the individual's retirement account would be converted into an annuity. Once the individual is deceased, the individual's heirs would not inherit anything.

Read that last sentence again. Under this plan, your family will inherit nothing, zip, zero, zilch, nada. For those of us seeking to maximize freedom and security, the stakes could not be higher. For those on the left, …do you really need a master that badly?

In a shameless attempt to shore up the Hispanic vote in Nevada, Harry Reid has announced that the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act will be included in the defense authorization bill as an amendment, pending Senate approval.

The DREAM Act, which HotAir’s Allahpundit terms a “ground-preparer for amnesty”, would grant illegals who have graduated from high school in the United States and are of good moral character, temporary residence status. Then, within a six-year period, the temporary resident must complete at least two years of higher education or serve at least two years in the military to become eligible for permanent residence.

Many opponents of amnesty oppose this bill on the premise that funding the education of minors who are here illegally would not only cost millions of taxpayer dollars, but also incentivize future illegal immigration.

But opponents of amnesty need not necessarily oppose the DREAM Act as California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina has demonstrated. In her recent debate with Barbara Boxer, Fiorina said that while she does not support blanket amnesty,

I would support the DREAM Act because I do not believe that we can punish children who through no fault of their own are here trying to live the American dream…The way to get the economy going again is to go with comprehensive immigration reform. The DREAM Act is part of that…I believe that the 21st century is the century of brainpower and innovation. We need to cultivate all the brainpower we can by making sure that people are well educated here.

While Fiorina may be making the same sort of political calculation as Harry Reid, I’m sympathetic to her argument. When we imagine that we have the option of casting out every single illegal immigrant, including the ones who have lived here since their early childhood, we delude ourselves. If we do nothing, inertia alone will create a shadow class of underperforming semi-Americans who have a hard time pursuing college educations and obtaining good jobs because they lack the necessary paperwork. Ultimately, these people become a net drain on society's resources. On the other hand, a conditional residence program like the one embodied by the DREAM Act would enable children who are currently here illegally to pursue an education and hopefully become productive members of American society.

As much as I loathe to support anything that has Harry Reid’s fingerprints on it, I just don’t see an alternative.

I do not watch much television. We have an old set that belonged to my mother. When she died almost twelve years ago, it ended up with us. It is good now for use with the VCR, and that is all -- which suits us well. Our kids read for recreation, and they read a lot.

Occasionally, I see television -- in airports, in hotel rooms, and the like. Until quite recently, I was struck with two facts: the talking heads on CNN, apart from Wolf Blitzer, are pretty (the women and, alas, the men), and they are very, very sleek. On Fox, they seemed much less so, a bit rough around the edges. I figured that Fox was cannily angling for a blue-collar demographic -- for the folks who listen to and love Rush Limbaugh.

The other day, however, I caught a glimpse of Fox News, and the women reading the news were, well, not to put a fine point on it, downright foxy -- which left me wondering. Has Fox, having conquered the blue collar demographic, begun gently moving upscale? Perish the thought!

If I were voting in the Republican senate primary in Delaware, as I mentioned last week, I’d cast my ballot for Congressman Mike Castle, whose positions run from moderate to liberal, and not his challenger, Christine O’Donnell, whose positions are thoroughly conservative. Why? Because, of course, Castle stands a chance of winning the general election; O’Donnell, virtually no chance at all.

I’d vote for Castle, as I say, but I’m not at all sure I’d be doing the right thing. A word of explanation:

I’m writing this in New York, where—in this, the most Republican election year in decades; a year in which Republicans are likely to recapture the House, pick up at least half a dozen seats in the Senate, and gain as many as seven or eight governors’ mansions—the GOP has been reduced to a state of complete and utter irrelevance. Across the Hudson, Republican Gov. Chris Christie may be transforming New Jersey politics. To the Southwest, Republican candidate Pat Toomey may be conducting an impressive, well-funded bid for the Senate. But here in New York? No matter who wins the GOP primaries today, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo will face only token Republican opposition. As for Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York Times, reporting Sunday on the three Republicans contesting today’s primary, for once got it just exactly right:

They are the three dark horsemen in the race for the United States Senate from New York, kicking up cloudlets of dust as they canter toward the Republican primary election on Tuesday and…the strong likelihood of losing big in November.

How can this be? How can one of the nation’s two great historical parties have failed to produce credible challengers for either the governor’s mansion or the Senate in the third most populous state in the union?

The answer, I think, lies at least in part in the political careers of figures such as George Pataki and Joseph Bruno.

Republican George Pataki served as governor of New York from 1995 to 2006—three terms. Did he cut taxes demonstrably? Improve education in any memorable way? Attack the problem so endemic to New York politics, namely, corruption? Here and there, he made a few efforts. But on balance he merely presided, placidly taxing and spending while doing virtually nothing to draw distinctions between the New York GOP and its Democratic opponents.

Elected to the New York State Senate in 1976, Joe Bruno served in Albany for 32 years—in every last year of which, as best I can determine from Googling around, the GOP controlled the body. Indeed, from 1994 until shortly before his 2008 resignation from the senate, Bruno served as majority leader. Did Joe Bruno stand for limited spending? To the contrary. He prided himself on sending pork to the upstate and Long Island districts of his fellow Republican senators. Did he take on corruption? Not exactly. Last year he was convicted of mail and wire fraud.

In a lot of ways, the GOP in New York remains the party of Nelson Rockefeller—well-intentioned, of course, but moderate or liberal, tolerant of high taxes, committeed to big spending, and based on regional machines (upstate and in Nassau County) than on principles. In other words, all but indistinguishable from the Democrats. Not since the election of the great Sen. James L. Buckley in 1970—1970!—has the New York GOP offered voters a truly conservative candidate for statewide office.

And just look where the New York GOP stands now.

If I were voting in the Delware primary today, as I say, I would vote for Mike Castle. He’s a moderate, but his election might—just might—enable the GOP to capture the U.S. Senate, a prize worth having. But when the tea party argues instead on behalf of Christine O’Donnell—when conservatives insist that, over the longer term, the only way for the GOP to become viable in the Northeast is to present conservative candidates, offering voters a true choice—well, you know what?

They have an argument.

Our friends at Powerline are right. Politics is full of ambiguity and uncertainty, and even to those of us who insist on principle, Delaware presents not an easy choice but, to use Paul Mirengoff’s word, a conundrum.

More On This Topic:

POULOS > Christine O'Donnell, Litmus Test

LONG > The Tea Party: More Harm Than Good?

With those words, Lady Gaga became the first person to utter such a phrase since caveman couture went out of style with saber-toothed tiger t-shirts around 10,000 BC.

She showed up at the VMA awards in a dress, hat, purse and shoes made entirely of meat. Here's a photo.

Any man who ever thought his ultimate fantasy was a platinum blonde was taken to a higher level when introduced to a platinum blonde wrapped in bacon! MMMM bacon!

The people at PETA have been losing their organic lunches over the dress ever since the show.

Incidents like this normally invoke the media question, “What does this say about us, about society?” to which I answer, “Nothing. Lady Gaga isn’t us or society.” I don’t like her anyway because I spent my musical youth making sure disco was dead, and she’s bringing it back to life.

But there is no denying that some people outside America looking in will lump us together with her. Might they say that we are cruel to animals? Wasteful of food? Gluttons? Just playful?

I think she’s…raw (rim shot). Is this another excuse to yell "Ugly American?"

I'm at the airport in Newark waiting for the plane to board. I'll be back in Turkey in about 16 hours, according to the schedule. Here's the latest news from Turkey, for those of you who still aren't convinced the place is interesting. Is it true? If it is, that's brazen as hell. If it isn't--well, welcome back to Turkey, Claire, where nothing is what it seems.

Goodbye for now, America. You have no idea how much I'll miss you.

I'll be back. Meanwhile, please take better care of yourself.

Coming on the heels of Fidel Castro's confession to The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg that "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," Fidel's brother, President of Cuba Raul Castro, announced that Cuba plans to let go of half a million state workers and lift some restrictions on private enterprise. The AP reports:

Cuba announced Monday it will cast off at least half a million state workers by early next year and reduce restrictions on private enterprise to help them find new jobs — the most dramatic step yet in President Raul Castro's push to radically remake employment on the communist-run island....

Monday's announcement also said Cuba will overhaul its labor structure and salary systems to emphasize productivity so that workers are "paid according to results.

Castro has said repeatedly he is seeking to reform the pay system to hold workers accountable for production, but change has been slow in coming.

Currently the state employs 95 percent of the official work force. Unemployment last year was 1.7 percent and hasn't risen above 3 percent in eight years — but that ignores thousands of Cubans who aren't looking for jobs because wages are so low.

Is Cuba about to experience a quiet capitalist revolution?

More On This Topic:

MANACEK > Cuba to Obama...

One of the great highlights of my trip to America was the chance to meet at last my colleagues at City Journal, whom I'd never before met in the flesh. I confessed to editor Brian Anderson at that meeting that while some young women fantasize about becoming movie stars or ballerinas, my childhood dream had been to write for City Journal--an admission that surely marks me as a weirdo par excellence, but you know, I am what I am.

My first City Journal idol was Heather MacDonald, whose work about crime in New York struck me as the model of what such writing should be. How to Train Cops, for example, combines everything I think admirable in investigative journalism--it's investigative, for one, it's not armchair analysis; it's riveting, and it teaches the reader many things he did not know and forces him to consider an entirely new point of view. My new idol at City Journal is Nicole Gelinas, who is much younger than I'd imagined; I had assumed that someone who wrote with such authority would be some species of austere dowager empress, but I was quite wrong. Her work has been the gold standard of analysis on the financial meltdown. If you read only one article on the subject, let it be Surveying the Wreckage. There are more wonderful writers at City Journal than I could name, but above all, there is an editorial seriousness about the magazine: It is committed to noble journalistic values that are by and large disappearing.

So it was a delight to discover that my fantasies about the place were absolutely accurate. (How often can one say that?) The meeting spoiled me, really, because after that all subsequent conversations in America seemed flat and lifeless--our Ricochet gathering apart, of course. Everyone was funny, too. I wish I could remember the dialogue from the interchange about the '70s, because it really cracked me up, but all I can remember is the last line: "No, the seventies were great." It was all in the delivery. You had to be there, I guess.

I was glad I was. The existence of places like the City Journal conference room is another reason I can't quite get behind the fashion of predicting America's complete and imminent demise. Not when we've still got so many bright people who know how to think straight and really have a good time doing it.

Everyone always talks about the "independent" voter. Around here, where I live, it's what people say when they don't want to tell the truth, which is that they vote the straight party line about 90% of the time.

"Independent" is a code word. The left-wing media use it to disguise their almost-unilateral party affiliation with the Democratic Party. "I'm a registered Independent," is what they all smugly coo, when pressed, as if that settles that. Regular people use the term for a few (excellent) reasons: 1) It can shut off a fractious political discussion -- to call yourself an "independent" is to call yourself a bore, essentially, to the kind of people who really want to get into a hot and angry debate. Where I live, in Venice Beach, California, it's often the only way I can get from inside the Whole Foods to my car without being waylaid by a lot of noisy hippie activists; 2) if you find yourself in one of those awful conversations, it's a great way to establish your bona fides -- "Hey, I'm an independent, I examine each candidate's positions, I'm totally unaffiliated. But even I wouldn't vote for Palin/Bush/Obama/Pelosi/Whomever"; 3) it's a way of saying "I'm a conservative, but sometimes squishy."

That's who voted for Barack Obama, by the way. That's who put him into office: Independents. Meaning: voters who are basically conservative, but also squishy.

They wanted to vote for a moderate, inspiring African-American. They wanted to vote for a sensible middle-of-the-roader -- maybe a touch center/left, but what's the harm in that? So was Clinton. And if his election might inspire a renewal among the African-American underclass, well, maybe it's worth the trade.

So they looked at Barack Obama and they saw what they wanted to see.

(And let's give them a break, too: it's independents -- even the self-delusional kind -- who usually put a president in office. We need them...)

Now, apparently, they've got buyer's remorse. Big time, according to a survey by Resurgent Republic, a polling outfit run by former RNC chair Ed Gillespie and pollster Whit Ayres. From Peter Roff's column in U. S. News & World Report:

"On health insurance, government spending, environmental regulation, and immigration enforcement," Resurgent Republic says, “Independents are more aligned with the conservative argument, which is also closer to their placement of congressional Republicans.” The critical voter bloc in the upcoming election, they also perceive Obama as "further to the left of congressional Democrats on health insurance, government spending, environmental regulation, and immigration enforcement."

The concerns expressed by Independents, on the other hand, generally marry up nicely to what the Republicans in Congress have been saying for much of the last two years. More Independents, the survey found, “favor individual responsibility in purchasing health insurance than those who support universal coverage provided by the federal government” and that the federal government “should do more to exercise fiscal discipline even in light of more spending to help the economy.”

And this shouldn't surprise us, really. There aren't any true independents. Just Republicans trying to get to their cars.

When last we pondered the Castle/O'Donnell faceoff, Sarah Palin (and Jim DeMint) had yet to endorse O'Donnell, news had not yet broken of O'Donnell's bizarre suit against conservative academic outfit Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and Chris Coons, Democrat, polled only 20 points better against O'Donnell than against Castle. Now, Coons polls 26 points better.

Of course, with all the new publicity and insurgent cred, it also so happens that O'Donnell is surging -- surging toward defeat. But the issue that's seizing the GOP at a moment of great momentum isn't whether O'Donnell meets a relative standard -- whether she's more conservative or more electable than the competition. It's whether she meets an objective standard -- that of candor and character. Mark Hemingway:

She's run an erratic and dishonest campaign. When she visited The Examiner's offices a few weeks ago, she tried to show me an old poll that had her leading the race. When asked about a more recent poll showing her losing big, she accused the pollster of dishonesty when there was nothing wrong with the poll.

Shortly after her interview with The Examiner, former O'Donnell campaign aides posted an Internet video baselessly alleging that Castle had a gay affair. She rebuked those rumors, but then on radio called Castle "unmanly" and suggested he put his "man pants" back on. Subtle. [...]

Tea Party candidate Joe Miller's stunning Republican primary upset over incumbent Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is the only reason why anyone started mentioning the "E" word in the same sentence as O'Donnell. But Miller is a combat veteran with a law degree, a great candidate running in a much more conservative state than Delaware. If you think O'Donnell, who has a dodgy employment history, is similarly electable, you're drinking Kool-Aid, not tea.

Dismayingly, Hemingway continues, O'Donnell's critics have been accused by her supporters of "promoting the 'Ruling Class agenda' by commenting on O'Donnell's foibles." Now, it's true that some of the damaging revelations about O'Donnell have come pretty late in the game. 'News' like this doesn't just 'break.' But it's relevant information, part of a pattern of conduct, and it throws into stark relief the way that O'Donnell is becoming a one-woman litmus test. Contrary to the claims of her supporters, however, it's not the kind of litmus test Republicans can use to determine a person's conservatism.

Nine years ago today, President Bush stood atop the rubble of the Twin Towers next to a fireman and sent a message to our enemies. Totally unscripted. Eric Draper, a former White House colleague of mine, took the famous photograph. Keith Hennessey, another former colleague, has a post on his blog today featuring first-person accounts of the back stories from the people who were with the President that historic day. See for yourself here.

Late last week, Federal District Court Judge Virginia Phillips found 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' to be unconstitutional. It is clear what its difficulties are. There have been a spate of decisions in the past several months, on the Defense of Marriage Act, and of course Proposition 8 where the District Courts have outrun the Supreme Court's official pronouncements as to the level of scrutiny that they will give to government actions. Traditionally the regulation of marriage had been regarded a legislative function. The internal operations of the military more so. The decision of Judge Phillips draws very strong conclusions about the deleterious effects of the 'Don't Ask, Don' Tell' rule, which may be true, but which show no deference to the legislative branches where it is most needed, in managing its own institutions.

I would be loathe to let that decision stand, even though I would want the military, the president, and Congress to seriously reconsider this issue in light of experience overseas and in the US military. But the legitimacy of the policy could easily turn on the mode of its implementation. I do hope that the president decides to appeal, if only to preserve the dominance of political institutions over government operations. I feel quite differently about government regulation of private affairs, where the presumption should be against legislative interference.

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On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that “state universities have become the favorite of companies recruiting new hires because their big student populations and focus on teaching practical skills gives the companies more bang for their recruiting buck.” The article, which seems to be outside the paywall, is interesting. Even more interesting is the fact that the only university listed by recruiters from corporations such as GE to be found in the Ivy League is Cornell University – which is half-private, half-public.

Here is the list of the top twenty-five schools identified by recruiters in order of preference: Penn State, Texas A&M, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Purdue, Arizona State, University of Michigan, George Institute of Technology, University of Maryland in College Park, University of Florida in Gainesville, Carnegie Mellon, Brigham Young, Ohio State, Virginia Polytechnic, Cornell, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, UCLA, Texas Tech, North Carolina state, the University of Virginia, Rutgers, Notre Dame, MIT, the University of Southern California, Washington State, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The piece also lists in-state and out-of-state tuition, and the gap is enormous. At Berkeley, for example, in-state tuition is $12,462; out-of-state tuition is $35,341. In most cases, the latter is double the former. In some, as in the case of Berkeley, out-of-state tuition is very nearly three-times what in-state tuition is.

To some degree, I suspect, recruiter preference is skewed by the sheer size of the schools and the presence of engineering schools and business schools. But, even if this is true, the results are striking.

Let me say that I am a bit surprised. Over the years, I have learned from transfer students that it is perfectly possible to get through the big state universities without learning anything at all. I remember the day when one of the leading players on the Washington Redskins announced that he was learning how to read. He was a graduate of Oklahoma State University. Years ago, when I lived in Chapel Hill, I was told that there was a major at UNC called “Playground Management.” Whatever one might want to say about Stanford, the University of Chicago, Columbia, Princeton, and Yale, one could not say that.

Nonetheless, the data collected by The Wall Street Journal gives one pause. Could it be the case that virtually no one from our elite schools goes on to work in business? Are these schools almost exclusively preparing their students for post-graduate studies – in, say, law, medicine, the academy – and for work with NGOs and in the government? I would love to know more.

Journalists are supposed to eschew reporting conversations with cab drivers in foreign countries on the grounds it's a grave journalistic cliche, one that hints that the conversation was the only one you had with the local plebes. It's a cliche for sure, but a cliche for a good reason--a taxi ride is more likely to give rise to a good "man on the street" quotes than any other daily interaction you might have. After all, you're stuck together for the length of the ride, there's nothing to do but talk. Cab drivers tend to see a lot of the city. They know what's happening on the streets. And these conversations are often unusually confessional. Maybe that's because you know you'll never see each other again; maybe it's because he's looking at the road, not at you. (Patients in Freudian psychoanalysis lie on the couch, rather than looking at the analyst: Freud theorized that it was easier to speak without inhibition if you couldn't see any reaction on the analyst's face. There's some of that going on, I think.)

Anyway, I do always have interesting conversations with cab drivers, wherever I go, which I tend to feel bad about reporting because I know other journalists will mock me. But it's worth noting how different my conversations with American cab drivers are from my conversations with cab drivers overseas. The first thing is that cab drivers here are almost always immigrants, because it's a job that doesn't require good English. They're immigrants, usually, from really crummy places. And they love America so much--every one of them. God, do they love America. Everyone else is complaining his head off about the economy, about Obama, about the Republicans, about the end of the American Dream--but they're not. They're just so damned grateful to be here.

In the past few days I've spoken to cab drivers from Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Haiti, and they all said the same thing, they all said it so passionately and genuinely: "I love it here so much." When I asked my cab driver from Ethiopia why he was so much happier about the situation here than other Americans I've been speaking to, he said, "Americans, they just don't know. They just don't know what it's like in other countries."

These guys are usually surprised when they figure out that I actually do know what it's like in other countries. I can almost always astonish them, if they come from a country I know a lot about, by asking a question about some arcane aspect of the local political scene. The Haitian guy and I had a long chat about water purification in Jacmel after the earthquake. Long story why I know about that, but sadly I do. We usually bond a bit over this, talking about how Americans take so much for granted--the freedom, the peace on the streets, the wealth, the lack of government corruption. (Don't even say it--someone from Haiti knows the difference between what Americans complain of when they talk about corruption and the kind that results in 300,000 people dying when the ground shakes.)

In Turkey, cab drivers pretty much universally complain about the government. They're thoroughly cynical about politics. Usually the conversation trends toward a long denunciation of the entire political class. They love Turkey--as well they should--but they hate their politicians. I've never met a Turkish cab driver who believes Turkey's an economic powerhouse, by the way. One of the first things they want to talk about is unemployment and how badly it's affecting their families.

Cab drivers in France are less likely to be immigrants; they tend to be working-class men who hate immigrants with all their being and make no secret of it. If they are immigrants, however, when asked what their experience of immigration has been, they almost always sigh and say, "Dur, dur, dur." It's really hard.

I've noticed a lot of things to worry about on this trip back to America, but I was glad to find that the cab drivers still love the place. That's a good sign. When they stop saying how happy and grateful they are to be here, it's time to panic. Until then, the American Dream's not dead.

The upshot of the conversation resulting from my recent post on the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations was that skepticism is running high about their chances of success. So high that some readers believe it’s a waste of time even discussing the subject. “Eyes glazing over” were mentioned. The failure of talks from the Kennedy administration on down were invoked. The spectacle was referenced, so sadly familiar, of Secretaries of State and special envoys and special negotiators and regional experts racing to the region like eager puppies and then slinking home with their tails between their legs. The peace treaty with Egypt and subsequent murder of Anwar Sadat were remembered.

And hey, let’s be honest. In this instance too, the odds are low that we’ll get to an agreement of any kind before 1) Hamas successfully spoils the party or 2) Abbas chickens out or 3) the PA is encouraged by the Americans/Europeans to make suicidal demands of the Israelis, effectively ending the talks or 4) the settlers are invoked as the ultimate spoiler or 5) Hezbollah/Iran steps in to kill some Israelis, force a response, and explode the talks that way (since Israeli retaliation is, of course, ipso facto evidence that they don’t really want peace in the first place).

And yet. As Katharine Hepburn said to Humphrey Bogart, Nevertheless.

Let’s break down the main arguments, as put forward by our good members here at Ricochet. (I've taken the liberty of paraphrasing a bit.)

1. Peace agreements never work. Look at Egypt.

Response: What do you call Jordan? Chopped liver?

Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994 that defined and opened borders, established diplomatic relations, provided provisions for economic and other forms of cooperation, and set in motion an anti-terrorist security alliance that has saved lives in both countries. It's not the cuddly warm peace many Israelis were hoping for, but it's not a frozen wasteland of a peace, either. It's often forgotten about because for all its flaws, it's largely working.

2. Palestinians are born and bred to believe that Israel is the enemy. It’s in their schoolbooks, for heaven’s sake. A piece of paper signed by Abbas and Netanyahu isn’t going to change the way Palestinians think. You keep saying it's a good thing that Hamas is outside the process, but who cares? They all believe the same thing.

Response: Young Palestinians are indeed educated to hate us, and the poison in their textbooks will have to be addressed, preferably as part of the treaty itself. But it's absurd to say that the populations of Ramallah and Gaza City are exactly the same. To Ahmed and Dalia Ramallah, non-fundamentalist, educated Muslims who want to expand their growing business outside the confines of the territories, Hamas is a lot worse than the Jews. Construction is booming in the West Bank; life is improving, and it can only improve more if Israel becomes a friend and not a foe. Ahmed and Dalia can see not only that, but also how the standard of living in Gaza -- never Paris in spring, even at the best of times -- has gone completely to pieces since Hamas took control. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the West Bank is not Gaza, and its residents are not the same people. Two Muslims cannot be assumed to be interchangeable any more than two Jews or two Episcopalians.

3. A broader point, linked to #2: It’s pointless to talk peace with the Palestinians since the entire Muslim world wants Israel’s destruction.

Response: As Claire succinctly put it, "It's as inaccurate and dangerous to US foreign policy to believe that there are no peaceful Moslems as it is to believe that there are only peaceful Moslems." If only as a safeguard against radical Islamism, much of the Muslim world tacitly blesses Israel's existence. You might argue that the "tacitly" is the problem -- what good is support you don't offer out loud? -- and that it's only self-interest that's prompting unprecedented (if discreet) expressions of common ground with Israel. To both objections, I say, so what? Any statement that even acknowledges that there is an Israeli side to the conflict, let alone a statement of allegiance with the Israeli side over the Muslim one (as we have seen in the case of the Saudis and others encouraging Israel to oppose Iran), would have been unthinkable in the very recent past. We're all acting out of self-interest here -- the Saudis granting us flyover permission, the Jordanians working side-by-side with us to stop Islamist terrorist attacks in Amman and Tel Aviv, the Arab diplomats quietly telling the Americans that they'd welcome an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Tacit or otherwise, self-interested or not, any expression of Arab sympathy with Israel is historically significant and gives the lie to the myth of the monolithic Muslim world.

4. Okay. The Muslim world might be splintered, but it’s unified on one subject: the Palestinian problem. The Arab street is not going to support any agreement that requires recognition of the Jewish state.

Response: With all due respect, let's focus a little more on the leadership of the Arab countries and a little less on the "Arab street." At Hamas rallies, the people are not screaming "Death to Israel!" because they thought of it; they're screaming it because their leaders told them to. They might agree with the sentiment, they might not; but Ismail Haniyeh is not running polls of the Gaza street before setting the agenda.

We're not dealing with democracies here, Jimmy Carter's protests notwithstanding. Those countries with elections are democracies in name only (I believe Bashar al-Assad squeaked by with 97% of the popular vote in Syria, running unopposed). There's something simultaneously fawning and fearful about Western hand-wringing over the views of the "Arab street."

What's called for is leadership. Leaders lead their people; they don't follow them. Abbas has a historic opportunity to be the leader the Palestinians have desperately needed for sixty-two years. They have been spectacularly ill-served by their leaders, particularly Arafat. If he's smart, Abbas won't care a damn what Arabs are saying about him in Tripoli. Once the money starts flowing and real exchanges begin between the PA and Israel, the opinions of distant nay-sayers will be irrelevant. And who knows -- once the Arab street sees how much better the status quo in the territories becomes after the treaty, it might even change its tune.

5. You're dodging the issue, Levy. "Money talks" is a Western, American approach to problem-solving. We're at war with a tyrannical theocracy bent on global conquest. Do you seriously think a fundamentalist imam's mind is going to be changed by a peace treaty and some Palestinian-Israeli joint ventures?

Response: Probably not. But that's even more of a reason to push for peace between two peoples who have fundamentalist Islam as a common danger. It's the reason why Americans should care about the peace talks. The imams are going to be everybody's problem sooner or later, and they'll be as hostile to secular Muslims on the West Bank as they will be to Christians in New York or Jews in Albuquerque. It's in our interest to be a united front.

An Israeli-Palestinian peace would be a Jewish-Muslim peace. I know we're strongly for peace over here. The open question is whether it's possible to be a true believer in Islam and want peace at the same time, and I don't know enough about Islam to answer. But what I do know is that religions evolve. (All right, the Jews haven't much, but I suspect that's largely because Judaism is not a proselytizing religion. We'll save that for another conversation.) It's self-defeating to argue that any attempt at peacemaking by the Israelis should be stifled at birth because Islamic extremists won't like it. Frankly, what I'd like to see happen is for Israel and Palestine to make peace and to tell the disapproving wider world, from the fire-breathing imams of Teheran all the way to the salon anti-Semites of London, to pipe down and clear off; we've got some nation-building to do. You might view that as the height of hopeless idealism. I view it as not only practical but possible.

Americans are spending more time watching cable news. According to a new study by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, it's up in all age categories. But there's a difference:

Most of those who regularly watch O’Reilly (63%) and Hannity (65%) are 50 or older; 44% of the public is 50 or older. By contrast, the Daily Show and Colbert Report have the youngest audiences of any outlet included in the survey. Large majorities of those who say they regularly watch the Colbert Report (80%) and the Daily Show (74%) are younger than 50; 55% of public is 18 to 49.

On the other hand, Fox News just keeps growing. More than ever among Republicans and "independents":

The left thinks people are getting more conservative because of Fox News. They' blame it for everything. But I think it's the other way around. I think people are more comfortable being conservative -- and a lot more comfortable being vocal about it -- because of Fox News.

I don't think Fox News has created an audience. I think they've uncovered one.

Justice Breyer has a new book out and it's “a full-throated attack” on originalism, (i.e., Justice Scalia), according to Ashby Jones of the WSJ’s law blog. Having read an excerpt of the book, Making Democracy Work, this seems to be gist of the thing:

• The Constitution’s “basic objective [is] creating a workable democratic government”
• Democratic government depends on public acceptance of the Supreme Court’s decisions.

So the big question is: how can the Court maintain public trust? For Breyer, the answer is: don't be slaves to the text of the the Constitution. Rather, the Supreme Court must embrace the “living Constitution” – that's what the Founders really wanted. Take that, Nino Scalia!

Here’s a thought: maybe, just maybe, Americans have historically gone along with Supreme Court decisions because they have believed that the Court is at least trying to follow the Constitution. Does Breyer really think that judges making up the law is the way to inspire public confidence? And does he really think that the Founders spent months sequestered in Philadelphia to produce a document that would be mere window dressing? Just asking.

... and California, New York, Illinois, .... From msnbc this afternoon:

HAVANA — Cuba will let more than 500,000 state employees go by next March and try to move most to non-state jobs in the biggest shift to the private sector since the 1960s, the official Cuban labor federation said Monday....

"Our state cannot and should not continue maintaining companies, productive entities, services and budgeted sectors with bloated payrolls (and) losses that hurt the economy," the statement said.

Well, good heavens! If even the Castro brothers are starting to get it, where does that leave Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and the Democrat cabals running things in Sacramento, Albany, Springfield, and so many other state capitals?

You mock it. Relentlessly. But with a smile on your face. This is how it's done:

Hat tip: Instapundit