New Government in Afghanistan + Climate March + Matt Bai on Gary Hart's Fall

On this last day of summer it seems as if events are finally settling down. Maybe not settling down so much as taking shape.

A third Gulf War is in the works for the United States. And while there are a lot of unknowns as to what this Gulf War III will end up looking like, for now at least the caliphate no longer appears to be inevitable. Islamic State is no longer making broad territorial gains. U.S. air power along with promises to reassert itself in Syria seems to have made an impact.

In the Donbass a nominal ceasefire is holding, giving the warring parties time to reflect. The lust for more violence has diminished greatly. The junta remains the critical player here. The fact that Poroshenko has maintained the ceasefire as long as he has tells me that Kiev is seriously in danger if the fighting continues.

Even Afghanistan, with Kabul a few weeks ago close to violence because of the contested presidential recount between Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, now appears temporarily stable. Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah signed off yesterday on a new unity government. Adbullah Abdullah will be the prime minister, and he will apparently be more than a ceremonial official. Ashraf Ghani will be the president will all the powers granted to the presidency according to the Afghan Constitution. One wonders about the legitimacy of this agreement. Can the exiting president, Hamid Karzai, create by fiat these changes in the organization of government? Doesn't there have to be a constitutional or legislative process to implement the agreement? In any event, a big win for the United States. Now the Obama administration can get its bilateral security agreement signed and figure out its force structure for the next few years.

There was a big climate march publicity event yesterday. Counterpunch ran a story by Arun Gupta over the weekend that is worth reading, "Business as Usual in Manhattan: How the People’s Climate March Became a Corporate PR Campaign," the gist of which is that the large organizations behind the march, 350.org and Avaaz, billed it as an "Occupy"-type direct action while working assiduously behind the scene to make sure that it was nothing of the sort. The goal was to have a "family friendly" march that would provide pretty visuals but no real threat to business as usual.

There was an associated climate march here in the Emerald City. But, having spent all Saturday downtown among the tourists, I spent Sunday, after completing a run around Lake Union, in front of the television watching the NFL. I did manage to muddle my way through Matt Bai's lengthy feature in the New York Times Magazine, "How Gary Hart’s Downfall Forever Changed American Politics."

I was expecting more because I do think the 1988 presidential election campaign is something of a dividing line. Certainly Bush I's presidency is the last of the post-war (WWII) consensus-type administrations. But Bai spends most of his time rehashing all the ridiculous, sordid details of the stakeout of Hart's D.C. townhouse by Miami Herald reporters.

There is not a lot of big picture stuff. Bai does explore the shift in journalism following Watergate. But he doesn't explain why it took another 15 years for Fourth Estate to go after the sexual infidelities of politicians. What changed in that 15 years?

The Carter administration was treated to the first ersatz Watergate just a few years after Nixon resigned. That was the Bert Lance affair. The public has been treated to one -Gate scandal after the next ever since.