Health Care
20?
NRO's Doctor! Doctor! blog reports that scuttlebutt from the Capitol is that Pelosi is 20 votes short of the 218 needed to pass health care. Keep your eye on this NRO site over the weekend.
Categories > Health Care
4:40 PM / November 6, 2009
Technology
Weird Science
I've been following the progress--or lack thereof--of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (the largest particle accelerator ever built) in Switzerland for a while now, partly because I'm an old and out of practice science geek, and partly because it is another object of technophobia: some worrywarts think the collider, when finally operational, might create an artificial black hole that will annihilate the entire planet. Supposedly it is theoretically possible, but once again this looks like life imitating art, since something of this scenario was depicted in an obscure 1980s-era sci-fi film out of New Zealand called The Quiet Earth.
Anyway, seems things keep going wrong with the thing, spurring some professional paranoiacs to speculate that time traveling sub-atomic particles from the future are here to prevent us from destroying ourselves with the Hadron Collider. (I'm not making this up.) Now, it seems, a bird dropped a piece of a baguette on the top of the collider and scrambled the thing once again. Don't believe me? See this article. (Love the artist's depiction.)
Categories > Technology
1:22 PM / November 6, 2009
Health Care
Yes We Will!
Peter: I think Pelosi's move to push for a health care vote tomorrow is a bold move made either out of determination that she can win or stupid desperation that she has to try to win now or never--most likely the latter. The conventional wisdom among Democrats is that they lost Congress in 1994 in part because they never even voted on a reform bill, and therefore that they face greater downside risk not passing something now rather than passing something unpopular. This is a gross misreading: Hillarycare failed to win a vote because it became so unpopular the more voters learned about it, just as polls show declining support for this mess. I continue to believe that the basic symmetry in American politics now is that Republicans by themselves can't change Social Security in any big way, and Democrats by themselves can't change health care in any big way.
By the way, what happened to the criticism that Bush and the Republican Congress erred by governing on a narrow partisan basis, such as the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2003? Now Democrats are about to do the exact same thing, but all the media critics are largely silent about this. Like the prescription drug bill--remember the House held the vote open for more than three hours while Bush and House GOP leaders broke arms for the final votes--I expect that if the vote is called, it might be held open for three hours or more while Pelosi and Obama break arms and trade off votes. I wouldn't be surprised to see nervous Dems switching votes halfway through--if it looks like it is going to fail, a dozen or more might bolt. It will be a thing to watch.
Finally, Pelosi may well reckon that even losing a vote is better than not having one at all, because then she thinks it can be turned into a campaign attack next year: those mean Republicans and their insurance company cronies blocked health care reform! I doubt that will work, but it fits with the supposed lessons of the Clinton failure.
P.S. Don't forget the other mistake of the Clinton experience: GOP Senate leader Bob Dole was always ready to reach a bipartisan compromise with Democrats. The Clintons refused even to consider the idea.
Categories > Health Care
12:46 PM / November 6, 2009
Health Care
"We will," asserts Pelosi
That's what Nancy Pelosi said when asked yesterday if she had enough votes to pass the health care bill on Saturday. That means she doesn't yet have it. She is scrambling, according to the San Francisco Chronicle: "Pelosi's party holds a 40-vote margin over Republicans in the House,
but Democrats in swing districts are worried about the cost and reach
of the health care bill amid widespread joblessness and enormous
federal deficits. Leaders sought to resolve lingering disputes over
abortion and immigration."
Every other news report on the subject notes that the votes are not yet there. (Reuters, New York Times, Washington Post) So why try pushing this vote through now, knowing that the Senate isn't going to consider it until next year? Because, as predicted, given the sentiments revealed in the elections on Tuesday--the massive shift of independents to the GOP (in the case of Virginia, 66%-33%)--Pelosi will certainly not be able to push it through next year, for the self-preservation of circa 50-60 more modderate Democratic Congressmen will really kick in and they will then have to vote against it. Pelosi knows this. But they still might oppose it on Saturday. And yet, Saturday is her best shot.
But in fact, I expect the House NOT to vote on Saturday because I think there will be at least a couple dozen Dems who will either say they will oppose it or will claim that they haven't yet made up their minds; Pelosi will have to back off, else there is a chance that she will lose the vote and that would be worst thing that could happen to her. She would lose all authority (and honor). This scenario will depend on how each member reads the polls is their district. If I read the polls right there will be no vote on Saturday, the moderate Dems self-preservation is already kicking in.
Addendum: The fact that the unemployment rate has jumped to 10.2% and is likely to go higher is not going to help Pelosi.
Every other news report on the subject notes that the votes are not yet there. (Reuters, New York Times, Washington Post) So why try pushing this vote through now, knowing that the Senate isn't going to consider it until next year? Because, as predicted, given the sentiments revealed in the elections on Tuesday--the massive shift of independents to the GOP (in the case of Virginia, 66%-33%)--Pelosi will certainly not be able to push it through next year, for the self-preservation of circa 50-60 more modderate Democratic Congressmen will really kick in and they will then have to vote against it. Pelosi knows this. But they still might oppose it on Saturday. And yet, Saturday is her best shot.
But in fact, I expect the House NOT to vote on Saturday because I think there will be at least a couple dozen Dems who will either say they will oppose it or will claim that they haven't yet made up their minds; Pelosi will have to back off, else there is a chance that she will lose the vote and that would be worst thing that could happen to her. She would lose all authority (and honor). This scenario will depend on how each member reads the polls is their district. If I read the polls right there will be no vote on Saturday, the moderate Dems self-preservation is already kicking in.
Addendum: The fact that the unemployment rate has jumped to 10.2% and is likely to go higher is not going to help Pelosi.
Categories > Health Care
7:48 AM / November 6, 2009
Presidency
Hayward on Reagan
Steve conducted a Colloquium last Friday on his latest Reagan volume You can listen to it all (circa an hour and a half) by clicking here. I thought Steve was very good. You can tell that he is quite inside the subject, is a master of all details relating to it, sees the implications of the larger questions raised, is perfectly comfortable on his feet, thinking in public. A fine student (that is, teacher). The room was over-packed, people on the floor, hanging from ceilings; I think more students purchased his book than any other book in such a setting. Thanks, Steve.
Categories > Presidency
2:57 PM / November 5, 2009
Literature, Poetry, and Books
Lucky Bastard
In the NRO symposium on Barack Obama's first year, Bill Voegeli observes, "The Yankees pitcher Lefty Gomez often said, 'I'd rather be lucky than good.' One of the problems in trying to assess Barack Obama is that he has been such a lucky politician over the past six years that it's still hard to know how good he is."
This reflection calls to mind the extraordinary Charles McCarry novel, Lucky Bastard. McCarry was for many years a CIA agent, stationed abroad, and is justly hailed as the master of his genre. His hilarious 1998 spy novel recounts the career of the bastard son of John F. Kennedy, who blazes like a comet from obscurity to a serious presidential contender--aided every step along the way, from his days at Columbia University, by Soviet intelligence. David Skinner recently wrote an appreciation of McCarry's work in The Weekly Standard (subscriber only).
With his eye on John F. Adams' sexual adventures, McCarry of course had the then-incumbent president in mind. But his description of how Soviet intelligence paved the way for Jack Adams' rise reminds us how easily American media and other institutions can be swayed by shallow elite opinion. The 1998 novel is a highly instructive work for our time.
Categories > Literature, Poetry, and Books
9:54 AM / November 5, 2009
Elections
Maine Vote Also Confirms the Argument
. . . that very little has changed about the fundamental opinions of the American electorate in this year of "change." A ballot measure that was, essentially, a "people's veto" of legislation passed last spring in Maine to permit homosexual marriage passed handily. The 53 to 47% margin outstrips even California's 52 to 48% on Prop. 8 from last year. Proponents of homosexual marriage expected and hoped for a different outcome because, unlike similar ballot measures in other states, this one was not in response to any perceived judicial fiat. It was a response action on the part of that branch of government closest to the people: the legislature.
This Time article on the vote in Maine is interesting for the way it draws upon and, I'd add, also draws out some of the thinking of leading homosexual marriage activists in the wake of their defeat. For example, Mary Bonauto (the lawyer who successfully argued before the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 2003 that it should strike down state prohibitions on gay marriage) told Time, "Ultimately, this is going to have to have a national resolution . . . It's about aligning promises found in the Constitution with America's laws."
This is intelligent politics on Ms. Banauto's part. The argument on behalf of homosexual marriage, if it means to be successful, has to be one suggesting that homosexual marriage is a fulfillment of rather than a turning away from America's promise in its Founding. Every success of big "L" Liberalism (or Progressivism) in this country (up to and including Barack Obama's) can be traced back to public argument that embraced--or seemed to embrace--America's purpose and foundations. Progressive have had to argue that there is something essentially American about adopting the course they advocate; that it is in keeping and of a piece with our familiar understanding of the universality of justice and equality.
But always within these attempted unions of an ever expanding "Liberalism" and the legacy of the American Founding is an inherent tension between them that threatens to bust up the match and, in the interim, serves to make Liberals very unhappy in the marriage. The two things, it turns out, are not at equal purposes and--unless they have a very clever counselor (perhaps like Obama--though certainly like FDR) it's fairly clear in their rhetoric to the electorate, that the partners would prefer to be divorced. For advocates of homosexual marriage or--more generally--the broad agenda of "Liberalism," the trouble with our "abstract truth applicable to all men and all times" is that it does not expand any more than it contracts. It simply is. As Calvin Coolidge might have said, "it is final." Universal human equality in our natural rights is a fact--whether it is recognized and put into force or not. When it is simultaneously publicly pronounced and practically denied, we have the proverbial "House Divided Against Itself." The denial of human equality in American chattel slavery was at odds with this central and animating principal of our republic in that it denied it by making slaves of men. The homosexual lobby in America--like Progressivism more broadly considered--denies the principle by seeking to grow it. But it wants to appear as if it is trying to protect it or live up to it. It seeks to argue that we have a "House Divided" with respect to equality for homosexuals. It sees no necessary limit to the good that can come of an expansion of the meaning of equality and it appeals to our generosity of spirit. But in seeking to expand the meaning of equality, the truth is that we actually deny it. We cannot make equality, however much we may wish it, to include things not encompassed within the natural meaning of equality.
I have to think that this, at least in part, helps to explain the natural revulsion to the idea of homosexual marriage on the part of black voters--who, of course, were a driving force in the passage of California's Prop. 8 last fall. Left wing whispering, revealingly, would have you believe that black opposition to homosexual marriage is nothing more than a kind of retrograde or backward prejudice on the part of too many blacks. This is at once patronizing and reflective of some remarkably stupid thinking. The majority of black voters who oppose homosexual marriage rightly sense--when they don't vividly understand--that the suggestion of a symbiotic relationship between the struggles of blacks and the struggles of the homosexual lobby in this country is an insult to their struggles and our shared American history and accomplishments on behalf of genuine equality. It is a kind of righteous indignation--obviously felt more keenly by blacks--at the notion that the elimination of slavery and the struggle for equality before the law for black Americans is anything akin to an extension of a right to marry to homosexuals. That was a struggle to make America live up to its stated principle, not a demand that we expand it. Slavery was wrong from the start . . . not because we eventually grew into that opinion. To suggest otherwise is to demean those efforts by implying that it, like this current struggle, was a mere power struggle or numbers game without any transcending universal principle of right.
If homosexual marriage eventually passes into being and becomes an accepted part of American culture and law it will be something entirely new under our side of the sun. It will not be an extension of America's promise to recognize the equality of all human beings. It will be a bastardization of that promise and an attempt to undermine the true meaning of it. To suggest otherwise is, let us be clear, to suggest that our rights are not natural or, even, necessarily permanent. It is to suggest that they are but an outgrowth of popular sentiment or of an evolution of opinion. It is logically (though perhaps not fully understood and certainly not clearly articulated by those who advocate on its behalf) to suggest that perhaps there was nothing inherently or fundamentally unjust about slavery. After all, people probably just hadn't evolved enough back then. For in a Progressive's world, persuasion is not a real possibility. Everything is evolution--everything is subject first to hope, then to power, and then to change.
This is why they think the problem for them today is that people just haven't "evolved" enough to recognize that homosexual marriages should be treated as equal to heterosexual marriages. They think that if they keep at it long enough, they can "help that evolution along" (in the thuggish way they've helped other parts of "evolution" along) but they have no doubt as to the eventual outcome of their efforts. Maine is to be commended for its unwillingness, yet, to so "evolve."
UPDATE: Jennifer Roback Morse of the Ruth Institute adds to what I say here.
This Time article on the vote in Maine is interesting for the way it draws upon and, I'd add, also draws out some of the thinking of leading homosexual marriage activists in the wake of their defeat. For example, Mary Bonauto (the lawyer who successfully argued before the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 2003 that it should strike down state prohibitions on gay marriage) told Time, "Ultimately, this is going to have to have a national resolution . . . It's about aligning promises found in the Constitution with America's laws."
This is intelligent politics on Ms. Banauto's part. The argument on behalf of homosexual marriage, if it means to be successful, has to be one suggesting that homosexual marriage is a fulfillment of rather than a turning away from America's promise in its Founding. Every success of big "L" Liberalism (or Progressivism) in this country (up to and including Barack Obama's) can be traced back to public argument that embraced--or seemed to embrace--America's purpose and foundations. Progressive have had to argue that there is something essentially American about adopting the course they advocate; that it is in keeping and of a piece with our familiar understanding of the universality of justice and equality.
But always within these attempted unions of an ever expanding "Liberalism" and the legacy of the American Founding is an inherent tension between them that threatens to bust up the match and, in the interim, serves to make Liberals very unhappy in the marriage. The two things, it turns out, are not at equal purposes and--unless they have a very clever counselor (perhaps like Obama--though certainly like FDR) it's fairly clear in their rhetoric to the electorate, that the partners would prefer to be divorced. For advocates of homosexual marriage or--more generally--the broad agenda of "Liberalism," the trouble with our "abstract truth applicable to all men and all times" is that it does not expand any more than it contracts. It simply is. As Calvin Coolidge might have said, "it is final." Universal human equality in our natural rights is a fact--whether it is recognized and put into force or not. When it is simultaneously publicly pronounced and practically denied, we have the proverbial "House Divided Against Itself." The denial of human equality in American chattel slavery was at odds with this central and animating principal of our republic in that it denied it by making slaves of men. The homosexual lobby in America--like Progressivism more broadly considered--denies the principle by seeking to grow it. But it wants to appear as if it is trying to protect it or live up to it. It seeks to argue that we have a "House Divided" with respect to equality for homosexuals. It sees no necessary limit to the good that can come of an expansion of the meaning of equality and it appeals to our generosity of spirit. But in seeking to expand the meaning of equality, the truth is that we actually deny it. We cannot make equality, however much we may wish it, to include things not encompassed within the natural meaning of equality.
I have to think that this, at least in part, helps to explain the natural revulsion to the idea of homosexual marriage on the part of black voters--who, of course, were a driving force in the passage of California's Prop. 8 last fall. Left wing whispering, revealingly, would have you believe that black opposition to homosexual marriage is nothing more than a kind of retrograde or backward prejudice on the part of too many blacks. This is at once patronizing and reflective of some remarkably stupid thinking. The majority of black voters who oppose homosexual marriage rightly sense--when they don't vividly understand--that the suggestion of a symbiotic relationship between the struggles of blacks and the struggles of the homosexual lobby in this country is an insult to their struggles and our shared American history and accomplishments on behalf of genuine equality. It is a kind of righteous indignation--obviously felt more keenly by blacks--at the notion that the elimination of slavery and the struggle for equality before the law for black Americans is anything akin to an extension of a right to marry to homosexuals. That was a struggle to make America live up to its stated principle, not a demand that we expand it. Slavery was wrong from the start . . . not because we eventually grew into that opinion. To suggest otherwise is to demean those efforts by implying that it, like this current struggle, was a mere power struggle or numbers game without any transcending universal principle of right.
If homosexual marriage eventually passes into being and becomes an accepted part of American culture and law it will be something entirely new under our side of the sun. It will not be an extension of America's promise to recognize the equality of all human beings. It will be a bastardization of that promise and an attempt to undermine the true meaning of it. To suggest otherwise is, let us be clear, to suggest that our rights are not natural or, even, necessarily permanent. It is to suggest that they are but an outgrowth of popular sentiment or of an evolution of opinion. It is logically (though perhaps not fully understood and certainly not clearly articulated by those who advocate on its behalf) to suggest that perhaps there was nothing inherently or fundamentally unjust about slavery. After all, people probably just hadn't evolved enough back then. For in a Progressive's world, persuasion is not a real possibility. Everything is evolution--everything is subject first to hope, then to power, and then to change.
This is why they think the problem for them today is that people just haven't "evolved" enough to recognize that homosexual marriages should be treated as equal to heterosexual marriages. They think that if they keep at it long enough, they can "help that evolution along" (in the thuggish way they've helped other parts of "evolution" along) but they have no doubt as to the eventual outcome of their efforts. Maine is to be commended for its unwillingness, yet, to so "evolve."
UPDATE: Jennifer Roback Morse of the Ruth Institute adds to what I say here.
Categories > Elections
4:30 PM / November 4, 2009
History
Lincoln's Thanksgiving Message
In honor of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial, the House of Representatives just passed a Resolution recalling the 1946 designation of Nov. 19 as "Dedication Day," when the Gettysburg Address should be read in public places. Here's a good prelude to Thanksgiving. Recall Lincoln's message designating the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving.
Categories > History
3:01 PM / November 4, 2009
Presidency
The First 365 Days
National Review Online has a symposium today, assessing Barack Obama exactly one year after he won the presidency. There's a strong Claremont coloration to the roster of opinionated scribblers: Jack Pitney teaches there, R.J. Pestritto did his graduate work there, and I hang out there.
Categories > Presidency
2:11 PM / November 4, 2009
Politics
Rocco's Offensive NEA
In an interview for the Wall Street Journal, National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman exclaims: "The days of the defensive NEA are over!" Indeed, the offensive NEA may steal some of the Obama Administration show, as Landesman's NEA would return to giving the individual grants that encouraged so much offensive and, more to the point, trashy art. Landesman defends graffiti and hip-hop as examples of art worthy of public subsidy. See my previous posts on Landesman here and here.
Categories > Politics
9:21 AM / November 4, 2009
Elections
Change We Shouldn't Believe in That Much
1. It was a genuinely good night for the Republicans in Virginia. The main reason was a solid, non-stupid, unalienating candidate for governor. It's amazing how badly the GOP just screwed up in 2006 and 2008 in the Commonwealth. McDonald doesn't quite reach the pay grade of presidential material, but it's reassuring to see a savvy social conservative in office.
2. The NY 23rd was an unforced error for Republicans. It was also NPR's favorite election this morning. The seat wasn't lost because of some conservative-moderate split, but because nobody was watching the locals picked a woman who couldn't win. And then too much hope was placed in Hoffman, who is a real conservative but also had real liabilities.
3. New Jersey was mainly tossing out a justly unpopular incumbent.
4. The electorate was much more white and old han in 2008. That'll be less so in 2010 and much less so, of course, in 2012.
5. The independents switched big-time in the Republican direction. The issue of BIG GOVERNMENT moved them more than it has lately. But there's also no denying that they seem to be all about CHANGE, which of course helped the president last time and hurt the Democrats this time. (The power of indiscriminate CHANGE can be seen in Bloomberg's narrow escape, despite spending his guts out and actually being a really good mayor.)
6. All the studies show that the president remains personally popular, but there's increased suspicion about his policies. That really mean that what people want changed, most of all, is the huge Democratic majorities in Congress.
7. The Republicans should be gearing up for a campaign for divided government to, among other things, make Obama a better president. Democrats and other Obama-philiacs should be reassured that it was the Republican victory in 1994 that improved Clinton's performance enough to gain easy reelection in 1996. Republicans should quote Democrats on the virtues of divided government when Bush and Reagan were president. They should popularize the studies that show that divided government is best for controlling spending.
8. Huge Republican gains in Congress in 2010 are possible with the right kind of campaign. But 2012 remains a more formidable challenge in the absence of national disaster. There still aren't any Republican national leaders. Eric Cantor is just too short, for one thing.
9. It goes without saying that Republicans should use the shift in the voting behavior of independents to do what they can to scare moderate Democrats on health care.
Categories > Elections
8:32 AM / November 4, 2009
Elections
The Meaning of the Elections
Let's leave the TV non-thinking heads aside, and our criticism of them. Truth is, they aren't much worth noting, even though I'm still in the habit of watching them. Party line stuff that doesn't even come up to the level of good propaganda, says nothing teaches nothing. And I include my side in this. No wonder young people don't watch any of this, and ever fewer older ones do, as the ratings reveal.
The two questions are: What does VA and NJ (and NY23) mean for Obama and/or the Democratic progressive agenda, and what does this mean for the GOP both substantively and electorally over the next few election cycles? The second question can't be answered without taking a shot at the first. Michael Barone makes some assembled numbers meaningful. And Jonah Goldberg opines that even though Obama remains personally popular, his agenda is not (Rush Limbaugh needs to understand this perfectly honest tension within the American electorate's soul; they like the chief but not his policies; this is not the first time this has happened). So this is certainly the end of cap and trade and probably of health care reform. Furthermore, if the Dems don't pass some kind of health care reform, they are likely to lose at least the House in 2010 because they will have revealed that they cannot govern, even with super-majorities in Congress. Because the Dems now know this, they are likely to try to push and shove health care reform (any kind of health care reform, public option, no public option, abortion, no abortion) through within the next few weeks. So this could be very messy. And ironically, the GOP will have very little to do with it. In other words, the so-called moderate Dems (especially in the House) will either decide to stop it or not. And their decision will be based either on principle or self-preservation in 2010 election, or both. Sometimes justice is the same as self-interest. This will be fun to watch.
The two questions are: What does VA and NJ (and NY23) mean for Obama and/or the Democratic progressive agenda, and what does this mean for the GOP both substantively and electorally over the next few election cycles? The second question can't be answered without taking a shot at the first. Michael Barone makes some assembled numbers meaningful. And Jonah Goldberg opines that even though Obama remains personally popular, his agenda is not (Rush Limbaugh needs to understand this perfectly honest tension within the American electorate's soul; they like the chief but not his policies; this is not the first time this has happened). So this is certainly the end of cap and trade and probably of health care reform. Furthermore, if the Dems don't pass some kind of health care reform, they are likely to lose at least the House in 2010 because they will have revealed that they cannot govern, even with super-majorities in Congress. Because the Dems now know this, they are likely to try to push and shove health care reform (any kind of health care reform, public option, no public option, abortion, no abortion) through within the next few weeks. So this could be very messy. And ironically, the GOP will have very little to do with it. In other words, the so-called moderate Dems (especially in the House) will either decide to stop it or not. And their decision will be based either on principle or self-preservation in 2010 election, or both. Sometimes justice is the same as self-interest. This will be fun to watch.
Categories > Elections
8:12 AM / November 4, 2009
Elections
Virginia Election Returns
This is the official Virginia site for election returns. I know that McDonnell has already won, but note the size of the victory and the GOP sweep of all state-wide offices by equally large percentages; of course, this may close some before the end of the night; but it looks impressive. You can also follow the General Assembly returns by clicking here.
What was I thinking? I cooked some salmon, with onions, mushrooms, and lots of lemon, had a couple of glasses of King Estate Pinot Gris, and then followed it with a CAO Cameroon, and then settled in to watch TV returns. I can't tell you how dissapointed I am....Nothing, no one (on either side) doing much thinking aloud; everybody is reading day-old scraps of notes handed to them by faction leaders. Very boring and, actually, a bit embarrassing. Darn it. So I am going back to reading Michael Walsh's Hostile Intent. A rip-roaring story...plenty of bad guys, great gadgets, some women--good and bad--and the whole good world at stake and, wouldn't you know it, one good guy--"his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, and his fame doubtful"--is trying to save us all. I hope he does. I think he will.
What was I thinking? I cooked some salmon, with onions, mushrooms, and lots of lemon, had a couple of glasses of King Estate Pinot Gris, and then followed it with a CAO Cameroon, and then settled in to watch TV returns. I can't tell you how dissapointed I am....Nothing, no one (on either side) doing much thinking aloud; everybody is reading day-old scraps of notes handed to them by faction leaders. Very boring and, actually, a bit embarrassing. Darn it. So I am going back to reading Michael Walsh's Hostile Intent. A rip-roaring story...plenty of bad guys, great gadgets, some women--good and bad--and the whole good world at stake and, wouldn't you know it, one good guy--"his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, and his fame doubtful"--is trying to save us all. I hope he does. I think he will.
Categories > Elections
8:55 PM / November 3, 2009
Elections
New Jersey Returns
As far as I can tell the best place to find the returns from the NJ vote is here. At this moment, the Republican Christie is ahead of Corzine 55-38%, with only 5% of the votes counted.
Categories > Elections
8:46 PM / November 3, 2009
Environment
Energy Revolution in Progress
This is the single most significant energy story going on right now. And it's happening right here in the good ol' USA. And it doesn't involve windmills, solar cells, pixie dust, duct tape, hampster-driven turbines, or other stupid green dreams.
Categories > Environment
3:21 PM / November 3, 2009
Elections
Referendum on Obama, the GOP . . . or Just a Return to Healthy Political Reality?
In his USA Today column, Jonah Goldberg writes that the likely results of today's elections show that the GOP--as a party committed to ideas distinct from watered down versions of Democrat liberalism--is a concept that is not only alive and well but it is a concept that is also capable of thriving and flowering, even in today's allegedly "changed" political climate. Moreover, it calls into question (or, rather, calls out) a good deal of the triumphalism that marked Obama's most devoted supporters in the wake of his victory a year ago. It suggests that Obama's election was more of a "let's give these guys a chance" and less of a "let's change the entire way we do business!" kind of sentiment. The "change" Americans believed in during the '08 election, appears to have been a lot less far reaching than Obama and his true believers might have hoped.
In that same spirit, Paul Mirengoff today at Powerline reminds us that breathless suggestions about the meaning of today's elections--from either side--are best served with a paper bag. Wrap around mouth and breathe. These elections are not a referendum on Barack Obama. Neither are they going to be an indication of a coming Republican resurgence. What they will do is re-establish in the popular mind the political reality. America remains a pretty evenly divided country with respect to political opinion. Barack Obama won an election; he has not succeeded in his efforts at political conversion. The GOP as a party distinct from Democrats and defined by a common-sense sort of center-right conservatism, is a thing that will not be rolled. It lives to fight another day. But it remains to be seen whether it will fight.
Mirengoff and Goldberg are both right, however, in taking appropriate good cheer from the likely GOP success of the day for the reason that it may chasten Democrats uneasy with Pelosi's and the President's proposed and sweeping reforms of the health care industry. It is true, as Goldberg notes, that: "Democrats might like health care reform, but they like getting re-elected even more." Human nature ain't always pretty. But it is comforting, in a sense, to know that it can't be changed.
In that same spirit, Paul Mirengoff today at Powerline reminds us that breathless suggestions about the meaning of today's elections--from either side--are best served with a paper bag. Wrap around mouth and breathe. These elections are not a referendum on Barack Obama. Neither are they going to be an indication of a coming Republican resurgence. What they will do is re-establish in the popular mind the political reality. America remains a pretty evenly divided country with respect to political opinion. Barack Obama won an election; he has not succeeded in his efforts at political conversion. The GOP as a party distinct from Democrats and defined by a common-sense sort of center-right conservatism, is a thing that will not be rolled. It lives to fight another day. But it remains to be seen whether it will fight.
Mirengoff and Goldberg are both right, however, in taking appropriate good cheer from the likely GOP success of the day for the reason that it may chasten Democrats uneasy with Pelosi's and the President's proposed and sweeping reforms of the health care industry. It is true, as Goldberg notes, that: "Democrats might like health care reform, but they like getting re-elected even more." Human nature ain't always pretty. But it is comforting, in a sense, to know that it can't be changed.
Categories > Elections
2:03 PM / November 3, 2009
Elections
Today's Elections
Because I was on the road yesterday I was able to listen to a lot CNN (should I curse XM radio, or praise it?) and was amazed how they spun the upcoming elections, especially focusing on the New York-23. Their main point--driven home the whole day and evening--was to try to prove the White House line that the GOP candidate "forced off the ballot" was a sign of a civil war within the party and/or already a right-wing take-over. (This L.A. Times article is as good as any of that view.) The fact that the Republican cnadidate was actually to the left of the Dem, made no difference in their calculations, and hardly came up in conversation. The drumbeat is that the GOP is being taken over by the far right. I predict that this view will not settle into the American political psyche, especially after the defeat (by moderate Dems) of health-care as currently proposed by the Democrats.
This New York Times article on Iowa and the "sense of disappointment" that has settled in regarding Obama may be more revealing of the true problem. The Dems will lose in Virginia and NY23, and if they can't get the vote out in NJ--where Corzine has attached himself to Obama rather explictly--then Corzine will lose and today's votes will have to be seen as a referendum on the Obama administration. This is why we don't study physics.
This New York Times article on Iowa and the "sense of disappointment" that has settled in regarding Obama may be more revealing of the true problem. The Dems will lose in Virginia and NY23, and if they can't get the vote out in NJ--where Corzine has attached himself to Obama rather explictly--then Corzine will lose and today's votes will have to be seen as a referendum on the Obama administration. This is why we don't study physics.
Categories > Elections
9:06 AM / November 3, 2009
Political Philosophy
Why Read Heidegger?
Folks have been buzzing for a while now about Carlin Romano's blistering attack on Heidegger in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Today in The New Republic online, Damon Linker fires back, with a half-hearted defense of why we should still study Heidegger even though he was a fascist.
We report, you decide.
Categories > Political Philosophy
4:25 PM / November 2, 2009
Presidency
Who is Obama?
Has Obama's mask slipped or is just getting started?
George Will provides a detail about liberal bullying, by requiring disclosure of who signed petitions to validate a referendum. It is all a part of the exposure of liberalism generally: Obama is no longer the student body president but rather the schoolyard bully. But that's what contemporary liberalism has stood for as well; the masquerade as champion of the little guy/gal fell flat long ago. This underscores that deception.
Obama would use his narrative skills to further that deception. In a column titled "More Poetry Please" NY Times columnist Tom Friedman (The World is Flat) argues that Obama's poetry--his speeches--are an essential part of his political strategy of nation-building.
But to deliver this agenda requires a motivated public and a spirit of shared sacrifice. That's where narrative becomes vital. People have to have a gut feel for why this nation-building project, with all its varied strands, is so important -- why it's worth the sacrifice. One of the reasons that independents and conservatives who voted for Mr. Obama have been so easily swayed against him by Fox News and people labeling him a "socialist" is because he has not given voice to the truly patriotic nation-building endeavor in which he is engaged....
Therefore, let there be more speeches, Friedman argues. He is spot-on, in that conservative (and especially libertarian) intellectuals often ignore the poetry that has helped make America--note for example the legal arguments offered by the Federalist Society. As sound as they may be, they do not offer the winning political argument. Even a defense of "liberty" must have a goal beyond liberty. This is the vacuum Obama would fill, but Obama's critics on the right correctly suspect what he is up to (as have those of us who have read Dreams from my Father). But Obama's failure does not add up to the triumph of the best of the American political tradition. That requires further efforts.
Categories > Presidency
10:10 AM / November 2, 2009
Pop Culture
And Now For Something Completely Different: The Bacon Explosion
Conversation during my splendid visit to the Ashbrook Center this week turned a couple times to high calorie fare, such as the bacon explosion, which burst on the scene a couple years ago. It's about 5,000 calories, with 500 grams of fat! Here's a quick video of my experiment with the bacon explosion a few months ago.
Categories > Pop Culture
10:34 AM / November 1, 2009
Military
Counterinsurgency Theory
Ann Marlowe's short essay on the birth of counterinsurgency theory is worth a read. Note the emphasis on altering the perception of the population; the creation of reality, as it were, and why this should be relatively easy for Americans.
Categories > Military
2:07 PM / October 31, 2009
Elections
Scozzafava Out in NY 23rd
Dede Scozzafava, the Republican and Independence parties
candidate, announced that she is suspending her campaign for
the 23rd Congressional District and releasing all her supporters. The latest Siena Poll shows Bill Owens, the Democrats' candidate and Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate, in a statistical dead heat. Owens has support from 36 percent of likely
voters, with Hoffman garnering 35 percent support. Scozzafava
has support from 20 percent of those polled.
Categories > Elections
12:05 PM / October 31, 2009
Politics
French Incivilities
The Velib was meant to civilize city travel in Paris. But these bicycles, each costing circa $3,500, are being stolen, destroyed, etc. It is estimated that about 20,000 of them (about 80%) have been damaged or destroyed. A sociologist says that there "was social revolt behind Vélib' vandalism, especially for suburban
residents, many of them poor immigrants who feel excluded from the
glamorous side of Paris."
"It's a very clever initiative to improve people's lives, but it's not a complete success," a user of the bikes said. "For a regular user like me, it generates a lot of frustration," she said. "It's a reflection of the violence of our society and it's outrageous: the Vélib' is a public good but there is no civic feeling related to it."
Categories > Politics
10:51 AM / October 31, 2009
Foreign Affairs
Raw Determination Needed
This David Brooks op-ed has it about right: "The experts I spoke with describe a vacuum at the heart of the war
effort -- a determination vacuum. And if these experts do not know the
state of President Obama's resolve, neither do the Afghan villagers.
They are now hedging their bets, refusing to inform on Taliban force
movements because they are aware that these Taliban fighters would be
their masters if the U.S. withdraws. Nor does President Hamid Karzai
know. He's cutting deals with the Afghan warlords he would need if NATO
leaves his country." Read the whole sensible thing.
Categories > Foreign Affairs
2:29 PM / October 30, 2009
Political Parties
Old-Fashioned Democrats Hopelessly Out of Style
Daniel Henninger writes a biting and inspired column today in the WSJ. Oh, the irony! Democrats caught hopelessly in the out-moded and tired ways of the past? In an age of iPhone apps and de-centralizing trends, Dems are pushing a miserable model of government that should have been left in the 1930s where it originated. Obama rides on a false reputation as a hipster. He's actually a crusty throw-back. As Henninger puts it, it appears irrefutable.
Categories > Political Parties
2:49 PM / October 29, 2009
Politics
California: Object Lesson in What Happens When Wish Becomes Father of Thought
It's not for nothing that most Ohioans (and much of the rest of the country) are prone to joke that California is the land of "fruits and nuts." Yes, we do grow 'em out here; both literally and figuratively. The typical Californian response to such insults, however, has been to brush them off as a kind of jealousy. (Call me when you're snowed in this winter and I'm out picking oranges in my backyard paradise or surfing at the beach . . .) There's been a kind of amazing will--not to power, exactly, but more to seek out golden dreams--and that has always pushed this state to the forefront of the American imagination. It's also not for nothing that California is called the "golden state" . . . and it's not only because of our beautiful sunsets or the 1849 gold rush. The optimism that has driven us is characteristically American. Inspiring. Energizing. Youthful. Oh . . . and, sometimes, terribly naive.
Our own Bill Voegeli (like me, a California transplant . . . though that hardly distinguishes us out here) gives this buoyant approach to California's current prospects a sober and thoughtful assessment in the most recent edition of The City Journal. He, like many other observers of our troubles, does not see many reasons for optimism. Time magazine, however, clings to the hopes and wishes of a former era without, apparently, grasping that hope has to be backed by effort. A wish is not a thought. Hope is not a plan. In ignoring the facts before us, California may be more than an object lesson in what happens when a state allows hope to engulf it in the place of effort. It may be--as it always has been--an early indicator of where we are heading as a nation.
Let us do more than hope not. As Winston Churchill famously said at the close of his masterful work The Gathering Storm, "Facts are better than dreams."
Our own Bill Voegeli (like me, a California transplant . . . though that hardly distinguishes us out here) gives this buoyant approach to California's current prospects a sober and thoughtful assessment in the most recent edition of The City Journal. He, like many other observers of our troubles, does not see many reasons for optimism. Time magazine, however, clings to the hopes and wishes of a former era without, apparently, grasping that hope has to be backed by effort. A wish is not a thought. Hope is not a plan. In ignoring the facts before us, California may be more than an object lesson in what happens when a state allows hope to engulf it in the place of effort. It may be--as it always has been--an early indicator of where we are heading as a nation.
Let us do more than hope not. As Winston Churchill famously said at the close of his masterful work The Gathering Storm, "Facts are better than dreams."
Categories > Politics
1:25 PM / October 29, 2009
Categories > Conservatism
6:03 PM / October 28, 2009
Foreign Affairs
Another Podcast with Tucker
I did another podcast with David Tucker about all the complications of the Northwest Frontier (i.e. Afghanistan, Pakistan). Needless to say, the situation is getting worse and our choices aren't getting any better. If this keeps up, my next conversation with Tucker will be even less optimistic.
Categories > Foreign Affairs
5:23 PM / October 28, 2009
Men and Women
The Eternal Questions: Laundry, Basketball, Yawns and Lawns
Two amusing articles today, this one by Kathleen Parker and this one by Ruth Marcus, take on the big questions surrounding the eternal inequalities faced by women with respect to basketball and laundry. Feminists, of course, would argue that basketball (particularly when it's an all-male game with the President) represents "access" to power and laundry is but a metaphor for the continuing oppression of women within their own domiciles.
Marcus is right to note that women will "smile" when they read that the winner of the Nobel Laureate for Medicine was folding laundry when she discovered that she had won the prize for medicine at 5 a.m. one morning. And they will smile more when they hear that this now famous doctor noted that she did not expect the same could be said about what our President was doing when he got notice of his award. I did smile, broadly, and with knowing recognition of the sentiment.
But Marcus is probably right about another thing: women are reluctant to share these domestic burdens with their spouses for a variety of reasons. I think she gives too much credence to the power of generational habit, but she rightly notes the issue of control: female confidence in the fact that men will screw things up if they take charge of things that, traditionally, have been our domain. There is, certainly, some of that. And, with notable exceptions, it is entirely rational. I might mention a couple more. One is that shared burdens usually go two ways in a marriage. If I expect hubby to do laundry, then maybe he'll expect me to mow the lawn or, worse, change the oil. (Fill in your own blanks for these jobs . . . I understand that these things vary from marriage to marriage and this is the variety that we used to call the "spice" of life.) The point is, we all get comfortable with our own forms of drudgery and we also get comfortable about the right to complain about them. They amount, in a sense, to a kind of guilt power. It's not a very noble kind of power, I'll admit, but it has its uses. And, no doubt, it flows two ways. It is the kind of thing that people used to develop a sense of humor about and, today, people instead have to write long-winded editorials about in order to explain it to a denatured population.
Parker rightly notes this last phenomenon with a pronounced, "Yawn." It is boring to have to explain the obvious. And yet, here we are. One wonders how the likes of Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress will continue to find interested audiences for reports like the hackneyed, warmed-over, feminist pablum she served up in her report, ""A Woman's Nation Changes Everything" when people wake up to fact that we've been talking with relentless obtuseness about the same alleged "problems" for decades. Perhaps there is no feminist end of the rainbow . . . perhaps this is just, well, life. And the smart money is with our grandmothers and great-grandmothers who, when faced with life, learned how to laugh instead of whine. There's an awful lot of power in laughter too.
Marcus is right to note that women will "smile" when they read that the winner of the Nobel Laureate for Medicine was folding laundry when she discovered that she had won the prize for medicine at 5 a.m. one morning. And they will smile more when they hear that this now famous doctor noted that she did not expect the same could be said about what our President was doing when he got notice of his award. I did smile, broadly, and with knowing recognition of the sentiment.
But Marcus is probably right about another thing: women are reluctant to share these domestic burdens with their spouses for a variety of reasons. I think she gives too much credence to the power of generational habit, but she rightly notes the issue of control: female confidence in the fact that men will screw things up if they take charge of things that, traditionally, have been our domain. There is, certainly, some of that. And, with notable exceptions, it is entirely rational. I might mention a couple more. One is that shared burdens usually go two ways in a marriage. If I expect hubby to do laundry, then maybe he'll expect me to mow the lawn or, worse, change the oil. (Fill in your own blanks for these jobs . . . I understand that these things vary from marriage to marriage and this is the variety that we used to call the "spice" of life.) The point is, we all get comfortable with our own forms of drudgery and we also get comfortable about the right to complain about them. They amount, in a sense, to a kind of guilt power. It's not a very noble kind of power, I'll admit, but it has its uses. And, no doubt, it flows two ways. It is the kind of thing that people used to develop a sense of humor about and, today, people instead have to write long-winded editorials about in order to explain it to a denatured population.
Parker rightly notes this last phenomenon with a pronounced, "Yawn." It is boring to have to explain the obvious. And yet, here we are. One wonders how the likes of Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress will continue to find interested audiences for reports like the hackneyed, warmed-over, feminist pablum she served up in her report, ""A Woman's Nation Changes Everything" when people wake up to fact that we've been talking with relentless obtuseness about the same alleged "problems" for decades. Perhaps there is no feminist end of the rainbow . . . perhaps this is just, well, life. And the smart money is with our grandmothers and great-grandmothers who, when faced with life, learned how to laugh instead of whine. There's an awful lot of power in laughter too.
Categories > Men and Women
2:14 PM / October 28, 2009
Presidency
Bill McGurn on Obama's Uninspiring Blame Game
Even supposing--for a fanciful moment--that everything the Obama Administration says about George W. Bush and his share of the blame for the problems Obama faces were the 100% absolute truth, Bill McGurn wisely cautions that the track the President's rhetorical cart is headed down leads to a cliff. The unmistakable conclusion to be drawn from so much of what Obama and his various spokesmen in the Administration are saying is, "We are not up to the job." A "master rhetorician" ought, it seems to me, to know better.
Categories > Presidency
2:02 PM / October 28, 2009
Health Care
Too Much Fat in the Pork May Explain Swine Flu Shot Shortage
This doctor and former deputy commissioner to the FDA argues in today's Wall Street Journal that much of the delay surrounding the supplying to states with sufficient numbers of swine flu vaccines has to do with antiquated and and overbearing regulation at the FDA. Thus, even as President Obama has rightly approached the flu emergency with as much prudent executive action as he could, the limitations on the effectiveness of this approach are pronounced as big government bureaucracy, the rampant litigious nature of American culture, and obsequious bowing to special interest groups make it very difficult for private manufacturers to do their jobs. Dr. Gottlieb notes that in their more scientific and rational approach to regulation of this industry, this is one area where European nations have outpaced America.
I have mixed feelings about all of this. On the one hand, while I appreciate President Obama's efforts to encourage the distribution of the H1N1 vaccine and his commonsensical approach to it, I also appreciate the fact that he cannot summarily order it. Even if his is a rational mind, I don't want it governing mine, yours and everyone's in between. I wouldn't want to see that kind of power in the Presidency. It is good to know that he is not the law and that he is not above it. But on the other hand, who or what is the law in this situation? Is it the unelected bureaucracy within the FDA? Is it Congress? Is it the trial lawyers? Is it some maddening combination of all of these factors? That last is, certainly, what appears to be the case and it explains some of the mind-boggling inefficiencies that abound within the health industry.
If this episode is anything like a dry run for what an expanded role for government in health care might look like, we should take a pause. Adding more layers to the icing on this mess of a cake is not likely to make it look any less lopsided. In fact, too much icing can sometimes destroy an otherwise tasty cake. Perhaps we would be better served by an effort to begin fresh--with better ingredients and better cookware? Or, perhaps, we'd be even better served by a commonsensical approach that recognizes even lopsided cakes can taste pretty darn good.
I have mixed feelings about all of this. On the one hand, while I appreciate President Obama's efforts to encourage the distribution of the H1N1 vaccine and his commonsensical approach to it, I also appreciate the fact that he cannot summarily order it. Even if his is a rational mind, I don't want it governing mine, yours and everyone's in between. I wouldn't want to see that kind of power in the Presidency. It is good to know that he is not the law and that he is not above it. But on the other hand, who or what is the law in this situation? Is it the unelected bureaucracy within the FDA? Is it Congress? Is it the trial lawyers? Is it some maddening combination of all of these factors? That last is, certainly, what appears to be the case and it explains some of the mind-boggling inefficiencies that abound within the health industry.
If this episode is anything like a dry run for what an expanded role for government in health care might look like, we should take a pause. Adding more layers to the icing on this mess of a cake is not likely to make it look any less lopsided. In fact, too much icing can sometimes destroy an otherwise tasty cake. Perhaps we would be better served by an effort to begin fresh--with better ingredients and better cookware? Or, perhaps, we'd be even better served by a commonsensical approach that recognizes even lopsided cakes can taste pretty darn good.
Categories > Health Care
1:02 PM / October 28, 2009
Elections
New Jersey
According to the latest Quinnipiac University poll Corzine pulled ahead of Republican challenger Christie for the first time: 43-38% (with Daggett at 13%). Corzine has spent $23.6 on the race so far.
Categories > Elections
10:25 AM / October 28, 2009
Political Parties
Democratic Defections
Less than 24hrs after Senator Reid rolled the dice for public option and appealed for party unity, the defections begin: Liberman, Carper, Lincoln, Nelson....that's enough. A certain level of clarity about what some Democrats want, will help move even more moderate Dems is this from Barney Frank: "We are trying on every front to increase the role of government."
Categories > Political Parties
10:14 AM / October 28, 2009
Presidency
Hail, Caesar/Obama!
No, such praise is not sarcasm from a birther, Teapartier, or other such anti-intellectual dregs--it comes from the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman. (See my earlier post on Mr. Broadway Bombast.) Scott at Powerline quotes his boast:
This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists.
Scott deftly dispatches this error-plagued nonsense. I would add: In praising Bacon, Locke, and Newton as his greatest heroes, Thomas Jefferson claimed that his rival Alexander Hamilton had named Julius Caesar as his. This attribution was intended to underline Hamilton's reputation as a "monocrat"--no friend of the principles of 1776. Praises of Caesar and of Mao, obeisance to dictators, despots, and Nobel committees, assaults on an aggressive press-- what more does this Administration need to do to separate itself from the principles of 1776?
Categories > Presidency
11:40 AM / October 27, 2009
Political Parties
McConnell Lead Grows in Virginia
The WaPo reports that McConnell's lead over Deeds has grown to 55-44% among likely voters. Of course, this is not a referendum on Obama, the article hastens to point out. It also looks as if the GOP will pick up a number of seats in the House of Delegates, perhaps even enough for a majority. President Obama is in Norfolk today, by the way, campaigning for Deeds.
Categories > Political Parties
10:06 AM / October 27, 2009
Politics
Reid's Re-election Insurance
Dana Milbank has it about right. Reid announces yesterday (and I happened to see the press conference) that there will be a public option in the Senate bill (which the states could decline) and yet refuses to respond to questions (not from Fox News) about whether or not he has the votes. Well, he doesn't have the Democratic votes necessary (and has no GOP ones), so what is he up to? Milbank: "For Reid, it was an admission of the formidable power of liberal
interest groups. He had been the target of a petition drive and other
forms of pressure to bring the public option to the floor, and Monday's
move made him an instant hero on the left. Americans United for Change
hailed him for refusing 'to buckle in the face of withering pressure
from the big insurance companies.' MoveOn.org admired his 'leadership
in standing up to the special interests.'"
"Reid, facing a difficult reelection contest next year at home in Nevada, will need such groups to bring Democrats to the polls if he is to survive. But there were a few problems with the leader's solo move. He shifted the public pressure from himself to half a dozen moderates in his caucus." Milbank has it right. And this will not work; the bill will not be passed with a public option (do you think the four or so moderate Senate Dems are amused by this tactic?) and Reid will continue to have re-election problems.
"Reid, facing a difficult reelection contest next year at home in Nevada, will need such groups to bring Democrats to the polls if he is to survive. But there were a few problems with the leader's solo move. He shifted the public pressure from himself to half a dozen moderates in his caucus." Milbank has it right. And this will not work; the bill will not be passed with a public option (do you think the four or so moderate Senate Dems are amused by this tactic?) and Reid will continue to have re-election problems.
Categories > Politics
9:47 AM / October 27, 2009
Politics
Self-Parody From the Luv Guv
This is just too good: Gov. Mark Sanford (Is he still governor? -Ed. I guess so--he does seem to have disappeared from the pages of the National Enquirer, though), writing in the current issue of Newsweek, on why he likes Ayn Rand. I've always found her books too heavy to lug in my pack while hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Categories > Politics
3:45 PM / October 26, 2009
Politics
Worth a Couple Grins
- A growing 40 percent of all Americans self-identify as conservatives, about 36 percent as moderates, about 20 as liberal, according to Gallup. I wonder whether they factored in the reluctance of Republicans/conservatives to speak to pollsters.
- All politics is local: Local Chinese officials make school kids salute all cars on the road (as a safety measure). (I can imagine the compelled salutes American kids might give.) But the other examples of Chinese local tyranny are far less petty--killing dogs, compulsory liquor and cigarette purchases, licenses for harvesting one's own corn, and prohibiting women from being secretaries.
- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is #15 on the NY Times trade paperback bestseller list and rising. I'm not sure what this Zombie business means--it's all over comics strips, and kids talk about it. Something to do with the "end of history," but there may be other meanings of brain-eating.
Categories > Politics
2:37 PM / October 26, 2009
Religion
The Strategy behind Pope Benedict's Blitzkrieg
Ross Douthat sees that the Pope understands the world stakes in his opening to the Anglicans: It's about standing up to Islam.
Where the European encounter is concerned, Pope Benedict has opted for public confrontation. In a controversial 2006 address in Regensburg, Germany, he explicitly challenged Islam's compatibility with the Western way of reason -- and sparked, as if in vindication of his point, a wave of Muslim riots around the world.By contrast, the Church of England's leadership has opted for conciliation (some would say appeasement), with the Archbishop of Canterbury going so far as to speculate about the inevitability of some kind of sharia law in Britain.
There are an awful lot of Anglicans, in England and Africa alike, who would prefer a leader who takes Benedict's approach to the Islamic challenge. Now they can have one, if they want him.
Categories > Religion
12:15 PM / October 26, 2009
Elections
Obama Hangover
The Los Angeles Times considers how "Obama Hangover" (or Fatigue). It is not possible to get Dems very excited this year, after the loud party last year. It will be a low Dem turnout in state and local elections, and this almost certainly means they will lose Virginia, and possibly even New Jersey. And Obama can't help here, even though, as CNN admits, that this is a referendum on him; he is not wildly popular. Yet, he is gamely going back to Virginia on Tuesday to campaign for Deeds, but note that Romney is there the next day to campaign for McConnell. Perhaps a foreshadow of 2012.
Categories > Elections
5:07 PM / October 25, 2009
Political Parties
Michelle Bachmann
George Will's portrait of Rep. Michelle Bachmann reminds me that some very good politicians come about their virtues naturally, while others spend their time constructing them. Here is the New York Times portrait of her from a few weeks ago. Surprise, it's not as favorable.
Categories > Political Parties
7:17 AM / October 24, 2009
Presidency
"He's Got a Bullhorn in his Hand Everyday . . ."
. . . but he doesn't seem to understand that he owns the rubble. Recalling the moment when it became clear that President George W. Bush owned his presidency--September 14, 2001 when he stood amidst the rubble of the World Trade Center with bullhorn in hand telling the terrorists that they'd soon hear from us--Peggy Noonan today argues that Obama's problem is that he won't take on the rubble and he won't put down the bullhorn.
The tell, she suggests, is in his defensive posture amidst the rubble of crumbling poll numbers and waning support from independents who--she notes--now look more like Republicans than Democrats in their stated political concerns. But Obama is a man used to playing the long game (something I'd suggest too many Republicans seem to forget about him). Further, he is a man who, "seems in general to stick to a course once he's chosen it, though arguably especially when he's wrong." As with most striking aspects of a man's character, Obama's virtue can be his vice. He claims to represent the vanguard of the political scene . . . to be the man with "vision" and the courage to take us to broad sunlit uplands of hope with the change necessary to get there. But does he really "see" or does he merely hope? Is he really a man gifted with "vision" or does he simply cling to "dreams" (whether they are his or his fathers?) in the way that he might suggest a Pennsylvania farmer clings to his God and his guns? Shifting tactics with a single-minded purpose is one thing. Intransigent disregard for the will of the people is quite another.
Noonan seems to think that the truth is that Obama is a poor reader of the political landscape--and, more particularly, of his fellow Americans. (Her line on his "g" dropping is spot on.) Obama is trying to force a template to fit the current political atmosphere in a way that just doesn't apply. Key graph:
The tell, she suggests, is in his defensive posture amidst the rubble of crumbling poll numbers and waning support from independents who--she notes--now look more like Republicans than Democrats in their stated political concerns. But Obama is a man used to playing the long game (something I'd suggest too many Republicans seem to forget about him). Further, he is a man who, "seems in general to stick to a course once he's chosen it, though arguably especially when he's wrong." As with most striking aspects of a man's character, Obama's virtue can be his vice. He claims to represent the vanguard of the political scene . . . to be the man with "vision" and the courage to take us to broad sunlit uplands of hope with the change necessary to get there. But does he really "see" or does he merely hope? Is he really a man gifted with "vision" or does he simply cling to "dreams" (whether they are his or his fathers?) in the way that he might suggest a Pennsylvania farmer clings to his God and his guns? Shifting tactics with a single-minded purpose is one thing. Intransigent disregard for the will of the people is quite another.
Noonan seems to think that the truth is that Obama is a poor reader of the political landscape--and, more particularly, of his fellow Americans. (Her line on his "g" dropping is spot on.) Obama is trying to force a template to fit the current political atmosphere in a way that just doesn't apply. Key graph:
The problem isn't his personality, it's his policies. His problem isn't what George W. Bush left but what he himself has done. It is a problem of political judgment, of putting forward bills that were deeply flawed or off-point. Bailouts, the stimulus package, cap-and-trade; turning to health care at the exact moment in history when his countrymen were turning their concerns to the economy, joblessness, debt and deficits--all of these reflect a misreading of the political terrain. They are matters of political judgment, not personality. (Republicans would best heed this as they gear up for 2010: Don't hit him, hit his policies. That's where the break with the people is occurring.)Very well said, indeed.
Categories > Presidency
12:42 PM / October 23, 2009
Journalism
Fox in the Chickencoop?
As I rarely parse an Obama speech and I never watch Fox news (not getting it and other cable news in my basic cable package, so I have no idea who Glen Beck is), maybe I can offer some unprejudiced insight into the recent contretemps. Krauthammer attempts a principled objection--though he misses the point about Madisonian factions: Factions are not "legitimate"; they are by definition unjust groups, who misuse the fundamental commitment to liberty. So the real objection to Obama's shunning of Fox (he spent a couple hours before a group of leftist journalists dismissing it as "talk radio") is his assault on liberty--his misunderstanding of the freedom of the press.
For all their leftist inclinations, a significant number of journalists don't want to be known as anyone's stooge. The Fox infection will spread quicker than the swine flu.
As evidence see the NY Times on Fox's effect on the MSM:
White House officials said [...] they noticed a column by Clark Hoyt, the public editor of The Times, in which [leftist Clarence Thomas hater] Jill Abramson, one of the paper's two managing editors, described her newsroom's "insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio." The Washington Post's executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, had already expressed similar concerns about his newsroom...."This is a discussion that probably had to be had about their approach to things," [Obama political strategist David] Axelrod said. "Our concern is other media not follow their lead."
In fact, perhaps the most effective media purveyor of conservatism (next to Rush and Fox) is C-Span radio and news. (Have I let the cat out of the bag?) For without its coverage of otherwise obscure think-tank speakers and panels, many eminent conservative voices would get no significant hearing at all. And their book programs may be the best thing on tv (save the excellent baseball playoffs this year).
Categories > Journalism
12:15 PM / October 23, 2009
Elections
Virginia Lost for Dems?
Just in case anyone is in doubt about the outcome of the Virginia governor's race, note this article from the Washington Post. It begins: "Sensing that victory in the race for Virginia governor is slipping
away, Democrats at the national level are laying the groundwork to
blame a loss in a key swing state on a weak candidate who ran a poor
campaign that failed to fully embrace President Obama until days before
the election."
Perhaps even more significant, note that in this poll 31% of blacks support the Republican McDonnell.
Perhaps even more significant, note that in this poll 31% of blacks support the Republican McDonnell.
Categories > Elections
8:54 AM / October 23, 2009
Politics
Are There Any "Right" Lights in the Big Cities?
Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis have a smart and compelling conversation with Michael Anton, former speechwriter to many Republican politicians (for these purposes, most notably including former Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani), about what it might take to see viable Republican candidates in coastal big city politics. Anton's answer, in short, is to be careful what you wish for. Things would have to be very bad indeed, for Republicans to fare well in most coastal urban settings. His long answer, however, is both more satisfying and more illuminating. He spans a broad spectrum of issues from the nature and purpose of the Republican party and the direction in which it is now heading to the more practical questions of how Republican politicians might gain both rhetorical and strategic headway in an atmosphere that seems so intransigently stacked against them; a useful thing to contemplate, I'd suggest, for the broader national political scene as well. In it, I think, there may be something to learn for purposes of contrast and comparison between . . . oh, I don't know . . . a Sarah Palin type of candidate v. a Liz Cheney figure? Not that either of them could ever win a race for dog catcher in NYC . . . but there are broader principles offered up for your consideration in this discussion that might certainly apply.
Then, too, there's a bonus bit offered at the end for those of you contemplating the nation's declining sartorial situation. Could the election of Obama really mean the end of the tie? Previous recessions have at least had the benefit of suggesting to people the notion of taking greater care in their attire. But despite the current recession, the tie seems to be losing ground. Anton, means to do what he can (which, despite the publication of this fine work, appears not to be much) to stand athwart the tailor's table shouting, "NO!"
Then, too, there's a bonus bit offered at the end for those of you contemplating the nation's declining sartorial situation. Could the election of Obama really mean the end of the tie? Previous recessions have at least had the benefit of suggesting to people the notion of taking greater care in their attire. But despite the current recession, the tie seems to be losing ground. Anton, means to do what he can (which, despite the publication of this fine work, appears not to be much) to stand athwart the tailor's table shouting, "NO!"
Categories > Politics
2:27 AM / October 23, 2009
Economy
Please Don't Stimulate Me!
This table shows that since passing the stimulus package--which, you will remember, was promised and supposed to "save or create" millions of jobs--49 out of 50 states have actually LOST jobs. Some states have lost quite a number of them.
Categories > Economy
4:07 PM / October 22, 2009
Education
Schools of Education
Education Secretary Arne Duncan is criticizing schools of education, although it's not perfectly clear why.
Categories > Education
3:19 PM / October 22, 2009
Elections
Bob McDonnell as "conservative pragmatist"
Rich Lowry thinks well of Bob McDonnell (if polls hold up, the next governor of Virginia) and he explains why. He compares him to Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, and thinks the two should be watched; they could re-invigorate a kind of Republicanism much needed by the GOP and the country. I agree, but don't much like the label.
Categories > Elections
12:27 PM / October 22, 2009
