SUNDAY, MAY 16, 2010
GEORGE F. WILL
A union of irresponsibility
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hen Chancellor Angela Merkel de- cided that Germany would pay part of Greece’s bills, voters punished her
party in elections in Germany’s most pop- ulous state, North Rhine-Westphalia. How appropriate. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which end- ed the Thirty Years’ War, ratified Europe’s emerging system of nation-states. Since the end of the Thirty-One Years’ War (1914-1945), European elites have worked at neutering Europe’s nationalities. Greece’s debt crisis reveals this project’s intractable contradic- tions, and the fragility of Western Europe’s postwar social model — omniprovident wel- fare states lacking limiting principles. Greece represents a perverse aspiration —
a society with (in the words of Wisconsin Re- publican Rep. Paul Ryan) “more takers than makers,” more people taking benefits from government than there are people making goods and services that produce the social surplus that funds government. By socializ- ing the consequences of Greece’s misgovern- ment, Europe has become the world’s lead- ing producer of a toxic product — moral haz- ard. The dishonesty and indiscipline of a nation with 2.6 percent of the eurozone’s economic product have moved nations with the other 97.4 percent — and the United States and the International Monetary Fund — to say, essentially: The consequences of such vices cannot be quarantined, so we are all hostages to one another and hence no na- tion will be allowed to sink beneath the weight of its recklessness. Recklessness will proliferate. “The coining of money,” said William Blackstone more than two centuries ago, “is in all states the act of the sovereign power.” But the European Union is neither a state nor sovereign enough to enforce its rules: No euro-zone nation is complying with the E.U. requirement that deficits not exceed 3 per- cent of gross domestic product. The European Union has a flag no one sa- lutes, an anthem no one sings, a president no one can name, a parliament (in Stras- bourg) no one other than its members wants to have power (which must subtract from the powers of national legislatures), a capital (Brussels) of coagulated bureaucracy no one admires or controls, a currency that presup- poses what neither does nor should nor soon will exist (a European central government), and rules of fiscal behavior that no member has been penalized for ignoring. The euro currency both presupposes and promotes a fiction — that “Europe” has somehow be-
KLMNO
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come, against the wishes of most Europeans, a political rather than a merely geographic expression. The designs of the paper euros, intro- duced in 2002, proclaim a utopian aspira- tion. Gone are the colorful bills of particular nations, featuring pictures of national he- roes of statecraft, culture and the arts, pic- tures celebrating unique national narratives. With the euro, 16 nations have said goodbye to all that. The bills depict nonexistent win- dows, gateways and bridges. They are from . . . nowhere, which is what “utopia” means. Since European integration began in 1951 with creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, the question has been: Will there be a Europe of states or a state of Eu- rope? The euro is part of the attempt to cre- ate the latter, a leviathan constructed from the surrendered sovereignties of Europe’s nations. If money represents, as Emerson said, the prose of life, the euro reflects a determina- tion to make European life prosaic. It is an attempt to erase nationalities and subsume politics in economics in order to escape from European history. The euro pleases dispir- ited people for whom European history is not Chartres and Shakespeare but the Holo- caust and the Somme. The euro expresses cultural despair. It also presupposes something else non-
existent. The word “democracy” incorpo- rates the Greek demos — people. As the re- cent rampages of Greece’s demos, and the re- ciprocated disdain of Germany’s demos, demonstrate, Europe remains a continent of distinct and unaffectionate peoples. There is no “European people” united by common mores. Henry James wrote to William Dean Howells: “Man isn’t at all one, after all — it takes so much of him to be American, to be French, etc.” Still true; still perilous to ignore. It is said that, two decades after the end of
Europe’s East-West political division, there is aNorth-South cultural division. But the debt problems of Ireland and, even more, Britain refute that distinction. Britain’s debt, Eu- rope’s worst, is the result of increasing gov- ernment spending from 37 percent of GDP to 53 percent in a decade. The London Spec- tator says no other European nation “has ex- panded its government as quickly — over this or any other decade in postwar history.” The U in the E.U. — the unifying thread — is indiscipline. Increasingly, it also is the uni- fying characteristic of the USA.
georgewill@washpost.com
POST PARTISAN
Excerpts from The Post’s opinion blog, updated daily at
washingtonpost.com/postpartisan
EVA RODRIGUEZ
Estrada’s class act
You’ll recall that Miguel Estrada’s judicial
nomination was blocked by Democrats and left-wing groups that grossly distorted his record and used every conceivable trick to keep the young, brilliant conservative lawyer off the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Cir- cuit — and out of contention for an eventual spot on the Supreme Court. But now, rather than join those blindly lambasting Elena Ka- gan, Estrada has offered an elegant and ear- nest testimonial advocating confirmation of President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. From the letter he sent to the Senate Judi-
ciary Committee on Friday: “Elena possesses a formidable intellect, an exemplary tem- perament and a rare ability to disagree with others without being disagreeable. She is calm under fire and mature and deliberate in her judgments. . . .
“If such a person, who has demonstrated
great intellect, high accomplishments and an upright life, is not easily confirmable, I fear we will have reached a point where no capable person will readily accept a nomina- tion for judicial service.” This will not sit well with some Repub- lican senators — and may have the bizarre result of fueling suspicion from some on the left who worry that Kagan is a right-winger in Democratic clothing. (Estrada notes that Kagan’s views are “as firmly center-left as my own are center-right.”) Whatever the politi- cal impact, the endorsement is evidence of Estrada’s high-mindedness. Let’s hope that lawmakers can follow his example — even if
DAVID S. BRODER
How West Virginia made history
L
boston
ast Wednesday night, the John F. Kennedy Library marked the 50th anniversary of one of the most sig-
nificant elections in American history — the West Virginia Democratic primary of May 10, 1960, between Kennedy and Hub- ert Humphrey. It was an evening for reminiscence —
and maybe for exaggeration. Ted Soren- sen, who was at Kennedy’s side through- out the campaign fight, argued that if Kennedy had lost to his Minnesota rival, as many had expected, he would have been denied the nomination, which al- most certainly would have been the case. Then, Sorensen said, more speculatively, any of the other Democrats— Humphrey, Stuart Symington, Lyndon Johnson or Adlai Stevenson — would have lost to Richard Nixon. And Nixon would have re- sponded more belligerently to the 1962 installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba — possibly provoking a nuclear war. You don’t have to believe all of that to agree that theWest Virginia election was a turning point like few other votes in the
past century. As the library exhibit and the roundtable both emphasized, it was a crucial test for the “religious issue” in American life, measuring whether West Virginia, heavily Democratic but over- whelmingly Protestant, would support a Roman Catholic, Kennedy, for president. Initially, Sorensen recalled, Lou Har-
ris’s pioneering polls for Kennedy showed him leading Humphrey almost 4 to 1 in West Virginia. That was because voters knew Kennedy as a media personality, but not his religion. After the Wisconsin primary the month before split along reli- gious and geographic lines between east- ern Catholic counties and western Protes- tant ones, they learned — and Humphrey suddenly led 3 to 2. For five weeks, Kennedy argued against the presumption that Al Smith’s defeat in 1928 as the first Catholic nomi- nee meant “that I was denied the right to be president on the day I was baptized.” But there was more to the primary than that. Franklin Roosevelt was a saint to the poverty-stricken Democrats and union families in the mining communi-
they reach a different conclusion.
JONATHAN CAPEHART
Palin’s got a point
Listening to Sarah Palin speak at the “Cel-
ebration of Life Breakfast” fundraiser for the Susan B. Anthony List, I was fascinated by her thought-provoking slam against wom- en’s rights groups. She began by reminding the audience that suffragist Alice Paul said that abortion is “the ultimate exploitation of women.” Palin then referred to recent polls that show more young women agreeing with “their feminist foremothers” on the issue, thus “empowering women by offering them a real choice.” And then came this: “The pro-woman sisterhood is telling these young women they are strong enough and smart enough. They are capable to be able to handle an unintended pregnancy and still be able to, in less than ideal circum- stances, no doubt, to handle that. Still be able to give that child life, in addition to pur- suing a career and pursuing an education, pursuing avocations. Though society wants to tell these young women otherwise. Even these feminist groups want to try to tell women, send this message that, ‘Nope, you’re not capable of doing both. You can’t give your child life and still pursue career and education. You’re not strong enough. You’re not capable.’ So it’s very hypocritical of those . . . pro-women’s rights groups out there.”
While I don’t agree with her ultimate stance on abortion, I think she makes a very interesting point.
Republicans slide right
The parties aren’t equally to blame for Washington’s schism
by William A. Galston and Thomas E. Mann
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PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and President Obama during their joint news conference in Washington on Wednesday.
DAVID IGNATIUS
Ending the Afghan war the Pashtun way
questions that was highlighted by President Hamid Karzai’s visit to Washington last week.
H
During their well-scripted news conference at the White House, both Karzai and President Obama said they favored a process of outreach to the Taliban. And both presidents en- dorsed, as a start, the “peace jirga” that Karzai will host in Kabul in sev- eral weeks.
Obama described a framework for this peace process. He said it must be “Afghan-led” and that it should “open the door to the Taliban who cut their ties to al-Qaeda, aban- don violence, and accept the Afghan constitution, including respect for human rights.”
But these public comments skirt- ed the hard questions about recon- ciliation. Of the 1,400 Afghans who will be invited to the jirga, will there be any senior Taliban leaders who could actually explore a deal? What role will Pakistan play in bringing to the table a Taliban leadership it helped create and sustain? How soon do Karzai and Obama see this process moving toward real negotia- tions?
Karzai’s private discussions with Obama provided some clarity on these issues, according to a senior administration official. The jirga will be a modest first step, setting a framework for later discussions. The Afghan leader envisions a Taliban dialogue that eventually could in- clude the dominant Quetta Shura, headed by Mohammad Omar, and the allied group headed by Gulbud- din Hekmatyar. The United States, meanwhile, sees Pakistan as the es- sential intermediary in any future dialogue with the network directed by Sirajuddin Haqqani. “It’s clear that any negotiation will
have to take account of Pakistani in- terests in a constructive way,” said the administration official. “They’re telling us that they want to partici- pate, and they are awaiting Karzai’s game plan.” On the “how soon” question, Oba- ma embraced his military com- manders’ view that effective negotia- tion with the Taliban depends on “breaking their momentum mili- tarily.” In other words, bloody the enemy now so that it’s more pliable later. “We want to be in a better posi- tion to strike a deal,” says the official. That means serious talks with major Taliban factions aren’t likely until next year. As the White House prepares its reconciliation strategy, it should
ow do wars end in the tribal society of Afghanistan? That’s one of the interesting
ponder the Pashtun culture that spawned the Taliban insurgency. The United States has often lacked this sense of cultural nuance, which is why we have made so many mis- takes in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. One thing that should be obvious by now is that you don’t make much progress with Pashtun leaders by slapping them around in public. This is a culture that prizes dignity and detests humiliation. Attempts to shame people into capitulation usually backfire. An obvious example is Karzai
himself. He reacted to public criti- cism from Gen. Jim Jones, the na- tional security adviser, by throwing a tantrum last month, denouncing the West and threatening to join the Taliban. Last week’s White House visit was partly a piece of theater aimed at repairing the damage. The Pashtun stress on dignity
makes me wonder about the U.S. strategy for softening up the Taliban on the way to reconciliation. That strategy is aimed at getting leverage in negotiations, but it could produce a bad result: The United States will get bloodied, and the Taliban still won’t play ball. The Pashtuns have a ritual for set- tling conflicts, as befits a warrior people who constantly seem to get into fights. The process is outlined on
Khyber.org, a Web site devoted to Pashtun culture. Conflicts start be- cause of an insult to a tribe’s honor, which requires a rite of revenge known as badal. The fighting con- tinues until scores are settled and the combatants are exhausted. It’s the mechanism of conflict res- olution that’s intriguing, in terms of U.S. strategy. Reconciliation begins with a process of repentance, known as nanawatey, in which the penitent party goes into the house of his rival and asks for asylum. In Pashtun cul- ture, such a request must be grant- ed; to spurn it would be shameful. Once the desire for an honorable peace is clear, the tribal elders gath- er in a jirga and frame a temporary truce, known as a teega. The parties gather, agree to pay reparations, and the Pashtun code of generous hospi- tality, known as melmastia, takes over.
Obama said several times last week that he isn’t seeking a military victory in Afghanistan but a political accord. If such an agreement can be reached, both sides somehow will have to agree that insults have been avenged and honor has been re- stored. Otherwise, in that part of the world, people just keep on fighting.
davidignatius@washpost.com
e commend The Post for initiating a forum on polarization, which is in- deed the dominant political phe- nomenon of our time. Consider that for the first time in modern history, in both the House and the Senate, the most conservative Democrat is slightly more liberal than the most liberal Republican. This is more than an interesting scholarly finding; it has con- sequences for the legislative process. The most conservative Senate Democrat (Ben Nelson) ended up supporting health reform; the most liberal Republican (Olympia Snowe) ended up opposing it. For decades, the operational core of bipartisanship in Congress was the overlap between the par- ties. Through a long process triggered by the politics of the 1960s, that core has dis- appeared. Polarization is not confined to elected offi- cials and political elites. While the American people are not as divided as the parties are, they are more divided than they were a gen- eration ago. As Emory University’s Alan Abramowitz notes in his new book, “The Dis- appearing Center,” the percentage of the electorate that places itself at or near the ideological midpoint of American politics has shrunk from 41 to 28 percent since the mid-1980s, while the left and right extremes have expanded. In addition, because people increasingly
prefer to live near others who share their cul- tural and political preferences, they are vot- ing with their feet and sorting themselves geographically. Many more states and coun- ties are dominated by one-party supermajor- ities than in the past. Contrary to wide- spread belief, reduc- ing the gerryman- dering of congres- sional districts would make only a small dent in the problem. And unfor-
POLARIZING
POLITICS
tunately, homogeneous groups tend to re- inforce and purify the views that bring them together: Sorting not only reflects polariza- tion but also intensifies it. What The Post’s editorial missed, how-
ties, and his widow, Eleanor, was openly hostile to Kennedy. To counter her influ- ence, the Kennedy camp mailed 50,000 personally addressed letters, with a Hyde Park, N.Y., postmark and signed by FDR Jr., to impress West Virginia families. Later, as Charlie Peters, a native son who was the Charleston area chairman for Kennedy and later founded the Wash- ington Monthly, confirmed to me in a post-forum conversation, he refused re- quests from above that he tell voters Humphrey had avoided military service in World War II — so that dirty job was given to FDR’s son as well. As it happened, I heard FDR Jr. say this because I’d been sent to West Virginia as a new reporter for the now-defunct Wash- ington Star. I remember Kennedy’s super- cool, almost coldblooded reaction when I asked him if he thought Humphrey’s war record was a legitimate campaign issue: “Frank Roosevelt is here making his speeches, and I’m making mine.” That campaign, my first, was a revela- tion. I stayed for a week in Beckley, W.Va., the local headquarters for the United
Mine Workers of America and the home of Sen. Bob Byrd, who was backing Hum- phrey to slow the momentum Kennedy had gained in Wisconsin and help his real choice, Johnson. After watching the bustling activity in the local Kennedy headquarters and ob- serving the almost-suspicious lassitude in the Humphrey forces led by Sheriff Okey Mills, who confided that he would be ab- sent himself on Election Day, I concluded — and wrote for the Star — that despite the apparent odds, Kennedy might well win Raleigh County and the primary. Last week, I reached Mills’s widow, Let- tie, and what she recalled was not the Kennedys’ contributions to the “slate card” funds that local Democratic organi- zations used to cue the voters but how im- pressed her husband had been when Ken- nedy and his kid brother Ted came cam- paigning in Beckley. She had it right. Kennedy carried Ra- leigh County easily on his way to an equally easy statewide victory. And his- tory was made.
davidbroder@washpost.com
ever, is that these developments have not produced two mirror-image political parties. We have, instead, asymmetrical polarization. Put simply: More than 70 percent of Repub- licans in the electorate identify themselves as conservative or very conservative, while only 40 percent of rank-and-file Democrats call themselves liberal or very liberal. It is far easier for congressional Republicans to forge and maintain a united front than it is for Democrats. George W. Bush pushed through his signature tax cuts and Iraq war authori- zation with substantial Democratic support, while unwavering Republican opposition nearly torpedoed Barack Obama’s health- reform legislation. When Democrats are in the majority, their greater ideological di- versity combined with the unified opposi- tion of Republicans induces the party to ne- gotiate within its ranks, producing policies that not long ago would have attracted the support of a dozen Senate Republicans. Consider the episode that The Post cited as Exhibit A for polarization: Sen. Robert Bennett’s commendable work with Demo- cratic Sen. Ron Wyden to develop a biparti- san health bill, which was used against him by conservative Utah activists to deny him renomination. The Post failed to note, how- ever, that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell pulled the plug on the Wyden- Bennett initiative well before health reform was taken up last year. Bennett and other Republican co-spon- sors of this bipartisan bill were told in no un- certain terms that the party strategy was to block every major domestic policy initiative of the new administration and not to engage in substantive negotiations that could pro- duce bipartisan majorities on the floor. Dur- ing the lengthy health debate, not one Senate Republican spoke in support of the Wyden- Bennett bill. Tea Party activists outraged at Republican incumbents for cavorting with the enemy (i.e., Obama and the Democrats) took their cue from Republican Party leaders. Under these conditions of asymmetrical polarization, Congress can become a haven for obstruction and gridlock rather than de- liberation and compromise. David Price, an 11-term North Carolina Democrat and dis- tinguished political scientist, has just pub- lished a frank account of the reasons that led Democrats leaders to abandon their hopes of reinstating more open, less restrictive rules of procedure in the House. His essay is re- quired reading for those who want to under- stand the ground-level dynamics of polariza- tion in action. This is not to say that Congress is prevent-
ed from acting in a less purely partisan man- ner. When a supermajority of people, of any partisan stripe, wants something to happen — financial regulatory reform, for example —chances are good that it will. But when the people are divided, the most strident voices tend to dominate, and Congress reverts to the all-too-familiar pattern of behavior that has driven its public esteem to a record low. And a Republican Party dominated at the grass roots by angry rejection of all biparti- sanship — and of all but the most limited government — may win support in the short term, but it will be hard put to cooperate pro- ductively in the serious tasks of governance.
The writers are senior fellows at the Brookings Institution.
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