Bullet List

Too much going on for one post today.

1. Sock puppet?

We have a reader who is obsessed with his false conclusion that the commenter Don Quixote is actually my sock puppet. I ask you please to stop wasting your time and mine with this delusion. We do know each other, but we have seen each other once in the past 15 years or so. I live in Connecticut and he lives in the midwest, more than 1,000 miles away. Whatever I have to say, I am more than happy to say in my own name, and I do. BTW I am not known as Michael.

2. Mad King

Your Intertubes are all aflutter with speculation and discussion about the neurodegenerative disease many believe is affecting the Resident. Lapsed economist Duncan Black has perceived dementia for a long time, while wisely declining to offer a specific diagnosis. I take the same stance. I am not a neurologist, and even if I were and had the opportunity to examine the subject, it is actually not possible to definitively classify most forms of dementia except by autopsy. And autopsy is normally counterindicated in a living patient. So arguments about whether we are seeing Progressive Supranuclear Palsy or Primary Progressive Aphasia or whatever are feckless and a meaningless distraction.

However, diagnostic labeling aside, a few things are apparent. The observable symptoms began with disordered speech, and speech disorder continues to be the most prominent and apparent manifestation. This includes increasingly impoverished vocabulary, strange word substitutions (oranges for origins), repetitiveness, abrupt and clanging digressions, episodes of dissolving syntax and at the worst, word salad.

In addition to the obviously progressive aphasia, many people perceive declining motor skills. His gait seems lumbering and his gestures are increasingly awkward. He no longer gestures with his hands as he once did; rather his arms move in a characteristic accordion playing motion while his hands are rigid. He appears to be wearing some sort of a back brace which is visible under his jacket. His behavior is increasingly weird, as the sharpie incident attests. This all appears to be some form of frontotemporal dementia. The rate of progress is unpredictable but many actual experts have commented on the likelihood of dementia including psychiatrist Seth Norrholm, psychologist Jon Gartner, as well as journalists who have observed numerous disturbing incidents including Paul Waldman, and various others. I don't like to give any credit to the coward Anonymous but he's pretty clear that the Resident is losing his marbles. If this progresses much further he will no longer be presentable in public. We'll see if he's capable or reading the SOTU speech from the teleprompter soon enough.

3. War

I fear I may have to revive the Today in Iraq and Afghanistan blog, and add Iran to the title. I'll make my own comments brief right now; it's not clear how this will unfold. But let me refer you to some knowledgeable resources.

The Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution gets a lot of its funding from pro-Israeli sources and seldom offers criticism of Israel. Nevertheless I find that senior fellow Daniel Byman provides an informative perspective. It is true that that Quds force, headed by Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani who the U.S. assassinated this morning, has been responsible for many attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, and that the Quds brigade provides assistance to various actors in the Middle East who the U.S. does not like. (Regarding the former, remember that the U.S. invaded Iraq in an illegal war of aggression and that the militias the Quds force assisted considered themselves to be acting in defense of their country. This is the point of view of many people in Iraq, including the Iranian-aligned militias and political leaders who continue to campaign for U.S. forces to leave.) Byman recognizes all this but makes the pragmatic argument that the U.S. action is likely to have severe adverse consequences and there does not seem to be any overarching strategy behind it. Juan Cole is equally, if not more worried. He sees this as a desperate attempt to change the subject from Trump's corruption and the ongoing impeachment action in Congress. He provides a lot of context and some international perspective.

Maybe I'll write about Australia tomorrow.