The American Spectator

topics: Government Waste

Call the Police, There's a Madman Around

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.10.09 @ 12:03PM

Life and satire collide: PETA has asked the Pet Shop Boys to change their name. In other news, feminists are protesting the song title "West End Girls."

Quebec's Not So Urgent Care

Posted by Philip Klein on 4.10.09 @ 11:13AM

Some more details on whether or not Canadian socialized medicine contributed to Natasha Richardson's death. I found this part of the CNN story worth noting:

In an open letter to the citizens of Quebec sent to the Montreal Gazette, Dr. Michael Churchill Smith, director of professional services at the Montreal General Hospital, said incidents like Natasha Richardson's should serve as a wake-up call to Quebec. "It is no longer morally acceptable for our citizens who, in the moment of their greatest needs, do not have access to a rapid transit system that gives them the best chance to not only survive, but to survive with a quality of life."

Daniel LeFrancois, director of Quebec's pre-hospital care, told the Gazette that cost is prohibitive when a one-hour flight costs $6,000. It's a question of resources and priorities focusing on "the biggest gain for the biggest need," he said.

The reason why American health care is so expensive is that we have an "all in" mentality in which every test is ordered, every treatment is attempted, and all resources are employed toward saving lives. It's an imperfect system and a very costly system, but just look at the alternative. In Quebec, you have a beauraucrat deciding what kind of care can be offered based on a determination of "the biggest gain for the biggest need."

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Rove Also Says Sky Is Blue

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.10.09 @ 11:12AM

Karl Rove calls Joe Biden a "blowhard" and a "liar." Hilarity ensues.

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Daily Must-Reads

Posted by Joseph Lawler on 4.10.09 @ 10:18AM

A realistic foreign policy outlook shouldn't include a litany of apologies (Washington Post)

Rove has strong words for Biden regarding certain dubious anecdotes (Politico)

Hmm. JournoList pushing erroneous health care stats? (Red State)

Harold Koh, transnationalist, might face tough confirmation (Washington Independent)

The head of AIG seems a little too close with...you guessed it, Goldman Sachs (Examiner)

Fisking the end-of-Christian-America thesis (First Things)

Criticizing Anonymous Attacks Is More Cowardly

Posted by J. Peter Freire on 4.10.09 @ 7:42AM

I have, for the longest time, been bewildered when somesuch politician decides to denounce the use of anonymous attack ads at the same exact moment that he is subject criticism from them. It's like when a politician complains about the media frenzy surrounding a scandal, as though there's no scandal at issue, simply media hysteria. It's enough to make you reach for the smelling salts.

So we return to the soap opera of Chris Christie's New Jersey goober-natorial bid, in which Christie's media strategy is "Shriek and point!" at whatever mouse seems to be running across the speaking platform. I was only joking when I said that Christie would feign indigestion at the sign of the employment numbers, but his people are actually sounding like schoolyard toughies waiting to straighten out some wayward nerd in the corner for making a smart-alec comment.

One of Christie's own hardnosed bloggers (remember, he likes to hire tough guys) ran to the Lonegan campaign and asked for a public denunciation of the clever Godfather-themed but *gasp* anonymous YouTube video that provides sources and context for a variety of quotes pointing to a questionable record.

Full stop. Here's the video:

Okay. Now here's how Christie's guy handled it:

While I’m hesitant* to give this gutless coward** the recognition and attention he so desperately craves, I do so for a reason. I want to know if Steve Lonegan or any of the integral members of his campaign staff condone* the actions of this individual or individuals.

It is my sincere**** hope that nobody with ties to the Lonegan campaign has anything to do with any of this and that somebody from their camp would step forward and denounce the actions of whomever***** is responsible for this content publicly******.

Footnotes from the Orwellian Guide to Political Language as Deception:

* I'm hesitant to say this, but I'll say it anyway. Saying you're hesitant is like lying, especially if you wind up doing the thing you were supposedly hesitant to do at the start of the sentence.
** When a person in power calls an anonymous person a gutless coward for criticizing them, he's simply proving the person right for maintaining his anonymity.
*** I want to know whether there's a tooth fairy or if some creepy individual is sneaking into my room at night to give me money for teeth. I also want to know why I'm still losing and growing teeth. Christie's guy has different thoughts, and I'm okay with that.
**** Undoubtedly, this blogger is up at nights, tearing out his own hair, cursing the moon and hoping, praying, and gnashing his teeth at the thought that some kindly Lonegan campaigner might have wandered astray with a copy of Final Cut Pro and wound up, in a drunken stupor, losing himself in the production of an anonymous attack ad. Yea, the Headless Video Editor stalks the night and preys upon the young. Do not let it possess you!
***** Small grammatical thing on which the commenters (bless your hearts) may correct me. Isn't "whomever" just plain wrong in this? If the clause is the object of "actions of" wouldn't "whoever" be correct? I know it's New Jersey, but c'mon.
****** So the only way someone who opposes you gets your kudos is by coming out and condemning things that make *you* look bad? That's a good trick. I didn't even know you could do that. SO THAT'S HOW MCCAIN LOST! Noted.

So there's the lesson. I guess. If faced with negative ads, don't respond, simply say they're unfair. And don't say how. The ironic thing is that when you do this, some bloggers (me) feel compelled to post about the response, which then compels them (still me) to post about the original ad. Which means that Christie's blogger succeeded only in asserting that he's really tough on people who do not have names, while the anonymous "gutless coward" succeeded in getting more attention for his gutless and cowardly YouTube piece. Srsly?

And this stuff is coming (one assumes) from his own side. I'm sure the Dems will go easier though. Why wouldn't they?

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A Warning from Britain's Daniel Hannan

Posted by Matthew Vadum on 4.10.09 @ 2:55AM

To defeat the left's plans to force Big Government, DMV-style health care on Americans we need articulate, passionate leaders like Daniel Hannan, a Conservative Member of European Parliament (MEP) representing the United Kingdom.

Hannan is the Churchillian figure who rhetorically skewered British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last month in the European Parliament for his reckless economic policies. Brown, who leads Britain's Labour Party, is said by some to be the most unpopular prime minister since Neville Chamberlain.

Hannan told Sean Hannity he doesn't want to see the United States destroy its world-class healthcare system as the U.K. has done to its own system. "If you see a friend about to make a terrible mistake you try and warn him," he said.

Although the government-run National Health Service (NHS) was brought in "with the best of intentions" it "has made people iller."

"We spend a lot of money and we get very bad results," he said.

Here is the video clip from a few days ago:

Santorum versus Obama

Posted by Matthew Vadum on 4.9.09 @ 5:57PM

No one ever quite knows what's going to happen when former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania) opens his mouth, so reading his anti-Obama rant today in the Philadelphia Inquirer was a pleasant surprise. Santorum rails against the president's nomination of an internationalist to a key government post.

Here's the top of it:

Watching President Obama apologize last week for America's arrogance - before a French audience that owes its freedom to the sacrifices of Americans - helped convince me that he has a deep-seated antipathy toward American values and traditions. His nomination of former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh to be the State Department's top lawyer constitutes further evidence of his disdain for American values.

This seemingly obscure position in Foggy Bottom's bureaucratic maze is one of the most important in any administration, shaping foreign policy in the courts and playing a critical role in international negotiations and treaties.

Let's set aside Koh's disputed comments about the possible application of Sharia law in American jurisprudence. The pick is alarming for more fundamental reasons having to do with national sovereignty and constitutional self-governance.

What is indisputable is that Koh calls himself a "transnationalist." He believes U.S. courts "must look beyond national interest to the mutual interests of all nations in a smoothly functioning international legal regime. ..." He thinks the courts have "a central role to play in domesticating international law into U.S. law" and should "use their interpretive powers to promote the development of a global legal system."

Koh's "transnationalism" stands in contrast to good, old-fashioned notions of national sovereignty, in which our Constitution is the highest law of the land. In the traditional view, controversial matters, whatever they may be, are subject to democratic debate here. They should be resolved by the American people and their representatives, not "internationalized." What Holland or Belgium or Kenya or any other nation or coalition of nations thinks has no bearing on our exercise of executive, legislative, or judicial power.

Koh disagrees. He would decide such matters based on the views of other countries or transnational organizations - or, rather, those entities' elites.

Unsurprisingly, Koh is a strong supporter of the International Criminal Court, which could subject U.S. soldiers and officials to foreign criminal trials for their actions while fighting for our security. He has recommended that American lawyers work to "undermine" official American opposition to the court.

If only Koh's transnationalism ended there. [...]

NY-20 Update

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.9.09 @ 4:55PM

You'll recall on election night, Democrat Scott Murphy led Republican Jim Tedisco but there was still a Republican-leaning universe of absentee ballots left to be counted. Well, recanvassing has put Tedisco in the lead (very narrowly) but Murphy is doing better than expected among absentee ballots. So what is going to happen here is really anybody's guess.

Sanford Takes to Airwaves in Stimulus Fight

Posted by Philip Klein on 4.9.09 @ 12:51PM

Tomorrow, the group Carolinians for Reform will launch a television ad featuring Gov. Mark Sanford, in which he explains why he doesn't think passing on more debt to future generations is the way out of our economic crisis. The group plans to spend $230,000 to air the ad statewide in South Carolina.

"There must be a stopping point," Sanford declares in the ad. "going further into debt will not solve a problem that was created by too much debt. There must be a price that we will not impose on future generations. For me, the easy thing would be to accept money handed out from Washington. But the easy thing isn't always the right thing."

Here's the full video.

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D.C. and Gay Marriage, Cont'd

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.9.09 @ 12:18PM

Nate Silver doesn't like Michael Goldfarb's suggestion that congressional Republicans could make trouble for congressional Democrats by trying to stop the recognition of same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia. Silver contends this is no way to lead the GOP back to the "promised land" and says the polling shows "there are now about as many people who favor legalizing gay marriage as do banning abortion."

Silver is right that this issue won't produce some kind of national groundswell for Republicans now that support for same-sex marriage is a mainstream, even if still minority, position. But plenty of Democrats, especially in the House, now represent areas where same-sex marriage polls worse than it does nationally. Anything that would put such Democrats on the record voting the pro-same-sex marriage line would be a political liability. For this reason, a lot of these Democrats would probably vote with the Republicans.

Let's also consider Silver's abortion analogy. Pro-lifers have routinely used the federal government's oversight role to block pro-abortion policies in D.C. When the D.C. city council approved public funding of abortion, for example, President George H.W. Bush vetoed the entire city budget and pro-life members of Congress voted to support him. That was when the pro-choice position polls better than it does now; opposition to same-sex marriage still polls better nationally than the pro-life position today.

Finally, Silver writes "[t]here is little doubt that a referendum to permit gay marriage would pass in D.C." A medical marijuana referendum passed in D.C. too, but that didn't stop Congress from reversing it (wrongly, in my view). But D.C.'s population is 55 percent black. It is actually not a foregone conclusion such a referendum would pass, though there's no doubt it would be competitive.

Romney, Gay Marriage, and Iowa

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.9.09 @ 11:52AM

Mitt Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom has an op-ed in the Des Moines Register drawing on his Massachusetts experience with same-sex marriage to offer some lessons for Iowa. As the state's marriage debate heats up, Iowa will once again take on a high degree of significance to Romney.

The "Church" and the Dems

Posted by Joseph Lawler on 4.9.09 @ 11:30AM

In 2004, the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops released a statement on Catholics in political life that directed, "The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions." For Catholic Democrats, and especially those related to Notre Dame, rationalizing Pres. Obama's invitation to speak and receive an honorary degree of laws at Notre Dame's commencement requires suspending logic or ignoring this statement. That rationalization is more difficult in light of 29 bishops writing Fr. John Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame, condemning his decision to invite Obama. When the leaders of the flock object so strenuously to honoring Obama, it forces you to reconsider either your support of Obama as commencement speaker or your adherence to the Church.

One of the 25 bishops is Francis Cardinal George, the archbishop of Chicago. Cardinal George called the decision "an extreme embarassment" and stated, "whatever else is clear, it is clear that Notre Dame didn't understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation..."

Little did Cardinal George know that in speaking on this matter of the Church he exposed himself to a lecture by William M. Daley, Catholic former Sec. of Commerce and member of the Chicago Daleys. Daley wrote in the Tribune that "Cardinal George's stand is an embarrassment to Chicago Catholics, and furthers the divide between the church, its members and the rest of America." He also graced the Cardinal with an exposition on morality, the Church hierarchy, and the role of faith in politics. His argument amounted to the claim that the Church and its colleges should engage in endless dialog with a world that is otherwise permitted to do whatever it wants.

Never mind Daley's tortured logic. As a member of Clinton's cabinet, co-chairman of Obama's presidential campaign, and member of Chicago's ruling family, Daley is a premier Catholic Democrat. When faced with an irreconcilable tension between his preferred candidate and the incontrovertible teachings of his faith, Daley apparently choses the former. And he doesn't choose politics over faith quietly: he finds the biggest megaphone he can to impugn the guardians of the faith.

Daley writes,

But the fact is that American Catholics are divided over the difficult moral issues of stem-cell research and abortion. It's important that students, and Catholics generally, be exposed to people with different ideas and ways of thinking. Indeed, it is particularly important for them to hear from President Obama, whom a majority of voters-including a majority of Catholic voters-have chosen to lead our country through difficult times.

In other words, he thinks Cardinal George should reconsider the basic tenets of the Catholic faith in light of popular opinion. In making this claim, Daley is stating that he believes that the Church hierarchy has no role in faith formation. Remember, Catholics believe that the bishops follow in a direct line from the Apostles, whom Jesus Christ entrusted with spreading the Gospel. In Daley's world it is the people who voted Democratic who must spread the Party platform to the bishops. Does he represent the Democratic view of religion -- that when its protectors interfere with the advancement of their politicians, they must be publicly defied and their words distorted? It seems like the more honest approach would be to consider their teachings more thoughtfully or else give up the pretense of commitment to the faith.

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Ethanol Folly

Posted by Paul Chesser on 4.9.09 @ 11:17AM

The Congressional Budget Office has now weighed in on ethanol mandates so I guess now it makes it official: they drive up food prices and do nothing for greenhouse gas emissions. The Washington Times reports:

Federal ethanol-fuel policies forced consumers to pay an extra 0.5 percent to 0.8 percent in increased food prices in 2008, and the government itself could end up paying nearly $1 billion more this year for food stamps because of ethanol use, according to a new government report.

The report by the Congressional Budget Office helps answer questions raised by Congress last year as food prices shot up, and some lawmakers questioned the effects of government policies, such as the ethanol mandate....

Also, government-sponsored subsidies and mandates for ethanol to be mixed with gasoline are supposed to help foster U.S. energy independence and to cut down on greenhouse-gas emissions, but only have reduced greenhouse-gas emissions by less than one-third of 1 percent.

CBO also noted that pushing for ethanol could actually increase greenhouse gas emissions, with deforestation being one reason among many for that consequence. Even the New York Times figured that out a long time ago.

Cross-posted at Globalwarming.org.

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topics: Global Warming

Poll Finds Americans Prefer Capitalism -- By a Nose

Posted by Philip Klein on 4.9.09 @ 11:03AM

In what has to be the scariest if true poll result of the year, Rasmussen found that only a slight majority of the country --53 percent -- say they favor capitalism over socialism. Twenty percent of respondents said they favored socialism, and 27 percent remained undecided. Scarier still: "Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided."

Rasmussen, it should be noted, has had a lot of polling results that have been outliers, but those results have tended to be favorable to conservatives.

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Daily Must-Reads

Posted by Joseph Lawler on 4.9.09 @ 9:41AM

Why is Arne Duncan so heartless? (Reason)

Would Stephen Douglas be invited to give a commencement address? (NRO)

Trying to get Catholic schools back and doing their thing in inner cities (City Journal)

The cheapening of Australian wines (Slate)

Rigid Keynesians, once again, would do well to read Keynes (Think Markets)

Another Amnesty Battle Coming?

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.9.09 @ 9:26AM

The New York Times is reporting that the Obama administration will take up immigration with a speech in May, "working groups" this summer, and perhaps legislation in the fall. The speculation had been that Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, would oppose a serious push until after the president had been safely reelected. Maybe John McCain's reported outburst prodded the White House along!

UPDATE: Of the various options Phil outlines for what Obama is doing, I think this is the most likely:

"Perhaps he doesn't really plan on pushing this hard, but wants to make some noise on the issue to reassure restive Hispanic groups that immigration reform is still a priority for him."

Resting My Case

Posted by Paul Chesser on 4.9.09 @ 8:55AM

As I mentioned last week, for New York Times executive editor Bill Keller to slam the new media in general and Drudge specifically is absurd, especially since the Times leaks its stories to him ahead of publication all the time. This headline from Drudge's site this morning spells it out as clearly as possible:

IMMIGRATION BILL THIS YEAR: Obama to begin looking for illegal immigrants to become legal, NY TIMES planning to lead in Page Ones on Thursday, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE... Developing...

Not that anyone needed this confirmation...

topics: Newspapers in Decline

Obama's Immigration Gambit

Posted by Philip Klein on 4.9.09 @ 8:02AM

The NY Times report that President Obama is planning to address immigration reform this year is pretty surprising. And by surprising I don't mean that it's unexpected that Obama would support legalizing illegal immigrants, but that he would risk a backlash on such a passionate issue that could seriously hinder is ability to achieve other aspects of his agenda. With unemployment at 8.5 percent, Republicans more likely to oppose a path to legalization now that a Democrat is president, and with Democrats having gained seats in a lot of conservative districts by talking tough on immigration, the political environment does not seem conducive to legalizing millions of illegal immigrants. So, I see a few possibilities:

-- Perhaps President Obama sincerely wants to get this done.

--Perhaps he doesn't think it's possible he could overreach and trigger a backlash.

-- Perhaps he doesn't really plan on pushing this hard, but wants to make some noise on the issue to reassure restive Hispanic groups that immigration reform is still a priority for him.

-- Perhaps he's really clever and realizes that as long as the prospect of amnesty is in the air, conservatives will be focused 24/7 on that issue, and this will distract the right from fighting him on other issues more central to his agenda like health care, energy, and education.

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Look Who's Laughing Now

Posted by Nicole Russell on 4.8.09 @ 8:56PM

Minnesotans may soon welcome Al Franken as their Senator according to this piece by Scott Johnson (of Power Line) at National Review. The Franken/Coleman debacle has been playing out in trial for the last several weeks. The case is technically still pending with the panel judges, but Johnson thinks it's in the bag for the comedian. He also thinks while Franken's politics are as ugly as he is unfunny, he didn't steal the election, he just outsmarted his opponent. I'm not sure I completely agree with him--at least, don't want to--but it looks like he's followed it much closer than I have, has been in touch with more contacts on the ground there, and makes a strong case to that end.

Those who postulate Democratic shenanigans as the cause of Coleman's difficulties fail to reckon with the December 18 decision of the Minnesota Supreme Court on the inclusion of previously rejected absentee ballots in the recount. The Minnesota Supreme Court held that absentee ballots identified by local officials during the recount as wrongly rejected should be included in the recount subject to agreement of the parties (and also subject to the possibility of sanctions on the parties' lawyers for withholding agreement in bad faith).

It's worth a read, though it may depress--as much as inform--you. I guess I'll have to eat my words.

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Barney Frank and Leading Questions

Posted by Joseph Lawler on 4.8.09 @ 4:23PM

This video of a Harvard Law student asking Barney Frank about his role in the financial crisis is going 'round the internets. The student merely asks, "How much responsibility, if any, do you have for the financial crisis?" Frank flips out a little bit, accusing the student of repeating right wing talking points and trying to bring him down (in his defense apparently he had been subjected to a few crazy questions directly before this one). He then defends himself by arguing that there was nothing he could have done between the time he became chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and the financial meltdown. He also implicates hedge funds and right-wing deregulation as the real culprits.

It's been kind of overshadowed by other events and Chris Dodd's transgressions, but it's worth mentioning that Frank is absolutely as guilty as anyone for the wreckage of the economy. It's a crime that not only has he not been ridden out of office on a rail, he also has a considerable role to play in the directing the economy from now on.

For a refresher, see Jeff Jacoby's "Frank's Fingerprints Are All Over the Financial Fiasco" from the Boston Globe. Also check out the WSJ's summary of Frank's obstructions of Republicans' efforts to rein in Fannie and Freddie over the years.

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Gay Marriage in D.C.

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.8.09 @ 3:04PM

It didn't get as much attention as the Vermont legislature's veto override, but yesterday the Washingotn, D.C. city council passed and Mayor Adrian Fenty signed a bill requiring the district to recognize same-sex marriages performed in states where marriage is so defined. That means that D.C. residents could travel to Massachusetts, Iowa, or Vermont, marry, and have their marriages recognized when they return.

David Catania, a Republican-turned-independent city council member, plans to introduce legislation to cover same-sex marriages performed within the District. Catania left the GOP at least in part of then-President Bush's (nominal) support for a federal marriage amendment. It will be interesting to see how Congress, which has the ultimate lawmaking power over the federal district, will react. Many Democratic leaders will be sympathetic to the District's moves, others will be opposed -- and many more will be reluctant to be seen as supportive of same-sex marriage back home.

A Computer Generated Image Is Worth...A Trillion Dollars?

Posted by Shawn Macomber on 4.8.09 @ 2:43PM

The folks over at CNBC have created a slideshow to help us put recent government outlays and market loses in in perspective. My favorite has to be the quarters going over Niagara Falls. So sparkly.

An Academic Exercise

Posted by Joseph Lawler on 4.8.09 @ 2:43PM

Matt Yglesias's comment on a debate between two economists (Brad DeLong and Tyler Cowen) over the stimulus is surprisingly candid:

It always strikes me that the published versions of these debates seem a bit too fastidious. As best I can tell, the real dynamic of the debates here are that many people on the left hope and many people on the right fear... a lasting change in the policy environment. After all, when you engage in some temporary deficit spending the deficit could be temporary in two ways. The spending could vanish. Or taxes could be raised. Progressives hope, and conservatives fear, that much of the new deficit spending will prove popular and anchor expectations about levels of federal services.

This hope/fear is extremely realistic. It seems very unlikely to me that all of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s spending increases will actually be undone when the legislation expires.

That gives people who think that overall levels of taxes and spending should be lower strong reason to cast around for reasons why stimulus is a bad idea. Were conservatives in power and proposing stimulus via a temporary tax cut, I believe most of the people currently making fallacious arguments about Ricardian Equivalence wouldn’t be doing so. They’d be saying to themselves “even if this doesn’t work, it’ll probably lead to lower tax rates over the long term so whatever.” Nobody likes to believe that they’re just screwed, that the short-term economic situation dictates letting the political opposition unleash some of its long-treasured schemes.

Of course, the economists are debating about stimulus in general, from an academic perspective. It's funny that Yglesias would reduce the debate to the specific political implications of the Obama stimulus -- no one needs to be reminded that it's an attempt by the Democrats to take advantage of the short-term turmoil to implement their long-term schemes. Aren't there reasonable policy debates about whether in general short-term monetary and fiscal policies can improve economies, regardless of the underlying economic regime?

There are, but Yglesias's honest assessment of the matter at hand seems to point to the fact that while the left does have useful academics like DeLong giving intellectual justification for short-term fiscal policy, the actual stimulus has very little to do with improving short-term outcomes and a whole lot to do with large-scale reengineering of the economy. I'm sure that pro-market academic economists give their pro-stimulus opponents the benefit of the doubt when they embrace massive stimulus policies that otherwise seem cynically political. It's interesting to see a liberal commentator arguing that there is indeed a fair amount of cynicism involved in the left's approach, and that the real game, even in friendly debates like the one between DeLong and Cowen, isn't about curing the economy at all.

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The Congressional Black Caucus-Castro Lovefest

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.8.09 @ 2:26PM

Look, I'm for lifting the embargo against Cuba too. It obviously hasn't dislodged the Castro brothers. The Cold War has been over for almost two decades. But this exercise in sucking up to a couple of tyrants goes well beyond that. Maybe this meeting with some of the most left-wing members of Congress was another Castro surprise.

Market-Hater Thomas Frank Attacks Mark Sanford

Posted by Matthew Vadum on 4.8.09 @ 2:14PM

Thomas Frank, a polemicist of leftist chaos, thinks very little of large sections of America. He's at it again in the Wall Street Journal, talking down to conservatives.

Hired as part of the WSJ's affirmative action program for the congenitally irrational, Frank frequently laments the supposed stupidity of his fellow Kansans for being duped into supporting American values like, for example, a love of capitalism and freedom. He is a master of progressive condescension who wrote the surprisingly influential liberal tract, What's the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America.

Frank leans heavily on the Marxist concept of "false consciousness." He contends that the people of Red State America are too stupid or brainwashed (or both) to realize that voting Republican and/or supporting conservative public policy proposals is not in their best interests.

Today Frank, no relation to Barney Frank though certainly a kindred spirit, whines about one of the few (at least seemingly) principled politicians in the land, South Carolina's Republican governor, Mark Sanford.

In his column, "Eighteenth-Century Man: South Carolina's governor is touchingly naïve," the overrated liberal thinker lambastes Sanford for daring to believe in the limited government ideals of America's founders:

I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. His ideals are honestly held. It's just that with ideals this bad, you don't need hypocrisy to go wrong.

Mr. Sanford is transfixed, for example, by the perfidy of big government. Deficit spending, the issue of the day, has always struck him as fantastically evil, and in his congressional period he even quoted an early 19th century Scottish theorist on why government spending can force a democracy to collapse. Social Security is another bad idea, he argues in his book, and it needs to be replaced by personal retirement accounts.

Business, on the other hand, is an institution with almost magical powers of beneficence: were we to entrust our retirement savings to "conventional investments" instead of government, Mr. Sanford wrote in 2000, we could expect returns of 8% a year. (And that's why the Dow stands well above 20,000 today.)

Mr. Sanford's theory of how government works -- it's a conflict of "citizen legislators" and "career politicians," with the city of Washington itself exerting a mysterious liberal influence over all who enter it -- would have been considered touchingly naïve even in the days of the Harding administration.

There it is, laid out for all to see.

In Frank's eyes, people who believe that the Constitution was created to restrain government are immoral, or at least simpleminded. People who believe that markets, not bureaucrats, are best suited to satisfy human wants and needs, are corporate shills and cronies. People who believe that redistributionist Washington, D.C. should not be trusted because it has a corrupting influence on so many of those working in it, are ignorant, provincial goofballs.

This is what, dear reader, Thomas Frank thinks of you.

Paying for the News

Posted by Philip Klein on 4.8.09 @ 10:50AM

It wasn't too long ago that Rupert Murdoch wanted to free up content on the WSJ, but now he says, "People reading news for free on the Web, that’s got to change." The NY Times reports on cash-strapped news organizations that want to find a way to make that happen. The problem is that the cat is out of the bag and people are used to paying to read news on the Internet and it's hard to get people to pay. We saw that demonstrated with the Times Select bust.

The only model that I think could have potential would be if there were some sort of consortium allowing readers to subscribe to one service for a flat fee that gave them access to a lot of news sites. If the service achieves mass participation among newspapers and magazines, it will be harder for readers to simply say, "Oh, the NY Times started charging, so I'll just read the Washington Post for free instead." Also, a site that gave access to multiple outlets could convince readers that they're getting good value. The participating news organizations could divide up the revenue proportionally, based on web traffic. The big question would be whether you could make the price high enough for it to still generate sufficient revenue for news organizations once the pot is split up, but still low enough to attract customers.

Death Tax and the Times

Posted by Philip Klein on 4.8.09 @ 10:13AM

The NY Times editorializes today:

Last week, as the unemployment rate hit a 25-year high and nearly one in 10 Americans was receiving food stamps, 10 Democrats in the Senate joined all 41 Republican senators to cut estate taxes for the wealthiest families. The provision would funnel an additional $91 billion over 10 years to the heirs of megafortunes, money that would otherwise have been paid in federal taxes or donated to charity.

(Empasis mine.)

While killing the death tax wouldn't be at the top of my list of polices to pursue at this point in time, it's sickening that the Times would use the term "funnel" -- a word normally associated with shady dealings and extortion rackets -- in this context. The money we're talking about here is money that individuals earn honestly, pay taxes on while they're still alive, and hand down to their surviving family. The way the Times portrays it, government starts off with a natural right to all money earned in the United States. Any legislation that pushes taxes south of the prevailing rate at the time is a "cost" to government because they're being deprived of revenue that is rightfully theirs, and now, if wealthy Americans are involved, it's described like a money-laundering operation.

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Fidel's Sooo Dreamy! Lee Reflects on Tender Reunion with Cuban Heartthrob

Posted by Matthew Vadum on 4.7.09 @ 8:31PM

After returning from a visit to Communist Cuba, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-California) and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus were overflowing with praise for former Cuban President Fidel Castro, the Politico reports.

Hours after meeting with her idol in the class struggle, Lee, who chairs the liberal CBC, told reporters on Capitol Hill the tender reunion "was quite a moment to behold." Lee's been a friend of Cuba for years.

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Illinois) was also filled with love. He said the retired dictator's home was modest and his wife hospitable. "It was almost like listening to an old friend," said Rush.

"In my household I told Castro he is known as the ultimate survivor," said the congressman, a co-founder of the Illinois Black Panther Party.

Lee's fellow Californian, Democratic Rep. Laura Richardson, was excited that like President Obama, Castro wants to move on to the next chapter in U.S. foreign policy.

"He listened. He said the exact same thing" as President Obama said about turning the page, she gushed. Castro even knew her name and her congressional district, said the starstruck lawmaker. "He looked right into my eyes and he said, 'How can we help? How can we help President Obama?'"

After the meeting, Castro released a statement saying the CBC delegation told him that a chunk of American society "continues to be racist." That section of the population shares the blame for the continuation of the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba, he said.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri) said Papa Fidel said no such thing. "That did not happen," he said.

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Armed and Ready

Posted by Philip Klein on 4.7.09 @ 3:56PM

Dave Weigel reports from the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot in West Point, Kentucky.

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Socialized Medicine, an International Tour

Posted by Philip Klein on 4.7.09 @ 3:45PM

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Ezra Klein argues that we need not choose between the "awful extremes" of Canadian and British health care (with long wait lines) and American health care (which has millions of uninsured). He writes:

Moreover, surveys conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have found that most countries don't have waiting lines or the uninsured. Not Germany or France or Japan or Sweden, all of which have more of a mix of public and private options. But Canada is next door, and Britain speaks our language, so we tend to spend a lot of time comparing our system with these systems and not a lot of time thinking through the full range of options.

Okay, so let's do a tour of those other options Ezra mentions.

Japan is facing an emergency room crisis:

OSAKA (Kyodo) A 49-year-old man who was injured in a traffic accident last week died after he was rejected by five emergency rooms in Osaka, police and ambulance staff said.

Masao Nishimura was riding a motorcycle when he collided with a car at around 10:20 p.m. Wednesday in Higashiosaka. He was still conscious when the ambulance arrived at 10:33 p.m., they said.

The rescuers asked five emergency medical centers in Higashiosaka and its vicinity by phone to accept him, but all rejected the request by saying they were busy, all their beds were occupied, or ignored the call. Nishimura was finally accepted at a hospital in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, about 15 km away at around 11:25 p.m., but died of damage to a main artery at 1:45 a.m. Thursday.

The incident is the latest in which people in urgent need of medical help have been denied emergency treatment because of a nationwide doctor shortage. In December, an 89-year-old woman also died in Osaka Prefecture after being denied emergency treatment by 30 hospitals.

A video report on the crisis is available here.

Sweden has been forced to increase the role of the private sector because of long wait times:

"Many of the developments in the last 15 years have been about going from a government-funded system to a more open system that includes the private sector," says Dr. Birger Forsberg, a professor of international health at the Karolinksa Institute medical school who also advises Stockholm on health care policies....

Accessibility issues have been at the core of many health care policy shifts in Sweden of late. Therefore, recent changes like a policy to allow patients to seek care from physicians anywhere rather than being tied to one doctor are geared more toward reducing wait times than reducing costs.

Earlier this year, the National Board of Health and Welfare found that nearly 45% of patients have longer wait times than are supposedly guaranteed by the health care system. This, despite a recent influx of 250 million Swedish kronor ($42 million) into reducing wait times.

"These figures are not satisfactory," Swedish Health Minister Göran Hägglund, said in February when the findings were released. "They show that we haven't approached the problem of availability with the level of force needed. ... The wait to receive attention — be it a telephone call to a local clinic or a first visit to a physician — is simply too long."

In Germany doctors go on strike to fight for more pay.

In France in 2003, nearly 15,000 people died in a heat wave:

[T]he French Parliament released a harshly worded report blaming the deaths on a complex health system, widespread failure among agencies and health services to coordinate efforts, and chronically insufficient care for the elderly....

Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei has ordered a separate special study this month to look into a possible link with vacation schedules after doctors strongly denied allegations their absence put the elderly in danger. The heat wave hit during the August vacation period, when doctors, hospital staff and many others take leave.

As more and more Americans wise up to the perils of British and Canadian health care, liberals have shifted to touting other socialized systems. But none of those other countries have found a way to suspend the laws of economics, either.

UPDATE: A more extensive analysis of Sweden's problems here, and, as it turns out, Sweeden's own prime minister had to wait 8 months for hip surgery back in 2003/04.

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Justice Thomas Teaches Civics

Posted by Quin Hillyer on 4.7.09 @ 3:42PM

Well, sort of....

One reason conservatives are doing so badly electorally with those under 30 is that conservatives too often leave civic education to others, which means way too many kids get hackneyed, utterly incomplete "knowledge" of their government from lefty public school teachers, from what they see on TV and from Hollywood, and from fuzzy-headed sociology professors.
Conservatives therefore need to embrace organizations that take the time to teach young people about our founding documents and principles. Like this one:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/QuinHillyer/Quin-Essential-Cases-Kids-can-still-learn-about--42574917.html

'Al Gore's Certainly Right'?

Posted by Robert Stacy McCain on 4.7.09 @ 3:21PM

So says John Murdock, a Republican who apparently drank the global-warming Kool-Aid:

Clearly, though, climate change science is not a house of cards. The basic fabric of the argument is quite sound. . . . We do need to start making sound personal and national decisions to preserve the world that has been entrusted to our care. Avoiding the fallacy that the science is teetering on the brink of collapse is a good place to start, but it's an inadequate place to stop. Al Gore's certainly right about that.

Along the way, Murdock -- who blogs as The Republican Tree Hugger -- derides as biased know-nothings George F. Will of the Washington Post, Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Steven Milloy of JunkScience.com. Murdock's argument, if it may be called that, is nothing but a repetition of the bogus "scientific consensus" theme that the Greens have pounding for 15 years, despite the fact that (a) it's not scientific, and (b) there is no consensus.

Like Gore and the other global-warming hysterics, Murdock debates like a thug, attempting to bully skeptics into silence.

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Corzine Continues to Slump

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.7.09 @ 1:41PM

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine isn't looking very good in the latest Farleigh Dickinson poll. Not only is he still trailing Chris Christie, but he runs even (within the margin of error) with Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan. It remains to be seen whether this makes the Republican primary more competitive.

White House Liaison to White Castle

Posted by Shawn Macomber on 4.7.09 @ 1:31PM

The New Obama Order just keeps getting weirder and weirder...

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Not Fascism but Nazism?!?

Posted by Quin Hillyer on 4.7.09 @ 12:53PM

Even the NY Times says I didn't go far enough when I compared Obamanomics to Mussolini's economics. Apparently, they are more like Hitler's, and I just missed the story. Truly bizarre. (This comes courtesy of Red State.) Uh, Mr. Leonhardt, what about freedom?

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Gay Marriage, Without Judges

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.7.09 @ 12:18PM

Vermont's legislature approves same-sex marriage by overriding Republican Gov. Jim Douglas's veto. Vermont already had de facto same-sex marriage in the form of civil unions, but this move applies the word "marriage" to those unions and was conducted democratically. Judges played a role even here -- the civil unions regime was judicially imposed on a state without any mechanism for the people to vote directly; it is highly unlikely that this would have come to pass had that not been the case -- but this is the first time this decision has been made by an elected legislature in the United States.

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An Honest Liberal

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.7.09 @ 12:04PM

Matt Miller lets the cat out of the bag: there will be broad-based tax increases. Not just higher taxes on the "rich." Not just higher cigarette taxes. Taxes will go up across the board even if Congress kills cap and trade. The logic of Obama's economic plans, not to mention simple arithmetic, makes this inevitable. Obama may wait until the economy improves. He may wait until he is safely reelected. But the debt level is unsustainable and the only way to afford this much spending is through higher taxes.

NY Times Endorses Government Health Care "Option"

Posted by Philip Klein on 4.7.09 @ 11:31AM

In what shouldn't come as a surprise, the New York Times editorializes today in favor of a government-run option as part of the overhaul of the health care system. The argument is typical of the type of reasoning that you'd expect from the Times -- for instance, it suggests that the so-called "public option" be modeled after Medicare, then notes: "A public plan might do a better job of slowing the growth of health care costs, although Medicare has not been notably successful in that regard."

The key mistake the Times makes in the editorial is to perpetuate this idea that Americans would actually be given a "choice" over whether to have government or private insurance. But if it is open to all employers, then many businesses would simply choose to dump their employees onto the government plan. Since about 64 percent of covered Americans obtain their insurance through their employers, many Americans would effectively be left with no choice but to enroll. The Lewin Group report I noted yesterday found that if a public plan were created, the number of people with private insurance would shrink by two-thirds, or 119.1 million people.

More on The Masters

Posted by Quin Hillyer on 4.7.09 @ 11:14AM

If Tiger Woods oversleeps his tee time one day and is disqualified -- which might be the only way he could lose -- here are some others who could win this great golf tournament:

Stuarty Appleby -- The Aussie loves this course.

Angel Cabrera -- Former U.S. Open champ has played great at Augusta in the past.

Fred Couples -- His game all spring has been as if in a time warp, meaning really top notch -- but his nerves down the stretch have betrayed his late-40s age. He has won at Augusta once and lost another time only because he putted like somebody in the grip of a sudden spasmodic disease. COuld he somehow keep his nerves steady and become the oldest Masters champ ever?

Padraig Harrington -- Perhaps never before has somebody who has won the last two majors consecutively received so little media attention. And his game has been rounding into shape.

Zach Johnson -- He won here just a couple of years ago, and his game has been very solid of late.

Justin Leonard -- He doesn't particularly like dramatically mounded, super-fast greens. But for the full shots, Augusta fits his eye. If the course stays a little damp, he has a chance.

Greg Norman -- We can always hope for redemption, can't we?

Geoff Ogilvy -- Arguably the third best player in the world right now, behind Woods and Harrington. (Sorry, Phil -- you are too inconsistent.)

Ian Poulter -- Englishman likes Augusta, and Ryder Cup showed he now has nerves of steel.

Henrik Stenson -- Loves Augusta. Terrific player.

Retief Goosen -- Has several VERY good finishes at Augusta, and his recent win in Florida shows his game is back in shape. He LOVES superfast greens. He might be, after Tiger, the best pick of all.

Now, what about Sergio? No way he can handle those greens. Phil? He's been AWOL at majors, basically, since his meltdown at Winged Foot. Furyk? He's been struggling too much. Els? He just doesn't seem to have his mojo going.

So the pick is Tiger. But if he oversleeps, watch for the Goose.

Well, That Didn't Take Long

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.7.09 @ 10:40AM

We've previously noted that if South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford runs for president, it will be difficult for him to hold together a coalition of conventionally hawkish Republicans and the Ron Paul supporters who've been attracted to his small-government conservatism. Either Sanford will have to back away from his criticisms of preventive war and interventionism or risk the wrath of most Republicans, who are either Jacksonian national-security types or believe in something like the Bush Doctrine.

North Korea was the first test for Sanford and he sided with the advocates of pre-emption. Noninterventionist conservatives are predictably displeased. My own view is that Sanford basically punted on the question, saying nice things about his "former boss" Newt Gingrich and mean things about Democratic fecklessness instead of giving a Fox News audience a considered presentation of his preferred foreign policy. But since it is impossible to imagine that kind of answer coming from Ron Paul, it's the first good reason to doubt he'll go out of his way to please Paulites on issues of war and peace.

The GOP's Strangely Apologetic Road to Recovery

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.7.09 @ 9:48AM

David Frum thinks this Weekly Standard piece praising Illinois Congressman Mark Kirk is "strangely apologetic" for acknowleding that the potential Republican senatorial candidate holds some of his constituents' socially liberal views. Politics almost always involves compromise between what you want and what you can get. Many, if not most, Weekly Standard readers and lots of Republicans, even in blue states, would prefer socially conservative candidates if they could get them. It would be "strangely apologetic" about social conservatism to pretend otherwise.

But this is a pro-Kirk article. Its writer doesn't conclude, "Yeah, Kirk is great but since he's pro-choice let's dump him and nominate Alan Keyes again." Instead he tries to persuade his socially conservative audience to support Kirk because of his electability, personal appeal, and unique talents. I'm not sure what's so strange about this approach. Frum proposes this thought experiment: "You'll know the GOP is on the road to recovery when it is considered a plus that somebody who represents a socially moderate district or state offers socially moderate views."

So what if Kirk was not "a strong fiscal conservative" whose "record on national security is impeccable"? Would it be a sign that the GOP is on the road to recovery to consider it a plus that somebody who represents an economically moderate, anti-Iraq war state offers economically moderate, anti-Iraq war views? If not, then it would seem some issues are non-negotiable after all.

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Daily Must-Reads

Posted by Joseph Lawler on 4.7.09 @ 9:40AM

Unintended consequences in Las Vegas (Bloomberg)

It's cute that conservatives are on Twitter, but it's also probably useless (The American Scene)

Obama's meaningless foreign policy focal point (Washington Post)

Regime uncertainty and animal spirits (The New Republic)

Is this vehicle going to replace cars in U.S. cities? No. It is not. (Techcrunch)

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Send Freed Gitmo Terrorists to ACORN for Mortgage Help

Posted by Matthew Vadum on 4.6.09 @ 7:28PM

The Obama administration has proposed releasing terrorists currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into the United States.

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said recently that the former detainees would have to be given some kind of government assistance to help. "We can't put them out on the street," he said.

Maybe the innovators at ACORN will help them use their food stamps to get mortgages. These pioneering community activists figured out in the late 1990s that government welfare benefits could be recycled and transformed into "income." ACORN and other left-wing groups hounded banks until they agreed to accept a loosening of underwriting standards.

Yes, we can!

Leveraging taxpayer dollars in this way will have countless benefits: The welfare state gets bigger, the housing and financial markets are stimulated, and the terrorists are free to pursue the American Dream.

It's a win-win situation for the Obama administration.

Study Forecasts Potential Shift of 131 Mln to Government-Run Health Care

Posted by Philip Klein on 4.6.09 @ 5:52PM

One of the major fights in the upcoming health care push will be over whether the legislation should allow Americans the option of enrolling in a newly created government-run plan. President Obama said that the so-called public option was a way to "keep the private sector honest" and Howard Dean, among others within the movement, has argued that this should be the hill to die on for progressives. "If Barack Obama's healthcare plan gets changed to exclude a public option like Medicare, then it is not healthcare reform," he declared in launching a new health care grassroots effort.

But an analysis released today by the Lewin Group, a health care consulting firm, confirms what conservatives have argued all along - that the creation of a public option would shift more and more people from private health care to government health care, thus creating a single-payer, or socialized health care system, over a period of time.

The group considers several variations of a public option. In one case, it would be open to everybody, including large businesses, and in another case it would be restricted to individuals and small firms. Either way, the results are alarming:

If as the President proposed, eligibility is limited to only small employers, individuals and the self-employed, public plan enrollment would reach 42.9 million people. The number of people with private coverage would fall by 32.0 million people....

If the public plan is opened to all employers as proposed by Senators Clinton and Edwards, at Medicare payment levels we estimate that about 131.2 million people would enroll in the public plan. The number of people with private health insurance would decline by 119.1 million people. This would be a two-thirds reduction in the number of people with private coverage (currently 170 million people).

If private reimbursement rates are paid to doctors and hospitals rather than lower Medicare reimbursements, the shift to the public plan would not be as dramatic.

However, if government uses its bargaining power to restrict payments to doctors and hospitals as it does under Medicare, Lewin estimates that doctors' pay will shrink by $33.1 billion in 2010 and hospitals' earnings will drop by $36 billion.

As Heritage notes, as it is, more and more doctors are opting out of Medicare because of the low reimbursement rates. What will happen if 131.2 million more people start paying at the same reduced rate?

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The State of Christie's Facial Expression Address

Posted by J. Peter Freire on 4.6.09 @ 4:53PM

From the department of "are you listening to yourself?" and "what business are you in?" comes this little gem of the aforementioned sillyman and former U.S. attorney Chris Christie. Again, I don't have anything against the guy, except that he happens to embody the kind of tin-eared inside-baseball quick fix solutions Republican operatives think are worth investing in. That is to say that machine politics in a state where Republicans don't win very much indicates a poorly-oiled machine.

Chris Christie held a press conference from the state house in which he gave his "I'm Shocked, Shocked" speech about how he'd never committed any ethical flaps. Never mind the weird coincidences involved. Anyway, my point here isn't with the ethics questions, but more the media strategy. Take a look:

Paul Mulshine, a conservative Star-Ledger columnist, was also the target of Christie's mini-meltdown. Christie said, with great personal sadness, Mulshine's column on federal monitors "ruined my ability to enjoy my son's baseball game with a smile on my face."

Other things Christie wasn't able to enjoy because of Mulshine's column:

The sound of children laughing
Butterflies
The sound of an ice cream truck
Puppies
His favorite Tom Clancy novel
Cookies
The newest installment of the film The Fast and the Furious

I don't understand the logic behind Christie's statement. Does he mean that Mulshine should not have written his column on the basis that it affected him emotionally? Or should Christie have possibly said that this was a fair point to make and he'll do Everything In His Power to make sure that ethics is Number 1?

I think it's the latter. But Christie thinks that his kid's baseball game and his own smiles make a better soundbyte. Next up: Christie Announces Bad Case Of Indigestion Over New Unemployment Figures.

Ye Shall Be Changed

Posted by Philip Klein on 4.6.09 @ 4:08PM

Bob Dylan on Obama, in the Times of London:

Q: What struck you about him?

DYLAN: Well, a number of things. He's got an interesting background. He's like a fictional character, but he's real. First off, his mother was a Kansas girl. Never lived in Kansas though, but with deep roots. You know, like Kansas bloody Kansas. John Brown the insurrectionist. Jesse James and Quantrill. Bushwhackers, Guerillas. Wizard of Oz Kansas. I think Barack has Jefferson Davis back there in his ancestry someplace. And then his father. An African intellectual. Bantu, Masai, Griot type heritage - cattle raiders, lion killers. I mean it's just so incongruous that these two people would meet and fall in love. You kind of get past that though. And then you're into his story. Like an odyssey except in reverse.

Via Ben Smith.

The Health Care Juggernaut

Posted by Philip Klein on 4.6.09 @ 3:48PM

This year, E.J. Dionne writes today, will finally be the year of national healthcare. One part of the left's strategy is to create an air of inevitability about health care legislation, so that anybody in opposition to the eventual proposal is a skunk in the garden party, trying to ruin things for everybody else. With that said, the piece is worth reading because Dionne is certainly tapped into the Democratic powers that be, and this in particular is worth keeping an eye on:

Though only some of the players will say so now, the plan will ultimately include a mandate requiring everyone to have insurance, quelling opposition from the insurance companies. They hope that having a bigger market will compensate them for whatever they might lose from regulatory changes.

As I have noted before, this could be a major problem for the Democrats. It's very hard to argue that it isn't a government takeover of health care if the federal government is requiring individuals to purchase health care. A mandate would impose a tax on the uninsured, it would be a handout to large insurance companies, it would represent a major policy flip flop by Obama, and mandates don't poll as well as other aspects of health care reform.

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Another Democrat Against Card Check

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.6.09 @ 2:51PM

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) has told the folks back home that she will oppose the Employee Free Choice Act:

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., told a Monday meeting of the Little Rock Political Animals Club that she will oppose the Employee Free Choice Act.

Lincoln's office said the senator will release a statement on the legislation this afternoon.

"I cannot support that bill," Lincoln said, according to one attendee. "Cannot support that bill in its current form. Cannot support and will not support moving it forward in its current form."

There were plenty of red-state Democrats who were willing to vote with their party on EFCA when there was little chance of it passing. Now that each one of them could be the deciding vote, especially in the Senate, they are taking a second look. Although Arlen Specter's card check about-face may have made this less of a threat, the most important question is how Lincoln would vote on cloture, not just the bill's final passage.

UPDATE: Huffington Post describes this as "the most devastating blow yet" for EFCA.

With McCains Like This, Who Needs Tancredos?

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.6.09 @ 1:46PM

According to this National Journal article, John McCain is pretty steamed about losing the Hispanic vote despite his amnesty advocacy. Here's how he reportedly behaved in a recent meeting about Republican outreach to Hispanics:

"He was angry," one source said. "He was over the top. In some cases, he rolled his eyes a lot. There were portions of the meeting where he was just staring at the ceiling, and he wasn't even listening to us. We came out of the meeting really upset."

McCain's message was obvious, the source continued: After bucking his party on immigration, he had no sympathy for Hispanics who are dissatisfied with President Obama's pace on the issue. "He threw out [the words] 'You people -- you people made your choice. You made your choice during the election,' " the source said. "It was almost as if [he was saying] 'You're cut off!' We felt very uncomfortable when we walked away from the meeting because of that."

Ahh, it wasn't that bad, say Republican senators who were at the meeting.

"What I saw... was John McCain saying, 'Look, I didn't get a lot of support from the Hispanic community,' which he deserved to have had," Martinez said. "It frustrated me. It frustrated him. [McCain said,] 'You guys thought this guy [Obama] was going to be your savior. Where is his leadership?' I sort of echo that. It's not like [the meeting] went badly, I don't think."

How did people attending the session react to McCain? Martinez said, "I think they thought he's still smarting a little bit. But I don't think they felt threatened or attacked or anything like that. I don't think so. My sense is the meeting was not ruined by John in any way, shape, or form."

Martinez, who is Hispanic, continued, "John is John. Sometimes when he talks, he talks forcefully. He wasn't ranting or raving or anything. I have seen John rant and rave. I don't think this was one of those moments."

Thune agreed: "It was a spirited discussion, but this sort of incendiary-type way that some people are characterizing it just doesn't fit at all the tone of the meeting." In fact, he added, "after it was over, [the guests] were taking photos [with the senators]. They were handing out business cards."

Ranting and raving moment or not, the McCain approach to Hispanic outreach showed its limits in the 2008 election and the "no Tancredo, no problem" theory of its supporters will be put to the test in future elections.

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The Politics of People and the 'War of Ideas'

Posted by Robert Stacy McCain on 4.6.09 @ 12:43PM

My friend Dan Riehl has a thoughtful post about the fate of the Christian conservative movement, reflecting on a much-discussed Newsweek cover story.

The obituary of the Religious Right has been written many times before. The defeat of Pat Robertson's GOP primary bid in 1988, the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, his re-election in 1996, his acquittal by the Senate in the Lewinsky sex-and-lies scandal -- all of these were causes for self-congratulatory gloating by opponents of the Religious Right.

And I should add that this gloating has been, and is now, bipartisan: Many Republicans have been deeply resentful of the influence exercised by Christian conservatives. The fact that John McCain was able to get the 2008 GOP nomination, after infamously insulting the leaders of the Religious Right as "agents of intolerance" during his 2000 primary campaign, is perhaps the best evidence for any argument about the declining influence of Christian conservatism.

Whether or not this latest obituary is premature, the Christian conservative movement was succesful as long as it was successful because it operated on a sound principle: Politics is about people. The Democrats have always understood this. Identify groups of people with distinct interests and values -- farmers, labor unions, women, urban dwellers -- then appeal to their interests with policies that advance their interests and rhetoric that resonates with their values.

Roosevelt's New Deal coalition was built by such methods, and it was not until that coalition unraveled in the crucible of the 1960s that Republicans began their steady ascent to dominance: Reagan's election in 1980, the "Contract With America" election of 1994, and the consolidation of Republican hegemony in Washington after 2000 being the three electoral landmarks of this ascent.

Christian conservatives were essential to that success, because they supplied the ground troops, the foot soldiers of this GOP "Long March." This was true, I should point out for younger readers, even during the Cold War drama of the Reagan Revolution. The unshakeable foundation of American opposition to Soviet aggression was always Christians who were horrified by the doctrinaire atheism of "godless communism," a phrase I heard often in my youth.

The schism that developed in the GOP coalition over the years, and which has become glaringly apparent during the Republican decline since the 2004 re-election triumph of George W. Bush, is often described in ideological terms: Neoconservatives vs. paleoconservatives, or libertarians vs. social conservatives. But this is a mistake, I believe. The real schism is between those who see the GOP as being representative of the values and interests of identifiable electoral constituencies -- that is to say, the politics of people -- and those who see politics as a matter of coming up with policies and rhetoric that are defensible as intellectual truth in "the War of Ideas."

This might be called a struggle between populists and elitists, but the fact is that it involves a conflict of identity between two fairly distinct classes of Republican operatives. On the one hand, you have Republicans out in the "Heartland" -- Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon or wherever -- whose main concern is organizing people to win elections. On the other hand, you have the mainly Washington, D.C.-based apparatus of policy specialists, consultants, congressional staffers and -- yes -- conservative journalists, who unfortunately tend to think of themselves as more important to the Movement than the tens of millions of Republican votes nationwide.

This class schism within the GOP Big Tent was highlighted during the 2006-07 battle over the proposed illegal-alien amnesty legislation pushed by John McCain and the Bush White House. All you had to do was to listen to any talk-radio program to understand that there was an intense grassroots resistance to any proposal to grant permanent residency to foreigners who were here illegally. "What part of 'illegal' don't they understand?" as it was expressed to me by one talk-radio host in a 2006 interview.

That grassroots sentiment was disdained, however, by much of the elite GOP policy apparatus, just as the same policy elite disdained the pro-life, anti-gay-rights sentiment of the Christian conservative movement.

For years, Republicans won elections by framing issues in terms of opposition to an out-of-touch liberal elite in Washington. It seems to me that Republicans are now losing elections because of an out-of-touch "conservative" elite in Washington.

The Dodding of David Paterson

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.6.09 @ 11:42AM

This Quinnipiac poll shows New York Gov. David Paterson to be in such trouble that he'd even lose to a Republican -- namely, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. That, combined with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's numbers in the same poll, makes it very unlikely the Democrats will allow him to be their 2010 nominee.

Let's Talk About The Masters

Posted by Quin Hillyer on 4.6.09 @ 11:11AM

It's high time we stop talking about sidelights like a weaponized North Korea or the economic fascism of Barack Obama, and instead talk about something REALLY important: The Masters.

There should be plenty to say about it as the week goes on, including how nice it would be to see something unexpected, like a sentimental favorite (Greg Norman? Fred Couples?) take home the Green Jacket.

But I fear we've all read the script already, and know exactly what's going to happen. If Tiger Woods does NOT win this week, I'll have to scrape my jaw off the floor and reattach it to my face.

It sounds churlish to say that I "fear" that's what will happen. Tiger's performance at the US Open last year was one of such surpassing heart and determination that he deserves to be rooted for. But his wins are just too expected. Just once, just one friggin time, it would be nice to see somebody pull a Trevino or Watson on him and chip in, or make any sort of birdie, on the 17th or 18th holes to beat him. It's never happened. The only people who have ever stepped up to the plate and refused to back off have been the good second-tier players like Bob May, Chris DiMarco, and Rocco Mediate. And even they didn't make birdies coming home or otherwise pull off miracle shots. The fact is, nobody has ever, when it counted, come from behind Tiger or even been even with him and gone under par on the last holes to beat him. Again and again, Tiger's truly admirable heroics have been made possible in the first place because others have choked their guts out down the stretch to blow leads against him. I'll start rooting for Tiger AFTER, Nicklaus-like, he loses to a future Hall of Famer who actually catches and passes him with birdies or chip-ins -- and then picks himself off the floor, several times, and finds new ways to win.

It may not be fair to Goliath, but it really is no fun to root for Goliath. Tiger deserves all the credit in the world for his surpassing excellence, his courage, and his growing sense of sportsmanship. But we need a new script to keep things interesting.

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Who Are You Calling Backward?

Posted by Philip Klein on 4.6.09 @ 10:01AM

In the Weekly Standard editorial Jim links to below, Matthew Continetti writes, "Typically, the job of politics is to figure out what kind of society we would like to have, and then figure out a way to pay for it." The problem with this view is that how much something will cost is a key part of the decision making process (or should be). Somebody may want a new television at $800, may be on the fence about it if it's $1000, but will rule it out at $2,000. Likewise, polls show that Americans want more government services, but there is only so much that they are willing to pay for them.

Unfortunately, at every level of society, figuring out how to pay for the stuff that we want has simply meant going into debt. And that's what got us into the current mess in the first place. Regardless of whether or not they could afford it, Americans bought the TVs they craved, the cars they wanted, and houses that they liked. Similarly, Obama doesn't pay for the society he wants, because doing so would mean raising taxes on more than 5 percent of the country -- he simply puts us into debt. Just like the housing boom, this will be unsustainable over time. So this shouldn't be about what's more politically popular at the moment, but what's more responsible in the long run. Is it charging that $2000 TV that you can't afford on your credit card? Or is it determining how much you can afford, and then finding the best TV you can at that price?

Daily Must-Reads

Posted by Joseph Lawler on 4.6.09 @ 9:37AM

Why do some bubbles do no harm and others cause Great Depressions? (WSJ)

The Chicago Tribune: the sooner it folds, the better off we'll all be (especially Catholics) (NRO)

There is no United States of America. Just a liberal America and conservative America (New Majority)

Is there one honest man in Iowa? (Daily Beast)

Consensus-driven liberal despots (Real Clear Politics)

Nobody should be allowed to walk away from a collapsing financial firm scot-free (NY Times)

Higher Taxes or Lower Spending?

Posted by W. James Antle, III on 4.6.09 @ 9:30AM

In a Weekly Standard editorial about the inadequacies of President Obama's budget proposal, Matthew Continetti also has some criticism for the House Republicans' alternative:

It almost seems as if the GOP worked backward. Typically, the job of politics is to figure out what kind of society we would like to have, and then figure out a way to pay for it. But the House Republicans started by figuring out how much they were willing to pay--"the post-war average tax level of roughly 18.3 percent of gross domestic product"--and then determined what the government would have to look like to get there. Instead of deficits that bring you more health, energy, and education funding, the House GOP's deficits bring you tax cuts for childless high-earners and corporations.

There's something to all that. While the GOP alternative does -- rightly, in my view -- prioritize national defense and veteran's health care over domestic spending items, its overall approach to domestic discretionary spending is to avoid priority-setting with a "freeze." (I don't think defense spending should be sacrosanct either, but I'll leave that aside for a moment since it is at least a legitimate function of the federal government.) And given that it contains its own deficits and borrowing, the Republican budget is vulnerable to the political critique with which Continetti concludes his paragraph.

But the House Republicans don't have it entirely backward: They are figuring out what kind of society they'd like to have -- a society in which the wealth and decision-making power that the Democrats would give to the government instead remain in private hands. They are paying for it by attempting, however imperfectly, to control the growth of government. Obama's kind of society resembles postwar Western Europe; the Republicans' is intended to look more like postwar America.

That's a large part of the debate in a nutshell: Do we want to become a European-style social democracy or not? Either way, how are we going to deal with spending commitments we've already made but can't presently afford? Obama prefers to answer these questions in a way that will at some point have to be paid for through higher taxes. The Republicans are trying to answer them in a way that will at some point have to be "paid for" through reduced spending.

The problem is that Obama is doing a better job illustrating his vision than the Republicans are theirs, though they're both relying on large deficits to obscure the politically unpopular implications of their respective plans. But we're getting to the point where it is no longer sustainable to pay for Democratic spending with Republican tax rates plus bipartisan deficits.