War Powers of Congress Ignored By Obama

George Will has been one of America's greatest columnists, and despite being 70, he continues to earn his (considerable) keep in Washington. He's a conservative, but he interprets this in a non-partisan fashion, following the evidence wherever it leads. He did not hesitate to criticize George W. Bush, and unlike liberals who are willing to 'overlook' Preident Obama's non-liberal tendencies now that he's President, he will not hesitate to criticize Obama.

Today's column is on Obama's unwillingness to come back to Congress for further reauthorization of his Libyan adventure.

The U.S. intervention in Libya’s civil war, intervention that began with a surplus of confusion about capabilities and a shortage of candor about objectives, is now taking a toll on the rule of law. In a bipartisan cascade of hypocrisies, a liberal president, with the collaborative silence of most congressional conservatives, is traducing the War Powers Resolution.

Enacted in 1973 over President Nixon’s veto, the WPR may or may not be wise. It is, however, unquestionably a law, and Barack Obama certainly is violating it. It stipulates that a president must terminate military action 60 days after initiating it (or 90, if the president “certifies” in writing an “unavoidable military necessity” respecting the safety of U.S. forces), unless Congress approves it. Congress has been supine and silent about this war, which began more than 70 days ago....

Liberals are situational ethicists regarding presidential warmaking: Imagine their comportment if Obama’s predecessor — who got congressional authorization for his uses of force — had behaved as Obama is doing regarding Libya. Most conservatives, who preen about their commitment to keeping government on a short leash, seem anesthetized by the administration’s sophistries.

“No president,” says Sen. John McCain, “has ever recognized the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, and neither do I. So I don’t feel bound by any deadline.” Oh? No law is actually a law if presidents and senators do not “recognize” it? Now, there is an interesting alternative to judicial review, and an indicator of how executive aggrandizement and legislative dereliction of duty degrade the rule of law

Why Are We In Libya? To Remain The Global Hegemon, Stupid.

Yesterday, I quoted George Will about the folly of our 'humanitarian interventionism' in Libya.  My only disagreement with that would be the word 'humanitarian', because I seriously doubt that our motivations and purposes in Libya are humanitarian.  We don't invade or bomb countries for less than our greater national interest and/or geostrategic goals.  Our intervention (in the form of NATO bombing and covert teams on the ground) is not to the save the lives of the Libyans, but to gain for ourselves something very important (whatever that might be).

For decades now since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the bipartisan Washington Establishment consensus, as set forth in a variety of documents and statements, is to remain the 'dominant global hegemon', intervening wherever necessary--with economic, diplomatic, covert, and if necessary military power--around the world to prevent the rise of a competing global power and to preserve our unhindered access to the resources we need to operate, ie. first and foremost, oil. 

We clearly saw this in the 'Project for a New American Century', an organization formed by hawks from both political parties, that advocated for the invasion of Iraq years before the events of 9/11.  We saw this in Zbigniew Brzezinski's important book from 1998, called The Grand Chessboard (which can be read online in PDF form here), where he stipulates the importance of Central Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the 'Stans of the former Soviet Union) and the Caucausus (the countries between Russia and Iran, like Azerbaijan and Georgia) for American global primacy.

[For those who haven't yet grasped it, President Obama is basically a disciple of Brzezinski's, having studied with him at Columbia University in college.]

Here's a sample of the kind of thinking that guides our foreign policy and military deployment, from The Grand Chessboard:

Despite its limited size and small population, Azerbaijan [just west of Afghanistan], with its vast energy resources, is also geopolitically critical. It is the cork in the bottle containing the riches of the Caspian Sea basin and Central Asia. The independence of the Central Asian states can be rendered nearly meaningless if Azerbaijan becomes fully subordinated to Moscow's control. Azerbaijan's own and very significant oil resources can also be subjected to Russian control,once Azerbaijan's independence has been nullified. An independent Azerbaijan, linked to Western markets by pipelines that do not pass through Russian-controlled territory, also becomes a major avenue of access from the advanced and energy-consuming economies to the energy rich Central Asian republics. Almost as much as in the case of Ukraine, the future of Azerbaijan and Central Asia is also crucial in defining what Russia might or might not
become....

Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an "antihegemonic" coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances. It would be reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge once posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc, though this time China would likely be the leader and Russia the follower. Averting this contingency, however remote it may be, will require a display of U.S. geostrategic skill on the western, eastern, and southern perimeters of Eurasia simultaneously. [pp. 47, 55 of The Grand Chessboard]

Of course, Azerbaijan did become independent, thanks to the collapse of the Soviet Union, which in turn was at least partially caused by our support for the Islamist Mujihadeen [Osama Bin laden et al] in the late 70s and 80s, opening up its oil riches to the West. And that 'grand coalition' of China, Russia, and Iran has been occurring over the last ten years, just as 'Bzig' predicted. And "U.S. geostrategic skill", such as it is, is currently being applied to what we've been doing around 'Eurasia', including our invasion of Iraq and our surge in Afghanistan.  Here's another quote:

Whatever the future, it is reasonable to conclude that American primacy on the Eurasian continent will be buffeted by turbulence and perhaps at least by sporadic violence. America's primacy is potentially vulnerable to new challenges, either from regional
contenders or novel constellations. The currently dominant American global system, within which "the threat of war is off the table," is likely to be stable only in those parts of the world in which American primacy, guided by a long-term geostrategy, rests
on compatible and congenial sociopolitical systems, linked together by American-dominated multilateral frameworks....

The traditional Balkans represented a potential geopolitical prize in the struggle for European supremacy. The Eurasian Balkans [meaning the Caucasus and Central Asia], astride the inevitably emerging transportation network meant to link more directly Eurasia's richest and most industrious western and eastern extremities, are also geopolitically significant. Moreover, they are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural
gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold....

The world's energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or three decades. Estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy anticipate that world demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East. The momentum of Asia's economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy, and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea.  Access to that resource and sharing in its potential wealth represent
objectives that stir national ambitions, motivate corporate interests, rekindle historical claims, revive imperial aspirations, and fuel international rivalries. [pp.59, 124-125]

Question: do you ever hear such language on the evening news or the cable news networks?  No, of course not.  The Washington foreign policy Establishment does not want the average American to worry their silly little heads over such matters of great importance!!  It would be too distracting for us, you see.  They would rather that we think of our military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya as 'humanitarian' in nature, or to promote 'democracy' or simply chasing Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in the mountains and valleys of North Wazirastan.  In other words, we the average Americans, who vote for our elected leaders and pay the bills, are kept in the dark by our government and the main-stream media about the real reasons we are involved in Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.  (And truth be told, many Americans probably don't want to know!  Ignorance is bliss, you know.)

For all I know, this global geostrategy may be necessary and something we've got to do.  We may have gotten ourselves so 'painted into a corner' with our excessive use of fossil fuels, that we can't stop occupying nations that have it, short of national collapse.  But we'll never get the chance to decide that, because they never tell us.  It's not really open to debate.  "It's a secret", as we used to say as kids.  Our leaders treat us as children, not adults.

Just remember this the next time you're listening to Wolf Blitzer on CNN.

Barack Seamus O'Toole Flaherty Joyce O'Bama

A very funny piece from The Telegraph in London.

Ah Bejaysus and Begorrah! Oi’ll be swearin’ boi the auld shrine to the Vorgin with the shamrocks growin’ round it next to the hill where Cuchullain slew the Great Leprechaun of Kildare on St Patrick’s Day that Barack Seamus O’Toole Flaherty Joyce O’Bama is the most Irish US president that ever set foot on the Emerald Oisle, so he is, so he is.

Except, when he’s in Africa, of course, when he disappears into the dry ice and re-emerges with a grass skirt and a bone through his nose and declares himself to be Mandingo, Prince of the Bloodline of the Bonga People, Drinker of Cattle Urine, Father of A Thousand Warrior Sons, Keeper of King Solomon’s Mines, Barehanded Slayer of Lions, Undaunted Victim of the Evil Colonial British Empire.

And in the Middle East, where he is Al-Barak Hussein Obama, Protector of the Holy Shrine, Smiter of the Kuffar, Lion of the Desert, Tent-Loving-Aficionado-of-the-Oversweetened-Coffee, Chomper of Sheeps’ Eyeballs, Restorer of the Caliphate.

Etc.

Tony Blair used to do this trick too, his accent mutating from broad Glaswegian to genteel Edinburgh to Mummerset to Estuary to Richard E Grant to Sarf London Grime – often in the course of one Downing Street reception – the better to persuade his target audience that he was their kind of guy. And it is, of course, the hallmark of an unutterable charlatan.

I’ve argued before that Tony Blair and Barack Obama have an awful lot in common. Both are lawyers; both are snake-oil-salesman; both claim to be post-partisan, and Third Way and consensual; both play the acceptable, moderate-seeming public face of a regime chock full of Communists, class warriors, single issue rabble rousers, malcontents, communitarians and eco-loons hell bent on destroying every last vestige of what once made their country great. And both do (or did) the things dodgy political leaders always do when the going gets tough at home and their domestic audience finally wises up to how totally useless they are: they hop on the plane and pose as international statesman instead.

The Libyan Intervention

This is one of the better critiques of Obama's intervention in Libya, written by George Will.  It illustrates the non-interventionism of one of the exemplars of paleo-conservatism (or whatever Will is), compared to the lack of hesitation to intervene on the part of liberal 'humanitarian imperialism'.  Liberal 'internationalism' (which, like its conservative counterpart, neo-conservatism, thinks that no part of the globe should be safe from American meddling) can't wait to solve all the world's problems, whatever it takes. 

Actually, it's all a form of being the Grand Global Hegemon, which is a temptation we can't seem to resist.  After all, we have the world's greatest military, why not use it?  Until we fall apart economically, that is, at which point we'll collapse, panting, in a heap, with plenty of blood on our hands.

The Graying of California's Leadership

An interesting comment on the Californian political leadership by George Will:

Bill Whalen of the Hoover Institution notes that California’s four most influential Democrats are Brown, U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who are 73, 77, 70 and 71, respectively: “No other state’s political ruling class is as gray, a terrific irony for youth-worshipping California.” Dutton and other relatively anonymous Republican legislators can, by being constructively obdurate (“no”), shake the foundations of reactionary liberalism — the regulatory state that seemed so right in the septuagenarians’ formative years, a half-century ago.

Moving Beyond Political Paralysis

The always thoughtful and growing David Brooks has a good column today on the British political culture.  Bottom line--it works, and better than ours.

Britain is also blessed with a functioning political culture. It is dominated by people who live in London and who have often known each other since prep school. This makes it gossipy and often incestuous.

But the plusses outweigh the minuses. The big newspapers still set the agenda, not cable TV or talk radio. If the quintessential American pol is standing in his sandbox screaming affirmations to members of his own tribe, the quintessential British pol is standing across a table arguing face to face with his opponents.

British leaders and pundits know their counterparts better. They are less likely to get away with distortions and factual howlers. They are less likely to believe the other party is homogenously evil. They are more likely to learn from a wide range of people. When they do hate, their hatreds are more likely to be personal and less likely to take on the tenor of a holy war.

The British political system gives the majority party much greater power than any party could hope to have in the U.S., but cultural norms make the political debate less moralistic and less absolutist. The British press also do an amazing job of policing corruption. The media go into a frenzy at the merest whiff of malfeasance. Last week, for example, a minister was pummeled for saying clumsy things about rape.

Tuesday, as President Obama visits London, we will get a glimpse of the British political culture. We Americans have no right to feel smug or superior.

I have thought for some time that we have a paralyzed political system here in America . Part of it is our constitutional system of checks and balances. Constructed over two centuries ago for a tiny national government with much more vigorous state governments, we now have the reverse, and it's just not working. Nothing gets done, except to make things worse by pandering to the electorate. No one is held accountable.

We are just such a huge country. England is the size of my state of North Carolina. The governing of such an enormous country cannot be done properly from D.C. We need to return more power to the states (and communities and individuals too) and shrink the federal government.

And we need accountibility for political parties in governing. With split government such as we have it (with the executive in one party's hands, the House of Representatives in another, and the Senate basically in the hands of any one Senator who can gum up the works with holds and threats of filibuster!), very little gets done. (This is not to mention the extent to which rich corporate interests control the politicians and their agenda.)

I'm for giving one party the control of the Congress and Executive branches, and then when they screw up, replace them with the other party. I don't how to achieve that, but right now, I'm so angry with the Democrats, that I'm for giving the Republicans the power and letting them do it. At least, the party in power will have both the power and the responsibility to move things forward.

True federalism and more power to one party at a time (whatever this principle is called).  Therefore I'm intending to vote next year for sensible conservative and libertarian candidates, but no warmongers and global interventionists of either party (I'm talking to you, neo-cons and liberal interventionists!).  As you know, right now that means Jon Huntsman for President.

I reserve the right to change my mind tomorrow.

Why Jon Huntsman Will Win the Republican Nomination

I continue to think that Jon Huntsman, Obama's ambassador to China and former Republican governor of Utah, has the inside track for the Republican nomination.  Obviously, I like that thought and hope it happens, but I also happen to think he's the strongest candidate currently in the race (something the Obama White House also seems to believe, we are told).

Here's a scenario.  The declared and/or prospective field of Republican candidates has been shrinking in the last few weeks, with potentially strong candidates--like Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour--refusing to enter the race.  Tim Pawlenty has very little appeal, frankly, and Newt Gingrich is simply a disaster-waiting-to-happen.  Herman Cain is definitely a Southern loudmouth with no depth and no political staying power. 

All this leaves a much bigger opening for Huntsman than one would have expected at this time.  Barring the entry of some other strong candidate, his main competition now is Mitt Romney in the center and Sarah Palin/Michelle Bachmann on the right.

Mitt Romney has strengths, no doubt, which is why he's currently leading the field, but he also has many liabilities, the primary one being that he is seen as too ambitious and too willing to say whatever has to be said to win.  He also has a certain 'unctiousness' about him (that's a great word) that will ultimately be his undoing.  He is at or near his political high water mark, if you ask me.

As for the Tea Party favorites, Sarah 'Barracuda' Palin and Michele Bachmann, Palin will not enter the race, because, frankly, she really can't stand the political or intellectual heat.  As long as she can shoot off her mouth from Alaska, she's fine.  But it is simply impossible to think of her actually being able to engage the press and the public in an actual national campaign.  As we all remember, in 2008 she was encased in this press-tight VP campaign from which she rarely emerged to talk to the press.  That can't happen when you're running for the top job, so therefore she won't do it.  She likes her money, her fame, her family and Alaska too much, in that order.

Bachmann is another matter.  She is much more capable of enduring the rigors of a campaign, because she can comfortably talk to the press and has the ability to make her case to the public.  Indeed, it is very possible that she could win the Iowa Caucuses next January.  But that would probably be her high water mark, since she has too narrow a following in the Republican party, and her experience in office is quite narrow as well.

I haven't mentioned Ron Paul yet.  He has a strong but narrow following in the Republican Party, so that limits how well he can do.  But I do think that he will find Jon more to his liking than any other plausible candidate, and may even swing his support to Jon somewhere along the line.  I say this because some of Jon's position (civil unions, limited interventionism abroad, gun rights, fiscal conservatism and accountibility, etc.) are actually more libertarian than they are 'liberal'.

Jon Huntsman has very strong domestic (private and public) and foreign policy credentials.  He has an attractive personality with a strong family, and is intelligent and engaging.  He is a thoughtful pragmatist, on the center-right of the political spectrum.  I personally think that having served as a diplomat to China in a Democratic administration will end up being a plus for him, even with a Republican electorate, who (except for the hard right) like to see a bipartisan foreign policy.  Furthermore, I see Jon bringing hope and light and stability to what has been a pretty dark and unstable field of candidates. 

I think that Jon will soon gain the imprimatur of the Bush clan, which will bring him a lot of assets (and I hope he doesn't bargain too much away in the process).  The one big question mark that I see is Fox News and what their take on him will be.  My hope is that they will be 'fair and balanced' and give him a chance, despite his perceived centrism.  My fear is that they will go after him and that this could make things difficult.  Of course, the upside to this is that this could gain him a following in the non-Fox viewing public.

Two more points that I think will be novel to most people and that will help Jon down the road.  First, Jon gave the speech to nominate Sarah Palin at the 2008 Republican convention.  I'm sure she hasn't forgotten that.  Plus the fact that they were both governors in the West.  And second, I can see Glenn Beck endorsing Jon, given their common Mormon heritage and Glenn's adulation of Jon's father, Jon Huntman's Sr.  Beck has an independent streak in him, and his support could swing a lot of conservatives to Jon.  Not sure these things will happen, but it's possible.   

So, here's my initial prediction for the 2012 Republican nomination process.  I see Jon coming in second or third in Iowa, with Michele Bachmann coming in first.  Generally, the top two or three winners go on to New Hampshire.

The next test would be the New Hampshire primary, and in 2008, John McCain beat Mitt Romney there, 37% to 31%.  My guess is that that is pretty close to what Jon's margin of victory will be over Mitt.

Next stop is the Nevada caucuses, which Jon should be able to win, given its so close to his Utah base and has that Western sensibility that favors Jon's candidacy.

In South Carolina, the next primary, Jon will run up a victory that will be not a plurality but a possible majority vote.  Why do I think that?  John McCain and Mike Huckabee won 63% of the vote in S.C., to Romney's 15%.  Jon has the McCain people as his advisors (and he may well have McCain's endorsement as well by that time), and many Huckabee supporters like Jon's social conservatism (stemming from his Mormon  faith) and his genteel, positive, almost Southern-like personality.  The current youthful Republican governor Nikki Haley has said good words about Jon as well.

Frankly, I think the race will effectively be over by the end of the South Carolina primary, and the rest of it will be coasting into the finish line at the Republican National Convention in the end of August in Tampa, Florida.  If that were to happen, it would allow Jon to begin positioning himself for the general election very early in the race.

Now, obviously, that is a best-case scenario, and things don't often work out that way.  So all this hinges on no major missteps or revelations.  Let's see what happens.

Benevolent Elite--With Benefits, Of Course

Ross Douthet, conservative columnist for the NYT, writes about Dominique Strauss Kahn in a way that I've not seen before--as the embodiment of the globalizing European elite that is increasingly under attack from the Right and the Left.

What binds all these plots together, with the former I.M.F. chief in a starring role, is the crisis of the European dream — the vision of a continent without borders or divisions, supervised by a benevolent and cosmopolitan elite.

This crisis takes two forms. There’s the challenge to Europe’s economic union, driven by the upside-down balance sheets in the Continent’s weaker economies. And there’s the challenge to its political consensus, driven by an anti-immigration backlash that’s empowered nationalist parties from France to Finland.

Both these problems increasingly divide Europe along north-south lines. (Once again, Strauss-Kahn’s France straddles both worlds.) The debt-ridden countries of the Mediterranean are also the front lines for migration from the largely Muslim Maghreb, and their northern neighbors are trying to contain both the red ink and the refugees. Earlier this month, in a controversial move, the Danish government announced that it was restarting border checks, possibly running afoul of the Schengen agreement, which enables passport-free travel through the E.U.

Both pit the ambitions of the Continent’s leaders against the residual nationalism of ordinary Europeans, who are challenging the elite consensus from the left and right at once. (Many prominent far-right leaders, Le Pen included, strike protectionist and populist notes.)

And both have been exacerbated by that same elite’s arrogance and glaring blind spots — its expansion of the monetary union to include economies that weren’t ready to share a currency with Germany and France, and its blithe, politically correct assumption that mass immigration would enrich the Continent, rather than divide it.

No screenwriter could have invented a better embodiment of this elite than the globe-trotting, presidency-aspiring Strauss-Kahn. (Imagine if Ben Bernanke and Mitt Romney were somehow the same person, and you’ll have a sense of his unique profile.)

Is College Right For Everyone?

Having criticized Diane Rehm in my last post, I want to applaud her for another program she hosted recently on the issue of higher education, entitled "Is College Right For Everyone?" 

President Obama has called on every American to receive at least one year of higher education or vocational training by 2020. For most young people, that means heading to campus in the pursuit of a college degree. But for a small, influential group of educators and economists, pushing the college experience is wrong. A recent report from Harvard backs them up. It found that only one-third of future jobs will need a bachelor’s degree. The report’s researchers said it’s time to offer stronger alternatives.

I have written on this blog for over two years that I think that the notion of 'college for everyone' is a wrong-headed notion. All of my previous posts on this can be found here.  In December, 2008, I wrote the following:

The NYT reports on something I mentioned a week or two ago, that college is going to get increasingly more expensive and out of reach of the average family.

This is such a reversal of what we have experienced for the last 50 years, with more and more people going to college, that it stuns the sensibilities. But I've been feeling it even as our youngest child finishes college this year. Tuition and other college expenses are rising, even as wages are stagnating. Even borrowing for college becomes more and more difficult. I'm glad that I've got all my kids through, but I'm feeling sorry for those who will be coming along in the next decade. Timing is everything.

To my mind, this is merely one expression of the way in which we're actually getting poorer as a nation, something that has been happening as our manufacturing disappears offshore and the rich begin sucking up a larger percentage of the national wealth.

Add to that the fact that we have actually sent more kids to college than should probably be there. That may sound elitist, but there are many young people who would be better off working, going into the military, or doing apprenticeships in industry. In other words, doing something productive.

College is, in my opinion, actually quite non-productive for many people. Consider: how many graduates in sociology and psychology do we need in American society? If I heard this once, I've heard it a dozen times, "I majored in psychology in college, but now I'm working at (fill in the blank)." Really, did learning about B. F. Skinner's rats help anyone do their job better or raise their kids better?

We'd be a better society if our kids learned more in, and actually finished, high school. Most college these days is just glorified high school anyway, with the exception that kids can go and be sheltered from life, have pretty much a free ride, binge drink and party and sleep around and sleep in late while having no parents around to tell them what to do. They go into class to listen to professors drone on about this or that subject while surfing the internet and FaceBook on their laptop computers. Not all kids do this (for example, my own) but far too many do.

Have we as a society substituted general education college for decent, entry-level jobs or appreticeships for our young adults, just to keep them busy and 'out of trouble' for four or five years? It doesn't look to me like we can afford this any more.

One more thing: you don't need to be in college to keeping learning. All you need to do is read books, which is a lot cheaper than sitting in a classroom and listening to some professor give you a condensed version of that same book, just from his perspective. There are books (most of which you can borrow for free from a library) that teach you more in a week than a semester course costing thousands of dollars.

You can also learn a whole lot from just living life and paying attention to what's going on around you.

Jonathan Kay, Neo-Con Flack

You know, it seems that I can sniff out a neo-con zealot even when I'm minding my own business and hardly paying attention.  Yesterday I was listening online to some recent programs of the Diane Rehm Show on NPR as I was assembling my new workbench.  One of them was an interview with a Jonathan Kay, the author of the new book, Among the Truthers, on the issue of conspiracy theories.

He talked about all kinds of conspiracy theories, but it seemed to me that he was focused mostly on the 9/11 'truthers' and also the 'birthers', who dispute Obama's U.S. birth.  He tried to psychologically analyze conspiracy theorists, stating that these folks and their theories arise during traumatic times.  Also, at one point, he stated that since most conspiracy theorists are men, he connected the phenomenon to their mid-life crises, using as an example the 'conversion' of architest Richard Gage to 9/11 Truth movement when he was 50.  (Gage has lost his family and his career as a result of his commitment to advocating for the 9/11 movement).

And of course, Kay blamed the internet for the upsurge in conspiracy theories, because before the internet developed, the main stream media kept such things under control.  He seemed to have a yearning for those controlled days again.

Having listened carefully to Kay's argument, something sounded quite fishy to me.  Here was a man who was adamant about ridiculing 'conspiracy theorists' and making the case that they are either midlife crazies, solitary internet fantasists, or severely traumatized extremists.  In other words, they can be safely ignored, at best, and at worst, should be put away or silenced to protect society from their ravings.   

So who is this man Jonathan Kay?  Well, it turns out that he is the editorial page editor for a right-wing newspaper in Canada, the National Post, owned originally by Conrad Black, Canada's version of Rupert Murdock (of FOX News fame).  This would be the equivalent in the U.S. of the Washington Times or the New York Post, pushing neo-conservative or right-wing perspectives in opposition to the actual 'main stream media' like the Washington Post or the New York Times.  Here's a quote from the Wikipedia article on the National Post:

Black established the Post to provide a voice for Canadian conservatives and to combat what he and many Canadian conservatives considered to be a liberal bias in Canadian newspapers.

Also, Kay is a visiting fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a D.C. organization which is described by Wikipedia this way:

It is a neoconservative think tank that claims to conduct "research and education on international terrorism—the most serious security threat to the United States and other free, democratic nations....The foundation's president is Clifford D. May and its executive director is Mark Dubowitz. Its Leadership Council is composed of prominent thinkers and leaders from the defense, intelligence, and policy communities including Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Bill Kristol, Louis J. Freeh, Joseph Lieberman, Newt Gingrich, Max Kampelman, Robert McFarlane and James Woolsey.

Have you ever seen so many neo-cons and right-wing types gathered in one place?  This is same group of people who successfully pushed for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and are pushing now for the bombardment of Iran.  Surprise, surprise.

So, far from being some kind of psychologist or objective researcher on the topic of conspiracy theories, it turns out that Jonathan Kay is just really primarily a right-wing, neo-con flack.  I just wish Diane Rehm, whose programs I enjoy, had been a little more perspicacious about someone like this.  But unfortunately at times, she comes across to me as rather naive.