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Saturday, June 14, 2008
A New Set of Obamacans/Obamacons
Posted by on 6.14.08 @ 11:23PM
A story about black conservatives and black Republicans -- in some cases, not an entirely overlapping category -- wrestling with the idea of voting for Obama.
Another Russert Thought
Posted by on 6.14.08 @ 9:28PM
Joe Klein's fine Russert tribute, linked below, also underscores something that we'll be missing without Tim Russert: a major, respected media figure who understands the sensibilities of people who are not affluent, college-educated, liberal voters even if he was at the time of his death an affluent, college-educated liberal himself. Unlike Klein, Russert instinctively understood that the Clintons were appalling despite his Democratic sympathies. And Russert had a better read on what middle American voters, including the blue-collar Democrats who voted for Hillary in huge numbers in places like Pennsylvania and Kentucky, were asking about Obama than Klein, who responds in the purely moralistic terms of a typical liberal.
The Republicans' War of All Against All
Posted by on 6.14.08 @ 5:08PM
Since John McCain's prospects are looking considerably better than the congressional Republicans', I've wondered when he might cut the House and Senate GOP candidates loose and make an explicit "blank check" argument -- elect me, independents, for divided government and a check on Nancy Pelosi. So I was intrigued to see that John Ensign of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee is making a similar argument himself: "Senate Republicans really will be the firewall to stopping bad legislation or having the majority come to us to modify their positions."
The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza even raises the specter of Senate Republicans holding the line against President Obama and congressional Democrats. Of course, as I've said before, if the Republicans don't have a credible filibuster threat the next president will sign more liberal legislation regardless of whether his name is McCain or Obama. But it is interesting to see the chairman of a campaign committee whose key candidates are frequently polling worse than McCain making this argument first.
In Praise of Gotcha
Posted by on 6.14.08 @ 4:40PM
The rap on Tim Russert among his critics was that he was averse to substance. There was certainly some truth to that: If there was an episode of Meet the Press where politicians were asked to hash out the strengths and weaknesses of, say, competing health care plans, I missed it. But Russert performed a different and equally important service. Politicians are a slippery species by nature, and Russert's mission was to call them on it and nail them down. If you said one thing to one crowd and another thing to another crowd, Russert would roll the tape. If you tried to waffle on a question, he'd ask it again until you staked out a position. And unlike other hosts who fancy themselves fearless truth-seekers, he didn't wallow in self-aggrandizement. If a guest had a bad day on Meet the Press, it wasn't because he couldn't get a word in edgewise, as might happen on Hardball or The O'Reilly Factor. It was because Russert demanded an answer.
If Russert is replaced by a preening blowhard like Chris Matthews, it will of course be a terrible loss. But it will be almost as bad if he's replaced by someone who can be bullied by lectures about "playing gotcha" at the expense of "talking about the real issues." When a politician complains about gotcha, it usually means she's been got. Gotcha is important, and Russert was better at it than anyone. I fear that he may prove irreplaceable.
Russert As Everyman
Posted by on 6.14.08 @ 4:00PM
I was traveling Friday night and at the airport I saw people gathered around the monitors watching the television coverage of Tim Russert. It reminded me a bit of the scene when Ronald Reagan was being buried in California while I was on a layover in Kansas City. Sometimes events that are big news in Washington, D.C. don't resonate elsewhere in the country. Russert connected with people in a way that many of his more blow-dried colleagues didn't.
There are some good Russert tributes around the web.
A very weak bounce for Obama
Posted by on 6.14.08 @ 2:53PM
Just looking at the Real Clear Politics head-to-heads, and noticed that Barack Obama has failed to gain any major sustained advantage since clinching the Democratic nomination.
No poll has shown John McCain leading since early May, and the last poll to show a McCain-Obama tie was a Newsweek poll on May 22. But finally knocking out Hillary Clinton has produced only marginal gains for Obama.
Immediately after clinching, Obama went up by seven points (48%-41%) in the Gallup daily tracking poll, but by Thursday that margin dropped back to three points (46%-43%) -- a statistical tie.
This is significant for the dynamics of the race. Every indicator points toward a bad year for Republicans, generally. Bush's approval numbers are in the toilet, the Democrats have a huge lead in the "generic ballot" question, the "wrong track" numbers are off the chart. In such a disadvantageous political environment, one would normally expect the Republican nominee to be on the losing end in of an 8%-10% margin.
Yet despite the pandemic of Obamaphilia in the media, McCain is in a statistical tie at the opening of the general election campaign. This bodes ill for the Democrats who, as I suggested Monday, may have picked another McGovern/Dukakis-type loser.
FL22: Col. West vs. "Rookie of the Year"
Posted by on 6.14.08 @ 12:11PM
In a year when Republican prospects look exceedingly gloomy, there are a few bright spots for the GOP. One of them is the 22nd District of Florida, where retired Army Lt. Col. Allen West is challenging first-term Democratic Rep. Ron Klein.
In 2006, FL22 was one of the most expensive House races in the country, as Klein took on 13-term incumbent Republican Rep. Clay Shaw. The Politico recently named Klein its "Rookie of the Year." But the rookie now faces a veteran -- literally.
Col. West's biography reads like the screenplay of a Hollywood thriller. A Bronze Star veteran of Desert Storm who led an artillery battalion of the 4th Infantry Division in Operation Iraqi freedom, West was relieved of command in Iraq after firing a pistol past a prisoner's head during an interrogation in August 2003. (West's method got results; the prisoner revealed important information about an impending attack on U.S. forces.)
Col. West was named "Man of the Year" by David Horowitz's FrontPageMagazine.com. He has been featured in Jack Kelly's column, AmericaThinker.com, Human Events, and the Weekly Standard, interviewed on the Michael Savage show, and yet -- oddly enough -- I'd never heard of him until See-Dubya mentioned him at MichelleMalkin.com.
Col. West has taken a tough stance against amnesty for illegal aliens: "As your congressman, I will fight those who are willing for any reason to jeopardize our sovereignty and security. No amnesty of any kind should be considered; it simply rewards illegal behavior and encourages others to break the law."
In his campaign against Klein, Col. West has made hay by accusing Klein of abusing the franking privilege, mailing out campaign material at taxpayer expense, for which Klein was chastened by Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Thurman, who said, "The people of Florida are suffering. . . . Your campaign coffers are not."
Klein's campaign coffers (with over $2 million cash-on-hand as of the April 1 FEC filing) are the biggest challenge faced by Col. West, who had raised about $100,000 through the end of March. Here's a video of Col. West talking to the Broward County Republican Party about the importance of vision:
"Ron Klein has a lot of money. So what?"
Friday, June 13, 2008
McCain on Russert
Posted by on 6.13.08 @ 4:49PM
"I am very saddened by Tim Russert's sudden death. Cindy and I extend our thoughts and prayers to the Russert family as they cope with this shocking loss and remember the life and legacy of a loving father, husband and the preeminent political journalist of his generation. He was truly a great American who loved his family, his friends, his Buffalo Bills, and everything about politics and America. He was just a terrific guy. I was proud to call him a friend, and in the coming days, we will pay tribute to a life whose contributions to us all will long endure."
Re: Tim Russert, RIP
Posted by on 6.13.08 @ 4:39PM
Wow, it was just yesterday that I cited Russert's question during the Oct. 30 as the beginning of Hillary Clinton's downfall, an incident also noted today by Michelle Malkin. Let's roll that video again, and notice how Russert comes back with the follow-up question:
From the transcript:
Russert: Senator Clinton, I just want to make sure of what I heard. Do you, the New York senator, Hillary Clinton, support the New York governor's plan to give illegal immigrants a driver's license?Russert's follow-up pinned her down, so that she couldn't have it both ways. His ability to expose political doubletalk was the big reason why Tom Brokaw said NBC News "will not be the same without his strong, clear voice."
You told the New Hampshire paper that it made a lot of sense. Do you support his plan?
Clinton: You know, Tim, this is where everybody plays "gotcha." It makes a lot of sense. What is the governor supposed to do? He is dealing with a serious problems. We have failed. And George Bush has failed. Do I think this is the best thing for any governor to do? No. But do I understand the sense of real desperation, trying to get a handle on this? Remember, in New York, we want to know who's in New York. We want people to come out of the shadows.
He's making an honest effort to do it. We should have passed immigration reform.
Tim Russert, RIP
Posted by on 6.13.08 @ 3:40PM
Tim Russert has died suddenly, at just 58. Apparently the cause was a heart attack. A sad day.
McCain Aide Won't Rule Out Soc. Security Tax Hikes
Posted by on 6.13.08 @ 3:34PM
John McCain's senior economic policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin would not explicitly rule out tax increases to solve the Social Security crisis when prompted on a just completed conference call. Though Holtz-Eakin insisted that McCain is personally opposed to any tax increases, he said it's "premature to answer hypotheticals" about what "tradeoffs" might be involved in a bipartisan agreement on the imperiled entitlement program.
At a campaign stop in
During a McCain campaign conference call this afternoon, I noted that the bipartisan 1983 actions didn't "fix" anything and that they included tax increases. "Would Senator McCain rule out any sort of tax increases to solve the Social Security problem?" I asked.
Holtz-Eakin responded that there are a "variety of ways" to address the problem of Social Security, and that McCain has made his position clear.
"His personal belief is it's not necessary to raise taxes to do this, he also...sees a role for personal individual investment accounts," Holtz-Eakin said. "He's made clear what the solution should be, he's made clear that a solution is possible, the only thing that is missing is the political agreement of leadership, and bipartisanship, to get it done."
Another reporter followed up by asking Holtz-Eakin whether, regardless of McCain's personal beliefs, there would be any conditions under which he would agree to raise taxes. He again reiterated his statement that there are other ways to solve the problem.
"It's clear that this will require bipartisan action," Holtz-Eakin said. "If we see a failure to do that, [McCain] would send up his proposal. Where in that sequence of events tough calls might have to be made, I'm not far enough to forecast at this time, and so it's premature to answer hypotheticals about the tradeoffs involved."
Re: The Smear Smear
Posted by on 6.13.08 @ 3:20PM
As I pointed out yesterday, the MSM are simply doing what they do best, uncritically parroting Democratic talking points. If Democrats say that this rumor started with the "right wing," then that's all the MSM need to know.
Re: Penn's Hindsight
Posted by on 6.13.08 @ 3:02PM
Sorry so late in responding, Phil. You write:
What happened is that Hillary reverted to a 1992 war room mentality, not realizing that the environment was drastically different. As a result, her attacks just reinforced why people wanted change, why they desired the new kind of poltics Obama was promising.
A couple of points here. "Reverted"? I don't think Hillary ever abandoned the "war room mentality" against Republicans, it's just that she never expected a primary challenge strong enough to require using it against her Democratic rivals.
I think you misinterpret the extent to which "people wanted change" in terms of political tactics. Democrats certainly don't "want change" in the sense that they want unilateral disarmament in attack politics. In fact, what Democratic primary voters were looking for was the candidate who could most effectively attack Republicans. Democrats may have turned against Hillary in part because of her use of negative tactics against Obama, but I think it was more because the Oct. 30 debate exposed her vulnerability to the kind of attacks she'd face in the general election campaign.
After two close and bitter defeats at the hands of Team Bush, the foremost sense in which Democratic primary voters "wanted change" was in their desire for a presidential candidate who can win in November. They think Obama's it. I remain skeptical.
The Smear Smear
Posted by on 6.13.08 @ 2:43PM
Via Matt Lewis, I see that Time's Jay Carney blamed conservative bloggers for starting the Michelle Obama "whitey" tape rumor even though it originated with liberal blogger and Hillary Clinton backer Larry Johnson, and even though National Review's Jim Geraghty worked tirelessly to debunk the rumor. The only time I mentioned the story at all on this blog was to link to Dave Weigel's case for why it was bogus. When will Carney apologize for smearing conservative bloggers by spreading the false rumor that they were smearing Obama with false rumors?
The Pro-Lie Position on Abortion
Posted by on 6.13.08 @ 2:09PM
John McCormack uncovers Howard Dean's abortion untruths in the Weekly Standard.
A Very Popular War, Indeed
Posted by on 6.13.08 @ 11:50AM
This is starting to become a popular meme: the Iraq war can elect John McCain president. McCain can certainly portray Obama as too inexperienced to deal with Iraq and argue that his (caveat-filled) promise to begin pulling out in 60 days is irresponsible. If combined with the promise that there is light at the end of the tunnel, those arguments might work politically. But if Republicans buy into the idea that the surge has changed the domestic politics of the war so dramatically that an open-ended commitment in Iraq is now a winning issue, they are going to be sorely disappointed.
Massachusetts is for Tolerant People
Posted by on 6.13.08 @ 11:36AM
The Boston media is celebrating the "coming out" of Gov. Deval Patricks' daughter. I think Patrick's response to his daughter is obviously preferable to the reported treatment of Maya Keyes. But I find this amount of attention to an 18-year-old girl's sexuality bizarre and worthy of comment in itself.
Crustacean Frustration
Posted by on 6.13.08 @ 10:55AM
I usually side with prosecutors. But in this case, the courts totally lost control of the prosecutors, the case, basic logic, and justice. Read it for yourself.
Who Knows, I Could Be A Spy
Posted by on 6.13.08 @ 10:27AM
Philip Giraldi, former CIA officer and foreign policy advisor to Ron Paul, tries to create a Jew Scare with his cover story for The American Conservative:
Whether the movers and the art students had jointly pieced together enough information to provide a preview of 9/11 remains hidden in intelligence files in Tel Aviv, but the proximity of both groups to 15 of the hijackers in Hollywood, Florida and to five others in northern New Jersey is suggestive.
Speculation about 9/11 aside, it is certain that Urban Moving was involved in an intelligence-collection operation against Arabs living in the United States, possibly involving electronic surveillance of phone calls and other communications. When they were arrested, the five Israelis working for Urban Moving had multiple passports and nearly $5,000 in cash. They were held for 71 days, failed a number of polygraph exams, and were finally allowed to return to Israel after Tel Aviv admitted that they were Mossad and apologized.
Between 55 and 95 other Israelis were also arrested in the weeks following 9/11, and a number were reported to be active-duty military personnel. The FBI came under intense pressure from several congressmen and various pro-Israel groups to release the detainees. The order to free them came from Judge Michael Mukasey, now the U.S. attorney general. An FBI investigator noted, "Leads were not fully investigated� due to pressure from "higher echelons." According to one source, the White House may have made the final decision to terminate the inquiry. Though the investigation could have gone much farther, the FBI identified two of the Weehawken movers as Israeli intelligence officers and confirmed that Urban Moving was a front for Mossad to "spy on local Arabs." One CIA officer involved in the investigation concluded, "The Israelis likely had a huge spy operation."
Are We Clear Now?
Posted by on 6.13.08 @ 10:17AM
Apparently if you are Michelle Obama it is okay to say "baby's daddy," but not "baby daddy," and Fox News cannot say either. Got it.
Interestingly Salon's Joan Walsh suggests that ignorance of the meaning of ghetto slang (if you then use that slang in jest) is racist. Satire is getting to be such a dangerous business.
Re: Penn's Hindsight
Posted by on 6.13.08 @ 9:48AM
Stacy, you're correct to point to the driver's liscences for illegal immigrants question as the very beginning of Hillary's downfall -- it was the first sign of a kink in the well-oiled machine. But what really hurt her was how she reacted. First her campaign blamed Russert, and tried to claim tthe men were "piling on" the woman. Then, in the weeks that followed, she went after Obama's kindergarten records, had surrogates bring up his past drug use, and raise the spectre of him being a Muslim. What happened is that Hillary reverted to a 1992 war room mentality, not realizing that the environment was drastically different. As a result, her attacks just reinforced why people wanted change, why they desired the new kind of poltics Obama was promising.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Re: Obamacons Rising?
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 6:58PM
In fairness to Bartlett, he doesn't count himself among the Obamacons. As far as policy differences, the nuances between Obama and Clinton on foreign policy were enough for a large section of the Democratic electorate. They were also enough for many conservatives: the Obamacons overwhelmingly oppose the war while Bill Kristol in August 2007 described Hillary as "the responsible Democrat who could become commander in chief in a post-9/11 world."
Re: Obamacons Rising?
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 6:33PM
Policy-wise, Obama and Hillary were indistinguishable.This, I think, was why the fight between them became so bitter and personal.
This is also why the Democratic debates were almost always so tedious. There wasn't really any huge policy disagreement among the candidates: nationalize health care, tax the rich, and withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. Since there were no real policy differences, the Democratic debates became sort of a Bush-bashing round-robin. Whatever interest there was came from gimmicks (the YouTube debate) or from gaffes.
As much as I like Bruce Bartlett, I have to chuckle at the suggestion that conservatives would have any substantive reason to like Obama better than they liked Hillary, which is to say, not at all. I've grown used to seeing liberal MSM types like Chris Matthews swoon over Obama, but it's a bit embarrassing to see conservatives get all giggly like this.
Obamacons Rising?
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 6:10PM
By most measures, I should be a ripe target for the group Bruce Bartlett is describing in his New Republic article on the rise of the Obamacons -- conservatives who support Barack Obama for president. I am a conservative who mostly agrees with Bartlett's critique of President Bush in Impostor. I am even less a fan of John McCain. My disagreements with Bush and McCain extend to all the usual areas -- immigration, campaign finance reform, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts (where Bush was good and McCain bad), the Medicare prescription drug benefit (Bush bad, McCain good), No Child Left Behind, Sarbanes-Oxley, cap and trade, etc. I also oppose the Iraq war and am not eager for a repeat with Iran. I spent my first three years as a full-time journalist in seriously anti-Bush conservative circles.
So I read Bartlett's Obamacons piece sympathetically but ultimately didn't find many of the pro-Obama conservative arguments terribly persuasive. In fact, many of them amount to the kind of wishful thinking that would elicit laughter from these same conservatives when applied to McCain or any other Republican. One libertarian Obamacon is "convinced of Obama's sympathy for school vouchers," a position for which there is far less evidence than the Illinois senator's numerous campaign promises to increase spending and grow the federal government. School vouchers are opposed by a major Democratic constituency, teachers' unions, and not supported by any comparable constituency in either party -- who is a first-term president with a Democratic Congress more likely to side with, the National Education Association or the Cato Institute?
Another libertarian Obamacon hopes Obama will scale back the Patriot Act. That seems somewhat more realistic. But much of the Patriot Act is rehashed from Clinton-era anti-terrorism bills. This is exactly the kind of issue Democrats tend to lose interest in once they hold power, just like Republicans do with government spending. Bartlett quotes Megan McArdle saying, "[Obama's] goal is not more government so that we can all be caught up in some giant, expressive exercise of collectively enforcing our collective will on all the other people standing around us in the collective; his goal is improving transparency and minimizing government intrusion while rectifying specific outcomes." But that could be said of most liberalism since the New Deal. The G.I. Bill, Social Security, and Medicare were all designed to address specific needs rather than explicitly "enforcing our collective will on all the other people standing around us in the collective."
Other arguments are purely impressionistic: Obamacons like Obama's style and his association with "pragmatists." Not only do these arguments emphasize style over substance. They completely ignore what to most conservatives would be downsides of an Obama presidency --the Freedom of Choice Act, national health care, liberal judges, a potentially larger tax increase than the expiration of the Bush tax cuts -- and his associations with leftists who aren't pragmatists.
To my mind, only three of the Obamacon arguments have force: ending the war, forcing conservative soul-searching, and the negative case against McCain. For now, I'll address only the first: Antiwar conservatives are a minority and one that mostly opposed Bush's reelection in 2004. Perhaps their numbers and willingness to buck the party line have intensified since then, but Bartlett doesn't provide much evidence for this. Second, given that Obama's proposed Iraq exit is conditional upon there being no "security vacuum filled with terrorism, chaos, ethnic cleansing and genocide that could engulf large swaths of the Middle East and endanger America," he might not actually end the war in any meaningful sense.
Finally, there isn't much evidence that Obamacons exist in large numbers at the grassroots level. Most polls show McCain winning twice as much Democratic support as Obama wins Republican support. In past elections, it has tended to be the least conservative Republicans who have voted Democratic. Bloggers, columnists, academics, and other conservative elites are important, perhaps more so than the average voter. But if Obamacons are men (and women) without a country, their "rise" won't have much impact on the election.
I'd be interested in how the Obamacons answer these various points.
Penn's hindsight
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 6:08PM
What went wrong with Hillary's campaign? The much-blamed Mark Penn speaks:
We had a great start in Iowa. The first town halls she gave, people were amazed. We opened up with that video on the Web -- 500,000 people came. She wound up raising what would have been a record amount of money. I think you look through this race in terms of, from when it began, the first phases of this -- through October, I think -- could not have gone better. What happened was that there was a second extremely well-funded media-beloved candidate who entered the race at about the same time, who then had equal resources and, you know, an attraction, and received unbridled glowing coverage.
Very interesting to see a Democrat testifying to the impact of media bias. I think the key turning point was Oct. 30, when Tim Russert pinned her down on then-Gov. Elliott Spitzer's push to give drivers licenses to illegal aliens:
If you go back and look at the polls, you can see that in an American Research Group (ARG) poll Oct. 26-29 in Iowa (right before that debate) it was Clinton 32%, Obama 22%, Edwards 15%. An ARG Iowa poll two weeks later had it Clinton 27%, 21%, Edwards 20% -- she'd lost 5 points, and her two leading opponents had gained 6. By the time of ARG's Nov. 26-29 poll, it was Obama 27%, Clinton 25%, Edwards 23%. Thus, Hillary blew a 10-point lead over Obama in the space of a month, and the debate question about illegals was the major negative news development for her during that period.
Re: Habeas Corpus Rights at Gitmo
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 5:56PM
I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts, John and Philip. Roberts is particularly scathing in his laser-point accuracy. His argument summarzied: The majority claimed that a decision needed to be made regarding habeas corpus to expedite the process for the detainees, but there's no guarantee that whatever the court does would actually make the process faster.
In fact, it could even slow it down, which is something the majority would have realized if they really understood the process by which detainees could make their cases. What makes this particularly abhorrent to Roberts, whose judicial philosophy focuses on not making broad sweeping decisions that have bad consequences, is that the majority didn't wait for the petitioners to exhaust all their possible options before hearing their case.
In other words, the whole problem is that the petitioners felt they were being denied their due process rights, and yet they're trying to skip using what due process is afforded to them.
Ron Paul calls it quits
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 5:25PM
He's striking the tent today:
Rep. Ron Paul's presidential campaign, a pugnacious, ideological crusade against big government and interventionist leanings in the Republican party, will officially end Thursday at a rally outside the Texas GOP's convention. . . .
The new phase of the revolution officially begins with a speech tonight in Houston and a Web video to be posted on his site, officially ending Paul's presidential campaign and freeing up the more than $4.7 million in campaign cash for investment in a new advocacy group, The Campaign for Liberty.
Cui bono? Not to insinuate an illegal coordination of effort -- the kind that might fall afoul of the (ahem) Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 -- but Ron Paul's concession occurs exactly 18 days after the "Dogfight in Denver" and exactly two days after Paul appeared at a Capitol Hill press conference with another presidential candidate. All entirely coincidental, I'm sure.
Re: Barr... Less of a Threat to McCain
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 5:15PM
To have a real impact on the race, Bob Barr has to be able to do two things that are both in tension with each other. He needs to mobilize Ron Paul's grassroots supporters and donors. Without those people, he isn't going to have a base much larger than the 300,000-400,000 people who normally vote Libertarian. He also isn't going to have the money to spread his message, the people doing canvassing to get out the vote, and the volunteer base to run a more serious than usual third-party campaign. But to threaten McCain and get an even larger number of votes, he needs to reach out to the Rush Limbaugh Republicans.
Barr is obviously attempting to do both with mixed results. If he only appeals to the talk-radio crowd, he will lose money, momentum, and the benefits of energetic activists -- and have to rely totally on voters who won't do much for him and are most likely to gravitate back to McCain in a close race. If he only appeals to the Ron Paul Republicans, his vote totals can be larger than the usual Libertarian but potentially not big enough -- or taken from the right places -- to effect the outcome of the presidential race. If Barr is seen as too close to the Code Pink antiwar types, he will alienate the Rush Limbaugh Republicans. If he is too conventionally conservative and insufficiently antiwar, he will lose the Ron Paul Republicans. It's a delicate balance but it makes sense that he try to reach it.
Liberal writer John Nicholas takes a somewhat different view.
Re: Habeas Corpus Rights at Gitmo
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 4:38PM
The dissents in Boumediene are pretty scathing. Here's Roberts:
Today the Court strikes down as inadequate the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants. The political branches crafted these procedures amidst an ongoing military conflict, after much careful investigation and thorough debate. The Court rejects them today out of hand, without bothering to say what due process rights the detainees possess, without explaining how the statute fails to vindicate those rights, and before a single petitioner has even attempted to avail himself of the law's operation. And to what effect? The majority merely replaces a review system designed by the people's representatives with a set of shapeless procedures to be defined by federal courts at some future date. One cannot help but think, after surveying the modest practical results of the majority's ambitious opinion, that this decision is not really about the detainees at all, but about control of federal policy regarding enemy combatants.And Scalia:
The game of bait-and-switch that today's opinion plays upon the Nation's Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed. That consequence would be tolerable if necessary to preserve a time-honored legal principle vital to our constitutional Republic. But it is this Court's blatant abandonment of such a principle that produces the decision today.I'll probably have more to say once I've read the opinions a little more closely.
NRA: Free membership for troops
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 3:14PM
LOTUS points out that the National Rifle Association is offering free one-year memberships to current U.S. military personnel:
On behalf of the nearly four million members of the National Rifle Association of America, thank you for serving our country! We deeply appreciate your sacrifice, and would like to offer you a complimentary one-year membership in the NRA as a token of our gratitude and respect. Your membership will include all regular benefits of membership, including a subscription to your choice of our three flagship magazines.Cross-posted at The Other McCain.
Re: Barr . . . Less of a Threat To McCain
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 2:41PM
Philip, I certainly agree with you -- and with a couple of Spectator readers -- that at this point, Bob Barr's Libertarian candidacy appears to have done no significant damage to John McCain. And you are also right that a Barr bid for the Ron Paul vote does nothing to attract those conservatives (e.g., Rush Limbaugh) who are disgruntled mainly because of McCain's "maverick" departures from Reaganite orthodoxy. A cynic might suspect that the chief political object of Barr's appearance at Monday's let's-talk-to-Iran rally was to convince Paul's anti-war backers (and especially Paul's donors) that Barr is "one of them."
If that were the only thing that Barr were doing -- if he were a single-issue anti-war candidate -- then there would be no prospect that he would ever make any headway among disgruntled Republican conservatives. However, Barr is also reaching out to mainstream free-market groups like Americans For Prosperity, and will appear at an event in Marietta, Ga., next week during AFP's hot-air balloon tour. An AFP official pointed out to me yesterday that John McCain was a co-sponsor of the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill that failed on a cloture vote last week.
To give you an idea of how Barr might make his pitch to disgruntled Republicans, look how he goes after GOP leadership in response to a question (1:55) during this interview with Bloomberg:
Habeas Corpus Rights at Gitmo
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 2:32PM
I'm still sorting through the decision myself, but this is probably the most important Supreme Court decision yet overturning President Bush's policies in the War on Terror, even though in this case Congress had affirmed those policies.
The decision fell along predictable ideological lines, with Justice Kennedy acting as the tie-breaking vote and writing the majority opinion.
Orin Kerr excerpts some key passages from the ruling, and I think this part clarifies where the majority was coming from:
We hold that Art. I, §9, cl. 2, of the Constitution has full effect at Guantanamo Bay. If the privilege of habeas corpus is to be denied to the detainees now before us, Congress must act in accordance with the requirements of the Suspension Clause. . . . The MCA does not purport to be a formal suspension of the writ; and the Government, in its submissions to us, has not argued that it is. Petitioners, therefore, are entitled to the privilege of habeas corpus to challenge the legality of their detention.
Criticize Obama? It's a "Smear"
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 2:00PM
Very clever tactic by the Obama campaign -- launching a Web site called "Fight the Smears," pushing the idea that any negative information about Obama is a vicious right-wing lie.
Notice how Team Obama presents the rumor that Michelle Obama had been captured in a recording using the slur "whitey" in a Rev. Wright-style rant:
Lie:
On May 30th, Rush Limbaugh said he had heard a rumor that a tape exists of Michelle Obama using the word "Whitey" from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ.
Truth:
No such tape exists. Michelle Obama has not spoken from the pulpit at Trinity and has not used that word.
The brilliant trick here is to suggest that the "whitey" video rumor originated with Limbaugh, which it did not. In other words, only a (presumably non-credible) right-winger could be behind such mischief. Getting out front with the idea that Obama will be the victim of "smears" is a way of preparing supporters to dismiss as invalid any criticism of Obama's record or of his associations with Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright, Tony Rezko, etc.
This tactic is also aimed at the media. Note the approving manner in which both Karen Tumulty of Time and Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press present this story.
Barr Sounding Like Less of a Threat To McCain
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 1:40PM
I didn't get a chance to comment on Robert Stacy McCain's column from yesterday, but I would say that if Bob Barr continues to make a play for Ron Pual votes by allying himself with liberal foreign policy types on Iran, his chances of hurting John McCain in the general election will be greatly diminished.
The important thing to keep in mind about the potential Barr threat is that it isn't so much a matter of what percentage of the vote he is able to garner, but the type of voters he wins. If Barr stresses spending, gun rights, and hammers McCain on campaign finance reform, he could cause problems for McCain by stealing disgruntled conservatives. But if instead he focuses on foreign policy and his support is comprised mainly of the anti-war Paul coalition, while he may win a lot of votes, the votes won't be coming from those who would potentially support McCain, and thus he won't present a real threat.
The Next Big Center-Right Think Tank
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 1:38PM
I've been in Grand Rapids, Michigan attending Acton University, which is a large conference put on by the Acton Institute. There are a few hundred participants, almost all of whom have been flown here by the institute. Many of my fellow attendees are from Africa.
The crux of the program has to do with faith and economics. So far, the programming I've seen has been impressive. Jennifer Roback Morse's presentation on learning to think in economic terms was brilliantly articulated. Jay Richards talked about myths of the market and showed signs of being an emerging think tank rock star.
Acton is influencing "influencers" like graduate students, professors, and clergy and producing impeccable content. Last night I saw their new film The Birth of Freedom, which explored the impact of Christianity on the West. The production values were high. The narrative and visuals were compelling. It could easily be aired on The History Channel or PBS and expect to receive a strong rating.
The Acton Institute is The Christian Think Tank 2.0. I expect to see them develop greater influence and budget very quickly in the years ahead. Check out their blog here.
Yes, Obama Is Smart, But...
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 1:05PM
While there are plenty of legitimate avenues for criticizing
Obama,
I don't think this is a very productive for
Jennifer Rubin to raise questions about Obama's intellegence.
Whatever you may say about Obama, rising from a comfortable but not
wealthy Hawaii upbringing to become the first black president of
the Harvard Law Review, and quite possibly the first black
President of the United States, is not something that can be
accomplished by a dumb man. Read his books and listen to his more
thoughtful interviews, and there shouldn't be any doubt that you're
dealing with an intellegent person. Most of the examples Rubin
cites of mistakes made by Obama are either errors that you might
expect from anybody over the course of the campaign or atrributable
to his inexperience, or poor management skills.
It's important to draw a distinction among different types of intellegence. Not everybody who is academically smart, as Obama clearly is, will make a good manager. Obama's blunders, most recently with his VP selection team, raise questions about his ability to serve in an executive capacity and about his judgment. They don't mean he's dumb.
This question gets back to something I noted yesterday. In academia, a student gets ahead by being able to concisely summarize competing views, and that is a skill that Obama has brought to his political speeches to create an image of himself as a moderate. But once you're put into an executive position, you can no longer equivocate, you have to actually start making decisions. That requires a different skill set, and a different type of intellegence.
Jindal and Exorcism
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 11:31AM
Liberal bloggers are making a preemptive strike against Bobby Jindal by circulating this 1994 article from the New Oxford Review, published when Jindal was 23, in which he described participating in an exorcism of a college friend. To me, this is another reason why it's too early to pick Jindal as a VP candidate. Without enough experience and objective accomplishments in government, it will be easier for Democrats and the media to paint him as some sort of crazy religious freak. Give him two terms in office, in which he hopefully realizes his potential, and stories like this become less important, because they can be offset by actual accomplisments as governor -- ethical reforms, improvements in the health care system, better educational performance, economic growth, fiscal restraint, etc. Without such a foundation, it'll be easier for Democrats to drive up his negatives with these type of stories.
In other Jindal news, he turned 37 this Tuesday. Happy belated birthday!
Poll Parsing
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 11:04AM
I just spent some time analyzing the results of the latest WSJ/NBC poll, and thought a few things were worth noting.
While Obama has enjoyed a post-nomination bounce, it's more like the type of bounce you'd get from a rusty pogo stick that's been sitting in the garage for ten years. Obama now leads McCain by 6 points, 47-41, which is just a three-point swing from the previous poll. To put this in better context, the public favors a generic Democrat over a generic Republican by a much higher 51-35 spread, so Obama is underperforming and McCain is outperforming.
Obama continues to have a problem with white males -- McCain holds a 20-point lead among this group. On the other hand, Obama holds a 34-point lead among Hispanics, a group that he had trouble with during the primaries and that Bush made significant headway with in 2004. Obama also enjoys a 19-point lead among women -- perhaps that's another argument in favor of tapping Sarah Palin as a VP.
Some more notes:
--However, public attitudes on the Iraq War are trending in John McCain's direction, as Americans favor withdrawing troops by the beginning of 2009 over remaining until the situation is stable by a mere 49 to 45 margin. As recently as this April, the margin was 55 to 40. So that's an 11-point swing to McCain's position in just two months.
--Despite all the talk about how unpopular Hillary Clinton is, Obama would stretch his lead over McCain to 9 points in a hypothetical Obama-Clinton vs. McCain-Romney ticket. My guess is that has to do more with Romney's unpopularity than positive sentiment for Clinton.
In, In Damned Spot
Posted by on 6.12.08 @ 10:30AM
Oh to be young and in love and in Paris in the Spring. I love the scene of the assembled guests "waiting for it." Very Hawthornian.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Johnson Resigns From Obama VP Search Team
Posted by on 6.11.08 @ 5:27PM
This is a perfect example of what happens when you have to make a transition from lofty rhetoric to actually leading. The first important decision Obama will make is choosing a vice president, and yet the man tasked with helping him conduct that search is forced to resign. Maybe from now on Obama should hire vetters to vet the vetters? What an utter debacle.
McCain and Troop Presence In Iraq
Posted by on 6.11.08 @ 4:55PM
John McCain is drawing fire from Democrats today over comments he made this morning to Matt Lauer in which McCain expressed his long-stated view that the amount of time American troops stay in Iraq is "not too important," but what matters is reducing casualties, and that as long as troops are out of harm's way, we can maintain a presence in Iraq as we do in Germany and Korea. Video here.
Obama backers are suggesting that these comments demonstrate McCain doesn't think it's important to bring troops home, and that he doesn't understand the strain the war is placing on the military. This is absurd. Supporting a presence in
I continue to be puzzled by Democrats' handling of McCain's position on
Research Rule No. 1
Posted by on 6.11.08 @ 4:04PM
Never trust the MSM. I broke my own rule yesterday while doing background research for my latest article about Bob Barr. Barr had told me that both his undergrad and graduate degrees were in international relations. I knew he'd attended the University of Southern California, but didn't know where he went to grad school. While Googling for that fact (answer: George Washington University), I came across an archived 1987 Atlanta Journal-Constitution profile that said, "Enrolling at the University of Southern California in 1965, he joined the Young Democrats and participated in rallies against the Vietnam War."
Arrggghhh. A story too good to bother checking it out, as they say. When Barr walked into Americans for Tax Reform's office this morning (to attend the regular Wednesday coffee meeting), the first thing he said to me was, "Where did you get that from?" He went on to explain that this bit of MSM disinformation was something he had had to debunk during his (unsuccessful) 1992 Senate campaign and again in his (successful) 1994 House campaign.
Yes, Barr said, he had indeed joined the Young Democrats his freshman year and continued as a member into his sophomore year at USC. But he was never part of the anti-war protest scene. His departure from the Young Democrats, Barr further explained, was encouraged by his (staunch Republican) parents who suggested that if he wanted to be a Democrat, he might be paying his own way through college. It was his parents, Barr said, who got him to read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, the book he credits with inspiring his anti-big government philosophy.
So, having done my mea culpa for the kind of idiotic reportorial blunder I've spent years warning young reporters against -- never, ever trust the MSM -- let me now report some facts I witnessed first-hand today.
What transpires in the Wednesday morning ATR meetings is strictly off-the-record, but I can report that after leaving the meeting, Barr was greeted warmly by a conservative Republican Party activist who told him, "Kick their butts." Barr then went to the nearby studios of the BBC, where he did a 15-minute radio interview with James Coomarasamy. Citing George W. Bush's 2000 campaign criticism of "nation-building," Barr said Bush was right then, and wrong now. Nation-building -- which he described as a U.S. effort to "impose" a Western political system on Iraq -- "is doomed to failure," Barr said.
The Walking Contradiction
Posted by on 6.11.08 @ 2:00PM
In a sharp column today, Robert Samuelson makes a similar point to the one I made below, namely, that once Obama is actually forced to start governing, he'll no longer be able to paper over the contradiction between his progressivism and pragmatism:
But Obama's clever campaign strategy would put him in a bind as president. Championing centrism would disappoint many ardent Democrats. Pleasing them would betray his conciliating image. The fact that he has so far straddled the contradiction may confirm his political skills and the quiet aid received from the media, which helped him by virtually ignoring the blatant contradictions.
Samuelson also makes some astute points about how McCain's stubborness becomes a bad thing when accompanied by poor judgement, as with campaign finance reform. The whole thing is well worth a read.
I'm Goin' to Nixonland
Posted by on 6.11.08 @ 1:44PM
Over at Reason, Jesse Walker has an interesting interview with Rick Perlstein about some of the issues covered in Perlstein's new book Nixonland.
Ohio Governor: Will "Absolutely Not" Be Obama's VP
Posted by on 6.11.08 @ 11:29AM
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland has pretty conclusively ruled himself out of the Democratic veepstakes: "If drafted, I will not run; nominated, I will not accept; and if elected, I will not serve," Strickland said in an interview with NPR's "All Things Considered." "So, I don't know how more crystal clear I can be. That does not mean that I am any less committed to helping Barack Obama become the next president."
Maybe not, but Strickland would have been pretty helpful on Obama's ticket: he's the governor of a state Obama absolutely has to win, was a Hillary Clinton supporter, is popular with white working-class voters, and deftly handled the Marc Dann scandal. His Sherman statement takes a promising name off Obama's list.
Re: The Global Test
Posted by on 6.11.08 @ 10:40AM
"While it's better to be loved than hated..."
Yes, but is it better to be loved than feared?
The Guy Peddling Change I Can Believe In...
Posted by on 6.11.08 @ 10:20AM
Now I'm just sad. Even if this does prove he won't go along with everything Michelle says, I was also depending on Obama to change, as promised, so many of my bad habits--like resisting my incorporation into the statist collective (H.O.P.E.), for example. I fear his failure to control his own habits might mean he will indeed allow me to go back to my life as usual, leaving me leaderless, living my imperfect life as I see fit And like the rest of my herd, this is what I fear more than anything else.
Noooo! Baaaa!
Re: Palin for Veep
Posted by on 6.11.08 @ 10:13AM
Perhaps you guys were not aware, but Mrs. Palin just gave birth to a child with Down syndrome. Seems to me that with that, just continuing on as governor is plenty to handle. Some would probably call me sexist, but her focus needs to be on current responsibilities and if I was in McCain's position I would not even consider asking her based on that situation alone.
School Choice Battle Ahead
Posted by on 6.11.08 @ 10:11AM
At the Examiner today, we note what ought to be a big rallying point for conservatives who care about education. The successful scholarship/voucher program in DC is under assault from the usual suspects. It would be a tragedy if this program were killed.
Barr Corrects the Record
Posted by on 6.11.08 @ 10:08AM
Bob Barr said this morning that he got something wrong in today's story in The American Spectator. Arriving at Americans for Tax Reform's Wednesday morning meeting, Barr said that he attended USC from 1966 to 1970, rather than from 1965 to 1969. And while he was briefly a member of Young Democrats, he was not active in protests against the Vietnam War. The erroneous information came from a 1987 profile of Barr in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, proving (yet again) that you can't trust the media.
The Global Test
Posted by on 6.11.08 @ 10:00AM
This is Thomas Friedman, from Egypt:
Expect to see similar pronouncements throughout the election year. While it's better to be loved than hated, global opinion is a pretty silly way to vote for president. If Obama is elected, the whole parlor game of speculation about how he would lead will be over. He'll have to move beyond rhetoric and actually start making decisions. Given that America's interests often clash with other parts of the world, the idea of Obama will suddenly give way to the reality of Obama, and the euphoria for him around the world will fade. Either that, or he will transform American foreign policy in such a way that it would be consistent with the opinions voiced on the Egyptian street. That would be scary.
Graham Slam and Other Primaries
Posted by on 6.11.08 @ 2:19AM
Sen. Lindsey Graham defeated Republican primary challenger Buddy Witherspoon by a comfortable 67 percent to 33 percent. Bob Inglis, an incumbent South Carolina Republican congressman, also defeated his primary challenger who objected to the incumbent's vote for a nonbinding anti-surge resolution. In Virginia, Gerald Connolly easily beat former Rep. Leslie Byrne, 56 percent to 34 percent, for the Democratic nod to succeed outgoing Republican Rep. Tom Davis. In the night's closest race, Huckabee-friendly Republican Mark Ellmore beat Ron Paul Republican Amit Singh 56 percent to 44 percent. Fellow Ron Paul Republican Vern McKinnley, who lacked the congressman's endorsement, was slaughted by incumbent Congressman Frank Wolf by a 10 to 1 margin.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Untangling Webb
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 8:34PM
Over at the New Republic, Eve Fairbanks has a terrific piece about Jim Webb. She hits the nail on the head here:
Webb is supposed to be Obama's opposite: the angry white politician to Obama's mild-mannered black one. But, oddly, Webb has something fundamental in common with Obama. Both men felt ill at ease at elite schools, leading them to embark on quests to rediscover their ethnic identities in their twenties. Both deepened these discoveries through writing. And both came to their identities as outsiders--as admiring anthropologists of the identity rather than people for whom the identity was organic from birth. This explains why Webb can celebrate anger without succumbing to it. It also helps explain his appeal to Democrats. Like Obama, he is not simply a member of a group historically important to the party; he is someone who embodies that group, someone who has turned that group's narrative into his own. Webb--who, in our interview, defended Obama against charges of cultural elitism made by people "trying to cut Barack down"--has shown appreciation for the similarity between their projects. "If [the Scots-Irish] could get at the same table as black America, you could change populist American politics," he told Joe Scarborough last month, "because they have so much in common in terms of what they need out of government."Thanks to their analogous symbolic roles, Webb and Obama have one more politically important and bizarre similarity: They appeal to the same voters, wine-track Democrats who come out in unprecedented droves to vote for a black man or a hillbilly white because they want their party to be bigger than themselves. While you'd expect Webb to attract poor, rural beer-trackers, in his 2006 Senate race he didn't do any better than the previous Democratic candidate had among Appalachian voters in southwestern Virginia; instead, he was propelled to victory by Northern Virginia suburbanites--Obama's base.
In fact, Webb's failure to win Appalachian voters in his race against George Allen might be comparable to Obama's initial failure to win over black voters in his primary contest with Bobby Rush. Obama was eventually able to win these voters over and perhaps Webb will do the same with his natural constituency. Or maybe Webb would add more to a hypothetical Obama-Webb ticket's narrative -- and its supporters' desire for a Democratic Party that looks more like America than themselves -- than its vote totals.
Hat tip: Dougherty.
Money is the Kind of Green I Like!
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 7:20PM
Something called Green Party Watch is alarmed that I work for "a bastion of very corporate thought" and I also write for publications "set up by a variety of corporate media outlets." My "content is well enough written" though, so hopefully my corporate paymasters also agree they're getting their money's worth.
UPDATE: Apparently a sense of humor is now a corporate commodity as well.
Obama Too Liberal For Democratic Congressman
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 6:54PM
The AP reports:
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) � Democratic Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma said Tuesday Barack Obama is "the most liberal senator" in Congress and he has no intention of endorsing him for the White House.
However, Boren will vote for Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August and will vote Democratic on Nov. 4.
"I think this is an important time for our country," Boren said in a telephone interview. "We're facing a terrible economic downturn. We have high gasoline prices. We have problems in our foreign policy. That's why I think it's important."
Boren, the lone Democrat in Oklahoma's congressional delegate, said that while Obama has talked about working with Republicans, "unfortunately, his record does not reflect working in a bipartisan fashion."
Boren, a self-described centrist, is seeking a third term this year in a mostly rural district that stretches across eastern Oklahoma.
"We're much more conservative," Boren said of district. "I've got to reflect my district. No one means more to me than the people who elected me. I have to listen them." He called Obama "the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate."
It's quite telling that for all of the talk earlier this year of Obama's ability to redraw the map, a red state Democrat already feels the need to distance himself from Obama.
Re: Palin
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 5:17PM
I gave some thought to the Dan Qualization problem when I wrote my post, but I wonder if a Democratic assualt on a likable female VP candidate would actually create a backlash among women, as we saw at various points during the Democratic primary season when Clinton was under fire. And Palin is a much more sympathetic figure than Hillary Clinton.
Stuttering Barack
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 5:06PM
I haven't yet blogged about the controversy over Obama VP search team member Jim Johnson's ties to mortgage companies Countrywide Financial and Fannie Mae, just because I got annoyed by conservatives echoing liberal talking points on greedy corporate CEOs and mortgage lenders, even if it was a demonstration of Obama's hypocrisy. But watching Obama stammer his way through a press conference today when he was asked about the Johnson matter, as well as about the fact that another member of his team, Eric Holder, was involved in Bill Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich, I was reminded of how poorly the typically eloquent Obama holds up to actual scrutiny. Bumbling his way through an answer, Obama said it was a "game" to bring up such relationships, that he wouldn't hire a "vetter to vet the vetters," and most oddly, that Johnson and Horder weren't even working for him--even though they are helping him find a VP.
Re: Palin, Political
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 4:59PM
Phil,
I think she is politically a bad choice because I think that at
some point somebody is going to be able to convince the public that
qualifications DO matter, and that there could be a backlash, a la
with Dan Quayle, against a choice that seems purely political
rather than one that is aimed at least as much at picking a
possible president. In short, my non-political reasons are also my
political reasons.
Specifically for McCain, I think it would disastrously undercut his argument that Obama lacks the experience and knowledge for the job, and also his argument to put country ahead of politics, if he were to make a blatantly political calculation on a Veep who doesn't pass his own standards as applied against Obama. In short, it hits him twice: One on his own image of being called to service rather than grasping for power, and two on his arguments against Obama's lack of seasoning.
Re: Palin for Veep
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 4:49PM
Quin, as I explicitly wrote, I was making the case for Palin from a purely political perspective. There are several other people I'd rather see as vice president, and I noted my own concerns about her readiness. I'd be curious to know why you think picking Palin would be a bad move for McCain politically.
Re: Palin for Veep
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 4:34PM
Phil, I'm sorry, but I have to part ways with you on this one. In fact, I would propose a rule that NOBODY could be proposed as Veep who cannot immediately, on Day One, be seen as legitimately ready to be president. She clearly doesn't even come close. As the VERY short-term governor of the most sparsely populated state in the union, a state so wealthy that its citizens get a check from state government every year, she has had no chance, none at all, to prove that she could serve in the Oval Office at a moment's notice.
This is not a slap at you, Phil, but a general comment: I become more and more amazed at how cavalierly people in general treat the job of president, in terms of how hard it is, how qualified and experienced one must be to do the job right, etc. Even JFK, after 12 years in office in DC, was pathetically unready for the job and made horrible mistakes in his first year in office. The very idea that Barack Obama is ready for the presidency is laughable. The notion of Bobby Jindal as president, even with a ton of mid-level governmental executive experience and a genius IQ, but still without much political seasoning, is not laughable, but it is at least a little dicey. John Edwards four years ago? Frankly, nuts. heck, Jimmy Carter after one full term as governor of Georgia was woefully unprepared for office, not just by virtue of ideology but of relevant and useable experience. And Palin just doesn't cut it, despite all her political strengths. I just HATE the way people talk about Veeps in purely political terms without considering that these people are a heartbeat away from the presidency, and that since 1976 they have become steadily and increasingly more powerful in their own rights. It's a dangerous world out there. Too dangerous to entrust an almost utter novice with control of the nuclear football.
Veto Every Beer?
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 4:15PM
Now McCain is making it really difficult for me to stick with the party line.
Rein in the Plaintiffs Lawyers
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 4:12PM
At the Examiner today, we give some praise to Sen. John Cornyn for a bill to rein in lawsuit abuse. Conservatives ought to pay attention to this topic.
Obama on Defense Spending
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 2:16PM
One of my long-standing suspicions about Barack Obama has been that he thinks our spending on defense is excessive, and could be restrained so that we'd have more money to spend domestic social programs. Of course, a lot of Democrats make this argument explicitly regarding Iraq, but with Obama, it seems more sweeping.
Yesterday, I was reading about Obama's losing primary race against Rep. Bobby Rush, and I came across another indication that this is the case. A March 12, 2000 Chicago Tribune account of a debate featuring Rush, Obama, and fellow state senator Donne Trotter, reported on the following telling exchange:
One wonders what Obama must have said to Rush that would have prompted such an absurd declaration. Keep in mind that Obama was making these criticisms prior to Iraq and Afghanistan, prior to to the post 9/11 defense buildup, and after a decade long "peace dividend" that had gutted the military. Unfortunately, it may be impossible to know the full context of the exchange, because it doesn't appear that a record of the debate exists. I called the League of Women Voters, which sponsored the debate, and they said they don't keep any transcripts or tapes, and as far as I can tell the debate wasn't broadcast.
Either way, the Tribune account is consistent with other statements Obama has made in the recent past regarding defense spending. In a December 2003 interview he gave while seeking the endorsement of the staunch liberal group IVI-IPO, he was asked, "Do you agree with the current proposed level of funding for the military? If you agree, explain. If you disagree, how would you distribute the funds?"
Here was Obama's response:
During his current campaign, he has tried to have it both ways. Here's how I reported things from an Obama town hall meeting I attended in New Hampshire in May of last year:
Before the Rye, New Hampshire town hall meeting I attended, a woman handed out cookies decorated with a pie chart representing the size of the Pentagon budget, suggesting that money wasted on outdated weapons could be diverted to health care and education. (She was with the group PrioritiesNH, which claims to be nonpartisan, but is run by liberal activist Ben Cohen, co-founder of ice cream company Ben and Jerry's.)
During the question and answer session, Obama was asked about
withdrawing all of our troops based throughout the world.
Responding, he held up the cookie and noted the disproportionate
amount of money America spends on defense relative to the rest of
the world. "We spend more money on defense than the next 30 nations
combined, "he stressed. "Combined." Obama acknowledged that "we
have very real enemies out there, "but argued that we could be
spending money more wisely, and lamented the cost of the Iraq war.
Instead of proposing that money saved by pulling out from Iraq be
spent to improve national security in other ways, he said we could
use the money for early child education, or to expand access to
health care. This was quite a different tone from the major foreign
policy address he gave a few weeks earlier. In that speech (which
got good reviews from neoconservative Robert Kagan), he called for
adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.
The idea that we should be reducing our military expenditures to help fund domestic social programs is popular within the progressive circles that Obama has emerged from, and if he shares that view, it would be nice for him to be clear about it so that he and John McCain can have an honest debate about the proper role of government. But as it stands now, it's hard to accept as sincere his commitment to strengthening the military when there's a lot to suggest that he really wants to downsize it.
At the end of the day, this gets to the heart of the problem with Obama. If you want to find out where McCain stands on a given issue, you can go back decades, look at floor speeches, interviews, debates, and votes, to get an idea of whether or not you're comfortable with him on that issue. But with Obama, if we don't want to accept uncritically what he is currently saying, all we have to go on to assess his record are scraps of information that provide us with clues, but no firm answers.
Senate Republicans Block Windfall Profits Tax
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 1:46PM
Here's a reminder of why it might be nice to have enough Republicans in the Senate to mount filibusters next year. Of course, resisting the windfall profits tax may be better policy than politics.
Economic Incoherence
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 1:15PM
John McCain is the pro-business, pro-market presidential candidate who is going to stand between us and Barack Obama's record increases in taxes, regulation, and domestic spending. He's also going to send federal prosecutors after corporate malefactors and overpaid CEOs, changing the regulations concerning their salaries and severance packages. Okay. (Hat tip: Matt Welch at Hit and Run.)
Re: The Weakest Link
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 1:12PM
Conor, I agree that Dr. Grabar's column has its demerits, but "the worst opinion piece I've ever read"? Really? Ever read any Richard Cohen columns? He's the gold standard, the Olympic champion, the exalted grand master of bad column-writing.
The Washington Post recently cut its staff by over 100 -- including two Pulitzer winners -- and yet Cohen's still collecting a paycheck, still issuing 750 words every Tuesday. Is there no justice in the world?
Strange Bedfellows
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 12:17PM
There was something of a left-right convergence on Capitol Hill today. Texas Rep. Ron Paul, Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr and former Reagan administration official Doug Bandow were among the featured speakers today at a press conference urging U.S. diplomatic engagement with Iran.
The three-hour long event sponsored by the Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran also featured two California Democrats, Rep. Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey, as well as an appearance by a gaggle of Code Pink peace activists.
"Instead of talking about war, the U.S. government should talk to Iran," Barr said. "At the same time, Congress must reassert its constitutional authority and not give the president another blank check to wage another costly war."
The Internet Age Finally Comes to Arkansas
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 11:44AM
And the Clinton legacy continues to contribute to our culture. Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers have launched a website where for $1.99 a pop you can hear of their encounters with Bill Clinton and thoughts on various other subjects. Coming so quickly after Hillary's concession, this strikes me as bad timing but maybe there will be a pent-up market for Clinton dirt that the McCain-Obama presidential race won't be able to serve.
How Obama Won
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 11:29AM
Pat Buchanan succinctly sums up the coalition that delivered the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama: "Barack was thus able to unite the McGovern wing -- young, idealistic, liberal, anti-war -- with the Jesse Jackson quadrant of the party, black folks, and defeat Hillary's coalition of working-class Catholics, women, seniors and Hispanics."
Buchanan likens Obama's general-election problems to that of Ronald Reagan's in 1980. Where Obama is largely unknown in Middle America, and seen as too radical and exotic insofar as he is known, Reagan was seen as too extreme a right-winger and "Ronnie Raygun" by the swing voters of the time. The electorate was ready to ditch Jimmy Carter and the Democrats, just as they would like to get clear of George W. Bush's Republicans today. But they initially weren't sold on Reagan and the polls showed a close race until the end. Many voters have similar reservations about Obama. As Buchanan points out, a deft debate performance by Reagan helped reassure wavering voters and led to a 10-point, 44-state landslide on election day. Can Obama do the same? That might not make him the liberal Reagan, as Bob Beckel would have it, but it could make the difference between winning and losing.
Palin May Be McCain's Best Bet For VP
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 11:07AM
I'm a little late to the party on this one, but after giving some thought to it, I'm coming around to the view that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin may very well be John McCain's best choice as a vice-presidential candidate. And by best choice I don't necessarily mean my top choice, but the best pick from a purely political perspective.
As a pro-lifer, NRA member, and fiscal conservative, she'd be acceptable to the right, and her record on ethics reform and maverick image makes her a nice fit for McCain. She's charming, likeable, and telegenic, commands stratospheric approval ratings, and could help McCain among independents. Palin, 44, could also provide a welcome contrast to McCain's sometimes grumpy demeanor. One of the biggest problems that McCain is going to face in the election is an excitement gap, and I don't see how picking a boring white male to join the ticket is going to help him on that front, but an attractive woman from Alaska who eats moose burgers and rides snowmobiles, just might. There are clearly a lot of female voters who believe it's time to see a woman in the White House, and if McCain is really serious about targeting disaffected Hillary voters, Palin would be a strong asset.
Also, I could see her helping on the national security issue. Beyond the Iraq War, I think one of the reasons Republicans are having more trouble appealing to voters on national security grounds is that tough rhetoric often comes across as testosterone-driven, locker room, chest pounding. But as a mother of five with her eldest son in the Army, Palin could really make the case to other security moms as to why McCain is the best candidate to protect their families. I was watching this Charlie Rose interview with her, and (around the 10 minute mark), she talks about her son joining the Army, and says, "This kid is doing all that he can within his power to help secure and defend the United States, every elected official had better be asking themselves, are you doing as much also? Are you doing all that you can?"
I have my reservations about Palin. With only about a year and a half as governor, I'm concerned about a lack of seasoning. In some sense this is less of a problem given McCain's experience, but potentially more of a problem given his age. I'm also worried about how well versed she is in national and international issues, and how she would perform under the kind of media attention she's never encountered before. Her answers to a lot of questions come off as vague and general, and I'm not sure whether that would cut it over the course of a long election. But all of the potential picks have pluses and minuses, and it seems to me that based on pure political calculations, Palin could be the strongest choice for McCain.
Newsweek's "Absolutely Herculean Feat...
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 9:20AM
...of water-carrying" for Barack Obama.
The Weakest Link
Posted by on 6.10.08 @ 4:02AM
Academia gives insufficient due to conservative ideas, an insight that isn't exactly original, but that I mention here because despite the fact that I'm sympathetic to its premise I think this is the worst opinion piece I've ever read.
Admittedly, I am biased -- poorly written columns bother me most when their absurdity can be used to discredit arguments I care about. I'd very much like, for example, to persuade fair-minded people that the academy should recommit itself to intellectual diversity, that aspects of the modern curriculum are frivolous, etc.
My cause isn't helped when a widely read conservative Web site publishes a piece on the subject that begins as follows:
The victory cry is heard across the land in the cheers of Obama's constituency on college campuses.
It's almost unseemly to single out merely one of those clauses
for mockery, but I can't help it: ravishing our
virgins? Really? Also, "our" virgins? The mind
boggles.
Monday, June 9, 2008
A Starlet, a Hustler & an Ex-Prez
Posted by on 6.9.08 @ 10:33PM
Kind of a complex scandal with a Clinton connection is now unfolding in the tabloids. The background (according to a September 2007 story in the Wall Street Journal which includes a handy chart):
Around 2003, a 25-year-old Italian "businessman" named Raffaelo Follieri showed up in New York City, boasting of his Vatican connections, and talking up plans to purchase Catholic Church properties for commercial redevelopment. Follieri soon made the acquaintance of Doug Band, a former White House intern who is now a top aide to ex-President Bill Clinton. Next thing you know, an investment firm run by Clinton's buddy Ron Burkle is putting $100 million into Follieri's project.
OK, now the celebrity angle: Just about the same time he made the Clinton connection, Follieri became the boyfriend of Hollywood beauty Anne Hathaway, the stunning brunette star of "The Princess Diaries" and "The Devil Wears Prada." Miss Hathaway subsequently became a board member of Follieri's non-profit foundation.
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Just because he's a reputed associate of Bill Clinton shouldn't deprive Follieri of the presumption of innocence, but the allegations of impropriety are arousing suspicion to the point that even Democrats can no longer ignore them. The New York Post reports:
State Attorney General Andrew Andrew Cuomo is investigating a children's charity operated by the controversial boyfriend of sexy "Devil Wears Prada" star Anne Hathaway, who until recently sat on the group's board of directors, The Post has learned.Say what you will about Miss Hathaway's sweetie, Raffaello's's a shrewd operator. Wherever Bubba is, the rich and gullible can't be far away.
Cuomo's investigators in recent weeks served subpoenas seeking financial documents from the Follieri Foundation, which is headed by Hathaway's beau, 29-year-old Italian businessman Raffaello Follieri, the AG's office confirmed yesterday. . . .
Confirmation of the probe came after Cuomo's office was asked whether it was aware that the foundation might have failed to file tax-disclosure forms required of nonprofit groups.
A check of an online database that collects the "990" IRS forms showed that the Follieri Foundation is required to file the form, yet has never done so. . . .
Cuomo's probe comes two months after Follieri was arrested in Manhattan on charges that he bounced a $215,000 check - written against an account that a source said had just $39 in it - to a New Jersey man for services to his real-estate company, the Follieri Group. Charges were dropped in May after Follieri paid up.
Earlier this year, Follieri settled a lawsuit filed by Los Angeles billionaire Ron Burkle, who accused him and the Follieri Group of "systematically misappropriating" at least $1.3 million of more than $55 million that Burkle's company had contributed to a joint venture . . . .
Burkle's suit said Follieri used the money to fund an extravagant lifestyle that included private jet travel for himself and Hathaway, as well as for loans of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the foundation.
The Lakers as Hillary, the Celtics as Obama
Posted by on 6.9.08 @ 8:57PM
In game two of the NBA finals, the Los Angeles Lakers played basketball the way Hillary Clinton ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. The Boston Celtics wheezed to victory Barack Obama-style. The Lakers watched the Celtics build a strong lead but came back strong in the fourth quarter -- only to come up just short of winning. The Celtics came out on top, but also came close enough to blowing it that their fans are nervous going into game three. That's probably how a lot of Obama fans feel going into the fall campaign with John McCain after Hillary's strong fourth-quarter showing.
Re: Horse
Posted by on 6.9.08 @ 5:34PM
Yeah, Secretariat was breathtaking to watch (and I am old enough
that I remember very well watching him live), big heart or not. But
....
Poor Sham!!! If there ever were a horse
that deserved better luck, it was Sham, who finished second to
Secretariat in the Derby and Preakness and was the only horse to
run with the big red phenom in the Belmonst -- and run quite nobly
-- until, finally, dispirited, Sham faded to 5th down the stretch.
Sham was a great horse that would have contended for the Triple
Crown in almost any other year. And yet, unlike Alydar, the
brilliant tthree-time foil for Affirmed, Sham doesn't even get the
dignity of being talked about in glowing terms every time his
three-year-old season is mentioned. Alydar, this day, is thought of
as one of the greatest horses ever, even without winning a Triple
Crown race; poor Sham is thought of as just a sham, not even a
shame but just a poseur who played patsy for Secretariat... if,
that is, Sham is ever thought of at all. Well, here's a toast to
Sham, who gave Secretariat a real run for the money despite
presumably having a heart barely one-third the size of the greatest
racer of all.
Pay Attention, Mr. President!!!
Posted by on 6.9.08 @ 5:19PM
Memo to President Bush: As the Supreme Court winds down its term in the next three weeks, your administration better be ready. And NOT just, by the way, for conservative revolt if the Court takes the unlikely step of ruling against gun ownership rights (or punting the issue, as your solicitor general's brief essentially suggested). No, what you should be ready for is the unexpected, unlikely, but still very possible chance that one of the justices could announce his/her retirement at term's end. Nobody expects it, but that doesn't mean our administration should sleepwalk, unprepared. Instead, you should already have a nominee chosen and ready to go, with a battle plan at the ready to take the initiative and define the nominee for the public before the liberal smear campaign can even get off the ground.
Now, why would a justice retire in an election year? Well, specifically BECAUSE it is an election year. I can see Justice Stephens, in his late 1980s, deciding that he wants to go out the way he came in, under a Republican president...but with a twist. He could consider it a bit of party loyalty to give a Republican a chance to fill his spot, but by doing it in an election year he could force the Republican president to take political fallout particularly into acount and, in short, to make the court a fully public issue rather than one just for Senate gamesmanship. If there ever were a time when Stephens could go out without feat of being replaced by a Scalia-like conservative, it is right now in this election year with a Senate controlled (slightly) by Democrats.
Justice Souter might even have some of the same considerations. He has long been rumored to long for his cabin in the New Hampshire woods. Finally, although this is the most unlikely scenario, Justice Ginsburg has had some health problems, and she looked a little bit frail in a recent 60 Minutes interview concerning Scalia.
If the White House is caught napping and a court position opens up with your administration unprepared, you will ruin your last great chance at a serious legacy. What is needed is a plan not just to choose and announce your nominee, but a plan for countering the predictable arguments from the Dems that the whole consideration of the nominee ought to be put off until after the election. The battle to insist on your prerogative to name the next justice (if one steps down) could be the final serious battle of your presidency. Please, President Bush, we are counting on you.
"Substantiated By Intelligence Information"
Posted by on 6.9.08 @ 3:05PM
Fred Hiatt digs into the Rockefeller report and concludes that no, Bush didn't lie. Hiatt writes that the next president will have to think hard about "when to act on a threat in the inevitable absence of perfect intelligence." It seems to me that it would be better to think about how to get better intelligence in the first place.
Re: Now This Is A Horse
Posted by on 6.9.08 @ 2:56PM
It does help when the horse has a mutant triple-sized heart.
Important Update on Judges
Posted by on 6.9.08 @ 1:20PM
Our friend Curt Levey at the Committee for Justice blogs about the ongoing fight over judicial nominees, and it is the best full summation of the current situation that I have seen anywhere. It's well worth a read -- and it is well worth it for conservatives to let McConnell and company know that their efforts are being watched and appreciated.
Now This Is A Horse
Posted by on 6.9.08 @ 12:43PM
After writing my column for today on Big Brown's loss, I went back and looked at the old footage of Secretariat's Triple Crown run in 1973. Here's the video of his incredible 31-length victory in that year's Belmont Stakes, which set a record that no horse has even come close to in 35 years since. This is one of the greatest performances in the history of sports.
Stop Oppressing Me!
Posted by on 6.9.08 @ 12:24PM
According to The Nation, if America's most prestigious newspapers don't publish your op-ed columns, this means you're a victim of discrimination:
The most traditional location to reach the political establishment, the Washington Post opinion section, is brazenly male-dominated. Seventeen of the 19 columnists are men; only three of the columnists are racial minorities. . . . This year, only 12 percent of the Post's guest pieces came from women, according to a May count by ombudsman Deborah Howell. At the New York Times, eight of the ten weekly columnists are men; one is black.However, of all the hundreds of columns published by both the Washington Post and the New York Times, none were written by me. I am underrepresented -- excluded! These people are depriving me of my rightful share of the benefits of this brazen male domination.
Where do I sign up for the class-action lawsuit?
Standing Ground
Posted by on 6.9.08 @ 10:42AM
My cousin Ken Macomber is a member of the Air Force Honor Guard team that made headlines for not budging during a military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery when those massive storms hit D.C. a week or so ago. Fox has posted a video (complete with Macomber interview) here.
My piece on the other selfless servants at Arlington National Cemetery is here.
McCain and Evangelicals
Posted by on 6.9.08 @ 10:00AM
Robert Novak writes on John McCain's potential problems with evangelical voters, citing difficulty setting up a meeting with James Dobson and disavowing John Hagee for his contoversial comments about Hitler the "hunter."
At the end, Novak cautions that perhaps McCain's problems are with evangelical leaders rather than actual voters. But the problem I see for McCain is not whether he can win evangelicals, but whether he can maintain Bush's margin among the group and actually get them to show up.
In 2004, Bush won 78 percent of the evangelical vote, and the group made up 23 percent of the electorate. Even a slight drop in either of those numbers could have a dramatic impact on the race.
There's been some talk that with Bob Barr in the race and Barack Obama able to increase black turnout, states such as Georgia and North Carolina could be in play for Democrats. Even if McCain wins these states, if Obama will be able to make them competitive, it will mean that McCain will have to squander time and resources protecting states that should already be in the bank, instead of targeting independents in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, etc. In both North Carolina and Georgia, eveangelicals comprised more than a third of the electorate in 2004, and 84 percent of the group went for Bush.
Will Graham Be Cracked?
Posted by on 6.9.08 @ 9:06AM
South Carolina's U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, whom I have written about here, has a primary tomorrow against long-time South Carolina GOP National Committeeman Buddy Witherspoon. Witherspoon has been somewhat underfunded, and entered the race only after several other would-be challengers met embarrassing political ends due to scandal or controversy. People I know and like say he's a good man. At NRO, meanwhile, John J. Miller has a more charitable take on Graham; it is in the regular mag, available electronically to subscribers only, I believe, but it is worth a read. Miller does note something I left out in my column, which is that Graham was one of the plotters who met in secret, mid-term, to try to organize a coup against Newt Gingrich in a moment of panic when things weren't going well. I still don't know what in the Lord's name the plotters thought they would accomplish; nothing could be more destructive than changing a speaker in the middle of a session. It was my former boss, Bob Livingston, who found out about the plot and, with Gerald Solomon, blew the whistle on it and put a stop to it. Frankly, the plot was both underhanded and politically idiotic. Anyway, Graham is apparently a rather heavy favorite against Witherspoon, but the results will be interesting to watch nonetheless.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Gosh Darn It, Democrats Like Him
Posted by on 6.8.08 @ 3:05PM
Al Franken, who has been struggling lately in his campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, won the endorsement of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party.
Uncle Barack's Cabin
Posted by on 6.8.08 @ 10:55AM
I've long held that Germans have the worst sense of humor in the West, so little wonder they don't "get" satire. This, on the other hand, is not very good satire. Satire via sledgehammer, I believe it's called.
Huck's Heimlich
Posted by on 6.8.08 @ 9:37AM
Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee may have saved the life of North Carolina's Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, Robert Pittenger, who choked on some food yesterday at the state's GOP convention. Gov. Huckabee dislodged the blockage with the traditional maneuver.
It presents an opportunity for me to share one of my favorite campaign advertisements so far this season, for Pittenger, which criticizes pork-barrel spending in Raleigh:
- Obama's Foreign Policy Problems, Personified
- Joe Being Joe
- Barney and Friends