With all the ink split and airwaves filled about John Bolton and UN reform, very little in the way of "what exactly do we mean by reform" has been discussed by either proponents or opponents of Bolton's nomination. I admit to a certain sympathy for Tom Friedman's recent takedown of the GOP cries for "UN reform."

"Reforming the U.N." is without question one of the most tired, vacuous conservative mantras ever invented. It is right up there with squeezing "waste, fraud and abuse" out of the Pentagon's budget.

Still, I think Suzanne Nossel does us all a terrific service at Democracy Arsenal in explaining where UN reform really does matter. She outlines a number of key issues, as well as the stands being taken by different players.

Suzanne presents her piece as "on the margin of the Bolton debate." If, however, as has been speculated, the White House is considering pushing Bolton to the Senate floor even if the Committee sends his nomination with a negative recommendation, the sole reason -- other than an assertion of presidential power -- will be to tar the Democrats as "UN-huggers" who don't want an "effective UN." Such a circus will do neither the Democrats nor US foreign policy any good.

For that reason, I think it's extremely healthy for the policy blogs like Democracy Arsenal to expand beyond Bolton himself to the specifics of UN reform. The point is not that the Bush position on reform (at least as it's likely to be pursued by Rice) is either necessarily disingenuous or bad per se. Nor is it that the Bolton opponents are opposing Bolton as a way of undermining Bush's position on the UN. Rather, it's that Bolton is the wrong guy to pursue a reform agenda that is broadly shared on both sides of the aisle.

To make that case effectively requires Bolton's opponents to do more than simply saying "me too." It's not enough to say vaguely that the UN needs reform. That isn't very persuasive, and it has the added negative effect of being just general UN-bashing, rather than focusing on expanding on what the UN does well and changing it where it needs to change.

Suzanne also makes the point that it's important to identify where specific reform priorities overlap with Kofi Annan's proposals, and where the sticking points are. As she illustrates, a lot of those sticking points will be found in disagreements between the US and either Annan or other groups of countries, NOT between a majority of Republicans and Democrats.

Suzanne points us to a recent speech at the UN by Shirin Tahir-Kheli, the person Condi Rice has put in charge of the reform effort and the response to Annan's proposals. There are lots of tricky issues that are finessed in the speech. But I think most of us will find there's much to like in the Rice agenda so far. Which just makes the Bolton appointment all the more maddening and inexplicable!

{cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism}

I am an enormous fan of The Decembrist's commentary on the intersection of policy and process. He has few competitors -- in or out of the blogosphere -- when it comes to insights on political strategy. But those of us who are political junkies love tactics as well. And Mark Schmitt's most recent contribution is a delicious item on how Harry Reid is, at least so far, running tactical rings around Senator Frist.

Much of Frist's problems may stem from a single personal weakness -- or perhaps more accurately, the lack of a strength shared by those Senate leaders who have been most formidable, such as LBJ. Frist isn't a one-on-one "listener," with the result that he is guilty of the cardinal sin for a Senate leader -- he doesn't know where his votes are or where they may be a week from now if the scene shifts slightly.

When combined with the fact that Frist is being pulled every which way by the various constituencies he needs to mount a presidential campaign, the picture is not a pretty one.

Ezra Klein proposes that Senate leadership positions should be reserved for those who forswear any immediate presidential ambitions.

So if future Senates want themselves to function, they should pass a new rule: no majority leader or minority leader is allowed to run for president in the next presidential election. If you hold the position in 2005 and resign in 2006, no go until 2012. If you become majority leader in 2009, you got to bracket your hopes until 2016. You've got to be out of the leadership for four whole years before you can run for president. Hopefully, that'd keep the opportunists from running and help install those who care about, and like, the Senate as an institution.

Someone who lives and breathes legislating, and loves nothing better than to talk with his colleagues about it. Sounds old-fashioned, but it just might work. Harry Reid, anyone?

Billmon has sussed it out. And unfortunately, I don't think there's a bit of tinfoil in his narrative -- just the natural logic of power and and an example of the dynamics of competition when interest groups obtain political controls over markets. A cautionary reminder for Democrats as well, I should add, even when they rationalize their own interventions as being on the side of angels.

It's been said before, but it's worth expressing again as we, along with such estimable elephants as Episcopal Minister, former Senator and UN Ambassador John Danforth, contemplate the last gasps of responsible conservatism. Kevin Drum, a braver man than I, has apparently been poking around the Heritage Foundation's website and finds that the Lysenkosphere continues to encroach upon the Laffosphere. Michael Lind tells in Up From Conservatism that his moment of departure from the "conservative movement" was when the rightist punditocracy refused to stand up to Pat Robertson and his paranoid ravings about the "New World Order," which borrowed if not plagiarized outright from a 19th century anti-Semitic tract. It was already clear to Lind at that point (the book was published in 1997) that principled conservatism was dead, consumed or subsumed by angry populism and low-church fervor. In Lind's mind, the Republicans had already become the party of William Jennings Bryan, where they had once been the party of Lincoln.

By the way, I hope Billy Kristol enjoys his new team. It looks like even David Brooks is hinting at his discomfort, but the once-readable Weekly Standard is headed in the opposite direction. A pity.

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg, meanwhile, is not worried about Republicans, though as far as I can tell he doesn't make a convincing case that conservatism is intellectually healthy and coherent. See also Matt Y's comments.

Wow. Is this really the best they can scrounge up?

President George W. Bush today announced his intention to nominate one individual and designate one individual to serve in his Administration: The President intends to nominate Timothy D. Adams, of Virginia, to be Under Secretary of the Treasury (International Affairs). Mr. Adams recently served as Policy Advisor for the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign. He previously served as Chief of Staff at the Department of the Treasury. Prior to joining the Administration, Mr. Adams served as Policy Director for the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign. Earlier in his career, he co-founded and served as Managing Director of The G7 Group, a Washington, D.C. based consulting firm. Mr. Adams also served as Deputy Associate Director of the Office of Policy Development at the White House during President George H. W. Bush's Administration. He received his bachelor's degree and two master's degrees from the University of Kentucky. The President intends to designate Arnold I Havens, of Virginia, to be the Acting Deputy Secretary of the Treasury.

At least John Taylor had a PhD.

Publius has been on a roll lately, what with Sir Bork rescuing the fair maiden Original Understanding from the evil denizens of the Enchanted Liberal Forest and Publius himself tracing a path back to the foundation on which liberalism stands. So I can't call today's contribution "the best," but it's well worth a read, both for entertainment value and for a sober message.

Let me set the scene. This is the entr'acte before the curtain rises on Act II of our Social Security drama. After Act I, during which the Democrats have for most purposes won on the grounds that the emperor's wardrobe is empty, the story shifts to a search for new ways for the Democrats to defeat themselves. In this scene, a nice little bait-and-switch farce, the punditocracy has become complicit, even if unwitting in some cases. And here the pundits find themselves on much more comfortable ground -- not substance, mind you, but opining on the elaborate gavotte of power politics. They know the notes, and they're singing them from the chorus, but Publius to their distress isn't following the score. So they sing even louder the inevitable calls for a gesture from the victorious of "compromise for the greater good" -- though in this case it seems a bit premature given the fragility of the apparent victory in what has been so far merely a minor skirmish in Act I.

As Publius warns, compromise is only possible if two sides are basically talking about the same thing. When they're not, suggestions of compromise are simply... well, read it.

Here I was, feeling all mellow about how we should be able to rally around some commonsense principles in response to the complex prospects of political changes in the Middle East, and The New Republic strikes again. Their editors sure know how to put me seriously out of sorts. These guys give "idealism" a bad name, and I'm beginning to contemplate embracing "realism" with fervor.

The message from our grand political strategists at TNR is not that we should pull together behind sensible policies to promote better governance and open societies. Oh, that's all well and good, and Teddy Kennedy gets a nice little pat on the head for being a good boy and saying democracy in the Middle East is a good thing. But that's missing the Big Idea -- it's time to get into the democracy bidding wars. Who can be more "pro-democracy." And to give us just the incentive we need, they point to the silent regrets we all must share that Bill Clinton didn't make Middle East democracy the obsession of his administration. If we miss the bandwagon this time, we're really, really, really going to regret it.

The editors certainly make a valid point regarding the track record of the Bush Administration. It's important to force this Administration to pay attention to the long, hard, patient, frustrating slog at the level of institutions. Democracy can indeed be a devil once the details are examined -- both getting there and keeping it functioning to produce stable, effective governments. Fareed Zakaria wrote a best-seller about that in 2003 I seem to recall.

It's also true that one would be hard pressed to find many members of the Bush Administration who have demonstrated they have sound democracy-nurturing or institution-building instincts. They seem to fall either in the "we don't do institutions" school of Donald Rumsfeld or the "Dr Pangloss" school of Paul Wolfowitz. But the evolution of their policies in Iraq over the past year has shown they've done some learning, albeit the hard way, and they should be encouraged -- loud and often -- to keep up the good work, as I hope my most recent comments indicated.

I'm not sure which gets me more steamed -- the suggestion by the editors that Bill Clinton's efforts were misplaced to focus on strengthening the international economic architecture, halting destabilizing ethnic turmoil in the Balkans and bringing Yasser Arafat to a deal he should have taken, or the notion that the touchstone of US foreign policy for the foreseeable future is taking "democracy" -- whatever that may be -- to the dark reaches of the globe. They just can't get off their hobby-horse of remaking the world.

I do know that their rationale -- that the Bush Administration won't let liberals in on the action in places like Russia if we don't raise the ante -- is proof once again they don't understand how the Bush Administration plays politics. The proper role of liberals in the Bush universe is as punching-bag foils -- regardless of what any liberals actually do or say -- or as members of the anonymous cheering section well hidden behind the pom-poms on the sidelines.

But more important, the issues our policymakers have to deal with can't be addressed by sticking ideological labels on them. As I've noted before, the concept of "democracy" is content-free as a guide for policymaking. The choices facing the US are far more multifaceted and interdependent that some artificial choice between promoting "democracy" or acquiescing in "stability." And a single-minded "obsession" with remaking the world is as likely to erode American strategic strengths on a wide range of fronts as enhance its security from terrorists.

The problems US policymakers have today with Russia are not that Russia isn't democratic. There are certainly aspects of the Russian political system that are part and parcel of the irritations and tensions that are emerging in how Russia interacts with the rest of the world, and recent domestic political trends have exacerbated those external problems. But those problems would remain -- and might be substantially worse -- if Russia were overnight suddenly "democratic" or if "democracy" came to dominate the complex agenda the US and Russia share. Talking in terms of "democracy" is increasingly self-defeating in Latin America, where politicians of all stripes are working their way toward second-generation economic and political changes after the liberalizations of the 90s; and in doing so, they are often defining their visions in terms of how different they are from Washington. Does "democracy" help the US manage the lions' share of issues in its inter-hemispheric relations, which are principally in the economic and social spheres? Does "democracy" help the US find its way forward in defining evolving relations with China, or India, or Japan? Will it help Americans sort out when and where they should support interventions in horrific civil wars in Africa?

I have my own opinions on what US policies should and should not be doing on many of these issues, though I don't believe any are capable of clear-cut answers. What I do believe is clear, however, is that any group of self-proclaimed liberals who would criticize the Clinton Administration for failing to be sufficiently obsessed with democracy needs their collective heads examined. I certainly wouldn't look to them for guidance or trust them with either the fate of the US or of the global system. The French have an expression that I find apt for this sort of self-important nonsense: Ils ne sont pas serieux.

Recently, I haven't had a lot to say about much other than the Middle East, so I'll just agree to endorse 87% of what Kevin Drum has to say about domestic policy from here on out. For the record, Republican leaders are bad, and Joe Lieberman is annoying. Social insurance is good, single-payer health care is inevitable, America's crime, infrastructure, child development, and urban policies are national scandals. The so-called war on drugs is self-defeating. Many prominent social conservatives are scary, annoying, and/or hypocritical, and the GOP plays Lucy and Charlie Brown football games with them all the time. The environment is good and we should expend more of our GDP (via "free market" approaches where possible) to save it because we'll regret not doing so later and it will cost more to reverse the damage we're doing. Most farm and energy exploration subsidies are bad. The bankruptcy bill is appalling. We should have nationwide non-partisan redistricting. Tom DeLay has no soul. That's about it.

Maybe I'll pull an ogged and write up a couple "time capsule" posts while I'm thinking of it.

A highly unusual moment of insight from Dick Morris:

So why did the GOP not deliver the mortal blow when they could have easily done so? My guess is that the White House stopped them from doing so. Bush and Rove must have sent signals to lay off the cloture rule. Only an intervention of that order of magnitude would have been sufficiently effective to vitiate the carefully laid plans of the Republican majority.

But if the administration did intervene and stop the emasculation of the filibuster on judicial nominations, why did it do so? Why would the president voluntarily make it easier for Democrats to torpedo his judicial nominations?

President Bush and Karl Rove probably figured that they did not want the power to appoint judges without opposition from the Senate Democrats. They realized that without the filibuster there was nothing to stop them from nominating judges who would cling to a hard right-wing agenda on Roe v. Wade and other issues, permanently alienating much of the country and driving a stake into GOP efforts to reach out to independents and women.

Bush needs the filibuster so that he can nominate judges who will not drive a wedge into the politics of America. He needs an excuse to tell his far-right friends why he is not naming a new Clarence Thomas or William Rehnquist or Antonin Scalia to the court. Bush grasps that such an appointment would be a step that would shatter the unity he is achieving after his reelection. And he needs the filibuster to keep the loyalty of his base even as he disappoints their most earnest expectations.

Bush might submit a nominee who would trigger a filibuster when the Supreme Court vacancy comes. He might then be forced to name a more moderate alternative. Or he might circumvent the process entirely and name a nominee acceptable to all, as Bill Clinton did. But, in any case, Bush needs the filibuster. That’s why it is still on the rulebooks.

Right ... so worried about unity, that W. In any case, he's probably right about the Lucy holding a football strategy at work here.

UPDATE: James Joyner thinks Bush is a "true believer" who would like nothing better than to nominate another Scalia type. Actually, I think Scalia compares favorably to the latest crop of extremist nominees. There is one point to be made, in any case: Bush has pretty consistently pushed a maximalist, no-compromise negotiating strategy on judicial appointments, and gotten his way on the vast majority without having to resort to the "nuclear option." That's always his style, because he doesn't negotiate with himself. Or something.

This is absurd:

FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith tells CNET that "the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over."

In just a few months, "bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines."

I say bring it on. I'll just laugh and laugh ...

In other news of the weird, check out this story about a 23-pound lobster that Pittsburgh couldn't save:

That's a normal 1.5-pounder on the right.

good idea on the title change, fling. "Lobster" is better than "dog."