The American Spectator

Traditional Manhood or Modern Feminization?

Posted by Robert Stacy McCain on 3.21.09 @ 1:00PM

In recent weeks, I've spent time pondering the question of what has gone amiss with American manhood, and it's good to see that some people appreciate it:

For an involved discussion on the feminization of the modern man, start with RS McCain, then go to Melissa Clouthier, then back to Mr. McCain, who calls men cowards for not standing up to the women who would squash them.

Ah, for the good old days of The Dark Night of Patriarchal Oppression:

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Did Canada's Universal Health Care Kill Natasha Richardson?

Posted by Matthew Vadum on 3.21.09 @ 8:44AM

Did the fact that Canada has a socialist, government-run healthcare system --similar to the kind that President Obama wants to ram down the throats of Americans-- kill acclaimed actress Natasha Richardson?

The short answer is yes, it may very well have done so.

Regarding the case of the actress who fell on a ski slope at Mont Tremblant resort in Quebec, AP reports:

As a steady stream of celebrities pay their last respects to Natasha Richardson, questions are arising over whether a medical helicopter might have been able to save the ailing actress.

The province of Quebec lacks a medical helicopter system, common in the United States and other parts of Canada, to airlift stricken patients to major trauma centers. Montreal's top head trauma doctor said Friday that may have played a role in Richardson's death.

"It's impossible for me to comment specifically about her case, but what I could say is ... driving to Mont Tremblant from the city (Montreal) is a 2 1/2-hour trip, and the closest trauma center is in the city. Our system isn't set up for traumas and doesn't match what's available in other Canadian cities, let alone in the States," said Tarek Razek, director of trauma services for the McGill University Health Centre, which represents six of Montreal's hospitals.

That's it in a nutshell. Socialized medicine, known by the euphemism universal healthcare, is about tightfisted government clerks rationing care.

Think about the folks at the Department of Motor Vehicles making your healthcare decisions for you while you wait in line.

Under government healthcare, faceless bureaucrats do not care if you live or die, as long as everyone receives equal treatment.

Natasha Richardson received the same kind of treatment anyone in Quebec would have received, and now she's dead at the age of 45 because Quebec didn't have something as basic as a medical helicopter system.

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Conyers Throwing ACORN Under the Bus?

Posted by Matthew Vadum on 3.20.09 @ 7:26PM

Just five months ago uber-liberal House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers called radical direct-action group ACORN "a longstanding and well regarded organization that fights for the poor and working class."

But not anymore.

Yesterday the outspoken left-winger called for a congressional probe of ACORN. Conyers's proposal came on the same day as Judiciary's subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties received testimony from lawyer Heather Heidelbaugh about the extent of ACORN's corrupt activities, the Washington Times reports:

In an [sic] startling partisan shift, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. on Thursday proposed holding hearings on claims the liberal activist group ACORN engaged in a pattern of crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style "protection" racket.

Mr. Conyers, Michigan Democrat and fierce partisan, suggested a congressional probe after scathing testimony about the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) during a hearing on various voting issues related to the 2008 presidential election.

Mr. Conyers called the accusations "a pretty serious matter."

"I think that it would be something that would be worth our time," he said during Thursday's hearing. "We've never had one person representing ACORN before the committee. ... I think in all fairness we ought to really examine it." [...]

It is startling that someone like Conyers, who is very sympathetic to ACORN's policy goals and who has defended the group in the past, is now suddenly considering examining the many wrongdoings of ACORN. (Conyers received a 100% rating from ACORN in its 2006 legislative scorecard. See page 11 of PDF file.)

At the Thursday hearing, the congressional panel heard that ACORN runs a mob-style "protection" racket known within the radical direct-action group as the "muscle for the money" program.

Lawmakers also heard that ACORN, which I profiled in the November issue of Capital Research Center's Foundation Watch, has provided protest-for-hire services and extracted donations from the targets of demonstrations by shaking down those targets mafia-style.

The taxpayer-subsidized ACORN network, which owes millions of dollars in back taxes, also played a major role in the subprime mortgage mess that has undermined Americans' support for free market problem-solving and set off a worldwide chain of financial troubles.

And then there's ACORN's eight-year-long coverup of the million-dollar embezzlement by founder Wade Rathke's brother. When ACORN board members Marcel Reid and Karen Inman demanded to see the financial documents, they were expelled from the group. Reid and Inman have since become whistleblowers and formed a new group, ACORN 8, which is aimed at reforming ACORN.

It goes on and on and on.

Meanwhile, Megyn Kelly of Fox News laid into ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson over allegations of voter registration fraud.

It's very entertaining.

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The Democrats Promised: President Obama Would be Different

Posted by Doug Bandow on 3.20.09 @ 6:20PM

imagine, money is being wasted through bail-outs and stimulus packages. The Democrats promised everything would be different. Really!

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Sanford Rejects Stimulus Money

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.20.09 @ 5:52PM

After President Obama rejected Mark Sanford's request to use a portion of the stimulus money being sent to South Carolina to pay down state debt, Sanford rejected $700 million of stimulus funds, though he can be overruled by the state legislature.

Here's what Sanford had to say in a statement released earlier today:

"We're obviously disappointed by the White House's decision, because it cuts against the notion of federalism and the idea of each state having the flexibility to act in a manner that best suits its needs," Gov. Sanford said. "As a result, we will not be seeking the use of these federal funds for the way they put our state even further into an unconscionable level of debt. If our General Assembly chooses to make use of this federal money, we'd ask them to use existing state resources to begin paying down our state's sizable liabilities. Now is the time to do so, because it will give us more flexibility in addressing future needs at a state level if this economic downturn is indeed protracted. We simply cannot afford to base 10 percent of our state budget on money that will disappear in two years' time."

SEIU Member Who Met With Biden Caught Stealing

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.20.09 @ 5:25PM

An SEIU member from Cedar Rapids, Iowa who met with Joe Biden as part of the union's "Walk a Day in My Shoes" program during the presidential campaign was caught reaching into a woman's bag and swiping cash from her wallet outside the state Capitol.

Below is video of a local news report, and via Iowa Republican, video of the man, Mashall Clemons, with Biden.

Most Outrageous Spin of the Week

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.20.09 @ 3:44PM

Comes from an email I just received from the progressive Americans United for Change. The subect line reads: "Alarming New Deficit Projections Only Underscore Urgent Need to Pass Obama Budget."

Tom McMahon, the acting executive director of the liberal activist group, says:

"The sobering new deficit projections deliver a stark message that the economy is in even worse shape than was previously thought. It also underscores the urgent need to pass the bold initiatives on healthcare, education, energy and the economy laid out the President's budget. If we don't deal with the major underlying problems with the economy and make it possible for business to create jobs, our deficits will only continue to explode. We simply cannot achieve sustainable economic growth without fixing our broken health care system, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and investing in tomorrow's educated workforce. Bottom line: the most effective way for Congress to begin to regain control of the federal deficit is to support the President's budget plan that is blueprint for rebuilding and renewing America."

Yes, that would be the same budget plan that the CBO determined would add $4.8 trillion to the cumulative deficit over 10 years.

IVF and Embryos

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.20.09 @ 3:31PM

When President Obama reversed his predecessor's policies concerning embryonic stem-cell research, at least one commenter asked why social conservatives don't care about in vitro fertilization. Well, they do.

CBO: Obama Budget to Add $4.8 Trillion to Deficit Through 2019

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.20.09 @ 3:20PM

Today the Congressional Budget Office has released a brutal analysis of President Obama's first budget, determining that it would create cumulative deficits of $9.3 trillion between 2010 and 2019, which is more than double the $4.4 trillion baseline CBO projection under current law. The CBO deficit projections for the Obama budget are $2.3 trillion higher than the estimates made by the White House.

The CBO also had to revise upward by $400 billion its baseline deficit estimates for 2009 ($1.7 trillion) and 2010 (now $1.1 trillion), but if the Obama budget passes, those numbers rise to $1.8 trillion in 2009 and $1.4 trillion in 2010. Either way, they are the largest deficits as a percentage of GDP since 1945, when the country was paying for WWII military spending.

CBO expects those deficits to decline as the economy improves, but looking at the chart below demonstrates how much worse the deficits will be if Obama gets his way. The lower the line, the wider the deficit.

Total Deficit or Surplus (Percentage of GDP)

Antiwar Critics of Obama

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.20.09 @ 3:03PM

Earlier this week, a group of eight Democrats and six Republicans sent President Obama a letter asking him to reconsider his decision to send an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan. Most, though not all, of the signers were frequent critics of President Bush's Iraq policy: Reps. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), Jimmy Duncan (R-Tenn.), and Walter Jones (R-N.C.) on the right, Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) on the left. I talked yesterday to Congressman Jones, who has been a strong supporter of the mission in Afghanistan, and his concerns about an open-ended commitment were similar to Stefan Halper's in the March issue of TAS.

"I don't determine in the first few weeks of your administration that you have a strategy, though I know the administration thinks it has one," said Jones. "We have 38,000 troops in Afghanistan. Add 17,000 and we're at 55,000. A lot of our troops and equipment are worn out after multiple deployments. Our friends aren't really helping us. We need a strategy." Jones argued that these things need more thought before we commit additional troops. "I would hope that our president would take two or three months to get engaged with our friends, think of countries that would help us, and arrive at a strategy," Jones said.

AIG's "Jackpot Jimmy" Gave to Dodd

Posted by Jeffrey Lord on 3.20.09 @ 1:25PM

Rush has been talking about him, and the New York Times has a story on the travails of James "Jackpot Jimmy" Haas, an AIG executive featured on the front page. Haas, suddenly the subject of public scorn whipped up by Democrats in Congress, has twice to contributed money to…Senator Christopher Dodd.

A resident of upscale Fairfield, Connecticut, on July 4, 1998 Haas gave $500 to Friends of Chris Dodd, according to FEC reports. Haas listed his business as "AIG Trading Products." On April 18, 2004, Haas again donated to Dodd, this time giving $1,500 and listing his business as "AIG Financial Products."

New Kind of Bipartisanship, Health Care Edition

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.20.09 @ 1:19PM

The Washington Post carries this alarming story that Democrats will give Republicans until September to compromise on health care (i.e. go along with everything they propose), or else they'll ram it through as part of the budget process, which is not subject to filibuster. While so-called budget reconciliation has been used to pass spending and tax measures, it would be an outrageous overreach to use the gimmick to pass a bill that would permanently overhaul the $2.4 trillion health care sector. Such a move would basically turn the Senate into the House, and would make a mockery of any claims President Obama has to be a bipartisan leader who wants to have a serious debate about issues.

The Real Terrorist Threat

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.20.09 @ 1:06PM

American right-wingers, of course. Philip Jenkins explains. The dangers of the right don't stop with Ron Paul supporters.

Obama Compares Delinquencies to Exploding Toaster

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.20.09 @ 11:56AM

During his appearance on Jay Leno last night, in addition to his Special Olympics comment, President Obama made the following remark about why we need more financial regulation:

"When you buy a toaster, if it explodes in your face, there's a law that says, you know, your toasters need to be safe. But when you get a credit card, or you get a mortgage, there's no law on the books that says if that explodes in your face financially, somehow you're going to be protected."

In other words, people who purchased houses that they couldn't afford and ran up debt on their credit cards are mere innocent bystanders when they default on their obligations. This is a rather stunning statement for a president who entered office calling for "a new era of responsibility..."

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The First Casualty of the Obama Budget

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.20.09 @ 10:43AM

The president's proposed changes in veteran's health care have been dropped.

Obama Gets Free Pass on Special Olympics

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.20.09 @ 9:56AM

Add another item to the department of "imagine if George Bush or Dick Cheney had done it." Obama's joke last night that his bowling skills were "like Special Olympics or something" has generated some publicity, but not much outrage.

One of the most egregious examples of burying the lead was in the New York Times story headlined, "Seeking Everyman, Obama Does Leno," which waited until the second to last paragraph to inform us:

He had one impolitic moment when trying to make a self-deprecating joke about his bowling score of 129, saying, "That was like the Special Olympics or something." But mostly he stayed benign and folksy even while discussing the need to undo bonuses, fix banks and regulate credit card rates.

On CNN.com, the headline was "Obama mixes politics, comedy on 'Tonight Show,'" and it included this account:

Obama also remarked on his poor bowling skills, which were evident during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania. He told Leno that he bowled 129 in the White House bowling alley and said his bowling skills are "like Special Olympics or something."

Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton said the president's remarks were not meant to poke fun of the Special Olympics.

"The president made an offhand remark making fun of his own bowling that was in no way intended to disparage the Special Olympics," Burton said. "He thinks that the Special Olympics are a wonderful program that gives an opportunity to shine to people with disabilities from around the world."

These are just two examples, but the general idea is that the media takes it as a given that President Obama is a nice, earnest liberal who would never want to intentionally offend anybody, let alone those with disabilities. Yet when it comes to Republicans or conservatives, such incidents are used to demonstrate how insensitive they are. Another factor is that all of the professional outrage organizations that the media anoints as arbitors of whether or not something is offensive happen to be run by liberals. And in this case, it doesn't hurt that the chairman of the Special Olympics is Ted Kennedy's nephew.

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CNN Poll: More Than 8 in 10 Americans Happy With Their Health Care

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.20.09 @ 9:40AM

Despite the perception you may get from President Obama and his allies in the media, a new CNN poll finds that more than eight in 10 Americans say they're satisfied with the health care they receive, and three out of four say they are happy with their overall coverage. Yet at the same time, more than three-quarters are unhappy with the cost of care. (You can guess which statistic made the headline.)

This explains why President Obama's strategy for selling his health care vision has been to emphasize the cost of coverage while trying to convince people that anybody who is satisfied with their current health care will be unaffected by his overhaul of the system. Assuming this poll is accurate, it's pretty clear that the best strategy Republicans have for defeating him on this issue is to effectively communicate to the public how Obama's massive government intervention in health care will, by design, distort the private market. The theory that motivates the Obama team is that they are going to migrate more people into a new optional government-run plan modeled after Medicare, and then use increased bargaining power to bully the profit-seeking private sector into behaving the way they think it should. This will include following government guidelines as to what types of treatment are and are not cost effective. And as we've seen in Massachusetts, we can expect longer wait times.

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Daily Must-Reads

Posted by Joseph Lawler on 3.20.09 @ 9:40AM

This administration is more concerned with C.C. Sabathia's left arm than the banking system (Washington Post)

Spitzer watch update: now he's crying about how hard it is to be a governor. Get over yourself, Eliot (Slate)

A little understanding goes a long way on the AIG situation (Bloomberg)

How's that transparency coming? Hard to tell (NRO)

30 years of free-market accomplishments are are at risk (Financial Times)

Christians on stem-cells: pretty consistent (Ross Douthat)

TSA: Hassling Passengers in the Name of Security

Posted by Doug Bandow on 3.19.09 @ 7:47PM

Anyone who travels recognizes that much of what goes on in the name of airport security is designed to demonstrate activity rather than ensure safety. Show your boarding pass as you enter the security line and again as you pass through the metal detector. Boy, that makes sense!

TSA has resurrected the awful random searches of passengers at the gates as they board the aircraft. Reports the Associated Press:

Although the TSA follows a "risk-based approach" when adding security measures, TSA spokeswoman Lara Uselding told the Associated Press that the move to restore random gate checks developed "as the agency evolved," not because of a specific threat. The TSA collects intelligence from the FBI as well as state, local and national government agencies when forming new procedures.

...

Uselding said letters were sent to airlines last week informing them of the security change, although the new gate screening procedures have been in place for a couple of months. She would not say how many passengers or employees have been randomly stopped at gates, or how that figure has changed in recent years.

Because passengers at a certain gate are screened does not mean there is a specific threat to a particular plane, Uselding said.

She said signs at gates inform passengers that screening may occur. Uselding acknowledged that some passengers may see additional screening after a comprehensive search at a security checkpoint as unnecessary or annoying.

"Everything we do here at TSA is for a reason, it's not made to make travelers' lives a hassle," she said.

These random checks were perhaps the worst, most inconvenient measures instituted after September 11. They presumed that the rest of the security system had failed and meant that even after you had passed through everything else, you still could be pulled aside and forced to stand by as your personal items were spread about for everyone to look at. And experienced travelers attempted to game the system--don't board until the security personnel are busy, try to time your jump into the line to pass by before they would finish with their victim, etc.

If TSA is going to make the traveling experience markedly worse, it should explain what new threats have arisen. Or was it ignoring serious threats in recent years after abandoning the random security checks? What gives?

If the agency can't answer these questions, then it will be apparent that the TSA is again putting appearance before reality. And passengers will again pay the price through increased inconvenience.

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PBS, Bill Moyers, and AIG

Posted by Jeffrey Lord on 3.19.09 @ 6:25PM

Is PBS still getting bonuses…or, as described here…."compensation" that exceeds a congressionally mandated pay cap? And what's up with Bill Moyers?

Way back there in something known as the Clinton era (his), a publication called Current came up with the story linked to above that says, at the time PBS'ers were getting exactly that. I’m unable to find s any follow-up here, but since Monsieurs Frank and Cuomo are demanding names of those taking bonuses from taxpayers, perhaps its time to revive the subject.

Should the first name on this list of inquiries be Bill Moyers? Repeated attempts to get the precise details of the financials between Moyers and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have been rebuffed for years. Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard explored this situation in some depth back in 2002, eliciting this irritated quote from Moyers about his public funding:

When I asked Moyers if he sees any irony in the fact that he's a wealthy man owing in no small part to his long association with public television, the MVP of PBS told me that he's no different from any other public servant--fireman, policeman, or teacher. But when I reminded him that their salaries are matters of public record, he once again reverted to the status of private contractor.

"I make the same disclosures any privately held company makes," he insisted. "I am an independent producer who has made a decent living, by choice in public television as opposed to commercial television. I'm not Enron."

Well, as of today, the hounds are loosed. In the world of Barney and Andy everyone has a right to know who gets public money of any kind and how much. So, what's up with PBS, NPR and its parent Corporation for Public Broadcasting? Are they the AIG of the media? Are they still ladling out monies above the caps? And isn't time for Bill Moyers to do the right thing like those scoundrels on Wall Street? If they take the bucks, we need the info or Andrew Cuomo will sue and Barney Frank will issue subpoenas. Go to it, gentlemen.

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Leading Conservatives Oppose Hamilton Nomination

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.19.09 @ 5:55PM

A group of prominent conservatives, including former Attorney General Ed Meese, has issued a statement opposing President Obama's nomination of David Hamilton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. The statement and signatories follow:

David Hamilton: Unqualified, Except for in Liberal Activism

Obama's First Judicial Nominee Reflects Preference of Ideology over Constitutionality

President Obama's nomination of David Hamilton to the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit represents a choice based on the merits of political ideology instead of competence and impartiality. Hamilton, Obama's first judicial nominee, has none of the judicial expertise or experience required, but all of the ties to left-wing special interest groups and a record of activist rulings reflecting his personal views that only a liberal ideologue could hope for.

President Obama admitted on the campaign trail that he would select judges based not on their impartiality or understanding of the Constitution but on whether they “have life experience and they understand what it means to be on the outside, what it means to have the system not work for them,” and whether they have “the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old.” He also promised, however, to usher in a new era of post-partisanship. Unfortunately that promise expired with his very first judicial pick, as he nominated Hamilton not on the basis of his commitment to the judicial oath but on the basis of expressed (and demonstrated) commitment to an extreme political agenda.

As a judge, Hamilton has shown himself to be soft on crime, radically pro-abortion, and hostile towards religion. With such a liberal activist record unmarked by significant experience, Judge Hamilton is clearly a bad and politically motivated appellate nominee.

Judge Hamilton is committed to an extreme political agenda.

·        Hamilton is a former ACLU leader who lent his legal skills to the far-left special interest group.

·        He was a fundraiser for the liberal activist group ACORN, the sponsor of the most comprehensive criminal voter fraud campaign in American history.

Judge Hamilton’s experience as a political activist does not qualify him for a judicial office.

·        In 1994, when President Clinton nominated him to the district court, the ABA rated Hamilton as ‘not qualified,’ apparently because of his almost purely political (as opposed to legal and judicial) experience. There is nothing in his record as a judge that suggests he’s any more qualified now.

Judge Hamilton has a record of going out of his way to let criminals go free.

·        He made it easier for child predators to move around in Indiana by invalidating a common-sense sex offender law designed to protect children from those same predators.

·        He has a record of helping criminal defendants by suppressing evidence and warrants that would help law enforcement keep streets and families safe. He once suppressed a warrant that had been issued after a child had revealed to a social worker that her mother had illegal drugs in their house.

·        He took the extreme measure of ruling that a drug sniffing dog is comparable to using a thermal imaging device to look into houses.

Judge Hamilton is a typical abortion-on-demand absolutist.

·        For years he used his judicial office to fight a popular Indiana law designed to reduce the number of abortions. That reasonable, common-sense law required information and a waiting period before an abortion and Judge Hamilton invalidated it despite Supreme Court precedent supporting it.

Judge Hamilton is hostile to the free exercise of religion.

·        He ruled that prayers to Jesus Christ offered at the beginning of legislative sessions in the Indiana state House of Representatives violated the Constitution, but that prayers to Allah did not.

Given Hamilton's lack of qualifications and clear record of liberal ideology, the Senate should reject his nomination. President Obama's choice of Hamilton flies in the face of the desire of the vast majority of Americans for credentialed and impartial judges, and the Senate should vote accordingly.

The statement was issued by:

Edwin Meese, former Attorney General

David McIntosh, former U.S. Representative from Indiana

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council

T.K. Cribb, former counselor to the Attorney General

Alfred S. Regnery, publisher of The American Spectator

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Sign of Things to Come?

Posted by Paul Chesser on 3.19.09 @ 3:23PM

In one of those "news analysis" pieces in which the mainstream media cloaks their own opinions, CNN has expressed their doubts about the Presipromptor's "I will take responsibility" comments for the AIG bonuses:

(CNN) -- President Obama topped a town hall appearance Wednesday by claiming responsibility for the bonuses paid out to executives at the bailed-out insurance giant American International Group, saying, "I'm outraged, too."

Cushioned by high approval ratings, analysts said Obama can emerge from this controversy relatively unscathed, but there's only so many times he can get away with saying, "Blame me."

And there's this from one of CNN's own:

In Obama's case, "blame me" is political code for "move on," said Candy Crowley, CNN's senior political correspondent.

Cynicism creeping in?

topics: Barack Obama

Congress Hears About ACORN's Extortion Racket

Posted by Matthew Vadum on 3.19.09 @ 1:20PM

In recent months demands for ACORN to be investigated under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for repeated incidents of electoral fraud have been growing.

But voting-related fraud is just the tip of the iceberg.

ACORN runs a mob-style "protection" racket known within the radical direct-action group as the "muscle for the money" program, a lawyer told the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties today.

Lawyer Heather Heidelbaugh filed an unsuccessful lawsuit last year against ACORN, specifically, a court injunction in Pennsylvania against ACORN's voter registration efforts in last year's presidential campaign. (A transcript of the Oct. 29 hearing in Moyer v. ACORN is available here.)

Heidelbaugh says that ACORN, which I profiled in the November issue of Capital Research Center's Foundation Watch, has provided protest-for-hire services and extracted donations from the targets of demonstrations by shaking down those targets mafia-style. (Heidelbaugh's written congressional testimony is available here.)

The taxpayer-subsidized ACORN network, which owes millions of dollars in back taxes, also played a major role in the subprime mortgage mess that has undermined Americans' support for free market problem-solving and set off a worldwide chain of financial troubles.

And then there's ACORN's eight-year-long coverup of the million-dollar embezzlement by founder Wade Rathke's brother. When ACORN board members Marcel Reid and Karen Inman demanded to see the financial documents, they were expelled from the group.

What else is ACORN hiding?

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Excitable Speech

Posted by Steven Rybicki on 3.19.09 @ 1:00PM

If M.I.A. is the Gayatri Spivak of pop music (cf. the-now-defunct Stylus; the Fork; and the Dean himself, Robert Christgau), then could her new protégé Rye Rye become its Judith Butler?

All of this is to say: is it me or is politicized pop music much more playful and rewarding today than when Rage Against the Machine used to grimace and name-check Frantz Fanon?

All Canadians Are Despicable, Verminous Scum, Except . . .

Posted by Robert Stacy McCain on 3.19.09 @ 12:21PM

. . . Kathy Shaidle, whose one-woman war against PC groupthink "human rights" fascism bids fair to make her into Canada's Rush Limbaugh.

Now, I understand our Canadian-born friend Matthew Vadum might object, "What about me?" But I've known Mr. Vadum a few years, and I say he's as good an American as anyone else. I will not stand by in silence while he is pigeonholed as a so-called "Canadian-American" merely because of the unfortunate circumstance of his north-of-the-border origins.

To those who accuse me of Canadaphobic bigotry, I reply, "What good can anyone say about that evil breed of swine that foisted Neil Young upon an unwilling world?"

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Duke N' It Out Over Picks

Posted by Paul Chesser on 3.19.09 @ 11:02AM

Duke University's Coach K says the TelePrezTor should stick to working on the economy instead of wasting time with NCAA brackets. My colleague at the John Locke Foundation, Roy Cordato, disagrees.

topics: Barack Obama

Obama the Fundamentalist

Posted by Steven Rybicki on 3.19.09 @ 11:00AM

While President Obama may assert the existence of “fundamentally sound aspects” of the US economy, the problem is that even if these vaguely formulated fundamentals exist, they are fundamentally irrelevant to this depression in which we find ourselves. With more confidence than ever, we now know that the “sound fundamentals” sound-byte was misleading (and if you want to be less charitable: we now have many reasons to believe it was false) when Senator McCain said it; when President Bush said it; and when Larry Kudlow rephrased it into a “slightly” more triumphalistic phrase. Thus, it’s devastatingly hollow when President Obama or his advisors trot out the phrase today (though, to be honest, it is Obama who is tasked with confronting the three-decades-in-the-making disaster).

But if you disagree and want to believe that when the Fed made-it-rain another trillion dollars this week that they’re increasing the amount of “investment” in the US’s “strong fundamentals,” then you go right ahead and keep that belief. I’ll just be over here mumbling with the cynics.

Yet cynicism seems to be the only warranted axiom upon which to speak and/or act (regardless if the action is proactive by policy makers with actual power or reactive like the musings of someone, let’s say “me,” on a blog). The financial accelerants that produced the economic growth in the US economy were recipes High Finance prepared and upon which they gorged themselves. And now we find that what the self-styled gods of High Finance thought was their ambrosia was really a feast of Tantalus.

There are many sources to engage for basic explanations of what was responsible for economic growth and reasons why one must reject the absurd “sound fundamentals” jargon.

Clusterstock’s Joe Weisenthal frames our situation this way:

Think of it like a bridge that comes crumbling down when one key support beam comes out. Imagine someone saying, okay, the key to fix the bridge is to put that beam back up. No, it doesn't work that way. The whole bridge has collapsed and putting the support beam back up does nothing.

This is what's happened in the economy. The support beam was housing. As long as home values continued to rise, the whole bridge managed to hold up, cause that turned out to be the pillar of everything. It's fallen, the bridge is collapsing everywhere and the attitude among our leaders -- both in business and in politics -- is that to repair the support beam, we just need to boost housing prices again. Like it was all a bad dream.

Unfortunately, our only choice is to rebuild the bridge, not try to fix the one part, which caused the collapse.

That’s the essential kernel of what’s going on. For in-depth arguments, start with Niall Ferguson’s overview of our present economic context from Vanity Fair. And last month Ferguson responded to the West’s response to the crisis with this curt missive.

Michael Lewis explains the corporate culture, strategies, and tactics that were developed and implemented and led to the post-industrial-economic complex, High Finance.

Felix Salmon’s sharp essay in Wired offers some very clear prose to translate into plain English some of the very dense math that was used to create the tools that Ferguson mentions.

John Cassidy’s New Yorker piece describes how now that the system is collapsing those with power continue to lack the imagination or initiative to euthanize High Finance. Instead we reacted (and continue to react) as if we can and must reestablish that prior conception of normality.

And while we wait for people to figure out that the age of High Finance is over, economists George Akerlof and Paul Romer classify the cold, brutal, and completely rational behavior of the remnant meat puppets of High Finance who forage in the rubble. It’s called looting.

In order to not be too broad when dismissing Presidents Bush and Obama’s faith in “sound fundamentals” I should qualify: indeed, those “sound fundamentals” could build and sustain an economy, in theory. But those “sound fundamentals” were not the cause of the global economic growth that existed (and are now growing at a steep, negative rate) “on paper” for nation-states like the US or China or the UK or those in the Eurozone. We certainly didn’t oppose what was driving that growth. And to refer to that engine of growth (at any point in the past or present) as “strong fundamentals” such as the American worker or entrepreneurship is deception. Furthermore, both parties in our political sector were complicit in how the growth occurred.

In the US, the economic expansion provided the American Right with “proof” that the “free-markets” that they oversaw (while holding the Presidency for 20 out of the last 28 years) entitled the US population to extravagant standards of living (the “ownership society”). Additionally, as long as the market more-or-less structured levels of class disparity, then there was nothing to worry about. Why? Well, the poor would always want to work to enter the middle class and the middle class would march steadily into the upper class. Meanwhile, the American Left looked at trillion-dollar-growth and argued that the paper trail from High Finance would enable the subsidization of new social projects in the realms of health care and fighting global warming. Ideologically, they both were glad to have the books cooked by High Finance. And High Finance was glad to have the tacit backing of the US government in case of emergency.

If fundamentalists on either side still remain, then they should be ashamed of this equivocation of “strong fundamentals” with what were the fundamentals for the economic growth we experienced in the age of High Finance. And when politicians speak in terms of “strong fundamentals” in regard to the US economy, I invite you to keep-in-mind a (slightly altered) phrase from Campaign 2008: they’re smearing lipstick on the snout of a pig corpse.

P.S. Just a FYI: if I’m sounding too simple and moralistic (say, like, this guy) let me at least plead to being quite persuaded that the world works the way this guy explains it: “The world is a business, Mr. Beal. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.” But with this caveat: we also have a robust history of business sectors that compete with other businesses by manufacturing a fiat currency called “ethics” or “morality” instead of “cash.” So every once in a while, one business might develop a better vocabulary that can explain the deficiencies of another business.

The Meaning of Change

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.19.09 @ 10:38AM

According to John Hood: "With apologies to the Bush partisans out there, I think the present moment can be summarized concisely: America has traded incompetence for insanity." Amen.

Daily Must-Reads

Posted by Joseph Lawler on 3.19.09 @ 10:24AM

The Pope is right on AIDS and Africa (NRO)

Take it from someone who knows: going European on labor won't help (WSJ)

Preserving morality along the Mexican border (Washington Post)

Take a moment to give thanks that Sarah Palin is not in the White House. Just imagine how much trouble we'd be in if she were (DC Examiner)

Obamaflation Watch

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.19.09 @ 9:42AM

From the New York Times account of the Fed decision to pump an additional $1 trillion into mortgage and Treasury securities:

But there were also clear indications that the Fed was taking risks that could dilute the value of the dollar and set the stage for future inflation. Gold prices rose $26.60 an ounce, hitting $942, a sign of declining confidence in the dollar. The dollar, which had been losing value in recent weeks to the euro and the yen, dropped sharply again on Wednesday.

The article also notes that:

Since last September, the Fed’s lending programs have roughly doubled the size of its balance sheet, to about $1.8 trillion, from $900 billion. The actions announced on Wednesday are likely to expand that to well over $3 trillion over the next year.

As I've written at greater length, the combination of fiscal and monetary policies being pursued are quite likely to cause a nasty inflation, and yet there is absolutely no room for debate in polite society about the long-term consequences of what we're doing. Just because inflation isn't a problem now, the conventional view is that we should throw caution to the wind and keep pumping money into the system and try all sorts of fiscal stimulus because eventually something will work. The important thing is to get the economy moving again, and nothing else matters. But it's exactly this type of short term thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. After the bursting of the Internet bubble and the post-9/11 economic downturn, both Wall Street and Washington policy makers had an interest in the housing boom, which was propping up the economy and giving life to financial markets that had also been battered by a wave of accounting scandals. People bought houses that they couldn't afford with "teaser rates" -- and they figured they'd worry later when those rates adjusted upward. At every level, the crisis was created by short-term thinking rather than long-term planning, and though the circumstances are different, we're guided by the same psychology right now.

KGB Putin Keeping an Eye on Reagan?

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.19.09 @ 9:27AM

Some background on the photo here.

He fesses up to CNN, after denying it just yesterday.

Obama Claims He's Responsible, Then Blames Other People

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.18.09 @ 6:37PM

President Obama has mastered the art of employing rhetoric that makes it sound as if he's doing something uniquely virtuous and heroic when in reality he's doing stuff that political leaders often do. We've seen this with the way he touts bipartisanship while being unwilling to offer real compromises or the way he proclaims he isn't hiring lobbyists when he actually is. But he took this practice to more absurd proportions today when his big Harry Truman "buck stops here" moment was woven together with other statements blaming everybody but his administration for the handling of the AIG bonuses and the broader financial mess.

"Ultimately, I'm responsible, I'm the President of the United States," Obama declared.

But, instead of taking responsibility, he continued, "We've got a big mess that we're having to clean up. Nobody here drafted those contracts. Nobody here was responsible for supervising AIG and allowing themselves to put the economy at risk by some of the outrageous behavior they are engaged in. We are responsible though, the buck stops with me."

Asked about the performance of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Obama said: "Tim Geithner didn't draft these contracts with AIG. There has never been a Secretary of the Treasury except maybe Alexander Hamilton right after the Revolutionary War who's had to deal with the multiplicity of issues that Secretary Geithner is having to deal with, all at the same time." He followed up by explaining, "He is making all the right moves in terms of playing a bad hand."

If Obama wants to say that he inherited a mess, that's one thing. But to simultaneously cast blame elsewhere, ask to be graded on a curve, and act as if you're being a bold leader is quite another.

Nonetheless, he got his intended result, with headlines such as UPI's: "Obama: 'Buck stops with me'"

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Dodd Admits He Wrote Bonus Loophope

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.18.09 @ 6:20PM

House Republicans Say Obama's Budget Will Be Costly

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.18.09 @ 5:55PM

House Republican Conference Vice-Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), a House Budget Committee member and former Wyoming state treasurer, held a blogger's call today on President Obama's $3.55 trillion budget proposal. The two Republicans criticized the budget's size, scope, and cost to the taxpayer.

Lummis warned that while people may be "fatigued and overloaded" by the huge numbers thrown around in discussing the president's spending plans, "the bill has not yet arrived for the American people." But "the bill is coming in the form of President Obama's budget." She catalogued the tax increases contained therein, including higher rates on upper-income earners -- "putting a cap on the American dream" at $250,000 for a household and $200,000 for an individual -- as well as cap and trade, the closing of charitable deductions and the elimination of deductions for tangile drilling costs."

Lummis argued that the policies would hit people in "the middle of the country" in "fly-over state[s]" like Wyoming particularly hard, including "mom and pop" small businesses. She cited a $600 billion price tag for "cap and tax" that would hit "anyone who turns on a light bulb" or uses energy. Lummis also talked about the plan to require private insurance carriers to pay for the treatment of military veterans rather than the VA, a part of the budget she has introduced legislation to deal with. Veterans' groups have already weighed in against this provision.

The Real Enemy Unmasked

Posted by Shawn Macomber on 3.18.09 @ 5:45PM

Janet Napolitano may be so over the whole terrorism thing, but fear not! Homeland Security has turned its watchful eye toward what is obviously our nation's more immediate threat: Ron Paul supporters.

I dunno. I saw Dr. No On Ice and it seemed pretty innocuous to me.

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The Scold Returns

Posted by Shawn Macomber on 3.18.09 @ 5:23PM

Tucker Carlson--my initial choice for president in 2008; not a popular one, apparently--has posted a great takedown of the sanctimonious and preening Jon Stewart, which includes some funny bits about Stewart's off-air antics after his absurd appearance on Crossfire a few years back. The summation:

The relationship between Stewart and the media is a marriage of the self-loathing and the self-loving: He insists their real news is fake, they insist his fake news is real. He doesn't take them seriously at all. They take him way too seriously. But nobody takes anybody as seriously as Jon Stewart takes himself.

Along those same lines, I wrote after Stewart's Crossfire appearance:

The problem with Stewart is that he demands respect but is unwilling to take responsibility for the things he says. When it is time for a Stewart lecture, there is no room for kidding around. But when his conclusions or statements are questioned, it's suddenly time to roll his eyes and morph back into the Teflon comedian. On Crossfire, for example, after pleading with a straight face for the hosts to "stop, stop, stop hurting America" and praising his own show for its level of "civilized discourse," Stewart summarily shot down Carlson's questions about the kid-glove handling of John Kerry on The Daily Show last month. "If you want to compare your show to a comedy show, you're more than welcome to," Stewart said, adding snarkily that he didn't realize that, "news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity." When Carlson protested that he thought Stewart was going to be funny, Stewart shot back acidly, "I'm not going to be your monkey."

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What's Another Trillion?

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.18.09 @ 4:27PM

Today the Fed announced that it would inject another $1 trillion into mortgage backed securities and Treasury securities. Given the unprecedented level of money that the government is pumping into the economy to address various aspects of the economic crisis, this news is not as shocking as it would have been just six months ago. While a lot of conservatives have argued that spending to revive the economy would force Obama to pare down his ambitious domestic agenda, the reverse might be true. With the public so used to hearing these big numbers thrown around, they may become desensitized to the point where spending $634 billion -- or even $1.5 trillion -- to expand government health care no longer seems like a big deal.

The Left Is Still Lying About Wall Street and Deregulation

Posted by Matthew Vadum on 3.18.09 @ 4:14PM

Lies, lies, and still more lies issue from the mouths of leftists as they continue beating the class-warfare drum and demonizing Wall Street and the capitalist system itself in order to promote President Obama's nakedly statist agenda.

Amidst all the vomit-inducing phony outrage in liberal circles about AIG's payment of retention bonuses to employees, left-wingers continue to faithfully parrot the lines written for them (perhaps by the intelligentsia at the secretive JournoList.)

In an orgy of sanctimony the Left continues to argue -despite all evidence to the contrary- that the Bush years were an era of regulatory relaxation. (Would that it were true.)

Take the case of Faiz Shakir of John Podesta's propaganda factory, the allegedly nonpartisan Center for American Progress.

Shakir, who appeared on MSNBC today and didn't object when identified as a "Democratic strategist," is just one of many liberals attempting to create this myth of Dubya-era laissez-faire that is designed to be lapped up by lazy journalists, the uninformed, and the plain old gullible:

"I think there's been a culture of greed in Wall Street and there's been a culture of tolerance in Washington but that was really largely over the past administration. For eight years we tolerated these obscene profits from Wall Street, deregulation was the norm here in Washington and that was handed over to [Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner and the Obama administration," Shakir said.

If anything, the Bush years saw an explosion of regulatory activity.

As Scott S. Powell of the Hoover Institution notes, "The Bush administration made many mistakes, but deregulation was not one of them. Not only was there no major deregulation passed during the past eight years, but the Bush administration and a Republican Congress approved the most sweeping financial-market regulation in decades."

Powell is referring, of course, to Sarbanes-Oxley, which needlessly imposed tremendous costs on business.

Another culprit was ridiculous "mark-to-market" accounting standards that help strangle otherwise healthy companies.

Don't expect to hear any of these points raised by the Left. To liberals, government can do no wrong - unless it's the Bush administration.

Historians' Dream Auction

Posted by Quin Hillyer on 3.18.09 @ 4:11PM

On Saturday at the Potomack Company in Alexandria, VA, historians and political buffs can have absolute fits of ecstasy at an auction of some of the coolest stuff EVER. And I'm not exaggerating much. For instance, as anybody who cares about American political theory knows, one of the single most influential writings in American history, and one which almsot all the delegates to the Constitutional Convention knew thoroughly, was that year's Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, by John Adams (who was away at the time serving as ambassador to England). That was in 1787. How much would you pay for a copy of that masterpiece published the very next year, in 1788? (Yeah -- wow!)

Then there's the land-grant document signed by hand by both President Thomas Jefferson AND Secretary of State James Madison. Wow. And documents signed by Patrick Henry, William Henry Harrison, Henry Lee, Andrew Jacksonand John Hancock (or should that be John Hancock!, with outsized writing?)

Then there's a whole bunch of incredible Lincolnia -- a signed presidential document, an incredible early photograph, presidential visitation cards, and a marvelous seated bronze statue based on the familiar one at the Lincoln Memorial.

On top of all that, now-retired Sen. John Warner is auctioning (often with proceeds to go to the University of Virginia) an incredible array of his memorabilia from his 30 years in office, including a letter to him signed by Reagan and several photos of him and Reagan with hand-written notes from the Gipper.

There's also memorabilia from JFK, Nixon, and Ford.

Leaving political history, there are some great collections of book sets from circa 1896: the works of Sir Walter Scott, of Rudyard Kipling, of Alexander Dumas, and others. And there's a lot of great artwork, including a rare self-portrait by Charles Wilson Peale, famous for his portraits of early presidents. But again, I mention this all here because I imagine there are lots of history buffs and political buffs out there. And oh, yes, my wife works at the Potomack Company, which is how I'm aware of all this.... but if it were just artwork, I wouldn't mention it here. It's just that this historial treasure trove absolutely blew my mind, and I think it will blow yours, too. And the good news is that you can bid not ust in person but by phone or Internet. Click the link above to see how.

And if anybody feels like being a philanthropist and buying the Jefferson/Madison document to donate to the Quin Hillyer Historical Collection, I won't complain! ;)

Wait, There Might Be Terrorists At Gitmo?!

Posted by Shawn Macomber on 3.18.09 @ 3:12PM

In the Age of Obama, Europeans finally warm to the idea that bad men might actually exist.

Cheney Sticks Up for Libby

Posted by Quin Hillyer on 3.18.09 @ 2:38PM

Hooray for Dick Cheney. I've been meaning to blog on this since the former Veep's CNN appearance on Sunday. Like the stand-up man he is, Cheney backed his former aide Scooter Libby to the hilt when asked whether Libby should have been pardoned by G.W. Bush. Note that Cheney didn't just say that Libby was a good public service, blah, blah, blah, as if good service excuses a crime. Instead, Cheney flat-out said what I've been saying, which is that Libby wasn't guilt at all.

"I think he's an innocent man who deserves a pardon," Cheney said. "I believe firmly that Scooter was unjustlya ccused and prosecuted and deserved a pardon.... We, in effect, left Scooter sort of hanging in the wind, which i didn't think was appropriate."

Bingo.

It should and will be a mark of shame on the already tarnished record of G.W. Bush that he refused to pardon an innocent man who was targeted for the sin of being a member of Bush's own administration. If Libby had been part of Bush's inner circle, you bleeping well know that Bush would have pardoned him. But because he was a Cheney guy rather than directly a Bush guy, the president let him rot. And that always has been the mantra of the Bush family: Extreme loyalty to family hangers-on and sycophants, no matter how unqualified, but no regard whatsoever to those who aren't in the inner circle. Fred Barnes wrote about this when the elder Bush took over from Reagan, noting that there was a clear hierarchy as to who would get which jobs: First priority would go to those who were with Bush way back in 1980, eight years earlier, as if the entire Reagan presidency had not occurred. I.e., a Bushie in 1980 with no serious distinguishing service in between would outrank a Reagan guy who had served well for eight years -- as if Bush didn't owe his entire presidency to the Gipper. Same thing here: People like Michael Brown and Al Gonzales and Harriet Miers and Scott McClellan get kept well beyond their useful shelf-life, while good people like Scooter Libby are thrown to the wolves.

It makes me sick. No more Bushes.

Dumb Anti-Drinking Bill in Little Rock

Posted by Quin Hillyer on 3.18.09 @ 1:59PM

The spoilsports and nanny-staters are up to their old tricks in Arkansas, with a law that would effectively prohibit a 21 year-old soldier from sharing a beer at home with a 20-year-old soldier -- and would outlaw at-home communion for youngsters. Follow the links here. Fortunately, my old friend Dan Greenberg, a thoughtful state legislator, is on the scene to explain why this inanity of a bill is, well, yes, an inanity.

Blue Dogs Biting Card Check

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.18.09 @ 12:49PM

Two more conservative-leaning House Democrats have come out against the Employee Free Choice Act: Dan Boren of Oklahoma and Travis Childers of Mississippi. Both are members of the Blue Dog Coalition.

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Terrorism is a Man-Caused Disaster

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.18.09 @ 12:10PM

Some things must be read to be believed. Here is Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano speaking to Der Spiegel:

SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word "terrorism." Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?

Napolitano: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.

Soon she will amend that offensive description of terrorism to "human-caused" disasters, no doubt. (Hat tip: Diana West.)

Re: My Pet Goat

Posted by Quin Hillyer on 3.18.09 @ 11:31AM

Jim, some would say Bush's comment was a Freudian slip. (Okay, Bush himself would probably misstate it as a fraudulent slip, but that's how the cookie bounces.) The left always thought that Bush was an authoritarian. And sometimes he did indeed exhibit at least minor tendencies in that direction.

DC Vouchers, With Feeling!

Posted by Quin Hillyer on 3.18.09 @ 11:26AM

Last night I finally got around to reading Mary Katharine Ham's Weekly Standard article on the DC vouchers issue. It's brilliant. It really brings home, at a very personal level, exactly what is at stake in the Dems' efforts (apparently successful, although it technically can be revived) to kill the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. What the Dems are doing to stop this program, and thus to deny a great opportunity for these underprivileged children, really is a species of evil. No, let's make that big letters: EVIL. Thanks to MK for doing such a good job elucidating that message.

My Pet Goat: The Sequel

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.18.09 @ 11:15AM

Former President George W. Bush is writing a book about the 12 most difficult decisions he had to make while in office. If this quote is accurate, his ghost writer has his work cut out for him: "I'm going to put people in my place, so when the history of this administration is written at least there's an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened," Bush said.

Specter Watch

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.18.09 @ 10:30AM

Arlen Specter leaves the door open to pulling a Lieberman. Under Pennsylvania law, however, Specter would have to decide to run as an independent before the Republican primary. Joe Lieberman says, "I’d be delighted to have him in my caucus."

ObamaCare Price Tag $1.5 Trillion

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.18.09 @ 10:10AM

The AP reports that while President Obama allocates $634 billion of his budget for a "down payment" on his health care push, the actual cost of his vision for health care could be $1.5 trillion over 10 years, according to estimates by several groups. However, even this estimate could be on the low side, because historically, analysts have tended to underestimate the growth of entitlement spending. When Medicare was signed in 1965, the hospital portion of the plan was expected to cost about $9 billion by 1990, but in reality it cost nearly $67 billion that year. Keep this in mind when Obama argues that the only way to restore fiscal responsibility is to enact his health care agenda.

"If you stop nationalizing banks, there will be no need to engage in phony-baloney indignation over bonus payments anymore."

David Harsanyi Solves The Bonus Crisis

Posted by Shawn Macomber on 3.18.09 @ 8:52AM

The Obama Economic Recovery

Posted by Doug Bandow on 3.18.09 @ 7:29AM

The recovery has begun. The economy is starting to boom. Well, at least the lobbying industry in Washington. Reports my friend Tim Carney over at the Washington Examiner:

Early numbers suggest that the first quarter of 2009 has seen lobbying in the nation's capital spike by nearly 22 percent over last year, which would be the largest ever increase in lobbying activity - and a strong indication that President Barack Obama has helped usher in a Golden Era for K Street.

Between Jan. 1 and March 16 this year, the Senate Office of Public Records received 1,381 new lobbying registrations, which include new lobbying firms, new clients at existing firms, and businesses hiring their first lobbyists. This is the largest batch of new registrations since 1999, the first year these records were kept, and a 21.7 percent increase over last year.

If you subtract the lobbying accounts that have been terminated, you get a net gain in active lobbying accounts this year of 1,252, which represents a surge of 13.5 percent over last year's growth of 1,103 net lobbying accounts in the same period.

With lobbyists prospering, can the rest of the economy be far behind?

Reports the Associated Press:

A New Ritual for Capitol Hill?

Posted by Doug Bandow on 3.18.09 @ 7:16AM

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a prairie populist, has come up with an interesting idea for AIG executives: kill themselves. And he suggests a Japanese twist, which suggests the practice of ritual seppuku, whereby the person disbowels himself. A "second" then stands by to finish the job if necessary.

Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley suggested that AIG executives should take a Japanese approach toward accepting responsibility for the collapse of the insurance giant by resigning or killing themselves.

The Republican lawmaker's harsh comments came during an interview with Cedar Rapids, Iowa, radio station WMT on Monday. They echo remarks he has made in the past about corporate executives and public apologies, but went further in suggesting suicide.

"I suggest, you know, obviously, maybe they ought to be removed," Grassley said. "But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.

"And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide before they make any apology."

I like the idea. I can think of a number of Wall Street and corporate executives who should consider this option.

But the list of politicians who should follow suit is much longer. Who voted for the TARP bail-out last September? Who supported the previous three bail-outs of AIG? Who voted for the Community Reinvestment Act, which pressured banks to make bad loans in poor neighborhoods? Who shilled for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose irresponsible practices are at ground zero of the financial crisis? Who voted for wasteful deficit spending, year in and year out? Who backed the Medicare drug benefit, which added trillions more to Uncle Sam's unfunded liabilities? Who ... well, you get my point.

How about a session of mass seppuku on Capitol Hill, led by Sen. Grassley?

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Thinking Big

Posted by Reid Collins on 3.17.09 @ 8:30PM

A.I.G. continues its gargantuan ways. Washington is now hearing the world's largest barn door slamming behind it, the label on the closing member -- "BONUS."

ACORN to Help Run Census

Posted by Matthew Vadum on 3.17.09 @ 6:23PM

ACORN, the radical direct-action group that excels at bringing the dead, illegal aliens, people who have already voted, and minors to the polls, is seeking to take its ballot box-stuffing operation to the next level.

Fox News reports that ACORN is going to be involved in the 2010 U.S. Census.

Really!

Fox reports:

The U.S. Census is supposed to be free of politics, but one group with a history of voter fraud, ACORN, is participating in next year's count, raising concerns about the politicization of the decennial survey.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now signed on as a national partner with the U.S. Census Bureau in February 2009 to assist with the recruitment of the 1.4 million temporary workers needed to go door-to-door to count every person in the United States -- currently believed to be more than 306 million people.

A U.S. Census "sell sheet," an advertisement used to recruit national partners, says partnerships with groups like ACORN "play an important role in making the 2010 Census successful," including by "help[ing] recruit census workers." [...]

ACORN, which has been profiled here and here, will be able to create voters and then get them to the polls.

That's efficiency.

Death By Socialized Medicine

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.17.09 @ 5:55PM

The Telegraph highlights a new report by Britain's Healthcare Commission finding that between 400 to 1,200 patients died in Mid-Staffordshire hospitals in the past three years due to "failures at almost every stage of care of emergency patients."

Specifically:

The investigation of the trust now called the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, found overstretched and poorly trained nurses who turned off equipment because they did not know how to work it, newly qualified doctors left to care for patients recovering from surgery at night, patients left for hours in soiled bedclothes, reception staff expected to judge how seriousness of patients arriving at A&E, patients left without food or drink, others who received the wrong medication or none at all, blood and faeces left on lavatories and floors, and doctors diverted away from seriously ill patients in order to treat minor ones who were in danger of breaching the four hour waiting time target.

Liberals like to perpetuate this myth that government-run health care systems achieve more universal care at less cost, but they try to avoid dealing with the fact that less cost also means lower quality of care. This is a perfect example of why central planning doesn't work. Britain's emergency rooms have struggled with long wait times that are a natural consequence of socialized medicine, so the reaction was to set a target for a four hour wait time. Yet becuse doctors are so interested in checking off that box, they can't make their own decisions about how to prioritize treatment of their patients.

According to the Telegraph, the report also found that the trust that runs the hospitals "was more concerned with hitting targets, gaining Foundation Trust status and marketing and had 'lost sight' of its responsibilities for patient care..."

And this is exactly the type of thinking that the Obama administration would instill if they got their way on health care. While ObamaCare differs in degree -- for now -- it is rooted in the same fundamental belief that the government can expand care and reduce costs by imposing standards to be applied systemwide.

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Gallup Conducts Useless Union Organization Poll

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.17.09 @ 5:13PM

The top headline on the Gallup website today reads, "Majority Receptive to Law Making Union Organizing Easier," but it's quite misleading. When you look at the posting in greater depth, it becomes clear that it doesn't mean that a majority of Americans favor card check legislation.

The poll actually asked Americans, "Generally speaking, would you favor or oppose a new law that would make it easier for labor unions to organize workers?" In other words, no mention of the fact that the actual legislation being considered would deny workers a secret ballot. In response to this generic question, 53 percent said they favored the law and 39 percent they opposed it.

Gallup concludes that the results "bode well for the pro-union side" of the debate, but I don't think that's true. The reason is that the poll also showed that opposition to the bill grew the more closely respondents said they were following the issue. Among the 12 percent who said they were following the issue "very closely," 58 percent opposed it compared to 40 percent who supported it. There are two possible interpretations for this: either critics of the legislation have been following this issue much more closely than pro-union side, or support for the proposal drops off once people hear more details about it. The latter explanation seems more feasible.

A January Diageo/Hotline poll defined the bill in detail, and found 50 percent opposed it compared to 37 percent who supported it -- almost exactly the reverse of the Gallup findings.

ACORN's Federal Judge

Posted by Matthew Vadum on 3.17.09 @ 5:02PM

Giving the term judicial activism new meaning, President Obama has nominated an ACORN loyalist to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the Chicago Tribune reports.

David F. Hamilton "has a long and impressive record of service and a history of handing down fair and judicious decisions. He will be a thoughtful and distinguished addition to the 7th circuit and I am extremely pleased to put him forward to serve the people of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin," the president said in a press release that conspicuously ignores the judicial nominee's actual history.

The Judicial Confirmation Network notes that Hamilton previously worked as a fundraiser for ACORN, the radical direct-action group that not only resurrects the dead and gets them to the polls every election but also shakes down banks and pressures them to make home loans to people who can't afford to pay them back.

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) is already smitten with Hamilton. "I enthusiastically support the Senate confirmation of David Hamilton for U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Hamilton has served the Southern District of Indiana with distinction as U.S. District Court Judge," Lugar said.

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Sanford Au-H20

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.17.09 @ 4:44PM

Reihan Salam has an interesting column in Forbes wondering if Mark Sanford represents the return of Goldwaterism on the American right:

When Barry Goldwater ran for president in 1964, conservatism was a rigorous and demanding creed. Rather than promise tax cuts, Goldwater insisted on balanced budgets and sound money. After promising to get rid of any number of New Deal social programs, and after pledging to privatize the Tennessee Value Authority and other cherished infrastructure projects, Goldwater didn't promise anything material in return. No manna would fall from the sky in Goldwater's America. He simply argued that shrinking the federal government and reducing its power would encourage self-reliance, and that self-reliance would encourage the virtues of thrift and industry.

It is easy to see why the supply-siders later derided Goldwater's old-fashioned worldview as "root-canal economics," as it promised a lot more pain, at least in the short term. But Goldwaterism had the virtue of coherence and consistency.

It also will soon acquire the virtue of being necessary. There was a brief window when a viable economic conservatism could cut high marginal tax rates while leaving the federal government's spending commitments largely intact, although even during the Reagan years bigger spending cuts could have prevented tax increases later. But there simply isn't as big a revenue reflow effect from cutting a 35 percent or even 39.6 percent tax rate as there is from cutting tax rates that exceed 50 percent. And the federal government is in a more precarious financial position than it was in the 1980s, in no small part because both parties have failed to control spending.

Spending cuts -- especially anything that reduces entitlements for the middle class and wealthy -- aren't any more popular than they were when Goldwater was running in 1964. But they are currently justified by more than fidelity to the Constitution. Sanford's political creed isn't sunny and it remains to be seen if it can be sold to the electorate. Nevertheless, the days of tax cuts without spending cuts are over. In the absence of Sanford's Goldwaterism, Republicans aren't going to have much to say about fiscal policy.

Clinton Solicitor Backs Moderate Judges

Posted by Quin Hillyer on 3.17.09 @ 3:22PM

My Examiner column today focuses mostly on remarks by former Clinton solicitor general Walter Dellinger, one of the biggest stars of the liberal legal firmament. If I do say so, the column turns out to be timely. This is from today's New York Times. Of course, if you read the Times story, the apparent nominee sounds anything but moderate. Anyway, it is worth noting that all three panelists at the Heritage event discussed in my column said they think it makes sense for President Obama to renominate Peter Keisler, acting attorney general under W. Bush, for a spot on the DC Circuit.

The Best Ever?

Posted by Shawn Macomber on 3.17.09 @ 2:22PM

The New Hampshire State Democratic Party Chairman gets more than a tad whimsical with his latest proclamation. And then embarrasses himself further in the comments section of Drew Cline's blog.

Left Fires Preemptive Strike on MassCare

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.17.09 @ 1:20PM

The Obama administration and their allies in the progressive community have a problem when it comes to selling their brand of health care reform. While they argue that we'll be able to reduce health-care spending and improve quality by having the government intervene and provide subsidies for everybody to get insured, they cannot name a single example at the state level where this has worked. In fact, the opposite has been the case. The most prominent example is Massachusetts, which implemented a plan similar to the one proposed by Obama during the campaign, but has seen costs explode. As the New York Times reported yesterday, "government and industry officials agree that the plan will not be sustainable over the next 5 to 10 years if they do not take significant steps to arrest the growth of health spending."

Anticipating that opponents of the Obama health-care agenda will use Massachusetts as an example of the failure of government run health-care, the progressive Institute for America's Future has come out with a new report arguing that the reason why costs are skyrocketing in Massachusetts is actually that the system relies too heavily on the private sector.

For the uninitiated, both the Massachusetts and Obama plans are similar because they are based on subsidizing individuals to purchase government-designed health care plans on a government-run exchange. The difference is that President Obama and most Democrats want to include a Medicare-like governtment plan in the national exchange with the idea being that it would keep private insurers honest since they will have to "compete" with the government plan. The reality is that since the government will be running the exchange and setting the rules of the game, it will be able to steer people toward the government plan. Thus, it's a clever way of having the government take over the health-care system incrementally while saying they're for "choice" and preserving the free market.

In a conference call this morning, Diane Archer, the author of the Institute for America's Future's report, said that the Massachusetts plan has run into problems because it relied too heavily on private insurance and it didn't address costs.

"Even with regulation, we cannot count on the private insurers to deliver people the care they need," Archer said. "They must -- it's their business model -- put profits before people's health care, and that's what they do."

Her solution is to create a government plan, to ration care, and have the government tell doctors and patients what types of treatment they should seek for given ailments. Of course, she doesn't quite put it that way.

Instead, she says things such as, "I completely believe that we need to have comparative effectiveness in the mix, protocols, and that we begin to pay in a very transparent way to test, to analyze and to implement systems that pay for services that are effective and cost effective."

She endorsed the idea set forth by Tom Daschle for a Federal Reserve-like panel of experts that would issue guidelines on the cost effectiveness of given treatments and drugs. She said it might be something akin to Britain's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or NICE, which recently concluded that it was worth $22,750 to extend somebody's life for six months.

The one silver lining of the Massachusetts health care fiasco is that it demonstrates the absurdity of the idea that more government intervention into health care is going to control costs, so it makes sense that in an act of political jujitsu, the left is trying to shift blame to private insurers. Unfortunately, they are aided in this task by the fact that Mitt Romney and his conservative apologists have insisted on identifying MassCare as "free market" reform.

If you really wanted to drive down costs in Massachusetts or anywhere else, the solution is not more government, but actual free market reform. A good example would be eliminating mandates requiring that insurance companies cover certain treatments, so that all people, young or old, healthy or sick, can purchase the type of coverage that they actually need. Is it fair to force a young male to purchase a more expensive insurance policy that covers in vitro fertilization?

Queer Eye for the Irish Guy

Posted by Joseph Lawler on 3.17.09 @ 12:32PM

In today's NRO, Helen Rittelmeyer stumbles onto my turf with an investigation of Republicans' failures to attract the Boston Irish. It's a good read, but apparently Helen isn't from Boston, because this mistake in the lede is fairly damning:

For most Americans, St. Patrick's Day is a chance to pretend to be from the South End of Boston.

Hmm. Surely she means South Boston, which is distinctively Irish. If the South End -- a different neighborhood entirely -- is distinctively anything, it's bohemian and, especially, gay.

Hey, it's a free country, but as someone who's Boston Irish the other 364 days as well, I'd just as soon put a stop to this.

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Just enough of them...

Posted by Chris Horner on 3.17.09 @ 12:20PM

...way too many of you and me (h/t for this summary of the modern environmentalist mindset to P.J. O'Rourke). It used to be that the difference between many of us and the environmentalist is that when we see a person we see a soul, a mind and a set of hands, while the Green sees a stomach.

Now we know they've refined their thinking, and see a carbon footprint.

So, in case you still wondered whether global warming alarmism really is, to many, about the notion that "people are pollution", a vehicle for not only old reds with no place to go but the fallen Zero Population Growth movement, the folks over a CO2 Science bring our attention to a paper by a couple of pointy heads out of Oregon State University. What lovely people.

As I noted in "Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed", China wants official recognition of "carbon offsets" to sell Europe -- and, courtesy of our new president's expected agreement to a Kyoto II, you as well -- on the basis of how many children they have not had thanks to their, ahem, coercive family planning policy. Others praise China as showing us the only way to bring about the desired agenda, given that no free society would ever actually do to itself what this demands (both true stories, Chapter 6).

At some point we're going to actually listen to these people to discern what this latest "greatest threat" is about, at which point we will reject it, and them, with the appropriate prejudice.

Pick Your Poison

Posted by Joseph Lawler on 3.17.09 @ 11:58AM

David Roberts points to this CBO graph illustrating the distribution of the economic fallout from the proposed cap-and-trade program on the various income levels. The top chart displays the tax incidence under three different implementations of cap-and-trade: one where the carbon allowances are sold and the revenue is redistributed to households, one where they're sold and the revenues are used to cut corporate taxes, and one where the allowances are simply given away. He decides that the first option (on the left) is preferable because it is "vastly more progressive."

Perhaps he means to suggest that the option on the left is progressive and the options on the right are regressive, but really they're all regressive. The fact that all groups lose is clearly indicated by the bottom chart, which shows that all three schemes are expected to decrease GDP.

Clearly no one with a heart likes the looks of the second and third scenarios. In these plans shareholders would profit because companies could offset the carbon tax on their bottom line. The costs would be passed on to those who can least afford it.

The first option, though, it not much better. The top chart illustrates that poorer households would be better off because the government would send a lump-sum check to every household in the U.S., and for lower-income households the check would be larger than the increase in their energy expenditures. The top quintiles would be worse off because companies would take a hit to their bottom line because of the added cost of purchasing allowances. While this scenario does shield the most vulnerable demographic, (income redistribution concerns aside) the lump-sum transfer provides no incentive or a disincentive to work. Furthermore, companies would also have a disincentive to hire, because they would be less profitable. Obviously that scenario is undesirable, to say the least, especially given the current jobs outlook.

In short, there is no way to get around this simple truth, pointed out by President Barack Obama himself on the campaign trail:

"Under my plan of a cap and trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket ... that will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers ..."

If we want lower emissions we have to pay for it. One way or another, consumers will pay more, in increased costs or in jobs. And that includes the consumers lowest on the economic scale. In that sense every plan is regressive, not progressive.

Journo-Listing

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.17.09 @ 11:45AM

The Poltico has a story about a listerserv on which writers for mainstream outlets like the New York Times, Newsweek, Politico, and the New Yorker compare notes with contributors to explicitly liberal publications like the Nation, the American Prospect, Huffington Post, and the New Republic. On the one hand, it confirms that a lot of putatively objective reporters share political views with -- and in some cases, see themselves as being on the same team as -- American Prospect-style liberals. But that's no surprise, is it? Also, the secrecy surrounding JournoList is a little creepy.

Having said that, I don't really find it all that bizarre that people who agree with each other or have things in common would chat on a listserv. Nor do I think it's all that outrageous that mainstream reporters are interested in what active liberals have to say, since liberals are running the country right now. I'd probably join. To me, the takeaways are 1.) Why doesn't the right have anything comparable? and 2.) If we did, would anyone from Newsweek or the New Yorker care?

Democrats Want Specter

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.17.09 @ 11:19AM

The Democrats are starting the full court press to get Arlen Specter to switch parties ahead of a key vote on card check -- and a contentious Republican primary. So far Specter isn't budging or even giving himself the wiggle room that Joe Lieberman had to either run as a Democrat or an independent depending on the result of his 2006 primary against antiwar candidate Ned Lamont.

Daily Must-Reads

Posted by Joseph Lawler on 3.17.09 @ 10:35AM

Some tough bioethics battles looming (First Things)

In we're at war in Iraq, Mexico is at war with itself (Foreign Policy)

Quote of the day, courtesy of Sen. Grassley (Democracy in America)

Larry Summers, suppressed economist extraordinaire (The New Republic)

Sanford Responds to Obama

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.17.09 @ 9:46AM

Gov. Sanford has sent another letter to President Obama refining his request to use some stimulus money intended for South Carolina to repay its debt and also calling on Obama to condemn the DNC attack ads that have been run against him. The letter is pitch perfect both substantively and in its measured tone. The White House rejected Sanford's initial request by arguing that the stimulus money had to be used for education as well as other "fiscal stabilization." In his response letter, Sanford proposes using the money to pay off education-related debt, with the balance being used to pay down debt on one of three other areas of the state budget.

Sanford also notes how the DNC attack ads are getting in the way of an important dialogue that needs to be taking place. He writes that, "Because I believe you and I share a common desire to escape this worn-out "attack first" mentality, I'd respectfully ask you to immediately condemn and put an end to this unnecessary politicization of a truly important policy discussion." In the letter's conclusion, he jibes, "A good part of your candidacy was fueled by the hope for change in the way political debate is conducted in our country. On this, actions will speak louder than words - words you have been so gifted in delivering - in determining where you really stand, not as a candidate promising to deliver on change, but as a leader now capable of bringing this change."

The full letter is below:

The Honorable Barack Obama
President
United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I'd first thank you and Director Orszag for your response of March 16 to my letter of the previous week. Likewise, I have to express my disappointment that our substantive dialogue about the best way to adapt this stimulus to the unique situations of states across this country was interrupted by the Democratic National Committee's launching of a petty attack ad against us even before we had received your response.

I've made clear my opposition to using debt to solve a problem created in the first place by too much debt - and I don't believe this to be an unreasonable position. What I find less reasonable is the way this DNC attack ad returns a nation indeed yearning for change back to the same old politics-as-usual. Because I believe you and I share a common desire to escape this worn-out "attack first" mentality, I'd respectfully ask you to immediately condemn and put an end to this unnecessary politicization of a truly important policy discussion.

In the spirit of moving forward, I'd offer the following as a clarification to our using a portion of the stimulus funds to paying down our state's sizable debt. With regard to the Education Stabilization Fund monies (ARRA § 14002(a)(1)) that must be used "for the support of * education," we think it would be consistent with statutory requirements to use this $577 million to pay down the roughly $579 million of principal for State School Facilities Bonds and Research University Infrastructure Bonds over two years. This would immediately free up over $162 million in debt service in the first two years and save roughly $125 million in interest payments over the next 13 years, which could then be directed towards other educational purposes - just as paying off a mortgage early frees up the typical monthly payment for other uses.

Regarding the $125 million in the Fiscal Stabilization Fund (ARRA § 14002(b)(1)) headed to South Carolina, we'd lay out a few options for your consideration: first, paying down debt related to the state's Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund that currently exceeds $200 million and would directly impact those currently out of work in this struggling economy; second, paying down debt related to state retirees, since that would seem to satisfy the statutory requirement that these funds be used for "other government services"; or third, paying down other bonded indebtedness at the state level.

We trust these alternative proposals fit both the statutory requirements and spirit of the stimulus legislation. Thank you again for your response, and we would again appreciate your opinion as soon as possible given that we believe this course of action will do more to ensure South Carolina's long-term economic strength than would other contemplated uses of the funds.

I also await your response on pulling down the attack ads. A good part of your candidacy was fueled by the hope for change in the way political debate is conducted in our country. On this, actions will speak louder than words - words you have been so gifted in delivering - in determining where you really stand, not as a candidate promising to deliver on change, but as a leader now capable of bringing this change. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Mark Sanford

cc: The Honorable Peter R. Orszag, Director
Office of Management and Budget

Sebelius, Labor, and the “Grand Plan” for Health Care?

Posted by Brian Johnson on 3.16.09 @ 11:19PM

With the nomination of KS Governor Kathleen Sebelius to head up Health and Human Services, the President once again made no secret of the fact that he beholden to the special interests of organized labor. Though Sebelius was not his first choice, it is no coincidence that she was eventually tapped to fill in for former Senator and recent tax-cheat Tom Daschle to get the top job at HHS.

What's the catch??

There is no question that Sebelius' nomination is a clear signal to the special interests that run the unions across the country that when the President makes his push for a government-run Health Care plan, he will be sure to get the unions involved, so as to pay them back for all the ways in which they helped him ascend to the Presidency.

Governor Sebelius has a strong history with Labor:

Both AFL-CIO and AFSCME leaders endorsed Sebelius and characterized her as "worthy of consideration because of her solid relationship with labor"
$100,000 in donations from AFL-CIO, AFSCME, and SEIU...EACH in 2008, and not to mention these donations were received in a year in which Sebelius was NOT running, as she is term-limited
The hiring of a former Dept. Labor Secretary as her spokesperson in January
The "$uperfund", which has operated as a money funneling machine for Sebelius, other Kansas Democrats and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Sebelius is a strong supporter of "Card Check", Labor's #1 priority
Vetoed a bill aimed at reforming Workers Comp, siding with Organized Labor

I wrote last week about President Obama's aim to tie in Organized Labor and "Green Jobs", ensuring that federal money will only go to companies willing to do business with the unions. There is a clear pattern being revealed here very early on in the Obama administration, and all signs point to the same type of special interest domination that many in the country are sick and tired of. Will President Obama basically become just an appendage of the AFL-CIO? Could HHS become wrought with Labor reps scouring Sebelius' office each day? Will the Obama Health Care plan become the Labor/Obama/Sebelius Health Care Plan, with provisions ensuring union involvement at as many levels as possible?

As far-fetched as it may sound, it is a very likely possibility considering the early moves by the Obama White House that have already shown big Labor is becoming one of the primary concerns for this White House, and keeping them happy is tops on their agenda.

This post was co-authored by Amir Iljazi, Federal Affairs Associate at Americans for Tax Reform

Andrew Breitbart, Conservative Visionary

Posted by Matthew Vadum on 3.16.09 @ 10:44PM

Refusing to engage the ideological enemy in popular media invites failure, argues Internet news entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart.

He's absolutely right to say that conservatives "can't win the political war until we take on the Hollywood and mainstream media battles."

Breitbart offered this reflection after running the gauntlet of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" (video available at Breitbart's Big Hollywood website) where he was tag-teamed by a liberal elitist host and a self-important pseudo-intellectual named Michael Eric Dyson.

"Pretty much everyone I respect in media and politics" warned him not to appear on the show, but he did and writes in today's Washington Times that he had the time of his life. Maher and Dyson worked hard to rough him up, but he left knowing he won the rigged bout "simply by showing up."

The payoff was immediate. After finishing the shoot, "I felt like I had gone 12 rounds with Mike Tyson and Roberto Duran. But when I got back to my dressing room, my BlackBerry was filling with messages from people I've never met, many of whom disagree with my politics but were compelled to praise my willingness to enter the lion's den."

One self-described liberal Democrat who emailed Breitbart wrote he was dismayed at the appalling treatment the conservative media figure received:

I felt that you were given very little meaningful ability to speak; when you requested evidence to back up the claims that were being made, you received none and when you were requested not to interrupt by Prof. Dyson (and politely heeded his request) you were then constantly interrupted. As a side note, I have watched the show for several years and have never witnessed the audience applause to be so intrusive and so obstructive to meaningful debate. I suspect that you don't care much about what occurred and likely anticipated it. I definitely care, not least because it has been my opinion that the ‘shouting down' tactics and lack of respect for evidence have been characteristics of the right more than the left in US politics in recent years. Overall, I still believe that, but what occurred on the show has given me much pause for thought. Please continue to engage in sincere debate with ideological opponents and please continue to exercise a higher standard of manners.

It's the tiny little leak in the proverbial dyke as Breitbart sees it, a modest step that lays the foundation for liberals to eventually see the error of their ways and move rightward. "We must plant seeds of doubt in the minds of the groupthink liberals in our dumbed-down and activist media culture," he writes.

Shying away from dealing with liberals in the media when leftists control both the White House and Congress is a recipe for disaster:

The problem with the withdrawal approach is that it cedes the popular culture debate to the other side. We figure talk radio, a certain cable news network and some independent Internet venues will allow for us to get our ideas out to the masses. Well, those few outlets are greatly outnumbered. They are also isolated and targeted for destruction by the activist left. The sitting president (using taxpayer money) is now leading the charge.

Again, he's right.

Matthew Sheffield and Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters made the same argument in "Inside the Disinformation Machine: A Look at the Left's New Media Operation,": (Foundation Watch, September 2008)

Conservatives and libertarians must take their activism to the web. They should participate in mainstream online communities like the video website YouTube, the open-source encyclopedia Wikipedia, and social bookmarking services such as Delicious (formerly del.icio.us) and StumbleUpon where readers share stories with other community members. These services offer a tremendous opportunity to present freedom and free markets to uncommitted voters and citizens.

We have only just begun to fight.

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Amazon Kindle and the Future of Content

Posted by Hunter Baker on 3.16.09 @ 4:34PM

Okay, I have now had time to read an entire book on the Kindle. Excellent experience. What is really amazing is the content delivery aspect of it. I was going to deliver a lecture on technology and culture and wanted to brush up on Orwell's 1984. I downloaded it via the Kindle for .99. Instant delivery. No shipping. I was reading in the next minute.

I was worried about the issue of notetaking, highlighting, underlining, etc. Good news on that front. You can easily highlight text and then go to a separate page that keeps all of your highlighted sections. Outstanding. Only one minor complaint is that you can't highlight text across pages. You highlight on the page you are on. Stop. Then highlight the section you want on the next page.

It takes a little reading experience to get used to holding this device in hand and reading. It is different from holding a book. No question. Feels different. At first, I thought I was going to reject it. But after reading for about 10 minutes, it became quite natural.

I think these e-readers are going to change the publishing business substantially. E-publishing will eventually grab maybe a quarter of the overall take. Just a prediction. Probably too modest.

The real question is what is this going to do to publishing companies. With a device like the Kindle, you simply do not NEED a publisher. At least, you do not need a publisher if you have established your own name and/or brand. Though the attempts have been abortive so far, there WILL come a time when the big writers, analysts, reporters, etc. just sell their stuff direct. It will be interesting to see what the political effect of that kind of democratization of discourse will be. The model, strangely enough, might be something like the old Evans and Novak report. Something like that would be perfect to just purchase direct via micro-payments or a cheap subscription.

topics: Books

Challenging Chris Dodd

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.16.09 @ 12:56PM

Former Congressman Rob Simmons (R-CT) has announced that he is going to challenge Sen. Chris Dodd (D). Simmons narrowly lost reelection to his House seat in 2006, but held it for three terms and ran well ahead of George W. Bush to knock off an incumbent Democrat in 2000. A recent poll showed Simmons leading Dodd 43 percent to 42 percent, well within the margin of error.

A Gay Marriage Compromise?

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 3.16.09 @ 12:49PM

Jonathan Rauch and David Blankenhorn think so. I'm not convinced, but both men are thoughtful, sincere, and worth a read.

...and His Bristol Palin Ring Tattoo

The Ballad of Levi Johnston...

Posted by Shawn Macomber on 3.16.09 @ 12:05PM

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Re: Kathleen Parker, Clever Girl

Posted by Paul Chesser on 3.16.09 @ 11:42AM

My first question after reading Parker's column was, how many newspapers have dropped her column? She shifted from Tribune's syndicate (no sour grapes there -- just ask her!), where she was in as many as 335 newspapers, a few years ago to the Washington Post's. As Williamson notes, the Lubbock newspaper recently yanked her from its conservative slot. Could her rant be a desperation attempt to preserve her clever-girl status?

Update 2:45 p.m.:

Editor & Publisher offers some insight about the state of the newspaper syndicates:

"With a few exceptions, that's one of the great urban myths of our business," says Alan Shearer, executive director and general manager of the Washington Post Writers Group, when asked whether newspapers' loss of manpower is translating into increased sales of syndicated content. "Because saving costs involves not just reducing staff, but reducing space. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

"Not only are [newspapers'] resources reduced, but their editorial space is reduced also," concurs Lisa Klem Wilson, senior vice president/general manager of syndicates at United Media. "We have to be creative about what we give them, and what they can use and sell against."

Wilson says comics and puzzles remain very popular ("in any kind of market," she points out), punditry less so. She says newspapers are electing to run fewer syndicated columnists on the Op-Ed page, and some columnists are also disappearing from financial pages as those sections are reduced or consolidated into other sections.

topics: Mainstream Media

I'm just saying

Posted by Chris Horner on 3.16.09 @ 11:14AM

Reader Mark G writes to note the March 31, 1948 birthday of our favorite messenger of planetary disaster -- close, but, no, not "Gort" from the dreary remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still", though there could be something there...or else one of those closeted Hollywood conservatives snuck in a good one.

He also mentions, on a completely unrelated note, that a certain little excitement in Roswell, NM occured the first week of July, 1947. You do the math.

What is Wrong With Jindal?

Posted by Quin Hillyer on 3.16.09 @ 9:26AM

UPDATE!

As the Prowler has now reported via a retraction, the story is not true. I therefore retract my own response to the Prowler's original report, and apologize to Jindal and his team. I am happy to have my faith in Jindal restored.

-- Quin

What the Prowler reports today about Bobby Jindal is very disturbing. What in the Lord's name is wrong with Jindal?!?!? The arrogance, the self-centeredness, and the obliviousness is all starting to be very worrisome. This guy needs to get his head out of the clouds, his feet on the ground, and his ego and ambition in check. NOW. And I say this as a longtime booster of his.

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Daily Must-Reads

Posted by Joseph Lawler on 3.16.09 @ 9:24AM

We haven't defeated all recessions, but we've made them a lot easier to take (Washington Post)

Socialists disavow Obama. Fox News remains unconvinced (Washington Post)

Biden conveniently glosses over the unions' incredibly racist pasts (Reason)

America in exile, maintaining a delicate balance (Asia Times)

Don't look now, but Jewish leaders "couldn't expect more" from Benedict XVI (First Things)

The Economist's debate of Keynes is heating up (Economist)

P.J. O'Rourke lays waste to Obama's sophistry (Weekly Standard)

Re: Kathleen Parker, (not-so-) Clever Girl

Posted by Quin Hillyer on 3.16.09 @ 9:19AM

The good McCain asks in a post below what I think of Ms. Parker's latest prattle. I no longer can be bothered with responding to such twittle. But though Ms. Parker does not merit a response, Mr. McCain does, and my response to him is that I enjoyed his post very much, as usual, and that he is right on target! :)

James Madison

Posted by Quin Hillyer on 3.16.09 @ 9:17AM

Happy 258th Birthday to the Father of the Constitution. What a great, great man.

About the Economy's "Sound Fundamentals"

Posted by Doug Bandow on 3.16.09 @ 7:39AM

As Matthew Vadum points out, after trashing the economy in order to win passage of billions or trillions or who knows how much in "stimulus" spending, the Obama administration has decided that the economy is doing pretty well, thank you very much. There may still be a couple little glitches here and there, but, with the Chinese inquiring about the security of their U.S. securities, the Prez and his buddies say they are focusing on the economy's sound fundamentals. Right.

Catherine Favazza posts a delightful youtube look at what candidate Obama said when Sen .John McCain proclaimed that the economy was fundamentally sound. Strange, there seems to be a little inconsistency. Imagine that ... .

Kathleen Parker, Clever Girl Columnist

Posted by Robert Stacy McCain on 3.16.09 @ 6:30AM

Little Miss Know-It-All has a column blaming Rush Limbaugh for the deterioration of the newspaper industry. Jennifer Rubin and Kevin Williamson provide rebuttals. My initial reaction to the overweening arrogance of Parker's lecture is NSFW, as the bloggers say. The part I can reprint:

"Newspaper columnist" used to be a gig that you had to work a long time in the news business to get. The late, great Lewis Grizzard, for example, started out as a brilliant young sports reporter, and nonetheless was past 30 -- and had already served as executive sports editor of the Chicago Tribune -- before he became a columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1977.
Then in the 1980s and '90s, as cable news and USA Today started encroaching on the turf of the metropolitan dailies, there was this big push for "diversity" and "youth," the chief result of which was a lot of Clever Girl Columnists wasting newsprint. (Hello, Rheta Grimsley Johnson! Hello, Maureen Dowd!)
Kathleen Parker was one of the better Clever Girl Columnists who got the affirmative-action leg up in that manner. But she succumbed to the Elite Media Syndrome of thinking that working in the news business makes you somehow superior to the guy who drops 50 cents in the newsbox, and her insufferable elitism is an apt metaphor for what went wrong with the business.

The privileged position of the pundit (or, in Parker's case, pundette) has been rendered obsolete by the blogosphere. In her desperation to remain relevant, Parker swung out wildly at Limbaugh. Rush has 20 million listeners and if he deigns to take notice of the insult, his rebuttal will be heard by way more people than read Parker's snooty little column.

BTW, I'd can't wait to see what Quin Hillyer has to say about this.

Is Frank Rich Right?

Posted by Robert Stacy McCain on 3.16.09 @ 5:15AM

Not sure whether this is one of those broken-clock moments or not:

When Barack Obama ended the Bush stem-cell policy last week, there were no such overheated theatrics. No oversold prime-time address. No hysteria from politicians, the news media or the public. The family-values dinosaurs that once stalked the earth — Falwell, Robertson, Dobson and Reed — are now either dead, retired or disgraced. Their less-famous successors pumped out their pro forma e-mail blasts, but to little avail. The Republican National Committee said nothing whatsoever about Obama’s reversal of Bush stem-cell policy. . . . Culture wars are a luxury the country — the G.O.P. included — can no longer afford.

(Via Memeorandum.) One hesitates to grant that Frank Rich is ever right about anything. There is still plenty of sleaze out there that culture warriors could conceivably leverage for political effect. And the conclusions Rich ultimately draws -- that Obama can, among other things, repeal "Don't ask, don't tell" without fear of political fallout -- may prove disastrous for Democrats, if heeded.

Nonetheless, the "values voter" phenomenon that so transfixed the commentariat in 2004 seems to have faded in significance. Mark Foley and Larry Craig may have assisted this process, but the economic crisis is obviously Issue No. 1 for both parties. Rich is certainly correct that, with Citibank trading for less than the cost of an ATM fee, the primary "value" voters are interested in now is the value of their 401Ks.

If there is any encouragement for traditionalists it is this: Just as there is little public appetite for conservative alarums over cultural issues, neither is there any appetite for liberal alarums. If the Obama administration makes a point of pushing liberal social policies, a backlash is possible, recession or no recession.

As for the Obama administration's economic plan, permit me once again to repeat: It Won't Work. If Obama's handling of the economy is viewed as disastrous, it doesn't much matter what cultural policies he pursues, since they can all be repealed with the stroke of a pen on Jan. 20, 2013. And Frank Rich knows zilch about economics.

topics: New York Times

White House Says Economy Stinks -- No, Wait, It's Great!

Posted by Matthew Vadum on 3.16.09 @ 2:20AM

Available evidence shows the U.S. economy is in shambles -there's a 20% chance we'll have a depression- yet the Obama administration's stated views on the condition of the economy change from day to day depending on the audience.

A week ago White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Peter Orszag told reporters "fundamentally, the economy is weak."

But then there was a miraculous turnaround, at least rhetorically, as President Obama osculated the posterior of Chinese premier Wen Jiabao whose bond holding government is justifiably nervous about the solvency of the U.S. government.

In the absence of actual evidence and contrary to every statement he made about the economy while he rammed his so-called stimulus bill through Congress last month, President Obama said Friday: "if we are keeping focused on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy, all the outstanding companies, workers, all the innovation, and dynamism in this country, then we're going to get through this. And I'm very confident about that."

White House chief economic adviser Christina Romer echoed her boss's words Sunday, saying that fundamentals of the economy are "sound."

"The fundamentals are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, we have good technology," Romer said on "Meet the Press."

Maybe OMB's Peter Orszag didn't get the memo from David Axelrod.

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Those Cuddly North Koreans

Posted by Doug Bandow on 3.15.09 @ 6:20AM

I've always enjoyed the North Koreans, ever since I first saw the stone-faced diplomats observing United Nations sessions in Geneva, where I was attending the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea for the Reagan administration (another story!). I was even able to visit North Korea in 1992 and found it to be a Potemkin country--an airport without airplanes, roads without cars, streets without street signs, etc. The sort of place every political junkie should visit.

Now comes this story:

North Korea has opened its first "authentic" Italian restaurant on the orders of its leader, Kim Jong-Il, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper said Saturday.

The Chosun Sinbo, often seen as a mouthpiece for North Korea's communist regime, said the restaurant had proved to be a major hit after it opened in the capital Pyongyang in December.

"I've learned through TV and books that pizza and spaghetti are among the world's famous dishes, but this is the first time that I've tasted it," Jung Un-Suk, 42, told the newspaper, which is published in Japan.

"They have unique flavours," she said.

Impoverished North Korea has chronic food shortages and suffered a famine in the late 1990s that by some estimates killed one million people.

The newspaper said the North Korean state bought wheat flour, butter and cheese in Italy for the restaurant.

The restaurant's manager said Kim had also sent its cooks to Naples and Rome for training after they committed "errors" in their efforts to reproduce authentic Italian cuisine.

"General Kim Jong-Il said that the (North Korean) people should also be allowed access to the world's famous dishes," the newspaper quoted manager Kim Sang-Soon as saying.

"He then called for the establishment of a restaurant specialising in Italian food," the manager said.

Visitors to and escapees from North Korea have in the past commented on its leader's fondness for fine dining.

I'm a great fan of Italian food, so I guess this gives me another reason to visit again. I share the late Great Leader's birthday, so I keep hoping for an invitation to join in the annual celebrations. I could have a pizza while learning more about the paradise he created.