Who Is Surprised that the Pope Isn’t a First Amendment Absolutist?

Who Is Surprised that the Pope Isn’t a First Amendment Absolutist?

- January 15, 2015

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January 15, 2015

Who Is Surprised that the Pope Isn't a First Amendment Absolutist?

What guides us morally -- and God's desire for how we treat each other -- is sometimes distinct from what guides us in this rough-and-tumble world, dealing with other human beings. "Turn the other cheek" is a very noble personal policy for dealing with others who wrong you. It doesn't work as national-security policy -- at least, not for long.

The people who insist that what is morally right and what is legal in a free society must be one and the same will make a lot of hay about this:

Pope Francis suggested there are limits to freedom of expression, saying in response to the Charlie Hebdo terror attack that "one cannot make fun of faith."

The pontiff said that both freedom of faith and freedom of speech were fundamental human rights and that "every religion has its dignity."

"One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people's faith, one cannot make fun of faith," he said. "There is a limit. Every religion has its dignity . . . in freedom of expression there are limits."

The pope was speaking to reporters on a plane as he flew from Sri Lanka to the Philippines on his tour of Asia.

The Foreign-Policy Pros Suddenly Realize the Obama Team Is Incompetent

Leslie Gelb is not a conservative. You can think of him as sort of the distilled essence of the inside-the-Beltway foreign policy wonk-ish Establishment. Lefty, but not far lefty: former correspondent for the New York Times, longtime president of the Council on Foreign Relations, assistant secretary of state in the Carter administration. Most of the time, you can guess half of his recommendations before he makes them: close consultation with our allies, international summit, a multilateral commitment to open lines of communication, good-faith trust-building gesture . . .

He's the kind of guy who gushed about Obama as a fresh start and breath of fresh air and so on before he took office. He's the kind of guy who spent the past six years giving Obama the benefit of the doubt.

The benefit of the doubt just ran out. Now listen to Gelb:

The failure of Obama or Biden to show up in Paris made clear that most of the president's team can't be trusted to conduct U.S national security policy and must be replaced -- at once.

Here's why America's failure to be represented at the Paris unity march was so profoundly disturbing. It wasn't just because President Obama's or Vice President Biden's absence was a horrendous gaffe. More than this, it demonstrated beyond argument that the Obama team lacks the basic instincts and judgment necessary to conduct U.S. national security policy in the next two years. It's simply too dangerous to let Mr. Obama continue as is -- with his current team and his way of making decisions. America, its allies, and friends could be heading into one of the most dangerous periods since the height of the Cold War.

Hey, look, pal, a whole bunch of us did everything conceivably possible to save the country from this result in 2012. Where were you?

Nonetheless, it is rather satisfying to watch the foreign-policy professionals have that staring-at-the-board-at-the-climax-of–The Usual Suspects moment, and suddenly realizing that the team of Obama, Biden, Valerie Plame, Susan Rice, and John Kerry are an astronomically bad choice to lead the country in dangerous times:

It was an absolute no-brainer for either Mr. Obama or Mr. Biden personally to show the American flag on the streets of Paris. Of course every senior staff person should have recommended it three seconds after the news of the Parisian horrors. So far as we know, none did. Sure, this was an inexplicable and utter staff failure, but the president and the vice president shouldn't have required anyone to tell them what to do in this situation. It was, after all, about terrorism, the main issue of the era. If all these top officials blew this obvious decision, shudder at how they'll handle the hard ones.

Trust us, man, we're shuddering. We've been shuddering for a while now.

Gelb writes that the main issue of the era is terrorism. Obama, yesterday, acted as if the main issue of the era is cheaper high-speed broadband.

For one of the archdukes of Washington's think-tank kingdoms, writing a column like this is a big deal. This is the foreign-policy wonk equivalent of the Drudge Siren, or Ace's flaming skull.

Gelb lists almost every old hand in the foreign-policy and national-security realms and urges Obama to bring them on; he also urges Obama to consult with Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and James Baker.

Yeah, good luck with that proposal, Mr. Gelb. Also, let's give Gelb credit for acknowledging the obvious -- you could line up a foreign policy wonk All-Star team around Obama and it wouldn't make much difference if the president isn't willing to change his thinking:

In the end, making the national security system work comes down to one factor, one man -- Barack Obama. He's the key problem, and he's the only one who can bring about a solution. He's such a closed person. He's first rate as an intellectual thinker, but he thinks about problems as an intellectual and not as a policy maker and a leader. Alas, that's just too clear. He also doesn't like to be challenged with give and take. If he were to bring in the kind of people I suggest, he would have to resolve at the outset to give them a full hearing and tangible respect for their views.

The $456,000 Afghan Training Center that 'Disintegrated' Within Four Months

Wait, you thought this week couldn't possibly include another infuriating report about money wasted in a well-meaning but poorly-implemented project in Afghanistan? Ha! There's always room for another example!

On May 2, 2012, the Regional Contracting Center at Forward Operating Base Shank in Logar province awarded a $456,669 firm fixed-price contract to Qesmatullah Nasrat Construction Company—an Afghan firm—to construct a dry fire range (DFR) for the Afghan Special Police Training Center.

Dry-fire range means no live ammunition.

The dry fire range designed to replicate a typical Afghan village and used to conduct simulated police search and clearance exercises.

Within 4 months of completion, the DFR's buildings began to disintegrate. These "melting" buildings were the direct result of the construction contractor, Qesmatullah Nasrat Construction Company, failing to adhere to contractual requirements and using substandard bricks and other building materials. Unfortunately, this problem was compounded by poor oversight on the part of the responsible U.S. government officials.

In addition, an [Regional Contracting Center] acquisition analyst concluded that "the facility is completely unsafe . . . It appears the contractor intentionally used different materials and construction standards to cut costs or/and fraud the government . . . It is recommended that  the contractor completely deconstruct to the foundation and properly construct under close supervision."

The "happy" ending is that Afghan authorities demolished the buildings on the range, and are rebuilding them with funds from the Ministry of Interior. The report from U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction John Sopko concludes, "The fact that the Afghans had to demolish and rebuild the DFR is not only an embarrassment, but, more significantly, a waste of U.S. taxpayers' money."

God bless the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, putting together detailed, important, informative, and spectacularly depressing reports, year-round.

ADDENDA: Heck of a job, Rolling Stone:

Before the story was published, [Phi Psi President Stephen Scipione, 21, a junior from Richmond] said he received an e-mail from Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the Rolling Stone reporter, who asked three questions about the rape allegations but offered no specific details, such as the date of the alleged attack. Scipione said only a small part of his response was included in the article . . .

On Monday, the first day of the spring semester, Charlottesville police announced that an investigation found no basis to believe that an attack occurred at the fraternity.

The newspaper letters page that hates itself:

Finally, the official confirmation some Twin Peaks fans waited 25 years for . . . Ohhhhh, yeah.

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