How would you like to drive a Porsche? In the special
July/August double edition of the ink-and-paper American
Spectator (you can click here
to subscribe now for the low, low price of $19.95 a
year) Philip Klein explains how government regulations drive up the
cost of health insurance:
In New York, a father seeking to buy a typical health
insurance policy for his family could lease a Porsche for what it
would cost him to pay the monthly premiums. Some would dismiss this
as a mere reflection of the fact that things tend to cost more in
New York. But that doesn't explain why in neighboring Connecticut
as well as in California -- two states that rank right up there
with New York for the highest cost of living -- a family policy
costs less than half what it does in the Empire State. . . .
J.P. Wieske, director of public affairs at the Council for
Affordable Health Insurance, helps compile an annual list of health
insurance mandates imposed by the states. . . . Some of the
benefits companies have been forced to cover include: in vitro
fertilization, morbid obesity treatment, and lockjaw disorders.
Some states require coverage of specialists including
acupuncturists, pastoral counselors, marriage therapists, and
massage therapists. Additionally, several states have imposed
so-called "slacker mandates" allowing parents to keep grown
children on their health-care policy until the age of 30. . . .
The report that Wieske co-authored estimated that such mandates can
add anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent to the price tag of a
health insurance policy, depending on the state and the type of
mandate. It's no coincidence that New York, one of the most
regulated states, is also among the most expensive.
Philip's article examines free-market alternatives to
government-controlled health care. And you can subscribe now to make sure you
see it.
The math is frightening. . . . [T]here is a very good
chance that Democrats, for all practical purposes, could win enough
seats this year that the GOP would be a minority party for the next
decade - and perhaps beyond. When 98% of incumbents in the House
are victorious and redistricting looms in 2012, the chances of
Republicans overcoming a 40 or 50-seat Democratic majority in the
next couple of election cycles are slim.
Moran blames this on the wave of retirements by House Republicans.
It might make more sense to blame the problem on certain
Republicans (inter alia,
Mark Foley and
Bob Ney) who didn't retire soon enough.
Today the Bob Barr campaign released a video entitled "A Real
Choice":
This is what would be called a "contrast" ad, produced by Martin
Avila, and is obviously aimed at voters disaffected with both major
parties. About half the segments target Obama, and effectively so,
raising the question, Why isn't the McCain campaign putting out
videos like this? It's almost 7 minutes long, much longer than
a TV ad, but that's the thing about the online medium: You don't
have to communicate in 30-second chunks or worry about the cost of
airtime (or FCC regulations).
Deputy campaign manager Shane Cory also announced
that Barr will appear this weekend on "Fox
News Sunday" with Chris Wallace.
The Wall
Street Journal columnist dissects polling, pushes back at
the MSM message of Obama's inevitability, and offers a bit of
history:
There is evidence that fall campaigns, which tend to
focus voters on big-picture issues, usually help Republicans. In
1976, Gerald Ford was seen as a goner during the summer but rallied
to finish only two points behind Jimmy Carter. A dozen years later,
Michael Dukakis led George H.W. Bush in June and July. He lost by
eight points in the fall. In 1992, Bill Clinton had a 10-point lead
around Labor Day. He won by only five and a half points. Even Bob
Dole closed a 12-point Labor Day gap to only eight points by
November 1996. If that history is a guide, a focused McCain
campaign that clearly contrasts conservative and liberal approaches
to the issues should have a good chance of winning.
.Agreed. Now, if only John McCain campaign had ever favored
"conservative . . . approaches to the issues" . . .
We've got an enormous opportunity to win back Bush
States. Why is that? Well, it starts with Barack Obama's appeal.
He's got appeal across the country with independent voters. We
think we're going to be able to create historic turnout in the
African American community and with younger voters, but also with
the organization that you have built. The reason that we think we
can be competitive in Georgia, North Dakota, Alaska, North
Carolina, is because you guys built a tremendous organization
on the ground and we've got to build on that.
Ever been pitched by a pyramid ... er, multi-tiered
marketing promoter? "You guys built a tremendous organization"
in states we've got a snowball's chance of actually winning Nov. 4,
but "we've got to build on that," so please send money!
It may be totally legit, but to street-smart ears, it sounds
like a hustle.
Attaboy, Phil. Getting linked at DailyKos really brings the
traffic -- I'm always happy when some leftoid attacks my blog. Call
me names, just link me, baby!
Expect some . . . er, colorful reader mail in the next
few days.
If you haven't had enough, he delivers his presentation via
video here. It's attached to a contribution form, of
course. The era of the meta-campaign has begun.
For a minute I thought I was reading The Onion, then I
realized the
story "Radical Al-Qaeda Cleric Receives £50,000 In
Welfare Benefits" was coming out of Great Britain and all became
clear.
One of the few actual policy disagreements between Barack Obama
and Hillary Clinton during the primary season arose because
Clinton's health care plan included a mandate requiring individuals
purchase health care, and Obama's did not. Obama argued
emphatically against a mandate in many debates, saying that the
problem wasn't that people didn't want to get health insurance, the
problem was that they couldn't afford it -- and said, rightly, that
a mandate would impose onerous fines on working people who failed
to purchase insurance.
But we now ABC reports that he may not be opposed to mandates
after all:
"Senator Obama is willing to consider any sort of
proposal that would bring together, not just the insurance industry
but . . . the consumers themselves," said Obama adviser Dr. Kavita
Patel....
Asked if Obama would be seen as reversing himself if he were to
endorse an individual mandate after clashing with Clinton on the
issue, Patel dismissed the concern.
"He has not said he is opposed to it," Patel told ABC
News. "He has voiced his disagreement with having that be a part of
his health-care plan last year. But he is not opposed to the idea
itself." Patel added that the Obama campaign is in touch with
former Clinton health-care advisers.
Of course, the Obama campaign pushed back on the story, with its
trademark slipperiness:
"Senator Obama does not have plans to change his
health care plan, which will achieve universal coverage," Obama
spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News. "As he has consistently said
throughout this campaign, he will bring together businesses, the
medical community and members of both parties around a
comprehensive solution to this issue."
So which is it?
Actually, if Obama is elected, it wouldn't surprise me at all to
see an individual mandate become part of his health care proposal.
There's a simple reason why, which I explore at greater length in
my health care story for our July/August print edition.
Obama's plan, as currently structured, imposes a "guaranteed
issue" requirement on insurers, meaning that they have to provide
coverage to anybody who applies for a policy, regardless of risk
factors or preexisting conditions. But what this does is drive up
the cost of insurance for everybody else, and healthy people bolt
the market. After all, if insurers are required to cover somebody
no matter what, a healthy person can save money on monthly premiums
by simply waiting until after he gets sick
to purchase insurance. In every state where this has been tried, it
has been an absolute disaster. In my article, I note that when this
regulation was passed in Kentucky in the 1990s, it caused a mass
exodus of more than 60 insurers from the state, and Kentucky was
left with just one private insurer in the individual market. This
is why many liberal academics support a mandate requiring the
purchase of insurance as a way to keep healthy individuals within
the risk pool, so that insurers don't get stuck with only the sick.
A mandate, of course, hasn't worked very well in Massachusetts.
Over at DailyKos, a poster links to my
column from yesterday arguing that John McCain should defend
President Bush's record of keeping America safe from terrorist
attacks.
DemFromCT summarizes my article:
McCain's a fool for running away from George Bush
because Bush kept America safe. George Bush is tough as nails and a
goddamn frickin' genius. And 23% of the public, a bare majority,
agree with me.
I'll let my piece speak for itself, but I do want to draw your
attention to the hilarious commenters, who fail to understand the
sarcasm of their fellow progressive DemFromCT, and literally think
I argued that 23% represented a majority.
Some of the comments include:
"You gotta love the truly delusional. I especially
enjoy the mathematical genius of Phillip Klein...Now, that's a
majority I can live with!"
You mean Mr. Klein isn't demonstrating his brilliance at
TurdBlossom's math?! Shoot!
Posted by Robert Stacy McCain on 6.27.08 @ 11:57AM
Apparently, Obama campaign strategist David Plouffe's
well-organized press presentation this week had its intended
effect, creating an impression of inevitable victory among the
liberal media elite, including Eleanor Clift:
I watched David Plouffe, Barack Obama's no-nonsense
campaign manager, give a Power Point presentation to a roomful of
reporters at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in
Washington on Wednesday afternoon. . . .
Plouffe put up a series of electoral maps and with surgical
precision illustrated a variety of ways Obama could reach the 270
electoral votes needed to win the presidency. "We're not going to
wake up on November 4th with our campaign worrying about one
state," he said, harking back to Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004.
"We will have a lot of states in play … a lot of ways to get
to 270." Were he any other partisan strategist, I would discount 50
percent for spin. But Plouffe is convincing, and here's why: He ran
a brilliant primary campaign, and Obama will have the money and the
technology to pursue every last vote he thinks might be
his.
Of course, it's not just liberals who are impressed with
Plouffe. Philip Klein
also cites Obama's operation in the Democratic primaries as
evidence that Plouffe isn't just talking out the side of his head.
Having
watched Team Obama's ground game in operation one night last
month, I don't deny that their grassroots organizing efforts are
impressive, and I've seen no evidence of any effort by John
McCain's campaign to build anything to match it.
However, a state primary campaign is not like (and a state party
caucus is even less like) a nationwide general election campaign.
There were 112
million votes cast in the 2004 presidential election. Between
them, Obama and Hillary Clinton mustered about 35 million votes in
this year's Democratic primaries. The larger the scale of the
contest, the more the election turns on voters' generalized
perceptions of the candidates, and the less impact the
phone-bank/canvass/get-out-the-vote "ground game" will have.
This was a major reason why Obama repeatedly came up short in
the big states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, a point that Hillary's
handlers kept harping on in their appeals to super-delegates. And
there was nothing Obama's organizational strength could do to help
him win Kentucky and West Virginia.
So for all the "surgical precision" of Plouffe's PowerPoint
display, there is still cause for skepticism about his optimistic
Electoral College scenarios. Newsweek reporter Andrew Romano might have said it
best:
During a session with reporters at the Democratic
National Committee's Washington, D.C. headquarters this afternoon,
Barack Obama campaign manager David Plouffe made a pretty
interesting prediction: Obama could win Alaska in November. I
wasn't there, but I imagine Plouffe's projection was greeted with
the sound of every hack in the room scribbling "crazy" in his
notebook. And underlining it. Twice.
"It would be generous to say we were stunned," says a Republican
House Judiciary Member, describing his response when Congressman
and Obama Superdelegate William Delahunt (MA-10)
yesterday asked the vice president's chief of staff David
Addington about water boarding of terrorists. Addington
declined to comment, citing President Bush's refusal to discuss
techniques used to attain vital intelligence, and added that
another reason not to respond was that Al Qaeda is probably
watching.
Congressman Delahunt's response: "I'm glad they finally
have a chance to see you." (Emphasis added.)
But the House Republican and Judiciary member was not so stunned
to notice that no Republican rose to defend Addington, or to call
out Delahunt for essentially inviting al Qaeda to impart physical
harm to a senior member of the Bush Administration. "It was
shameful that we didn't do anything. I can't explain it," says the
GOP member.
Just as shameful, according to a Democrat Judiciary staffer:
Delahunt was congratulated for "zinging" Addington after the
hearing. "Zinging was the term used. These guys are tired of the
same old lines and excuses. I mean how many times can they pull out
that old bogeyman of al Qaeda. The American people aren't buying it
anymore, and certainly Delahunt doesn't."
Delahunt claims he didn't mean what he said. But enough other
Democrats on Capitol Hill clearly understood what he had done. Sen.
Charles Schumer, who bunks down with Delahunt when
they are in Washington, D.C., made sure his schedule was such that
he wouldn't be in contact with Delahunt for several more days,
according to a Senate leadership aide. "We don't want any part of
that guy right now. We expect he's going to be in the middle of
something pretty ugly, pretty quickly."
Some political consultants who watched the Judiciary Committee
hearing say that Republicans should be capitalizing on Delahunt's
and Democrats' overplaying their Addington strategy. For example,
Democrats during the hearing never once inquired whether any of the
interrogation techniques used against terrorists had produced
important intelligence for use against the enemy.
"You have to understand, guys like Delahunt, really all of the
Democrats here, don't care about winning the war against the
terrorists, or keeping us safe. They might have cared after 9/11,
but now they are ruled by the radical left. All they care about now
is putting the Americans who put in place the policies that have
kept us safe for seven years on trial. The terrorists just don't
matter to this crowd," says a former Department of Justice lawyer.
"And if the American people and Republicans understood this, the
sooner we'd be seeing a different election."
Posted by W. James Antle, III on 6.27.08 @ 10:59AM
David Brooks writes: "It may take a few defeats for the
G.O.P. to embrace a Sam's Club agenda, but sooner or later, it will
happen. Trust me." He's writing about Grand New Party, a
new book by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam. My own take can be found
in the July/August issue of The American Spectator. Hint:
It's an important book but I'm not as sure about the whole Sam's
Club agenda as Brooks.
Conservative justices claim that they defer to
local authority. Not in this case. They insist that political
questions should be decided by elected officials. Not in this case.
They argue that they pay careful attention to the precise words of
the Constitution. Not in this case.
It's true that conservative judicial philosophy is deferential to
local governments when the Constitution doesn't specifically grant
a given right to the people or forbid government from making a
certain law. But it is totally different when the Constitution
specifically prohibits government from regulating a given behavior.
Just as the District of Columbia doesn't have the authority to
censor what Dionne writes in his Washington
Post column because of the First Amendment, the Second
Amendment guarantees my individual right to keep and bear arms as a
citizen of the District.
And it's hard to see how Dionne could have even glanced at
Scalia's opinion and still concluded that it doesn't pay close
attention to the precise words in the Constitution.
As Randy Barnett puts it in an
excellent, far more illuminating op-ed in the Wall
Street Journal:
Justice Scalia's opinion is exemplary for the way
it was reasoned. It will be studied by law professors and students
for years to come. It is the clearest, most careful interpretation
of the meaning of the Constitution ever to be adopted by a majority
of the Supreme Court. Justice Scalia begins with the text, and
carefully parses the grammatical relationship of the "operative
clause" identifying "the right to keep and bear arms" to the
"prefatory clause" about the importance of a "well-regulated
militia." Only then does he consider the extensive evidence of
original meaning that has been uncovered by scholars over the past
20 years - evidence that was presented to the Court in numerous
"friends of the court" briefs.
Posted by W. James Antle, III on 6.27.08 @ 10:36AM
E.J. Dionne fulminates against the
Heller decision, charging that "the judicial right
regularly succumbs to the temptation to legislate from the bench.
They fall in line behind whatever fashions political conservatism
is promoting." Dionne says that the Court should have shown
deference to precedent and local elected officials. The majority's
failure to do so, he argues, shows that originalism is a sham
designed to promote a right-wing political agenda.
Of course, an originalist reading of the Constitution requires
both judicial restraint and a willingness to overturn
unconstitutional laws (and unconstitutional past court decisions)
depending on the constitutional issue under consideration. No
coherent body of constitutional thought that accepts judicial
review calls for overturning or upholding existing laws all the
time. And Scalia's interpretation of the Second
Amendment is far more persuasive than Dionne's cartoonish one. But
most importantly, Dionne's own column demonstrates the situational
constitutionalism he decries: When the Court second-guesses elected
officials on Guantanamo Bay, an area where he disagrees with said
officials, that is "a defense of constitutional rights." When they
second-guess elected officials he does agree with, restraint and
deference are called for.
In fairness, judicial activism and situational constitutionalism
can be found both on the left and the right. Many people interpret
the Constitution in ways that conveniently line up with their own
policy preferences. But Dionne's column filled with pro-gun control
cliches doesn't prove Heller is really an example of this
trend. Nor does it reveal him to be someone with much standing to
make such an argument.
I had an
idiosyncratic take on the Heller gun case today at the
Examiner. In short, the majority decision gave the back of its hand
to the Bush administration's brief that asked for the case to be
remanded back to the lower courts. In doing so, it also slapped
down what it called "judge-empowering" hair-splitting of the sort
favored by the libs. Please read it. You'll find it important, I
think, for what it says about the proper role of a judge.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, the independent Democrat from
Connecticut, made his case for the presidential campaign of Sen.
John McCain, R-Ariz., saying, "I'm going to make a provocative
statement: in many ways I think John McCain on Foreign Policy is
closer to where Al Gore and I were in 2000, then Barack Obama
is."
Lieberman made the comment in the midst of acknowledging that on
domestic issues ranging from the economy to health care his
positions more closely align with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois.
"On domestic policy, you're right. I'm closer on a lot of issues,
not all, to Obama," Lieberman said. "But the big difference for me
is, McCain will actually get something done. It's one thing to say
where you are on a policy and give a good speech, but McCain as
president will actually get something done."
The candidate's self-centeredness has been on display
before. Having effectively sewed up the Democratic nomination, he
could have agreed to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations
(states Hillary Clinton had carried). While reducing his lead by 50
to 55 delegates, it would not have altered the outcome. But Mr.
Obama supported cutting these battleground-state delegations in
half. At a time when magnanimity was called for, the candidate
decided he'd strut.
Rove calls for John McCain to "paint his opponent as someone
driven by an all-powerful instinct to look out only for himself,"
but I doubt McCain would make such attacks himself. His Republican
surrogates can be expected to push that portrayal, however, and the
question will be whether Obama keeps making moves that will cause
the mainstream media to incorporate this image -- the Democrat as
an arrogant, selfish, narcissistic elitist -- into their
narrative.
If Rove's Jedi mind trick works and he's able to get MSM
reporters telling his version of the Obama story, it could go a
long way to wiping out the "enthusiasm gap" that the Democrats'
handlers seem to be banking on. The idealistic acolytes of Hope and
Change will be decidely less enthusiastic if they start viewing the
nominee as a self-serving snob.
You have weird dreams, James. Probably this means you're easily
suggestible. By the way, did you hear that Vern Troyer, the actor
who played "Mini-Me" in the Austin Powers series, is
featured in a bootleg sex video that's now making the
rounds?
I had a dream last night that John McCain picked Bill Richardson
as his running mate and the singer-songwriter James Taylor was
charged with killing someone. Both seemed equally plausible at the
time.
Well, Philip, that sounds a bit more sensible, like maybe
Plouffe got three hours sleep and lowered his caffeine intake to
one Red Bull every two hours since awakening in a cold sweat a 5
a.m.
Iowa, Missouri, Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire, New Mexico,
Nevada -- yes, these are all legitimate targets worthy of the
Democrat's attention. I think Obama's chances in North Carolina and
Georgia are way overrated, and Plouffe's persistence in talking
about Alaska still strikes me as madness. Also, I think Plouffe
dismisses too lightly McCain's probable strength in Florida (the
old guy will own the Geezer Vote), and underestimates the
problems the Democrat may face in Michigan.
I will say this about the Obama team. They pulled off a
tremendous upset over Hillary Clinton through their mastery of all
the arcane rules of the Democratic nomination system, with a laser
beam-like focus on how they could win the most delegates. Obama
racked up huge margins by organizing aggressively in all of the
caucus states, while the supposedly seasoned Clinton team was
obsessed with winning the big states, even though delegates were
allocated proportionally. My point being, when David Plouffe talks
about having a plan to get to 270 electoral votes, while some of
his assumptions may be rosy, it would be unwise to dismiss what he
is saying out of hand as so obviously absurd.
Something that we ought to do more of here, perhaps, is
encourage AmSpec Online readers to get their hands on the actual
ink-and-paper American Spectator magazine. (Of course,
you can click here to
subscribe now for the low, low price of $19.95 a year.)
Whether you subscribe now, or drop by a nearby bookstore or
magazine stand soon, however, I would urge online readers not to
miss the special July/August double edition of the American
Spectator. Among the excellent worthwhile articles is "Captain
McCain," R. Emmett Tyrrell's five-page argument for why
conservatives should support the Republican presidential nominee,
Sen. John McCain. On a quick read, one passage stands out:
My admiration [Tyrrell writes] has endured through our
disagreements over such things as immigration, campaign finance,
and now global warming. Taking one issue with another, McCain is a
conservative and a man of honor.
Then, too, he is always good company, quick to laugh, quick with an
irreverent joke, but fundamentally serious. With John one can
disagree but remain a friend. In this, friendship with John has
been simliar to my old friendship with Ronald Reagan -- though when
I disagreed with Reagan I was always wrong. . . .
Having never had the chance to meet the distant relation I call
Crazy Cousin John, I can't comment on his personal qualities, and
so his political aptitude to anger and dismay conservatives is
foremost in my mind. Yet I think that Tyrrell has made about the
best argument that could be made in the senator's behalf,
bolstering his own views by citing the endorsements of such eminent
conservatives as Ted Olson, Grover Norquist, and John Lehman.
Even if you're among those who've sworn solemn oaths never to
vote for John McCain under any circumstance -- they could
waterboard me at Gitmo and I'd never break -- you owe it to
yourself to read Tyrrell's eloquent appeal. Subscribe now, to be sure you
don't miss it.
Frankly, the longer I look at the Obama campaign, the more time
I spend practicing Morse code, just in case. By November, at least
I'll be able to blink: "T-O-R-T-U-R-E."
Just got off of the Obama campaign conference call with David Plouffe that I mentioned earlier.
The overriding theme was that the campaign will keep its focus on how they can reach 270 electoral votes. The first objective will be to hold John Kerry's 252 votes. Plouffe said the campaign was well on its way to doing that because it enjoys "unusually large leads" even in states such as Oregon, Minnesota and Maine, which were among the closer Kerry states in 2004. "There's not that many Kerry states where McCain can make a credible claim," a confident Plouffe said.Â
Once they hold on to the Kerry states, he said the campaign has a good opportunity to go "on offense" in Bush states. Â They hope to compete aggressively in enough of them to give Obama as many chances as possible to reach the 270 threshold. "We see a pathway to get to a winning number," he said.
For instance, if they maintain the Kerry states and win Iowa, where Obama spent a lot of time in the build up to the caucuses, they'd be at 259 electoral votes -- just 11 shy of the target number. In this case, a win in Missouri would get Obama to 270.
Plouffe also mentioned New Hampshire, Colorado, Alaska, New Mexico, and Nevada. He said they consider Indiana "highly competitive" and also sees an opportunity in Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. In the southern states, the hope is that higher turnout among blacks and young voters, along with an appeal to independents, could lead to Obama victories. They will work hard to register more black voters. Plouffe insisted that the ads that they're running in 18 states aren't head fakes designed to drain McCain's resources.
He said that in Florida, Obama and McCain are tied, but that is a good place to be in since Obama didn't campaign there during the primary.
He also noted that Nebraska is allocating electors by Congressional district, and so there may be an opportunity for Obama to pick off a vote in the Omaha district.
All in all, he sees "lots of opportunities to get 270."
Plouffe also emphasized the "enthusiasm gap" Republicans are facing, and the organizational advantage the Obama campaign has over the McCain campaign.
One thing that particularly struck me was that as far as I could recall, there wasn't any mention of Iraq or the War on Terror (though there's a chance I may have been distracted by my writing at the moment it was mentioned). Either way, it was pretty clear from this call that the Obama campaign won't be placing its focus on removing troops from Iraq, but rather on the economy and vague promises to "change the way Washington works." Â Plouffe kept coming back to the economy, no matter what the subject. Even when asked to explain Obama's flip flop on guns and the salience of the gun issue, he eventually circled back to explaining that the economy was of most concern to voters. It's 1992 all over again.
Stacy, Quinnipiac also has Obama ahead in all four of those
states. Michigan and Colorado are, as you mention, close but
Wisconsin and Minnesota are not. Iraq polling tends to vary based
on wording because a core group of the electorate wants to leave
without losing. If McCain is successful in framing Obama as the
candidate of precipitous withdrawal, these numbers will matter. If
Obama frames McCain as the candidate of an open-ended military
presence in Iraq, a different set of numbers will matter more.
Oh, I don't think it's too early to question Plouffe's sanity,
James.
Greg Sargent notes that the
Quinnipiac Poll finds a majoriity voters in four (actual) swing
states favor maintaining U.S. military deployment in Iraq "until
the situation is more stable . . . without a fixed date for full
withdrawal."
If voters in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin don't
share Obama's oft-expressed enthusiasm for a a rapid and
unconditional withdrawal, how much sense does that Alaska trip
make? And what if I told you that in two of those states (Michigan
and
Colorado) Obama is under 50% and McCain is within 5% or 6%?
What if I further reminded you that Hillary won Michigan and that
the DNC allotted Michigan's delegates only half-representation at
the Democratic convention?
With such real cause for concern in these real battleground
states, how can Team Obama even think about diverting
their resources and their candidate's time to Alaska?
BTW, James, were you aware you just used "we" and "Obamacons" in
the same sentence?
In his long-ish post on the death penalty, Noah
Millman tiptoes up to making what is to my mind the strongest
argument against it. One of his commenters does so more succinctly:
"When permanent incapacitation is a viable option, a limited
government, cognizant of the fallibility of mankind, has no place
exacting such an absolute and irreversible sanction as the death
penalty." But I disagree with the argument that capital punishment
is incompatible with recognizing a right to life. We recognize a
right to liberty, which includes a right not to be kidnapped and
held against your will, while still putting people who commit
certain crimes in jail. The rights to life and liberty require, if
they are to exist as more than academic propositions, individuals
to respect others' rights equally and society to enforce that
requirement.
The stock market tanked today, and the price of gold skyrocketed
-- as a predictable response to the Federal Reserve's incredibly
wrongheaded decision yesterday to leave its interest rates alone.
Larry Kudlow explains it all today. Then again,
I explained on Tuesday what SHOULD HAVE been done. Fed
Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is an utter disaster; his
incompetence is stunning; Bush should publicly ask him to
resign.Â
What are we, Obamacons? Who cares if Team Obama does things that
don't make logistical sense? But, in their limited defense, I'd say
this: If Obama and McCain are tied but Obama has a better
organization, a spending advantage, more enthusiastic supporters,
and statistically significant leads in battleground states, Obama
has to be favored even if he massively underperforming generic
Democrats. So his campaign may feel a little leeway to take risks
that the national polling doesn't seem to justify. Or this could be
a head fake, like sending Cheney to Hawaii and New Jersey or making
the inevitable Republican "play" for California. But if the
Obamanians blow it by chasing caribou in a frosty red state when
they needed to be locking down Ohio or Florida, they blow it.
MORE: Just to be clear, I'm not ruling out the possibility that
the Obama people are in over their heads and flailing about wildly.
I'm just saying it's a little early to determine whether they are
brilliant, incompetent, or just believing their own press
releases.
James, I don't care how much an Obama appearance in Alaska (or
Wyoming, or Texas) might help some down-ticket Democrats, or how
much money he has to burn, a presidential campaign is a
presidential campaign. If Obama were a popular incumbent, running
for re-election with a 15-point lead in the polls, it
might make sense for him to try to "share the love"
without regard for his own political fortunes. But the
Gallup poll indicates a neck-and-neck race, and there are only
so many campaign days between now and Nov. 4.
Team Obama does not necessarily need to follow the swing-state
pattern of recent elections scrupulously, but they do need to
target states based on legitimate strategic value to their campaign
-- and it is very difficult to see any value in sending Obama to
Anchorage. The logistics alone argue against it.
In fact, assuming that David Plouffe hasn't gone completely
bonkers, I think it safe to say that this talk of Alaska -- and
Wyoming and Texas -- is just that, talk. Either Plouffe's
trying to head-fake the McCain campaign off-balance, or else he's
trying to deceive Democrats (and their media minions) into
believing that Team Obama is such a mighty juggernaut that the
candidate can afford to kill time in Wyoming to help local
Democrats, rather than campaigning in a state he might actually
win. I frankly think they're over their heads, they know it, and
they're talking this bold talk as a facade to hide their own
panic.
My understanding is that Obama is trying to leverage the
"enthusiasm gap" and his ability to outspend McCain to benefit
Democrats in down-ballot races, even in states he is unlikely to
win himself. Alaska has voted Republican in 11 of 12 presidential
elections since statehood; polls show it is likely to do so again.
But there is a competitive Senate race with incumbent Republican
Ted Stevens below 50 percent and in some cases trailing his
Democratic opponent. Congressman Don Young is trailing his likely
Democratic opponent. Even if Sean Parnell beats Young in
the Republican primary, polls suggest the race may still be
competitive. Obama is hoping to boost Democratic turnout enough to
push these challengers over the top, even if he falls short against
McCain. I don't know if it will work, but that seems to be the
theory anyway.
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe releases a slide presentation outlining Obama's "path to
victory." The report emphasizes the campaign's 50-state strategy,
his growing strength among Hispanics, women, and independents; his
grassroots organization; and the "enthusiasm gap" among supporters
of Obama and McCain. One slide lists the following red states that
Obama has a chance to turn blue: Virginia, Missouri, Colorado,
Ohio, Iowa, New Mexico, and Florida. The campaign is hosting a
conference call later in the day, so I'll have more, if
warranted.
We can work together to enact common-sense laws, like
closing the gun show loophole and improving our background check
system, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or
criminals.
The "gun show loophole" is a rhetorical fiction, a semantic second
cousin of the so-called "assault weapons" ban. When Democrats talk
about "closing the gun show loophole," what they are actually
talking about is applying the federal regulations that govern
commercial firearms dealers to individual owners privately selling
their own weapons. This is nonsensical. It is already illegal for
convicted felons to own guns, and in such cases it is the buyer,
not the seller, who violates the law. What Democrats want to do is
to require individual gun owners to do background checks before
selling a firearm from their personal collection.
David Friedman has posted a comment in response to my Obamacons piece, saying that he is
the libertarian I'm referring to when I write, "Bartlett quotes one
libertarian who believes, without providing evidence, that Obama
will promote school vouchers if elected." Indeed, he is. Here is
the line from Bruce Bartlett's piece I had in mind: "Friedman is
convinced of Obama's sympathy for school vouchers--a tendency that
the Democratic primaries temporarily suppressed." It is preceded by
a passage about Friedman viewing "Obama as the better vessel for
his father's cause," which I take to mean something more than a
Democrat with some intellectual sympathy for free markets.
My own view is that there isn't much evidence that Obama's
"sympathy for school vouchers" is strong enough to have any actual
policy content and no evidence that he will promote
them as president. But Friedman says Bartlett inaccurately
summarized his views and that I've inaccurately described
Bartlett's inaccurate summary. What, then, are Friedman's actual
views on Obama and school vouchers? "I think Obama is more
sympathetic to school vouchers than one would expect a liberal
Democrat running for President to be, but I will be very pleasantly
surprised if he actually comes out in favor of them."
I happen to think this is an even weaker argument for Obama than
my interpretation of Bartlett's paraphrase, but these are
Friedman's views and I apologize for misstating them originally.
You can read more of David Friedman's thoughts on Obama here.
Obama and McCain are both at 44% in the
Gallup daily tracking poll, a tie for the second day in a row.
Over the past seven days, the gap between the two candidates has
been 3 points (2 days), 2 points (3 days), zero (2 days), for an
average gap of 0.583% since June 19.
In his review today of Walter Nugent's new book,
Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion, John
Steele Gordon praises the first two, strictly historical sections
of the book, but then unloads on Nugent over his final section, a
postscript on the U.S. in the world since WWII, calling it both
"highly tendentious" and "simply...silly." Read on:
To describe globalization as nothing more than American
economic imperialism is ludicrous. He might at least have noted
that globalization has enormously enriched the entire world, not
just the United States....
In short, he buys completely into the visceral anti-Americanism,
seeing American self-aggrandizing imperialism everywhere while
scarcely noting that the free world was engaged in a decades-long,
worldwide struggle against a ruthless tyranny.
In all, "Habits of Empire" is an excellent book as long as one
ignores the historical claptrap of the postscript, which is an
embarrassment to the author and publisher and an insult to the
reader.
What is noteworthy is that these sentiments are being expressed
not in the Washington Times, but in the New York
Times.
Posted by W. James Antle, III on 6.26.08 @ 12:58PM
Whatever you think of Obama's sincerity, his Heller
reaction does reflect significant rightward movement by the
national Democratic Party on gun control. As recently as the 1990s,
a Democratic presidential candidate would have been expected to
denounce a Supreme Court decision like Heller and complain
about a right-wing takeover of the courts. Even in his February
statement on the D.C. handgun ban, Obama took pains to say that he
wouldn't take guns away from people in Flyover country, just people
in urban areas. I'll let others unpack some of the implications of
this logic, but Obama has adopted the political approach pioneered
by Howard Dean: let liberal areas of the country enact gun control
laws but don't directly challenge the gun culture in more
conservative parts of the country. He has obviously moved even
further in this direction as he has to reach out beyond Democrats
and win battleground states like Ohio and Pennsylvania.
These political concessions have limited policy implications, of
course. My guess is that a unified Democratic government will be
far more reluctant to advance gun control legislation than Bill
Clinton and the Democrats in Congress were in 1993-94. But a
President Obama would be likely to appoint judges who are hositle
to Second Amendment rights and gun rights would become less secure
as Democratic majorities became more secure.
Orin Kerr emphasizes the narrowness of the Court's gun
ruling: It "does not resolve the degrees of scrutiny, does not
address incorporation, and indicates (without establishing) that
traditional gun restriction laws are valid." That's all true, but
let's not slight the significance of firmly establishing the Second
Amendment as protecting an individual right. The attention to
detail that Justice Scalia has paid will make it difficult for a
future Court to claw back this precedent without overturning it.
And Scalia provides a useful guide for adjudicating the
constitutionality of federal gun laws in his discussion of US
v. Miller the precedent that the dissent leans on, which
concludes:
We therefore read Miller to say only that the
Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically
possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as
short-barreled shotguns.
Scalia goes on to argue that DC's ban on handguns doesn't meet that
standard, because handguns are the most popular weapon for
self-defense. This is huge, whichever way the open questions are
answered. Even if gun owners lose on the incorporation question
(that is, the question of whether the ruling applies to states and
localities, as opposed to the federal government), a national
handgun ban can't pass muster unless a future Court throws this
decision out. That's hardly insignificant.
Here's the statement from the Obama campaign, in which he
claims that Scalia endorsed his long-standing position on guns.
Again, I encourage you to watch the video below
--from three months ago-- and see how rapidly Obama's position has
evolved. If flip flopping were an event at this summer's Olympics,
Obama would be a lock for the gold medal:
"I have always believed that the Second Amendment
protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify
with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children
from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense,
effective safety measures. The Supreme Court has now endorsed that
view, and while it ruled that the D.C. gun ban went too far,
Justice Scalia himself acknowledged that this right is not absolute
and subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities
to keep their streets safe. Today's ruling, the first clear
statement on this issue in 127 years, will provide much-needed
guidance to local jurisdictions across the country. "As President,
I will uphold the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun-owners,
hunters, and sportsmen. I know that what works in Chicago may not
work in Cheyenne. We can work together to enact common-sense laws,
like closing the gun show loophole and improving our background
check system, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists
or criminals. Today's decision reinforces that if we act
responsibly, we can both protect the constitutional right to bear
arms and keep our communities and our children safe.
Posted by W. James Antle, III on 6.26.08 @ 11:58AM
Robert Novak takes a look at pro-Obama conservatives in his
latest column, suggesting that the
Obamacons may soon receive a boost from Colin Powell and Chuck
Hagel. He focuses mainly on those Obamacons who don't particularly
trust Obama but are very angry at Bush and the GOP. My own,
somewhat
skeptical take on the Obamacons phenomenon appears in the
Guardian.
Antonin Scalia's majority opinion in Heller is really a remarkable piece of
work -- an originalist tour de force in which practically every
word of the Second Amendment is analyzed in light of the historical
context in which it was written. I imagine it will be a useful
guide to Second Amendment jurisprudence for a generation.
Scalia cites three law review articles by the inimitable
Eugene Volokh,
incidentally.
"Bowles begins with a case where six day care centers in Haifa,
Israel imposed a fine on parents who picked their kids up late. The
fine aimed to encourage parents to be more prompt. Instead, parents
reacted to the fine by coming even later. Why? According to Bowles:
"The fine seems to have undermined the parents' sense of ethical
obligation to avoid inconveniencing the teachers and led them to
think of lateness as just another commodity they could
purchase."
John McCain, May 2006: "I would rather have a clean government
than one where, quote, First Amendment rights are being respected,
that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the
clean government."
John McCain, today:
"This ruling does not mark the end of our struggle against those
who seek to limit the rights of law-abiding citizens. We must
always remain vigilant in defense of our freedoms."
Have the scales fallen from his eyes? If so, I look forward to
McCain's amicus brief in the next challenge to
McCain-Feingold--or maybe he'd just rather slightly alter his hero
Teddy Roosevelt's famous maxim, and teach the country to speak
softly and carry a little gun.
"Today's decision is a landmark victory for Second
Amendment freedom in the United States. For this first time in the
history of our Republic, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that the
Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was and is an
individual right as intended by our Founding Fathers. I applaud
this decision as well as the overturning of the District of
Columbia's ban on handguns and limitations on the ability to use
firearms for self-defense.
"Unlike Senator Obama, who refused to join me in signing a
bipartisan amicus brief, I was pleased to express my support and
call for the ruling issued today. Today's ruling in District of
Columbia v. Heller makes clear that other municipalities like
Chicago that have banned handguns have infringed on the
constitutional rights of Americans. Unlike the elitist view that
believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today's ruling
recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right -- sacred,
just as the right to free speech and assembly.
"This ruling does not mark the end of our struggle against those
who seek to limit the rights of law-abiding citizens. We must
always remain vigilant in defense of our freedoms. But today, the
Supreme Court ended forever the specious argument that the Second
Amendment did not confer an individual right to keep and bear
arms."
1. The Second Amendment protects an individual
right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia,
and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as
self-defense within the home.... The "militia" comprised all males
physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The
Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the
people in order to disable this citizens' militia, enabling a
politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response
was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of
individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens'
militia would be preserved.
2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not
unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon
whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For
example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the
Amendment or state analogues. The Court's opinion should not be
taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession
of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the
carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and
government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and
qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller's holding
that the sorts of weapons protected are those "in common use at the
time" finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the
carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.
3. The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied
to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District's total
ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on
an entire class of "arms" that Americans overwhelmingly choose for
the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of
scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights,
this prohibition -- in the place where the importance of the lawful
defense of self, family, and property is most acute -- would fail
constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful
firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock
makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful
purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. Because
Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is
permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the
Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and
does not address the licensing requirement. Assuming he is not
disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the District
must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a
license to carry it in the home.
Answering a 127-year old constitutional question, the
Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Second Amendment protects
an individual right to have a gun, at least in one's home. The
Court, splitting 5-4, struck down a District of Columbia ban on
handgun possession.
Justice Antonin Scalia's opinion for the majority
stressed that the Court was not casting doubt on long-standing bans
on gun possession by felons or the mentally retarded, or laws
barring guns from schools or government buildings, or laws putting
conditions on gun sales.
In District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), the Court
nullified two provisions of the city of Washington's strict 1976
gun control law: a flat ban on possessing a gun in one's home, and
a requirement that any gun - except one kept at a business - must
be unloaded and disassembled or have a trigger lock in place. The
Court said it was not passing on a part of the law requiring that
guns be licensed.
Barack Obama seems ready to lie about, er, clarify his position
on guns, ABC News reports:
ABC News' Teddy Davis and Alexa Ainsworth Report:
With the Supreme Court poised to rule on Washington, D.C.'s, gun
ban, the Obama campaign is disavowing what it calls an "inartful"
statement to the Chicago Tribune last year in which an unnamed aide
characterized Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as believing that the DC
ban was constitutional.
"That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to
explain the Senator's consistent position," Obama spokesman Bill
Burton tells ABC News.
The statement which Burton describes as an inaccurate
representation of the senator's views was made to the Chicago
Tribune on Nov. 20, 2007.
In a story entitled, "Court to Hear Gun Case," the
Chicago Tribune's James Oliphant and Michael J. Higgins wrote ". .
. the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said
that he '...believes that we can recognize and respect the rights
of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to
enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama
believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.'"
The Chicago Tribune clip from Nov. 20, 2007, is an
inaccurate representation of Obama's views, according to Burton,
because the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has
refrained from developing a position on whether the D.C. gun law
runs afoul of the Second Amendment.
I may not be as sophisticated as the folks in Obamaville, but to
me, when somebody says, "Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is
constitutional," far from being "inartful," it's rather a crystal
clear statement that he things the D.C. handgun ban is
Constitutional.
This is only the latest in the evolution of Obama's public
statements on handguns.
In a 1996 questionnaire Obama filled out when seeking the
endorsement of the progressive group IVI-IPO, Obama emphatically
answered "yes" when asked whether he would support state
legislation to "ban the manufacture, sale, and possession of
handguns."
I have a copy of the document, ironically because the Clinton
campaign was handing them out in the spin room following the
Democratic debate in Philadelphia, during which Obama tried to
claim that his handwriting wasn't on the document (also
untrue).
In a 2003 questionnaire with the same
group, this time when he was running statewide for U.S. Senate, he
was more equivocal:
Do you support legislation to ban the manufacture,
sale and possession of
a. handguns?
While a complete ban on handguns is not politically
practicable, I believe reasonable restrictions on the sale and
possession of handguns are necessary to protect the public safety.
In the Illinois Senate last year, I supported a package of bills to
limit individual Illinoisans to purchasing one handgun a month;
require all promoters and sellers at firearms shows to carry a
state license; allow civil liability for death or injuries caused
by handguns; and require FOID applicants to apply in person. I
would support similar efforts at the federal level, including
retaining the Brady Law.
b. assault weapons?
Yes.
c. ammunition for handguns and assault weapons?
I would support banning the sale of ammunition for
assault weapons and limiting the sale of ammunition for
handguns.
Notice that he says a complete ban is not "politically
practicable," suggesting that would be his ultimate goal if it
were. Should be interesting to see what his opinion on guns turns
out to be today.
In my column
today, I make the case that President Bush deserves credit for
keeping America safe from terrorist attacks on U.S. soil for nearly
seven years, and that John McCain would benefit from making this
point regularly. While the conventional view is that McCain needs
to run as far away from Bush as possible, the reality is that he'll
be associated with Bush anyway, so he should at least defend the
successful aspects of Bush's legacy.
While Bill Clinton was more popular than Bush, in 2000 Al Gore
faced a similar problem to McCain, because there was "Clinton
fatigue" and the administration was tainted by scandals. Gore
decided to run away from Clinton, but this ended up backfiring in
many ways. Bush was still able to gain traction for vowing to
"restore dignity to the White House" because Gore became associated
with all of the bad stuff, but Gore became disassociated with all
of the positive aspects of the Clinton years, such as the strong
economy.
McCain has a trickier task, to be sure, but I think there are
some lessons from the Gore experience.
Also, I'd add that if McCain did forcefully defend the Bush
Administration's record on terrorism, it would help him energize
conservatives.
The Supreme Court is expected to release the last of its rulings
for this term this morning; the blockbuster among them is DC v.
Heller, which turns on whether Washington, DC's draconian
anti-gun laws violate the Second Amendment. There's some informed speculation that Scalia is
writing for the majority; if that's true, it probably means good
news for the right to keep and bear arms.
They'll start releasing opinions at 10 AM. ScotusBlog has a
live-blog widget that you can stare
at in anticipation (no need to refresh, assuming it works
correctly).
One of my 15-year-old sons (I've got twins) just engaged me in a
discussion about universal health care. He had spoken to a Canadian
emigre about their system, and the Canadian told him, "It's great
-- but when we need something big, we go to the U.S." My son
understands that the free market is superior, but needed some
explanation of why it is superior. So this gave me a
chance to wax Hayekian on prices as information, about the
fundamental fact of scarcity, about incentives, about why rationing
is inevitably required in a government-run health-care system,
etc.
So, either my son is taking an interest in public affairs, or he
was cleverly trying to butter me up by pretending to take
an interest in public affairs. Either way, it shows he's a clever
boy, and I'm proud of him.
About 15 minutes ago, I finished composing a thorough response
to
Daniel Larison, but the Spectator computer system ate it. I
suspect it's because our ISP is controlled by the Mossad -- but
then again, isn't everything controlled by the Mossad?
It
has been observed before that Anthony Kennedy seems to flip his
civil liberties switch to the "off" position whenever illegal drugs
are involved. Kennedy v. Lousiana, the 5-4 ruling handed
down today that struck down the death penalty for child rapists,
provides a really astonishing example of this. Kennedy, writing for
the majority, assures us:
Our concern here is limited to crimes against
individual persons. We do not address, for example, crimes defining
and punishing treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin
activity, which are offenses against the State.
(My emphasis.) In his dissent Antonin Scalia zeroes in on this
line:
The Court takes pains to limit its holding to "crimes
against individual persons" and to exclude "offenses against the
State," a category that the Court stretches--without
explanation--to include "drug kingpin activity." Ante, at 26. But
the Court makes no effort to explain why the harm caused by such
crimes is necessarily greater than the harm caused by the rape of
young children.
Just last week I remarked in a conversation about
Boumediene with a friend that Kennedy seems more concerned
about the rights of enemy combatants than drug users (even medical
marijuana patients). Add child-rape to the list of things that
aren't as bad as drugs in Kennedy-land, I guess.
Since when did Republicans believe that being Dr. No is a bad
thing? The Republican Party is the home of the Senate's Dr. No, the House's Dr. No, and Senator
No. The GOP could have used a lot more no votes over the past
seven and a half years. Though I do agree with McCain on most of
the energy debates highlighted in the ad.
I meant to post this yesterday.... At
the Examiner, we join the chorus blasting Barack Obama for
breaking his word on campaign financing. (I happen to think we did
it in particularly strong and effective language, but that may just
be conceit.) But I will personally go one step further than the
Examiner editorial. The editorial ended thusly: just another politician talking out of both sides of his
mouth. I think it has been amply demonstrated, so much so
tht it needed no repeating, that Obama doesn't just talk out of
both sides of his mouth. Instead, he knowingly and repeatedly tells
untruths and breaks his word. So he's really, to put it more
strongly, "just another lying politician."
With that in mind, even though it is likely to become too much
of a mouthful, I make this pledge, at least until further public
notice: From now on, I will never write Obama's whole name
on first reference in any blog post without writing out my new
middle name for him, that name being Just-Another-Lying-Politician,
or, better, "Justanotherlyingpolitician." It will read like this,
for example: "In yet another example of his arrogance and cynicism,
today Sen. Barack Justanotherlyingpolitician Obama said...."
Now, why would I give him a new middle name? Because Obama has
made it so clear that he considers it to be out of line to mention
his real middle name, Hussein. I, for one, never intended to use
his real middle name, much less to use it as a form of smear to
cast doubt on his Americanness, or whatever. I saw the Louisiana
Democrats try that with Piyush Jindal, now Gov. Bobby Jindal, and
it sickened me. Nevertheless, after other recent remarks by Obama,
it becomes clear that his complaints about the misuse of his middle
name are actually part of a strategy at fomenting a backlash
against supposed racism and dirty pool by the right. It's part of a
pattern of deliberately injecting race or religion or ethnicity
into the campaign while blaming the other side for doing so. Hence,
on Friday, with no particular examples to point to, Obama had the
temerity to say that Republicans would try to smear him by saying,
"Did I mention he is black?"
As Bill Clinton, of all people once noted (in different words),
Obama himself plays the race card by accusing his opponents of
doing so. (In Clinton's case, the first "race card" he was accused
of playing was actually a perfectly innocent Clinton remark, but I
wholeheartedly believe that afterwards Clinton himself did
deliberately try to use the race card to his own advantage. But
that's beside the point.) So, to rile up black voters along with
liberal whites, Obama claims, falsely, to be the victim of
deliberate Republican racism. Same thing with his
over-protestations about use of his middle name. Well, if he
doesn't like his middle name, he can have the new one I am giving
him.
So, I hope this lengthy explanation makes sense. The point is
not what Obama's middle name is, it's what his character is. And
his character is that of just another lying politician.
Ramesh Ponnuru says that the restrictionist
campaign to defeat Chris Cannon worked this time because "the
restrictionist winner did not run as a single-issue candidate."
That's certainly part of it -- a single-issue candidate can make a
splash running on border security or immigration policy more
generally, but even voters who care deeply about immigration want a
congressman who seems interested in other things as well. A
monomaniacal focus on immigration isn't usually an election winner.
But I'd also point to the professionalism of the candidate: a lot
of single-issue candidates tend to be objectively bad candidates in
other respects, as fanaticism isn't an appealing trait. Tom
Tancredo's immigration positions have more support than his
amateurishly run presidential campaign. Chaffetz won in no small
part because he was a serious candidate who ran a competent
campaign that paid the right amount of attention to the incumbent's
unpopular immigration record.
An interesting RealClearPolitics piece on how the Iraq war will play in November
given the electorate's conflicted views: they think it was a
mistake but don't want to lose, they want to get out but don't want
to perceived as retreating. One statistic jumps out: One voter in
five opposes the war but supports McCain.
John McCain's pollsters at Public opinion Strategies have just
released a memo disputing the LA
Times/Bloomberg poll by questioning its assumptions about
party identification. This still doesn't explain why McCain is
underperforming among conservatives, but in any event, here is an
abridged version of the memo (with some charts removed due to
space/formatting):
1. Party identification on the most recent Los
Angeles Times survey is out of line with what most other public
polls are showing.
The L.A. Times survey has party identification at 22%
Republican, 39% Democrat, and 27% Independent.
The first major concern is that leaves 12% of the survey's
sample unaccounted for. Having double digits don't know or refused
on party ID is a quite unusual finding. Furthermore, since the LA
Times does not release other demographics like age and ethnicity,
it becomes very difficult for an independent observer to verify
whether a survey is methodologically flawed or simply an outlier in
public opinion trends.
Second, party identification is greatly out of line with what
most other surveys are reporting. Most surveys have a party ID gap
in the high single digits / low double digits.
In addition, the PEW Research Center released data from the
first two months of 2008 which showed that across 5,566 interviews
with registered voters, party ID is 27% Republican, 36% Democrat,
and 37% Independent. Given the large sample size, that is a useful
barometer by which to measure party identification.
2. If the L.A. Times survey is recalculated to a more normalized
range for party identification, McCain would be down in the
mid-single digits, which is what we are seeing in most other
polls.
McCain's double digit deficit is not a reflection of reality,
simply a result of an unusual party identification result in this
survey. The L.A. Times own survey shows that in a head-to-head
match-up, McCain is winning the Independents, the crucial swing
vote, by eight points (44% McCain - 36% Obama). Given what we are
seeing in other surveys, it is almost impossible to believe that
McCain is ahead among independents by eight points, yet losing by
double digits.
If party identification on the L.A. Times survey is
recalculated to just down by ten (29% GOP / 39% Dem / 27% Ind / 5%
Don't Know/Refused), the ballot would be 40% McCain - 47%
Obama.
3. Party identification is out of line with historical
trends.
While most pollsters will acknowledge that party identification
does shift over time, and that Republican identification has
declined since 2004, the party identification gap on the recent
L.A. Times poll is neither born out by other recent public polls or
historical trends.
Even in 2006, when Democrats made big gains in the Congressional
elections, Democrats had just a two point advantage on party ID
(36% GOP / 38% Dem / 26% Ind).
Daniel Larison jumps to Anonymous's defense. It's as if Larison
has the blogging equivalent of a Bat Signal that alerts him whenever
anybody gets criticized for attacking Israel or its supporters, so
he can rapidly come to the aid of the basher in question. The most
amusing aspect of Larison's item is that he claims Anonymous didn't
really mean to accuse Jewish conservatives of "divided loyalties"
before Anonymous wrote a follow-up post making
it abundantly clear that that's exactly what he meant. As I wrote
before, there's no evidence that Israeli security concerns prompted
the Bush administration to invade Iraq. Larison believes that
American foreign policy is bad for both our own security and
Israel's, but the current debate is one about motives. The most
disgusting aspect of the "divided loyalties" smear is that it
questions the patriotism of Jewish conservatives by arguing that
we'd actually advocate policies that are against America's security
interest because we're actually more loyal to Israel than our own
country. That is a shameful charge.
This subject particularly hits home with me because I didn't
start off as a strong supporter of Israel. In fact, even in the
early stages of the Second Intifada, I tended to be more
sympathetic to the Palestinian side because I hadn't studied the
conflict carefully, and my views were colored by news accounts
emphasizing the disproportionate death toll. When did everything
change? On Sept. 11, when my city and country were under attack,
and Palestinians were celebrating in the
streets. Only then did I begin to identify with Israelis for
what they had been dealing with for decades, and the more I read
about the history of the conflict, the more I sympathized with the
Israeli position. The Palestinians allied themselves with Hitler
during WWII and with the Soviets during the Cold War, and cheered
while innocent civilians were still dying within a few miles of
where I lived and worked. The point is that my support for Israel
is firmly rooted in my love of America, and so I don't take it
lightly when somebody throws around the "divided loyalty" smear to
taint all Jewish supporters of the Iraq War. The fact that the
charge is coming from another Jew makes it worse, because now
despicable anti-Semites can point and say, "See, even some Jews
admit it!"
UPDATE: Larison responds, distancing himself from
the "divided loyalties" argument, but still insisting that concerns
about Israeli security interest played a significant role in the
decision to invade Iraq, a point of view evidently shared by
Andrew Sullivan as well. Neither
offer any evidence to back up their assertion, yet they utter it as
if it's so obviously true. Larison asks whether I went after
attempts to question the patriotism of Pat Buchanan in 2003. I find
Buchanan's views on foreign policy abhorent, but I always had a
problem when people questioned the patriotism of Americans who
opposed the Iraq War. I just wasn't blogging or writing opinion
columns in 2003, because I was still a Reuters journalist at the
time and my contract precluded me from offering outside commentary.
On Monday it was announced that the DC Circuit Court has issued
an opinion in Parhat v. Gates, its first appeal from the
Combatant Status Review Tribunal under the system established under
the Military Commissions Act and the Detainee Treatment Act. The
Circuit Court ruled for the petitioner, a Guantanamo
detainee:
The court directed the government to release or to
transfer Parhat, or to expeditiously hold a new Tribunal consistent
with the court's opinion. The court also stated that its
disposition was without prejudice to Parhat's right to seek release
immediately through a writ of habeas corpus in the district court,
pursuant to the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene v.
Bush, No. 06-1195, slip op. at 65-66 (U.S. June 12, 2008).
Because the opinion contains classified information and information
that the government had initially submitted for treatment under
seal, a redacted version for public release is in
preparation.
The New York Times editorial board, ever oblivious, thinks
this is "Another Rebuke on Guantanamo," part of "a long
line of court rulings" against the Bush administration on
Guantanamo, and an affirmation of Boumediene. But isn't it
clearly just the opposite? The Boumediene majority
suggested that the MCA/DTA system couldn't possibly be fair to
detainees, and only direct access to the civilian courts for
Guantanamo Bay detainees could pass constitutional muster. Yet here
we have the DC Circuit Court ruling in favor of a detainee, and
apparently demanding some sort of change in the CSRT procedure,
within the framework that Congress has laid out, all while keeping
classified information under wraps. Seems like they have things
under control, at least if we're concerned about balancing liberty
and security. If we're concerned with giving judges as much policy-making power as possible,
on the other hand, Boumediene makes perfect sense.
Posted by W. James Antle, III on 6.25.08 @ 11:48AM
Speaking of immigration, Bob Barr is back to emphasizing his conservative record on the
issue. It's a departure from the Libertarian Party orthodoxy, but
consistent with Ron Paul's platform and that of most Ron Paul
Republicans.
Posted by W. James Antle, III on 6.25.08 @ 11:38AM
Utah Congressman Chris Cannon lost to Republican primary challenger Jason
Chaffetz last night. Chaffetz took about 60 percent to Cannon's 40
percent, a comfortable margin. Cannon has been targeted in the last
three races by conservatives upset with his high-profile support of
amnesty for illegal immigrants. He has been beaten at the
Republican state convention before, but in the last two contests he
fought back to win the primary. He was able to outspend Matt
Throckmorton in 2004 and 2006 challenger John Jacobs was
inexperienced and gaffe-prone, telling an interviewer right before
the election that the devil was interfering with his campaign.
Cannon's defeat is a big win for immigration hawks. Conservative
primary challengers who have run mainly or entirely as single-issue
restrictionists tend to do about as well as Buddy Witherspoon did
against Lindsey Graham last week: They get between 30 to 40 percent
of the vote -- in a few cases, where the incumbent has galvanized
national opposition, they can exceed 40 percent -- but rarely win
if the incumbent is otherwise conservative. I expect those who
exulted in the "Throckmorton thumping" will revise and extend their
remarks about immigration politics. Well, no, I don't really.
Posted by W. James Antle, III on 6.25.08 @ 11:29AM
That poll provided more evidence for the existence of Obamacons
than an entire article in the New Republic.
Can Paul Ryan also run for re-election to his House seat in
Wisconsin if he runs for vice president? I don't want to waste him
on a risky presidential ticket.
Finally, the Republican coalition does not have to collapse
completely for this to be a Democratic election year. The
Republican coalition won just shy of 51 percent of the vote in
2004. Obama just needs to shave a few points off of that number to
become president.
The "enthusiasm gap" mentioned below is PRECISELY why it is
crucial for McCain to choose a running mate who will unambiguously
please Reaganite conservatives. Pawlenty doesn't cut it. Jindal is
too untested. Romney doesn't really cut it. Huckabee is a total
non-starter. Crist definitely doesn't do it. Palin is too untested.
And even Portman is too much a creature of the Bush family,
although he's not out of the question. The ones who make the cut
are Sanford, DeMint, Tom Coburn, Pence, Kasich, Frank Keating, Paul
Ryan and, of course, Chris Cox. The ones of those who make the most
political sense are Kasich, Ryan, and Cox. Cox remains my choice.
But I should say that I was talking to a very wise conservative
movement veteran last night and, without me mentioning a single
name, I asked who he thought would be the best choice. He
immediately mentioned Paul Ryan....
Posted by Robert Stacy McCain on 6.25.08 @ 10:50AM
John McCain's problems with the
conservative base are no secret, Philip. You write: "Whatever
Obama's weaknesses as a candidate, the fundamentals still
overwhelmingly favor him" -- yes, but Obama's weakness as a
candidate is just the problem that euphoric Democrats (and
discouraged Republicans) keep trying to overlook. Responding to
David
Weigel, I
made this point:
[V]oters will not have the choice of voting for a
generic Democratic president -- or against a generic Republican. In
1996, I was among those who believed that any Republican could beat
Bill Clinton. Unfortunately "any Republican" wasn't on the ballot;
Bob Dole was. He got 41%.
Team Obama seems to be betting
that this is the year the GOP coalition will collapse completely.
And they may be right. On the other hand,
maybe not.
It's something we've been talking about all year, and is
particularly apparent in the latest LA
Times/Bloombergpoll, in which Obama leads McCain by 12 points
head-to-head, and 15 points when Bob Barr and Ralph Nader are
included (maybe Newsweek wasn't an outlier
after all?):
Moreover, McCain suffers from a pronounced
"enthusiasm gap," especially among the conservatives who usually
give Republican candidates a reliable base of support. Among voters
who describe themselves as conservative, only 58% say they will
vote for McCain; 15% say they will vote for Obama, 14% say they
will vote for someone else, and 13% say they are undecided.
By contrast, 79% of voters who describe themselves as liberal say
they plan to vote for Obama.
Even among voters who say they do plan to vote for McCain, more
than half say they are "not enthusiastic" about their chosen
candidate; only 45% say they are enthusiastic. By contrast, 81% of
Obama voters say they are enthusiastic, and almost half call
themselves "very enthusiastic," a level of zeal that only 13% of
McCain's supporters display.
"McCain is not capturing the full extent of the conservative
base the way President Bush did in 2000 and 2004," said Susan
Pinkus, director of the Times Poll. "Among conservatives,
evangelicals and voters who identify themselves as part of the
religious right, he is polling less than 60%.
Wherever I go, I meet conservatives who are still trying to talk
themselves into supporting McCain, while liberals are generally
fired up about Obama. Whatever Obama's weaknesses as a candidate,
the fundamentals still overwhelmingly favor him.
After reading Annymous' writings accusing American supporters of
Israel of "divided loyalties," I accuse Anonymous of Blood Libel --
against those who are, at least by his heritage, his own people. I
support Philip Klein and Jennifer Rubin entirely in their outrage
over Anonymous' baseless smear. And I pronounce Anonymous to be
[many dirty words]. Anonymous sounds like David Duke -- a subject I
happen to know a hell of a lot about, seeing as how I was a
founding board member of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and
Nazism, founded to block the political ascent of Mr. Duke. And if
equating Anonymous with Duke is an unbearable insult for Anonymous,
well, so be it.
Then, what can one say about Jennifer Rubin, who accuses me of
antisemitism? I must say that's rather thrilling coming from the
Commentary crowd.You want evidence of divided loyalties? How about
the "benign domino theory" that so many Jewish neoconservatives
talked to me about--off the record, of course--in the runup to the
Iraq war, the idea that Israel's security could be won by taking
out Saddam, which would set off a cascade of disaster for Israel's
enemies in the region? As my grandmother would say, feh! Do you
actually deny that the casus belli that dare not speak its name
wasn't, as I wrote in February 2003, a desire to make the world
safe for Israel? Why the rush now to bomb Iran, a country that
poses some threat to Israel but none--for the moment--to the United
States...unless we go ahead, attack it, and the mullahs unleash
Hezbollah terrorists against us? Do you really believe the mullahs
would stage a nuclear attack on Israel, destroying the third most
holy site in Islam and killing untold numbers of Muslims? I am not
ruling out the use of force against Iran--it may come to that--but
you folks seem to embrace it gleefully.
Furthermore, as a Jew, I find it offensive that the American
Jewish Committee would support such an ideologically unbalanced
publication as Commentary, one that spouts a Likudnik bellicosity
that is out of sync with the beliefs of the vast majority of
American Jews.
I have a few points, but first I want to note that I'll hereafter
refer to Joe Klein simply as "Joe," because I don't want to
besmirch the legacy of my great-grandfather, an honorable man who
had the same name.
Joe continues to question the patriotism of Jewish supporters of
the Iraq War, and now he says that the "divided loyalty" smear is
true because anonymous Jewish conservatives told him (off-the
record!!!) that invading Iraq would be beneficial to Israel's
security. Even if I were to take Joe at his word, something I am
not fully prepared to do, his assertion doesn't prove anything.
Just because some people who happened to be Jewish and conservative
supported the Iraq War and also thought it would be beneficial to
Israel, it doesn't mean they supported the war because they thought it would help Israel. It's not
clear from Joe's account how this came up in conversation anyway.
Did he ask his anonymous focus group of Jewish neocons why they
supported the invasion of Iraq, and they responded that they
supported the invasion because it was good for Israel? Or did he
pointedly ask the neocons how the invasion would affect Israel? And
even if he did speak to a few Jews who held this view, how could he
make the leap that it was those very people who determined U.S.
policy in Iraq? And what does Joe think about the majority of
Americans, of all religions, who supported the Iraq War? Were they
just dupes of the Jews?
Joe writes, "Do you actually deny that the casus belli that dare
not speak its name wasn't, as I wrote in February 2003, a desire to
make the world safe for Israel?" It would be nice if he offered any
evidence to back up his fringe claim that the U.S. went to war with
Iraq for Israel's sake. Instead, he merely notes that he also made
the charge more than five years ago, as if the fact that he keeps
repeating it gives it more credence.
He goes on to assert that Iran, which has been a hostile regime
toward the U.S. for nearly 30 years, which holds parliament
sessions in which members chant "Death to America," which
slaughtered American servicemen in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing,
which is currently sponsoring terrorist groups killing U.S. troops
in Iraq, is not a threat to the America, and the only reason
anybody would have any skittishness toward an Iranian nuclear
program were if they were a Jewish conservative who put Israel
before their own country.
Then Joe has the temerity to say that, as a Jew, he's offended
that the American Jewish Committee supports Commentary magazine.
Well, as a Jew, I'm offended that this hack thinks he can play
chief Rabbi and declare that the only acceptable set of political
beliefs for Jews is his brand of radical liberalism.
Several hikers ran across eight bares last week in
Gathland State Park.
A group of men between the ages of 40 and 60 reportedly disrobed
and started walking along the trail, said Sgt. Ken Turner, a
spokesman for the Department of Natural Resources.
About 10:30 a.m. Friday, a man was in the park when he saw the men
gathering near the Appalachian Trail. He then saw them hiking in
nothing but their shoes, Turner said. . . .
The officer soon found a group of 10 men, wearing clothes, and
determined they had been hiking naked, Turner said. . . .
No charges were filed, Turner said, because the officer did not
catch them hiking naked. . . .
Had they been caught in the act, they could have been charged with
indecent exposure, which carries a maximum $500 fine for first-time
offenders.
Turner could not confirm such an event exists, but said he has
heard of an unofficially proclaimed National Nude Hiking
Day.
Such, you see, are the bare facts of the case. This incident
happened in Maryland, not far from my home, but don't worry -- I
have an ironclad alibi.
The Indian government breaks up a poor family, jails the father, and
steals their pet bear. All in a day's work. We have all the
government we can bear.
How is it treasonous disloyalty to support America's ally
against America's enemies? Or does Joe Klein suppose that, if
Israel had been destroyed in the Yom Kippur war, her conquerors
would now be our friends? The real obstacle to Middle East peace is
the refusal of Israel's enemies to repudiate their repeated vows to
wipe Israel off the map.
Joe Klein seems to suggest that pro-Israel sentiment in the U.S.
is due entirely to the influence of American Jews, as if the other
98% of us are supporters of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. And his
use of "neoconservative" as a synonym for "Republican Jews" (or
"Jewish hawks") is equally misguided, demonstrating a profound
misunderstanding of the origins and content of neoconservatism.
Even if one is an anti-war
conservative, heeding Washington's warning against foreign
entanglements, this still does not validate Joe Klein's position,
since he's enthusiastically in favor of other foreign commitments:
the United Nations, carbon-emissions agreements, "humanitarian
intervention," etc. He very much reminds me of the old definition
of a liberal as someone who's afraid to take his own side in an
argument.
The notion that we could just waltz in and inject democracy into
an extremely complicated, devout and ancient culture smacked-still
smacks-of neocolonialist legerdemain. The fact that a great many
Jewish neoconservatives -- people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd
over at Commentary -- plumped for this war, and now for an even
more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided
loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make
the world safe for Israel. And then there is the question-made
manifest by the no-bid contracts offered U.S. oil companies by the
Iraqis-of two oil executives, Bush and Cheney, securing a new
source of business for their Texas buddies.
What does that say for all of the
non-Jewish support for the war in Iraq, as well as a tougher line
on Iran?
UPDATE: This comes from the comment
section of the post, on Time's Swampland blog:
And I'm very glad that people
(particularly Jewish commentators) are starting to speak openly
about the fact that the neocons' loyalties might be a bit
conflicted.
You've officially given cover to
anti-Semites everywhere, Joe. I hope you're proud of yourself.
The LA Times article notes that 1/3 of Americans
abstain from alcohol altogether, and that for many (including
members of the Southern Baptist Convention and of course the LDS),
that's a religious issue. This ties into the lobbying Cindy
McCain's company engages in, because so much of that lobbying has
been to keep regulation of beer at the absolute minimum. I know
Southern Baptists who, when their town went wet a few years ago,
boycotted any store that started selling beer, even if that meant
going twice as far for a gallon of milk. Imagine those people's
feelings about voting for a man whose eight (or so) houses are paid
for by his wife and children marketing caffeinated, fruit-flavored
malt liquor to teens. But apparently that's an issue of less
interest to the pundits than Barack Obama drinking orange juice
rather than coffee.
The author raises an important point. And we haven't even gotten
into the conflicted grey areas of how these poor, confused
religious voters will make ideological sense out of, say, pro-life
candidates who like wine coolers or abortionists who prefer tap
water or efforts to better regulate the lite beers served at gay
weddings. Pundits, get on this religious issue pronto--we're
suspending that whole separation of church and state advocacy thing
until you stop talking about Obama's orange juice.
McCain strategist Charlie Black's statement in a
Fortuneinterview that another terrorist attack on U.S.
soil "would be a big advantage" for McCain was certainly a
boneheaded one to make publicly, but Jim Geraghty assumes that Black's underlying
assertion is obviously true. I'm not so sure. Geraghty's correct
that a terrorist attack would shift the debate back to national
security, which is McCain's strong suit. However, the debate won't
necessarily get framed in a way that's favorable for McCain. If
there were another attack, Obama could point to it as the ultimate
proof that the "Bush-McCain" policies have failed to keep America
safe, and it may actually feed into the change narrative. The
inevitable onslaught of "what went wrong" news stories pointing to
policy errors will surely reinforce Obama.
Posted by W. James Antle, III on 6.24.08 @ 12:08PM
The best case scenario for the congressional Republicans is that
after the losses likely to occur this November, they will have no
choice but to listen to the party's small-government voices: Jeff
Flake, John Campbell, Ron Paul, Jeb Hensarling -- and Tom
McClintock.
This morning, The American Spectator hosted a Newsmaker Breakfast featuring Tom McClintock, the Republican state senator from California who ran to Arnold Schwarzenegger's right during the recall battle, and is now running for Congress in California's 4th Congressional District, which is northeast of Sacramento.
McClintock began his talk by saying, "The reason why I'm here is that Republicans decided they want Republicans who actually act like Republicans."
He said that there are always two parties in any society -- authoritarians and libertarians, and they both are an outgrowth of human nature. Some people want to be left alone, while others believe that they know what's best for people and want to control behavior.
The central theme for Republicans has always been freedom, he said, and Republicans have done better when they have adhered to that principle.
Despite the difficult terrain for conservative Republicans in California, he said that if "you scratch the surface, even the left coast of America is Reagan Country." Even there, he said, we're seeing the "beginning of the collapse of the green movement" as a result of energy costs, and there is a lot of support for offshore drilling.
McClintock displayed a clear libertarian streak on a number of issues. He said he wasn't sure about whether he'd vote for the FISA law. While doesn't think the Bill of Rights applies to overseas, he has civil liberties questions.
He had warm words for Ron Paul, saying that he agrees with much of his message, including his support for a return to the gold standard. He even was in agreement with Paul on some foreign policy issues, including that President Bush should have sought a declaration of war after 9/11 in accordance to the Constitution. He gave off the impression that he didn't support the initial invasion of Iraq, but said that he supported the surge because now that American troops are in harm's way, it's important that we give them all the resources they need to win.
On illegal immigration, he said he supports securing the border and enforcing employer sanctions, which over time result in a kind of "self-deportation." But he also said he was a strong proponent of legal immigration and an assimilation process that emphasized a common language and culture.
Asked about John McCain, McClintock noted he was a Fred Thompson man, and didn't consider McCain his second, third, fourth, or fifth choice. He said he'd wish McCain would stop talking about "man-made global warming." He did, however, give credit to McCain for taking a strong stand against earmarks, and said he would vote to sustain any McCain veto of a pork-laden spending bill.
I can easily think of plenty of Westerns superior to
Unforgiven: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,
Rio Bravo, The Wild Bunch, Stagecoach
(1939), High Noon, The Good, The Bad, and The
Ugly, etc. The Magnificent Seven is pretty good,
Wlady, but I have trouble watching it without comparing it
unfavorably to The Seven Samurai.
Then there are the genre-benders: Bring Me the Head of
Alfredo Garcia seems to be a period piece for the first 10
minutes or so, until the vehicles appear and you realize we're in
the present day (well, in 1974, but you get the point). William
Keisling includes Star Wars on his
list, and there's certainly a case to be made for it.
The Washington Post column that provoked Quin's ire is
mostly about two bogus allegations against Karl Rove: (a) his
supposedly conspiratorial role in Plamegate, a pet liberal myth
that Bob Novak long
ago demolished, and (b) the nonsensical claim that Rove
masterminded the prosecution of Alabama's corrupt former Gov. Don
Siegelman. Rove's chief accuser in that case, Jill Simpson of
Rainsville, Ala., "is, to put it bluntly, a nut," as John
Hiinderaker of Powerline eloquently stated the matter.
None of that bears on the criticism of Rove from the "GOP
insider on the Hill," which is sort of tacked onto the end of the
"what's-Karl-up-to-now" lead item in Michael Abramowitz's "In the
Loop" column.
James, your mention of 1998 as the point at which congressional
Republicans stopped doing anything "to earn their keep" puts you in
agreement with Bob Barr, who frequently mentions an omnibus
appropriations package passed that year as symbolic of the
surrender of the Spirit of '94. As he
told Bloomberg TV, that '98 deal "completely shattered whatever
... credibility [Republicans] might have had as the party of
smaller government."
Having a Republican in the White House, however, was bad for the
congressional GOP in that the original raison d'etre of
the Class of '94 had been opposition to the Clinton agenda. Once
the Clintons left town, it was like, "What are we here for?" And
the answer turned out to be big-government idiocy like No Child
Left Behind.
On Friday, George Wittman
warned Brussels to leave Dublin alone. The rest of Europe has
tried to ignore the Irish no vote on the Lisbon treaty, even though
the unanimous consent of all European Union nations is supposed to
be required. If European bureaucrats think they can strong arm
Ireland into going along, says Wittman, they've got another thing
coming.
Why haven't other nations joined the Irish? They haven't had the
chance. As I write in
Doublethink today, Ireland was the only country in the European
Union to even hold a referendum. In 2005 an eerily similar piece of
legislation was put to referendum in ten countries. French and
Dutch voters rejected it. This time, the politicians decided to cut
the people out of the decision making process entirely.
One normally hesitates to disagree with both Wlady and Phil,
especially when gunfights are involved. However, the best Western
of all time was clearly Tombstone, thanks
to Val Kilmer's brilliant turn as Doc Holliday.
Phil, I sense a generation gap. How can "Unforgiven" be
considered a western if it's represents the beginning of Clint
Eastwood's guilt trip over his earlier violent roles? In any case,
for my money the best cowboy movie ever is "The Magnificent Seven"
(1962), which when I saw it, at age 12, represented everything I
could ever expect from a genre whose hokiness was not yet obvious
to me. Brynner, McQueen, Bronson, Buchholtz, Coburn and even Robert
Vaughn -- if I remember right only the first two survive -- in a
real test of manhood, heroism, altruism, and decency. After that,
it's all been downhill.
Here's the beginning of an email I just received from Hillary
Clinton:
Dear Shawn,
You have been such an inspiration to me during this campaign
-- your commitment and your boundless enthusiasm made everything we
accomplished in the last 17 months possible. So as I continue to
make sure your voices are heard, I wanted to say a special thank
you for all the hard work you did on my behalf.
Last month, I wrote that
while McCain has been a fiece proponent of ethanol subsidies even
while campaigning in Iowa, Obama shamelessly pandered on the issue.
Now, the Washington Post is having trouble figuring out what Obama's actual
current position is.
Well... I do think in retrospect it's clear that some of the
things Rove did to help Bush win tough elections in 2000 and 2004
did not help the Republican Party as a whole, even if both Rove and
the president played a big role recruiting and electing Republican
candidates from 2002-04. Many of these big ideas -- the
prescription drug benefit, amnesty for illegal immigrants, No Child
Left Behind -- divided the GOP from its base. Both parties in
Congress played a role in Iraq, but the White House took the lead.
But, as Quin suggests, congressional Republicans were in a malaise
before Bush even came to this town. From 1998 on, it's hard to
think of much the Republican majority did on its own to earn its
keep.
Gee, Quin, why don't you tell us how you really feel?
In defense of the unnamed Hill source, the prescription drug bill
was a White House initiative that
Rove defended:
Medicare was modernized with a prescription-drug
benefit, now used by 39 million seniors. Giving seniors the drugs
they need helped them avoid expensive operations and long hospital
stays. The result is better health care for seniors at a lower cost
to them and at a lower cost than expected to
taxpayers.
Republicans in Congress are culpable for many bad things, but one
could argue that the Bush White House -- where Rove was the chief
political strategist -- acted the part of an enabler. A big part of
the GOP's problem during their 12-year congressional majority is
that their Senate majority was never large enough to stop a
filibuster. Beginning with the budget showdown of 1995-96, Senate
Republicans were an obtacle to the reforms that their House
counterparts favored.
Rather than let Coldplay get a bad rap, Dan Flynn lists some other famous rock
ripoffs. I actually never noticed the similiarity between the
Strokes' "Last Nite" and Tom Petty's "American Girl," but now that
Flynn mentions it is pretty obvious.
The Fool(s) on the Hill see the sun going down.... going down on
Republican congressional political hopes for this fall, that is.
And what does the fool (or do the fools, plural) do? BLAME KARL
ROVE. Idiots. Please quote me again: Idiots.
I have heard this before, but now it's in print. Today in In the
Loop in the Wash Post, a "GOP insider on the Hill" said this:
"Republicans say Karl Rove is the architect. He's the architect of
our demise."
If I could, I would find out who this idiot is and throttle him.
I guess he doesn't think the GOP demise on the Hill has anything to
do with the Republicans' own terrible, inexcusable, pathetic,
craven, cowardly, unprincipled, whore-ish behavior from 1998
through 2006 in full, and 2007 and 2008 in part. If he doesn't
think that, though, he's delusional. Earmarks rising by something
like 1800 percent (that's off the top of my head, but I think it's
accurate). Domestic discretionary spending rising for eight years
at well over twice the inflation rate. The prescription drug bill.
The Farm Bills of 2002 and 2008. The K Street Project and all of
Tom DeLay's hardball tactics with lobbyists, his shakedowns (if you
no hire one of our Republican guys, you no get access!), and his
pork tradeoffs. Jack Abramoff. Rep. Foley. Scanlon. Duke
Cunningham. Refusal to do any serious ethics reforms. Abandonment
of Contract-with-America ethics rules, including the gift bans and
the price limits on free food. And so on and so on and so on.
Ineptness on top of ineptness, cravenness on top of cravenness,
corruption on top of corruption.
Instead, these guys still are trying to pin all their misfortune
on Karl Rove.
Sorry, Phil, it's High Noon, by a country mile. Two
words: Grace Kelly.
What's weird to me is that, for all the tribute paid to Clint
Eastwood, none of
those critics named The Outlaw Josey Wales, which has
two of the best gunslinger lines in cinematic history: "Are you
gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?" and "Dyin' ain't much
of a livin', boy."
Jesse Walker notes these choices for the top Westerns of all time. For me,
Unforgiven is still the best. The acting and depth of
character exceed other great Westerns, and it also serves as an
insightful commentary on the genre.
It sounds to me like McCain or his advisers have been talking to
Newt Gingrich. He's been a long-time advocate of awarding prizes,
which are a major part of his poll-tested Platform of the American People (the numbers in
parentheses refect the level of public support):
--Prizes should be given to companies and individuals that
invent creative ways to solve problems.
--We support giving large financial prizes to companies and
individuals who invent an affordable car that gets 100 miles to the
gallon. (77 to 15)
---We support giving a large financial prize to the first
company or individual who invents new ways to successfully cut
pollution. (79 to 18)
We support giving a large financial prize to the first company
or individual who invents a new, safer way to dispose of nuclear
waste products. (79 to 16)
Gingrich also
proposed a $20 billion reward for a private firm that completes
the first Mars mission.
Apparently, Chief Justice Roberts is a Bob
Dylan fan. From the Sprint decision:
The absence of any right to the substantive recovery means that
respondents cannot benefit from the judgment they seek and thus
lack Article III standing. "When you got nothing, you got nothing
to lose." Bob Dylan, Like A Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisited
(Columbia Records 1965).
JP is going to be on Neil Cavuto's show today at 4 discussing
John McCain's proposal to give $300 million anyone who can build a
better mousetrap, er, car battery.
Quin, the most interesting detail in
that Novak column is, "House Republican leaders . . . are in a
state of terror over their party's desperate condition." Based on
recent off-the-record remarks by some conservatives, I'd
characterize the mood more as "paralyzed by bleak depression," but
if Novak prefers "a state of terror," that's close enough. It is
fair to say that Republicans generally are wallowing in a slough of
despair, and talk openly of the possibility of a Senate with as few
as 41 or 42 Republicans next year, no matter who wins the White
House.
(Via
Hot Air.) While Barack Obama warns that Republicans will wage a
"fear" campaign against him, MSNBC's Todd suggests that the "just
another politician" label will deflate Obama's image as a
fresh-faced reformer.
Meanwhile, on the fear front, David Freddoso of National
Review is supposed
to be churning out a book entitled, "The Case Against Barack
Obama," in time for the fall campaign.
Today,
Bob Novak's excellent column explains why it would be smart for
John McCain to embrace Rep. Paul Ryan's sweeping economic reform
plans. But I might go farther than Novak. I think McCain ought to
not only embrace Ryan's platform, but should at least give strong
consideration to welcoming Ryan himself on his ticket. Next to
Chris Cox, Ryan is emerging as the best choice for conservatives to
rally around for Veep. Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes would be an
awfully sweet pickup for Republicans in a tough year. Just by
driving up the ticket's vote totals in Ryan's own district -- which
elected liberal Les Aspin for 22 years -- Ryan may well be able to
deliver the state to McCain.
Posted by Robert Stacy McCain on 6.23.08 @ 12:29PM
The Supreme Court did not issue a ruling today in the
Heller case on the constitutionality of the D.C. gun ban;
the decision is now expected Wednesday. Court-watcher
Jason Harrow speculates:
Based on the tenor of oral argument, it is widely
expected that the individual rights view of the Second Amendment
will prevail in the guns case, which means that it appears that
Justice Scalia may well be writing the opinion for the
majority.
Since 1976, when the District stripped its residents of their
Second Amendment rights, more than 8,400 murders have been
committed in the nation's capital -- which became the nation's
murder capital in 1991, when there were 479 homicides in
the city in a single year.
He was 71. I remember running into him at the takeout counter
of the Carnegie Deli a few years ago while I was waiting for a
grilled knockwurst sandwich and he was there for the pastrami.
Sadly, if you've attended a graduation ceremony in the
last 15 years, chances are you heard from a Democratic Party
official, liberal activist, or someone within the mainstream media.
Young America's Foundation has kept a record. . . . Our analysis
shows that the overwhelming majority of those who can be classified
on an ideological spectrum are left of center. . . . By our count,
there were only six recognizable conservatives this year - less
than one-fifth the number of liberal speakers.
YAF has the full list of
this year's commencement speakers at the U.S. News Top 100 colleges
and universities.
With the primary contest over, I asked Obama to
clarify his remarks on NAFTA. "I think that sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and
amplified," he concedes. Did his? "Politicians are always
guilty of that, and I don't exempt myself." During a debate before
the Texas and Ohio primaries, Obama said, "We should use the hammer
of a potential opt-out" to force Canada and Mexico to renegotiate
NAFTA. Now, however, he says he doesn't plan to unilaterally reopen
NAFTA, that he had just spoken with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen
Harper that morning (Harper had called to congratulate him on the
nomination), and that "I'm looking forward to a conversation with
him. I'm a big believer in opening up a dialogue and figuring out
how we can make this work for all people."
(Emphasis mine.)
While your typical lying politician will at least say something
along the lines of "I misspoke," Obama takes it to a new level. He
describes his lie in the passive voice, saying, "rhetoric gets
overheated and amplified" as if he has no agency, like an
exasperated child caught stealing Hostess cupcakes from the school
cafeteria who explains, "but everybody was doing it!" Keep in mind
that during the primaries, at the time in question, Obama economic
adviser Austan Goolsbee had visited Canada and told them that his
anti-NAFTA rhetoric was just about election time pandering for
votes in Ohio. Back then, the Obama campaign vigorously pushed back
against the story, but now we see that it was absolutely accurate.
It's one thing if in the midst of a debate, or a fierce exchange
with a reporter, a candidate loses it and says something nasty.
That's getting "overheated." But a calculated and sustained effort
to win over anti-trade liberal voters in a Democratic primary by
bashing NAFTA incessantly, only to say later that you didn't really
mean it, is an entirely different phenomenon. Obama wants to usher
in a "new kind of politics," and now we're learning that what he
really means is that he'd devise new ways to lie.
Posted by Robert Stacy McCain on 6.23.08 @ 11:40AM
Philip, your mention of hubris on Barack Obama's part reminds me
of late March, when I saw Hillary Clinton
campaigning Pennsylvania while Obama
vacationed in the Virgin Islands. The time Obama lost on the
campaign trail was bad enough, but that trip sent a completely
wrong message to voters. It's cold in Pennsylvania in March, and
most Pennsylvania Democrats can't afford tropical vacations. In a
state where the hard-hit industrial economy was the biggest issue,
pictures of Obama splashing in the surf at St. Thomas were not
what rank-and-file Democrats wanted to see.
While most of us would agree that Barack Obama's decision to
forgo public financing is unlikely to swing any actual votes, one
constituency it may make a difference with is among the media,
which is obsessed with the issue. David Broder has a critical Obama column today
noting both his financing flip flop and his refusal to accept the
McCain proposal on town hall meetings. This comes on top of that
absurd Obama seal that was unveiled last week, which even the
New York Times has a snarky post about. Marc Ambinder notes the
hubris. I remember several times during the
campaign already in which the pre-mature coronation of Obama went
to his head and caused problems, most notably in the days leading
up to the New Hampshire primary. Now Obama has gone from being an
insurgent in the primary to running as if he is the incumbent
president in the general election. And from being the candidate who
would usher in the "new kind of politics" to a candidate who has
become the most craven sort of politician. I wouldn't be surprised
if over the next few weeks we start to see more critical coverage
of Obama.
Perhaps not the best place to take a man with a well-documented
proclivity for young prostitutes, but it's good to hear the guy
will have a chance to get away from it all.
Doubtless "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal
Skull" is as bad as James Bowman says it is. I fear we will
continue to get action movies with superannuated heroes. My sources
in Hollywood tell me the next two to hit the silver screen with be,
"Indiana Jones and the Prostate of Doom," followed shortly by
"Rambo's Gums go Bad."
I have been trying to warn people that Bobby Jindal needs some
seasoning. I remain convinced that, long-term, Jindal has the right
stuff to be THE future of the conservative movement (as
I have written numerous times). But he's not there yet, and
McCain would be utterly foolish to choose him as Veep. Today, he
takes some flak from Jeff Crouere, a thoughtful,
conservative/moderate-conservative radio host and writer in New
Orleans whom I have known for years and whose judgment I consider
superb. His judgment is mostly in line with what
I reported here a few weeks back, namely that Jindal is making
mistakes and is too isolated to have a real handle on things. (And
Crouere was NOT one of my sources for that report.)
Again, I have been rooting on Bobby Jindal since before
99.99999% of all conservative politicos had even heard of Bobby
Jindal. I have no ax to grind; indeed, I am utterly invested in his
success. But I have tremendous respect for the incredibly
challenging demands of the presidency, AND for the reality that the
vice president could become president at any moment, which is why I
am flabbergasted that so many people think so little of how much
experience and seasoning should be a requirement for either job. We
would all be better off to let Jindal take his lumps, work through
them, recover from them, and beat the bad guys in Louisiana for
four years, BEFORE he gets elevated to a national ticket.
Posted by W. James Antle, III on 6.22.08 @ 11:58PM
These comments are also a bit disingenuous given Holbrooke's
own position on Iraq and his boasts that Hillary, the Democrat likeliest to make
him secretary of state, "is probably more assertive and willing to
use force than her husband." So would Holbrooke's foreign-policy
team have invaded Cuba too, as long as it was popular and the
Democratic Party's official position?
It's not nice to hit people when they're down, but in the case
of mortgage-scandal implicated Richard Holbrooke, maybe we should
make an exception. Holbrooke, who's been angling to become
secretary of state in a new Democratic administration, once again
reveals that by temperament he is less diplomat and more partisan
hack. In Sunday's New York Times Book Review, toward the
end of what to that point was a most readable
review of Michael Dobbs new book on the Cuban missile crisis,
he tacks on this, totally, utterly gratuitously:
It is hard to read this book without thinking about
what would have happened if the current administration had faced
such a situation -- real weapons of mass destruction only 90 miles
from Florida; the Pentagon urging "surgical" air attacks followed
by an invasion; threatening letters from the leader of a real
superpower and senators calling the president "weak" just weeks
before a midterm Congressional election.
Life does not offer us a chance to play out alternative history,
but it is not unreasonable to assume that the team that invaded
Iraq would have attacked Cuba. And if Dobbs is right, Cuba and the
Soviet Union would have fought back, perhaps launching some of the
missiles already in place. One can only conclude that our nation
was extremely fortunate to have had John F. Kennedy as president in
October 1962.
Not only are the two situations utterly not comparable, but
Holbrooke isn't even curious enough to wonder why, if say they were
comparable, it took JFK no more than two weeks to resolve the
crisis whereas Bush spent a year and a half just getting ready to
move against Saddam Hussein.
Speculators bet that oil prices will go higher, and if
they do, they sell the paper to concerns that will actually take
the oil. If prices go lower, the speculators lose their money.
But get this. The speculators don't have to pay cash to buy the
paper contracts. They use credit, so it is easy to play this Las
Vegas-type game.
Now, every time the speculators bid up the paper price of an oil
barrel, companies like Shell and Exxon Mobil raise the price of gas
at the pump, justifying the increase by pointing to the paper
price.
That's why the price of gas is rising so quickly in the USA.
Speculators gamble, and big oil goes along for the ride. But when
the paper price of oil drops, the pump price often does not because
the speculators can always bid the price up again. So the oil
companies just wait.
This is obviously a rigged game, and working Americans are getting
hurt big time.
This "rigged game" is called capitalism, Bill. It ill
behooves a man who
earns $9 million a year to badmouth the free market -- another
rich ignoramus like those liberal Hollywood blowhards O'Reilly
rightly scorns.
The fact that speculators borrow money to buy futures does not
mean it's "easy to play this Las Vegas-type game." Lenders have to
evaluate the risks involved, just as they evaluate the risks of
giving you a loan to buy a home or a car. And if the speculator
goes bankrupt, he's not going to get any more credit, so he's out
of the game.
If some economics grad student needs a dissertation topic, let
me suggest deconstructing the populist idiocy of O'Reilly's
"Talking Points Memo."
While some would cite this NYTstory as evidence that
waterboarding and other forms of harsh interrogation methods are
unnecessary, because it features a soft-spoken, non-Arabic speaking
interrogator Duce Martinez getting terrorists Abu Zubaydah and
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to cooperate by earning their trust, it is
important to note that Martinez was able to play "good cop" only
after the captive terrorists were already
subjected to waterboarding.
The article says that the new techniques were used only if
"officers believed the prisoner was holding out" and "[t]he tough
treatment would halt as soon as the prisoner expressed a desire to
talk. Then the interrogator would be brought in."
Zubaydah cracked within 35 seconds of waterboarding according to
the article, but KSM "proved especially resistant, chanting from
the Koran, doling out innocuous information or offering obvious
fabrications."
KSM was subjected to "various harsh techniques, including
waterboarding, used about 100 times over a period of two weeks,"
and cooperated on and off, but mostly with Martinez.
But here's what we got out of it, according to the article:
By then, whether it was a result of a fear of
waterboarding, the patient trust-building mastered by Mr. Martinez
or the demoralizing effects of isolation, Mr. Mohammed and some
other prisoners had become quite compliant. In fact, according to
several officials, they had become a sort of terrorist focus group,
advising their captors on their fellow extremists' goals, ideology
and tradecraft.
Asked, for example, how he would smuggle explosives
into the United States, Mr. Mohammed told C.I.A officers that he
might send a shipping container from Japan loaded with personal
computers, half of them packed with bomb materials, according to a
foreign official briefed on the episode.
"It was to understand the mind of a terrorist -- how
a terrorist would do certain things," the foreign official said of
the discussions of hypothetical attacks. Thus did the architect of
9/11 become, in effect, a counterterrorism adviser to the American
government he professed to despise.
I've long been torn on the use of waterboarding or other forms
of harsh interrogation, or torture, or however else you choose to
describe it. I have no moral qualms about torturing a monster on
the level of KSM and never bought the idea that the Geneva
Conventions apply when fighting an enemy who doesn't wear a uniform
or recognize any international codes of conduct. But at the same
time, I am aware of the tremendous PR cost associated with the U.S.
using such techniques. I'd be perfectly willing for America to take
that PR hit if doing so was necessary to protect the nation. So
really, for me, the debate comes down to efficacy, to how much
useful information can be extracted by the use of such techniques
that we otherwise could not obtain from standard methods. I think
this story leaves that an open question.
Today's long NY Timesstory on the interrogation of Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed uses the actual name of his interrogator, an ex-CIA agent
who still works in counterterrorism:
Mr. Martinez declined to be interviewed; his role
was described by colleagues. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, director of
the C.I.A., and a lawyer representing Mr. Martinez asked that he
not be named in this article, saying that the former interrogator
believed that the use of his name would invade his privacy and
might jeopardize his safety. The New York Times, noting that Mr.
Martinez had never worked undercover and that others involved in
the campaign against Al Qaeda have been named in news articles and
books, declined the request. (An editors' note on this issue has been posted on
The Times's Web site.)
Toward the end of the article, the Times
also reveals his current employer, and notes the fact that he still
consults the CIA to train other officers in "the arcane art of
tracking terrorists." Thanks to the NYT,
which raised a tremendous stink about Valerie Plame's outing,
Martinez is now incredibly easy to locate.
This week's polls showing Barack Obama with small,
but significant, single-digit leads among likely voters are
certainly welcomed by Democrats, but recent history hasn't been
kind to early frontrunners. . . .
As hard as it may be to believe, Michael Dukakis was leading the
first George Bush by an average of 8.2 percent in June of 1988.
Bush went on to win the general election by 7.8
points.
The question is whether the Obama campaign will follow the
McGovern/Dukakis "Democratic meltdown" pattern, or whether John
McCain's campaign will emulate the 1992-96 "lackluster Republican"
pattern.
Clinton's campaign was $22.5 million in debt at the end
of May. . . .
On Thursday night, Clinton will introduce Obama to a group of her
top donors at the Mayflower Hotel in the District, a bid to smooth
relations between her supporters and the presumptive Democratic
nominee.
Obama
raised $22 million in May, and finished the month with more
than $43 million cash on hand. At this rate, he'll raise another
$100 million before Election Day. So why does the cash-rich winner
need a personal introduction to the supporters of the bankrupt
loser?
Posted by Robert Stacy McCain on 6.22.08 @ 11:14AM
And the other 7 in 10 deny it!
The Washington Post will probably advocate waterboarding to
force the rest of you bigots to 'fess up. Amazing how the response
to the 42nd question on a
44-question survey becomes the A1 headline.
