While I’ve tried to be open to more optimistic possibilities, it’s far more likely that the second Bush Administration will be more of the same, and worse. The problem for the winners is that the consequences of the Administration’s policies, still debatable in 2004, will be grimly evident by 2008, and there will be no one but Republicans to take the blame. In purely partisan terms, as I argued several times before the election, this was a good one to lose.
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At this stage, as I’ve said, I think a Kerry victory would produce the worst of all possible worlds – responsibility without power. The alternative looks awful, but I thought I’d sketch out the optimistic scenario, which is, roughly speaking, a repeat of Reagan’s second term.

In his first term, Reagan was, in many respects, worse than Bush has been. His buildup of nuclear weapons, undertaken with the support of advisers such as Perle, ran a severe risk of destroying the entire world. In economic policy, he discarded the mainstream Republican economic advisers and went for what George Bush senior called “voodoo economics”, massive tax cuts undertaken on the basis of the supply-side economic theories of people like Arthur Laffer and Jude Wanniski. This produced a peak deficit equal to 6.2 per cent of GDP in 1984, considerably higher than the peak under Bush so far.

In his second term, Reagan ignored his foreign policy advisers and signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Gorbachev. Whereas Perle and others saw Reagan’s rhetoric about bargaining from a position of strength as mere words, covering the creation of a nuclear capacity that could fight and win the inevitable showdown with Russia, Reagan actually believed it, and when he found a suitable partner in Gorbachev he put it into practice. START I, initiated by Reagan and Gorbachev, followed in 1991.

Meanwhile, on economic policy, Reagan listened to his mainstream advisers and took steps to wind back the deficit. He left the US with a big increase in public debt, partially unwound under Clinton, but the outcome was far better than it would have been if he hadn’t changed course.

At about the same time, the Plaza Accords produced a concerted policy of depreciating the overvalued US dollar and reducing the trade deficit.

What are the chances that we’ll see something similar from Bush? In foreign policy, this would entail a shift towards bilateral or multilateral peacemaking, and in domestic policy, a serious attempt to balance the budget and the trade account. In my judgement, close to zero. But I’d be interested to hear what others have to say.

If Kerry does win after all, it will be under the worst possible circumstances. A minority of the popular vote, a hostile Congress and the need to prevail in a vicious legal dogfight in Ohio. The Republicans will be out for impeachment from Inauguration Day, if not before that.

All things considered, I’d prefer a Bush victory at this point. That said, I think a second Bush Administration will be a disaster in all respects, economically, socially and internationally. To those who supported and voted for him, I’ll say “be careful what you wish for”.

Kerry is definitely doing worse than the exit polls suggested. However, it’s very hard to tell what’s going on with partial counts. None of the US networks appear to do the kind of matched-precinct counts that are standard in Australia, so the results may reflect the fact that rural and suburban votes are counted faster. In addition, there were large numbers of prepoll votes and the very limited evidence that came out suggested they were heavily Democratic. It appears these votes are counted after all the others, but no-one seems to be quite clear about this.

Of course, it’s a tight race but it appears that the networks have been burned by their experience in 2000 and are unwilling to take the chance of making a premature call. So we may be waiting a while. This is not good for me, as I have to write a column about the economic challenges facing the winner (they are huge!)

Update 2:30Well, I’ve written the “Bush wins” version. Unless something startling happens with the prepoll votes, Bush is safe in Florida. That means, if I’ve worked out the rules correctly, that Kerry has to come from behind in both Ohio and Wisconsin to win. Not impossible, but a long shot at this stage.

Further update 2:52 Kerry is now leading in Wisconsin. If he wins in Ohio (still against the odds), it will be on absentee and pre-poll ballots, which implies a gigantic legal bunfight for the second time running.

Yet further update 4:05 Most pundits are calling Ohio for Bush, though his lead has narrowed in the last half hour. Just in case, I’ve written my “Kerry wins” piece, which is very pessimistic about the prospects for a Kerry Administration (see post above this one).

Final update 5:36 Premature calls. Now I’m working on the “cliffhanger” version. Even with Ohio, where Kerry hasn’t conceded, Bush is still one vote short according to MSNBC. I assume he’ll win at least one of New Mexico and Nevada, which will bring it all back to Ohio. I still can’t see Kerry winning, but I wouldn’t concede either in his position.

This post by Chris Bertram made a point that’s central to a post I’ve been planning for some time, so I may as well jump in and complete it. Talking about US airstrikes in Iraq, he writes

The risk of the operation is transferred by deliberate and systematic policy from soldiers to bystanders. Such a policy runs contrary to traditional views about who should bear the risk of operations: we can’t insulate civilians completely but where there’s a choice soldiers both in virtue of the role they occupy and the fact (here) that they are volunteers should take on more exposure in order to protect civilians. It is hard to escape the thought that were co-nationals of the people dropping the bombs the ones in the bystander position, different methods would be used.

An obvious comparison is with the police force. If any of us were involved in a confrontation between police officers and armed criminals, we would expect the police to risk their lives to save us[1]. A police force that viewed protecting the safety of its own members as the primary priority would not be very effective. A police force that was prepared to pursue criminals with deadly force, and treat deaths among the general public as “collateral damage” would be worse than useless. But that is, in essence, what has been given to the Iraqi people.

This raises, I think, a fairly general point in relation to the kind of liberal/humanitarian interventionism exemplified by Bosnia and Kosovo, and (from the viewpoint of some of its backers, particularly on the left) in Iraq. Unless the intervening powers have the willingness and capacity to provide peacekeepers who will operate as a police force, with the associated attitude that protection of the civilian population is the top priority, then intervention is bound to produce bad outcomes.
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Talking in terms of generations (Baby Boomers, X, Y and so forth) is so intellectually lazy that it seems to give practitioners a license to turn their brains off, and speak almost entirely at random. Still, even at its worst, there has normally been some sort of attempt to keep the dates straight. But how about this piece from Bernard Salt of KPMG? Focusing on Generation Y, born over the 15 years to 1991, Salt says Generation Y is too hip for the Boomer humor of “Hey Hey, it’s Saturday” and goes on to observe “Generation Y humour is best encapsulated in Seinfeld.”

So Generation Y is “encapsulated” by a show about neurotic, self-absorbed boomers[1] that started its run when they were still being born (1989), and showed its last episode at at time (1998) when lots of them were more interested in collecting Pokemon cards than in watching sitcoms.

I don’t know why Salt is bothering with poor old Ozzie Ostrich. On this dating system, he could identify the boomers with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, or for that matter with Lily Langtry and Lola Montez. Will no-one ever call a halt to this nonsense?

fn1.Seinfeld was born in 1954, three years after Daryl Somers

When I first read the eschatological works of Hal Lindsey and others, one of the favorite themes was numerological analysis of the Book of Revelation, in which the EU figured prominently.

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

At the time, the then EEC had six members, so an expansion to seven or ten (which seemed likely) would fulfil the prophecy and signal the impending arrival of the end times. The Whore of Babylon also fitted in, but I can’t remember how. The EU did have ten members between 1981 and 1986, and I remember speculating that Reagan might be the Antichrist – surviving an assassination attempt was supposed to be a crucial sign (Revelation 13:1-2). But the world did not end after all.

Now, thanks to the Economist, I discover that Lindsey was right, except for a reversal of alignment. Arsene Heitz, the designer of the EU Flag advises that it was inspired by Revelation 12:1

A great sign was seen in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

normally taken to refer to the Virgin Mary. I’d be fascinated to see an apocalyptic Protestant response to this revelation.

As I’ve observed before, irony is always dangerous. In my recent post about good and bad news from Iraq, I referred to impossibly cute kitten stories. This is Belle Waring’s ironic description of the kind of good news story that relies on the fact that even in the midst of war, and even under oppressive dictatorships, life goes on. Farmers plant their crops, children (and kittens) are born and play, and so on. It’s worth remembering this when we get too gloomy about the bad things that are happening but, since it’s true always and everywhere, it isn’t news. So, anyone who makes a big play out of this kind of ‘good news’ is liable to appear dishonest, or at least misleading. A good example is the scene in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 with Iraqi children flying kites and having fun, just before the US invasion. Moore was severely crticised for this and rightly so – the fact that children played games like children everywhere did not tell us anything about Saddam’s regime. The good news stories listed by Arthur Chrenkoff provided another example, with a story[1] which referred to “farmers tilling fields and women walking on roads. Freight trains and major highways.”

I thought that the analogy was obvious enough, and went on to the main point, which was that the election rules presented as good news by Chrenkoff seemed designed to put obstacles in the path of independents and non-government parties. But Tim Blair picked it up and solemnly advised his readers that having searched Chrenkoff’s site carefully, he’d found no mention of kittens at all – I’d made them up!. Even when I spelt out the point in detail in the comments thread, he persisted in observing that the Sweeney story was about farmers tilling fields, and had nothing to do with kittens.

But irony is a double-edged sword. Just as I wrote this the thought struck me that, rather than obtusely missing the point, Blair is ironically playing dumb to provoke controversy. If so, he has obviously managed to fool most of the residents of his comments thread, but that wouldn’t be hard.

fn1. The full story by Annie Sweeney cached here is less absurdly upbeat than Chrenkoff’s extract makes it sound.

In the dispute over Rocco Buttiglione the head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso has blinked, deferring a vote which would have seen his entire panel of 25 commissioners rejected by the European Parliament. Barring extraordinary dexterity, it looks as if he will have to either secure Buttiglione’s withdrawal or shunt him to a less controversial job.
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Amid all the dreadful news from Iraq, Australian blogger Arthur Chrenkoff has made it his mission to report the good news. A lot of the time this consists of impossibly cute kitten stories, and those repainted schools we’re always hearing about. But there is some real good news.

And, then, there’s this report on conditions for participation in the Iraqi election, linked by Chrenkoff from Iraq the model
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