Waffles and Triangles

"pumpkin spice waffles" by Stacy Spensley is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

MWI Weekly makes its debut in the National Gazette

Ask most Americans, and they'd probably tell you they don't like politicians very much. They may be fond of a particular politician, maybe even a fervent supporter, and they may even be a fervent partisan of one of the major parties, or at least of their general worldview. 

But politics as a profession generally gets a bad rap. Fair or not, most people see politics less as the art of the possible and more like artful bunkum. A politician will tell you anything to get your vote, they say. All politicians care about is winning. They're only in it for themselves.

And to be honest, plenty of politicians give us plenty of reasons to feel this way. Some really will tell us just about anything in order to get our vote, the most glaring example being the Talented Mr. Santos, who may have set the bar for political fraud at a height no one will ever reach again.

Others, like Speaker McCarthy, seem all too willing to leave principle on the shelf in the quest for power. The deals the new speaker cut with the extreme element in his conference to get the gavel in the first place are ripe enough for criticism. But cutting deals like that, even bad ones, isn't at all unusual in a closely divided House.

Assigning Santos to committees in the face of all we know already, however, is just mystifying. The new speaker could have left it well enough alone, let Santos occupy his office and nothing else, and counted his vote. Santos himself surely wouldn't have minded. There must be some other reason.

One possible explanation is symbolism. By treating Santos as any other incoming freshman member of Congress, in a way McCarthy is signaling the rest of his conference: have at it. As long as you stick with me, I'll stick with you, even if you're lying through your teeth.

Which is exactly what most people hate about politicians.

Thirty years ago, we were faced with another politician whose relationship with the truth was, shall we say, often tenuous, at least in his political positioning, and in nothing like the way Santos practices deceit: Bill Clinton was legendary, and rightfully so, for having his finger stuck more firmly in the wind -- when his hands weren't busy elsewhere -- than maybe any other politician of the modern era. 

So agile was Clinton in his public stances, he was famously portrayed as a talking waffle suspended in thin air in the popular Doonesbury comic strip. So adroit was he at retail politics and the development of human connection (a side of his personality which may have been, in all fairness, utterly sincere), he actually befriended Richard Mellon Scaife, one of the leading figures of the infamous "vast right wing conspiracy."

Clinton even delivered the eulogy at Scaife's funeral. "Our differences are important," he said. "Our political differences, our philosophical differences, our religious differences, our racial and ethnic differences, they're important. They help us to define who we are. But they don't have to keep us at arm's length from others."

One can only wish to hear more of that today, and from more people. Especially our elected leaders. 

At any rate, the underlying impulse for connection may have had more to do with Clinton's famous policy of triangulation -- "positioning oneself in such a way as to appeal to or appease both left-wing and right-wing standpoints" -- than he's ever been given credit for. And to be honest, despite all the anger directed toward him, his two terms were marked by significant legislative compromises on everything from social spending to economic regulation.

Whether those compromises ultimately were for better or for worse is a subject for another time. The fact remains, by the end of his second term the government was running a surplus at the tail end of an economic boom, America was ascendant, and Clinton left office with the highest approval rating of any president since polling began.

But oh, the anger. Whether it was despite Clinton's success or because of it, he (and Hillary, for whom the situation is even more extreme) made the Republicans very, very mad. Gone was the sunny optimism of Ronald Reagan; the image of the Gipper sitting tall in the saddle was abandoned for something far darker. 

And we're all the worse for it. For all their flaws (and there are many, too many to list here without going off track), the Democrats have at least consistently put forward a governing agenda. It may not be a great one, but it's there to be assessed and either approved or rejected at the polls. Currently, the Republican Party doesn't even have a platform. 

What they have instead is an electoral agenda. In one public statement after another, one internal GOP debate after another, the question is how to win elections, not what to do after they've won. For the old school conservatives of the Reagan era (many of whom are now the core of the Never Trumpers), it's a situation of utter dismay. One can safely assume they'd give anything for a plate of waffles and triangles right about now -- something, anything, other than just the relentless attacks and media hits and spurious investigations.

As a People, it's something we all need. The business of governance can't stop while the circus is in town. Another budget has to be agreed by October, and a hike in the debt ceiling has to be approved by June. The emergency measures instituted to battle Covid-19 expire on May 11 and need to be replaced with something through legislative action; the virus isn't going to just disappear. 

And there really is a crisis at the southern border. It may be politically convenient to keep it in hand as a political cudgel, but real lives are at stake. The situation is only going to get worse as time goes on. And the authority of any president to deal with it, and the issue of immigration as a whole, is bounded by the actions of Congress.

The pity is, there are plenty of Republicans who do want to take action and have an idea of how to go about it. One of them is Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-Tx.), whose district is at the epicenter of the crisis, and who has been vocal about the need to get serious about solving it. He's working hard to try and reach some kind of bipartisan deal, but he's met with at least as much criticism as support within his own conference: He's a Texas border-district Republican. And he says the right's new immigration bill is a 'bad idea.' - POLITICO 

And that's a shame. To have the capability to take action and throw it aside for political theater, solely for the purpose of political gain, does no one any good, including those of us who want both a secure border and a humane immigration system. We can have both. But not if the only point is to score points. 

Putin's Bridge to Nowhere 

Last week, we wrote extensively about the War in Ukraine from both a moral and a geostrategic perspective. Since then, a new military aid package has been put together by the Biden Administration which changed the tactical picture.

One of the items reportedly in it has largely flown under the radar, which may be no accident -- it could be an actual, rather than aspirational, game changer: the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (the GLSDB, of course).

It sounds . . . well, small. But it could be huge in terms of the course of the war. The GLSDB is essentially a cheap, plentiful, easy to use artillery system which launches maneuverable glide bombs capable of hitting key targets behind the lines, things like command posts and ammunition dumps and railways and bridges. It would mark an even more profound threat to Russian logistics than HIMARS. 

What makes it so significant is its range. If they are in fact deployed, Ukraine would have the capability to hit almost all of Russia's logistics within the Donbas from their current positions. Any battlefield advance by Ukraine would also place Russian assets in Crimea under threat.

Which brings up a couple issues. On the one hand, cutting off, or at least seriously interdicting, overland supply to the Donbas would leave Putin only the Kerch Bridge and Crimea as a reliable means of moving men, ammunition and machines. But even were he to get forces over the bridge, they'd face the same problem getting to the battlefield as anything coming from Russia itself. It would be a bridge to nowhere.

The other issue is Crimea proper. It's now clear, if there's ever to be any diplomatic solution to the war -- and all wars end with a diplomatic treaty -- Crimea is going to be the sticking point. At least one recent high American official, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, sees a looming danger: Losing Crimea Would Escalate Russian-Ukraine Conflict, Former Defense Secretary Says - USNI News 

So, it's safe to say President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians are eventually going to come to a bridge of their own, metaphorically speaking. Up to now they've been insisting on a full restoration of all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, as a condition for an end to the conflict. But the Russians will never agree to losing their naval base at Sevastopol. It's not only the home port of their Black Sea Fleet, but the location of a vital shipyard.

Our official policy, as it should be, is to support the Ukrainians in whatever they decide. But it's not hard to look down the road a little and see where peace negotiations will eventually be headed. It's possible Ukraine would agree to a compromise form of governance for Crimea, something akin to making the region semi-autonomous, with troops from neither side stationed there (although Crimea would undoubtedly have to remain under ultimate Ukrainian authority). 

It's also possible Putin would agree to none of it and insists on keeping Crimea entirely. Which could present a very serious problem if and when the time comes. The ultimate course of the war, and the contours of future peace, may end up depending on whether or not he can be persuaded to change his mind.

In the meantime, the best course of action is to continue working towards putting him in the position where he can be persuaded. The GLSDB could be a big, big step in the direction of doing just that.

Odds and Ends   

A couple weeks ago, we launched the National Gazette, the flagship publication of the Institute, as a newsletter on Substack. It's available to nonmembers of the Institute on a subscription basis at the low, low rate of $5/month (we'd say "call now and get a free set of steak knives," but we don't have any steak knives).

Institute members are automatically subscribed, and they will be automatically subscribed to any future periodicals we develop as a member benefit as well. They'll also get our white papers for free and be eligible for deep discounts on any books we publish. But anyone can subscribe to the Gazette.

We worked out a lot of the kinks as we published our first series of articles, but we'll be continually improving the site. For now, here are the articles we've published so far:

How to exercise more power as a voter (substack.com) 

Where is the moderate influence on American politics? (substack.com) 

The characteristics needed for a healthy moderate third party (substack.com)

On Ideology: A Reply - by The Modern Whig Institute (substack.com) 

We're also going to publish this weekly newsletter to the Gazette, free to all. (We already publish it to our website and to our social media accounts.) We're also going to try and get at least one original free article out every week or two in the Gazette. They'll also be posted on our social media. 

The great thing about Substack, from a reader's point of view, is the comment section. Only paid subscribers can comment on paywalled content, but any subscriber will be able to comment on the free ones. It's another way for us to foster the Great American Conversation. We hope you'll join us.

Meanwhile, speaking of low costs, inflation has been the big economic story for the past year or so. It seems to be moderating now, which is giving us a glimpse into how unusual it really was: The inflation of 2021-22 was different: what we should learn from it - Niskanen Center 

It also has hit differently in different places: Inflation and high prices: Miami, Phoenix, Seattle and Atlanta hit hardest (axios.com) 

Back in Washington, many believe Speaker McCarthy has an impossible job on his hands. But it's nothing compared to what this guy is facing: Roy Wood Jr. named entertainer at 2023 White House Correspondents' dinner - POLITICO 

Amb. John Bolton gave a great extended interview to CBS last week. Whatever one's opinion of his views, ideological alignment or record, his is a voice worth hearing. And his frank and direct answers, even when he's being unabashedly partisan, are a breath of fresh air: Bolton says Trump’s 2024 campaign is ‘poison’ for GOP and ‘will continue to go downhill’ - YouTube 

Who wants to be the mayor of Crazy Town? The State Where the GOP Would Rather Lose Than Change - POLITICO 

This excellent post on another Substack says it all: The Importance of 1776 - by Ben Connelly - Self-Evident (substack.com) 

And finally, a story of scientific serendipity. For a place which is so empty, there's a lot of stuff zipping around up there: The James Webb Space Telescope gets its own micrometeoroid forecast — here's how | Space 

See you next week.

Kevin J. Rogers is the executive director of the Modern Whig Institute. He can be reached at director@modernwhig.org. ___________________________________________________________

The Modern Whig Institute is a 501(c)(3) civic research and education foundation dedicated to the fundamental American principles of representative government, ordered liberty, capitalism, due process and the rule of law.

To join the Institute, click here.