More Steyn on Multiculturalism

Check out this photograph from a Toronto public school:

Boys in front, Girls in back, and Girls that are menstruating in back of them. Steyn has a lot of fun with the contradictions of multiculturalism that insists on feminist principles but tosses them aside when a more entitled--or potentially violent--minority is at issue.

Now I find it strange that I defending the Afghanistan war I am defending a lot of people that would approve of such an arrangement. The same people I am in favor of defending with the lives of American soldiers are the same people I would probably oppose tooth and nail if they were on my local school board. This is not a contradiction. What we are defending in Afghanistan is not a state we would particularly like to live in or have our children educated in, but it is one that is civilized.

I sit every day with people that I could never agree with if they were on my local school board but whom I would ask young Americans to give their lives defending. It is not that I minimize the differences between us but that I do not underestimate the differences between them and the Taleban.

Mark Steyn gets you thinking

Here is a link to a Mark Steyn column from 10 years ago on the Euro. Inside, this:

"In the normal course of events, monetary union follows political union, as it did in the US, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and so on. In this instance, uniquely, monetary union is in itself an act of political binding. What's important on Tuesday is not the introduction of the new currency but the abolition of the old ones - not the symbolic bridges on the back of the new notes, but the burning of the bridges represented by the discarded currencies."

The European method has been to put constructivist theory into practice. Academics have long pushed the view that our words and symbols shape and determine reality. This is the doctrine that drives so much of the politically correct obsession with using just the right words to describe matters touching on the interests of minority groups. The European Union has sought to create political reality but first creating symbols of political unity, like a currency. Unfortunately, as powerful as symbolism is, it cannot overcome the failure to make certain essential hard choices. We are seeing the consequences of that failure in the Euro-zone now.

Another point he makes is one that I am embarrassed to say I was unfamiliar with:

"The new pan-European jurisdictional authority is also in marked contrast to the US, where New Hampshire won't extradite you to Vermont for actions that are illegal in the latter but not the former. Three years ago, Norman Lamont fretted that Britain would be reduced to the status of Delaware, to which I replied in these pages: you should be so lucky. That ship has sailed: on justice, taxation and much else, Britain is already reduced to well below Delaware."

Something to keep in mind.

My Dinner with Mr. Cheng giz

Mr. Cheng giz took me, Mirwais and the professors of the Jemea institute to dinner. Mr. Cheng giz's brother Hussein came too.

It might be helpful to know that "Cheng giz" is the Persian pronunciation of "Genghis Khan." Mr. Cheng giz's real name is Ali Reza but everyone affectionately calls him Mr. Cheng giz because of his command of the family business empire. He stands a little over 5'. He is about 30 though he is just now finishing his undergraduate degree. Not that it has held him back: he has built a string of English schools and other businesses.

They were in a very good mode. Later Mr. Ershod, former head of the political science department at Kateeb, came. He was now at Ibn senau, the school that had been formed the the first president run off by the head of Kateeb.

I have learned more about Kateeb in this conversation. It came out that the founder of Kateeb was a Mujahadin commander and that he had made his money as a warlord more than as a businessman. He was now in parliament. His name is Kazam. [I should get an interview with this guy]

He had fired the staff once before. They were able to form their own school, Ibn Senau, and they are doing fine. The current group that just got fired and which forms the core of the Jemea think tank under Mr. Salihi was pushed out at the end of the last semester.

The assembled Kateeb refugees are unanimous in their agreement that their former school is surviving on its reputation from the past (short though that past is) and is able to attract students. This is the second time of which I am aware that there has been a mass exodus from Kateeb. In general I feel that Afghans don't compromise very well and people always seem to be splitting off into factions. That this has not happened to any of Mr. Cheng giz's organizations (or at least that I know of) is part of what makes him unusual here.

Mr. Cheng giz talked about the time he was in the USAID office of capacity building. He was in charge of getting provincial officials to come to the workshops they had on democracy. He said that the only thing the directors cared about was getting numbers that would look good to their bosses. Running up the number of people that had gone through their workshops was the only thing that mattered to them, regardless of whether they got anything out of those workshops.

The people that attended the workshops, locally elected officials, would ask for their stipend immediately after the workshop was over without asking any questions or doing any sort of follow up. The only questions he ever got about the workshops was what kind of food they would get there. Often, they would lose people after the lunch had been served. Cheng giz said, "And these are the good people, the ones that believe in democracy. You can imagine how it is with the bad ones."

All of his suggestions to his superiors were dismissed. Cheng giz is convinced that they were only interested in proposals that would increase their numbers. Proposals that might increase effectiveness were at best irrelevant and, if they implied decreasing numbers, dangerous.

I asked Mr. Zeki (a first rate sociologist who had just returned from a USAID sponsored study tour of the US averring that America "is the paradise on the Earth) how this might play out with the workshops for moderate Mullahs for which he was presently writing a grant proposal. He nodded thoughtfully for a moment and said that it was always a possibility.

The conversation then turned to the current political situation in the country. Mr. Cheng giz does most of the talking but on this subject at least seems to have the full support of the group.

The Taliban are systematically killing off the heads of the other ethnic groups. When they killed General Davood they announced that they had a list and now two more of the people on the list have been killed.

(Earlier, the normally forgiving and moderate Mirwais had confided in me that he thought President Karzai had a plan to assassinate the leaders of the other ethnic groups.)

(my notes give the impression that Cheng giz does all the talking. That true to a certain extent, though the effect is exaggerated in English. When the conversation slips back to Farsi there is a lot more give and take. Also, along with his disquisitions on current affairs he intersperses eloquent praises of his teachers. At one point I rib him by asking "Who is the teacher and who is the student?" getting a laugh from him and his three largely silent professors. He retorts, "Well, you know, we have a saying that if you want to know how good a teacher is you should not to to him but to his students. So, I am doing my duty to my teachers by showing you all that I have learned from them.")

I bring up what he had told me on my last trip, that the money is all spent in the provinces where there is fighting and the people that are on our side are ignored.

He said that that is true. He once brought this up to a Japanese employee of the International NGO [nail down what organization this was], saying that in the areas where people support democracy they get no help. He replied, "But you are no threat to us!"

In [I can't remember which province, one of the central highlands? Daikondi?] there had been no violence and there was no PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team). In other words, no violence no reconstruction money.

Mr. Zeki said that he thought they (meaning, I assumed, the Americans) thought that poverty was the reason for the violence and that therefore they should send money to the places where people are violent.

Mr. Cheng giz then returns to one of his favorite themes, Pashtun domination of the government and of Afghanistan's contact with the outside world. "One of the problems is the Pashtun domination of the international community's contact with Afghanistan. At one point the government unilaterally decreased its estimate of the Hazara proportion of the population from 20% to under 10%. In the offices of USAID or the embassy all of the local employees that one sees are Pashtuns. I didn't see a single one that was not a Pashtun." [I remember the fellow that I met with Jeffrey Ellis in the information office was an Hazara--not much of a sample, of course. The one time I went to the Embassy was on a Friday and the local staff were off so I didn't get much of a sense. All the security staff I saw were Philippine contractors].

The discussion turns to AUA (American University of Afghanistan). The faculty is dominated by Pashtuns. I was treated to some discussion of the political rants that Pashtun professors had made in class (Cheng giz had been a student there before transferring to Kateeb and his brother Hussein was about a semester away from graduating). I brought up that I had met some progressive Pashtuns. "What about Dr. Faiez?" Murmurs went around the room (Faiez is the founder of the association of private colleges in Afghanistan and one of the founders of the AUA). It was universally consented that he was a good man, "a modern man." I also mentioned a professor at Kabul university in the law faculty [Wahdi?] and this also met with approval.

(this all dovetailed nicely with my earlier discussion of the AUA at Horazmi where the young economics professor mentioned that AUA gets the most politically influential students. Is that us getting the best students or the most politically influential students getting our resources?)

The DDR

Mr. Cheng giz talks at length, though the rest of the party are obviously in full agreement:

"The us government came up with a wonderful idea [I don't know if it was the US government but it was supported by the US government] to pacify Afghanistan by getting people to turn in their guns. Of course, the Hazara are fully supporting [sic] the US government and democracy. One of our own leaders [Khalili?] was put in charge of it. I can still remember seeing him with his two American body guards standing next to him and him telling us how the government would now protect us. They went around the Hazara villages and got all the guns. People gave them up willingly.

Of course, there is one group that is exempted, exempted in the Constitution, the Kuchi (the nomads). They have a unique way of life that requires them to go around and move through different districts. They have to be able to keep their weapons.

So, now they have raided the Hazara villages [he gives the name of a village in Ghazni] and killed a lot of people including this great leader [when he mentions the name the people around the table actually seem to bow their heads]. The Kuchi had weapons that the government doesn't even have. And many members of the ANA fired at the people trying to defend their homes! Can't they make a distinction between the people trying to defend themselves and armed raiders on horseback?

[The law, in its majestic equality, forbids both rich and poor sleeping under bridges. The same thing could be going on here, where you have a rule against violence in general and you are ordering people to lay down their arms. If they don't you have to shoot them if you see them disobeying. You don't want to take sides, after all. That is the essence of the rule of law. Of course, at a minimum, the guy standing in front of his house trying to defend it will always be a better target than the guy riding by on horseback trying to burn it down.]

Of course they burned down the school and beheaded some people. This was the school that the Ghazni had built themselves so there will be no help from the international community in rebuilding it. They only build schools for the people that won't build them themselves and who only want to burn them down once they are built.

Of course because Ghazni is so peaceful there are no coalition forces around to protect anyone.

The Uzbeks and Tajiks never went along with this disarmament program and are relatively safe. Of course the Pashtuns are openly at war with us. Now of course the Tajiks and the Uzbeks never went along with it. They are fine, or at least they don't have to worry about raids from the Kuchi."

I interjected my own thoughts. Yesterday, when I first arrived Mr. Zeki had told me about his trip to America and how he had seen a small community college with a few Muslims and how the school had made a prayer room available for them. He put his hand on his heart and said, "I love American multiculturalism." I now said to him that the problem the Hazara face in Ghazni at the hands of the Kuchi is in a way a consequence of the same multiculturalism he so admired. The reason they don't disarm the Kuchi is that it would be denying the legitimacy of their culture. Multiculturalism is the idea that no one culture is better than another. Taken to its logical extreme it means that we can't go to the Kuchi and say that your way of life, your culture, of being nomadic raiders is not as good as that of the settled and law abiding villagers. We have to be neutral.

Mr. Zeki nodded thoughtfully. He often nods thoughtfully.

Hotel Attack

Here is a link to the Guardian's report on the Hotel attack the other night.

I am late in writing anything about it because of the trouble I have been having getting an internet connection.

I was up all night anyway with some kind of food poisoning. You just have to lose at least one day to a new microbe when you are in a country like this. (The next day my friend Mr. Cheng giz almost tried to carry me to the German Clinic.) But I doubt I would have been able to sleep anyway. I was 2 km away--a little over a mile. If I had not been so sick I suppose I would have been able to see quite a show from my roof. As it was I heard a lot of helicopters going over head and the explosions which I later learned were rocket propelled grenades.

I have been to the Hotel Intercontinental before. It has a really nice buffet, but it is the kind of place that could be anywhere. But for the layers of security and road obstacles outside you wouldn't really know you were in Afghanistan so what is the point of going there? And it is expensive. Still, I have been taken there a few times by Afghans who think that is what I, as a foreigner, would like.

It was odd lying there in the basement hearing all this mayhem. I really did start to think that an army was invading the city. But somehow I wasn't scared, or at least no scared enough to get up and see what was going on. I suppose the most important thing was that if I had been in immediate danger Mirwai--my research colleague and general minder--would have come and got me.

It is a good thing that I didn't decide to go to Mirwais' room and see what he thought because I would have found his room empty. As it turns out Mirwais was concerned enough to go over toward the hotel to see what was going on. Now once he gets there the police try to arrest him. Of course he talked himself out of it--Mirwais could talk himself out of a sunburn--but it kept him there a good bit of the night.

In the morning I talked to some students and I kept getting confused by their account. They told me 17 had been killed but then when they gave their subtotals of the various types of people killed the number would come out in the 20s. When I asked they said, "But Sir, of course we don't count the terrorists among the people killed." A bit of sound moral accounting there.

I feel that the city of Kabul gets a bad rap. The various reports have said that security is only nominally under the control of the Afghan police and that the attack represents a major embarrassment for them. I disagree.

First, on security, I have seen nothing but Afghan police this time around. This is the first time I have not seen a single foreign military vehicle in town. All of the checkpoints are manned by Afghans. I have walked all around the city and have had the occasional pleasant chat with Afghan police and have found them invariably efficient and affable. I don't know what would happen if I needed them for something really important or if as a foreigner I am not subject to requests for bribes, but I certainly don't recognize the marauders that I read about in press reports in the police I meet.

The failure to stop five to nine men with small arms from entering a city of some 3 million is hardly a surprise. Could we keep out 10 men with small arms day in, day out from a city the size of Chicago? I rather doubt it. The Taliban speak the language, take hostages, kill you and your wife and children if you don't cooperate, and are suicidal. What police force could keep a city absolutely free of such a force. JKF said that the President can always be killed by a man willing to trade his own life for the president's. Any structure can be shot up pretty well by 10 men bent on exploding themselves.

What is being portrayed as a major failure of the Afghan police, it seems to me, tells us less about them and more about their (and our) enemy. If you are decided to die and don't care who you kill you will surely manage to kill someone. The fact that almost half the people they killed were unarmed, and that even with suicide vests they only managed to kill just under twice their own number, is really rather remarkable. And yet we talk about handing a portion of power in the government to the people that launched these suicidal mass murders? Who praised them as heros for gunning down people who were attending a wedding reception? My God, if we are willing to treat with these fanatics on the strength of such a showing, what country is safe? There are 35,000 Taliban with the support of under 10% of the population. Negotiating a power sharing agreement with them is admitting a monstrous principle--that for commanding a relative handful of fanatics and a depraved contempt for human life you can be rewarded with a share in power for a democracy. It is as if the Congress had decided to award seats to the Klu Klux Klan.

Anyway, as for my own personal safety, I had it figured on a spreadsheet once that I faced a higher chance of falling victim to homicide in Chicago than in Afghanistan. When a get a better connection I will try to update this post with those figures. But in any case, I am sure I am in greater danger here in Kabul from the street vendors than from the Taliban.

Last American thing I will post about

Nice post from Insta-pundit.

Dubai Airport never sleeps

In Dubai

I don't know what people like about Dubai. It is an artificial city. It is the strangest thing. You have all these people around but you never see a citizen of Dubai. They are all tourists or guest workers. The only actual citizens of Dubai you might see are at the customs desk.

We talk about the exploitation of the Global South (what people my age used to call the third world) by the developed world and former colonial powers, but what about the exploitation carried on by local elites? The history of British colonialism surely offers few examples to compare to the exploitation on exhibit in Dubai of "southerns" by "southerners."

The British colonial masters did at least do some work. The phrase 'mad dogs and Englishmen' came from the saying that the only people that would work through mid-day without taking a nap in these parts were the English. They did something. Citizens of Dubai make a show of not working from what I can tell, the male citizens wearing ostentatiously white flowing robes, practical for no other purpose than to stroll around (their wives padding along behind in their black bags). It seems designed to show that they don't engage in labor.

Here is an interesting item on that other form of exploitation, the exploitation of women by men, here is a nice item about the newly formed and government sanctioned "Obedient Wives Club." In their own words:

"Disobedient wives are the cause for upheaval in this world," the club's vice president and co-founder, Dr. Rohayah Mohamad, told told the Associated Press

. She blames the country's rising divorce rate—as well as incidents ofprostitution

, rape, and even incest—on wives who have neglected to keep their husbands satisfied in bed.

"When husbands come home, wives do not welcome their husbands with warm alluring smiles and sexy dressing ... That is the reality today," she said. "A good wife is a good sex worker to her husband."

Put them to work

Ann Althouse posts on the fact that in other societies young children work and that it might be good for them. She focuses on the long hours of sitting and mentions a new study that finds sitting almost as bad for your health as smoking.

I don't know about that, but it did put me in mind of something that I heard from a friend just the other day. She said that since her six year old daughter has had to take care of my friend's bed ridden Mother she has become very responsible. It has apparently been a huge change.

I think it is not so much the physical activity (though having 7 year olds sit for 7 hours a day is surely neither good for them or very natural) as the responsibility that has the effect. There is something that matters, something that will go wrong if they don't do their jobs. It is an unnatural state for human beings to not matter. For most of its existence the human race's living standard was so low and its means of sustain itself so precarious as to make it obvious to all how their contribution mattered. We have gained something, but we have also lost something.

Who destroyed this city? Oh, I did!

The tefelon teleprompter president does an ad lib: Those shovel ready jobs were not as shovel ready as we thought. What? He was president, no? His party wrote the law. Why is he still allowed to talk about the government that he leads and the laws of which are written by the party he leads as if they are something he observes and comments upon as if he were a bemused third party? For a president to joke about how 800 billion dollars was spent on false pretenses--the pretenses of his administration and party--and to little good effect without a hint that he is in some way responsible is a new low. He is the chief magistrate. It is his job to see that the laws be faithfully executed. To laugh about the execution of laws that he is not only responsible for executing but also wrote, and to do so without a hint of censure from the press, is a sad milestone on the road of decline that has been traveled by both our politicians and our press.

Saying goodbye for the Summer

One of the people I will miss the most this summer. J. R. West of the West Hapkido academy.

Last week he came to my class and talked about his experiences in Vietnam with the students in my Terrorism Through Film class. They had just seen the film the quiet American and he held them in a state that could only be described as spellbound for one and a half hours. We closed the Pizza Shack.

I was recoding the interview on my iPod with the microphone I just bought, the 'Blue' from Mikey. Unfortunately my iPod ran out of space and I only recorded the first 15 minutes. Well, at least I have learned of a few potential pitfalls which I will now be able to avoid when I am in Afghanistan and do-overs are less of a possibility.

Here is my other teacher, Ms. Alexander.

News from North Korea

The report points out that 1% of the population is in the massive labor camps and between 5 and 10% of those in the camps do not survive their stay. How does that compare to the US? We do have a large percentage of our population in prison and prison is a very dangerous place. Also, with mandatory sentencing laws there are more and more prisoners dying of old age so that, along with the violence of prison life, might bring the percentage of those who do not survive their stay up to the 1% range I would imagine, though I would be shocked if it was anywhere near 5%. Anyone have any figures on this?

The prevaricator-and-cheif

In Matt Welch's essay remarking on the contrast to the amount of attention the media have given the release of emails from Palin's time as governor of Alaska and the inattention they have given to President Obama's questionable statements we have this worthy observation:

[The President] said, both presumptively and inaccurately, that "we're making sure America can out-build, out-innovate, and out-compete the rest of the world." And he gave the distinct -- and distinctly false -- impression that Chrysler has repaid every dime of what it owes American taxpayers, mostly by saying "Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes American taxpayers for their support during my presidency -- and it repaid that money six years ahead of schedule."

Glenn Kessler, who writes "The Fact Checker" blog for the Washington Post website, described Obama's address as "one of the most misleading collections of assertions we have seen in a short presidential speech. Virtually every claim by the president regarding the auto industry needs an asterisk."

That is the problem. He never actually lies, just uses words in equivocal and tendentious senses. I hope people are catching on. This is what a Harvard trained lawyer does, I suppose.

Friedman

Friedman talks about changes in the economy and the difficulties created for businesses by uncertainty about federal policy. He frames it a bit differently from the way that a Conservative would, focusing on the standoff between the two major parties on dealing with the budget problems rather than the intrusions of regulators. Still, recognition of the problem and a refusal to even consider the conspiracy theory explanation of the capital strike is welcome coming from Friedman's corner.

The other Hitchens

Peter Hitchens takes on the Archbishop of Canterbury. Blessed are the spongers, for they--if you can get enough of them on the suck--shall outvote the people that work for a living.

Here is his story of how he re-found Christianity.

What happens when experts and regulators mandate choices

"crony capitalism with a touch of green."

Huh?

And why does the Department of Education need to buy shotguns?

A Confederacy of Dunces

Well, more like a limited liability partnership--limited for them, not for us. The Bush administration's idiotic (really no other word will do) to sign into law a bill requiring 40% of corn grown in the US to go to ethanol is now doing real damage. The bill was backed by a coalition of farmers and environmentalists for the purposes of protecting America's small farmers and the environment. Now we have only 2 weeks supply of corn at present usage rates (the last time that happened was in the 1930s) and we are facing the possibility of importing corn.

The Dilemma of Imprisoned Capital

I have heard the complaint that businesses and banks have money but they just aren't investing it. Sometimes this is portrayed as selfishness on the part of the capitalists. Sometimes there is a conspiracy hinted at: greedy and heartless big business wants to sabotage President Obama's re-election and so is sitting on its money to keep the unemployment rate up. I only wish business were so public spirited.

It is precisely because they are greedy and heartless that the conspiracy theory is not credible. Imagine that there are profitable investments to be made that would create jobs and that businesses are forgoing in order to prevent Obama's re-election. Now each business would know that the jobs that it, as one business, would be able to create would not be enough to improve Obama's chances. So each business would calculate that by creating jobs it would be making money for itself and yet would still enjoy the benefits that come with Obama being a one term president. And, since each business faces the same incentive to defect from the project of undermining Obama, each would do what is in its own best interest and make investments that it judges to be profitable. The temptation to free ride would be overwhelming. Since the benefits of Obama's failure to win re-election would be enjoyed by those who had cooperated with the strike and those who had not alike, there would be no way to hold the coalition together. In other words, such a collective project would result in a prisoner's dilemma in which the only equilibrium would be defection by all parties.

Of course, in the real world people do overcome collective action problems so the conspiracy theory cannot be ruled out. But there are other facts that do not fit with it very well. We would expect that the businesses in Red states which are most opposed to Obama would be the most ardent cooperators with the strike. We would expect those in blue states to be doing the opposite. In fact, however, it is the blue states where jobs are not being created and the red states where they are.

In fact since the beginning of the recession one state, Texas, has created over a third of all new jobs. It is one of four states that has more jobs than when the recession began. Whatever else Texas is, Obama country it is not. Two of the other states, North Dakota and Alaska, are, like Texas, low regulation, low tax states. Jobs are created when those who have capital to invest believe they can make a profit. If taxes are constantly going up, state government is continually borrowing and living beyond its means, regulations are constantly being created and altered, businesses and banks will not invest in risky ventures. Capital will, in effect, go on strike. Capital is voting with its "feet" to go where it is well treated, allowed to keep the fruits of its labor and doesn't have to worry about constantly changing rules.

Taxes in Texas are famously low. But there are aspects to its business friendly climate that are just as important. Rules do now change as quickly there. For one thing, the legislature only meets every other year. More important are the kinds of rules they make, which are both clear, unambiguous and encourage individual responsibility. For instance, instead of a complicated regime of disclosure requirements and minute decisions about what types of loans are allowed Texas--in the wake of the S and L debacle of the late 80s--made a simple rule: you can only borrow 80% of a home's value for a mortgage. No exceptions, not obscure and changing definitions. It is a somewhat harsh rule, that in the first instance makes it difficult for many young families to buy a home, but the long run benefit is substantial. There was no wild run up in housing prices in Texas and so not nearly so much of a crash. And because there was no borrowing fueled speculative frenzy, Texas overall had a very affordable housing market.

That is, if it is allowed a "vote." Some capital is compelled and forcibly relocated. Remember there are four places where jobs have seen a net increase. The three I have mentioned are red states. The fourth is Washington D.C. The job creating capital that has taken up residence there was not persuaded but compelled. The one thing that the Obama administration indisputably managed to increase is the number of people working for the government.

On the issue of cartels, Megan McArdle has an interesting post on the possibility of a cartel in underwriting IPOs. It appears that some businesses are able to solve their collective action problem. Real estate agents have been able to pressure their fellow members to charge the same commissions to everyone through a system of informal pressure that has lasted decades and is only now unraveling in the face of pressure from the internet.

Public Spirited Government Workers

Some public employee union members decided that a special olympics event would be a good place to protest Governor Walker. Stay classy, guys!

Murky Laws and Powerful Prosecutors

John Edwards is being prosecuted under a very broad interpretation of the campaign finance laws. The problem is that campaign finance laws require any expenditure that might benefit a candidate to be counted and reported to the federal government. Since the money from a wealthy friend that was keeping his mistress from publicly talking about their affair was of some obvious benefit to the campaign. That makes it a campaign contribution.

What is the point of this, though? He is not running for anything. Do we have an epidemic of hush money to mistresses that is distorting our political system? Was this at all what Congress was thinking of when it passed the campaign finance laws? Isn't what we are worried about with campaign finance one candidate being able to buy up so much airtime and publicity that the public's decision making will be distorted? It seems to me that broadening the law to such an extent will give ambitious prosecutors all kinds of license to attack prominent politicians in the future. Who is to say that money A spends does not somehow make B look better to the public and thus, indirectly, constitute a campaign contribution?

What is really distressing is the commentary on this. It is all from lawyers and is framed as an inside baseball question of whether the prosecutor can get a conviction. It is all about the oh-so-entertaining contest between lawyers and the implications for their respective careers and reputations. How this further expansion of the law into politics will benefit the republic is a question that is never raised.