Proposed Obama response to the “you haven’t visited Iraq” nonsense:
“Our brave men and women fighting in Iraq have better things to do than babysit one more tourist from Washington.”
It looks as if McCain and the RNC are going to try to make a fuss about the fact that Barack Obama hasn’t visited Iraq recently. Of course, the rational response is that a carefully guarded and guided tour of Iraq is a very-low-data-rate way of collecting information. But that response has isn’t especially effective politically.
If I were Obama, the next time I was asked this I would just say, “Our brave men and women fighting in Iraq have better things to do than babysit one more tourist from Washington.”
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
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