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Saturday, March 7, 2009
It's a Duck
Posted by on 3.7.09 @ 6:45PM
Green trade e-zine "Climate Wire" reports this week:
Death by sound bites? The language of the cap-and-trade debate
For Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), it is "cap and invest." [NASA] climatologist [sic; he's an astronomer] James Hansen says it is "tax and trade." Then there are "cap and cash back" and "cap and dividend," mottoes promoted by environmental investing expert Peter Barnes to describe proposals to cap greenhouse gases, often called "cap and trade." Aware of the ability of slogans to drive political debate, policymakers are ramping up their rhetoric about global warming like never before, and analysts say all sides have opportunities to gain political traction by choosing their words carefully."
Please allow me to help. There's no need for a "Top 10 Things to Call the Global Warming Tax."
It's a global warming tax.
It's just a very expensive one, 4-5 times as expensive as simply taxing emissions, according to center-left economist William Pizer of Resources for the Future. But that expense added to an already regressive energy tax is ok, you see, because "cap-and-[whatever]" isn't transparent, but hidden in the form of Soviet-style production quotas. It's also cloaked in the gauzy (and also quite clearly misleading) rhetoric of being somehow a "market mechanism", because buying and selling are involved.
As such it allows Members of Congress and the Obama administration to say they supported something other than a "tax". It's a "revenue measure", at $80 billion per year approaching the largest such tax ever imposed, the (expiring) tax to pay for WWII ($107 billion annually in inflation-adjusted dollars). Now that it turns out the Obama budget footnotes taht this may prove very, very conservative, it seems likely to be nearly three times the size of that tax as was originally reported. (Worse, it turns out that this is the source of the revenue funding Obama's ballyhooed "tax cuts for 95% of Americans", though it gives most of us less than it takes.)
If Republicans can't make this stick, their problems are as serious as some suggest. Yet to date the response has been halting and even took a while before they called it a "tax", though they still play the game by agreeing to use "cap and trade", losing their audience.
Remember, Al Gore told the Financial Times in the November 4-5, 2006 weekend edition that the failed - much smaller - 1993 BTU energy tax proposal was largely responsible for the Democrats losing Congress, indicating that going through the front door maybe wasn't the best idea anymore.
So, Democrats obviously "remember BTU". It's unclear the other team does. I briefed a Republican senator for nearly two hours on the cap-and-[whatever] issue, after which he asked, "what does ‘BTU' mean?" I suggested he think of it not as a British Thermal Unit measurement of energy content, but as a verb. As in "to Bork".
A New Nickname for the King
Posted by on 3.7.09 @ 10:21AM
Jim Lakely suggests The Czar of the Teleprompter.
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman's Blogospheric Boot Camp
Posted by on 3.7.09 @ 9:53AM
Years of studying the blogosphere have revealed basic principles of traffic enhancement, which I've never bothered to explain in any systematic fashion. However, three points are worthy of careful attention:
- The blogosphere is a community. It rewards those who contribute. Generosity is rewarded and non-cooperation is punished.
- Aggregation is the most important utlity of a blog. If you observe what Glenn Reynolds does at Instapundit, or what Matt Drudge does at the Drudge Report, or the automatically updated feed at Memeorandum, you understand that the must-read sites are those that provide a steady stream of links to outside content.
- The principle of reciprocity is what makes the blogosphere hum. Use analytical software to find who's linking you, and link back to them, thus creating a positive-feedback loop of traffic.
This morning the method was demonstrated for the benefit of a protege (and, incidentally, to promote a worthy cause) as "Full Metal Jacket Saturday."
Friday, March 6, 2009
Siegelman Still Guilty
Posted by on 3.6.09 @ 5:59PM
A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the five of the seven counts of the conviction against crooked former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. I wrote about this case in numerous blog posts last year. Here's one of them. The internal link is wrong somehow, it should lead to THIS MOST IMPORTANT ONE. And this full story on the case.
Oddly enough, I have met Siegelman only a very few times. But each time I met him, he looked me in the eye and told me a bald-faced lie. Just sayin....
Hillyer, Cox, and the Art of the Liberal Hit Piece
Posted by on 3.6.09 @ 5:28PM
Quin Hillyer's gem of an investigative article looking into Time magazine's attack on Chris Cox is a must read. The ins-and-outs of SEC goings-on under Cox are well explained. But the real point here is that the Time piece on Cox (for the record, a former colleague from Reagan days) is a typical example of the problem conservatives have had through the years. To wit: liberals controlling the mainstream media and setting the template for what is and is not the "truth." The objective of Time was to discredit not just Cox, a conservative star with a great deal of respect, but conservatism as applied in the SEC. So, make it up when the facts don't fit the premise, a game which Quin has quite ably exposed.
The very real problem in this instance for liberals, as it will be throughout the next four years, is that victory has now brought responsibility. They have a free hand to implement and prove the worth of the philosophy conservatives -- and the bulk of the American people -- have rejected with considerable regularity for decades. Rejected for reasons too many to go into here. And, surprise surprise, as the stock market is vividly recording, yet again the liberal view of how the world works is shown not to be working. As conservatives have insisted, it never does. So the need is for the other side to do everything it can by re-setting the template, to control the narrative, to ensure at all costs that liberalism escapes the tag for what is happening right now -- with liberal hands on the wheel.
Quin has done a great job of, piece by piece, charge by charge, stick by stick, showing up this Time article on Cox for exactly what Quin correctly labels it to be: a hit job.
The Anti-Gay Marriage Case for Gay Marriage
Posted by on 3.6.09 @ 5:04PM
Doug Kmiec has apparently come out in favor of the courts overturning Proposition 8 in California.
No Seat For You
Posted by on 3.6.09 @ 3:49PM
The Minnesota Supreme Court has denied Al Franken's motion to have the disputed election results certified, which would have paved the way for him to be seated in the U.S. Senate. The legal battle continues.
Norm Coleman legal spokesman Ben Ginsburg offered the following reaction:
"The Minnesota Supreme Court's decision is a victory for Minnesota Law and Minnesotans. This wise ruling will ensure that Harry Reid, Al Franken and Chuck Schumer cannot short-circuit Minnesota Law in their partisan power play.
"We have proven that there are serious issues with the vote count in this election. There remain thousands of wrongly rejected ballots that must be counted. There are hundreds of votes that have been counted twice. And, the Contest Court's Friday the 13th ruling now has created a new set of rules so that potentially thousands of similar illegal votes are included in the current election day and recount totals. The court must resolve these potentially fatal problems if the court is to fulfill its obligation to certify the number of ‘lawfully cast ballots' for each candidate.
"Despite Al Franken's efforts to disenfranchise thousands of Minnesota voters, Norm Coleman is committed to ensuring a legal and fair election. This ruling stops the Franken/Reid/Schumer power play in its tracks, and puts the decision back in Minnesota where it belongs."
The Department of Bad Economic Ideas
Posted by on 3.6.09 @ 10:51AM
It's getting to be a pretty big department, I know, but this latest idea being considered, according to the Washington Post, is especially mind-boggling. Under the proposal, the government would potentially put up close to $1 trillion to subsidize the losses of wealthy hedge fund and private equity investors in an effort to entice them into lending more money.
Today, the plan, dubbed Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TARF):
Here's how a typical TALF deal would work: A hedge fund uses $1 million of its own money and gets a $9 million loan from the Fed, payable after three years, to buy a $10 million asset-backed security, which finances consumer loans. Hoping that the market for these assets recovers, the hedge fund would hold the asset for three years.
If the security rises in value to $11 million, the investor would keep the profit, essentially doubling the initial investment. The government, meanwhile, would consider the deal a success because consumer lending was spurred.
If the value fell below $9 million, the hedge fund would lose its down payment but nothing more. The Treasury, using bailout funds approved by Congress, would cover the next set of losses, with the Fed ultimately on the hook for anything more.
This is utterly insane. The reason we're in this mess in the first place is that banks took risky bets using high leverage within an easy money environment, and those are exactly the conditions that this plan would recreate, and then some. What is happening in credit markets right now is a perfectly natural reaction to the recklessness of the earlier part of this decade. Left on its own, eventually investments wll begin to look attractive to those who have cash, and things will recover. Nobody wants to hear it. Nobody wants to accept it. And our president has declared this point of view out of bounds. But simply doing nothing is a far better alternative to this type of central engineering that will only perpetuate the disease. It's like if, following a heart attack, your cardiologist told you to eat two apple smoked bacon double cheeseburgers before bed every night.
The Politics of Personal Distraction
Posted by on 3.6.09 @ 10:42AM
Good thing Rush Limbaugh has big shoulders. He'll need them now that Barack Obama and his Clintonista reunion band have put the full weight of the Unites States government on top of him.
It's great that maestros of slime like Begala, Carville and Greenberg (What? Did Sidney Blumenthal miss the reunion lunch?) are able to get their young Bartlebys in the press to trumpet in breathless tones their genius for having President Obama and the House and Senate Democrats target Rush as the centerpiece of their "distract America campaign." But like their "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" campaign back in 1993-1994, "Rush is the Republican Party" will backfire by ultimately re-booting the conservative movement.
It's really remarkable that the Clintons and Obamas didn't find themselves as soul mates sooner. After all, they both love the political tactic of ding-dong-ditch at the front door while sneaking through the side window.
Team Obama, made up mostly of the warmed-over leftovers from Team Clinton, is drawing from that old Clinton gambit in the La Affaire Limbaugh. Team Obama is using Rush to distract the American public from what they really want to do: regulatory impositions at the Federal Communications Commission on media ownership, local media diversity and content requirements for station licensing, which will in effect impose a kind of "Fairness Doctrine" without calling it as such.
But here's the problem: Rush is a smart man, who has understood his role in this whole ridiculous media drama, and is willing to play along, because with 20 million listeners, a host of bloggers and local and syndicated radio hosts who admire and support him, he can more than deal with this amateurish PR offensive. If nothing else, he may actually get some better ratings in places like San Francisco,Vermont and parts of the former Soviet Union, where Obama loyalists are tuning in to find out what the fuss is all about.
One of Rush's greatest gifts is the ability to never talk down or underestimate his listenership or the American public, something the Obama administration and Liberal radio has done routinely. The listening , thinking public won't be fooled by these diversionary tactics. There is a reason that there are few, if any commercially viable "progressive" radio programs. And a reason that "Rush babies" populate this country. This very conversation sharpens the focus on the issues Rush has been talking about, and others (like my husband, Fred), have been fighting for for over 20 years. Friends like Mark Levin, Sean Hannity and others provide the kind of echo chamber the Left would love to control for themselves.
This little "high-school Harry" exercise has revealed that the Obama administration would rather focus on the destruction of one man with the full force of the office of the President of the United States, while Americans' wealth dissipates in platitudes, earmarks and break-out play groups. Even people who voted for President Obama know instinctively that this is more than unfair; it is dangerous. For once, I agree that this administration supports transparency: it's crystal clear that these people will do anything to achieve their socialist utopia, the America of our Founding Fathers be damned. This must not happen, and Rush, we are with you.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 3.6.09 @ 10:18AM
- Today's youth: a bunch of literary nancies (Washington Post)
- Urban planning on a small scale (Wired)
- Ted Kennedy is getting knighted. "Um, why?" ask the British (Telegraph)
- Obama laughs at entrepreneurs as he torches their dreams (City Journal)
- Poor Meghan McCain. Her thoughtless dad's actions have left her dateless (Daily Beast)
It's Not the Russian Revolution
Posted by on 3.6.09 @ 10:05AM
In the "You mean, Kennedy's been shot" category, we get this from David Brooks, who has entered into negotiations with the Obama White House:
The White House folks didn’t say this, but I got the impression they’d be willing to raise taxes on the bottom 95 percent of earners as part of an overall package.
You heard about how curiosity killed the cat? Well, information seems to be bringing David back.
Those Green Collar Jobs Better Come Quick
Posted by on 3.6.09 @ 9:54AM
Unemployment rate hits 8.1 percent.
Karl Rove: 'It Won't Work'
Posted by on 3.6.09 @ 7:59AM
A
few days before CPAC, I learned that Karl Rove was following my
Twitter feed, and the scary thing about that -- even more than
the possibility of Karl researching all the nasty crap I've said
about him before we became BFFs -- was that I might become
"influential." So imagine my horror when Jennifer
Rubin blogged the latest
Rove column:
Eloquent words and "spin" work better in a campaign than they do while governing. And as Mr. Obama is discovering, the laws of economics won't change, even for him.
OK, here's me, Feb. 15, at AmSpecBlog:
The fiscal fantasies of Hope are about to slam head-on into the economic realities of the bond market. Economic reality is an unmovable object, and liberals are about to discover that Hope is not an irresistible force. Or, in fewer words: It Won't Work.
No specialized knowledge or advanced education is needed to understand why Obamanomics won't work. All you need is two eyes, a brain, and the common sense of common people. Ignore the polls. Ordinary Americans who are watching their hard-earned retirement savings evaporate in the stock-market meltdown caused by Obamanomics are beginning to realize that Hope is a poor substitute for basic economics.
As bad as the stock-market slide has been, try to imagine the crisis that could ensue if the bond market gets the jitters. Associated Press on Wednesday reported:
Analysts are anticipating that the Treasury Department on Thursday will announce plans [to] auction $60 billion in notes next week. The government has been issuing debt this year at a record pace to finance its bailouts. So far, auctions have been met with solid demand. But investors have gotten warier about buying Treasurys, particularly long-term ones.
No sign yet of a doomsday scenario, but these massive deficit-spending schemes piled one atop each other are placing unprecedented pressure on capital markets already ratcheted drum-tight by the bursting of the housing bubble and related financial fallout. Obama's budget is a fantasy, and while bonds tend to go up when stocks go down (people shifting capital from risk to security), we're now on such shaky ground -- fiscal, financial and monetary policy all going where no policies have gone before -- that the future is beyond prediction, certainly for a mere amateur like me.
People are scared. People are angry. They're "going Galt." They're planning a National Tea Party April 15.
Good-bye, Hope and Change. Hello, Fear and Loathing. When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
(Cross-posted at The Other McCain.)
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Unions Should not be so Confident in EFCA Passing Senate
Posted by on 3.5.09 @ 5:52PM
Recent articles surrounding the Employee Free Choice Act have focused on it's likelyhood of passing the Senate. A statement by the AFL-CIO legislative director Bill Sammuel to reporters claims that the unions think they have the votes needed to pass card check. However, I disagree.
Now, I am assuming everyone knows what "card check" and the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is. If not, click here.
Ok, now that you are informed, let's walk through the numbers.
It is expected that EFCA will be introduced in the House and Senate on Monday. Ok. We all knew that it was going to come at some point; no reason to freak out. Everyone needs to remember that introduction is just that, an introduction. It is not a vote, or a debate, or a huge amendment chance or loss - it is just an introduction that we all knew was coming.
With that being said, let's go through the votes. Based on last years votes, we can assume that all the R's, with the questionable excpetion of Sen. Specter, will oppose cloture. Keep that in mind. That's 39 votes against cloture assuming Specter votes like he did last year.
Now let's examine the D's in the Senate. Kennedy? Who knows, as of now, he is not even in D.C. Burris? Where will he be when this comes to a vote? And Minnesota? Franken will probably get in, but he isn't in yet. Even counting the unknowns (Burris and Kennedy), let's assume they are present and healthy and will vote yes on cloture. That only makes 58 (assuming all the other D's support cloture). Even if Specter goes the way he did last year, that is still only 59. Where do you get 60?
The D's need Franken before they will even push a vote on this. So, my prediction, look for the Franken confirmation date to determine when the Senate EFCA vote will be. (Hint: it will be the day after they get Franken).
This all assumes Pryor, Lincoln, and Nelson support Cloture...which is also questionable.
Additionally, a recent study shows that 600,000 jobs could be lost as a result of passing EFCA.
And, new polling indicates that 74% of rank-and-file union workers oppose EFCA.
Yet Obama thinks this is good for the economy?
The Alliance for Worker Freedom issued this press release in response to the union assertions that they have enough votes. However, on mere mention of the bill being introduced on Monday, the markets have already begun to fall. What does the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Troika think will happen once it gets introduced?
Truthtiness
Posted by on 3.5.09 @ 3:52PM
I don't think a "truth commission" examining the Bush administration's conduct in the war on terror is a bad idea in theory. It would be good to get an understanding of what was actually done, how much of it was within the law, and what anti-terror policies really work. We keep hearing competing assertions that various things the administration did prevented or did not prevent real, identifiable terrorist threats. It would be nice to have these claims validated or refuted by an impartial group of experts and investigators.
But that's the world of the theory. In the world in which we actually live, I have a hard time imagining any truth commission doing anything besides engaging in witch hunts and partisan finger-pointing.
Mr. President, You Shouldn't Have!
Posted by on 3.5.09 @ 2:45PM
To celebrate Britain's "special relationship" with the U.S. and celebrate the new President, Prime Minister Gordon Brown outdid himself.
During his historic trip to Washington, Gordon Brown gave Barack Obama an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet - once called HMS President.
The unique present delighted Mr Obama because oak from the Gannet's sister ship, HMS Resolute, was carved to make a desk that already takes place in the Oval Office in the White House, after being presented by Britain to the US in 1880.
Surely Mr. Obama gave Brown something nice in return. We are in a 'down economy' caused by our former President, but I'm thinking Obama could spare something decent to give the poor guy. It wouldn't even have to be expensive, just a gesture. One of those new aides could have thought of something--well--thoughtful.
For despite being leader of the world's most bountiful nation, President Obama handed over nothing more thought-provoking than 25 classic American films on DVD.
Brown apparently, is not a film buff and was underwhelmed by the generosity of the new American President.
I'm sure Brown realizes it's only a result of our tough economy. While Obama is busy fixing it, he can watch a few movies.
Skeptics Unite!
Posted by on 3.5.09 @ 2:00PM
Don't expect to hear much from the mainstream media about it, but the Heartland Institute's second International Conference on Climate Change starts Sunday and runs through Tuesday. A Who's-Who of reputable, well-credentialed (and/or well-studied) skeptics will meet in New York City to debunk, debate, and ferret out the truth about the science and economics of global warming alarmism. Among the all-star participants:
Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus
Red Hot Lies author and Spectator blogger Chris Horner
MIT's Richard Lindzen
The Deniers author Lawrence Solomon
Former Apollo astronaut and geologist Harrison Schmitt
Joe D'Aleo, first director of meteorology for The Weather Channel
Meteorologist and surface station expert Anthony Watts
Harvard astrophysicist Willie Soon
Climate Confusion author Roy Spencer
Really Inconvenient Truths author Iain Murray
Last year's conference was a hit and given the continuing lack of warming and more shrill alarmism, this year's conference ought to draw even more attention -- maybe even from a few more mainstream journalists.
Obama Education Secretary Vouches for D.C. Vouchers
Posted by on 3.5.09 @ 1:46PM
Although generally opposed to school vouchers, Obama's Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is opposed to uprooting the children in the D.C. voucher program. This is one area where Obama administration is mildly more pragmatic than the congressional Democrats who want to gut the program. Heritage has put out a nice video featuring students who currently benefit from the D.C. vouchers:
Free-Market Reform Groups Absent from WH Health Care Summit
Posted by on 3.5.09 @ 1:45PM
President Obama has boasted about his desire to listen to ideas from all angles of the health care debate, but despite having representatives from 169 different labor, industry, and policy organizations, the attendee list released by the White House does not include any organizations that advocate a consumer-based free market health care approach. So while progressive organizations such as the Center for American Progress, Health Care for America NOW!, Campaign for America's Future are represented, the list does not include the Cato Institute, Consumers for Health Care Choices, the Galen Institue, the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, or any similar groups.
Who Watches the Watchmen?
Posted by on 3.5.09 @ 12:55PM
I'm excited about the movie and can assure you that the graphic novel is every bit as good as you've heard.
You can read my take on it here.
Here's a clip:
The author of this masterpiece, one Alan Moore, is a paranoid left-winger (See V for Vendetta, for example), but the man can write. Perhaps the character people remember the most from the Watchmen is Rorschach, a man in a hat and trenchcoat who covers his face with a mask of ever-changing ink impressions. Rorschach has no superpowers or even the genius and equipment of Batman. He is a man determined to set things right and is uninhibited in his willingness to do violence to wrongdoers. Rorschach was once a more conventional hero, but he has seen too much evil in the world and is no longer prepared to accept limits on his retribution. This vigilante, full of retrograde opinions and mourning for an America whose best days are behind her, is Archie Bunker without the laughs. Rorschach walks along a street in the red-light district and notes that he is offered French love, Swedish love, and other exotic pleasures. But American love, he regrets, "is like Coke in green glass bottles . . . they don't make it anymore." He is dangerous. And he is Moore's idea of a conservative. If it is intended as an insult, it is one most of us can live with.
WH Official Declines to Offer Real-Life Example To Bolster Health Care Claims
Posted by on 3.5.09 @ 12:23PM
White House Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes, who will be heading up today's health care forum, when pressed on a conference call by TAS, could not offer a real-life instance in which a government saved money by expanding health care coverage, even though that claim is central to the Obama administration's push to overhaul the nation's health-care system.
In a conference call, TAS noted that efforts to expand coverage in Tennessee and Massachusetts led to exploding costs in both states, and asked for a counter example in which government was able to reduce costs by increasing coverage. Barnes did not give an example, but instead argued that the difficulties at the state level demonstrated why there needed to be a federal solution.
"One of the things that many of the governors and others in the states who have been focused on the state plans have said is in order to get costs really under control, we're going to have to look at this issue on a national level," she said. "States are doing the best that they can, particularly in the wake of federal inaction, but part of getting this under control will be that we have accessible and affordable health care for everyone so that we're bringing more people into the system, and as a result of bringing people into the system, we're also helping to drive down costs."'
Barnes insisted that the Obama administration would also see savings through "other efficiencies," including Medicare and Medicaid reforms and an expansion of the use of information technology in the medical profession.
"Part of the problem is that though states are taking important steps forward, those are key, but piecemeal answers to an issue that needs to be resolved on the national level," she said.
Nothing But the Truth
Posted by on 3.5.09 @ 11:14AM
Sen. Leahy's efforts to launch an anti-Bush "truth commission" are being dismissed as a fiasco. But they included some intelligent moments as well, as when for instance George Mason law professor (and longtime TAS contributor) Jeremy Rabkin presented his opening statement. An excerpt (full statement is appended in Comments):
…Suppose, after 9/11, the Bush administration had established an "investigating commission" to identify persons responsible for rallying support for terrorist networks, for raising funds, organizing false identities and providing other forms of assistance for terrorist networks. Suppose in the interest of informing the public, the commission had been authorized to publish its findings and name names of individual suspects. Surely, such a procedures would have been denounced by civil libertarians. Where there is enough evidence for criminal prosecution, they would have said, the government should secure indictments and proceed with criminal prosecution. Where there is not such evidence, the government should keep silent. Otherwise, the government can destroy reputations and inflict terrible damage on people's careers and livelihoods, without giving them any real way of defending themselves against reckless or ill-founded accusations.
How is the proposed "truth commission" any less objectionable, from the standpoint of due process? One might argue that government officials should be more accountable because they volunteered to accept special responsibilities to the public when they assumed their offices. But one can argue, on the other hand, that if we want capable and reputable people to assume public office, we have to treat them with at a modicum of respect and fair dealing. I think it is very hard to justify imposing on public officials what we have not been willing to impose on terror suspects.
Saving More By Spending More
Posted by on 3.5.09 @ 10:40AM
Of all of the free passes that President Obama has gotten from the media, none is more egregious than their unwillingness to challenge him on the central argument he makes in pushing for an overhaul of the U.S. health care system -- that we can improve the quality of health care, pay to cover nearly 50 million additional people, and save money all at the same time. There is no actual, real life example, in which government has reduced costs by insuring more people.
In the 1990s, Tennessee launched the TennCare program to expand coverage throughout the state, and costs exploded. In 2003, the state comissioned a study by McKinsey & Company, which concluded that the program was "not financially viable" over a five year time period.
More recently, under the leadership of Mitt Romney, Massachusetts overhauled its health-care system, promising universal care at a lower cost with a program that closely resembles President Obama's campaign proposal. The result? The cost of Commonwealth Care has more than doubled from about $630 million in 2007, to a projected $1.3 billion in 2009.
A popular talking point among liberals is that other countries spend less on health care and insure everybody. Such analysts argue that those other systems are better because government health care programs have lower administrative costs than private insurance, and that the government is willing to say no to costly and unnecessary care. The problem is, that's an argument in favor of single-payer, or socialized medicine -- something which President Obama claims his plan isn't.
The bottom line is that Obama's argument that he's going to save the government money by insuring more people without rationing care, simply does not pass the most basic smell test, "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
The fact that he's been more or less unchallenged on this point by the media is simply scandalous.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 3.5.09 @ 10:40AM
- A libertarian longs for the days of reasonable Dems like Bill Clinton (Reason)
- The bank plan should work well, if insider dealing and circumventable rules are any use (Baseline Scenario)
- The GOP's trials and tribulations, with no end in sight yet (Politico)
- If Mexico is failing as a state, the U.S. has something to do with it (RealClearWorld)
- The Obama administration apparently doesn't hate DC schoolkids. So now it's just the Congressional Dems? (The Foundry)
- Not pro-choice. Inarguably pro-abortion (Washington Times)
- Vermont haylofts have less straw than the truth commission's strawmen, it seems (Washington Post)
Outrage to follow
Posted by on 3.5.09 @ 10:28AM
Well, it turns out that President Bush's approach to an international global warming agreement was too ambitious and, according to the Obama administration, "not going to happen." Aw, shucks.
But, surely you've already heard this on the news and read of such a decision -- with consequences so great as to be a matter of planetary survival -- in the august pages of WaPo and the Grey Lady, no?
I'm kidding, of course, as things aren't quite what they seem. And, besides, we know the greens and their media pals won't get too worked up about this, given that it wasn't really all that important to begin with. I mean, they hardly threw garlands at the guy.
One other explanation could be a raging double-standard, like that applied when, say, neither the Clinton-Gore nor Bush administrations asked the Senate to ratify the signed Kyoto Protocol (there is nothing in the Constitution or statute requiring such a request, by the way, but it is of course that gesture/matter of protocol on which the greens fixated at least when it came to one of those fellows, so we shall here, too). One was deeply caring and responsible and the other burned in effigy.
The global governance crowd aren't giving up, of course, just letting Team Obama find their own path to the mutually agreed end. As I have written in other quarters, UN officials have admitted as much, and that the guy therefore needs a break and some room to operate. Let's watch and, even better, join the fun.
Secretary Moonbat
Posted by on 3.5.09 @ 9:26AM
Oh, dear. As if the markets didn't have enough to worry about with this guy.
According to Reuters:
U.S. oil and natural gas producing companies should not receive federal subsidies in the form of tax breaks because their businesses contribute to global warming, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress on Wednesday.
I'm curious. Putting aside for the moment how this theory to which he adheres -- or which he is peddling on behalf of an administration positioning the panic as a necessary catastrophe underwriting his social engineering programs with billions in new taxes each year -- is premised entirely in computer models now proven wrong by the past 15 years of observations... but, doesn't "global warming" theory hold that everything causes global warming? Cars, furnaces, appliances, roads, banking, schools, hospitals, research, the military, congressional junkets, embassies, shuttle diplomacy, motorcades, orchid-hot enormous personal residences, using a 747 for your personal travel to a getaway in a new "Western White House" in nearby Hawaii, and so on?
So, our Treasury Secretary, the one man who could address the financial system's woes, does have the detailed plan for this bogeyman at least even if the real threats shaking the system haven't quite been addressed. Don't worry about those measels, Tommy; I know you don't see him, but the Boogeyman is under the bed, where he'll stay ... if you do what Nanny says.
But, how is the all-knowing State to choose the winners and losers or, more aptly, the perpetrators, victims and -- in-between -- the enablers?
Someone recently said it best in a picket sign: Atlas will shrug.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Affirmative Action for Right Wing Comedians?
Posted by on 3.4.09 @ 7:12PM
Something tells me this guy isn't actually going to fulfill his dream of becoming the token conservative over at Saturday Night Live.
Blasting the Rush Party
Posted by on 3.4.09 @ 5:43PM
The liberal activist group Americans United for change has launched this new ad portraying Rush Limbaugh as the leader of the Republican Party.
Comparative Advantage in Blogging
Posted by on 3.4.09 @ 4:24PM
The Economist notices that the George Mason University Economics Department's commitment to blogging has generated a Tim Tebow effect, dragging the rest of the school along with them towards greater prominence.
Of course it seems like trading research papers for blogging is a risky strategy for boosting rankings and prestige. It is unclear whether economics departments in general will value prolific commentary as much as published research. What is clear, though, is that not only does George Mason have a comparative advantage in blogging, but also that it's to everyone's advantage to have these economists sharing their thoughts in an approachable format.
In fact, I'm almost tempted to say that I've learned more reading Marginal Revolution, Econlog, Cafe Hayek, and Overcoming Bias than I did getting a degree in economics from a top-20 university. By maintaining these blogs GMU economists have raised the level of discourse with non-economists from basically zero. The GMU economists are not the only economics bloggers, obviously, and they trade arguments and observations with economists from other schools. Before blogs, this running debate and commentary simply was not available to anyone who didn't read the very narrow and officiated arguments in scholarly journals.
An economic historian once mentioned to me that half of all published economic research articles go uncited (except for by their own authors). Which do you think is more valuable: a medium that's one-half totally ignored, or a medium that attracts millions to read and comment every single day? I'll leave you to answer that one but as for me I wouldn't want to be limited to Tyler Cowen's thoughts just a few times a year.
SEIU Members Taking Leave from Jobs to Campaign for Obama Budget
Posted by on 3.4.09 @ 3:29PM
Hundreds of members of the Service Employees International Union are taking off from their jobs to join the fight to pass President Obama's $3.55 trillion budget, a union official said on Wednesday.
"SEIU intends to bring the full force of the union and its 2.1 million members to bear," Khalid Pitts, director of political accountability at the SEIU said on a conference call. "Right now, we have hundreds of our workers, who have taken leave from their jobs in 18 crucial states to moving this budget."
Pitts said that the members will be going door-to-door to convince their neighbors to support the budget as well as organizing house parties and other events. The hope is that the hundreds will turn into thousands as members of Congress arrive in their districts during Easter recess.
The comments came on a call to announce a coalition of progressive groups that are joining forces to battle for the passage of the budget. Their argument is that this is the kind of bold change Americans voted for last November when they elected President Obama.
Bertha Lewis, CEO and chief organizer of ACORN said the group was "excited" to play a role in the effort.
"ACORN is gearing up to get it on," she said.
Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change, said that the coalition would spend roughly $5 million to $7 million on the effort, which will include 1,500-1,800 events nationwide as well as television and radio ads.
Among the other groups represented in the call were the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, USAction, the League of Conservation Voters, the National Women's Law Center, and Environment America.
Prosperity? Can you please use the word in a sentence?
Posted by on 3.4.09 @ 3:19PM
Can a recession offer opportunities for clever marketers? The Lowell Auditorium in Massachusetts seems to think so:
The Lowell Auditorium is proud to announce the signing of the Lowell Auditorium Pink Slip Relief Act of 2009. This “legislation” is designed to bring a little cheer, hope, and fun to those who need it most, by giving them free tickets to the most uplifting, funny and enjoyable Tony Award-winning Broadway musical to hit the stage in ages!
In accordance with the Lowell Auditorium Pink Slip Relief Act of 2009 the auditorium will be giving away a limited number of complimentary tickets for the March 29th presentation of the hit Broadway Musical 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. These tickets will be given away to anyone that has been laid off since the beginning of 2009. To receive a pair of tickets, patrons must visit the auditorium box office in person on Tuesday, March 10th between 10 am and 4 pm and present the official “pink slip” letter that they received from their former employer (letter must be dated anytime in 2009).
Membership has its privileges? Well, good for the Lowell Auditorium for helping out some struggling people and earning a bit of good press while doing it. But what's this show all about, anyway?
“Putnam County Spelling Bee offers a perfect light-hearted escape with lots of laughs. We are excited to have the opportunity to give those that need a break from daily stresses an enjoyable night out,” said Lowell Auditorium General Manager Peter Lally. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is the story of six young people in the throes of puberty, overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to escape childhood themselves, learn that winning isn’t everything and that losing doesn’t necessarily make you a loser.
I believe Losing Doesn't Necessarily Make You A Loser was the second runner-up to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act--a similarly overheated effort that likewise often seems overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to escape childhood themselves--in the Name the Mega-Stimulus 2009 contest, which makes sense. Because everybody knows what really makes you a loser in the Age of Obama is too much winning. (Or at least not enough losing!) Too bad that isn't a madcap Broadway musical, too.
Racist Jokes and the President
Posted by on 3.4.09 @ 1:30PM
A.C. Kleinheider highlights some poll results that, among many other things, show that one in six Tennesseans admit to making racist jokes about the president, 75 percent have heard or read such jokes, but only 15 percent find them funny.
Is Obama Scared to Debate Rush?
Posted by on 3.4.09 @ 1:06PM
Talk about too clever by half.
According to today's Politico story by Jonathan Martin, the entire decision to go after Rush Limbaugh was cooked up by supposedly clever White House aides and outside advisors. Says Martin in his story:
David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager last year and a member of his inner circle still, will publish an op-ed in Wednesday's Washington Post chiding Republicans for being "paralyzed with fear of crossing their leader.”
A senior White House aide has been tasked with helping to guide the Limbaugh strategy.
With the certainty that only a political idiot could not see, Rush has just taken these bozos up and called them out.
He has challenged Obama to a one-on-one debate on his radio show, no teleprompters please.
With an ineptness that leaves one breathless, the Obama team has now effectively labeled Obama himself as "paralyzed with fear" if in fact the President doesn't have the guts to accept Limbaugh's challenge. After all, if they claim that GOP chair Michael Steele and "Republicans" are cowards for not taking on Rush, Obama himself will surely have the guts to do what they claim Steele and Republicans do not: take on Rush Limbaugh one-on-one.
Not since 1981 when the striking Air Traffic Controllers Union dared Ronald Reagan to fire them has such a potentially momentous challenge occurred. In that showdown, union leaders smugly assumed Reagan would not have the guts to fire them as he promised. They guessed wrong. The resulting mass firings of thousands not only wrecked the union, historians later realized that it sent a sharp and chilling message to the leaders of the Soviet Union that Reagan was not to be fooled with. The event raised the stakes in the Cold War and famously resulted in sending the entire USSR to the ash heap of history.
Learning nothing from history, the Obama crowd has now set up a breathtakingly stupid proposition: either Obama debates Rush one-on-one or he is, in the words of his own staff, paralyzed with fear. Now there's a message to send to al Qaeda. The President of the United States has no guts.
Amazing.
Progressive Republicans of the World, Unite!
Posted by on 3.4.09 @ 11:59AM
One of Comrade Obama's commissars writes, in a column declaring Rush Limbaugh an Enemy of the People, what has to be the most revealing of his many hard left sentiments:
"There is still time for Washington Republicans to join some of their colleagues outside the Beltway and become partners in progress."
There are other ways to reveal you're on board. Kathleen Parker, for instance, earns today's Brooks Prize, which goes to anyone who will not utter a critical word about the President Who Will Not Be Alllowed to Fail without also making sure to criticize, in harsher terms, Rush Limbaugh and his admirers, say, even if the latter's criticism of Obama is no different from what they would write.
Does Ms. Parker really think that Limbaugh doesn't agree with her that "spending nonexistent trillions [isn't] quite the way to proceed in an economic crisis." So what's her problem?
Rush and the Michael Moore Precedent
Posted by on 3.4.09 @ 11:42AM
David Frum is correct that while Rush Limbaugh is popular among his audience and the conservative base, he's very unpopular among the public at large. And it's pretty clear that Democrats are using Limbaugh in an attempt to marginalize the Republican Party and to portray any criticism of President Obama's agenda as extremism. But Frum is being too shortsighted in his analysis.
If you remember, back around 2004, there was an attempt by Republicans to portray Democrats as the party of Michael Moore. Over and over again, Republicans reminded people that Moore was invited to sit in Jimmy Carter's box at the Democratic National Convention, and that Democrats had become the anti-war, anti-American, party of surrender. At the time, it worked. John Kerry was forced to vacillate between criticizing the war that he voted for to satisfy the anti-war base of his own party while tempering his position to appeal to the center and stave off charges that he would be a weak commander in chief. It reinforced the flip-flopper label.
Moore was seen by most moderate Americans as an extremist and propagandist, but the position that he represented –echoed by the likes of MoveOn and DailyKos – was that the Iraq War was a failure and the Democratic Party had to be unapologetically anti-war. And what happened? By 2006, the idea that the Iraq War was a failure had become more or less a mainstream opinion, and the Democrats took back Congress vowing to bring it to an end. In 2008, a guy just a few years removed from the Illinois state senate was able to win the Democratic nomination in large part because of his early opposition to the war which his chief rival had voted for – and in the general election, he beat a war hero as things improved in Iraq and the focus turned to the economy. It didn't matter anymore when Republicans screamed about Democrats waving the white flag of surrender, or of them being the party of Michael Moore and MoveOn.
So, the important thing is not whether or not Limbaugh himself can attract moderates to the party (he is not a candidate last I checked), but whether, at some point in the future, a party built on conservative principles can win a majority again. That's the essence of Rush's message when you get beyond the theatrics. Republicans have a choice. They can work with Obama and give him bipartisan cover. They can hope to extract token concessions while Obama gets 99 percent of what he wants. They can decide that the era of small government is over, and that the only way to win again is to become the party that makes big government run more efficiently. OR. The Republican Party can return to the limited government principles on which it won landslide victories in 1980, 1984, and 1994 – so that when the Obama administration's policies fail, Republican candidates can offer a genuine alternative.
The bottom line is that a few years from now, if we're looking at some variation of high unemployment, tepid growth, and double-digit inflation, moderates will be receptive to a conservative message, and Democratic efforts to portray Republicans as beholden to Limbaugh will fall on deaf ears. And if, for the first time in history, a massive expansion of government leads to an economic boom, then Republicans will be doomed anyway.
Bayh, Bayh Omnibus Spending Bill
Posted by on 3.4.09 @ 11:01AM
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) comes out swinging against the bloated, pork-stuffed appropriations bill in today's Wall Street Journal. This could be a significant development, if the House Blue Dogs follow suit and Democratic deficit hawks start worrying about the price tag of President Obama's budget and otherh initiatives. Bayh is up for reelection in a red state -- or, a historically red state that Obama narrowly carried -- in 2010.
I have a piece in the forthcoming print issue of the magazine looking at the Blue Dogs' diffidence in the face of Obama's big spending so far. One can always hope that will change.
Will Secretay Geithner Pay Up in 2011?
Posted by on 3.4.09 @ 8:09AM
Treasury Secretary Geithner opines that the proposed tax hikes are no big deal. Reports the Washington Examiner:
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner argued that the Obama proposal would reduce taxes for most Americans. Any increases, he said, wouldn't occur until 2011, when the economy is "safely into recovery."
Ah yes, when the economy is supposed to booming despite trillions of extra dollars in wasted spending and accumulated debt.
But the big question is: does Secretary Geithner intend to pay his taxes in 2011 when they go up?
(Indeed, the Obama administration continues in good form. Former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, nominated to be trade representative, also had to pay up his taxes. Democrats apparently really do believe that taxes are for other people to pay.)
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The Budget is Bad, so Let's Make it Worse!
Posted by on 3.3.09 @ 8:09PM
Most people recognize that with the economy in crisis, bail-outs reaching into outer space, mountainous deficits across the land, and future generations with their futures mortgaged thrice over, we just can't afford everything. But not the Obama administration. Explained Secretary Tim Geithner, supposedly a responsible moderate:
President Barack Obama's Treasury secretary says the administration has inherited "the worst fiscal situation in American history."
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Ways and Means Committee Tuesday that Obama entered office facing a $1.3 trillion deficit - about 10 percent of the nation's economic output. Republicans have complained that Obama's budget proposal would balloon the deficit even higher, to $1.75 trillion.
Geithner said that additional spending is necessary because the previous administration was unwilling to make long-term investments in health care, energy and education.
If this passees for logic in the Obama administration, we are going to have quite a ride over the next four or eight years.
Barack Obama: Investment Adviser
Posted by on 3.3.09 @ 7:49PM
Hey dummies. I mean you. It's time to pull your money out of your mattress and invest in the stock market. Great values and fabulous opportunities are right there before your nose. Thus saith the Prez, aka the Investment Adviser-in-chief.
President Obama told Americans to take a look at investing in the stock market this afternoon, a remarkable utterance for an American president, especially as the Dow Jones Industrial Average proceeds on its course Southward.
"What you're now seeing is ... profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it," the president said on a day that trading continued to hover under 7,000.
The president predicted that Americans' consumer confidence would improve as they see the stimulus bill "taking root."
"Businesses are starting to see opportunities for investment and potential hiring," he said. "We are going to start creating jobs again."
Who needs a private investment adviser when you have The One telling you when to invest? But I still wonder: does his advice hold for General Motors?
Fighting ObamaCare
Posted by on 3.3.09 @ 5:00PM
In a piece for our Febraury print issue, I wrote about how the health care battle would be much different this time around than it was in 1993/94 because conservatives will have few allies in the private sector. Even insurers, who ran the famous "Harry and Louise" ads, for instance, are now willing to cede ground on key issues. Enter Richard Scott, the former head of the Hospital Corporation of America, who has launched a new group, Conservatives for Patients Rights, to demosntrate the consequences of government-run health care and push for a free market alternative based on choice and competition. In the Politico, Jonathan Martin reports on the group's TV, radio, and web advertising strategy which launched today to coincide with the White House's health-care week. Scott started the group with $5 million of his own money, but he hopes to raise more and spend up to $20 million on the campaign. Over at TNR, liberal health-care journalist Jonathan Cohn has already dubbed Scott, "Public Enemy Number One."
Rush Limbaugh is a leader. Period.
Posted by on 3.3.09 @ 4:37PM
Speaking as an unabashedly Pro-Rush self-styled cocktail-party attending intellectualoid wannabe, or whatever you want to call it, I'm bewildered at the number of people misunderstanding of Rush's role.
Yes, he is an entertainer -- you have to be to keep an audience for 3 hours every day -- but he is also a leader in thought. This may make the more nuanced among the right uncomfortable, primarily because he doesn't confer with anyone before making his thoughts known. He's unpredictable. It is because Rush does not confer with others that he is a leader. It is because Rush is independent that he sets himself apart.
In setting himself apart he also makes fun of those he disagrees with on radio, while maintaining distance from the process. And that last is both the cosmetic and the substantive charge against him. That it's easy for the man behind the mic to rile people. Especially when he gets paid a lot of money to do it.
This last bit is a sham. Rush has enough money. He has a contract. He doesn't have the insecurity that comes from trying to elbow your way to the center of attention at all time. Look at his ratings: They're always up. A friend remarked, the other day, that Obama can create his own momentum by giving a speech. The same is true of Rush -- an unlikely, but accurate, comparison.
Beyond that, he also fights when others won't. It takes a keen sense of the times to know when to direct your listeners to melt down the congressional switchboard. It takes a keen sense of the backbone of political leaders, who are more skittish, not less, than Rush. He puts his reputation at stake whenever he takes a position -- and he does so gladly, because of ideas. And if you don't buy that the man is infatuated with ideas, then listen to the first 20 minutes of his show every day for a week. Try it and say the man doesn't have a philosophy behind his understanding of the world. Like it or leave it, just don't be dismissive.
And he does more than most columnists. Name a person in the media that's able to motivate others the way Rush motivates his listeners. Keith Olbermann? No. Bill O'Reilly? No. How about columnists? Does Paul Krugman motivate others? MoDo?
Oh but he's a populist attention grabber, they say. Oh? You mean because he speaks to more listeners every day than any other host? Because he has an audience that considers what he says? When someone has people behind him, who think that for the most part, he's right, but understands his shortcomings and sometimes disagrees (as they do on his show frequently), you know what we call that person? A leader.
You may not want to designate him as your leader. But it is the pinnacle of ignorance to think that the most-listened to radio host in America is not a leader. He does play an important part in the movement, and denying that is placing him in the category of a crazy uncle. If we assess leaders by influence, Rush wins out over Steele any day.
[To take a bit of wind out of my own sails, though, I can understand what Steele was getting at. I think he was genuinely being inarticulate. But at the point where Steele's main qualification is his ability to fight the war in the press, it should be concerning to many that he wasn't prepared for this familiar trap. Liberals have always tried to make conservatives apologize for the statements of their brethren. "Does Ann Coulter represent you?" is the question I always get. Note to Steele: When someone asks you something like that, respond rhetorically. Does (INSERT YOUR "CONTROVERSIAL" CONSERVATIVE PERSON HERE) claim to be my leader? And if so, why are you asking me and not him?]
The United States of Freedonia
Posted by on 3.3.09 @ 4:07PM
With each passing day, the Obama administration looks more and more like it's taking its cues from the Marx Brothers. The budget battle is just the latest example. After signing a pork-laden economic stimulus package that the administration claimed didn't have any earmarks, it's now pushing an omnibus spending bill with 8,750 of them. The Christian Science Monitor reports:
The president barred earmarks from last month’s $787 billion stimulus package, but advisers say the fiscal year 2009 omnibus bill, including earmarks, is old business.
“This is last year’s business. We just want to move on. Let’s get this bill done, get it into law and move forward,” said Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
This recalls the cabinet meeting lead by Freedonia's President Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) in Duck Soup:
PRESIDENT FIREFLY: Members of the cabinet, we'll take up old business.
CABINET MEMBER: I wish to discuss the tariff.
PRESIDENT FIREFLY: Sit down, that's new business.
(Nobody else speaks up)
PRESIDENT FIREFLY: No old business? Very well, we'll take up new business.
CABINET MEMBER: About that tariff…
PRESIDENT FIREFLY: Too late! That's old business already!
Bury Goldwater
Posted by on 3.3.09 @ 2:57PM
Writing about what he describes as the "Goldwater myth," David Frum is right that Barry Goldwater's 1964 landslide loss hurt Republicans in down-ballot races, creating liberal Democratic supermajorities that enacted lots of bad legislation in 1965-66. Some of that legislation is a lot more enduring than anything the conservative movement has ever managed to accomplish through its influence on the Republican Party.
All true, but not exactly complete. Goldwater's nomination ensured that different Republicans were in a position to react to eventual libeal overreach than would have been the case had the party nominated Nelson Rockefeller. We don't know for certain what would have happened in an alternate universe where Rockefeller, Scranton, or (George) Romney was the 1964 nominee. I suspect Frum is right that it would have meant a better 1965-66 for conservatives, but would it have meant a better next 20 years?
Maybe, if Medicare and the Immigration Act of 1965 had never been enacted in their current forms. Maybe sans Goldwater the GOP would have gotten a little more credit for its role in the civil-rights legislation of the 1960s. But it is just as easy to imagine everything that happened in 1965-66 happening over a longer period of time, with no immediate liberal excess, no Ronald Reagan, and perhaps if we're lucky a President Howard Baker by 1984. The domestic policy of an eventual Rockefeller Republican president probably wouldn't have looked much different than the Great Society -- after all, the domestic policy of the marginally more conservative Nixon administration didn't.
Just as it's difficult to recreate an alternate history, it's hard to predict the future. The president who proved most disastrous to the Democratic Party wasn't the liberal equivalent of Goldwater. It was Jimmy Carter, a putatively moderate Southerner who was nominated in reaction to the excesses of George McGovern and was not terribly popular among the most liberal elements of his party. Similarly, the president most responsible for the Republican Party's current problems wasn't Goldwater reincarnated. George W. Bush was a "compassionate conservative" and "reformer with results," a Republican who trying to react to the excesses of the Gingrich Congress and ape the Democratic Leadership Council's "small ball" playbook.
Bush had a better relationship with the right wing of his party than Carter had with the left wing of his. (Though this is partly because conservatives despised John McCain, the man Republicans nominated to replace Bush, and partly because of 9/11.) It's hard to imagine Tom Coburn challenging Bush in 2004 the way Ted Kennedy ran against Carter in 1980. But Rush Limbaugh Dubya was not.
Yes, political parties are foolish to deliberately throw away elections running suicide missions instead of campaigns, because you never know what battles will be forever lost while the other party is in power. But political movements have to concern themselves with the rightness and wrongness of various ideas and policies. Sometimes those things are in conflict. That's why we read our Adam Smith and learn about the division of labor.
New Health Czar Raked in $2.4 Mln from Industry Board Service in 06-07
Posted by on 3.3.09 @ 1:25PM
Over on the main site, we just posted a my story based on an analysis of SEC filings, showing that Nancy-Ann Min DeParle, who President Obama appointed as director of the White House Office of Health Care Reform on Monday, took home at least $2.4 million in 2006 and 2007 from serving on the corporate boards of health-care companies whose businesses she would be in a position to affect in her new position.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed concerns about her extensive board service yesterday, saying, "No. I mean, obviously, the White House has confidence in her and her abilities as part of the health care reform effort here."
But this demonstrates the untenable nature of the Obama
administration's position on the revolving door between
Washington and corporate America. Either you have the philosophy
that you want to tap the best available candidates for any given
job, regardless of whether they have ties to large corporations,
or you limit yourself to picking career civil servants who never
left the public sector. But trying to have it both ways – to
grant top positions to people with deep ties to big business
while saying you're doing something different – truly takes
chutzpah.
Ron Paul at CPAC
Posted by on 3.3.09 @ 1:24PM
By popular demand, I'll weigh in on Ron Paul's CPAC speech (I've discussed it previously here). Paul was very well received by the crowd. Partly, that's because large numbers of his own supporters -- the Campaign for Liberty and Young Americans for Liberty -- were there. But he was also applauded by many of the same mainstream conservatives who would later stomp and cheer for Mitt Romney. The crowd was less stacked with Paulites than during his 2008 CPAC speech and the Paulities that were there looked much more like regular CPAC-goers than the more colorful types who came to hear Paul last year.
What gives? It isn't so much that Ron Paul's foreign-policy views have become more popular among conservatives, though they certainly do have a following. If anything, the surge has made most conservatives more convinced of the rightness of the Iraq mission than they were in 2006. Maybe humanitarian interventions or a muddled Afghan operation under Obama will make noninterventionism more popular on the right; maybe, given problems that could arise in Iran and elsewhere, it won't become more popular. But foreign policy has receded as an issue given the financial meltdown, the bailouts and stimulus packages, and Obama's agenda of government growth. Here is the area where Paul has the most to say to a Republican audience.
Paul didn't flinch from criticizing the Republicans' Bush-era record on spending and expanding the federal government, but much of that has become conservative conventional wisdom. Yet Paul also hit the Democrats hard, saying they'll "make us look like pikers" and strongly opposing their new spending. His Austrian economic views offer a counter-narrative to the liberal lament that the market is to blame for the bad economy, one that is getting more of a hearing in mainstream conservative circles.
Paul had to be pleased to tie the 2008 vice-presidential nominee in the CPAC straw poll, finishing third with 13 percent of the vote, seven points behind the winner. A question for 2012 is whether he will be the candidate of free markets, sound money, fiscal discipline, cutting the federal budget back down to constitutional size, and limited government at home and abroad or whether another more mainstream candidate will pick up the mantle. Like Mark Sanford, perhaps.
Haunted by Specter, Cont'd
Posted by on 3.3.09 @ 11:28AM
A reptilian blogger -- the site is called Big Lizards -- hisses that I was "unable (or afraid) to draw the obvious conclusion" in my Arlen Specter post yesterday: when Republican legislators stop voting like Republicans on "most critical, bedrock, GOP issues," Republican voters must send them packing. Now, I don't have a problem with any of this and suspect I've been in favor of tossing more Republican incumbents than this fellow. I also don't carry any particular brief for Snarlin' Arlen, who I think is wrong on almost all the issues where he dissents from the GOP line and wrong on several issues where he toes it.
But Republicans shouldn't start counting their 2010 chickens before they're hatched. Yes, there are good reasons -- historical, economic, and based on the possible consequences of the Obama administration's policies -- to hope for strong Republican gains. There are equally sound reasons, however, for the Democrats to continue licking their chops in anticipation of a filibuster-proof Senate majority. Until there is some actual, you know, evidence in the form of polling and what have you, Republicans -- and, frankly, conservatives -- should be more focused on preventing a 60-seat Democratic supermajority than measuring the drapes in Harry Reid's office.
So, assuming for now the worst-case scenario, the relevant questions become: Can Specter hold his Senate seat? Could a conservative primary challenger like Pat Toomey hold it? How often would conservatives be able to count on Specter's crucial 41st vote in a filibuster versus how frequenly he would simply provide bipartisan cover to the Obama administration? Even if Specter wins renomination, would a credible primary challenge nevertheless alter his political incentives on key votes like card check? (See Dave Weigel for Specter's existing political calculations on that score.)
Again: I haven't arrived at a definitive answer on any of these questions. But I do think they are the questions conservatives should be asking.
Court Can Answer Holder
Posted by on 3.3.09 @ 11:00AM
In my column today at the Examiner, I note that the Supreme Court is hearing not one, not two, but three race-based cases this term, and that they should spur all the conversation Eric Coward Holder could want. It's important stuff. Please read. Meanwhile, a strict word limit kept me from being able to give enough credit where it was due, so, for the record, let me give two heads-up, one to Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute for alerting me to the two Cato briefs mentioned, and the other to Hans von Spakovsky, now of the Heritage Foundation, for alerting me to the Heritage brief. The reason I couldn't list names is because there are so many of them: In addition to Hans, the other former DoJ Civil Rights Division lawyers who joined Abigail Thernstrom's amicus brief are Joel Ard, Karl S. Bowers, Jr., Robert N. Driscoll, and Reagan era hero William Bradford Reynolds.
Also, it's worth noting that the Pacific Legal Foundation and the Center for Equal Opportunity, both of whom were mentioned as co-filers with CATO in one case, also filed an excellent separate amicus brief in the redistricting case in conjunction with Project 21. I wish I could have gone into more depth on all the briefs, and given enough credit where due, but I had to keep in mind a daily newspaper audience as opposed to an audience of legal beagles.
To quote Chief Justice Roberts, "it is a sordid thing, this divvying us up by race." Here's hoping a majority of the court agrees, in all three cases mentioned -- and that Holder doesn't have a fit when they do.
A Steele Ear
Posted by on 3.3.09 @ 10:56AM
By now, it should be fairly obvious that Michael Steele's comments about Rush Limbaugh were an unmitigated public relations disaster. Steele managed to simultaneously reinforce the Democratic talking point that Rush is the real leader of the Republican Party and outrage the party's conservative base. This is pretty much the problem the GOP has faced since at least 2005: it vacillates between a mushy moderation that deflates its base and a tin-eared Bushian bellicosity that doesn't mean anything to swing voters. The results go by the names Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid.
Steele's own election as chairman of the Republican National Committee owes to this dilemma. The RNC was faced with a choice between an attractive African-American candidate whose conservatism and nuts-and-bolts party-building skills were in doubt and a Southerner with a clearer track record and, at best, a tin ear on race. Forget the all-white country club; this fellow was on record saying that the political experience that turned him against big government was the integration of the public schools. It was a choice that was really no choice at all.
Another major Steele selling point was that he "got it." He could tell commiteemen from states where Republicans were really taking a pounding that he understood that President Bush was unpopular, that the Iraq war had been unpopular, that the GOP brand was in the tank. But there was no substance to his "getting it" beyond those admissions. And because many on the right doubt his conservatism, Steele has to back down even when he tries to make rhetorical concessions.
It's still very early in Steele's tenure, but the Limbaugh brouhaha doesn't bode well for his chairmanship. Steele's biggest asset was that he was an effective television spokesman for the Republican Party, not any turnaround at the Maryland Republican Party or GOPAC while he was running those party institutions. This was the area where he was really supposed to shine. I still maintain that Steele is more conservative than his critics allege, but he definitely has the apologetic blue-state Republican mentality. If this means a few years of vacillating between sucking up to D.L. Hughey and apologizing to Rush Limbaugh, it will be more of the same for the GOP.
Don't Worry, Hunter…
Posted by on 3.3.09 @ 10:44AM
David still has his priorities in order: "The only thing more scary than Obama’s experiment is the thought that it might fail and the political power will swing over to a Republican Party that is currently unfit to wield it."
He lives in fear of the "Rush Limbaugh brigades." No social status there.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 3.3.09 @ 10:06AM
- If Obama read this piece by Bill McGurn, he'd feel pretty small (WSJ)
- If the EU splits, it will mean the member countries will be force to do...what they've been doing all along (Slate)
- John Kerry: you're not helping (Bloomberg)
- The war against our most productive workers continues (Growthology)
- The recession just highlights how rich we are, thanks to freedom (Econlog)
- Rowan Williams, taking good care of his needy Western bishops (but don't ask about the folks in Africa) (Weekly Standard)
David Brooks Dismayed
Posted by on 3.3.09 @ 10:05AM
David Brooks is surprised to find President Obama is not the centrist he imagined him to be.
I am flabbergasted.
How can it be that so many people of less prodigious intelligence (including me) clearly saw that the far left is Obama's comfort zone and that he would govern from it while men like David Brooks and Christopher Buckley didn't know better?
I mean, you would think that a lifetime of doing this stuff professionally would confer a little judgement.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Ancient Chinese Secret Obama Should Consider
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 7:26PM
‘When taxes are too high,
People go hungry.
When the government is too intrusive,
People lost their spirit.
Act for the people's benefit.
Trust them; leave them alone.'
--Tao te Ching, by Lao-Tzu (China, attr. 6th Century BC)
Translation by Stephen Mitchell (Harper Collins, 1988)
Steele Apologizes
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 7:14PM
Michael Steele apologizes for his Rush Limbaugh comments. The Republican National Committee chairman says he was "inarticulate" and the "words that I said weren't what I was thinking."
Sanford and First Principles
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 6:08PM
Michael Brendan Dougherty has an incredibly thoughtful profile of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. (I got to sit a few chairs down from him at Friday's CPAC banquet.) Sanford's speech (I'm poking around for a copy) was breathtaking. I know others who didn't think the same way -- and I think it may have just been my proximity. I've never really seen anyone speak so naturally. Most people,w hen they give a speech, it looks like they're performing oratory. Sanford, on the other hand, looked like he was talking to a group of friends, not a gigantic audience.
There is something supremely genuine about the man. I asked him after the dinner where he learned to speak. His reply was humble and jokey: "Frankly, I'm still trying to figure it out." Obviously he's not trying to figure it out, but any other answer would have come off as didactic. He preferred to just offer something low-key.
So when Dougherty profiles Governor Sanford, he naturally comes up with the impression of an unusual politician -- a man who doesn't see the world around him as a platform for his own views.
That impression really goes far when the governor describes lowering his father into the earth:
You hammer the nails closed, you carry it out there in the back of the pickup to a certain part of the farm. You lower the thing down there. You and your brothers do it on your own, and then grab shovels. We say a little prayer, fill the grave, walk back up to the house. It was an intensely personal experience that really hit home for me: you ain't taking any of this stuff with you.
While this post might have seemed like it was going the direction of talking about Sanford's political future, I'm more interested in the act of lowering your own parent into the grave... the digging, the work of it. I'm sure that most parents would quirk their eye at the thought of forcing their children to put work into laying them to rest. But there is something in the work that makes it... poetic. I would imagine that it impacts you in a way that may be more intimate, perhaps also grisly, than waiting as others do it.
Who Is Michael Steele and Why Is He RNC Chair?
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 6:08PM
Well, so much for Michael Steele. After a rousing CPAC Steele comes out with this insensible CNN attack on Rush, calling him "ugly" and dismissing him as an "entertainer." Whatever happened to the guy who had the chops to withstand flying Oreo cookies during his Maryland U.S. Senate race, the usual racist reference from the usual so-called tolerant folks? Call me naive, but I actually thought Steele had the cojones to stand up to these kind of people rather than play to them. Obviously, not so.
Rush Limbaugh can defend himself and certainly doesn't need help over here. That, however, is decidedly not the point. The point is that at this stage Mr. Steele should know better, and not knowing looks the fool, not to mention two-faced. If these were his feelings than he should have said so before his election to the RNC chairmanship. Once in the door Steele then turns on someone who is not only making the central case for conservatives in crystal clear and (thank God!) entertaining fashion, but figuratively speaking starts throwing his own Oreos at him? What is he thinking?
Apologizing to Rush, which I assume is somewhere on Steele's agenda, is frankly not good enough. Rush isn't on the air 3 hours a day talking to himself. Some of us -- quite a lot of us -- listen seriously to the conversation. The quite abrupt question is now: who is Michael Steele and what does he really believe? Not, apparently, conservatism. If the new GOP national spokesman doesn't have the horse sense to understand he needs to know when he is being baited to accept liberal templates (Rush is a bigot, tax cuts failed, big government works etc. etc. etc.) then the door opens on a conversation we shouldn't have to have but apparently must: why is this man the chairman of the RNC?
Dow Falls to 6763
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 4:17PM
That's the lowest since April 1997!
Gee, you think that maybe the people paying the economic bills don't feel much confidence investing in an economy where the government is going to be regulating, taxing, and otherwise controlling more?
Rush and Oprah
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 2:17PM
I actually don't think there's much to the comparison of Rush Limbaugh to Oprah Winfrey. Yes, they are both entertainers, communicators, motivators, and people with an appeal to certain demographic groups. Yes, they both preach a certain you-can-do-it message to their target demographics. No, Limbaugh isn't a political leader, an intellectual, an activist, a reporter or a policy analyst.
But Limbaugh is a political commentator, associated with a specific political movement, with allegiance to a particular Reaganite-Kempian strain of that movement, and an explicit, identifiable set of political positions. He doesn't interview Miley Cyrus or have Tom Cruise jumping on his couch. (I guess to make the analogy work he'd have to interview Jordin Sparks and have Chuck Norris jumping on his couch.) Oprah's Obamania aside, her politics are implied more often than they are stated, play at best a tangenital role in her appeal, and would turn off a good bit of her audience if she were more outspoken about them.
Pat Buchanan ran for president in the 1990s rallying a base he first cultivated as a television and newspaper commentator. William F. Buckley Jr. ran for mayor of New York as a columnist and editor of National Review. Limbaugh has done neither of those things. It is not abnormal for people who admire and agree with a political commentator, who think that commentator has something important to say, to follow that commentator's political lead.
What may be abnormal is that the conservative movement hasn't produced political leaders capable of inspiring people the way Ronald Reagan did and commentators have had to try to fill the void. If movement conservatives confuse Limbaugh with a leader, it is because they are not getting leadership elsewhere. And people who don't identify with the right's social base as it is rather than as they wish it were are going to have trouble providing that leadership.
That said, I do think the Jon Stewart analogy works a bit better.
What About the (D.C.) Children?
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 1:53PM
So often the Democrats give the impression that they love humanity but hate people, especially the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. What else could explain the campaign to eliminate the scholarships now provided to allow a few children to escape the horrid D.C. public schools? President Barack Obama doesn't send his kids to these schools. Sen. Ted Kennedy sure never sent his kids to them. Even some public school teachers don't send their kids to them. Obviously, the support of teachers' unions matters more to most Democrats than the interests of children.
But the children are now speaking out. Watch this video, in which scholarship kids read letters to President Obama asking him to save their scholarships. Let's hope the president who says he is so dedicated to listening actually listens to those who most need real change.
Sebelius, DeParle to Replace Daschle
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 1:30PM
As expected, President Obama has announced the appointment of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to be director of Health and Human Services and, in splitting up the duties originally intended for Tom Daschle, Nancy-Ann DeParle was appointed to be director of the newly-created White House Office for Health Reform. Taken together, neither one of them has the legislative experience and clout on Capitol Hill as Daschle did, so it still raises the question of who will shepherd any health care reform effort through Congress.
Interestingly, De-Parle has served as a director on a number of corporate boards within the health care industry including Boston Scientific, Cerner, Medeco, DaVita, and Triad Hospitals, which could create potential conflicts of interest. The White House post, however, is not subject to Senate confirmation.
The Specter that Haunts Conservatives
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 1:01PM
With Pat Toomey apparently putting a 2010 Senate race back on the table, conservatives are once again faced with that age-old question: What to do about Arlen Specter? I'm planning on doing a piece looking at the impact conservative primary challenges have had, for both good and ill, on the GOP (though it's no secret that I've personally supported many such challenges in the past). But I don't think what should be done about Specter at this point is an easy call. All candidate preferences that follow in this post are strictly my personal opinion and don't reflect anyone else's at this magazine.
In 2004, the case for primarying Specter seemed pretty solid. Republicans had a Senate majority they seemed likely to expand with at least several Southern pickups. Ultimately, they came out of that election with a 55-45 advantage. Toomey was well to Specter's right and as a congressman who had won in a Democratic-leaning district was not a sure general election loser, even if he would have had a tougher time holding the seat than Specter.
Under those political conditions, it was probably worth rolling the dice. And I think a similarly decent case could be made that Toomey's challenge -- and the equally unsuccessful subsequent conservative campaign against Specter as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman -- made Specter more cooperative with conservatives than he might otherwise have been.
Coming on six years later, the Republicans barely cling to enough Senate seats to threaten the occasional filibuster. Retirements in Florida, Ohio, Missouri, and even Kansas potentially give the Democrats additional pickup opportunities. Jim Bunning is looking shaky in Kentucky. Under these political conditions, it seems that keeping a Senate seat in the hands of even a lousy Republican is worthwhile.
Specter's lifetime American Conservative Union ratings are better than every Democrat in the Senate except Ben Nelson's. His 2007 ratings were better than every Senate Democrat except Mary Landrieu, whom he tied (she was up for reelection in 2008). Specter will frustrate conservatives, but he won't switch party affiliations like Jim Jeffords did and Lincoln Chafee might have done if reelected.
But then again: Specter's reelect numbers aren't very good. The coverage tends to focus on his unpopularity with Republicans, but a majority of state voters say they would prefer to see someone else in that seat. That may not mean anything -- a lot of Massachusetts voters told pollsters they wanted a senator other than John Kerry in 2008, before they went on to reelect him with his biggest margin ever -- but it does suggest Specter is not a lock to win reelection this time around.
Second, Specter's unreliability comes at a great cost on important issues. He was pivotal in the passage of the $787 billion ($1 trillion, with interest) stimulus package. He may play a similar role on card check. He gives the Obama administration's policies a veneer of bipartisan support. If he is going to be singlehandedly responsible for some of the GOP's biggest legislative defeats, is it really essential to have his vote on less important issues?
I don't know the answer yet. But it's definitely something worth thinking about. Especially for conservative Republicans in Pennsylvania.
UPDATE: A blogger at the Next Right weighs in against a Specter primary challenge.
UPDATE II: Matt Lewis has Toomey's statement.
Re: Joe Carter, Rush, and Paul Harvey
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 11:52AM
Joe,
I share your great love of Paul Harvey. There was something about the way he spoke on the radio that completely captured me. I can't recall having ever switched him off. And the thing was, he was just as wonderful talking about the latest Coleman Thermos or Bose Wave Radio as he was talking about the economy. Surely, the advertisers compensated him well for selling their products so gracefully and so convincingly.
Where I differ is with your tone regarding Rush Limbaugh. Like you, I don't agree with everything he says. But the man deserves more props than you seem willing to give. He is more than an entertainer. He is simply the best talk radio host who has ever lived.
I don't mean to insult Sean Hannity, but Rush is far better than Hannity in the radio format. He's far better than anyone toiling in the genre he single-handedly created. The only thing I don't like about Rush's show is the callers, but he is less likely to lean on them as a crutch than many of his contemporaries. (Note to callers: the point of you being on the air is to entertain the listeners. Be good.)
Paul Harvey and the old Reader's Digest gently pushed many millions of Americans to the center-right, but I suspect we would make a mistake to write Rush off as a mere entertainer. He's made converts of his own. A great many if I can extrapolate from the number of professional men who have told me their own story of leading their lives as Democrats only to have Rush change their minds like flipping a light switch.
I suspect he may have Harvey's longevity, too. It's a very different type of personality and product Rush offers, but it ain't bad.
Good Day
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 11:28AM
There's not much I can add to the already posted tributes to the seemingly immortal Paul Harvey except one personal reflection: As a child, Paul Harvey was my first celebrity impression.
I had a plastic horse who I would have read the news in a Harvey-like voice, complete with "Page one. Page two. Stand by for news!" (Yes, I've always been strange.) Some of my reports were a bit fanciful -- at the time, I thought the Salvation Army had tanks and weapons -- others were based on the news of the day. I'd always sign off, to the amusement or bemusement of any adult who happened to be watching, "Paul Horsey -- good hay."
Some Thoughts on Rush
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 11:01AM
I've had my differences with Rush Limbaugh ("Operation Chaos" comes immediately to mind), but I also admire his ability to transmit conservative ideas to a mass audience and make it entertaining. Seeing him on the same stage as Ann Coulter on the same day really demonstrated that he's in a league of his own as far as conservative media personalities goes. Listening to Coulter you would have suffered through a series of lame and dated one-liners that communicated Obama voted "present" in the Illinois state senate, had no executive experience, and that Jeremiah Wright was his pastor. But Limbaugh actually took his time on the stage to do something useful. He reaffirmed, on a basic level, what it means to be a conservative -- to believe in the power of individuals to make better decisions for themselves than the government. Even to those conservatives who aren't Limbaugh fans, it was hard to listen to his speech, which went on for about 90 minutes, without agreeing with his central point.
He was also right on target by saying that Republicans need to make not procedural but philosophical arguments against liberalism and for conservatism. And yes, we need to root out those who claim to be conservatives, but argue that the only way to win is to embrace big government. This "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality is bad politics in addition to being bad philosophy.
When the story of this period of the conservative movement is written, I wouldn't be surprised if Rush's talk to CPAC this year is considered a historically significant speech. At a time when conservatives are demoralized, he reaffirmed why we're all part of this thing in the first place. For those who weren't there, it was quite a sight. Not only did he have the packed audience inside the ballroom on its feet, but at one point I slipped out to the bathroom, and I saw people watching on TV screens in all of the hallways and sitting on staircases.
If you missed the speech, the transcript and video is available here.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 10:49AM
- The Pope's PR failure (USA Today)
- "Big Government" Barack loves every kind of intervention except for the one that rescues DC kids (Newsweek)
- ...and Chris Buckley suddenly remembers why he was conservative (The Daily Beast)
- Back-to-basics conservatism: clean up the cities in the obvious ways (Guardian)
Steele Indiscipline
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 10:25AM
Perhaps nothing captures the down-and-out condition of the GOP better than its having RNC chairman Michael Steele as a spokesman. On the one hand he trashes Rush Limbaugh. On the other he talks of withholding campaign funds from the Specter-Collins-Snowe trio. If Republicans are lucky, Steele will revert to his Senate campaign tactic of never mentioning his party affiliation.
Inspiring Investor Confidence: Oh, Never Mind!
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 9:52AM
I thought the multiple bail-outs, massive "stimulus" package, and "investment"-packed budget proposal were all supposed to inspire investor confidence. Well, the Dow didn't get the message: early today it has fallen below 7000 for the first time since October 28, 1997. Maybe there will be a late rebound, but it appears that people who invest have little confidence in the administration's plan to transform America in Europe.
Operation Amtrak
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 9:38AM
Joe Biden, using the Middle Class Task Force as a cover, wages covert war against Philadelphia car drivers.
Objectiv(ist) Proof of Stimulus Working
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 9:29AM
Sales of Atlas Shrugged triple in the Age of Obama.
(H/T Andrew Roth)
Romney's Swipe at Palin
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 7:47AM
I thought it was pretty classless for Romney to take an underhanded shot at Palin during his remarks at CPAC:
There are so many conservative leaders here this weekend. I was looking forward to seeing Governor Palin again. There’s a rumor that she has been offered an 11-million- dollar book contract. My publisher has been talking to me about an 11-millon-dollar deal as well. I’m just not sure I can come up with that kind of money.
The point, of course, is to remind everybody that Palin didn't make it to CPAC, as well as to mock her celebrity status. Save it for 2011.
Parade of GOP Presidential Hopefuls
Posted by on 3.2.09 @ 7:27AM
At CPAC this year, a number of speakers made the point that President Obama would be a one-termer because his policies would fail. Rush Limbaugh drew applause when he said, "We can take this country back. All we need is to nominate the right candidate. It's no more complicated than that." But the problem is, finding the right candidate is easier said than done.
CPAC featured a number of 2012 hopefuls, and being perfectly honest, it was hard to look at any of them and say, "This is the one who is going to beat Obama."
You could make the argument that Romney, who won the CPAC straw poll, is the early frontrunner for the nomination in 2012, because the economy is likely to be a big issue and there's historically an "it's his turn" bias to the GOP primaries. At the same time, his speech at CPAC really didn't evolve much from the sort of checklist conservatism that categorized his campaign. He also maintains the credibility problem. At one point, he blasted President Obama for wanting a government takeover of health care, while touting the Massachusetts system as a free market model for the nation. But in reality the Massachusetts plan is a big government plan that is actually quite similar to Obama's campaign proposal. In both cases, the government provides subsidies to individuals to purchase government-designed health plans on a government-run exchange. Romney tries to give himself some wiggle room by saying, "the final bill and its implementation aren’t exactly the way I wanted," but he signed the bill knowing that he wasn't running for reelection and that it would be implemented by a liberal successor. It's amazing how this guy continues to treat us like we're idiots.
Mark Sanford is somebody to keep a close eye on. Though he ended up near the bottom of the straw poll, I think that had more to do with lack of name recognition. The poll showed that size of government was overwhelmingly the most important issue to conservatives, and I expect that sentiment to grow as frustration mounts with Obama administration spending over the next few years. This plays into the hands of Sanford, one of the few Republicans who can actually claim to be a consistent defender of limited government. His Friday night speech was thoughtful and introspective meditation on, among other things, the ability of individuals to shape history when they're willing to take on losing battles. At the same time, it was a bit meandering, and I'm just not sure if he has the charisma, TV savvy, or ambition to go the distance.
Huckabee is trying to use his opposition to the bailout and stimulus projects to make economic conservatives more comfortable with him, but his appeal is still limited in scope, and if he runs again in 2012, he'll face more competition from evangelicals from Tim Pawlenty and Sarah Palin, should she run.
Pawlenty, meanwhile, gave a decent speech, and could emerge as a more plausible version of Huckabee. He appeals to the same sort of working class and evangelical voters. As a Midwesterner, he could be a threat in Iowa. But he'll have a difficult time appealing to economic conservatives, and it's hard to see him really lighting a fire under anybody.
The point in all of this is that before conservatives get too attached to the idea of Obama messing up so badly that Republicans take back the White House in four years, it's important to keep in mind that in America there tends to be a bias that favors incumbent presidents. Back in 2004, Bush was very beatable, and at several points during the year his approval rating dropped below the 50 percent threshold, but given the alternative of John Kerry, Americans decided to give him a second term. In 1980, Republicans had Reagan waiting the wings when Carter faltered, but would that election had ended up the same if there weren't a Reagan, and somebody like Dole or Bush I were the Republican nominee?
UPDATE: Yes, Ron Paul spoke. And no, I don't think he'll be a viable presidential candidate in 2012 -- at 77.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
The Rest of His Story
Posted by on 3.1.09 @ 4:30PM
Rush Limbaugh is often credited with the dubious honor of inventing conservative talk radio. And it is certainly true that Rush paved the way for Hannity, O'Reilly, and other pundits by perfecting the three-hour blatherfest.
But the true pioneer
and undisputed king of conservative radio until his death
yesterday at age 90 was Paul Harvey, a man who never
required three hours and 36 commercial breaks to get his message
across.
Since 1951, when he joined ABC News, the "largest one-man network in the world" quietly dominated radio. His show is carried on 1,200 radio stations and 400 Armed Forces Network stations around the world, and his column appeared in 300 newspapers nationwide. (His broadcasts and newspaper columns have been reprinted in the Congressional Record more than those of any other commentator.)
Despite his dominance, Harvey was often overlooked as a influence on conservatism even though he had millions more listeners than any other conservative on the radio (including Rush). His "Paul Harvey News and Comment" aired for 5 minutes in the morning and for 15 minutes before noon. Yet Harvey managed to say more in those 20 minutes than other hosts say in 180.
While other pundits preached to the choir, Harvey was an evangelist for the conservative perspective. His disarming folksy charm made his conservative views appear to be nothing more than good old common sense. Indeed, Harvey probably did more to promote non-ideological conservatism than any other figure in modern America. It would be hard to imagine the revolution of the Reagan era if he hadn't converted so many Democrats to the cause.
As a communicator for conservative values he was without peer. And sadly, we are unlikely to see his equal for a long time to come. He will be missed. May he rest in peace.
- Losing It
- No Freedom Left Behind
- Obama's Foreign Policy Problems, Personified