Entries for January 20, 2006

And it's looking more and more likely that the Conservatives, led by Stephen Harper, will win a major victory—and perhaps an absolute majority—in Parliament. They've been leading the governing Liberals in the polls by margins of around 10 percent for a couple of weeks now. Here are some interesting thoughts on Canada's politics, and the way in which the blogosphere has undermined the country's governing party and mainstream media, from David Warren of the Ottawa Citizen. Read the whole thing.

Here's a story on the results of the Iraqi election. (Interesting that the New York Times ran wire copy on this. Not important enough for an NYT reporter? Hmm. Anyway, the AP story seems just fine.) The good news is that the United Iraqi Alliance didn't win an absolute majority; it came up 10 short, with 128 seats of 275. That means it will have to govern as part of a coalition. I have long thought that the fears of a Shiite fundamentalist regime in Iraq were exaggerated — a way that mainstream media could paint the results of an amazingly encouraging democratic process as threatening and dangerous. But now it's clear that the UIA, despite its considerable support, can't command the majorities needed for ordinary governance, much less the supermajorities required for some actions.

The advance word is that the Bush administration, unable to get Congress to vote on Social Security individual investment accounts, is going to try to get congressional action on healthcare this year. The administration never came out for a specific Social Security plan, and it may not come out with a specific healthcare plan, either. But it might endorse something like the proposals put forward in the Wall Street Journal and in a short book by John Cogan and Daniel Kessler of the Hoover Institution and Glenn Hubbard, dean of the Columbia Business School and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the first Bush term (subscribers only).

I participated in a panel at the Hudson Institute November 30 on dual citizenship. Hudson's John Fonte presented a paper on dual citizenship and the dangers it poses to the United States. Fonte decried the Mexican statute that allows Mexicans who become U.S. citizens to retain their Mexican citizenship. I agreed with Fonte that dual citizenship does pose problems. But I questioned whether, as a practical matter, these problems are so great. I agreed that Mexican officials want to perpetuate their citizens' loyalty to Mexico, even after they become U.S. citizens. But how great is that loyalty?