KUDOS TO OXBLOG: I'm planning on posting something about North Korea in the near future, once I'm freed from child care duties. In the meantime, however, David Adesnik has been on fire over at Oxblog. Click here and here for some recent musings on the Northy Korean situation, here for some subtle analysis about anti-Americanism in recent foreign elections, and here for a marathon four-part critique of Fareed Zakaria.

WHY IS THE LEFT MORE SENSITIVE THAN THE RIGHT?: Virginia Postrel and Jacob Levy have posts about the inability of Randy Cohen -- The Ethicist at the New York Times -- to get past critiques of his work from conservatives and libertarians. This, combined with the somewhat snippy reaction I've received from my critique of Paul Krugman (from Krugman and his acolytes) leads to an interesting question: is the left more sensitive to criticism than the right? If so, why?

I'll admit that it might not be possible to answer the first question, since measuring such sensitivity is next to impossible. And conservatives routinely bitch and moan about unfair treatment by mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times. However, the distinguishing factor here is that in recent memory, political leaders on the right do not complain about attacks from left-wing conspiracies. The same cannot be said about political leaders on the left -- see Al Gore, Tom Daschle, Hillary Clinton, or Cynthia McKinney (Bill Clinton probably felt this way too, but the longer he stayed in office the better he got at publicly shrugging off those criticisms). The claim of a coherent right-wing disinformation campaign has the peculiar stink of paranoia that renders some on the left unable to distinguish temperate from intemperate criticism. In contrast, those on the right are pretty good at shrugging off being called evil, capitalist pig-dog fascists as part of a day's work.

Why is this the case? Two possible explanations:

1) The left takes things personally. When you have a political disagreement with someone on the right side of the spectrum, the tendency is to have a good fight and then go out for a drink. When you have a a political disagreement with someone on the left side of the spectrum, the tendency is for that person to believe that the disagreement is an indication of a deep character flaw. More (admittedly superficial) proof: run a Google search on "evil" and "right-wing" and you get 135,000 hits; do the same thing with "left-wing" and you only get back 55,000 hits. [Hey, I did the same thing with "liberal" and "conservative", and the liberals had more hits, 426,000 to 380,000---ed. OK, but do the same thing with "Democrat" and "Republican" and the Republicans win, 244,000 to 102,000].

2) Liberals have yet to adjust to the fact that they've graduated from college. Until recently, campuses were thought to be centers of gravity for political liberals. This was certainly the case when I was in school. Anyway, those who form their political positions in a world a like-minded souls are not used to having such views challenged. Those who were conservatives in school were used to being attacked, and as a result are not fazed by it later in life. Liberals face a much harsher political adjustment when they exit the ivory tower.

If it's the first explanation, there's not much that can be done about it. If it's the second, however, then liberals are likely to become much less sensitive -- and conservatives more so -- in the near future. As both David Brooks and George Packer have recently observed, students are increasingly conservative. Over time, liberals will adapt to criticism at an earlier stage, while conservatives will grow more sensitive as they find intellectual kinship at an earlier age.

Developing....

UPDATE: If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Kieran Healy really likes me. [Dude, he's parodying you--ed. Yes, but I'm not sensitive about it!]

WHAT'S SO WRONG ABOUT U.S. FOREIGN POLICY?: The growth of anti-Americanism as a successful campaign tactic has prompted some musings about whether U.S. foreign policy under the Bush administration is too aggressive, too unilateral, and/or too tone-deaf. Josh Marshall argues yes; Jackson Diehl and Glenn Reynolds say no. Let's review the list, shall we?

Too aggressive? Hardly. Too aggressive implies that the force of arms is used when alternative means of statecraft, including diplomacy, could be used as effective substitutes. One would be hard-pressed to find such an instance over the past two years. Consider:
-- When a U.S. spy plane was shot down over China, the crisis was defused without even a threat of force;
-- Given that the Taliban hosted the Al Qaeda netowrk, and given that the regime was dependant on Al Qaeda's resources, one can hardly call our response too aggressive;
-- For two of the three members of the axis of evil -- North Korea and Iran -- there has been no American provocations, unless one count the Axis of Evil Speech itself. Of course, given these governments' behavior in the past year, it's hard to debate that classification;
-- There are several "allied" governments -- Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen -- where regime change might not be such a bad idea, but the Bush administration has been silent;
-- On Iraq, there is no question that the administration has taken an aggressive posture -- since 9/11. Prior to that date, as Diehl points out, the administration was actually pursuing a dovish policy on Iraqi sanctions.
I'm not seeing a whole lot of unchecked aggression here.

Too unilateralist? Not recently. In its first six months, the administration committed the cardinal sin of assuming that it should reflexively oppose any policy initiative supported by the Clinton administration. No doubt, this led to some process-oriented mistakes, such as pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol. However, both domestic and foreign critics need to get over their first impression on this score. Consider:
-- U.S. actions against Al Qaeda and Afghanistan came witrh the backing of NATO and the UN Security Council;
-- All U.S. actions to date against Iraq have gone through the U.N. Security Council -- which, it should be added, did not act like a rubber stamp on the issue.
-- The U.S. position on terrorist financing has to reinforce multilateral institutions;
-- On North Korea, the administration has consistently pushed for a multilateral approach -- to the apparent consternation of the North Koreans;
-- In the Balkans, the U.S. has consistently deferred to the EU on policy positions, agreeing to withhold aid unless Milosevic was extradited to the Hague, for example.
-- More than one expert has pointed out that Bush's National Security Strategy is actually more multilateralist than the previous administration's.
-- U.S. foreign economic policy, on the whole, has been consistently multilateral. The U.S. jump-started the latest round of WTO negotiations, advocated vigorously for a hemispheric trade zone, and pushed for more concessionary spending from the international financial institutions. [Ahem, what about the steel tariffs and the farm bill?--ed. Definitely unilateral, but compared to the protectionist trade policies of that monument to multilateralism, the European Union, the U.S. looks like the more responsible actor].
At worst, the U.S. can be accused of threatening to act in a unilateral manner if it doesn't get some of what it wants through multilateral institutions. Which is pretty much how all great powers have acted since the invention of multilateral institutions.

[The Financial Times agrees with this assessment (link via Sullivan): "Under his [Bush's] leadership, the US has acted more multilaterally, more cautiously and more wisely than many had feared after the provocation of September 11 2001."]

Too tone deaf? Depends on who's listening. The broad majority of Americans support a U.S. foreign policy built on peaceful ideals carried out in a multilateral manner. A broad majority of Americans also supports Bush's foreign policy. A vocal minority of Americans and a lot of foreigners don't like either Bush or his foreign policy. What gives?

Let me start with an anecdote. A few weeks ago, a high-ranking White House official gave a talk on homeland security at a University of Chicago workshop on security. This person is respected among international relations specialists, so there was no ivory tower animosity. Nevertheless, the talk didn't go well. The presenter's cocksure demeanor and refusal to recognize the valid questions from the audience led me -- an administration supporter -- to find the administration's arrogance insufferable. It's this arrogance, this refusal to even consider the value of alternative viewpoints, that causes so many within the chattering classes to label it tone-deaf.

This boils down to the following criticism: this administration doesn't take the time to listen carefully to an alternative position and then delineate in full why that position is wrong -- it just says so at the outset. In diplomacy, such things matter. At the same time, as I've previously posted, there's a reason this administration seems so sure of itself -- it has a good read of the current threats to the U.S. As Diehl points out, "In a recent meeting at The Post, my colleague David Broder asked a senior administration official why Bush had come to embrace "an almost imperial role" for the United States. The answer was long, eloquent, and revealing. 'A few years ago, there were great debates about what would be the threats of the post-Cold War world, would it be the rise of another great power, would it be humanitarian needs or ethnic conflicts,' the official said. 'And I think we now know: The threats are terrorism and national states with weapons of mass destruction and the possible union of those two forces.'

'It's pretty clear that the United States is the single most powerful country in international relations for a very long time. . . . [It]is the only state capable of dealing with that kind of chaotic environment and providing some kind of order. I think there is an understanding that that is America's responsibility, just like it was America standing between Nazi Germany and a takeover of all of Europe. No, we don't have to do it alone. But the United States has to lead that.'"

When weak states become a security risk, the hegemonic power has to be involved everywhere. The administration knows this. I suspect that it's critics do as well, but they either don't like the implications of such a policy, or -- more likely -- they don't like the people currently in charge. So the tone-deaf charge is a mutual one. The administration might not be the best listeners of other views, but the administration's critics are also hard of hearing. Because the critics are equally tone-deaf, they fail to notice policies that contradict their entrenched about this administration.

CHILD CARE 1, BLOGGING 0: Back from the East Coast. I had three, count 'em, three posts erased when my mother's AOL connection decided to disconnect. After that I gave up.

This week, I'll be at home taking care of my boy, as his day care is still down. Needless to say, blogging will be light, but trips to the Museum of Science and Industry will be heavy.

UPDATE: Hmmm... maybe no museum trips. I tried to go today and it was a mob scene.