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Saturday, March 1, 2008
Did WFB actually speak like that? Yes.
Posted by on 3.1.08 @ 10:30AM
And if you're curious why, Michelle Tsai chases down linguists who explain it pretty well. But one thing -- John Judis notes in his biography of Buckley that his family noticed he had picked up a more British tone during his time in England as a youth. And his southern drawl wasn't just influenced by southern parents -- he spent a while in South Carolina as a boy too, and you could certainly hear it from time to time. We chatted a bit about Buckley on the podcast of America's Future Foundation, Inside Washington Weekly.
Legalize the Global Warming
Posted by on 3.1.08 @ 10:19AM
Two pieces in the new Doublethink are worth reading. The first is a feature story by Sean "Brad who?" Higgins on why Reason science writer Ron Bailey went south on global warming. The second is a profile of Ron Paul communications guru Jesse Benton by Cato op-ed guy David Donadio. It begins, "'Legalize the Constitution,' says Jesse Benton, looking at me like I'm supposed to know what he's talking about."
Friday, February 29, 2008
Obama Campaign Caught Lying About Lying
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 5:58PM
Yesterday I mentioned that CTV report of someone from the Obama campaign reassuring Canadian contacts that Obama's anti-trade posturing is just a lot of bull. Team Obama denied it. Well, CTV has now named names, and suddenly the Obama camp is clamming up.
It was senior economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, by the way, who
made the "don't worry, he's lying" call*.
Libertarian-for-Obama Megan McArdle assures us that Goolsbee is a smart
guy. Maybe in the classroom he is, but in the political arena he's
clearly in way over his head.
Energy Security and Houston
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 5:40PM
I attended the Houston Presidential Summit yesterday. Though one should be pleased to rub elbows with city elites, I left the event disquieted. Former Secretary of Commerce Robert Mosbacher talked about his career as a contributor to the supply of energy, a supply which is now being outstripped by demand. While he talked about hope and the development of new sources of energy, I felt more than a little sense of the late '70's breaking out. He referred again and again to the iron law of supply and demand.Increase the supply or be caught up in a crisis situation.
Shell Oil President John Hofmeister also spoke. He offered an impressive political rationale for increasing the supply of oil in the short term.In short, the price at the pump is killing the little guy. If you want to talk about social justice and liveability for the average person, open up Alaska to more drilling. As much as Obama and Hillary say they plan to make life easier for average Americans, increasing the supply and therefore reducing the price of gasoline would be a great start. The rich, Hofmeister pointed out, are not much troubled by higher prices.
McCain No Party Animal
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 5:09PM
Matthew Yglesias says a conservative finally explained to his satisfaction why the right is leery of John McCain. According to this unnamed conservative, it goes like this: A McCain victory will be a personal victory; he won't owe the conservative activist base; he doesn't get along with the Republican leadership. This means McCain will be mightily tempted to reach grand compromises with the Democrats on domestic policy to ensure a freer hand on foreign policy.
This sounds fair, though I'd probably also add that McCain's relationship with the press and voting record for a bit after 2001 have also contributed. Yglesias asks, however, why Mitt Romney wouldn't have been just as bad, given his history of compromising with Democrats in Massachusetts.
Of course, Romney may have been no better. Certainly, many people exaggerated his conservative credentials compared to McCain, not least of all the candidate himself. But Republicans held less than 20 percent of the state legislative seats while Romney was governor. His need to compromise with Democrats isn't exactly comparable to McCain's. And there is also the not insignificant fact that Romney spent his entire presidential bid trying to persuade movement conservatives he was one of them. In the process, he gained a lot of conservatives' trust -- rightly or wrongly -- in a way that McCain hasn't yet.
The Air Force "Done Good"
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 5:03PM
The Air Force made
the right decision today in awarding a huge new air tanker
contract to Northrop Grumman and EADS over Boeing. As I wrote in
this
column last year, the Northrop plane is by far the better
option. Key section of that column:
Its capabilities exceed that of the Boeing KC-767
in a veritable host of measurements. Those indices range from
maximum fuel load to maximum number of passengers (making it a
dual-use plane) to payload tonnage to fuel efficiency and "mission
effectiveness."
The last four times the two planes have been in
competition, including for tankers for Great Britain and for the
West-friendly United Arab Emirates, the KC-30 (NGE's) has
won.
Not only that, but Boeing's actual performance
(on-time delivery, etc.) in recent years has been anything but
stellar. And the whole reason the tanker is out to bid right now at
all is that the Air Force's earlier award to Boeing of the first
$20 billion contract for the planes was so rife with corruption
that a Boeing official and an Air Force officer went to jail and
Air Force Secretary James Roche and Boeing CEO Phil Condit both
resigned. Because of those shenanigans, U.S. Sen. John McCain was
able to force cancellation of that deal and force it to be
re-bid.
But there is another good reason for conservatives to be happy that
Boeing lost out. Just yesterday, the Bush administration reported
that it will take three extra years to build a key section of the
border fence (or virtual border fence) -- a development over which
many conservatives are justly FURIOUS -- because Boeing screwed up
the technology. It would really be a finger in the eye of
strong-border-protection advocates to award such a huge contract to
Boeing in the same week the story came out about the horrible delay
(and expensive delay) caused by Boeing's failures.
Of course, I still think the Air Force ought to have considered splitting the contract award, for all the reasons I listed in my original column -- but if it did not split it, it made much more sense to go with Northrop's bigger plane than with Boeing.
The Senate's Latest Amnesty Bill
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 4:09PM
This one will just amnesty John McCain.
No, I don't think the claim McCain is ineligible for the presidency has any merit, with this bill or without. It's a ridiculous ploy. But I do remember an old Joe Sobran column arguing that if the Louisiana Purchase was unconstitutional, Arkansas wouldn't have been part of the United States and therefore Bill Clinton would be ineligible for the presidency. Or something like that.
We're Doomed
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 2:44PM
In light of my column
yesterday arguing that the dollar desperately needs
strengthening (an argument also made repeatedly and forcefully by
many experts wiser than I), it is my duty to inform you that we are
all doomed. Apparently, our federal reserve chairman is an utter
nincompoop. Unless the Wall Street Journal mischaracterized a
paraphrase of some testimony he gave Congress yesterday, his
solution for today's current economic problems is...drum roll
please...to be grateful that the dollar is weak!!! In not just any
story, but the lead story on page one of the WSJ, the big news is
"Dollar's Dive Deepens as Oil Soars," and the article provides
numerous indices that "the dollar is falling with new speed." Yet
Bernanke "point[ed] to the weak dollar as a rare bright spot
helping exports, jobs and the trade deficit."Â !!!!!
A bright spot, he says!!!! This is madness.
And even the few supposed advantages of a weak dollar cause even
more problems involve even more price hikes. Witness this sentence
from the same WSJ story: "A cheap dollar also fuels upward pressure
on the prices of imports, a factor that complicates the Federal
Reserve's task of fighting inflation." So Bernanke makes the dollar
weak, which makes his own job harder. Brilliant. As the news story
also notes, the administration is also at fault: "The Treasury
Department, while officially supporting a strong dollar, has not
protested its mostly gradual decline." Of course, now the decline
is no longer gradual; it's just short of a free-fall.
And nobody anywhere in power seems determined to arrest that
fall.
We're doomed.
Libertarians for Nader
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 1:58PM
John, this Dave Kopel piece from the 2000 campaign is the only libertarian defense of Ralph Nader that ever even made me stop and say, "Hmm. Interesting." Kick businesses off the corporate welfare dole, and they will engage in the fight for limited government.
And even then, Kopel's article doesn't come remotely close to being persuasive.
Re: More WFB Score Settling, Alas
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 1:57PM
JP, regarding your blog point on God and Man: I noticed it was #2 in politics yesterday on Amazon. We did a 50th edition in 2001 that actually sold quite well. And finally, when I asked Bill to write a new intro for the 50th, he said no, there is nothing new to say because the book has no relevance to the current academic situation. It was about Yale in 1951, and is still about Yale in 1951, so anybody who reads it must be concerned only.... about Yale in 1951.
Telecom Trilogy
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 1:51PM
Today, my column on the foreign intelligence surveillance bill caps a trilogy of columns on the same subject. The other two are here and here. The basic thrust of all the articles: The telecommunications companies desperately need immunity in order for them to help us with our surveillance of terrorists, and we desperately need that surveillance to protect us. The reason the telecoms need such immunity is because the lawsuits already pending against them are utterly astronomical, and many more such suits would likely be added -- and because the companies acted in good faith and did not do anything that thhey had reason to think was the slightest bit illegal.
Competition Really Cuts Into Profits
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 1:50PM
Tim Carney sniffs around Congressional lobbying and notices a strange brew. A pharmaceutical company realized that it could make a lot of money if it could extend their patent. So:
Tim, I'm happy that you get material for your column, but it's disconcerting to find that such topics as these exist.
Angelina's Surge
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 1:19PM
Shawn, you can follow Julia Louis-Dreyfuss all you like. I'm following Angelina Jolie to Iraq:
Finally, a liberal takes up what is ultimately a very liberal effort. Does this mean Jolie supports McCain?
Now it has me thinking. McCain-gelina? John-gelina? Ange-Cain?
Where's the Warming?
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 12:30PM
That's what my friends and former colleagues at the Competitive Enterprise Institute would like to know.
Fun With Social Justice
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 12:10PM
In the latest Entertainment Weekly The New Adventures of Old Christine star Julia Louis-Dreyfus not only cops to being a fan of Keith Olbermann--breaking news?--but goes onto explain her recent heroic off-set role helping writers defeat exploitative fat cat executives. Or, as she put it: "I dig demonstrating." She certainly wasn't alone on that count.
"It was really fun," she told the magazine. "I'll picket anybody at any time."
Really? Anybody? At any time? The possibilities are endless, but my first challenge if I had read this a couple days earlier would have been Barack Obama on the set of Ellen. Maybe it would have stopped him from creating this embarrassing spectacle.
Obama's Must Wins
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 11:30AM
Some counter-spin from the Clinton camp, which is portraying itself as the underdog, and arguing that Ohio and Texas are must wins for Obama:
With an eleven state winning streak coming out of February, Senator Obama is riding a surge of momentum that has enabled him to pour unprecedented resources into Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont.
The Obama campaign and its allies are outspending us two to one in paid media and have sent more staff into the March 4 states. In fact, when all is totaled, Senator Obama and his allies have outspent Senator Clinton by a margin of $18.4 million to $9.2 million on advertising in the four states that are voting next Tuesday.
Senator Obama has campaigned hard in these states. He has spent time meeting editorial boards, courting endorsers, holding rallies, and - of course - making speeches.
If he cannot win all of these states with all this effort, there's a problem.
Should Senator Obama fail to score decisive victories with all of the resources and effort he is bringing to bear, the message will be clear: Democrats, the majority of whom have favored Hillary in the primary contests held to date, have their doubts about Senator Obama and are having second thoughts about him as a prospective standard-bearer.
Re: Beating/Betting
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 10:52AM
Phil: I worked almost a year in a Caesar's Palace and I walked away with identical thoughts.
Re: More WFB Score Settling, Alas
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 10:21AM
Heh, another thing that keeps popping up is how Buckley couldn't have been all that good a Catholic, since he wrote for Playboy. We all remember that papal decree in 1742, and the stir it caused in Massachusetts.
And to reply to Hunter, I actually don't think anyone read God and Man after the 70s. I think it's like Tocqueville's Democracy in America, widely cited, rarely read. I say this because everyone mentions that Buckley wrote a book about his school and how it was about secularism and collectivism at the university. Yet no one mentions the primary solution he offered (which was brilliant): alumni and donors should have a say in the curriculum. People donate because its in their best interests, not because they're just nice people.
Re: Negotiate A Beating Before the Betting
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 10:14AM
Having spent my childhood in Atlantic City with a father in the casino business and having worked in casinos for three summers myself, I should probably abstain from such a discussion, but I always think it's important to clear up a misconception about gambling. At the end of the day, gambling should be viewed as a type of entertainment, and there really aren't many forms of amusement that provide a similar adrenalin rush than the ups and downs you can experience playing craps or blackjack, at the slot machines or the roulette wheel. The media likes to focus on those people who are squandering their life's savings by gambling, in an attempt to portray casinos as predatory enterprises. But there is a certain segment of the population that is always going to take things too far, whether it's alcoholics, smokers who go through several packs a day, obese people who continue to eat fast food. The overwhelming majority of gamblers are responsible adults just looking for a fun diversion from their everyday lives.
Regnery on C-Span II's Book TV
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 10:02AM
TAS Publisher Al Regnery will discuss his new book, Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism, this Sunday, March 2, on C-Span II's classy Book TV program. The one-hour interview will air twice, at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern Time. Don't you dare miss it.
From the Department of Strange Coincidences
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 9:59AM
Turkey does what it wants to, okay? No one forces Turkey to do anything.
See? Toe-tah-lee independent.
Turkey changed its name later in the day to "Li'l Brudder" when Secretary Gates noted that "Turkey" is kind of a silly name.
Negotiate A Beating Before the Betting
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 9:18AM
Over at one of the best blogs in existence, Todd Seavey explains how a libertarian can go to Vegas without gambling even if he believes consenting adults should be able to do what they like with their cash:
I probably refrained mostly or entirely from gambling, not because Jesus dislikes gambling but because (absent special skill at poker or blackjack), gambling is a losing proposition designed to benefit the house at the expense of people too stupid to understand probability. In other words, reason and an appreciation for math will keep me from temptation (though as a libertarian, I certainly think gambling should be legal for those who want to indulge in it - but then, I also think it should be legal to sign contracts saying your family has the right to beat you senseless if you lose the family fortune at the craps table).
Be sure to read the whole post and explore the site a bit. My own reflections on gambling community living here.
More WFB Score Settling, Alas
Posted by on 2.29.08 @ 12:36AM
Over at GetReligion, Mark Stricherz asserts that "[William F.] Buckley was not a conservative Catholic, in the religious, doctrinal sense of the term." Rather, he was a "idiosyncratic Catholic" because he "favored decriminalizing drugs and wrote for Playboy" among other sins crying out to heaven for vengeance. Also, "He called himself a Catholic and a libertarian. Go figure."
Oh please. Buckley was a Latin Mass-attending, abortion opposing, Vatican II-doubting Catholic. Yes, he opposed some assertions about the Church's social teachings, because he thought Catholicism and socialism were not synonyms.
And, yes, Buckley wasn't overly fond of "going there" when it
came to talking about some types of birth control, because he
understood, correctly, that the Supreme Court had seized on the
Catholic-Protestant divide over contraceptives in the first place
to create an unlimited warrant for legal
abortion.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Regarding the Timothy Noah Column
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 9:38PM
What offended me about Noah's column was his assertion that Buckley had left nothing of literary merit behind other than God and Man at Yale. To me, a bald assertion of that sort is exactly the kind of throwaway bunk that makes much opining difficult to read.
Nothing but God and Man at Yale of lasting value? What about The Unmaking of a Mayor? That's a much quoted and much remembered election tale. What about Stained Glass? A classic in the spy novel genre. What about Nearer My God? Sure to be read by those interested in Catholic piety for a long time to come.
Those are just the books I feel certain about. I'm sure readers and other contributors could think of others.
Lowry on WFB
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 6:07PM
Rich Lowry pens an eloquent testimonial to the founder of the wonderful magazine he edits. Worth a read. I have said it privately, but now say it publicly: My condolences to Rich, Ramesh, Kate, Kathryn, and the whole crew at National Review, for whom this loss must be deeply personal because they knew Buckley so well. I feel certain that Buckley passed on serene in the knowledge that he left his magazine in superb hands. They do credit to his example and his memory.
Re: Libertarians for Obama
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 5:37PM
That calls to mind an item that ran in Liberty in 2000, in a symposium of various writers making the case for George W. Bush, Al Gore, various third party candidates, and for not voting at all. I can't remember who made the case for Ralph Nader, but I remember the argument: Nader would be so awful that the country would be traumatized into embracing smaller government as a hangover cure.
Two WFB items
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 4:39PM
As I've been looking around the landscape, I wanted to direct readers' attention to my friend Jaime's piece in the Standard about his travels with Bill in Switzerland. I think there's a longer essay waiting to be written at some point (howzaboutit, Jaime?), but for the time being you can catch a glimpse here.
Friendly asides out of the way, I also suggest looking at this important point brought up by Peter Robinson at the Corner. A few friends, unfamiliar with Buckley's work (they are working their way back into my good graces), asked me about Buckley's "opposition" to the civil rights movement, which Tim Noah woefully hyperbolizes at Slate. The answer is here:
I understand it is not enough to suggest that simply knowing a man exculpates him from any allegation of racism. But you didn't need to know Buckley to understand that his mind was incapable of claiming White supremacy. Here I allude to Noah's reference below noting that he "stood in the way of racial progress":
Noah's assumptions are naive, Buckley's realistic. Buckley was asserting the view that no one could legislate the racism out of "small merchants in the Deep South." But Noah's naivete is representative of the "new" civil rights push for affirmative action. Having doubts about that inorganic process of eliminating racism once and for all is a sign that you're racist. Nonsense.
UPDATE: Tim Noah graciously responds:
I guess I mistook "stood in the way of racial progress" to mean "racist," (Noah wins a point) but there's a pretty narrow distinction sitting here anyway. Progress, in Noah's definition, is the Civil Rights Act. Not even partially supporting it is being against making racial relations better. I still disagree.
It's a claim that gets repeated in different iterations later. Buckley is guilty of tolerating McCarthy, an unforgiveable offense unless you believe the presence of Soviet sympathizers in the U.S. government wasn't a threat worth looking into. Buckley was "soft on fascism," as though preferring Franco to the rabid anarchists that would have made Spain a ruin shows inconsistency in his views on individual liberty.
Perhaps this is just how a conservative -- an anti-Communist, a libertarian -- appears to someone of a different worldview. But I still don't get where this fits in:
... As if to say that progress was only achieved in spite of him. Curious, since I thought much of it was achieved because of him.
Libertarians for Obama
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 4:24PM
There are actually people making a libertarian case for Barack Obama. Given that Obama favors a larger and more activist federal government, wants to spend more money than even our current spendthrifts, is a foreign-policy interventionist outside of Iraq, and doesn't seem to appreciate the limits of hope's power to change things via the state, I think it's a pretty weak case. But there it is.
Noah's Bark
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 4:06PM
William F. Buckley, Jr. is certainly not beyond criticism and I think there is a case to be made that the modern American conservative movement did not succeed (or, more optimistically, has not yet succeeded) in accomplishing its policy goals to the same extent as New Deal liberalism. But this Timothy Noah column about Buckley, besides being graceless, overstates the case quite a bit. Noah appears to suggest that rolling back the New Deal and stopping the civil rights movement were bigger conservative/Buckleyite goals than winning the Cold War, ending 1970s stagflation or stopping the postwar slide to European-style social democracy.
Now why would he frame the issue in this manner? Partly because it makes it easier to portray conservatives as racist crypto-fascists. And partly because it downplays conservatism's biggest successes ("by the time Buckley's man Ronald Reagan entered the White House... communism was dying of natural causes").
Or maybe Noah just wrote too fast, as he did when he penned this sentence: "Shortly before he died, David Frum, a National Review writer, published a book that called for a carbon tax and promoted government action to combat obesity." The "he" must be Buckley, since Frum wrote Dead Right but isn't dead. Right?
Ron Paul Leads Chris Peden
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 3:13PM
Dave Weigel points me to the first public poll (.pdf) in the Texas-14 Republican congressional primary race. It shows incumbent Ron Paul beating challenger Chris Peden 63 percent to 30 percent, with 7 percent undecided. Paul leads Peden among those concerned about the war in Iraq, the economy, taxes, health care, immigration, moral values, and "other." Peden leads Paul only among those concerned about education.
Paul does less well in the presidential race. According to this poll, he is carrying a respectable 18 percent of the district's voters but this still puts him in third place. John McCain would carry the district with 49 percent and Mike Huckabee would come in second with 27 percent. McCain wins 70 percent of those voting on the basis of the war. So are the congressional primary voters whose top issue is Iraq different from the presidential war voters? Or do they somehow not know about Paul's antiwar views or McCain's hawkishness?
It's just one poll, but it is closer to the results the Paul campaign has been pushing than the numbers cited in the recent Pajamas Media story.
Re: The More-Protectionist-Than-Thou Pantomime
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 1:34PM
Apropos of that, Jim Geraghty spots a Canadian report that Team Obama has reassured the Canadian ambassador to the US that he's just blowing smoke on NAFTA. I hope that's true, though the Obama camp and the Canadian Embassy deny it.
"One Use Of Tainted Republican Yuppie Iconography"
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 12:41PM
Using Hillary Clinton's Shame speech as a jumping off point, Julian Sanchez looks at the offending Obama literature and comes away unimpressed, despite the supposed implicit Harry and Louise reference:
If anything's really noxious here it's that
Obama is, by most accounts I've seen, the more sincere free-trader
at heart, and that both candidates feel obligated to go through
this ridiculous more-protectionist-than-thou pantomime when both
candidates clearly know better.
Re: If You've Ever Navigated the Panama Canal
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 11:27AM
Phil, it hurt the Democrats in Massachusetts when they tried to knock Mitt Romney off the ballot for having lived in Utah while running the Olympics. I can't imagine penalizing McCain for being a navy brat would go much better.
On an only mildly related note, the old Firing Line debate on the Panama Canal Treaty pitted William F. Buckley, Jr., George Will, and Elmo Zumwalt (pro-treaty) against Ronald Reagan, Pat Buchanan, and John McCain's father (anti).
Buckley and Iraq
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 11:17AM
William F. Buckley's publicly stated views on the Iraq war were indeed nuanced by the standards of the ongoing debate, in which the contestants seek to either defend or discredit the bulk of what President Bush has done since deciding to invade. (See this column, written after he told a newspaper he would have opposed the war if he had known there were no WMD and that Saddam Hussein was not an "extra-territorial menace," for an example of this nuance.)
Buckley placed a far higher priority on the United States achieving a workable and honorable settlement in Iraq than many on the antiwar left (and some on the antiwar right). He supported the surge. He certainly didn't shed any tears over Saddam's ouster. And he continued to support Republicans who were unabashedly pro-war. But I think it is also fair to say that he came to view that Iraq project with a great deal of skepticism, he was reading and approvingly quoting antiwar conservatives, and while unwilling to retroactively condemn the invasion he no longer viewed it as necessary given the facts as we now know them. Of more enduring significance, Buckley was not a proponent of the "rogue state rollback" idea that is a cornerstone of some conservatives' foreign policy.
John Kerry made "nuance" a dirty word, especially as it pertains to Iraq. It shouldn't be.
Will Skins McCain
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 10:41AM
In an absolutely brilliant column this morning, George Will slices and dices putative GOP nominee John McCain. The lesson we conservatives should learn from it, for the fall campaign against a truly liberal Democrat who must be defeated for the good of the country, is best expressed by changing an old saying slightly. The saying is: "He may be an SOB, but at least he's our SOB." With regard to McCain, it ought to be said that "He may be our SOB, but he's still an SOB."Â
Examiner on Buckley
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 10:31AM
Today's Washington Examiner editorial: another way to "demand a recount."
McCain's Presidential Elgibility
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 10:27AM
The NY Times has a silly story up questioning whether John McCain is constitutionally inelgible to be president because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone, and thus may not qualify as a "natural born citizen." This is clearly a non issue for his campign. Even if there is a legal case to be made against him, if you're the Democrats, do you really want to be making the argument that McCain cannot run for president because he was born at an overseas military base while his father was serving our country?
Life Well Spent
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 9:43AM
Over on the Spectator main page, you'll find several tributes to Bill Buckley. R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., our editor in chief and longtime friend of Buckley, writes the obit. Publisher Alfred S. Regnery supplies some historical context. In a special symposium, a number of voices step forward to speak well of the departed: Wlady Pleszczynski, W. James Antle III, Joel Miller, Haywood H. Hillyer III, Michael Brendan Dougherty, and G. Tracy Mehan, III. (Three III's!) For my part, I'm trying to get Books & Culture to unlock the full text of an appreciation of the man that was published in 2005. Here's how it started:
"In his own reckoning, William Frank Buckley, Jr., is not an introspective man. A few years back, I caught an episode of the Charley Rose Show in which the emotive host tried to get the writer to imagine something he would have done differently, given the chance. Buckley refused to bite, expressing a disinclination most fully articulated in Overdrive, a week-in-the-life 'personal documentary' published when the Reagan administration was still young: 'I do resist introspection though I can not claim to have "guarded" against it, because even to say that would suppose that the temptation to do so was there, which it isn't.' If it's true, he remarked elsewhere, that only the examined life is worth living, then his life has been misspent.
"Here, as so often, one envies Buckley's facility with languages; my designation of him as a big fat liar would sound so much more dignified in French or Spanish. His has been a spectacularly examined life, as Overdrive and its predecessor, Cruising Speed, attest. To conduct such sustained acts of public self-examination, all the while affecting absolute indifference to 'introspection,' is a triumph of the Buckley persona. From his playful intellectual jousting on Firing Line, the PBS show he hosted for 37 years, to his witty one-line replies in the Notes & Asides column of National Review, the political journal he founded, he has maintained an air of passionate nonchalance, suggesting that he was too busy speechifying, editing his fortnightly magazine, taping his talk show, dabbling in politics, dashing off three columns a week, sailing the globe, and churning out books while skiing in Switzerland to look inward.
"But over the last 15 years, as he has gradually pulled back from public life, Buckley..."
Re: Can We End Talk of McCain/Pawlenty Yet?
Posted by on 2.28.08 @ 9:35AM
In his column today Novak expands on yesterday's political report about Gov. Pawlenty's troubles among his GOP brethren.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
More on WFB
Posted by on 2.27.08 @ 6:35PM
I'm having a hard time coming up with a quick sentiment, since
the rush of thoughts and feelings I have have been overwhelming all
day. But I did want to note this line in the Washington Post's
conversation with National Review's
always thoughtful John Miller:
New York, N.Y.: William Buckley came to oppose the war in Iraq, but his successor at National Review, William Kristol, is a hearty supporter, reflected in the magazine's editorial policy. Was that a source of distress or consternation for Buckley? Thanks for the chat.
John Miller: I believe it's fair to say that WFB supported the invasion of Iraq and began to have misgivings about the result that led him to reconsider the whole enterprise -- but that he also supported the troops surge. Last year, he made a personal contribution to the presidential campaign of John McCain.
(Also, the editor of National Review is Richard Lowry; William Kristol is the editor of the Weekly Standard.)
Buckley's view on Iraq was widely misinterpreted to mean that he withdrew his support of the war. He didn't. His view was far more nuanced, and anchored primarily by the president's inability to move past the war as an issue. But it always bothered me to see liberals grabbing his line and making it mean what they wanted it to mean.Loved By Every Servant, Ski Instructor, and Waiter
Posted by on 2.27.08 @ 6:06PM
Taki remembers William F. Buckley, Jr. Also some nice tributes from Myron Magnet, Radley Balko, Robert Poole, and Ed Kilgore.
Can We End Talk of McCain/Pawlenty Yet?
Posted by on 2.27.08 @ 5:53PM
Robert Novak reports that Sen. John McCain visited (behind closed doors) with Republicans at the National Governors Association over the weekend, where "governors from coal- and oil-producing states spelled out their problems with McCain's energy policies, and he was responsive."
Novak says there was one significant exception, however, to the perceived fence-mending, and that had to do with an oft-mentioned name to join McCain as VP on the GOP ticket:
As well it should have. With two global warming alarmists on the same ticket, you can pretty much say farewell to the conservative vote.
Remembering WFB
Posted by on 2.27.08 @ 5:46PM
Here's a story I once used for a column here at TAS online:
At the end of his presentation, he allowed questions. The first supplicant approached the microphone and hopefully inquired, "Mr. Buckley, what do you think about Rush Limbaugh?" This was during the time when Rush was still something of a rising star. His rhetoric was bombastic, hard-edged, and wickedly funny. Members of the audience shifted forward in their seats expectantly as Buckley answered by telling the following story.
There were two Spaniards sitting in a bar. One asked the other,
"What do you think about General Franco?" Instead of answering, the
man gestured for his friend to follow him outside. Once on the
sidewalk, he motioned for the friend to follow him to his car. They
got in the car and drove to a forest. Deep in the woods, he parked
the car and beckoned the friend to hike with him down to a lake. At
the edge of the lake, he pointed to a boat which they boarded. He
grabbed the oars and rowed to the center of the lake. Finally, he
sat still, looked his friend in the eyes and paused for a moment.
"I like him." Buckley told the story so brilliantly and created so
much suspense, the denouement brought the house down amid gales of
laughter and happy applause.
Ben Stein on WFB
Posted by on 2.27.08 @ 4:06PM
"What would the world be like if there had been no William F. Buckley?" Ben Stein asked last June 25. Here's how he answered his own question, in this loving tribute to Bill.
WFB Reminiscences
Posted by on 2.27.08 @ 2:34PM
Since we're reminiscing about the Great Man, Byron York in an Atlantic piece described WFB's first visit to the American Spectator's first offices in the early 70s:
The Alternative had its headquarters in a farmhouse outside Bloomington that was known as The Establishment, where visitors who came to meet the magazine's staff would spend the night. It was a notably downscale experience; the rooms were a wreck and the bathroom was in the hideous, scum-brown condition common in some college quarters. "Pat Moynihan and Bill Buckley both had the same reaction when they walked in there," Von Kannon recounted in a 1980s magazine article. "They walked right back out and took a leak off the front porch."
Clinton Talking Economics
Posted by on 2.27.08 @ 2:08PM
ZANESVILLE, OH -- I'm hear at a Hillary Clinton "Economic Solutions Summit." The idea is the bring together political and business leaders to emphasize economic issues in the state. Among the notables in addition to Clinton are Sen. John Glenn, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. Will update if anything interesting happens.
UPDATE: Clinton is surrounded by 7 people on each side, and is asking each of them to speak about their concerns. "I will be a president, just like I have been a Senator, who listens," she said.
First she turned to a GM union worker who asked--miraculously--about universal health care. Clinton was glad, and no doubt shocked, shocked, that he brought it up.
A couple who were the victims of foreclosures spoke about their experiences, and then Ted Strickland discussed problems facing Ohio. Every speaker, of course, is sure to emphasize why Clinton would make the best president.
Gov. Jon Corzine, meanwhile, just endorsed Clinton's idea of a moratorium on foreclosures. That a man with a background as a financial executive would endorse a such an ill-conceived economic policy is utterly amazing, even for a Democrat.
Re: William F. Buckley
Posted by on 2.27.08 @ 12:59PM
My high school threatened to withhold my diploma if I didn't return my overdue copy of The Governor Listeth (along with Milton Friedman's Free to Choose) to the school library. Buckley was an enormous influence -- even if he obviously didn't immediately teach me the importance of respecting my school library's property rights -- and his death is a great loss to a conservative movement that needs more wit, sophistication, and independence. It's an even greater loss to the many conservatives, young and old, who felt his influence more directly. The task falls to them (us?) to conserve what he built.
UPDATE: The Associated Press has a nice obituary.
Upstream Mainlined
Posted by on 2.27.08 @ 11:37AM
"Many conservatives today tend to think we are experiencing something unique in our struggles against liberal Democrats and against moderate Republicans who want to take control of the party and dilute the conservative philosophy. They're quite wrong." So writes David Limbaugh in his engaged and astute column on our publisher Al Regnery's new book, Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism. Read more here.
The IRS on Obama's Trail
Posted by on 2.27.08 @ 11:09AM
As reported here in TAS last September, a complaint was filed with the IRS over an appearance by Senator Barack Obama at the United Church of Christ's bi-annual General Synod last June. Today comes the news from the UCC that the denomination has been formally notified by the IRS this week that it is now under investigation for allowing Obama-as-candidate to speak. The investigation poses a direct threat to the denomination's tax-free status. This is a separate issue entirely from the cloud of controversy surrounding Obama's individual church, Trinity UCC in Chicago, and Trinity's minister the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. This issue involves a decision by the denomination leadership under the Rev. John Thomas to go ahead with the invitation to Obama, a UCC member, which was extended before he announced his candidacy. This even after Obama was very much a declared candidate.
The obvious answer that would have avoided IRS scrutiny was to either disinvite Obama or extend the same opportunity to his fellow presidential candidates. The church refused to do either, quickly setting itself up for a complaint. Contrary to the claims of his campaign this morning that Obama's UCC speech was about his "personal spiritual journey," the speech was replete with suggestions of what Obama would do as president, a direct violation of IRS guidelines. Portions of redacted documents and photographs filed with the IRS and obtained by UCC Truths, a growing online gathering place for dissenters to the UCC's rigidly left-wing orthodoxy, charge a multiple series of violations of IRS guidelines.
What is also notable here is that these allegations were dismissed out of hand by the Rev. Barry Lynn when the complaint was filed. Lynn is the head of the famously insistent Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Lynn has made a career of going after alleged violations by conservative churches. "Complaints to the IRS are not lodged on a whim," said Lynn contemptuously at the time the complaint against the UCC was filed. Wonder of wonders, Lynn is a UCC minister. Once it was his own denomination having its ox gored, Lynn took an entirely different approach. You just can't make this stuff up.
Needless to say, with Obama on the verge of actually winning the nomination, a whole lot of attention to this incident is forthcoming. Today's story has been on Drudge and plenty of other places as well. As a UCC member myself who serves on my local church council as president, I know that there is a vast gulf between the church's left-wing leadership at the very top and the many rank and file members who are in fact conservatives. This moment is sad -- and deeply unnecessary. The fault here belongs to Thomas -- and to Obama himself, who willfully used his church with reckless disregard for the consequences. Both men should be ashamed.
UPDATE: United Church of Christ President the Rev. John Thomas has now sent a mailing to church members asking for contributions to a newly established legal fund to defend against an IRS investigation into whether the church improperly aided the campaign of Senator Obama. Thomas says the cost could be in the six figures. Stay tuned!
"Europe" is doing stuff
Posted by on 2.27.08 @ 9:35AM
Great headline: "Europe Fines Microsoft $1.3 Billion"
It's not just Belgium, France, or Germany. It's Europe. And very European reasoning as well:
Essentially, Microsoft was in this position because their product was so good. Other people wanted to be able to work with that product, given that it was so good. But that dastardly Microsoft was too busy thinking about profits and not about letting their "rival vendors" make money too. Jerks.
Clinton and Obama Camps Spar on Jeremiah Wright
Posted by on 2.27.08 @ 12:01AM
CLEVELAND -- In the spin room following the Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton's chief strategist noted that though Barack Obama distanced himself from Louis Farrakhan Tuesday night, he did not distance himself from his minister, Jeremiah Wright, who has praised Farrakhan.
"If you listen to the answers, (Obama) only responded to Farrakhan, and he never responded to the fact that his minister, I believe, if I have it right, said that Farrakhan was a person of 'greatness,'" Clinton strategist Mark Penn said. "And so, if you listen very carefully, I do not think he in fact rejected or denounced his minister praising Farrakahn."
Farrakhan also received an award from a magazine connected with Wright.
I asked Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, to respond, and he chalked it up to desperation on the Clinton side.
"I understand that we're in the middle of a tough campaign, and as we read this morning, the Clinton campaign's plan is to throw everything they possibly can at Senator Obama and hope that something sticks, so I'm not surprised to see Mark try that," Axelrod said. "But the reality is that everybody, all of America, heard Senator Obama clearly and unequivocally denounce and reject Minister Farakahn's comments, and especially his anti-Semitism. And he has said repeatedly that he thought it was a mistake to give him an award, there's no ambiguity about that."
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Clinton's Major Gaffe
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 10:34PM
When asked who Putin's likely successor would be, she seemed stumped, at least on the pronunciation. She began to say, Medvedev, but with a lot of help from Tim Russert, she couldn't pronounce it, and said, "whatever." For a woman who has banked her entire candidacy on her ability to be president from DAY ONE, on her vast foreign policy experience, it was an embarassment. It may have been a gotcha question, but she got got.
UPDATE: Andy McCarthy had the exact opposite reaction.
Obama, Farrakhan, and the Jews
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 10:29PM
Who knew this debate would turn into a Jewish love fest?
First, conflating affection for the Jewish and support for
Israel is a mistake that people often make, but most Jews do not
vote on the basis of a candidate's position on Israel. If they did,
President Bush would have won much more of the Jewish vote than he
did. Here's the deal. I think it's pretty clear that Obama is no
fan of
Farrakhan, and I have no reason to believe he is an
anti-Semite.
My fear regarding Obama on Israel is not that he'd be hostile toward it, but more that in the interest of being true to his call of bringing people together, he'd be too willing to assume the best intentions of the Palestinian leadership, particularly Hamas, and thus force Israel into a counterproductive peace process.
The Clinton Legacy
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 10:14PM
Obama's criticism that Hillary cannot cherry pick what she wants to take credit for or distance herself from from the 1990s was strong, as was him pointing out that Clinton's health care plan failed because "fighting" meant even alienating members of her own party.
Obama Is Winning Handily So Far
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 9:56PM
As long as Obama can come across as just as comfortable about details on health care, trade, and foreign policy, he neutralizes Clinton's argument that she's eminently more prepared to be president than he is, and I think he's accomplishing that tonight. He also has been fluid in responding to her attacks. Temperment-wise, he's been calm, and she's come unhinged at times. Her complaints about always getting asked the first question, as I noted below, made her look nuts. And as they were going to a commercial break, she tried to shout down Brian Williams to make a point, and he had to cut her off to go to the commercials. It came across as domineering, and not in a good, take charge, kind of way.
Hillary Goes Captain Queeg
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 9:26PM
Clinton just had a paranoid outburst about how she always seems
to get the first question in the debates. Then cited a SNL sketch
asking if Obama could use a pillow. She came across as slightly
nuts, I thought.
UPDATE: Here's the sketch...
Now There's An Idea
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 9:22PM
In criticizing Obama's health care plan that doesn't provide mandates, Hillary Clinton just said, "It would be as if Franklin Roosevelt said, let's make Social Security voluntary."
Sounds good to me.
Inside the Mind of a Hillary Supporter
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 7:46PM
Now, I know you can't hold a candidate responsible for every obscure supporter out in the blogosphere (or even their prominent supporters in the blogosphere). But might not this mindset be at odds with winning over a majority of Democratic voters? Wade through all the stuff about witch burning and consider this pearl of wisdom: "This lunatic country doesn't deserve anyone as smart and classy as Hillary Rodham Clinton."
No. No it doesn't. Hat tip: A.C. Kleinheider.
Re: Ridge Over Troubled Waters
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 7:43PM
Jim, let's not be too hard on Bob Packwood. If not for his romantic streak, I would have never heard of Jo Stafford. But let's see what our other possibilities are. McCain could return the favor and offer the veep slot to John Kerry. (Or is it that John Kerry should ask to be included on McCain's ticket? It's never been clear to me who approached whom four years ago.) If we don't want to aim that high, we could make it official and, playing on the name recognition advantage this twosome already enjoys, go with McCain-Feingold.
But to be serious for a moment: there's only one man temperamentally suited to the slot, and besides he'd be a big hit with conservatives: Fred Thompson.
Cleveland's Serbs
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 7:42PM
Ten years ago, I remember going to an event at a Serbian community center outside Cleveland. George Voinovich, who was then governor of Ohio and running for Senate, was to be the main speaker. A band was playing what I took to be ethnic Serbian music. Shortly before Voinovich arrived, the band leader yelled, "When the governor comes, play a hhhhigh note!"
Ahh, Cleveland rocks.
Live From Cleveland
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 7:31PM
I'm here at the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University waiting for the Democratic candidates to go head to head. My hope is that there will be some fireworks, so I don't have to sit through 90 minutes of them debating their "stark" differences on issues.
The snow is still falling here in Cleveland, but that didn't stop demonstrators from making their voices heard outside the arena. In addition to the usual anti- Iraq War and environmental protesters, there was a large pro-Serbian contingent, with signs and banners declaring "Kosovo is Serbia." The group was large and loud enough to drown out the Obama and Clinton supporters.
Debate Preview
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 7:31PM
Saw the preview to tonight's Obama-Clinton "debate": Will There Be Blood?
Uniters, Not Dividers
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 6:42PM
John McCain distances himself from derogatory comments about Barack Obama. The Obama campaign responds with gratitude. Sounds like hope for America. Perhaps the two can soon meet, without preconditions.
Re: Ridge Over Troubled Waters
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 6:22PM
Hmm, that could even be a game. Name the worst possible Republican vice presidential pick. Chris Shays? Lincoln Chafee? Bob Packwood?
Re: Ridge Over Troubled Waters
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 6:09PM
More like Ridge Over the River Kwai. There may be worse Republican vice presidential picks out there than the former Pennsylvania governor, but none spring to mind.
McCain Fights Back
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 5:53PM
The McCain campaign hosted a conference call today on the public financing matter I wrote about for today's main site.
I missed the call because I was at a Hillary Clinton event, but there are summaries here, here, and here.
Ridge Over Troubled Waters
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 5:34PM
Over at the Weekly Standard's blog, Michael Goldfarb says he has "heard from two different sources that Tom Ridge is at or near the top of the list to be VP." Despite his combat experience, service at the Department of Homeland Security, and popularity as governor of the key swing state of Pennsylvania, Ridge would be a less than ideal running mate for John McCain. Stephen Hayes mentions one reason: Ridge is pro-choice on abortion. McCain simply doesn't have the goodwill among conservatives necessary to survive the backlash over a pro-choice vice presidential pick.
But even Hayes gives Ridge too much credit for "strong national security credentials." As a member of Congress, Ridge frequently opposed the Reagan defense buildup. He voted against the MX missile and was a leading foe of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Ridge supported nuclear freeze and opposed aid to the contras.
Although his record as governor was somewhat better, Tom Ridge is basically a moderate Republican, regardless of whether the issue is defense, economics, or abortion. Whatever he adds in terms of putting the Keystone State in play, he subtracts from McCain's efforts to solidify his conservative base.
It Hit Me Like A Ton Of Playing Cards
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 5:28PM
I hope you won't mind me picking on Hillary Clinton again this afternoon, but having grown up with a father in the casino business, I cannot resist noting how badly she mangled a gambling idiom at the townhall meeting in Lorain, Ohio today.
One questioner asked her about the inequity of the tax code, specifically how the rich aren't paying their fair share, so the burden falls on everybody else.
Clinton talked about how she empathizes, especially as somebody who grew up in a middle class family. She should have left it at that. Instead, she kept going.
"The deck is stacked against the middle class," she lamented, "and under President Bush, that deck has gotten even bigger."
Stacking, of course, is a way of cheating in card games whereby one player arranges the cards in the deck to his advantage. I can assure you that the size of the cards is not a factor.
Clinton has had a rough couple of weeks, but perhaps her luck would change if she hit the crap tables and rolled herself a jackpot.
Re: Obama in Practice
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 5:15PM
Wlady, I've also wondered if Deval Patrick hurt Obama in Massachusetts. But it wasn't the politics of hope that was a bust -- Patrick was the first Democrat elected governor of Massachusetts in 20 years, since Michael Dukakis's last term -- just the governance of the hopeful.
Hillary and "Green Collar" Jobs
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 4:55PM
LORAIN, OH -- Hillary Clinton held a town hall style meeting here on Monday that focused on economic issues, and she pulled a noteworthy bait and switch.
Clinton opened by discussing the need to restore manufacturing jobs and prevent outsourcing. "I think if a country doesn't make things, you can't stay a strong country with a strong economy," she argued.
She described her plan to bring back manufacturing to the U.S. in part by investing in the alternative energy sector so we could create "green collar" jobs. As she often does when talking about solar energy, she said, "You cannot outsource these jobs, somebody has got to climb up on that roof and put that solar panel up."
While I have heard her use that line before and it always rang hollow, I never thought about it long enough to explain why. Until today.
Here's the deal. Surely, you cannot outsource to another country the task of installing something on an American roof, but such an occupation would be a service job. It is quite easy to outsource the manufacture of solar panels themselves. In fact, after doing a quick Google search, I came upon a website that sells solar panels, and among the leading brands listed are: Sharp, Kaneka, Kyocera, and Mitsubishi.
Her statement is the equivelent of describing the duties of a local auto mechanic who repairs cars by arguing that you cannot outsource that job. Of course, the car itself could have been manufactured in Japan, or Germany, or Korea, or wherever.
Starting to Make Amends
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 4:19PM
Pentagon general counsel Jim Haynes, who ought to be a federal judge right now, finally moves back into private life on March 10. Sen. McCain could go a significant way towards easing some hard feelings by issuing a statement saying that although he and Haynes may have had differences on substance, he recognizes how well and long, and with what integrity, Haynes served his country and that the American people should be grateful for his service; and that he, McCain, wishes Haynes well. Just a thought.
Non-Ideologue Neocons
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 4:15PM
Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam have used recent pieces by Peter Berkowitz and Mark Lilla as a jumping-off point for a discussion of neoconservatism. While neoconservatism is frequently described as an ideology -- of democratism, of hard Wilsonian foreign policy, of abstract Americanism -- the early neocons, as both Douthat and Salam point out, were actually a very pragmatic lot. In fact, the neocons were most of associated with another ism: empiricism.
The first generation of neocons questioned the left's domestic-policy utopianism and emphasized the unintended consequences of government action. On foreign policy, they could also be uncompromising realists, unsentimental about Carter-era burbling about human rights that ignored the larger realities of the Cold War. Of course, the more idealistic strain of foreign-policy neoconservatism also existed as well, in addition to the neocons' high level of confidence in the efficacy of American military power.
For all the reasons Douthat lists, "over time the messianic and apocalyptic strands in neoconservatism have tended to crowd out the pragmatic and the realist strands." But perhaps after the Bush years, we'll see the pendulum swing back a bit, heroic conservatives notwithstanding.
Obama in Practice
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 3:43PM
Why did Obama lose so easily in Massachusetts back on February 5? Maybe because Bay Staters are already unimpressed by his national co-chair Deval Patrick, their new governor, and the way he's being rolled by fellow Democrats in the state legislature. Fred Siegel explains as only he can.
Focusing on healthcare and budgets
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 2:31PM
Attending Heritage's bloggers briefing today, I got to hear Rep. Dave Camp, who is running for ranking member of the Ways & Means Committee and Rep. Paul Ryan, ranking member of the Budget Committee. The former discussed healthcare (surprising for a Republican), and the latter discussed the budget.
Rep. Camp recited a good number of the talking points I've heard among the right regarding healthcare. The problem is that the debate is about a feel-good issue (the health of a family), and Republicans tend to highlight the negatives of the other side rather than emphasize positive points. Healthcare beat reporters want to hear the story of how you're going to help that little baby with medical needs, or the old lady who's putting aside surgery because she has to pay her electric bill.
Unfortunately, Rep. Camp stuck with the point that the "45 million Americans who are uninsured" is really an overblown statistic. It's worth mentioning, to be sure, but numbers won't change this debate (otherwise, no one would be talking about socialized medicine anyway).
Instead, explaining how a Republican plan would enable people to not be tied to jobs they don't like just because they want health insurance is a good way to go -- something Rep. Camp brought up later in the discussion. You can also tie in the fact that a Democratic plan would hurt the economy, thus forcing people to stay in the very jobs they want to move away from.
Rep. Ryan on the budget was a little more reassuring -- noting that the Democrats are about to jump for the largest tax hike in American history. This is a reminder to the McCain campaign that talking foreign policy is important, but talking about how tax hikes hurt our already ailing economy will likely be just as important. Doing what Obama isn't doing -- getting specific -- is something that McCain ought to do while Obama is still stuck running to the left of Hillary. This way, he can face scrutiny from two candidates, not just one.
Vote Fraud in Wisconsin
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 2:18PM
Send in the Alaskan Crabs
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 1:18PM
Mark Tapscott, who has "Texas blood flowing through [his] Oklahoma-born veins," gives readers of the Washington Examiner a heads up about Thomas Cheplick's cover story today on possible McCain veep Sarah Palin. In closing, Tapscott claims to "still believe Alaska will be much smaller than the Lone Star State once it melts." The Eskimo Anti Defamation League is reportedly not amused.
No, guys, seriously, this is important
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 10:40AM
A comedian explains how he tries to reduce his carbon footprint:
My next step is unplugging everything. That includes the phone, the air-conditioning, alarm clock and the television, which I don't watch. And when my various chargers aren't in use, I unplug them, too. All of my gadgets have rechargeable batteries. We throw away more than two billion batteries a year. And the big question is why?A comedian who takes himself this seriously, and doesn't even watch TV? Pass.
Dan Abrams Sinks to 60 Minutes Level
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 10:21AM
I just don't get it. Have ALL standards gone out the window? Are there no requirements left for balance and fairness in TV news? After 60 Minutes did was I thought was the worst piece of journalism I have ever seen, Dan Abrams last night on MSNBC equalled the 60 Minutes depths of journalistic slime. He put on the air both Siegelman's attorney and the Rove accuser, Dana Jill Simpson... but he refused, utterly refused, multiple offers to put on the air anybody who would refute their stories. (He noted one written statement from the Alabama Republican Party, but would not give anybody on their side any air time.) Moreover, just like 60 Minutes, he allowed Simpson to make her nutty allegations without ever asking any of the obvious follow-up questions -- not just obvious, but basic question utterly demanded by ordinary journalistic ethics -- of the sort I outlined in my post-60 Minutes blog entry. Again: Where was the meeting with Rove? Exactly when was the meeting? What was the purpose of the meeting? Was anybody else there? Is there any other corroborating evidence? Why did Rove approach her, of all people? Etc., etc., etc.
And again, to repeat, nobody was allowed on the air to refute these wild and baseless allegations. Heck, he didn't need to put on a partisan GOPer; all he needed to do was to put on any of several award winning Alabama journalists (including one Pulitzer Prize winner) who have covered this story and who obviously find Simpson not credible.
Speaking of not being credible, that is what Dan Abrams is, too.
One Benefit to Ohio
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 10:02AM
Phil, you can get carryout beer from most bars. You don't even have to get a six-pack of a single variety of beer -- you can pick and choose like you are buying donuts. You can also visit the drive-through liquor store. Now if only you could get some food for the beer to wash down...
Hey all you alternative energy fans
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 9:55AM
Want a wind turbine in your backyard? Maybe you'll reconsider after watching this:
Three Times A Charm?
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 9:41AM
George and his son Mitt may have both failed in their quests to become president, but perhaps Mitt's son Josh will fulfill the Romney family's aspirations. According to the Deseret Morning News, Josh Romney is contemplating running for Congress in Utah. In another 20 or 30 years, who knows?
He also suggests that Romney's Mormonism hurt him in Iowa.
Sometimes New York Is Just Better
Posted by on 2.26.08 @ 1:37AM
ATHENS, OH -- I know it can come across as obnoxious for New Yorkers to visit the heartland of America and offer complaints, but there are occasions on which I just cannot resist. One of those occasions came on Monday.
After finishing up a Bill Clinton event in the late afternoon, I was hungry. Unfortunately, it was one of those odd eating times when it's too early for dinner, but too late for lunch. In New York, the normal solution is just to grab a slice of pizza as a holdover.
With little time to spare, I punched away at my GPS to locate pizzerias, and I drove over to the closest one, about a mile away. I felt quite at home when I walked in. I approached the counter, and confidently ordered a slice. Then I was stunned.
"Sorry, we only have slices on weekends, after 12 o'clock at night," the young man told me.
I was speechless. Who ever heard of such a rigid slice rationing program? I just mumbled something underneath my breath, and stumbled out the door like an alcoholic who had been cut off by a bartender.
Luckily, or so I thought, there was a place called Goodfellas Pizza a few blocks away. It seemed like a sure bet. Perhaps Henry Hill himself was tossing the dough.
I began to jog over there, and as I approached, I saw a hanging sign that boasted "Goodfellas: Pizza By The Slice." See, I knew Tuddy wouldn't dissapoint me. And I'm sure it would have been great--had it been open. Unfortunately, though it was a Monday afternoon, the place was all gated up as if it were Christmas Eve.
To make a long story short, I never got my slice. A few hours later, I settled for an Arby's bacon cheddar roast beef combo with curly fries and a Dr. Pepper.
Monday, February 25, 2008
High Hopes for Ben Stein's Film
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 9:18PM
The first clips I saw months ago didn't look impressive to me, but the preview now in circulation holds a lot of promise. Ben Stein seems to have his finger right on the pulse of the origins controversy. The question is whether human origins will ever be a subject that can be discussed freely without fear in an academic setting. Expelled gives every impression of being a film that will press that point ruthlessly.
Paul vs. Peden
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 7:54PM
Dave Weigel has a pair of interesting updates on the Texas congressional primary between Republicans Ron Paul and Chris Peden, which I recently discussed on the main site (though the race no longer features Andy Mann).
It seems that Peden has picked up two major newspaper endorsements; Paul has outraised Peden; Peden's political director has endorsed Alan Keyes; and Paul's latest media for his presidential campaign is kind of weird. That's the Cliff Notes version, at least.
Leaving Home
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 6:43PM
John O'Sullivan has started a discussion of when to vote against your own party, a conversation popular among conservatives disenchanted with John McCain. On a personal level, it is fairly simple. With rare exceptions, your vote makes no difference to anyone other than yourself. In 2000, if I had voted for Pat Buchanan rather than George W. Bush, it wouldn't have effected the outcome of the presidential election. But I would have felt better about not having voted for a president whose policies I frequently opposed.
This is especially true for conservatives who vote in blue states. I know Massachusetts's electoral votes are going to the Democratic nominee regardless of whether I pull the lever for the GOP or a conservative/libertarian third party. In Ohio, for example, I wouldn't have that luxury.
It gets trickier when we are talking about disaffected conservatives defecting en masse. My guess is relatively few of the conservatives now complaining about McCain will actually withhold their support come November. Buchanan didn't find many takers in 2000; the Constitution Party has never cracked 200,000 votes; the Libertarian Party gets 300,000-400,000 votes no matter who the GOP puts up. But conservatives who think federal regulations or immigration are more important than judges or Iraq will be tempted to sit out the election or vote against McCain. It's simply too soon to tell whether these conservatives are numerous enough to make a difference to someone other than themselves.
Finally, there are the conservatives who actually vote for Democrats, as Ann Coulter has threatened to do if it is Hillary versus McCain. I have never understood these conservatives. This doesn't make sense even as a protest vote, because no one will read a Democratic ballot and think it was cast because the Republican was insufficiently conservative.
Clintons and shame?
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 6:30PM
Just catching up with the weekend political news and I see Mz Hillary has reached new depths of desperation. She's now talking about "shame."
Could there be anything more counter-intuitive than a Clinton talking about shame? Look for Gore Vidal to register Republican next week.
Obama and Israel
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 5:15PM
Lynn Sweet highlights Barack Obama's attempts to reach out to Jewish leaders. He says his anti-semitic pastor, Jeremiah Wright, "is like an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with. And I suspect there are some of the people in this room who have heard relatives say some things that they don't agree with, including, on occasion, directed at African Americans." Um, okay, but if the crazy racist uncle was my rabbi, I might find a new synagogue. Of Zbigniew Brzezinski, he says "I do not share his views with respect to Israel... He's not one of my key advisers." Great, but what about Samantha Power?
And let's not forget Obama's idiotic assertion that "one of the enemies we have to fight -- it's not just terrorists, it's not just Hezbollah, it's not just Hamas -- it's also cynicism." When it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, naivete is an enemy; cynicism is a prerequisite for clear thinking.
Let's See What Hope Can Do...
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 3:12PM
Lord, and sometimes I feel as if I get a bit over-exercised about politics.
"For Clinton I Will Vote"
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 2:05PM
Something tells me Hillary's "new Latino campaign theme song" (?) isn't going to get the kids riled up and running for the voting booths.
Tickle Me And I'll Kill You Elmo
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 12:46PM
This has to be the weirdest story of the week, and it's only Monday.
Democratic Wardrobe Malfunctions
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 12:22PM
This is classic Clinton. The Clinton campaign is reportedly circulating photos of Barack Obama wearing traditional Somali garb during his five-country tour of Africa. When the Obama campaign protested -- the pictures are likely part of an effort to persuade voters that Barack Hussein Obama (rhymes with Osama) is a madrassa-educated Muslim -- Hillary Clinton's campaign manager accused them of playing to religious and ethnic stereotypes. Maggie Williams argued, "If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed."
The Drudge Report is carrying an item on the flap, complete with photos of President Bush and both Clintons "dressed."
The Ice Is Back
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 12:05PM
This National Post column has been linked already on Drudge, but in an general election where Republicans will be fielding a mere global warming alarmist against a (hopeful?) global-warming-as-the-apocalypse candidate, I suppose it can't hurt to give some more exposure to a piece that sheds a little light on how irrational the hysteria is.
McCain and the FEC
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 11:12AM
The DNC is filing a complaint against John McCain, challenging his ability to withdraw from the public financing system, in an attempt to lock him into a $54 million spending requirement until he is officially nominated at September's Republican National Convention. Given that McCain has already spent over $49 million, such financial limitations would be crippling to his campaign.
I asked McCain himself about the matter on a conference call last Friday, and he was confident that the campaign was on "solid ground" legally, a view reiterated by the campaign over the weekend. I've been working on a longer piece on all the thorny legal details raised here, but due to the time-sensitive nature of the topic, I figured I'd do a quick post. I am still waiting to speak with McCain's lawyer on the topic, and will update accordingly.
Brad Smith, a former Federal Election Commission chairman who has been a fierce critic of campaign finance reform, told me on Sunday that there are several "open questions" raised by the controversy. One is whether the fact that McCain secured a $1 million loan, in part, by assuring the bank that he would reapply for matching funds if he did poorly in New Hampshire, is "constructively" the equivalent of using his potential to collect public money as collateral, which would bar him from leaving the system.
Though of lesser significance, there's also the fact that McCain used his certification to get on the ballot in Ohio, saving a costly and time-consuming process that rival campaigns had to go through, which Smith argued could be part of a larger case to show that McCain derived benefit from being in the system, and now he's trying to have it both ways.
The other complication is that there are four vacancies on the 6-member FEC, so they cannot reach a quorum to rule on the matter. The McCain campaign insists that it's a constitutional right to be able to withdraw from the system as Howard Dean and Dick Gerhardt did, and that they don't need the FEC's rubber stamp. But another legal view is that applying to be in the public financing system is the equivalent of entering into a contract in which terminating the agreement requires the consent of both parties. Adding to the irony is that the reason there aren't enough FEC commissioners is that Barack Obama put a hold on one of the Republican nominees last year over civil rights concerns.
For those who want more, Smith has a lengthy post on the matter here.
In all likelihood, Smith argued, McCain will either eventually be cleared, or, in the worst case, asked to pay a small fine way down the road. So in the end this is more a PR issue, insofar as the father of campaign finance reform will be portrayed as somebody who is using his clever lawyers to game the system, which is what he railed about for years.
With that said, given the contrast between the enthusiasm this topic elicits when I speak to lawyers about it, and the nodding off that occurs when I try to explain it to normal people, I'm not sure we should bank on this to change the minds of many average voters.
"Yes We Can Take Sides...Yes We Can"
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 11:09AM
Saturday Night Live may not have gotten Obama's debate mannerisms down convincingly, but the show beautifully nailed the mainstream media's pathetic fawning over the Moonlighting Mayor of Purple America.
Jennifer Beats the Times
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 10:12AM
Our friend Jennifer Rubin did a great piece on the NYT and McCain today. The tone is perfect.
Bill Clinton Wins A Huckabee Award
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 1:37AM
Speaking at a rally in Bowling Green, Ohio on Oscar Sunday, Bill Clinton earned himself a Huckabee, which is given to politicians who use bizarre metaphors in a ham-handed attempt to put complex foreign policy issues in more human terms.
Explaining his wife Hillary's position that the United States needs to withdraw from Iraq so that the Iraqi government will be forced to make the tough decisions it needs to, the former president said:
Two Women Faint At Bill Clinton Rally in Ohio
Posted by on 2.25.08 @ 1:05AM
SPRINGFIELD, OH -- It's not just at Barack Obama events.
Two older women fainted at a Bill Clinton "Solutions for America" rally here on Sunday night, as several hundred people crammed into a YMCA gym and the room became hot. Both appeared to be okay after the incidents. One walked out of the room by herself, and the other was fully concsious as she was removed by paramedics in a stretcher.
The incidents, though unremarkable, are worth mentioning given the media upraor over the fact that people have been fainting at Obama events. In other words, when it gets crowded and hot in an enclosed space, people, especially older people, can faint. It doesn't mean the candidate who is speaking at the time is the Messiah.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
60 Minutes Sinks Even Lower
Posted by on 2.24.08 @ 9:32PM
The 60 Minutes report tonight was even worse than I expected - and I expected it to be awful. In fact, it was execrable: easily the worst journalistic ethics I have ever seen in my life.
First, the "expert" given the most air time to allege that Democratic former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, now serving time for bribery, should never have been prosecuted in the first place was "Republican" former Arizona AG Grant Woods. Two points. First, how the heck would Woods know? He was in Arizona, not Alabama. Second, despite 60 Minutes going to great lengths to stress that Woods is credible specifically because he is a Republican criticizing other Republicans, the truth is that Woods is hardly a GOP stalwart. As long ago as October of 2002, he was publicly threatening to bolt the GOP and become a Democrat. A quick Google search seems to show that he takes the "liberal" side in most of his law cases (I will gladly correct myself if proved wrong on this); for instance, he most recently was in the news for agreeing to prosecute a border patrol agent who shot an illegal immigrant. And in 2006 he publicly supported Democrat Harry Mitchell in his bid to unseat conservative Republican U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth. Some Republican Woods is! And again, he is in Arizona, not Alabama. What a joke.
But as a journalistic sin, the prominent attention given to Woods is child's play compared to the airing of the utterly bizarre allegation by ditzy-sounding Alabama attorney (and supposed one-time Republican "operative") Dana Jill Simpson that Karl Rove "approached" her at a 2001 "meeting" and asked her to try to photograph Siegelman in sexual acts with an aide. On air at least, though, 60 Minutes did not even bother to ask her the most obvious of follow-up questions to test her story. Such as: Exactly where did this supposed meeting take place? Exactly when in 2001? Was anybody else present? What was the meeting about? Why did Rove have any reason to think she, of all people, could find Siegelman in flagrante, much less photograph him? Did Rove ever follow-up with her to find out if she had been successful? Did she tell anybody else at the time about Rove's supposed request? And so on….
As I noted in my earlier column, there is absolutely no reason to believe the woman, and not even any logic that would explain Rove's interest in such a project in Alabama while he was busy getting settled into his first year at the White House, a full year before the Alabama governor's race.
I mean, the entire story is ludicrous on its face. And 60 Minutes now has good reason to look up to the National Enquirer as a exemplar of journalistic ethics and accuracy to which 60 Minutes can only hope to aspire IF 60 Minutes would spend years improving its product.
Andrew Sullivan on the Clintons
Posted by on 2.24.08 @ 6:52PM
Here he channels his conservative soul.
Meet the New Boss, Same As the Old Boss
Posted by on 2.24.08 @ 5:27PM
Despite the breathless media coverage of Fidel Castro's "retirement," Cuba's communist gerontocracy remains intact. Raul Castro is the new president of Cuba, Fidel remains head of the Communist Party (which "is the directing and superior force of society and the state"), and the other leaders are communists whose ages range from a youthful 63 to 80. Hugo Chavez scoffs at the idea that there has been any transition in Cuba. Unfortunately, he seems to be right.
Nader Is In It To Win It!
Posted by on 2.24.08 @ 5:06PM
Ralph Nader has once again decided that he must heed the will of the people by running for president. Or more precisely, he wants to launch a "Jeffersonian revolution," which, given his platform, might surprise Thomas Jefferson.
At any rate, Republicans might be giddy at the prospect of Nader '08. Mike Huckabee has already announced that the consumer advocate will take votes from the Democrats. Maybe, but probably not many. Nader's share of the vote collapsed from 2.7 percent in 2000 to 0.38 percent in 2004, even though the 2004 Democratic ticket featured two episodic supporters of the Iraq war. In absolute numbers, Nader received a little more than half as many votes as he did in 1996, when he wasn't on the ballot in most states, mostly refused to campaign, and spent just $5,000.
Liberals who voted for Nader in 2000 mostly felt burned after George W. Bush won Florida and then the presidency. Relatively few will want to make that mistake again. In 2000, Nader also won some nonliberal voters of the kind who were tempted by Ross Perot. Within four years, this group had mostly found better things to do. In 2008, such voters are more likely to pine for Michael Bloomberg or Ron Paul than be unsafe at any speed. Nader's raiders might nibble at Hillary Clinton's November vote totals, but St. Barack would have nothing to fear from the morose crusader.
UPDATE: This Matthew Yglesias post is probably pretty representative of how liberals will feel about Nader's presidential campaign.
