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Saturday, May 2, 2009
In Memoriam: Jack Kemp
Posted by on 5.2.09 @ 11:20PM
Jack Kemp has died -- a successor to Ronald Reagan who himself has not had a successor. When his cancer was announced earlier this year, Jeff Lord wrote movingly about him and the greatness he had in him. I remember him from several live moments. Once at an American Spectator gala dinner right after the fall of Communism. "Wlady, did you think Vaclav Havel would be president of Czechoslovakia?" he asked from the podium. We always forget what a champion of freedom he was not just at home. Bob Tyrrell had introduced Jack as a perfect specimen of "sound body, sound mind." Was he ever. I remember him on the floor of the San Diego convention in 1996. He was the announced vice-presidential nominee, basking in adulation and adoring fans. But he shut everyone up around him at that moment, his eyes rapt in attention directed at the podium, where Rep. J.C. Watts was delivering that evening's keynote. You didn't mess with Jack when he was in charge. Everyone quickly got quiet and paid attention to Watts too. Jack's football position was quarterback -- but in fact his position was leader. Even at the small Saturday Evening Club dinner he once attended as our guest, where he felt called upon to tell other guests when to come to the table and where to sit. He couldn't help himself. Wherever man still wants to breathe freely, his memory will remain cherished. Jack Kemp in all his splendid energy will be terribly missed.
Greens Planning to Lie More Effectively About Global Warming
Posted by on 5.2.09 @ 11:17PM
The New York Times reports that environmentalists inadvertently emailed a copy of a memo in which they argued their vocabulary needs a strategic overhaul:
The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is “global warming.”
The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.
Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”
EcoAmerica has been conducting research for the last several years to find new ways to frame environmental issues and so build public support for climate change legislation and other initiatives. A summary of the group’s latest findings and recommendations was accidentally sent by e-mail to a number of news organizations by someone who sat in this week on a briefing intended for government officials and environmental leaders. [...]
Jack Kemp, RIP
Posted by on 5.2.09 @ 10:51PM
Former Rep. Jack Kemp has died. The former Buffalo Bills quarterback, advocate of "supply-side" economics, and Dole running mate, Kemp was suffering from cancer.
Kemp helped energize the Republican Party in the late 1970s, drawing Ronald Reagan's attention with the former's proposal to cut tax rates across-the-board to create incentives for growth. The idea became the basis for Reagan's original tax cut program. I met Kemp as a young Reagan staffer at the time and found him to be genuinely interested in ideas and down-to-earth as a person. I once called his congressional office off-hours in the hopes of locating a staffer and he answered the phone.
He called himself a "bleeding heart conservative" and was genuinely concerned about helping people seemingly locked in poverty, advocating low/no-tax and -regulation "Enterprise Zones" as one response. He co-founded the group Empower America.
Kemp served Bush I as HUD secretary and Bob Dole's vice presidential running mate in 1996. His one run for president, in 1988, fared poorly. Although he dropped out of electoral politics after his 1996 loss, he remained a staple on the speaking circuit and churned out articles for the same newspaper syndicate for which I wrote.
I had plenty of substantive disagreements with him, including his lack of interest in cutting spending and controlling the growth of government. But he was a rarity in Washington--someone who had achieved significant success before entering politics, really cared about those with the least opportunities, was seriously interested in ideas. and genuinely hoped to use politics to make the world a better place. He might not have succeeded in achieving the latter goal, but he personally made the world a better place. Rest in peace, Jack.
Inconvenient Truths
Posted by on 5.2.09 @ 7:02PM
By now, the idea that Iran is the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism is fairly common knowledge. Even so, the State Department's annual survey of global terrorism trends provides a useful glimpse into the breathtaking scope of Tehran's regional troublemaking. According to the latest edition of Country Reports on Terrorism, released on April 30th by State's Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Iran "remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism" in 2008, responsible for violence and instability that thwarted "international efforts to promote peace, threatened economic stability in the Gulf, and undermined the growth of democracy."
Iran, the study details, continues to serve as a logistical and financial lifeline for Lebanon's terrorist powerhouse, Hezbollah - to the tune of "more than $200 million in funding" and the training of "over 3,000 Hizballah fighters at camps in Iran" annually. Last year, the Islamic Republic also continued to provide major support in the form of "weapons, training, and funding" to Palestinian rejectionist groups such as Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), expanding the capability of those groups to target the state of Israel.
The study also makes particular note of the Islamic Republic's pernicious influence in Iraq. "Terrorism committed by illegal armed groups receiving weapons and training from Iran continued to endanger the security and stability of Iraq" in 2008, albeit with less severity than in previous years, it says. "Many of the groups receiving ideological and logistical support from Iran were based in Shia communities in Central and Southern Iraq." And while "[t]he Iraqi government pressed senior Iranian leaders to end support for lethal aid to Iraqi militias," Iran's ongoing sponsorship of instability in the former Ba'athist state led the Iraqi government to launch a military campaign "to combat extralegal Iranian-supported militias." That offensive has paid major dividends since its start in April 2008, most notably the neutering of firebrand Shi'a cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. Still, the study warns, "Shia militant groups' ties to Iran remained a challenge and threat to Iraq's long term stability."
The list does not end there. "Iran remained unwilling to bring to justice senior al-Qa'ida members it has detained, and has refused to publicly identify those senior members in its custody," the report notes. And the Qods Force, the paramilitary arm of Iran's feared clerical army, the Pasdaran, "provided training to the Taliban on small unit tactics, small arms, explosives, and indirect fire weapons" in Afghanistan, with major detrimental effects on stability there.
Damning documentation indeed. But one has to wonder whether it will have any impact at all the Obama administration's concerted efforts to engage Iran's ayatollahs. Chances are that it will not; White House officials have made it abundantly clear that they are committed to pursuing "dialogue" with the Iranian regime. These unwelcome revelations, however, should serve as a timely reminder that the current regime in Tehran is in fact far from a constructive diplomatic partner.
No Revenge
Posted by on 5.2.09 @ 12:36PM
One of our great readers, Jay Swiatek, is a great enthusiast of thoroughbred racing. He says the Kentucky Derby winner today will be Dunkirk, and he usually knows what he is talking about. I hesitate to bet against him, but I hate to say it: If you arrive at Dunkirk, you need to be rescued. Meanwhile, the pre-race favorite, I Want Revenge, scratched this morning with a foot or ankle problem. Which leaves us..... where?
Well, if I could bet, my rule is to hold all bets below $50. And I am addicted to side bets, so I'll have several. Here's how I would break it down.
My actual prediction to win (and this was even before I Want Revenge scratched) is Friesan Fire. Trainer Larry Jones is pretty good; the horse has been running great in his workouts and has a good record; and he has a great pedigree, with Secretariat on it on two lines, along with A.P. Indy and Seattle Slew -- and then, to keep from having too many weaknesses in the blood lines (this is my theory: Too much inbreding here in the US among thoroughbreds is making horses more fragile), one side of his pedigree comes from a series of excellent horses in Australia. So:
$24 on Friesan Fire (the #6 horse) to win
Side bets: $12 exacta on the General Quarters (the #12 horse) and Friesan Fire, in that order.
$6 on Musket Man (#2) to show.
And, for my wife, $6 on Chocolate Candy to show.
If it's the Run for the Roses, nothing goes better with roses than chocolate.
And.... they're off!!!!! (Okay, still 5 1/2 hours to go, but it felt good writing that!)
Marion Barry, D.C. Comic
Posted by on 5.2.09 @ 9:45AM
In a moment of unintended hilarity, Washington, D.C. city councilman Marion Barry explained why he opposed gay marriage:
D.C. Councilman Marion Barry told church leaders and other opponents of gay marriage Tuesday that he opposed the city council's decision to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside the District.
Calling himself "a politician who is moral," Barry said he would have voted against the measure if he had been present at the April 6 session.
Forget the substantive issue and focus on Marion Barry's claim that he is "moral." It should set off convulsive laughter in the council chamber and across the District. As my Cato Institute colleague David Boaz observes:
Barry is a career politician with 29 years on the public payroll (not counting six months in jail); four wives, one of whom went to jail for embezzling from the federally funded "jobs program" they co-founded; countless extramarital relationships, many of them consensual; a federal conviction for crack use while mayor; eight years of unpaid taxes; and a virtually unbroken trail of graft and scandal in his four terms as mayor.
You wonder what the politicians who are not moral are like.
Indeed.
Good News in the Fight Against Cyber Censors
Posted by on 5.2.09 @ 6:41AM
We all know the downsides of the Internet. My dad jokingly calls it a creation of the Devil. But the many benefits are obvious, too, and far greater. I think even my dad believes so.
The power of the Internet is the reason authoritarian governments work so hard to control access by their populations. However, the desire for liberty is extraordinarily strong and drives people to find ways around government controls. Reports the New York Times:
The Iranian government, more than almost any other, censors what citizens can read online, using elaborate technology to block millions of Web sites offering news, commentary, videos, music and, until recently, Facebook and YouTube. Search for "women" in Persian and you're told, "Dear Subscriber, access to this site is not possible."
Last July, on popular sites that offer free downloads of various software, an escape hatch appeared. The computer program allowed Iranian Internet users to evade government censorship.
College students discovered the key first, then spread it through e-mail messages and file-sharing. By late autumn more than 400,000 Iranians were surfing the uncensored Web.
The software was created not by Iranians, but by Chinese computer experts volunteering for the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that has beem suppressed by the Chinese government since 1999. They maintain a series of computers in data centers around the world to route Web users' requests around censors' firewalls.
One of the most important aspects of this cat and mouse fight (it's far more serious than a "game," alas) is that the efforts of dissidents in one country--like China--aid those in another country, such as Iran. Moreover, those of us living in (more or less) free countries can contribute as well. While we can't assume the good guys will inevitably win, there's real hope for the forces of liberty. And that deserves celebration by people across the political spectrum.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Happy May Day, American Comrades!
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 3:22PM
Now that Newsweek made it official that we're all socialists now, we might as well celebrate it.
Grab a lovely enlightened left-winger like this lady shown at a rally today in St. Petersburg, Russia, and cut a rug to the most progressive jazz you can find as we toast the downfall of America.
Orange County: Meet Sarah Palin
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 2:35PM
No, not that Orange County, I'm afraid those Real Housewives aren't her kind-a folk. The conservative Gov. did meet with Paul Sr., of Orange County Choppers--the macdaddy bike-making company--to talk bikes, snowmobiling and fishing while he was there on a business trip.
I'm sure you all watch the show regularly and if you don't, well shame on you. It's capitalistic, creative, father-son-bickering, wife-beater-wearing entrepreneurs at their best. Apple for Road Hogs.
Did anyone else notice, aside from Palin's usual casual demeanor (and even Paul's--she didnt' intimidate him in the least), the stuffed grizzly she was leaning on or the snow crab peeking out from her glass coffee table?
The two didn't talk politics but didn't have to. Their love of all things outdoors seemed camraderie enough.
All Is Not Well in Specter-Land
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 2:30PM
It seems some Democrats are not happy with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's deal with Arlen Specter:
"I won't be happy if I don't get to chair something because of Arlen Specter," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who sits on the Appropriations Committee with Specter and is fifth in seniority among Democrats behind Chairman Daniel Inouye (Hawaii), Sens. Robert Byrd (W.Va.), Patrick Leahy (Vt.) and Tom Harkin (Iowa). "I'm happy with the Democratic order but I don't want to be displaced because of Arlen Specter," she said.
One senior Democratic lawmaker told The Hill that the Democratic Conference will vote against giving the longtime Pennsylvania Republican seniority over lawmakers like Harkin, Mikulski and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) when they hold their organizational meeting after the 2010 election.
The last Democrat quoted above says Specter should just be grateful if he's still in the Senate by the time of that meeting: "He was a cooked goose," the senior Democrat told the Hill. "He was going to lose to [former Rep. Pat] Toomey [R-Pa.] and we were going to beat Toomey. We did him a favor by allowing him to remain in the Senate." Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Penn.) isn't ready to even do Specter that big a favor.
With a Luddite Yell
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 1:56PM
Kelly Jane Torrance, one of my absolute favorite culture critics, has posted a very fun story about being booed during an author event at a Washington, D.C. bookstore after the crowd found out she was reading the novel in question on a Kindle.
We Won't Need Principles...
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 1:47PM
Only Nixon Can Go to China
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 1:24PM
And only a Democratic president could allow Chrysler to file for Chapter 11 rather than get bailed out again. It's not much, but thank goodness for small favors.
The Gay Marriage Bandwagon
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 12:49PM
In the issue of The American Spectator now going to press, I have a column looking at recent shifts in the same-sex marriage debate. That debate has been remarkably stable for the past 16 years. The reason for that stability was a broad national consensus that marriage is a union between a man and a woman that held up even as public support for something called same-sex marriage was on the rise. Ballot initiatives reaffirming traditional marriage pass easily in both red and blue states. Same-sex marriage was only possible in states where the voters had no recourse against the judges, but even those states were easily marginalized because of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
No more. Vermont took the first step, redefining marriage through a legislative act and overriding the governor's veto. New York is contemplating a similar move, with apparent popular support. This week, the New Hampshire voted 13-11 in favor of same-sex marriage. Yesterday the Maine legislature approved a similar bill by 21-14. Public opinion has been trending in same-sex marriage's favor in Massachusetts since Goodridge. Connecticut's legislature is moving toward ratifying a state supreme court's decision to impose gay marriage.
Although Democratic politicians have been as slow to adapt to these changing political circumstances as authentic social conservatives, support for same-sex marriage has become a mainstream liberal position. We are seeing a trend toward same-sex marriage in blue states and traditional marriage in red states, a divide that will be very hard to sustain. Ryan Sager, a gay marriage supporter, says that these state actions might be producing a bandwagon effect in favor of same-sex marriage nationally.
Obviously, I don't agree with Sager's framing of the issue, much less his substantive position. But on the question of whether the "storming is coming" -- and also how history is likely to treat marital traditionalists if they lose -- I think he's exactly right.
Pro-Torture Christians
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 10:50AM
The CNN Sucks Web site today reports on a recent analysis by the Pee-yew Forum on Hatred for Traditional Christian Beliefs, which isolated out this question from a larger poll taken by its Pee-yew sister: "Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?"
Without defining what practices they view as torture to include (Waterboarding? Insects in the room? The attention grasp?), Pee-yew let fly its review about a limited number of white U.S. churchgoers because they failed to sample what they thought were a representative sample in other racial/religious categories. The responses:
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.
The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21.
To give added context, the sampling size of people who identified themselves as "white evangelical Protestants" was 174, which means a total of 108 of them said undefined torture was "often" or "sometimes" justified.
Meanwhile, in the name of balance I look forward to Pee-yew's future poll in which they ask 174 Muslims whether they believe public beheadings are "often" or "sometimes" justified. They can feel free to ask a couple whiteys the same question, but make sure they keep the sampling size small enough to not bother analyzing their responses.
The Health Care Debate Going Forward
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 10:45AM
In my column on today's main site, I ding the Democrats -- even the "deficit hawks" among them -- for backing procedural maneuvers that would allow a national health care reform to be rammed through Congress along a straight party-line vote. This is not what reconciliation is intended for nor has it historically been how most durable pieces of sweeping reform legislation have been enacted. But as important as it is to criticize the Democrats for this naked power play, the substance of the reform legislation is even more important than the process by which it is passed.
That's where Republicans deserve some criticism. It has long been clear that the status quo won't hold in America's health care system. There are two options: moving toward a system where there is more government control and a larger federal role, or introducing truer free market in the delivery of health care. The first approach has since World War II had a consistent advocate in the Democratic Party. The second approach has had not been reliably advocated by the GOP, and the party has paid a price for it's lack of vision.
Don't get me wrong. Republican legislators sometimes introduce fine health care bills as alternatives to the Democrats'. Republican presidential candidates talk about free-market health care reform during their campaigns. Even John McCain had a decent, if easily demagogued, plan in 2008. But these proposals are only used as damage control when the Democrats make a serious health care push in Congress or when GOP candidates need to talk about health care on the campaign trail. They go nowhere legislatively and are immediately shelved the minute a Republican president takes office.
Republicans have succeeded in expanding health savings accounts, a modest free-market health care reform achievement. But the bulk of the Republican record on health care consists of half-measures like Kennedy-Kassebaum, SCHIP, and Medicare Part D, -- none of which satsified the public's desire for reform and most of which moved us closer to a federally run health care system. Broader free-market reforms have been left to the op-ed pages, white papers, and congressional backbenchers.
Process isn't everything. While many experts believe Hillarycare was doomed once Robert Byrd wouldn't support its inclusion in reconciliation, another factor in its defeat was that the public turned against it. Republicans made arguments against its likely effects that eventually sank in with the American people. Reconciliation or no, that's what needs to happen with Obama's health plan today. But arguments against Democratic policies aren't enough. Republicans have to have an alternative vision and argue for it as seriously as the Democrats contend for theirs.
NY Gov. Paterson Settles Embarrassing Racism Lawsuit
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 10:42AM
On behalf of its besieged governor, Democrat David Paterson, New York state has paid $300,000 to a white photographer to make his claim Paterson fired him to replace him with a black photographer go away. The New York Post reports
The state has secretly settled an embarrassing federal racial-discrimination lawsuit, The Post has learned. The suit accused Paterson, back when he was Senate minority leader in 2003, of firing a white Senate photographer in order to replace him with an African-American.
The lawsuit had been scheduled to go to trial in federal court Monday in Syracuse, with Paterson, the state's first black governor, as a key witness. The case was settled earlier in the week, although a few glitches delayed the final deal until yesterday, legislative sources said.
The settlement ends a civil-rights action first filed in 2005 by Joseph Maioriello, 56, of Schenectady, a 26-year Senate employee who originally sought $1.5 million.
He was fired from his $34,000-a-year job as a photographer two years earlier and replaced by a black employee, El-Wise Noisette. The shakeup happened after Paterson ousted then-Sen. Martin Connor (D-Brooklyn) as the minority leader. [...]
Amazingly, Paterson, who is legally blind, offered the implausible claim in a sworn deposition that he couldn't see well enough to have fired photographer Joseph Maioriello because of his race.
A Paterson aide later said the comment was "a quip, a joke."
Right. Court proceedings: that's where all the great standup comedians get their start.
Obama's Soylent Green
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 10:18AM
Over here at the Washington Times today, we editorialize about the truly frightening implications of Obama's approach to health care policy. Hint: Obama talks about government doing a cost-benefit analysis to determine what care is worth providing when people near the ends of their lives. No, there's no talk about recycling old folks into foodstuff, but the idea of government deciding when it's time for somebody to enter the Happy Acres is chilling, to the bone, nonetheless.
The Left Begins Its Victory Lap
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 7:42AM
The other day, Megan McArdle published a brilliant analysis of the fiscal and economic calculations of the Obama adminstration, which you absolutely must read. Meanwhile, with Obama and the Democrats riding high in public opinion polls, liberals have begun congratulating themselves on their magnificent triumph on such issues as global warming (Paul Krugman) and same-sex marriage (Josh Marshall).
Are these "progressive" triumphs real and permanent? Well, Arlen Specter seems to think so, as do any number of demoralized Republicans who insist that the GOP must either cede ideological terrain or go the way of the Whigs. As an officially designated "Rightwing Extremist," however, I think otherwise:
Think back to the 2008 campaign and ask yourself: Did Obama and the Democrats win because of gay marriage and global warming? Obviously not. It was the economy, stupid. And yet in the wake of that election, liberals now believe they have a mandate to enact their entire agenda. . . .
The stimulus-and-bailout policies have not addressed the fundamental problems of the economy -- namely, an excess of debt and a shortage of capital to spur job creation -- while the entitlement trainwreck of Social Security and Medicare loom immediately ahead. By piling on new trillion-dollar deficits, at a time when the recession will result in significant tax revenue shortfalls, the Democrats are steering the economy into a stagflation trap.
If the economic situation actually worsens between now and fall 2010 -- and there are many reasons to believe it will -- the public-opinion polls of April 2009 will have proven a false omen, which served only to swell the pride that went before the fall.
Three words: It Won't Work.
Filling Souter's Shoes
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 6:51AM
David Souter apparently is retiring. I keep resisting writing the "Evil David Souter." The supposedly responsible conservative appointed by the supposedly responsible conservative president who turned out to be a reliable member of the left-wing block. Souter's ideological predilections were on display last year, when about the only serious conservative argument to be made for John McCain was the Supreme Court. Reports the Washington Post:
A friend who ran into him last summer in Concord said he was surprised by just how strongly Souter spoke about wanting to leave Washington. "He said, 'If Obama wins, I'll be the first one to retire,' " said the friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Souter had not yet announced a retirement.
The early word is that the Obama administration wants to choose a woman. And Vice President Joseph Biden, when he's not directing the nation's transportation system, will be in charge of coming up with a list of candidates. The Post gives a few names being tossed about:
Although Obama's choice would probably be far different from the 69-year-old intellectual bachelor from New Hampshire, the replacement would almost surely have a similar ideological outlook. Most court observers also believe Obama would be likely to choose a woman as his first appointment, since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the lone female among the nine justices.
Most often mentioned as possibilities are two appeals judges, Sonia Sotomayor of New York and Diane P. Wood of Chicago, along with Obama's new solicitor general, Elena Kagan. Vice President Biden has been charged with drawing up a list of possible nominees, according to the source close to the court.
...
White House advisers have been drafting lists of potential replacements virtually since Obama took office, and the list is said to also include Stanford University law professor Kathleen M. Sullivan, Kim McLane Wardlaw of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm and Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears.
A liberal nomination is inevitable. About all conservatives can do is push hard against any truly radical nominee.
What Happens When Government Becomes Your Partner
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 6:01AM
Americans have long been aware of the dangers of overweaning government control A half century ago some real patriots, who appreciate America's heritage of liberty, came up with this amazing cartoon. Nothing has changed, except one wonders today how many people really understand what is at stake. (H/t to my friend Don Williams, who is one of those people and who brought the cartoon to my attention.)
How to Get Excused from Jury Duty
Posted by on 5.1.09 @ 12:06AM
My guess is that telling the judge to leave him "the f--k alone" in Erik Anthony Slye's affidavit in support of a request to be excused from jury duty is what landed Mr. Slye in hot water.
But it worked.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
David Souter Reportedly Stepping Down
Posted by on 4.30.09 @ 10:55PM
One of George H.W. Bush's great mistakes, his appointment of David Souter to the Supreme Court, reportedly is stepping down. It's good news since that means this "100 percenter," as White House Chief of Staff John Sununu called him, won't be able to do any more harm to the Constitution and to our liberties. But his replacement isn't likely to be any better. Still, at least his replacement will likely be an honest liberal, an open liberal appointed by a liberal president and confirmed by a liberal Senate. It got to be a bit tiresome to have allegedly conservative presidents appoint stealth liberals or soon-to-be-liberal-converts to the high court.
Barney Frank Helping ACORN
Posted by on 4.30.09 @ 6:35PM
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) blogs at Townhall.com that House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Taxachusetts) is trying to use legislation to help his buddies at the radical community activist group ACORN:
Yesterday, the House Financial Services Committee passed my ACORN amendment that will prevent organizations, or employees of organizations, that have been indicted for voter fraud from being eligible for the housing counseling grants and legal assistance grants authorized under the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act.
Chairman Barney Frank accepted the amendment right there in front of the whole committee -- I assumed because it was his very own language as passed under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) of 2008 -- and the amendment was then passed by unanimous voice vote.
Later that day, Chairman Frank said he had reservations about my amendment and would discuss them with me. His staff approached mine with specific changes he would like to make -- changes which eviscerate the meaning of the amendment and were clearly not acceptable. [...]
The Vice President Proposes Shutting Down Planes and Trains
Posted by on 4.30.09 @ 6:03PM
Really.
Apparently going a little off message, Vice President Joe Biden pronounced himself against going anywhere on the subway or on an airplane. If I read him correctly, he doesn't even believe that people should drive together in a car. And maybe not go to school. Reports ABC News:
Asked by NBC's Matt Lauer what he would tell a member of his family who came to him and asked whether he should fly to and from Mexico on a commercial airliner in the next week, the vice president gave an answer that goes much farther than the precautions the president suggested last night, or the travelers' advisories given by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"I would tell members of my family, and I have, 'I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now,'" the vice president said. "It's not that he's going to Mexico, it's that you're in a confined aircraft, and one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft."
"That's me," the vice president said.
"I would not be -- at this point, if they had another way of transportation -- suggesting they ride the subway," the vice president said. "So from my perspective what relates to mitigation, if you're out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes, that's one thing. If you're in a closed aircraft or a closed container or closed car or closed class room, it's a different thing."
No report yet on exactly how this strategy would help stimulate the economy.
To Socialize, or Not to Socialize, Health Care
Posted by on 4.30.09 @ 5:05PM
We know where the Progressive Caucus stands.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) met with President Obama for one hour in the East Room of the White House yesterday.
CPC Co-Chair, Congressman Raúl Grijalva, said that 50 of the 77 Caucus members attended, and they honed in on two major issues: their commitment to only supporting a healthcare reform bill that includes a public plan option that is "more than a gesture"; and the $83 billion war supplemental.
"It was a serious meeting," Rep. Grijalva said. "It moved quickly, there was a lot of candor from both sides."
Presenting the Caucus' case for healthcare reform were Representatives Yvette Clark, Tammy Baldwin, Jan Schakowsky, and Jim McDermott. Congressman Dennis Kucinich spoke with the President about a single-payer system.
Rep. Grijalva said members made it clear that the Caucus' support for any healthcare bill hinges on a public plan option that is "robust... [and] competitive with the private sector." President Obama called himself "an ally", but said it was up to Congress to deliver him the kind of bill to which the Caucus is committed.
Rough waters ahead. But one bit of good news--it sounds like the Prez doesn't want to put his credibility on the line pushing a plan that fails. So there's still a chance to beat it,
Trabant meets Obama
Posted by on 4.30.09 @ 2:52PM
Cafe Hayek has something you'll want to be seated to read (put it this way: even NPR was taken aback). Seated, that is, preferably not in one of those museum-bound vehicles as you have come to know them:
In this NPR interview, Lisa Jackson, head of the EPA, gives her perspective (and her boss's) on the auto industry (HT: TJ Goss). In the second quote from her, I have tried to reproduce the sounds she makes in trying to avoid telling a ridiculous lie. She tells it anyway. From the 3:35 mark of the interview:
Jackson: The President has said-and I couldn't agree more-that what this country needs is one single national road map that tells auto makers who are trying to become solvent again, what kind of car it is they need to be designing and building for the American people.
NPR reporter (interrupting): Is that the role of the government. though? I mean that doesn't sound like free enterprise.
Jackson: Well, ih it , it is free enterprise in a way. Umm uhh you know, first and foremost the free enterprise system has us where we are right this second (laughs) and so some would argue that the government already has a much larger role than we might have when Henry Ford rolled the first cars off the assembly line.
Trabant meets Obama...the TraBama 2010, brought to you by the EBA, the Everything's our Business Agency.
Credit Where It's Due
Posted by on 4.30.09 @ 2:32PM
Arlen Specter's first vote as a Senate Democrat was against Obama's budget.
UPDATE: Specter voted against Obama's mortgage relief plan too, helping to kill the bill.
Reconcile This
Posted by on 4.30.09 @ 1:39PM
After the House and Senate both passed President Obama's $3.5 trillion spending blueprint with reconciliation language for national health care, what say the senior Democrats in the Senate who told the American people they were against ramming through a health care bill on an expedited basis? Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said he was pushed into reconciliation by a "higher power," in response to a question from Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).
Finally, Bush Put To Good Use
Posted by on 4.30.09 @ 1:12PM
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is reminding Pennsylvania Democrats of that 2004 endorsement by George W. Bush, sending robocalls of Bush's kind words for Arlen Specter to approximately 100,000 of them. Of course, this was an endorsement they were touting five years ago and this NRSC money would have been spent on Specter's behalf had he remained a Republican. But it's still nice to see. (Hat tip: Mark Hemingway at The Corner.)
Rahm's Hidden Beauty
Posted by on 4.30.09 @ 12:01PM
People magazine’s 100-most-beautiful list this year features “Barack’s Beauties,” including the First Lady, White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Not everyone may agree with the choices, especially those left off the list.
Rahm’s Hidden
Beauty
By Asher Embry
People’s beauty list is out.
We’ve got one thing to gripe about:
Apparently, they felt a duty,
Rhapsodizing White House beauty.
We knew for sure they’d pick Michelle,
And Desiree, her pal, as well.
Some others, though, we must confess,
Caused much emotional distress.
It hit us like an atom bomb,
When we were told they’d chosen Rahm.
Now, one could say that Rahm is smart;
Mean, vindictive, crude, and tart;
Partisan and often moody,
But few before perceived his beauty!
And all the world is sad and whist,
That Biden didn’t make the list,
With brow made placid with botox,
And effervescent teeth and locks.
To “judge of cowards,” Eric Holder,
People gave a frigid shoulder;
But recognized at Treasury,
Winsomeness and majesty;
Traits we just don’t see ourself in
Geithner, who to us looks elfin.
We’d figured ice would freeze in hell,
Before they’d pick Emanuel.
But still they proved there is a God:
They didn’t favor Axelrod.
(You can read more of Asher Embry's Political Verse at www.politicalverse.com.)
Ridge Pushed for Specter Seat in Stop-Toomey Bid by PA GOP
Posted by on 4.30.09 @ 11:37AM
The push is on in the leadership circles of the Pennsylvania GOP to get former Governor and Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge to run for the U.S. Senate against ex-Congressman Pat Toomey.
State GOP chairman Robert Gleason says Ridge is his first choice to be the GOP nominee against Specter. Even Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, a Pittsburgh native, is getting into the act saying of the conservative Toomey: "I don't think there is anybody in the world who believes he could get elected senator there."
The desperation of the anti-Toomey forces is apparent in the media as well. Columns of newsprint are being filled picking up the Specter argument that the Pennsylvania GOP is somehow filled with foaming right-wingers. Should Ridge take a pass on the race, it is suggested that the two moderate front-runners for the GOP gubernatorial nomination settle the matter with one, either Attorney General Tom Corbett or former US attorney Pat Meehan, run for governor while the other takes on Toomey in the Senate race.
Ridge has not been on the ballot in the state since his successful re-election race for governor in 1998. His departure from the governorship was unique in state history. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 President Bush decided to create a White House office of Homeland Security, persuading Ridge to resign the governor's office to take the job. In what was one of the most memorable scenes in state history, a swearing-in of Ridge's lieutenant governor as the new state chief executive was hastily arranged for the state capitol steps. With the entire country shaken over the events, everyone in the state was acutely aware one of the hijacked planes had been forced down in Somerset County, just to the east of Pittsburgh. The street accesses to the state capitol were physically sealed with huge Pennsylvania Department of Transportation dump trucks and buses blocking traffic. National guard helicopters buzzed overhead, and state police sharpshooters were perched on the roof of the capitol complex. The new governor sworn in, Ridge departed to thunderous applause from a teary-eyed crowd clearly viewing the Vietnam vet as the local hero being summoned to help fight the bad guys. His state trooper bodyguards yielded to U.S. Secret Service agents and Ridge disappeared into a small motorcade of black SUVs, literally Washington bound that instant.
Will all this re-surface to propel him to a Senate win over Toomey and then Specter? In the end, he went on to be the first Secretary of the newly upgraded Cabinet Department of Homeland Security, a job in which he picked up the usual critics for his performance. When his name surfaced as a potential running mate for GOP nominee John McCain in 2008, the suggestion drew sniping from Pennsylvania conservatives who focused on his pro-choice views.
You would think the primary is this May, instead of a year from May. Stay tuned. Chaos reins in the Pennsylvania GOP.
Putting Humpty-Rumpty Back Together Again
Posted by on 4.30.09 @ 10:46AM
Daniel Larison's points about the utility (or futility) of a conservative senator exulting in his party's minority status are fair enough. (Though some of it should be understood as the hyperbole of a political movement that doesn't know what else to do besides rally the faithful and hope that this 1964 is followed by 1980 soon.) But the reformist project is specifically aimed at trying to direct the conservative movement and the Republican Party toward what it understands to be a more productive direction. Much of what reformist conservatives do, however, practically guarantees that this audience will never listen to them. Yes, many conservatives don't want to have the conversation that reformists are trying to start. But nobody wants to have a conversation with someone who treats them with contempt. The "Henry Clay" article wasn't even the best example of that contempt posted that day!
If their point of view is that Hannitized conservatives can't be reached, then the reformists need to develop an entirely different strategy. Of course, I suspect that deep down they know moderate Republicanism divorced from the conservative base is an even smaller rump and one that historically has been just as dependent on Democratic overreach to win elections. Outside of Senate races in Maine, that is.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 4.30.09 @ 10:15AM
- The Administration would make a poor used car salesman (New Majority)
- ...Although it's easier to sell cars when you don't have to follow the rule of law (Greg Mankiw's Blog)
- Failures in Afghanistan and now a civil war in Pockeestan (National Interest)
- NEWSFLAHS: A-Rod is, and has been without interruption since at least high school, an unlikable cheater (NY Daily News)
- Kim Jong-Un: who is he and what plans does he have for North Korea? (Foreign Policy)
The Great GOP Debate
Posted by on 4.30.09 @ 7:10AM
"A broader party or a purer one," asks the New York Times? The problem, of course, is that the issue is rarely so clear. Absolute purity will never be possible in politics. But why bother to create a party if it stands for nothing? If the goal is simply to seize power, then let's strip away the pretense that the parties stand for anything.
If the Republican Party is going to be relevant, it should at least advocate smaller government. That is, people going into the voting booth would know that a vote for the Democrats was a vote to expand the state while a vote for the Republicans was a vote to shrink the state. In contrast, today voters know that the Democrats want, and will give them, a lot more government while the Republicans say they want a little bit less government but are likely to expand it a lot. That is, both parties, in practice, are promoting much bigger government. Not much reason to support the GOP.
This explains why Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) just doesn't get it. Reports the Times:
Mr. Graham scoffed at the notion that the party was suffering because it was not conservative enough.
"Do you really believe that we lost 18-to-34-year-olds by 19 percent, or we lost Hispanic voters, because we are not conservative enough?" he said. "No. This is a ridiculous line of thought. The truth is we lost young people because our Republican brand is tainted."
Yes, but how does he think the brand was ruined? Republicans were tainted because they cheerfully spent money faster than the Democrats going back to Lyndon Johnson. The GOP further federalized education, added a massive new welfare program, bloated virtually every federal department, initiated an unnecessary war, and demonstrated all-around incompetence.
Ideological purity might not be the answer. But genuinely standing for--and acting accordingly when in power--individual liberty and limited government would be a major step in the right direction.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Presidential Snooze Conference
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 9:05PM
What a useless exercise. There were some worthy questions asked, but since nobody asks followups, it just allows him to filibuster by regurgitating talking points that we've heard before. So really, absolutely nothing of value is gained from this theatrical performance. But in a sense, this is part of the process by which the novelty of President Obama begins to diminish, and he becomes just like any other president.
Rebutting Obama's "100 Days" Press Conference Claims on Taxes, Jobs
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 8:06PM
During his press conference tonight, Obama made claims on taxes and jobs that invite rebuttal:
Obama Claim:
"We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs and provided a tax cut to 95% of all working families."
Rebuttal:
First, cutting taxes for "95% of all working families" is mathematically impossible. Obama is referring to the "Making Work Pay" refundable tax credit, which took effect on April 1. According to IRS data, one-third of all income tax filers don't have a federal income tax liability. About 15 percent of all working families don't even have a FICA tax liability, and these numbers are before taking into effect all the new refundable tax credits of the Obama budget. For these "working families," all Obama's budget will do is cut them the equivalent of a welfare check.
Second, there is no intellectually honest way to measure "saved or created" jobs. As Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said on March 4 to Tim Geithner: "You created a situation where you cannot be wrong. If the economy loses 2 million jobs over the next few years, you can say yes, but it would've lost 5.5 million jobs. If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs," Baucus said. "You've given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct."
Did Spector Break An Implied Contract With Republican Voters?
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 7:22PM
Well, yeah, maybe, but even if he did...too bad!
Providence College Takes a Stand
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 6:54PM
Good to see a Catholic college finally refusing to accommodate speakers it disagrees with. Unfortunately, the disagreement doesn't focus on core Catholic teachings about innocent human life. And the speaker being banned isn't some pro-choice hardliner, but Tom Tancredo. Immigration trumps abortion among liberal Catholics, apparently.
Kicking Conservative Rump
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 4:02PM
This piece makes some reasonable points, but I have to wonder what self-styled reformist conservatives are thinking when they write things like this: "The conservative rump's reactions to Arlen Specter's switch have been predictable and disappointing."
Who is the intended audience for this kind of argument? Who is it attempting to persuade? People who have basically given up on a majority Republicans -- that is, the "conservative rump" -- are in a poor position to influence them.
Not Joining the Club
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 3:52PM
I don't disagree with anything Ramesh Ponnuru says here. Some of the Club for Growth's chosen battles can reasonably be second-guessed. And risks that made sense when Republicans were in the majority might not be worth taking when Republicans are barely clinging to even a semblance of influence over legislative outcomes. But as I said yesterday, if you were going to make a list of things that cost the Republicans seats in the last two election cycles, I think the Club for Growth would have to rank pretty low on that list.
Republicans in the First 100 Days
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 3:39PM
I'm not terribly impressed with the GOP's handling of Obama's first 100 days, but it's too soon to render a final verdict.
What Roil?
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 3:07PM
Can anyone read this AP dispatch ("Specter's defection to Democrats roils Republicans") and tell me who the "roiled" are? Mitch McConnell? He doesn't sound so disturbed as much as he issues a warning. And Olympia Snowe? Like she is representative of the party as a whole?
Most comments that I've read/heard from various GOP members have been of the "What took you so long?" and "Don't let the door hit you on the way out" nature.
But Not Waterboarding
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 12:44PM
Kaing Guek Eav, the former Khmer Rouge chief at Tuol Sleng prison where nearly 17,000 Cambodians (and a few others) were tortured and killed (or sent to nearby Choeung Ek for execution), has been on trial the last few weeks in Phnom Penh. Unlike the few other top officials from Pol Pot's regime who are awaiting trial, Eav -- known as "Duch" -- has admitted responsibility for the evil. The brutalities committed under his authority are unimaginable: beatings, electrocutions, fingernail-ripping, burning, cutting, etc. Guards would toss infants in the air like they were skeet and fire away.
But in today's reports about the trial, the discussion of whether Tuol Sleng guards engaged in waterboarding was seized upon by the obsessive media. From Agence France-Press:
But (Duch) said he had not used the simulated drowning technique called waterboarding, and had not put plastic bags over prisoners' heads because of the danger they could suffocate to death.
"The kind of waterboarding technique was not employed and the plastic bag was also not a kind of technique," Duch said.
I guess that makes the Khmer Rouge more humane than the United States.
Duch said he discussed interrogation tactics with Khmer Rouge cadres soon after he began working at the prison.
"There were two techniques. The normal beating technique and the electrocution technique with use of a telephone (line)... which was connected to an electric current to electrocute prisoners. That was true," Duch said.
You would think if he was willing to 'fess up to electrocution and beatings, that if waterboarding was happening it wouldn't be a big deal to admit to that also. But that's not the point, obviously:
The United States has been heavily criticised for using waterboarding to interrogate suspected Al-Qaeda prisoners, with many commentators citing it as a brutal method of the Khmer Rouge.
Since when are commentators news? And if they are, why not also cite the commentators who believe it is justified? That is, if we are going to make commentators part of the story.
A similar reporting template was followed by Associated Press, which also emphasized Duch's waterboarding denial:
"The way people were detained, interrogated and smashed (killed) was unique to the prison (S-21)," said Duch, one of five senior Khmer Rouge leaders expected to face the tribunal,
Answering questions from prosecutor Alex Bates, Duch (pronounced Doik) said hundreds of children between the ages of 12 and 17 were rounded up from poor families in the countryside to serve as "special and honest security guards" at the prison.
"Because they were young, they were like clean pieces of papers that can be easily written or painted on," Duch said. "I myself educated them. I trained them."
That prisoners were only fried, smashed, and their children brainwashed -- that must come as a great relief to the anti-American, anti-waterboarding media.
Flyover Alert
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 11:48AM
Check out my report, just posted on the main page, of new turbulence regarding the phantom flight of Air Force One over New York City the other day.
Honey, I Shrunk the GOP
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 11:39AM
Both demography and Bush have gotten the Republican Party to where it is now. Republicans faced long-term demographic challenges even when they were still in the majority. If the racial/ethnic composition of the electorate was the same in 2008 as in 1976, John McCain would have won the popular vote. Republicans have been unable to significantly increase their share of the black vote since it was decimated by the Goldwater campaign in 1964. Asians went from supporting George H.W. Bush more strongly than any other group besides white evangelical Christians in 1992 to becoming a Democratic bloc today. And of course, there is the rising Hispanic vote, which neither the Tancredo nor the McCain wings of the party knows how to win.
The Democrats can more or less directly make the electorate more congenial to their party through immigration policy, increased dependency on government programs, and expanded unionization. Republicans can only very indirectly and imperfectly try to encourage the growth of the "Investor Class." They obviously can do little or nothing to influence the numbers of white evangelical Christians.
But Bush looms largest in the Republican Party's recent decline. There was no major demographic transformation of the country between 2004 and 2006. Republicans made significant gains in party identification after 9/11, achieving parity with the Democrats. Those gains have been reversed and identification with the Republican Party is back to where it was in the early Reagan years or worse. That didn't happen because of demographics.
Take Arlen Specter's Pennsylvania: when recent ex-Republicans were polled, 68 percent of them said President Bush was a factor in their decision to leave the GOP. Another 54 percent said the Iraq war was. Even some of the demographic threats to the GOP, like the Democratic under-30 vote and the shift of many middle-class educated voters away from the Republicans, reflect the perception that Bush was a failed president.
Ironically, the Bushies worked hard at party-building and candidate recruitment. Bush did more to extend his narrow coattails to fellow Republicans than Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan did during their 49-state landslides. Karl Rove's strategies did produce short-term gains. But when people did not like the results of Bush's governance, those gains eroded quickly.
Ronald Reagan's path to the presidency was cleared by Jimmy Carter's failures. So too did George W. Bush make possible Barack Obama.
Toomey Blasts Specter For Lacking Principle
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 11:19AM
Pat Toomey has a column in the Washington Times reacting to Arlen Specter's decision. A taste:
For Pennsylvanians, who must decide who will represent us in the U.S. Senate next year, the stakes are personal. A central question will be whether Mr. Specter can be trusted on anything.
In recent weeks, Mr. Specter has made numerous statements about how important it is to deny Democrats the 60th seat in the U.S. Senate and how he intended to remain a Republican to prevent one-party dominance in Washington. What Pennsylvanians have to ask themselves now is whether Mr. Specter is, in fact, devoted to any principle other than his own re-election.
Priceless Dionne
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 10:30AM
The latest from columnist E.J.:
"...he said he could not support their central legislative goal, the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for labor organizations to sign up new members."
So the late great ("she gave me several options") Phil Hartman does have a successor.
Not Wasting a Crisis
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 10:09AM
From the NYTimes:
State and federal officials intensified their response to the swine flu outbreak on Tuesday, with President Obama asking Congress for $1.5 billion in supplemental funding.
Some Budget Lines even for President Obama?
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 8:29AM
The tone is fawning, as one would expect from the New York Times. But the story, about the administration's willingness to let the automakers go bankrupt, at least suggests there is an outer limit to the trillions of dollars President Barack Obama is willing to spend. Reports the Times:
By the time he sat down in the Oval Office to brief Michigan's Congressional delegation, President Obama had made up his mind. Days earlier, he had decided to oust the head of General Motors and give it and Chrysler weeks to fix themselves. If they could not, he was prepared to let them go bankrupt, a prospect fraught with economic and political repercussions.
Some lawmakers on the conference call that Sunday night last month thought he was bluffing. No president had ever let one of the Big Three car makers go bankrupt. Surely Mr. Obama would not be the first.
"You need to say that to get people to the table, and we totally understand that," Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, told Mr. Obama, according to two people privy to the conversation.
Mr. Obama corrected him. "I don't want you to leave with that impression," the president said. "I'm telling you that because it's a real possibility."
Perhaps the most significant admission comes from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who has yet to prove he's up to the job:
Mr. Obama had reached what Mr. Geithner called "a fork in the road judgment" on Chrysler that would not be popular with his union backers or his Michigan allies. "We were not prepared to spend what they needed to stand alone, because they were not viable," Mr. Geithner said.
Let's hope a similar sense of realism occurs elsewhere in the administration and the president starts to shut off other spending spigots. At least before we are talking about quadrillions instead of trillions of dollars!
Bush, Demography, and The Future of the GOP
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 8:02AM
The defection of Arlen Specter to the Democrats has reignited the debate over what direction the Republican Party should be taking to return to power – or heck, at this point, to regain enough votes to mount a modicum of opposition to the Democrats' agenda. The way I see it, there are two basic explanations for the current fortunes of the GOP, each with different ramifications.
It Was Bush, Stupid – Under this mode of analysis, Republicans lost power primarily because President Bush and his policies were seen as a failure by the vast majority of Americans, and the Democrats were able to exploit this in 2006 and 2008, aided last year by a talented candidate in the form of Barack Obama.
If this is really what it boiled down to for most voters, then there really isn't much that the Republican Party can do at the moment, because their prospects will largely be decided by whether Obama's policies succeed or fail. If his spending policies lead to higher taxes, inflation, and anemic economic growth and his national security decisions lead to an international crisis or an attack on the homeland, then Republicans will be in a strong position to mount a comeback. If Obama's policies succeed, then the GOP's prospects look grim for the foreseeable future. This is the simplest way of thinking about things.
Demographics are Destiny – Other analysts emphasize certain long-term trends such as: a rising minority population and decline in the percentage of voters who are white males, middle-class voters increasingly disenchanted with the GOP, and young voters who are more socially liberal. Critics of the Republican Party will prescribe all sorts of remedies for these challenges, and unsurprisingly, those remedies tend to correlate quite closely with whatever a given critic's own views happen to be. So, depending on who you talk to, Republicans either need to reestablish themselves as the party of small government or abandon limited government dogma; they either need to remain socially conservative to attract middle-class voters who may not vote Republican on economic issues, or abandon social conservatism so they are seen by younger and urban/suburban voters as being more tolerant --and so on.
As much as I'd like to argue that the Republican Party would thrive as long as they adopted my personal views, the truth is I have no idea how to solve this demographic Rubik's Cube. The problem is that policies that the party may adopt to win over one group of these voters will hurt their chances with another group. For instance, if Republicans gave up their opposition to gay marriage, it may help their chances among younger voters, while hurting their chances among blacks and Hispanics, who remain more opposed to gay marriage than the population at large. If the GOP embraces comprehensive immigration reform, it may help them win over more Hispanics (though John McCain's experience would suggest otherwise), but it could hurt them among working class voters who believe that mass illegal immigration cuts into their wages. If they become more open to bigger government, they may attract some moderates, but they could also lose young professionals who disagree with social conservatives but would vote Republican if they believed that the party would actually limit the growth of government. None of this even takes into account the fact that any decision by Republicans to stray from their current basket of positions risks alienating the base of the party, so any shifts would have to gain more new voters than they lose in existing voters.
I tend to be of the opinion that the perceived effectiveness of policies in terms of economic conditions and the state of our national security have more of an impact on votes than demographic patterns, so most of my writing has been within that framework. But if others are right and demography truly is destiny, then I see no way that the Republican Party can survive. At least not without changing so drastically, that it may as well go by a different name.
Voted for Bill Clinton in 1992?
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 12:39AM
Son, I have Buchanan for president bumper stickers older than your Republican voting habits! And the recession that elected Bill Clinton ended in March 1991. But other than that, I agree with everything you say. I might be a Young-ish Turk, but I'm an old geezer at heart.
Young Minds, Short Memories, and the Uses of Political History
Posted by on 4.29.09 @ 12:01AM
In responding to Ross Douthat's "Whither Conservatism?" thumbsucker Tuesday, I offered a concise analysis:
[T]he simple lesson of the past two [election] cycles is something that anyone who has been paying attention since Ross was in middle school would tell you: Lie down with Bushes, wake up with Democrats.
Having been criticized previously for daring to criticize Douthat (apparently the Great Right Hope of some Young Turks), I will let that suffice for now, and turn my attention to Jonathan Chait:
The broader symbolism here is that it’s another sign that Barack Obama’s first two years may not look like Bill Clinton’s. In 1993-94, Clinton’s approval ratings sagged, his party lost special elections everywhere, and conservative Democrats were switching to the GOP. Obama’s approval ratings are high and holding steady, Democrats remain far more popular than Republicans, Democrats held the first special election, and now they’ve picked up a party switch. It’s still early, but Obama is starting to build a self-sustaining psychology of success.
As a philosophy-major friend of mine likes to say, "All things are alike, except insofar as they are different, and all things are different, except insofar as they are alike." When attempting to analyze contemporary politics by reference to historical analogies, ample caveats are required. There are important differences between 1993 and 2009 that must be taken into account:
- In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected with a mere 43% plurality, with populist independent fiscal conservative Ross Perot siphoning away a double-digit share of the popular vote.
- The end of the Cold War (from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991) had destabilized the political calculus, rendering foreign policy a secondary concern.
- The Reagan coalition had successively defeated Jimmy Carter (1980), Walter Mondale (1984) and Mike Dukakis (1988) at the presidential level, although Democrats maintained a firm majority in the House of Representatives and had only lost their Senate majority for six years (1981-87).
- The recession of 1991-92 was brief and mild (despite Democrat claims that it was The Worst Since The Great Depression), and recovery was already evident by the summer of 1992, absent any impact of Clintonian policy.
Team Clinton and the Democratic Congress clearly underestimated the potential for a mid-term backlash, and the simple key for Republicans in 1994 was crafting a message that would attract Perot voters to GOP congressional candidates. Voila, "The Contract With America."
The current situation is much different. Republicans controlled both houses of Congress 1995-2007, with the exception of the brief and narrow Democratic Senate majority (2001-03) caused by the defection of Jim Jeffords. Both the Cold War and the GOP glory of the Reagan years are distant memories for those under 40, and the woes of the Republican Party since 2004 cannot be blamed on any third-party spoiler. Finally, the current economic crisis is far more serious, and is likely to last much longer, than the mild recession of 1991-92.
The relevant questions now are (a) what are the prospects for a Republican resurgence in the 2010 mid-terms? and (b) what political strategies might best accomplish such a resurgence or, if you're a Democrat, prevent it? Douthat and Chait appear to be in agreement that the GOP is unlikely to regain power without a drastic overhaul, both in policy and politics.
However, the problem is that both of them are rather young (Douthat 29, Chait 37) and both are Beltway pundits, not hands-on political operatives. In the hurry-up breathlessness of the Information Age (there were no Web sites, let alone blogs or Twitter, in 1993), they're rushing to be the first to prophesy the electoral landscape in November 2010 based on polls and other auguries on the eve of Barack Obama's first 100 days in office.
A Republican resurgence in 2010, if there is to be one, will in large measure be a function of candidate recruitment and fundraising that are only now getting underway in the aftermath of the last election. Douthat and Chait -- ideologues naturally concerned about the ideological content of politics -- lack the inclination and expertise to evaluate the kind of nuts-and-bolts electoral mechanics that take place at the state, district and county level.
Douthat and Chait each tell a different narrative of where we have been, where we are now, and where we're likely to go in the future. But if you've lived long enough -- and I remind the reader that I am an ex-Democrat who proudly voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, when I was 33 -- you know how suddenly the political landscape can shift. I became a conservative about the time Jonathan Chait graduated college, and while Ross Douthat was still in ninth grade.
One thing that has been consistent in recent American political history: There have always been many men like Douthat and Chait who sit around Washington observing and commenting on trends, and then there have been those rare men who make trends happen.
"I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing."
-- Ronald Reagan, 1981
Whether or not a conservative resurgence is likely, it can only be accomplished by those who begin with the assumption that it is possible, and then work tirelessly to turn possibility into reality.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
A Bright, Sunny, Safe Day
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 6:42PM
Earlier in April, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, contextualizing interrogation procedures detailed in the Bush-era Justice Department memos President Obama released, said: “Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing.” President Obama added: “We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history.”
“A Bright, Sunny, Safe Day in April
2009”
By Asher Embry
Air Force One buzzed New York causing fear along the way,
Stirring haunting memories of that dark September day.
A picture says a thousand words and this one says a lot.
It seems for many, like Barack, a lesson’s been forgot.
Have we regressed to world-views held before al-Qaeda
struck?
What else explains these actions of a White House gone
amuck?
Releasing secret memos, giving tactics public airings,
Apologizing constantly for losing moral bearings.
“Torture” didn’t cause this history “O” calls “dark and
painful.”
Jihadists’ hatred wrote this plot, with actions base and
baneful.
And who could think the terror war is done and now we’re
safe?
If “O” sees only “sunny” days, he really is a naïf.
There’s no one who recalls that day who’d ever send that
plane.
By failing to remember, it could happen once again.
The reason why this photo-op still causes us to fuss;
We may stop fighting terrorists, but they’re still fighting us.
(You can read more of Asher Embry's Political Verse at www.politicalverse.com.)
Specter Opposed Party Switching When Jeffords Did It
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 6:34PM
After Jim Jeffords defected to the Democratic Party in 2001, Specter said:
"How should these issues be handled by the Senate for the future? I intend to propose a rule change which would preclude a future recurrence of a Senator's change in parties, in midsession, organizing with the opposition, to cause the upheaval which is now resulting."
Sen. Specter on Spending--Then!
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 5:00PM
Not too long ago Sen. Specter was warning that a vote for Pat Toomey was in effect a vote for budget profligacy and higher taxes. Reports ABC News:
At a press conference just 13 days ago at the Four Points Sheraton near Lehigh Valley International Airport, Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Penn., said if Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., beat him in the GOP primary "we lose the seat in the fall. He's to the right of Santorum who lost by 18 points after spending $31 million as a two term senator. All that is standing between the Democrats and an avalanche are the 41 Republican Senators to to filibuster. If he's the nominee we lose the seat and you have card check, and you have tax increases and you have all of the big Obama spending programs."
What will the good Senator say now?
Obama: The First 100 Days Event at HBU
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 3:15PM
For the AmSpec readers in Houston, the time has come to issue judgment on the first hundred days of the Obama administration. Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, and Mike Gallagher are coming to the Dunham Theater of the Morris Cultural Arts Center at Houston Baptist University tomorrow night (Wednesday) to offer their critique of the president's program so far.
The event is sponsored by the local conservative talker, KNTH 1070 AM and has provoked a lot of interest around the city. We expect over 1000 Houstonians to attend, but there just might be a ticket or two left. Here's the link for the event.
And before the political balance police get up in arms, I would like to add the footnote that HBU is merely providing the forum to the radio station. We did the same for the Holocaust Museum by hosting Madeline Albright several months ago.
What Specter Didn't Do
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 3:07PM
Lost in the chatter about Specter's party-switching is the elephant in the bathtub, which is they way his move is being sold in many outlets. For example, the first I saw said "Specter switch gives Democrats 60-seat filibuster-proof majority".
No, it doesn't. His move didn't change any of his votes, past, present or future. His move was because of the way he votes. The Dems may now have the numbers but, on many things, be it the filibuster-bust in the Senate or in the House on key issues (like their cap-and-trade rationing/tax scheme), they still don't have the votes to simply work Pres. Obama's will.
The ladies from Maine could follow, and it still wouldn't change the lack of a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority on those issues where none exists. One is not the same as the other.
Blaming Pat Toomey First, Cont'd
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 2:55PM
If these posts are any indication, the amount of Club for Growth-bashing on the right is going to increase in the wake of Arlen Specter's defection. I share the skepticism that 2010 was the greatest time to risk a Senate seat by settling scores with Specter. But let's keep things in perspective.
Arlen Specter left the Republican Party for two reasons. One, he admits, is that his own stimulus vote "caused a schism" with conservatives "which makes our differences irreconcilable." The second reason is that his base had already defected to the Democratic Party before him: "Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats."
These Republicans were not kicked out of the party by the Club for Growth. They tell pollsters they left because they did not like Bush-era Republican leadership. They claim to disagree with Republican policies pretty much across the board, but it was the last eight years that finally moved them to bolt. There is nothing like a sustained popular perception of a failed presidency to send nonideological supporters of a party streaming toward the exits.
You can plausibly blame the Club for Growth for three Democratic House seats: Maryland's First Congressional District, Michigan's Seventh District, and Idaho's First District, two of which the Club-backed Republicans were able to win in the tough 2006 cycle. The Democrats have picked up over 50 House seats in the last two elections. Iraq, Katrina, and the economic crisis have cost Republicans far more seats than the Club.
Pat Toomey didn't fail to locate the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he didn't commend Brownie on doing a "heckuva job" in New Orleans, and he didn't preside over a financial meltdown or mortgage crisis. To the extent Toomey can be linked to these things at all, it is precisely because conservatives didn't spend the last eight years being disloyal Republicans. Instead they were loyal and partisan to a fault.
So yes, if the Democrats get to pass nationalized health care they should erect a statue in a certain Republican's honor. That Republican's name is George W. Bush.
A Specter of Calamities to Come?
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 2:52PM
Reason's Matt Welch on Arlen's big move:
As a pox-on-both-houses type, and someone who genuinely believes that most interesting political developments will take place far outside the racket's most "professional" arenas, I am always delighted to be reminded of the commonalities between the two big parties, particularly concerning their behavior in power. Throat-clearing aside, this strikes me as no favor at all to the Democrats. By choosing to die on the hill of the stimulus package of all things, Specter reinforces whatever notion there is that stimuli and bailouts are Democratic, not Republican, pet toys. Since professional Republicans are currently scattered in the wind, trying desperately to latch onto the anti-stimulus/bailout Tea Party movement, cementing that divide may come back to haunt Democrats when those policies (inevitably, I think) become so derided that even Barack Obama's impressive popularity can't rescue them.
Specter Says He Opposes Reconciliation on Health Care
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 2:43PM
He said that something like a health care overhaul should require a 60-vote majority, though he was non-committal on whether he'd vote for Obama's budget coming out of the conference committee, which includes a provision allowing for reconciliation.
Exit, Lying: One Less Member of the GOP Jellyfish Caucus
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 2:40PM
Sen. Arlen Specter's declaration that he is a Democrat -- the first honest thing Specter has said in years -- is mourned by Philip Klein as a "huge blow." To use the word "blow" in such close proximity to the word "Specter" is a dreadful temptation to double-entendre I am compelled to resist.
Back in February, after Specter brokered an unprincipled compromise over the "stimulus," I noted the fundamental dishonesty of his rhetoric:
Announcing the compromise Friday evening, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said: "I think no one could argue with the fact that the situation would be much worse without this bill."
Really, Senator? "No one could argue"? Many certainly will argue with you, especially with your apparent assumption that "this bill" is the only possible response to the current economic crisis, and that we must either pass "this bill" or suffer the catastrophe about which the president has so direly warned.
Like his ideological soulmate, Sen. John McCain (who lost the election because of his support for the Bush bailout) Specter's reputation for bipartisan moderation was always a function of his vain desire to be perceived as a "public servant." After nearly three decades of unconscionable pandering to liberals, cravenly shifting with the prevailing winds, Specter will be less useful to the Democrats now than he ever was when he had an "R" beside his name.
Specter Says He'll Keep Seniority
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 2:31PM
Specter just said according to his agreement with Harry Reid, he'll keep all of his committee assignments as if he were elected as a Democrat in 1980.
At Least Specter Is Honest About One Thing
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 2:23PM
Speaking to reporters now, Specter just said he spent the last few months looking at public opinion polls and decided his prospects of winning the Republican primary were "bleak" and he didn't feel comfortable letting the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate render judgment on his 29 year record.
UPDATE: He said he was shown internal polling last Friday, and came to his decision over the weekend.
Club for Growth on Specter
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 2:19PM
From Club for Growth President Chris Chocola:
“Senator Specter has confirmed what we already knew – he’s a liberal devoted to more spending, more bailouts, and less economic freedom. Thanks to him, Democrats will now be able to steamroll their big government agenda through the Senate.
“This also shows how unprincipled he is. Just a few weeks ago, he stated quite clearly that he was remaining a Republican because he thought he had ‘a more important role to play there.’ And he said ‘the United States very desperately needs a two-party system.’
"This cynical play for political survival calls into question whether Pennsylvania taxpayers can believe anything Arlen Specter says. If his only principle is personal ambition, can he really be trusted with the serious issues that face our country?"
“The Club for Growth PAC enthusiastically endorsed Pat Toomey for Senate in Pennsylvania when Specter was pretending to be a Republican. Club members will be even more committed to Toomey’s candidacy now that Specter has revealed his true identity.”
Gore's Inconvenient Enron
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 2:02PM
This is worth a read, and some follow-up.
Al Gore and all of those pushing the cap-and-trade rationing scheme -- as envisioned in the president's budget, the biggest tax increase in the history of our Republic -- have some 'splainin' to do about just why they're promoting a rent-seeker scheme hatched by Enron, now demanded by Ken Lay proteges and those who picked Enron's carcass clean of its erstwhile white elephants like Enron (now GE) Wind, its solar panel venture (now BP), and that derivative-swaps and ration-coupon trading scheme hatched with Goldman.
But most specifically, Al Gore needs to answer some questions, along the lines of how much he stands to make if the scare-mongering campaign he's lobbying for succeeds, and how.
I was there in the belly of the Enron beast, ever-so-briefly if nonetheless tasked with roping the U.S. into this scheme on Enron's behalf, working tightly with green pressure groups. Good for Rep. Scalise, who had Gore squirming away from truths he knows to be so, insisting that we accept this economy-killer without anwers ever being provided.
Cap-n-trade: Don't "just say no". Salt the ground from which this beast emerged, by exposing the entirety of the scam. This particular aspect is a great place to start.
No Word From Toomey
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 1:42PM
The Toomey campaign, thus far, has remained quiet on Specter's decision. I have an email into the campaign and will post anything as soon as I have it.
Meanwhile, Dave Weigel finds the Club for Growth stunned by the annoucement, with plans to release a statement later today.
NRSC Reacts to Specter
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 1:23PM
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn just released the following statement:
"Senator Specter’s decision today represents the height of political self-preservation. While this presents a short-term disappointment, voters next year will have a clear choice to cast their ballots for a potentially unbridled Democrat super-majority versus the system of checks-and-balances that Americans deserve."
Stray Specter Thoughts
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 1:17PM
The main difference between Arlen Specter and Jacob Javits is that Javits ran as a third-party candidate, splitting the liberal vote in November. Javits finished third with about 11 percent of the vote, probably helping Al D'Amato more than he hurt him. Javits also endorsed Ronald Reagan for president, rather than Jimmy Carter or the top of the New York Liberal Party ticket, John Anderson.
Running as a Democrat, Specter will face the Republican nominee one-on-one in a state that has been trending Democratic. It is indeed a chance to revitalize the Pennsylvania Republican Party, but Specter will not go down easily. He has chosen this course because he believes, rightly, that it is his best chance to hold onto his Senate seat.
Interestingly, Specter as a Democrat will go over much better with the party establishment than with the Democrats' liberal activist base. Specter has voted with Republicans many more times on issues not limited to card check than Joe Lieberman ever dreamed of doing. Just weeks ago, he was preparing to run for re-election as a Republican defending his conservative credentials. Specter is a supporter of the Iraq war. He'd be favored to win the Democratic nomination, but a Kossite push for a "real Democrat" to run for the seat would not be impossible.
Even though the logic of this suggest Specter will move even further to the left to ingratiate himself to Democratic primary voters, I do expect him to occasionally be a thorn in his new party's side (actually, his old party -- Specter was originally a Democrat who became a Republican in the first place to help him win an election). Specter is not a Jim Jeffords by temperament. He will want to be the deciding vote on legislation and he's not going to give up that role just because he's decided to seek re-election as a Democrat.
Specter and Card Check
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 1:15PM
Even though Arlen Specter says he remains opposed to card check, he could still support some watered-down version of the legislation to win over unions as he seeks the Democratic nomination. Remember, in his statement announcing his opposition to the measure, he proposed other pro-union reforms and left himself open to reconsider card check in the future. He said: "If efforts are unsuccessful to give Labor sufficient bargaining power through amendments to the NLRA, then I would be willing to reconsider Employees’ Free Choice legislation when the economy returns to normalcy."
Stay tuned.
So...
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 1:01PM
Given Arlen Specter's switch, does anybody still want to argue that a re-elected Lincoln Chafee would have kept the Senate under Republican control after 2006?
The Specter Switch
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 12:47PM
Specter was struggling badly in the polls. A defeat by Toomey loomed, yet he was determined to play "hard, hardball" as he said to me the other week.
His chances as a Democrat are not, at first glance, particularly good, although he should be able to win the Democratic nomination. Remember that Democratic Governor Ed Rendell, the titular leader of Pennsylvania Democrats, is a former Deputy District Attorney to Specter. They are decades-long old friends. Which means that there had to be Rendell-Specter conversations on this. Ditto with Joe Biden. Promises made, money promised for campaign purposes. Perks in the Senate. Specter is a very, very shrewd guy. But this time, it would appear that time is catching up to him. He is not unlike a man I know he admired -- New York GOP Senator and liberal Republican Jacob Javits. By 1980 -- the year Specter was first elected -- Javits, first elected in 1956, was fighting age, illness and a challenge from the Toomey of the day in New York -- Al D'Amato. D'Amato stunned by beating Javits in the primary...a mere local official, totally unknown. Javits decided to run as a Liberal. It was not enough. In the three-way in the fall with Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, Javits lost.
This may be hard to see outside the state...but this is as much about generational change as it is conservative-liberal. Were Arlen Specter 50 it might be different. But he will be 80 in February. Lincoln's Birthday, as I recall.
The opportunity to re-vitalize the Pennsylvania GOP is at hand.
Specter's Choice
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 12:39PM
Clearly, Arlen Specter was facing a tough primary fight against Pat Toomey and from his statement it's pretty clear he determined that he couldn't win as a Republican. But it's no guarantee that he'll be able to win the Democratic nomination so easily either, especially given his vow not to reverse his position on card check yet again. If Specter had made this party switch right after his vote in favor of the stimulus package, and before he decided to oppose card check, he would have been in a far better position to claim the Democratic nomination. Now, as Kos writes:
Interestingly, he remains a foe of EFCA, which means that labor is free to fund and help a real Democrat in the Democratic primary. Bizarre choice. Had he decided to back EFCA, as he has always done so in the past, he'd have labor's full support. Now, he gives the opposition an opening to take him out in the Democratic primary.
This is a huge blow for Republicans hoping to stop Obama's agenda in the Senate. Specter had been moving to the right on issues such as card check because he was concerned about the challenge from Toomey, but if he's facing a tough battle against a liberal opponent in the Democratic primary, the opposite dynamic comes into play and he's likely to move even further to the left. The only way he'll get the Democratic nod is if he reliably votes with the administration.
Specter's Statement
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 12:15PM
He's changing parties but not his position on Card Check, says he.
Arlen Specter Changing Parties
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 12:07PM
According to several reports, Specter is leaving the Republican party to caucus with the Democrats. It's unclear whether he'll call himself a Democrat or an independent, but the effect is the same: once Al Franken is seated, the Dems will have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
UPDATE: He's becoming a Democrat, but says that he won't necessarily break filibusters:
My change in party affiliation does not mean that I will be a party-line voter any more for the Democrats that I have been for the Republicans. Unlike Senator Jeffords’ switch which changed party control, I will not be an automatic 60th vote for cloture. For example, my position on Employees Free Choice (Card Check) will not change.
Liberals Try to Impeach Bybee
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 11:21AM
The Politico is reporting that there will be a serious effort to impeach Judge Jay Bybee over the Bush administration's "torture memos." Their view is that if they can get the House to impeach, the Senate will be forced to hold a trial and there will be nothing President Obama can do about it. This is the sort of thing conservatives talk about doing to liberal activist judges all the time, but rarely do.
Sebelius Vote Coming
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 11:03AM
The Senate is to begin debating Kathleen Sebelius' nomination for secretary of health and human services, with a vote to come as early as today. The two-term Kansas governor's supporters are likely to highlight the swine flu outbreak as a reason to quickly fill the position, though 18 top HHS positions will still remain unfilled. Sebelius is under fire for her views on national health care and ties to the abortion industry, particularly the notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller. Nevertheless, her confirmation is expected because a critical mass of Republicans support her.
From the Imagine if Bush Had Done it Department
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 10:37AM
As you know, yesterday's stunt in New York City in which the Air Force One backup plane was flying low as part of an ill-considered photo op created a short panic in the area, resulting in the evacuation of several buildings. If this had happened during the Bush administration, one could have expected universal mockery and condemnation of yet another act of incompetence. Yet this is how the NY Times excuses President Obama:
When President Obama learned of the episode on Monday afternoon, aides said, he, too, was furious. Senior administration officials conveyed the president’s anger in a meeting with Mr. Caldera on Monday afternoon.
In other words, somehow, in the midst of a completely bungled situation, Obama manages to emerge from the Times account as a take charge leader. How many people think that Bush would have gotten off so easy?
You can get a sense of how low the airplane was flying here:
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 9:48AM
- The WHO is actually a decent organization. Too bad it is linked to the useless UN (Washington Post)
- Pelosi has amnesia on torture briefings... among other afflictions (Wall Street Journal)
- Golden Boy Ross "Big Government" Douthat is thinking Cheney '12 (NY Times)
- More on terrible schools (New Majority)
- Andrew Ferguson is crying about how he did poorly on the SATs (The Weekly Standard)
- Paraphrasing Greg Mankiw: Even Obama's own advisors think he is way too communist (Greg Mankiw's Blog)
Opportunity Lost
Posted by on 4.28.09 @ 9:24AM
"The reckless dismantling of the D.C. voucher program does not speak well of the promise by Obama to be the Education President."-- Juan Williams
Monday, April 27, 2009
Obamacare Means Healthcare Rationing, Summers Says
Posted by on 4.27.09 @ 6:55PM
After Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, admits that the U.S. economy will continue to contract "for some time to come," yet more truth manages to escape his lips.
As John Lott, a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland, notes, on TV Sunday Summers clearly implied that the Obama administration plans to try to control healthcare costs in the future by rationing healthcare. Summers, Lott writes
let the cat out of the bag on health care. In explaining why universal health care wasn't going to increase the deficit, Summers said that people are just getting too much unnecessary care. Summers claimed: "whether it's tonsillectomies or hysterectomies . . . procedures are done three times as frequently [in some parts of the country than others] and there's no benefit in terms of the health of the population. And by doing the right kind of cost-effectiveness, by making the right kinds of investments and protection, some experts that we - estimate that we could take as much as $700 billion a year out of our health care system."
This sure seems like rationing.
Americans spend far too much on healthcare, according to Summers, and government is going to force them to spend less. Patients get too many surgeries such as "tonsillectomies or hysterectomies," Summers says.
Lott finds it "strange that the Democratic Party, a group that doesn't think the government should intervene between a doctor and a woman when it comes to determining whether or not to have an abortion, appears to have no problem in telling doctors whether they can perform tonsillectomies or hysterectomies."
Indeed.
Electrifying Steal
Posted by on 4.27.09 @ 4:36PM
I think last night's swipe of home plate by the Red Sox' Jacoby Ellsbury against the Yankees' Andy Pettitte gave me more chills than the Bloody Sock game:
How fast must Ellsbury have been moving since he stumbled as he slid and his momentum still carried him to the plate in time?
Update 9:50 a.m. 4/28/09: I should have known better than to embed a YouTube version of the play, considering that MLB was certain to demand it be taken down. The play can be viewed at MLB's site -- at least for a little while longer.
Summers: Economy Still Contracting
Posted by on 4.27.09 @ 4:30PM
Finally, some honesty from the Obama administration about something.
The U.S. economy will continue to contract "for some time to come," says Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council.
"I expect the economy will continue to decline," with "sharp declines in employment for quite some time this year," Summers said yesterday on "Fox News Sunday."
Obama's $100 Million Budget Cuts, Visualized
Posted by on 4.27.09 @ 2:45PM
A great, short video showing what $100 million means in the context of a $3.5 trillion budget.
(Via NTU)
A Daring Evaluation
Posted by on 4.27.09 @ 2:41PM
It's everyone's 100-day marker for the presidency and the CNN Sucks homepage is promoting this bold conclusion from historian Julian E. Zelizer: "Give him an incomplete."
Why Did Jim Tedisco Lose?
Posted by on 4.27.09 @ 2:21PM
This Tom Qualtere piece is about as good as any I've seen on the NY-20 congressional race.
Did Obama Just Propose Another $70 Billion in Annual Spending?
Posted by on 4.27.09 @ 12:24PM
Speaking at the National Academy of Sciences this morning, President Obama declared, "I am here today to set this goal: we will devote more than 3 percent of our GDP to research and development."
The AP reports:
He set forth a wish list for the future including "learning software as effective as a personal tutor; prosthetics so advanced that you could play the piano again; an expansion of the frontiers of human knowledge about ourselves and world the around us.
Like most of Obama's domestic proposals, the underlying idea is that private enterprise isn't allocating resources efficiently enough, and that a more active role for the federal government is required to make sure that society's wealth is channeled toward worthy goals. Sure, the way Obama presents it, who could be against all of these wonderful scientific breakthroughs? The problem is that this idea of setting a target for how much our nation will allocate toward a sector of the economy and goals for what that money will yield was a basic tenet of all of the failed centrally planned economies of the 20th Century.
It's also worth putting Obama's numbers in context. In 2007, the most recent year for which I was able to find data, Plunkett Research pegged R&D spending in the U.S. at $360 billion, which was more than any other nation in the world. As a percentage of GDP, the U.S. was at 2.6 percent, second in the world only to Japan. Obama suggested increasing this number to more than 3 percent. So let's just say we make it 3.1 percent. Given the most recent GDP was $14.2 trillion, we're looking at a gap of about $70 billion a year that Obama evidently wants government to make up for.
Of course, Obama has a familiar retort:
"At such a difficult moment, there are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science. That support for research is somehow a luxury at a moment defined by necessities. I fundamentally disagree," Obama said.
"Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been," he said.
And so Obama leads us further down his primrose path.
Tax Revolting
Posted by on 4.27.09 @ 12:08PM
Bruce Bartlett, who sounded the alarm about George W. Bush's big spending, doesn't think very much of the anti-tax tea parties. But as he surely knows -- because, if memory serves, he devoted an entire chapter of Impostor to this subject -- much of the data he presents showing a relatively low tax burden reflect conditions that are about to change. The Bush tax cuts will expire in 2011. Even if President Obama does nothing, demographics and auto-pilot government growth are going to increase taxes, spending, and government borrowing.
It would have been nice if conservatives had more vocally opposed fiscal nonsense when Bush was president. It would be even nicer if more got the memo that electing somebody with an "R" next to his name or bankrupting the country more slowly isn't the answer to everything. It would have been nicest of all if the Republicans had actually done something to control federal spending when the baby boomers were in their peak earning years rather than now when they are about to retire.
But there is going to be dramatic upward pressure on taxes in this country in the coming years. It is imperative that we have people pushing in the opposite direction. If the tea partygoers are going to supply that pressure, whatever inconsistencies one can find in the more partisan Republicans among them, I'm happy to have them.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 4.27.09 @ 11:28AM
Green benefits, unconsidered costs (Washington Post)
Anna Schwartz, still unlocking the mysteries of economics in her nineties (City Journal)
Mary Ann Glendon: principled (American Papist)
U. Michigan: more concerned about students' personal habits than their education (Think Markets)
High church conservatism (The American Conservative)
Obama Reduces Union Transparency
Posted by on 4.27.09 @ 10:09AM
The Obama administration has finally found an area in which it is for less regulation -- not surprisingly, it involves monitoring big labor. One of the quiet successes in the Bush administration was Elaine Chao's leadership of the Department of Labor, because she recognized that the function of the agency was to police abuses by unions as well as businesses. Under Chao's leadership, the Office of Labor Management Standards helped uncover fraud by union officials, leading to 1,004 indictments with 929 convictions, and recovering more than $93 million on behalf of union members. Now, Obama Labor Secretary Hilda Solis -- who as I have documented elsewhere is in the pocket of big labor -- has decided to roll back disclosure requirements of unions, increasing the likelyhood that they'll be able to defraud their members. So much for Obama's new era of transparency.
ManBirdPig
Posted by on 4.27.09 @ 10:00AM
Questions answered about the swine flu, which is a hybrid of three different types of the virus.
Poverty Pollutes, Too
Posted by on 4.27.09 @ 9:51AM
California continues its steady progressive progression into decline...
Jessica Valenti: Candidate for the 'Slaughterhouse'?
Posted by on 4.27.09 @ 9:07AM
One of the delightful recent additons to the print version of The American Spectator is the "Slaughterhouse" feature, wherein some newly-published liberal book is eviscerated. If no one has called dibs on it yet, J.P., I confess to pondering with sadistic glee the prospect of shoving through our meatgrinder The Purity Myth, by that spectacular specimen of feminist lunacy, Jessica Valenti. She appeared on NBC's "Today" show last week, and MSNBC excerpts Valenti's introduction:
There is a moral panic in America over young women's sexuality -- and it's entirely misplaced. Girls "going wild" aren't damaging a generation of women, the myth of sexual purity is. . . . It's time to teach our daughters that their ability to be good people depends on their being good people, not on whether or not they're sexually active.
Note well Valenti's dishonest use of the first-person plural possessive, "our daughters." She is childless and has, to my knowledge, never declared any interest in, or intention of, bearing children. It is instead your daughters whom she wishes to indoctrinate with her ideology. Since that ideology cannot be described as feminism -- it has nothing to do with the political, legal or economic rights of women -- I hereby dub it "whorism."
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Paulson Threatened BofA: WSJ
Posted by on 4.26.09 @ 11:40PM
Before the bumbling, tax evading Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, there was the thuggish corporatist Henry Paulson, who held the Treasury post in the Bush administration.
Paulson, the Wall Street Journal reveals, made an offer to Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis that he couldn't refuse:
The cavalier use of brute government force has become routine, but the emerging story of how Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke forced CEO Ken Lewis to blow up Bank of America is still shocking. It's a case study in the ways that panicky regulators have so often botched the bailout and made the financial crisis worse.
In the name of containing "systemic risk," our regulators spread it. In order to keep Mr. Lewis quiet, they all but ordered him to deceive his own shareholders. And in the name of restoring financial confidence, they have so mistreated Bank of America that bank executives everywhere have concluded that neither Treasury nor the Federal Reserve can be trusted.
Mr. Lewis has told investigators for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that in December Mr. Paulson threatened him not to cancel a deal to buy Merrill Lynch. BofA had discovered billions of dollars in undisclosed Merrill losses, and Mr. Lewis was considering invoking his rights under a material adverse condition clause to kill the merger. But Washington decided that America's financial system couldn't withstand a Merrill failure, and that BofA had to risk its own solvency to save it. So then-Treasury Secretary Paulson, who says he was acting at the direction of Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, told Mr. Lewis that the feds would fire him and his board if they didn't complete the deal. [...]
Disgraceful.
More Pernicious Pork
Posted by on 4.26.09 @ 5:59PM
In a rare Sunday White House press briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano spoke about emergency steps (including "passive" border protocols) being taken to address the threat of swine flu coming from Mexico. On Wednesday, President Obama plans to hold a prime-time news conference to celebrate his first 100 days in office.
More Pernicious Pork
By Asher Embry
This latest threat from Mexico,
Just couldn't be ignored by "O."
But don't disturb his golfing game,
So Homeland's problem this became.
Out strode his Sec. of DHS,
To detail how she'd solve this mess.
The chance, she thought with jubilation,
To mend her ragged reputation.
She's hoping pig flu won't foment,
A "Brownie"-esque embarrassment.
Napolitano made a vow:
She'll watch our borders closer now.
Guns and drugs may still deceive her;
Just don't exhibit signs of fever.
With thoughts of Wednesday's coming speech,
Did these announcements overreach?
Did Rahm mean this when he said: Seize,
Don't waste, these opportunities.
The lesson "O" must surely see.
No longer can he disagree.
It may have taken Doctors' orders,
To finally protect our borders.
(You can read more of Asher Embry's Political Verse at www.politicalverse.com.
Fiscal Discipline, Obama-Style
Posted by on 4.26.09 @ 1:15PM
The New York Times headline runs: "President Emphasizes Discipline in Budgets." Yes, you read that right. The president whose budget, according to the Congressional Budget Office, inflates the projected deficit for 2010 to 2019 from $4.4 trillion to $9.3 trillion is emphasizing fiscal discipline.
No word yet on whether the headline writer died laughing.
Rush Limbaugh: Victim of the Humor Recession
Posted by on 4.26.09 @ 10:57AM
On April 14, discussing the rescue of the crew of the Maersk Alabama from Somali pirates, Rush Limbaugh said:
"There you have it, three teenagers shot on the high seas at the order of President Obama. . . . Just imagine the hue and cry had a Republican president ordered the shooting of black teenagers on the high seas."
You get the point: Limbaugh was pointing out the media double standard, with indirect reference to the customary protests in American cities (e.g., Cincinnati in 2001) over police shootings. Leave it to the media, however, to seek out a crewman from the Maersk Alabama who denounces Limbaugh for "hate speech."
Exactly how Limbaugh's words could be interpreted as an incitement of hate, neither the crewman nor the reporters bother to explain. Apparently the hate was so self-evident that explanation was not necessary. Just imagine the hue and cry had a liberal radio host made a joke about the shooting of black teenagers on the high seas.
Oh, wait: Liberal talk radio is a hypothetical.
UPDATE: Commenter "Tom Paine" insists Limbaugh's joke was "nasty" -- in comparison to what? Anything said about George Bush by Janeane Garafalo, Bill Maher or Rosie O'Donnell? And of conservative talk radio, Tom Paine invokes a "fist-pounding, outraged and red faced voice giving marching orders to ditto-heads." As compared to what? Keith Olbermann?
Limbaugh was merely highlighting the partisan difference in how presidential actions are portrayed by the media. When a Republican gets tough with bad guys, it's brutality, a violation of human rights, evidence of a "cowboy" mentality. When a Democrat does the same thing, he is praised for his decisive leadership.
As with the idiotic furor over Rush's Donovan McNabb comments, once again Limbaugh's critique of liberal media bias is mischaracterized (by the liberal media) as "racist." And liberals are either (a) too stupid to comprehend Limbaugh's arguments, or (b) so dishonest as to pretend they don't comprehend Limbaugh's arguments.
Which was more "nasty": Referring to the Somali pirates as "black teenagers," or shooting them dead?
Congress Cleans Up One Mess Despite Itself
Posted by on 4.26.09 @ 7:59AM
Rep. John Murtha is one of the biggest porkers around, and as a friend of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi he has a lot of clout. He couldn't quite win the Majority Leader job, but he could still waste taxpayer funds while dispensing favors and doling out pork.
But the good times are coming to an end for Big John. Reports the New York Times:
So powerful was Representative John P. Murtha at one time that he used to put up billboards in his Western Pennsylvania district declaring that "the P is for Power." Few in Congress dared disagree: he doled out or withheld billions in federal money each year for lawmakers' pet projects, better known as earmarks.
Now, however, a string of federal criminal investigations of contractors or lobbyists close to Mr. Murtha, the top Democrat on the defense appropriations subcommittee, are threatening to undermine his backroom clout.
In the weeks since the news that prosecutors had raided the offices of the PMA Group - a lobbying firm founded by a former Murtha associate that became a gateway to his office and his biggest source of campaign money - about two dozen rank-and-file Democrats have risked his wrath by calling for a House ethics investigation of the matter. One Democrat has even foresworn seeking earmarks for the military contractors in his district because of ethical concerns about the process.
In a private meeting with the chairman of the House appropriations committee, Mr. Murtha, the unofficial leader of the "old bulls" who oversee the subcommittees, was forced to accept a series of new restrictions on his authority to grant earmarks, Democratic aides briefed on the meeting said. In previous weeks he had already acquiesced to another steep cut in the volume of earmarks he dispenses, down by half this year from a few years ago. He had also submitted to new disclosure requirements, including public hearings, that cramp his ability to cut last-minute deals.
This is a good start, but merely a good start. So many big spending wastrals in Congress. So little time.
- Obama's Foreign Policy Problems, Personified
- When the Party Was Over
- Losing It