Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN) – Well, now that Oprah’s finally said goodbye, maybe women can get back to the important business of planning to be raped.

What’s that? You have no idea what I’m talking about?

That’s exactly what some politicians are hoping for — women’s lack of attention to what is being said about them, women being unaware of what is being decided about them.

I’m a dude, so I don’t really have a dog in this race, but I thought an elected official suggesting women should be prepared to be raped the way he is prepared for a flat tire would draw more attention than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s love child. But once again, I’ve overestimated the public’s ability to prioritize.

Earlier this month, Kansas State Rep. Pete DeGraaf made some rather outlandish comments during a debate centered on banning insurance companies in Kansas from offering abortion coverage as part of their general health plans unless a woman’s life were at risk. The bill, which the governor signed into law last week, would require a woman to carry a separate policy for abortions. When Rep. Barbara Bollier voiced concern for women who may become pregnant as a result of rape or incest, this exchange followed:

DeGraaf: “We do need to plan ahead, don’t we, in life?”

Bollier: “And so women need to plan ahead for issues that they have no control over with pregnancy?”

DeGraaf: “I have a spare tire on my car.”

“I also have life insurance,” he added. “I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for.”

Ladies and gentleman of the great state of Kansas, your tax dollars at work.

It shouldn’t really matter which side of the fence you stand on regarding abortion: that tone, that rationale, has no place in the debate. That more people, more women, were not angered by DeGraaf’s statements only highlights just how little we are paying attention to lawmakers.

In other words, in a debate centered on banning Kansan insurance companies from offering abortion coverage in their general health plans to women whose lives are not endangered by the fetus – or, in other words, requiring women to purchase separate insurance policies if they want coverage for elective abortions – Barbara Bollier raises the question of victims of rape and incest: should women who want their insurance to cover elective abortions resulting from nonconsensual sex, rather than pay out of pocket, purchase separate insurance policies? DeGraaf says yes, women can either choose to bear the risk of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest or they can purchase a separate insurance package. (Not separating out abortion coverage from general insurance, on the other hand, requires that everyone else in the general insurance pool helps to pay for coverage of elective abortions, raising the cost of their insurance and also requiring them to cover something they may have moral objections to. Presumably that is the reasoning behind separating it out.) Bollier’s response, “And so women need to plan ahead for issues that they have no control over with pregnancy?”, belies a fundamental ignorance of the very nature of insurance. Seriously, remind yourself of the very definition of insurance, and then go back and read her response and tell me that doesn’t come from ignorance or demagoguery. Recall further that Bollier is arguing that no woman – even those who want abortions for consensual sex – should have to purchase a separate abortion coverage insurance policy because it’s somehow unjust for would-be rape and incest victims to have to insure themselves against the risk of a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. Seems like a leap to me. DeGraaf’s argument that women must assess how they want to manage the risk of same is no different from how you or I must assess how we want to manage the risk of dying early and leaving our families without our income. Neither the tone of that argument nor its rationale is objectionable. What is objectionable is people like Bollier exploiting would-be rape victims to provide cover for others to subsidize abortions-on-demand and Granderson’s attempts to silence those who would point that out.

Tea partier Sharron Angle raised eyebrows during the 2010 midterm election by suggesting rape and incest victims who become pregnant and do not have an abortion made a “lemon situation into lemonade” — but at least she lost and cannot mandate that rape victims make lemonade.

What, pray tell, is objectionable about praising these victims for choosing to keep their babies? Objection to this sort of thing is precisely what makes many suspect that some pro-choicers are in favor of abortion, not choice.

These guys are in office and affecting policy. Last month, while debating a similar ban, Iowa State Rep. Brent Crane said rape was the “hand of the Almighty” at work.

Yep, that’s right ladies, being raped could be part of God’s plan.

For the record, the ban is not similar at all. What was passed in Iowa was a ban on abortions after 20 weeks on the grounds that it causes fetal pain. What was passed in Kansas placed no ban on abortions – it simply required women to carry a separate policy for abortions. But to ideologues like Granderson, a bill protecting A from having to pay for B’s abortion coverage is “similar” to an outright ban on abortions. 

Getting back to Crane’s comment, what the “hand of the Almighty” actually referred to was not rape but God’s “ability to take difficult, tragic, horrific circumstances and then turn them into wonderful examples,” as Crane continued. And if a woman is a victim of rape or incest, she still has 20 weeks to get an abortion before the fetus can feel pain and before the ban kicks in. That seems to me plenty of time for a rape or incest victim to make up her mind about whether to keep the baby.

As to whether being raped could be part of God’s plan, theodicy’s a major philosophical issue. Granderson’s ridicule of the immensely difficult issue of theodicy should be an affront to anyone who takes their religion seriously.

It’s one thing to discuss whether or not life begins at conception but to go so far as to trivialize one of the most horrific crimes anyone could ever experience is nothing more than an extension of the chauvinistic blame-the-victim mentality that has always tainted the conversation on rape.

I wonder who DeGraaf believes has the greatest risk of being raped, and thus should purchase insurance accordingly? I wonder if Degraaf believes rape is inevitable as death and that’s why he mentioned he made the correlation with his life insurance policy.

It seems to me Granderson does more to trivialize rape and incest by demagoguing the issue as he does. No one is blaming the victim or anything close to it. Separating out abortion coverage into a separate policy, as Kansas has done, does not blame the victim by putting the decision in women’s hands of how to manage their risk. DeGraaf does not believe rape is inevitable – if it were, there would be no insurance for it. (And what life insurance insures against is not death, which is inevitable, but premature death, which is not.) There’s a “correlation” between rape and premature death inasmuch as both are uncertain.

Am I making too much of a big deal about this?

Not when you look at the mentality of Indiana Rep. Eric Turner, who earlier this year introduced a bill that would make abortions illegal after 20 weeks instead of 24 weeks. When Rep. Gail Riecken proposed an amendment to that bill exempting women who are the victims of rape or incest, Turner said Reicken’s proposal would encourage women to lie in order to get an abortion.

“I don’t want to disparage in any way someone who has gone through the experience of a rape or incest — but someone who is desirous of an abortion could simply say that they’ve been raped or there’s incest,” he said.

True, but does that mean the overall mental health of someone who was a victim, someone who was not lying, suddenly doesn’t matter? I tend to think the only person who would make that kind of a statement is someone who tends to believe the number of women who lie about being sexually assaulted are far greater than the ones who actually are.

Turner’s argument is basically that victims of rape or incest already have 20 weeks to abort the baby; is it really so objectionable, so abhorrent, so irrational to believe that a woman who gets pregnant and ultimately decides she doesn’t want to keep the baby might lie, particularly when no confirmation of any kind is required? Put differently, is it so crazy and objectionable to think that 20 weeks into a pregnancy, the number of women who might tell a white lie about being date-raped, for example, that no one needs to look into and no one is hurt by in order to terminate a pregnancy they no longer want might actually outnumber the number of women who have been impregnated by rape or incest and have kept the baby for 20 weeks? (The notion that no woman would ever lie about being raped is belied by examples such as the Duke lacrosse scandal and, more recently, a woman in Cincinnati who pleaded guilty to lying about rape. And in those cases the women pressed charges against the accused men. This is not to say that there are armies of women willing to lie about being raped in order to get an abortion, but it is to say that it’s not an outlandish concern, particularly where no one stands accused and it would constitute a white lie.)

These are the kind of people, the kind of men, who are involved in shaping the conversation about abortion. This is why it is imperative that women, and not just those affiliated with groups like NOW, pay attention to what is being said and done. The issue at hand is not simply the morality of having an abortion, that’s one aspect of it. But the other wrinkle to this conversation, the one all women — regardless of political affiliation –should be able to rally around, is addressing the attitude and tone of the conversation. If men feel comfortable enough to be on the legislative floor and suggest that women and girls lie about rape, or recommend that it is something they should prepare for, one can only imagine what is being said behind closed doors.

Granderson has done a poor job, in my estimation, of demonstrating the supposedly objectionable tone and attitude of “these kind of people, these kind of men’s” contribution to the debate. I find his tone and attitude for more objectionable and far less contributive to the debate.

Remember in April when federal funding for Planned Parenthood was being debated, Sen. John Kyl boldly stated that 90% of the organization’s services were providing abortions — when in fact the procedure only represented 3% of Planned Parenthood’s functions? Of the more than 11 million services provided in 2009, more than 4 million fell under contraception and nearly 4 million fell under sexually transmitted disease testing. Nearly 2 million were for cancer screenings. A little more than 300,000 were abortions.

Late night TV had a good laugh at Kyl’s expense when his staff later said the number was not supposed to be “factual.” What isn’t funny is the thought of just how many measures regarding a woman’s body that Kyl supported or pushed forward.

When it comes to the topic of abortion, a politician’s view is often shaped by his or her religion. What it should not be shaped by is sexism and flat-out lies.

Actually, Planned Parenthood’s numbers are closer to flat-out lies than Kyl’s comments. 97.6 percent of Planned Parenthood’s pregnant clients receive an abortion. The revenue from Planned Parenthood’s abortion services accounted for 37% of its health-care-center income in 2009. More here.

The notions that rape is a possibility that women should plan for,

Rape is a possibility that women should plan for. It’s one reason why many women take self-defense classes. Apparently it’s misogynistic to point that out.

or that abortions should not be provided to victims of rape or incest because some women might lie about an attack to get their insurance company to pay,

Granderson points to not one example in his piece of abortions being denied to victims of rape or incest. Not one. In every example he points to, they are either able to get one at virtually all times, covered by insurance, or they are able to get one up until 20 weeks into the pregnancy.

reek of misogyny. Female voters need to pay closer attention to this rhetoric and be more vocal in challenging it, because ultimately it’s not the Kyls, DeGraafs and Turners who are losing control over their bodies. It’s them.

Those who prefer truth to ideology — and presumably these people exist on both sides of the debate — ought to object vociferously to these slanderous hit pieces that detract from rather than contribute to the conversation.

The NYT article regards the Peace Corps’ rape problem. I was not aware of this before reading the article, but apparently for decades now a not insignificant number — several thousand if not more – of young American female Peace Corps volunteers in Third World countries have been victims of sexual violence, and the program has covered these episodes up, blamed the victims, and even forced some of them to write in testimony that the sex was consensual or that they were intoxicated. Outrageous, frankly. Fortunately, Congress is considering legislation that would force the Corps to change the way it treats victims of sexual assault, requiring the Corps to develop “sexual assault response teams” to collect forensic evidence and provide emergency health care and advocacy for victims after attacks.

The article notes that the legislation is being championed by Republicans Ted Poe and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. But what made it even more relevant to the conversation I had previously had with my friend was the following passage:

But whether such a bill would pass Congress is unclear. Representative Niki Tsongas, Democrat of Massachusetts, is co-sponsoring Mr. Poe’s bill, but other Democrats are skittish about it. They worry that the legislation, and Wednesday’s hearing, might be used to undermine the Peace Corps — the legacy of a Democratic president — and cut its funding.

Back in March, my friend had shared an article with me that expressed outrage that the Republicans were supposedly seeking to redefine rape so as to prohibit abortions even in cases of rape and incest.

Whereas Stupak-Pitts provides an exemption [allowing taxpayer-subsidized abortions] if “the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest,” and Hyde contains exemptions that are similar, H.R. 3 [the Republican legislation] only provides exemptions if the pregnancy results from “an act of forcible rape or, if a minor, an act of incest.”

The author of that piece makes a rather radical leap to argue that somehow this language prohibits even acts of forcible rape from eligibility for taxpayer-funded abortions, which can only be described as craven, cynical fear-mongering and disinformation. The appendage of the word “forcible” to rape is rather clearly meant to distinguish it from statutory rape, the latter technically constituting consensual sex, which the GOP does not believe justifies taxpayer-subsidized abortions. (The former, under the GOP’s legislation, would continue to be eligible for taxpayer-subsidized abortions.)

In sum, this Salon article had to fabricate a scandal accusing the Republicans of redefining rape in order to prohibit abortions, in other words accusing Republicans of effectively shafting rape victims in order to advance their favored political agenda. Which is why the NYTimes article I cite above is so illuminating. Here we have a real-life scandal involving real-life rape, and it is Republicans who sally forth to protect the victims while Democrats are apparently willing to continue shafting rape victims in order to protect a favored government program. (I searched Salon for comment on the Peace Corps scandal and legislation. I also searched for any comment by the author of that piece, Sady Doyle, on the issue. Zilch. Nada. Apparently rape is only of interest if it can be used as a cudgel against Republicans to protect the sacred cow of abortion, not to protect actual rape victims and prevent future Peace Corps volunteers from sexual violence.)

The real crime here is of course the rape and the cover-up, which is heinous and dismaying. But the Democrats’ skittishness — reportedly so as not to damage the program and harm the legacy of a president from their party — is worth pointing out and really ought to disturb all our consciences. On top of that, the hypocrisy and cynicism of the Left on display here — falsely accusing their political opponents of abandoning rape victims in order to advance a political program without batting an eye while their political allies do exactly that — is almost enough to leave a person speechless.

Unfortunately it leaves the wrong people speechless, as one can be assured with metaphysical certitude that the Left will continue to accuse the Right of exactly the same thing for as long as they continue to get away with it.

Ryan’s willingness to stick out his neck and take political risks by touching the third rail of politics — entitlement programs — demonstrates what real leadership looks like, something that is unfortunately quite lacking in Washington today. And he wards off the debt crisis without tax increases, budget gimmickry, or dispensing with the entitlements. Instead, spending discipline and far-reaching entitlement reform make the government more efficient, the entitlements more efficient, and the economy more efficient. The Democrats’ plan, on the other hand, calls for either: doing nothing, or hiking tax rates so high as to cause the economy to stagnate. What’s not to like, right?

Here is what Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) had to say on Ryan’s proposal:

I thank Chairman Ryan for having the courage not just to talk frankly about the danger America’s national debt poses to the American people but also to propose a comprehensive program to cut the national debt. One does not have to agree with all or most of Chairman Ryan’s proposals to be able to applaud his serious commitment to reduce the debt that threatens our nation’s future. I look forward to reading and studying Paul’s proposals. I hope it will begin an open and honest national conversation about exactly what we can do together to bring our government’s books into balance.  More of us in Congress from both sides of the aisle need to step forward to embrace comprehensive solutions to address this problem. Now is not the time for half-measures or politics as usual, and Chairman Ryan has recognized this reality by offering his plan.  Let us now work together to forge and pass bi-partisan legislation that puts our country on a course to restore fiscal responsibility and places entitlement programs on a sound financial footing.

It’s a shame he’s the one retiring in 2012 rather than Reid, Schumer, Durbin, and the other self-serving demagogues in the Democratic Party who would apparently rather rush headfirst into financial crisis than confront reality and put forth a serious budget proposal of their own that tackles the looming debt crisis.

I don’t know what the odds are of Ryan’s proposal passing the Democrat-controlled Senate or surviving Obama’s veto pen. But it is certainly the opening legislative salvo in a debate that has changed fundamentally because of it. And one of the most significant things Paul Ryan’s budget proposal does may be to restore the GOP’s reputation as the party of ideas and intellectual seriousness. America couldn’t ask for a better advocate for prosperity. As evidenced further in this interview on CNBC, which is also worth watching in its entirety.

Congress is currently embroiled in a funding fight over how much to spend on less than one-fifth of the federal budget for the next six months. Whether we cut $33 billion or $61 billion—that is, whether we shave 2% or 4% off of this year’s deficit—is important. It’s a sign that the election did in fact change the debate in Washington from how much we should spend to how much spending we should cut.

But this morning the new House Republican majority will introduce a budget that moves the debate from billions in spending cuts to trillions. America is facing a defining moment. The threat posed by our monumental debt will damage our country in profound ways, unless we act.

No one person or party is responsible for the looming crisis. Yet the facts are clear: Since President Obama took office, our problems have gotten worse. Major spending increases have failed to deliver promised jobs. The safety net for the poor is coming apart at the seams. Government health and retirement programs are growing at unsustainable rates. The new health-care law is a fiscal train wreck. And a complex, inefficient tax code is holding back American families and businesses.

Steve Moore has the details on Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to cut spending.

The president’s recent budget proposal would accelerate America’s descent into a debt crisis. It doubles debt held by the public by the end of his first term and triples it by 2021. It imposes $1.5 trillion in new taxes, with spending that never falls below 23% of the economy. His budget permanently enlarges the size of government. It offers no reforms to save government health and retirement programs, and no leadership.

Our budget, which we call The Path to Prosperity, is very different. For starters, it cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president’s budget over the next 10 years, reduces the debt as a percentage of the economy, and puts the nation on a path to actually pay off our national debt. Our proposal brings federal spending to below 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), consistent with the postwar average, and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion.

A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down to 4% by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade. It spurs economic growth, with $1.5 trillion in additional real GDP over the decade. According to Heritage’s analysis, it would result in $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year.

The rest of the article describes the proposal’s major components. This will no doubt be the most serious budget to come out of Washington in living memory.

This sums up my position exactly as well…But whenever [Obama] meep meeps me, I don’t feel humiliation. Just relief. I remain of the view that we are damn lucky to have him at this fraught moment in history, and that his decisions often look better in the rear-view mirror.

Note that Drum and Sullivan are essentially saying that it’s not a matter of President Obama having access to greater information than them or surrounding himself with better advisors than them. They simply suspend their own judgment in light of Obama’s supposed intellectual superiority. (Which in their case may actually be an accurate perception.) It all seems rather cultish.

The part I agree with Sullivan about is not Obama’s intellectual superiority. No, the part I agree with is that along with Andrew, I too look forward to seeing Obama and his decisions in the rear-view mirror. It’s closer than it appears.

MelaFind is a handheld scanner meant to provide an objective aid to doctors applying to the standard visual tests for melanoma. Because melanoma is such a killer, doctors tend to biopsy every skin flaw that looks suspicious but they still miss one melanoma for every three or four they catch. In a clinical trial involving 23 practitioners around the country, MelaFind caught 98% of melanomas among the targeted suspicious lesions, while equaling or besting the top docs in avoiding unnecessary biopsies.

Yet an FDA advisory panel meeting in November to review the device approved it only narrowly in an 8-7 vote. Why?

The biggest skeptics were the FDA’s own staff, who even before the vote had suggested the device might do more harm than good if doctors treated instances where MelaFind didn’t render a verdict as the equivalent of an “all-clear.” Why doctors would do this is hard to fathom. In the study, so many of the “nonevaluable” lesions turned out be melanomas precisely because doctors were focusing MelaFind on lesions they considered highly suspicious even though the lesions were too big or oddly situated to fit the device’s design criteria. Says Dr. Gulfo: “The FDA seems to be assuming that doctors, some of the most highly trained people in our society, are not competent to operate this device that dermatologists tell us has the potential to save many lives.”

[...]

Of course, nobody at the FDA is ever fired for failing to approve a device. So grating has the agency’s hyper-cautiousness become that, under prodding from university researchers and Congress, it recently rolled out a plan to allow speedier reviews very similar to the agreement struck with Mela Sciences. How this promise is supposed to now have any credibility is itself a bit of a medical mystery.

MelaFind heralds a wave of devices bringing artificial intelligence to bear on medical diagnosis. In the hands of users, learning will occur. Improvements will come quickly, as in other areas of information technology. Many lives will be saved, if the FDA will let them.

So many lives that could be saved may ultimately not be, simply because the FDA’s incentives are all wrong. Even if the FDA ultimately does approve the device, how many will die in the meantime or will find their condition becomes untreatable?

After reading President Obama’s “update” on Libya, as he put it, I am still left with many of the policy questions I had going in. What is our mission in Libya? What is our desired end result? Is deposing Qaddafi one of our goals? What happens after Qaddafi? If intervening was the appropriate course of action on humanitarian grounds, why did we not intervene earlier, before Qaddafi’s forces were able to reverse the momentum of the rebels, take back everything — killing many in the process, and advance on Benghazi?

Jim Geraghty highlights the confusion and helpfully summarizes Obama’s speech:

Obama’s speech included these three sentences, and it is revealing that no one within the White House found them contradictory:

“I made it clear that Gaddafi had lost the confidence of his people and the legitimacy to lead, and I said that he needed to step down from power.”

“Broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.”

“We will deny the regime arms, cut off its supply of cash, assist the opposition, and work with other nations to hasten the day when Gaddafi leaves power.”

He must step down. We are working to drive him from power. But we are not pursuing regime change.

Present!

By the way, as long as Geraghty is highlighting that line, let’s reflect for a moment on the inanity of the President of the United States stating that Gaddafi had “lost the confidence of his people and the legitimacy to lead.” As if an unelected despot who seized power in a military coup ever had the confidence of his people and the legitimacy to lead. Such talk makes the President look like a buffoon, with all due respect.

What would Candidate Obama say of President Obama’s “humanitarian grounds” rationale for our intervention in Libya? Jonah Goldberg helpfully reminds us that Candidate Obama found “humanitarian grounds” to be an insufficient rationale for staying in Iraq even after we’d toppled Saddam:

During the campaign, Obama was asked by the AP about claims that an immediate withdrawal from Iraq would result in potentially genocidal mass killings and ethnic cleansing. He responded:

“Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven’t done,” Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven’t done. Those of us who care about Darfur don’t think it would be a good idea,” he said.

Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, said it’s likely there would be increased bloodshed if U.S. forces left Iraq.

“Nobody is proposing we leave precipitously. There are still going to be U.S. forces in the region that could intercede, with an international force, on an emergency basis,” Obama said between stops on the first of two days scheduled on the New Hampshire campaign trail. “There’s no doubt there are risks of increased bloodshed in Iraq without a continuing U.S. presence there.”

The greater risk is staying in Iraq, Obama said.

“It is my assessment that those risks are even greater if we continue to occupy Iraq and serve as a magnet for not only terrorist activity but also irresponsible behavior by Iraqi factions,” he said.

As I wrote at the time,

It’s worth pointing out a key difference between the potential genocide in Iraq and the heart-wrenching slaughters in Congo and Sudan: The latter aren’t our fault. But if genocide unfolds in Iraq after American troops depart, it would be hard to argue that we weren’t at least partly to blame. Yes, the mass murder would have more immediate authors than the United States of America, but we would undeniably be responsible, at least in part, for giving a green light to genocide. Obama offers precisely that green light in his proposed Iraq War De-escalation Act.

So, as a candidate, the current president took a principled stand for non-interventionism when it comes to genocide in places like Congo and Sudan. He even took a principled stand in favor of affirmative steps by the U.S. military to facilitate genocide in Iraq. I think those positions range from needlessly hardhearted to plain awful, particularly for a liberal. So I am glad Obama has flipped positions on genocide.

What is amazing to me is not that so many liberals support Obama as he intervenes in Libya today, but that so few had any problem with Obama coming out for doing nothing in the face of American-facilitated mass-murder back then.

More questions: If humanitarian grounds are a sufficient rationale for “kinetic military action” against another nation, doesn’t this demonstrate that the Democrats’ opposition to the war in Iraq (after initially supporting it, mind you) was nothing more than unprincipled political opportunism? As Matt Welch puts it:

Do you remember when Democrats recoiled at the doctrine of preemptive war? [Monday] night was the final reminder that…Democrats when wielding power are only against *Republican* preemptive war. If anything, they are more promiscuous in choosing conflicts than their warmaking brethren on the other side of the aisle; just less likely to go all-in with ground troops.

And if humanitarian grounds are a sufficient rationale for “kinetic military action” against another nation, why Libya instead of, say, Syria? North Korea? Iran? Darfur? The first three are much bigger strategic and national security interests for the United States and appear to have much greater upside with much less downside than Libya. And the latter is a much greater humanitarian crisis. Michael Ledeen makes a very good point with regard to Syria and Iran as well, namely that it is actively killing Americans! Speaking of Syria and Iran, even if we don’t intervene militarily, why isn’t the President supporting the opposition even rhetorically?

And was it really necessary for the President to criticize our efforts in Iraq and our toppling of mass murderer and tyrant Saddam Hussein? Churlish and adolescent. Especially considering what I’ve written above about his rationale and his flip-flopping.

Finally, reading the speech, one is struck by Obama’s penchant for the vertical pronoun, making him sound defensive as well as self-congratulatory. Thomas Sowell wrote a whole book about self-congratulation as a poor basis for social policy; it’s an equally poor basis for foreign policy. For various reasons, in 2008, Americans elected Obama, who never ran a single entity in his life, into the single most important executive position on the planet. We are now feeling the consequences of that horrific mistake. Let’s hope we manage to get this right anyway.

But let’s let Jon Stewart have the final word. (He voted for the guy, after all.) His remarks are both laugh-out-loud funny and spot on. Watch it, you’ll thank me.

WITH THE HOUSE poised to vote Wednesday on legislation to reestablish a voucher program that allows low-income D.C. students to attend private schools, the Obama administration issued a strongly worded statement of opposition. The White House of course has a right to its own opinion, as wrongheaded as we believe it to be. It doesn’t have a right to make up facts.

“Rigorous evaluation over several years demonstrates that the D.C. program has not yielded improved student achievement by its scholarship recipients compared to other students in D.C.,” President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget proclaimed Tuesday, in response to H.R. 471, sponsored by House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

Unless you consider reading comprehension and high school graduation a student achievement. In the words of the principal investigator in the studies of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, “The DC OSP has accomplished what few educational interventions can claim: It markedly improved important education outcomes for low-income inner-city students.”

Kudos to John Boehner for making this program a priority. Indeed, it is the only bill introduced this year that bears the Speaker’s name as a sponsor. And kudos to Joe Lieberman as well for keeping up the fight. Every child deserves the opportunity to get a decent education in a safe environment, regardless of whether his parents are rich or poor.

DC residents voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008, no doubt marching to the polls exuberantly to vote for hope and change. How ironic and shameful that the man they voted for marches out just as passionately to oppose any hope for change for their children.

America and its allies, empowered by the United Nations and the Arab League, are interceding militarily in Libya. But would that action have been delayed or even precluded if Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi had access to nuclear weapons? No doubt Gadhafi is asking himself that same question.

Gadhafi unilaterally forfeited his nuclear weapons program by 2004, turning over uranium-enriching centrifuges and warhead designs. A dictator like him—capable of ordering the murders of 259 civilians aboard Pan Am Flight 103 and countless others in many countries including his own—would not easily concede the ultimate weapon. Gadhafi did so because he believed he was less secure with the bomb than he would be after relinquishing it. He feared that the U.S., which had recently invaded Iraq, would deal with him much as it had Saddam Hussein.

A similar fear, many intelligence experts in the U.S. and elsewhere believe, impelled the Iranian regime to suspend its own nuclear weapons program in 2003. According to these analysts, the program resumed only when the threat of military intervention receded. It continues to make steady progress today.

The Iranian regime is the pre-­eminent sponsor of terror in the world, a danger to pro-Western states, and the enemy of its own people who strive for democracy. It poses all of these hazards without nuclear weapons. Imagine the catastrophes it could inflict with them…

Does Iran have anything to fear from America?

America’s policy, like Israel’s, is that “all options are on the table.” We know that only a credible threat of military intervention can convince nondemocratic regimes to abandon their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Sanctions alone are unlikely to prove effective unless backed by measures capable of convincing the Iranian regime that the military option is real. It is the very threat of such force that reduces the danger that it will ever have to be used.

The critical question then becomes: Does anybody in Tehran believe that all options are truly on the table today? Based on Iran’s brazen pronouncements, the answer appears to be no. And while the allied intercession in Libya may send a message of determination to Iran, it might also stoke the Iranian regime’s desire to become a nuclear power and so avoid Gadhafi’s fate. For that reason it is especially vital now to substantiate the “all options” policy.

Now is the moment to dissuade the Iranian regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon that might deter any Libya-like intervention or provide the ayatollahs with a doomsday option. If Gadhafi had not surrendered his centrifuges in 2004 and he were now surrounded in his bunker with nothing left but a button, would he push it?

Sorry, buddy. Ain’t gonna happen, not under this president. He’s too busy toppling tinpot dictators without WMD programs to intervene on behalf of Iranian pro-democracy demonstrators and topple a tyrannical regime that is fast developing destabilizing nuclear weapons.

Gadhafi is no doubt kicking himself over his decision to turn over his nuclear weapons program. If you have any doubt about that, take a gander at this chart put together by The Cold Equations:

As Cold Equations puts it, “The lesson here is that you want to be more like the leaders of the countries at the bottom of the list. Anti-Americanism + nuclear programs = happy dictators. Embracing America = setting yourself up to be stabbed in the back.”

I hope to have comments on Obama’s Libya speech in the near future. At first glance, it appears to have answered few if any of the questions I had prior to the speech.

It all seems rather mad, doesn’t it? The decision to become involved militarily in the Libyan civil war couldn’t take place within a less hospitable context. The U.S. is reeling from spending and deficits, we’re already in two wars, our military has been stretched to the limit, we’re restive at home, and no one, really, sees President Obama as the kind of leader you’d follow over the top. “This way, men!” “No, I think I’ll stay in my trench.” People didn’t hire him to start battles but to end them. They didn’t expect him to open new fronts. Did he not know this?

He has no happy experience as a rallier of public opinion and a leader of great endeavors; the central initiative of his presidency, the one that gave shape to his leadership, health care, is still unpopular and the cause of continued agitation. When he devoted his entire first year to it, he seemed off point and out of touch.

This was followed by the BP oil spill, which made him look snakebit. Now he seems incompetent and out of his depth in foreign and military affairs. He is more observed than followed, or perhaps I should say you follow him with your eyes and not your heart. So it’s funny he’d feel free to launch and lead a war, which is what this confused and uncertain military action may become.

What was he thinking? What is he thinking?

Which gets me to Mr. Obama’s speech, the one he hasn’t given. I cannot for the life of me see how an American president can launch a serious military action without a full and formal national address in which he explains to the American people why he is doing what he is doing, why it is right, and why it is very much in the national interest. He referred to his aims in parts of speeches and appearances when he was in South America, but now he’s home. More is needed, more is warranted, and more is deserved. He has to sit at that big desk and explain his thinking, put forward the facts as he sees them, and try to garner public support. He has to make a case for his own actions. It’s what presidents do! And this is particularly important now, because there are reasons to fear the current involvement will either escalate and produce a lengthy conflict or collapse and produce humiliation.

Without a formal and extended statement, the air of weirdness, uncertainty and confusion that surrounds this endeavor will only deepen.

The questions that must be answered actually start with the essentials. What, exactly, are we doing? Why are we doing it? At what point, or after what arguments, did the president decide U.S. military involvement was warranted? Is our objective practical and doable? What is America’s overriding strategic interest? In what way are the actions taken, and to be taken, seeing to those interests?

From those questions flow many others. We know who we’re against—Moammar Gadhafi, a bad man who’s done very wicked things. But do we know who we’re for? That is, what does the U.S. government know or think it knows about the composition and motives of the rebel forces we’re attempting to assist? For 42 years, Gadhafi controlled his nation’s tribes, sects and groups through brute force, bribes and blandishments. What will happen when they are no longer kept down? What will happen when they are no longer oppressed? What will they become, and what role will they play in the coming drama? Will their rebellion against Gadhafi degenerate into a dozen separate battles over oil, power and local dominance?

What happens if Gadhafi hangs on? The president has said he wants U.S. involvement to be brief. But what if Gadhafi is fighting on three months from now?

On the other hand, what happens if Gadhafi falls, if he’s deposed in a palace coup or military coup, or is killed, or flees? What exactly do we imagine will take his place?

Supporters of U.S. intervention have argued that if we mean to protect Libya’s civilians, as we have declared, then we must force regime change. But in order to remove Gadhafi, they add, we will need to do many other things. We will need to provide close-in air power. We will probably have to put in special forces teams to work with the rebels, who are largely untrained and ragtag. The Libyan army has tanks and brigades and heavy weapons. The U.S. and the allies will have to provide the rebels training and give them support. They will need antitank missiles and help in coordinating air strikes.

Once Gadhafi is gone, will there be a need for an international peacekeeping force to stabilize the country, to provide a peaceful transition, and to help the post-Gadhafi government restore its infrastructure? Will there be a partition? Will Libyan territory be altered?

None of this sounds like limited and discrete action.

In fact, this may turn out to be true: If Gadhafi survives, the crisis will go on and on. If Gadhafi falls, the crisis will go on and on.

Everyone who supports the Libyan endeavor says they don’t want an occupation. One said the other day, “We’re not looking for a protracted occupation.”

Protracted?

Mr. Obama has apparently set great store in the fact that he was not acting alone, that Britain, France and Italy were eager to move. That’s good—better to work with friends and act in concert. But it doesn’t guarantee anything. A multilateral mistake is still a mistake. So far the allied effort has not been marked by good coordination and communication. If the conflict in Libya drags on, won’t there tend to be more fissures, more tension, less commitment and more confusion as to objectives and command structures? Could the unanticipated results of the Libya action include new strains, even a new estrangement, among the allies?

How might Gadhafi hit out, in revenge, in his presumed last days, against America and the West?

And what, finally, about Congress? Putting aside the past half-century’s argument about declarations of war, doesn’t Congress, as representative of the people, have the obvious authority and responsibility to support the Libyan endeavor, or not, and to authorize funds, or not?

These are all big questions, and there are many other obvious ones. If the Libya endeavor is motivated solely by humanitarian concerns, then why haven’t we acted on those concerns recently in other suffering nations? It’s a rough old world out there, and there’s a lot of suffering. What is our thinking going forward? What are the new rules of the road, if there are new rules? Were we, in Libya, making a preemptive strike against extraordinary suffering—suffering beyond what is inevitable in a civil war?

America has been through a difficult 10 years, and the burden of proof on the need for U.S. action would be with those who supported intervention. Chief among them, of course, is the president, who made the decision as commander in chief. He needs to sit down and tell the American people how this thing can possibly turn out well. He needs to tell them why it isn’t mad.

Noonan has some explaining of her own to do, by which I mean some sort of mea culpa about her support for such an obviously flawed, inexperienced, and incapable candidate not ready for the world stage. But this piece of hers hits the nail on the head. What are we doing in Libya, and why? Obama may not need the approval of Congress constitutionally, but that doesn’t mean he has no responsibility to explain to the American people why he is putting troops in harm’s way and expending blood and treasure on Libya, and why Libya as opposed to one of the many other countries in which we have a clearer picture of who the rebels are and a much more obvious national interest.

One interesting thing about our intervention in Libya has been contrasting it with our intervention in Iraq, particularly regarding the support for the former by Obama and others on the Left who opposed and continue to oppose the latter. A taste here, here, and here. If Obama and others on the Left want to justify intervention in Libya on humanitarian grounds, as they have attempted to, they need to explain why they opposed and continue to oppose the toppling of Saddam Hussein, for whom the argument on humanitarian grounds was much much stronger than for Qaddafi. As Pete Wehner puts it,

Was the Iraq war worth American blood and treasure? Thoughtful people continue to disagree on that matter. But seen through the prism of human rights and humanitarianism, the case to act against Saddam was, and remains, significantly stronger than the case to act against Qaddafi. If those on the left are going to use a moral standard to judge military interventions then they, like all of us, should apply it in a reasonably consistent way.

UPDATE: A cute video contrasting our interventions in Libya and Iraq: