Yale law students find Madeline Albright somewhat of a fossil

"I feel like her sort of classic sassiness was in full force," Jamie Hodariylsoh LAW '07 said. "But … for people our age, obviously there's the sense that NGOs and more small-scale stuff is more nimble and more responsive to the things we're interested in, whereas it was clear that [Albright] still views government as the pinnacle of public service, which I don't think is necessarily the case for most people at Yale."

Hmmm. One of the Davids?

There is a definite disconnect from the old-line Democrats who see big government as the answer to everything, and the more free-market, individual empowerment views of the rising generation. Perhaps somewhat surprising, Albright's generation peer, George W. Bush--get it.

During his press conference today, he answered a question about the value of service in the National Guard with a more general response about the broad possibilities of service to country, specifically identifying rather small-scale opportunities like leading a Scout troop or other volunteer work with individuals. Whether Bush recognizes it as "the long tail" or not, that's what it is.

[Note to international readers: The term "high school" refers to the picayune social antics of adolescents in U.S. secondary schools as in, "that is so 'high school'.."]

I just completed "The Arabists" by Robert Kaplan, originally written in 1993 and updated in 1995. The book has a tendancy to get overlooked because it deals with "ancient history"--the first Gulf War, but its a remarkably balanced account of the Foreign Service history in the middleeast.

That's no mean feat considering how polarizing a subject the middleeast is, but Kaplan manages to make judgments without taking sides in the interminable Arab-Israeli conflict.

I recommend the book primarily for its insights into the bureaucratic tug-o'-war that occurs between the "professionals", the "political appointees" and the politicians (who may be elected or not...). The current bureaucratic wars in Washington are mostly invisible to us, with only the exchange of fire visible as media leaks, department reorganizations, etc... Granted--they've gotten a lot worse. The Plame affair was in my view nothing short of a coup attempt. Yet they aren't anything new, and "The Arabists" provides a wonderfully detailed look into how a lot of very well-intentioned people get sideways with each other, sometimes to the point where national security and the lives of our soldiers are put at risk.

For mindless moonbats chanting the mantra that the Bush administration "sold" the war, this isn't the book for you. For everyone else who wants to understand how we can get such diverse, ambiguous and just plain wrong information from government intelligence services, this book gives generalized chapter and verse.

"The Arabists" starts with the British foreign service, including of course Lawrence of Arabia, and then moves through 20th century history to chart the backgrounds and careers of notable U.S. Arabists. Most importantly, Kaplan outlines how the Arabists typically arrive at such pro-Arab sentiments (and often, but not always, their anti-semitism...). The real curiosity though is how Americans manage to "go native" and actually think and act against the interests of the U.S. Kaplan deals at some length with the curious case of April Glaspie, who effectively led Saddam Hussein to believe that he could invade Kuwait without interference from the U.S. Glaspie, who was the author's account, an intelligent and talented woman, is iconic of how even smart people can be seduced into the black hole of appeasement.

George Will's recent column concerning Woodward's rather unoriginal discovery's in "State of Denial" actually duplicates one of Kaplan's quotes from the book.

William Howard Taft was listening to a young aide talk about the machinery of government when Taft turned to an associate and said, "The young man really thinks it's a machine."

What Taft knew and the young aide didn't, was that the government is people, with their foibles, ambitions, blind-spots, sins and agendas.

The Arabists. Highly recommended for anyone with more than a casual interest in government and foreign affairs. Used copies can be purchased for less than five dollars in most cases...

The lovely bunny went to the polling station on her way to work this morning.

No joy.

The single voting machine was down with 40 people in line. She left and went to work where her colleagues describe similar problems in their precincts.

Not an auspicious start to the new era in electronic voting.

UPDATE: The local news station reports the following:

Herbert says the encoder cards, the cards that bring up a voter's precinct and correct ballot, aren't being programmed correctly. He says elections officials have brought in new encoded cards, and those polling locations should be up and running.

Voters at an elementary school in Cedar Hills say machines are going now, but when they showed up to vote at 7:00, the machines were not up, and voters were told to come back later. Many voters say they waited for more than an hour for the machines to come back up.

Utah County Clerk Kim Jackson says 32 of 118 polling locations were affected by the glitch, but he says elections officials have now walked through the process with precinct chairs to iron out the problems.

Not all that surprising. We'll need another generation before everyone is totally comfortable with computers.

... be subject to prosecution under this proposed law?

Like the proverbial bad penny that keeps showing up, a bill to grant the District of Columbia a voting congressman has reappeared this session. I previously opined about it being unconstitutional and one Democrat commenter noted the irony that many Utah Republicans supported the bill. It is ironic because this bill is all about adding an extra Demo seat in congress. The proposal of balancing DC's expected Democrat vote with an additional Republican seat for Utah is a farce because Utah will get their additional seat in the 2010 census without the DC deal.

But here is the part you would find bizarre unless you’ve followed the antics of Senator Orrin Hatch over his career:

Several years ago, I read Tom Friedman's "The Lexus and the Olive Tree", which despite having been initially published in 1992, is still relevant today.

In it, Friedman discusses the process of globalization as a straightjacket--a form of societal discipline whose end result is generally speaking, peace and prosperity. More specifically, it refers to various economic and legal practices that create a stable investment environment--private property rights, standardized banking practices, sound fiscal policy, the rule of law and most importantly--transparency.

Countries like South Korea who enthusiastically abided by the discipline have gone from third world countries to major industrial powers. Those that did not are mired in soul-crushing poverty.

As South Korea's former PM, Lee Hong Koo stated:

In the old days we used to say, "History dictated this or that." Now we say that "market forces" dictate this and you have to live within those forces. It took us time to understand what had happened. We didn't realize that the victory of the Cold War was a victory for market forces above politics. The big decisions today are whether you have a democracy or not and whether you have an open economy or not. Those are the big choices. But once you've made those big choices, politics becomes just political engineering to implement decisions in the narrow space allowed you within this system."

It occurred to me the other day, while reading yet another article on how Americans are losing faith in their government that we are backsliding on the big choices.

Even media outlets like CNN, traditionally sympathetic to the Democrats third world political philosophy, are aghast at its reality. CNN asked all members of Congress to reveal their earmark requests (remember, transparency is an essential part of the social straight jacket...).

CNN correspondent Drew Griffin and a team of two staffers and six interns all 435 members of the House of Representatives a simple question - if they get obtain a copy of each representative's earmark request. Even with the Democrats' campaign promise before the last election that they wanted a more "open" government, 330 members of the House never responded to the simple request. Another 67 refused the interns' request. Ultimately, they were only able to obtain the earmark requests from the offices of 31 representatives. Out of the 31, seven said they had no earmark requests in the fiscal year 2008 budget.

Increasingly, the political class is engaged in influence-peddling, preventing existing laws on illegal immigration from being enforced, unilaterally abrogating trade agreements (ask a Canadian about softwood lumber--again, an earful...).

The government is broken. The 2008 elections, should by all rights be about fixing it, and that really is a process that starts with you and I.

Glenn notes the Air Force blocked Former Spook's In From the Cold blog after reporting on the misplaced nukes at Minot Air Force Base.

I wonder if Glenn knows Instapundit has been banned from some Air Force networks for years.