The American Spectator

Notwithstanding Obama’s rhetorical flourish and McCain being bogged down by Bush’s many failures—all of which came as a result of rejecting, not embracing, conservatism, it is little wonder that McCain lost. In fact, his not being conservative enough cost him two states: third party conservative candidate Bob Barr pealed enough votes away from McCain in Indiana and North Carolina to put them in the Democratic column for the first time in decades.

Had the Republicans picked a more-or-less conservative candidate, they might have lost anyway. That is because right now, the party brand is badly tarnished, thanks in large part to a very poorly executed war, profligate spending from a party that once had a reputation for fiscal conservatism, the mishandling (both real and imagined) of Hurricane Katrina, etc. But at least they would have had a fighting chance.
— Greg Hoadley
Tucker, Georgia

Quin, as a G.K. Chesterton fan, this piece reminds me of one of his most quotable quotes. “Christianity hasn’t been tried and found wanting. Christianity has been tried and found difficult!” The same is true of conservatism. Our problem is not that we have an antiquated political view, but that too few of us stay the course when we are in office or running for office. The elites among us have forgotten, if they ever really knew, that the American Revolution was substantively a revolution against a form of government, the European form of government, at the head of which was a King, who proved totally inadequate to addressing our grievances, especially over the matter of taxation. Now, we’re being asked to abandon the principles of that revolution and embrace Europe again. Well, not this Texas boy, and not anyone with even a passing understanding of what it means to live free.

Ooga Booga!
— Mike Showalter
Austin, Texas

PATRIOT ACT
Re: Garry Greenwood’s letter (under “Shades of Gray”) in Reader Mail’s What Did He Know?

I’m not sure what Mr. Greenwood expects from the main-stream media, but while liberals are very well-acquainted with the threats to our civil liberties by the Patriot Act, the “so-called liberal” MSM implacably ignores them. If conservatives depend on the MSM for their political information, it’s no wonder they are so blithely unaware of what is going on. They all seem to know all about the smudges on Obama’s birth certificate, but are clueless about the fact that they have lost essential rights such as Habeaus Corpus granted them by the U.S. Constitution.

As for a U.S. Citizen incarcerated indefinitely without recourse to the courts, there is Jose Padilla. His acts certainly called for imprisonment, but by the Constitution of the United States and by his citizenship, he deserved his day in court. He was held in a South Carolina prison for three and a half years without recourse to a court and on an indefinite basis.

The ACLU and others applied pressure to this case and just when it appeared that it might end up being considered by the Supreme Court, Padilla was indicted in a Florida Court, found guilty and sent to prison in Colorado. If the case had gone to the Supreme Court, the ability of the President to indefinitely imprison U.S. Citizens might have been reversed, but as it is, he still has that right, at least in theory.
— Ron Schoenberg
Seattle, Washington

FROM AN UNEXPECTED QUARTER
Re: Ralph R. Reiland’s Out of Gas:

Leading the charge against the American carmakers is University of Michigan economics professor Mark Perry through his blog Carpe Diem.  The AAUP in 2008 estimated the average total compensation for professors at his level was $137,104, the average salary 109,569.  The University of Michigan pays a higher average salary of $137,034 to its professors.  Adding the average benefits compensation to this base salary would raise Perry’s total compensation to $164,569.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics economics professors work 1558 hours a year(of a normal 2080 hour work year).  The employer(the taxpayer) cost for compensation for Perry would be 105.60 dollars per hour. 

This calculation for Perry doesn’t include the cost of health care and pensions for University of Michigan retirees, as the calculation of labor costs for the hourly wages for autoworkers Perry repeatedly posts.  Perry intentionally confuses the employer cost per hour for  active employee compensation with a labor cost per hour per employee that includes retirees health and pension in order to mislead about the actual benefits of active UAW employees. 

On November 9, 2008 Perry helped spawn the stream of propaganda concerning the compensation of autoworkers with the use of cross-contaminated data.   His graph states that total compensation per hour for American automaker workers was $73.20/hr, 48/hr Toyota, $47.57/hr management and professional, 31.59 goods producing and all workers $28.48/hr   This is comparing apples and oranges data. The first two are management sourced labor costs that includes retiree costs, the others are Bureau of Labor Statistics, ECEC data that don’t include this retiree compensation.  The actual employer cost for employee compensation for UAW workers is an estimated $40/hr.  The ECEC hourly calculation for “all workers”  includes part time workers who are less likely to receive benefits and are lower salaried.  Part time workers compose about 18% of the work force and roughly 9% of the hours.   If part time workers are factored out of the total workers calculation the comparison of full time workers employer cost per hour with the full time autoworkers the employer cost for employee hour worked between these would be significantly closer.  The portrayal of autoworkers as the beneficiaries of extravagant largesse is false.

The compensation for state and local government employees is 39.18/hr.  35.9% of government employees are in unions, almost half of all union members. 

1.4 Trillion dollars was spent in the past year for government compensation for government employees(BEA).  Maybe Perry, snug and secure with governmental tenure, should clean up his own backyard.

According to the exit polls 37% of union members voted for McCain/Palin.

The anti-populist venom -social and economic- that assaulted Sarah Palin(whose husband was union member) from within the Republican Party from the likes of David Frum and David Brooks is the grail of out of touch dilettantes.
— Martin Vaala

HATIN’ ON THE ILLINI
Re: RiShawn Biddle’s The End:

To misquote the Blues Brothers, “I hate Illinois Politicians.” What I really finding disgusting, though, are the majority of Illinois voters who keep putting the Daley Capone gang back in office decade after decade.
— Kenneth E. Miller
Tonica, Illinois