Michael Bloomberg reminds us what we should have learned in Kindergarten

Michael Bloomberg knows what New York is all about, and what America is all about, and what the Enlightenment is all about  -- and the Constitution -- and just what is at stake at ground zero. Hero!

Sometimes the simplest words are best. Bloomberg speaking today on Governors Island in defense of the planned Islamic Center in lower Manhattan, spoke with the clarity of a kindergarten teacher. His denouement:

"Muslims are as much a part of our city and our country as the people of any faith. And they are as welcome to worship in lower Manhattan as any other group. In fact, they have been worshipping at the site for better, the better part of a year, as is their right. The local community board in lower Manhattan voted overwhelmingly to support the proposal. And if it moves forward, I expect the community center and mosque will add to the life and vitality of the neighborhood and the entire city.

"Political controversies come and go, but our values and our traditions endure, and there is no neighborhood in this city that is off-limits to God's love and mercy, as the religious leaders here with us can attest."

 Earlier, reminders of the law, and the Constitution, and the facts of 9/11, and the stakes:

"We Tortured" -- and have not yet renounced

As part of an Atlantic retrospective of the biggest ideas of the year, Andrew Sullivan's contribution, "We Tortured," presents an ultimately heartening review of our dawning awareness of what our government has wrought, concluding:

But something else happened as well. The chief defenders of these methods among the presidential candidates—Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani—failed to gain traction in the primaries, and the one Republican who has consistently opposed these techniques (and who had had some of them used against him in Vietnam) won the nomination. The two leading Democratic candidates have vowed to end abusive interrogation upon coming to office. And the pseudo-legal arguments of former Bush officials such as John Yoo were both repudiated by the administration itself and subjected to withering critiques in the legal community.

We learned, in other words, that America had crossed the Geneva boundaries in the years after 9/11. We also learned that America has the resources to correct itself in the end.

Yes, "we have the resources," and our system has shown some encouraging antibodies -- disclosure, judicial repudiation, at least a partial change in policy. But the outcome remains in doubt. A few caveats:

1) McCain has effectively repudiated his repudiation of torture, voting against a law that would have subjected the CIA to military regulations banning torture.

2) McCain will likely pick a running mate who supports torture. And he's 71 years old.

3) The Supreme Court has thrice struck down a practice enabling torture and the government's absolute power over individuals: denial of habeas. But it's done so on a 5-4 vote. We're one Supreme Court appointment away from a Court that accedes to the Bush Administration's insanely expansive view of the powers of a "unitary executive" -- that is, an executive ultimately subject to no law as long as it deems the nation to be in a state of war.

4) McCain has held up as models for future Supreme Court appointments two justices, Roberts and Alito, who have so far shown no sign that they would ever impose any check on powers asserted by a sitting President.

5) Many of those high officials who systematically and deliberately designed and implemented a regime of torture remain in office, and there's no sign that any of them will ever be prosecuted for abrogating U.S. and international law.

It looks like U.S. voters will repudiate the party of torture. But not because of torture. And election outcomes are always uncertain. We're frighteningly close to voting our Bill of Rights out of existence.

Holding back on the surge

Andrew Sullivan protests too much that benefits of the surge are uncertain:

But surely two facts help explain its unexpected success: the Sunni insurgency decided that crazy Jihadists were temporarily a greater threat than the Shiites or the Americans, and were happy to be trained, armed and paid by the US to regain control of their territory; and Sadr decided it was in his interests to facilitate rather than impede the construction of a Shiite-dominated state. The question now is whether the reduced violence means a greater chance of an historic rapprochement between the various ethnic and sectarian factions that divide Iraq at a national level - which was explicitly the goal of the surge (emphasis added0.

Cause and effect is always a tangle. Did Rudy Giuliani 'cause' the crime drop in NY? No, but he did the right things to facilitate it, for a while at least. I think it's fair to say that the surge created conditions pushing the Sunni insurgency and Sadr to "decide" on courses favorable to the goals of the surge. As to Sullivan's final question above: who knows whether or how much rapprochement there'll be -- but surely reduced violence means a greater chance of a good outcome.

We'll never know what would have happened had U.S. troop presence been reduced in early '07 in concert with the multi-front diplomatic efforts recommended by the Iraq Study Group. But I am troubled by Obama's so far unwavering insistence that he will withdraw all combat troops within sixteen months. If I remember right, Hillary was saying at an earlier phase that she couldn't know in advance what rate of troop withdrawal would be appropriate by Jan. 09 and beyond. I think that's the right tack. The time may come to gamble on taking our hand away -- for a different president, that time might be now -- but I don't think that judgment can be made far in advance or from the outside. I think that Obama somehow (and Hillary for that matter) need to open up some maneuvering space for themselves. Of course, they're in a box now -- each would beat up on the other if one hedged at this point, and either would have a very tough time running center on this after winning the nomination. Obama in particular has been running on a clean contrast with McCain -- how can he admit any lasting benefit at all may come from the surge?