thenewswalk.com

On Capital Punishment

2009-09-18T03:51:00.003-04:00

The Vatican's position is that it opposes capital punishment. It's the normative Roman Catholic teaching, although as far as I know one can still be a Catholic in good standing if he or she still favors capital punishment.

Me, I think the arguments are stronger in favor of capital punishment, not about justice so much, but especially Dennis Prager's argument that murderers tend to kill again in prison, guards or fellow prisoners. Once you can bring yourself to kill a fellow human being, adding another to you list isn't a big deal.

So, Prager argues, if and when the murderer murders again, the moral responsibility lies with those who kept him from his deserved justice and fate.

I've tended to agree with that unassailable logic.

My best and perhaps only counterargument has been that executing a human being dehumanizes his executioners.

His name is Romell Broom. I could call him a convicted rapist and murderer---which he is---but I think we should call human beings by their names.

In Ohio a few days ago, the state sent Romell Broom to go meet his Maker. Mercifully, by lethal injection. In theory, you just go to sleep. Eternal sleep.

You can read about what happened here.

In short, they tried to find a usable vein to deliver the lethal injection but couldn't find one. They tried for hours. Hours. In fact, Romell Broom tried to help them find one. He pinched his arm, he rolled over onto his stomach.

No luck.

Finally, the warden called the governor and told him of the difficulties. The governor postponed Romell Broom's rendezvous with destiny for a week, the execution is scheduled for then.

"What Would Jesus Do" is an often-abused political question. But He wouldn't do this or be any part of it, and more importantly, He wouldn't ask his followers to do this, far lesser mortals than He.

He wouldn't put them through it, no way, no how. Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord, and that means vengeance belongs to God, not man. "Vengeance" doesn't mean revenge, it means justice.

No to capital punishment. I guess I just made up my mind, finally. Wish I knew why it took me so long...

Obama Opponents are Racist

2009-09-16T18:59:00.003-04:00

Oh, it's on Page One of the Obama playbook. The NYT Magazine ran "The Mellowing of Bill Clinton" piece months ago:

And the man once called the “first black president” remains deeply wounded by allegations that he made racially insensitive remarks during the campaign, like dismissing Obama’s South Carolina win by comparing it with Jesse Jackson’s victories there in the 1980s.

“None of them ever really took seriously the race rap,” he told me. “They knew it was politics. I had one minister in Texas in the general election come up and put his arm around me.” This was an Obama supporter. “And he came up, threw his arm around me and said, ‘You’ve got to forgive us for that race deal.’ He said, ‘That was out of line.’ But he said, ‘You know, we wanted to win real bad.’ And I said, ‘I got no problem with that.’ I said it’s fine; it’s O.K. And we laughed about it and we went on.”

Well, Bill laughed, I guess, but it was Hillary who took it in the pantsuit.

I was a little surprised the elites and mainstream media didn't pick up on this, but the answer's obvious now---they intended to use the same slimy tactic again, this time at the real enemy, the right. If they pulled it on Bill Clinton, what chance do the rest of us have?

No doubt some people are serious in calling Obama's opponents racist, like that unfortunate puddinhead Jimmy Carter, but for the rest, it's just all part of the game.

2009-09-10T21:04:00.002-04:00

I share some of my colleague Davy Buck's enjoyment of Glenn Beck, mostly because we have a common enemy, the administration's and this Congress' affinity for statism. And Beck does dig where the mainstream media doesn't---into fellows like Van Jones [whom he got], and into the looming specter of "community organizing" on a national scale by ACORN [which he just took a nice bite out of].

But I would caution the righteous Right against putting too many eggs in Glenn Beck's basket. He's a showy populist, not a genuine and well-grounded thinker like a Krauthammer or a Beckwith. He's already said some stupid things that cross the line:

...that President Obama has "a deep-seated hatred of white people, or white culture, I don't know what it is..."

This simply won't do.

If the great Newton L. Gingrich, who's much less of a hot dog and a much better thinker than Beck, could screw up and hurt conservatism, that Glenn Beck will screw up and hurt it is a near certainty. And unlike Gingrich, Glenn Beck will never resign.

What Beck said in the above video is already enough to discredit him forever to cite him as a source in polite argument.

So, enjoy him while he lasts and scores a few lefty scalps, but keep in mind it's tick...tick...tick...

I'll defend Edmund Burke-style conservatism 'til the cows come home, but Beck's hero is Thomas Paine, and damned if I'm gonna be left holding the bag for either of 'em.

On "Death Panels"

2009-08-18T13:21:00.002-04:00

Well, the leftosphere is having great fun with whatever Sarah Palin wrote on Facebook about the new health bill's "death panels", but "IV," the mechanism for end-of-life counseling

[p.425]
"(IV) is guided by a coalition of stakeholders includes representatives from emergency medical services, emergency department physicians or nurses, state long-term care association, state medical association, state surveyors, agency responsible for senior services, state department of health, state hospital association, home health association, state bar association, and state hospice association."

...may not be a "death panel," but how such bureaucracies become "stakeholders" in another individual's life must have been an argument I missed.

The whole section is about DNRs and the like, employing the euphemism of "orders." Read it for yourself.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2009/07/27/health-care-bill-page-425-the-truth.htm

Whether or not the term "death panels" strictly applies is not the heart of the matter. There is indeed something more going on here than Sarah Palin, and it's disingenuous to pretend there's not. These are bureaucratic panels advising on matters of life and death.

Bureaucracies are not "stakeholders" in human lives. At least not yet. But if and when they do become "stakeholders" in my life [and death], I shall find no reason to trust their advice.

In fact, any sane person would shun it.

Progressivism Never Changes

2009-02-23T03:14:00.002-05:00

(L to R) George Bernard Shaw, Hilaire Belloc, GK Chesterton, 1928.

What with all the "change" and "hope" we've just installed in Washington, the estimable GK Chesterton on George Bernard Shaw and "progressivism" seems appropriate:

“After belabouring a great many people for a great many years for being unprogressive, Mr. Shaw has discovered, with characteristic sense, that it is very doubtful whether any existing human being with two legs can be progressive at all. Having come to doubt whether humanity can be combined with progress, most people, easily pleased, would have elected to abandon progress and remain with humanity. Mr. Shaw, not being easily pleased, decides to throw over humanity with all its limitations and go in for progress for its own sake. If man, as we know him, is incapable of the philosophy of progress, Mr. Shaw asks, not for a new kind of philosophy, but for a new kind of man. It is rather as if a nurse had tried a rather bitter food for some years on a baby, and on discovering that it was not suitable, should not throw away the food and ask for a new food, but throw the baby out of window, and ask for a new baby.”

So if we're the change we've been waiting for, do we need to throw ourselves out and start all over?

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From a Caller on Talkradio:

2009-02-12T05:57:00.001-05:00

President Obama's gonna give me a pony!

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Two Terms I Could Live Without Hearing for Awhile...

2009-02-11T00:46:00.000-05:00

"Stimulus" and "lavender sachet..."

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Help Wanted Ad of the Year

2009-01-16T23:38:00.007-05:00

At least the year so far, but the economy being what it is, it's likely to get even stranger, even if this is from LA...

[sic]

Looking for Guitar player/vocalist..or bass player who can play guitar and has lead vocal and background vocal ability (good ear for harmonies) to be a member of the STILT ROCKERS. if you can walk on stilts of course that is a plus .....however if you are willing to learn how to walk on stilts that's OK too!
MUST have a really good knowledge of classic rock/pop and R&B tunes....ex; the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, Blondie, and other main stream classic artists. We have corp clients waiting on this trio to get promo together to book events in the very near future. serious players ONLY!

To respond to this ad, man, you'd have to be really serious. Like finding yourself sleeping on your ex-girlfriend's couch. That's really, really serious, although somewhat the norm for rock musicians.

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John Adams' Christianity

2009-01-16T17:27:00.008-05:00

At least for one day in 1810, it wasn't exactly what I thought...
by Tom Van Dyke

I find John Adams confusing at best---and make that confused---in his dabblings in theology, and I've previously called him a twit and a ninny when it comes to these things. An opinion I've not been led to change, mind you: I find his understanding shallow when it comes to his tourism of other religions, a fragment from the Greeks here, a page from the Hindus there, and he's not particularly incisive when it comes to the Christian religion, with which he was most familiar.

Neither do I think Adams' and Jefferson's letters [frequently to each other] after they left public life are particularly relevant to our studies, a) because these ex-presidents were out of the game and b) because their letters were private.

But I'd like to look at a letter I recently ran across from Adams to Dr. Benjamin Rush [who himself got Adams and Jefferson writing to each other again after a long estrangement]: first, because some folks think Adams' thoughts are important, and second because I think this letter might be typical of general attitudes toward Christianity back in those days, and probably our own days as well.

"Shallow" would be too pejorative, but what Jefferson called the "pillow of ignorance" in his younger and wiser days before he too decided to become a theological "expert" fits here: that most of us don't worry much about what can't be known about God or Jesus or whatever, although we have a dim awareness---seeing through a glass darkly, as an evangelist once put it---about answering the most immediate philosophical question, How Should Man Live?

JOHN ADAMS' LETTER TO BENJAMIN RUSH

JANUARY 21, 1810

"[Thomas Paine's] political writings, I am singular enough to believe, have done more harm than his irreligious ones. He understood neither government nor religion."

Oh, my. For John Adams to say Paine didn't understand religion, well, we might compare the color of their kettles, but let's move on. Paine, of course, was the author of The Age of Reason, which trashed the Bible and religion in general, and for which he got trashed by just about everyone in America in return.

"From a malignant heart he wrote virulent declamations, which the enthusiastic fury of the times intimidated all men, even Mr. Burke, from answering as he ought."

Wow. A "malignant heart," and one that could intimidate even the best of men like Edmund Burke. A sage observation, although perhaps Christian charity and the quality of mercy might have tempered what would have been Burke's just response.

"[Paine's] deism, as it appears to me, has promoted rather than retarded the cause of revolution in America, and indeed in Europe."

This would be 1810, not 1776. I don't think Adams means this as praise: Revolution would be a bad thing, and therefore deism, too, at least Paine's deism. By this time, Paine had made his way to revolutionary France, where he was thrown in prison as an agitator. President Washington let his "malignant heart" stew there. [And oh!, you should know about Thomas Paine, revolutionary France, and President George Washington. What a drama!] But back to the action:

His [Paine's] billingsgate, stolen from Blount's Oracles of Reason, from Bolingbroke., Voltaire, Berenger, &c.,

Paine's not even a visionary, he's a mere plagiarist in John Adams' eyes. Voltaire, of course is just the type of "Enlightenment" figure whose hostility to Christianity was ill-received in the new United States, as Adams ills that hostility:

"...will never discredit Christianity, which will hold its ground in some degree as long as human nature shall have any thing moral or intellectual left in it."

Ah. Christianity comports with human nature, then, or at least what is best in man. This is an important point, as "natural law" acknowledges human nature, and is also "the law written on man's heart," as the aforementioned evangelist [OK, OK---it was Paul, who wrote the Epistles in the Bible] also noted.

"The Christian religion, as I understand it, is the brightness of the glory and the express portrait of the character of the eternal, self-existent, independent, benevolent, all powerful and all merciful creator, preserver, and father of the universe, the first good, first perfect, and first fair. It will last as long as the world."

All John Adams is saying here is that Christian teaching [religion] reflects the true nature of God. That's nice, but as a tourist of other religions, Adams often says the same thing about them, too. So let's continue:

Neither savage nor civilized man, without a revelation, could ever have discovered or invented it.

Aha. Just one sentence later, our eureka moment! What is essentially Christian could only have come from God, and only by direct revelation!

I mean, why would "the law of nature" oblige you to "turn the other cheek?" That's crazy, man. Dogs that do that become bottom dog, not Top Dog, and that's only if he doesn't get eaten by his fellows.

This is where the "law of nature" as expressed by Thomas Hobbes comes in, the view that life is nasty, brutish and short and that man enters into the "social contract" of government mostly out of a fear of violent death. Or one might enter into the "social contract" to preserve his "right" of hedonism!

Adams is arguing anything but.

"Ask me not, then, whether I am a Catholic or Protestant, Calvinist or Arminian. As far as they are Christians, I wish to be a fellow-disciple with them all."

How ecumenical of John Adams here, but why not?

I think we find him at his most honest here, and probably pretty close to many of us in 2009---content to sleep on the "pillow of ignorance," but we still have to get up in the morning, look at ourselves in the mirror, then go face the world.

After reading so many of John Adams' letters expressing his theological doubts and explorations but still seeking a universality of religious truth, I was a bit surprised to run across this. But it jibes/vibes/chimes with all of his other writings. Just because a man doubts and inquires and explores beyond his self-drawn boundaries, that should never be taken that he abandoned his home.

"Test all things, and hold firmly that which is good," said that aforementioned evangelist. "Breathe," Paul might well have said to equal effect, because that's how man, armed with free will, seems to be wired.

My opinion of John Adams as theological dilettante and poseur has been moderated by looking at this letter. And if Thomas Paine could intimidate even the estimable Edmund Burke, we should not doubt that the vociferious skeptic Thomas Jefferson could intimidate John Adams, and we might read their correspondence with that in mind. After all, Jefferson had once cut off his correspondence with this same Benjamin Rush over just who Jesus was. [Rush was what we might call an "ecumenical" Christian himself, a little of this, a little of that, but still recognizably Christian.]

And so, Adams never wrote to Jefferson like he does here to Rush; Jefferson was quite clear that he considered Jesus a philosopher, perhaps the greatest moral philosopher of all time, but still just a philosopher. But at least on one day in 1810, Adams states the belief that Jesus' moral philosophy came from God, not man.

As we try to get a handle on the religious landscape of the Founding, this is not a small thing.

MARS FARTS!

2009-01-15T05:00:00.006-05:00

True story.

According to The Sun [UK], NASA will announce that

ALIEN microbes living just below the Martian soil are responsible for a haze of methane around the Red Planet, NASA scientists believe.

The gas, belched in vast quantities in our world by cows, was detected by orbiting spacecraft and from Earth using giant telescopes.

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Merry Christmas from the Moon

2008-12-24T08:22:00.000-05:00

(This was our blog's message for the past few years. Another year has passed, but do the important things ever change?

Remembering the important things, as these men did, seems longer ago and even farther away with each passing year, and to some, even more silly. But Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all those here gathered anyway, and may we smile today, give thanks, and be inspired in the coming year to perpetuate their silliness...)

It was on Christmas Eve 1968 that the astronauts of Apollo 8, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders, became the first of mankind to see an earthrise from the orbit of the moon, and looking back on us, they spoke these words:

Anders: "We are now approaching lunar sunrise. And, for all the people back on earth, the crew of Apollo 8 have a message that we would like to send to you...

"In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth. And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness."

Lovell: "And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."

Borman: "And God said, Let the waters under the Heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas: and God saw that it was good."

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good earth."

It is good. God bless us, every one.

A Word About Detroit Labor Costs

2008-11-18T19:18:00.003-05:00

Note that the widely-reported difference between hourly compensation costs at the "Big" Three and the nonunion U.S. auto plants understates the cost disadvantage of the former, as the work rules and other factors force GM, Ford, and Chrysler to use more manhours per vehicle than is the case for the others. Hence, the per-vehicle cost disadvantage is greater than the mere difference in hourly compensation. And this is quite apart from the adverse effect of the jobs bank and other legacy costs, which are not relevant on the margin per vehicle produced, but which must be paid and thus are relevant in terms of the ability of the Three to attract private capital. As they sang in the original "M.A.S.H.," suicide (i.e., bankruptcy) is painless, brings on many changes, etc. All for the better.

Starting Point

2008-11-17T20:54:00.004-05:00

I submit that any legitimate argument made by proponents of an auto industry bailout (especially those in Congress) must begin with this graph. Anything else is the work of a scoundrel.

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The Queen Mother Goes Off the Reservation

2008-11-14T02:10:00.007-05:00

Elton John, perhaps the world's best-known Gay Guy, is getting flack for his lack of outrage at California's Proposition 8 winning a majority of the vote:

"I don't want to be married. I'm very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership," John says. "The word 'marriage,' I think, puts a lot of people off.

"You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships."

Elton seems OK with his legally secured equal rights without demanding further "equal rights." Interesting. I wonder if Judy Garland will stop buying his records.

The thing is, there's been very little resistance in America against the establishment of the concept of civil unions. This speaks well of the American people, I think. We aren't cementheads: we're a fair, just, reasonable and compassionate people. There's not a single American who doesn't know a gay-oriented person or doesn't have one [or more] in their family. It's abominably stupid to ban anyone from a hospital visit or from inheriting a house that he/she has lived in for most of their adult life. America has recognized this already.

On the other hand, using legal mechanisms, especially the courts, to take away freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, of reason, about what "marriage" means...well, that's not fair, just or compassionate either.

I think Mr. John got it about right here. Well done, Sir Elton.

Scratch That - Will $40 Bucks an Hour be Enough?

2008-11-08T17:09:00.006-05:00

Update: It seems that the Obama camp has updated their website, and so required volunteerism has been replaced by goals and plans. Of course, the abysmal policies of the last eight years under George W. Bush have left the volunteerism of our youth in such a state that it looks like a volunteerism stimulus package will be required.

The revised statement now reads:

...all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free.

So we've now gone from, um, inspiring volunteerism to paying $40/hr to pick up trash at soccer fields. That's quite a change in 24 hours.

Who says the next generation are a bunch of slackers?

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Yes We Can! (And by that, we mostly mean you.)

2008-11-07T13:29:00.014-05:00

Apparently the Obama campaign was so inspired by the willingness of The Youth to support his candidacy, that he didn't think they'd mind being required to volunteer up to 5% of a typical 2,000 hour work year to community service.

This from Change.gov, the President-Elect's website:

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

What did you think Barack was going to do once elected, just let you lie around the frat house all day in your underwear?

You're not one of those Selfish types, are you?

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We Have a New President

2008-11-05T02:28:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to President-elect Barack Obama, his party, and everyone else who voted for him. I didn't, but he's going to be my president. Our president, the President of the United States.

Like many in his party when it came to President George W. Bush, and like many from my own party when it came to President Bill Clinton, I expect to be in the opposition.

But unlike them, I pledge to be a member of the loyal opposition. I resolve not to descend into the pettiness that marked the opposition to our last---two-term, BTW---presidents. That was unpatriotic.

I once wrote that if Senator Obama used the word "liberty" in a meaningful way between then and Election day, I'd vote for him myself.

To my knowledge, President-elect Obama never did, and so I didn't.

And so, in the meantime before President Obama's inauguration, I shall brush up on my Adam Smith, and on Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, as we all should.

Just in case, y'know? The wisdom of the ages might come in handy, liberty and all that.

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Media Can't be Straight With Us

2008-10-30T12:38:00.001-04:00

Is this the most despicable distortion you have ever seen?

Read the article and then look at the headline.

ELECTION 2008 BULLETIN!

2008-10-22T03:53:00.007-04:00

Oh, we've let things go to hell around here at what used to be your favorite thoughtful blog, thenewswalk.com. All anybody wanted to talk about was the election, and it's done better everyday elsewhere. Everywhere.

But lookee here---I was talking at Mrs. TVD tonight, as married people do, with my one thought on this election we're all so thoroughly sick of:

TVD: Y'know, I always expect John McCain to come off as a bit of a cementhead. He's been busy. Combat pilot, prisoner of war, catting around after they finally let him go from North Vietnam. Then onto the Senate, where politics doesn't leave much time to actually learn much.

But Barack Obama---private school in Hawaii, two colleges, one of them Ivy League [Columbia], then Harvard Law School. Got elected editor of the Law Review, which goes to the brilliantest of the brilliant.

But Barack never wrote anything at the law review, didn't even leave a trace you could google. And the thing that bothers me most is that in two years running for president, he's never said a single damn thing that made me say, "Hey, that's brilliant. I never thought of that!" Instead, I hear the same ol', same ol' whatever.

Mrs. TVD: McCain's a jock. Obama's a hologram.

Mr. TVD has nothing to add, except that he married well.

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Camille-Oh! Appearance

2008-10-08T14:28:00.002-04:00

Who says atheist leftists are never honest? As in the old lawyer joke, it's the 99 percent dishonest ones giving the other 1 percent a bad name. Here is Camille Paglia, giving no quarter and taking no prisoners as usual.

Yes, both Todd and Sarah Palin, whom most people in the U.S. and abroad had never even heard of until six weeks ago, have emerged as powerful new symbols of a revived contemporary feminism. That the macho Todd, with his champion athleticism and working-class cred, can so amiably cradle babies and care for children is a huge step forward in American sexual symbolism.

Although nothing will sway my vote for Obama, I continue to enjoy Sarah Palin's performance on the national stage. During her vice-presidential debate last week with Joe Biden (whose conspiratorial smiles with moderator Gwen Ifill were outrageous and condescending toward his opponent), I laughed heartily at Palin's digs and slams and marveled at the way she slowly took over the entire event. I was sorry when it ended! But Biden wasn't -- judging by his Gore-like sighs and his slow sinking like a punctured blimp. Of course Biden won on points, but TV (a visual medium) never cares about that.

The mountain of rubbish poured out about Palin over the past month would rival Everest. What a disgrace for our jabbering army of liberal journalists and commentators, too many of whom behaved like snippy jackasses. The bourgeois conventionalism and rank snobbery of these alleged humanitarians stank up the place. As for Palin's brutally edited interviews with Charlie Gibson and that viper, Katie Couric, don't we all know that the best bits ended up on the cutting-room floor? Something has gone seriously wrong with Democratic ideology, which seems to have become a candied set of holier-than-thou bromides attached like tutti-frutti to a quivering green Jell-O mold of adolescent sentimentality.

And where is all that lurid sexual fantasy coming from? When I watch Sarah Palin, I don't think sex -- I think Amazon warrior! I admire her competitive spirit and her exuberant vitality, which borders on the supernormal. The question that keeps popping up for me is whether Palin, who was born in Idaho, could possibly be part Native American (as we know her husband is), which sometimes seems suggested by her strong facial contours. I have felt that same extraordinary energy and hyper-alertness billowing out from other women with Native American ancestry -- including two overpowering celebrity icons with whom I have worked.

One of the most idiotic allegations batting around out there among urban media insiders is that Palin is "dumb." Are they kidding? What level of stupidity is now par for the course in those musty circles? (The value of Ivy League degrees, like sub-prime mortgages, has certainly been plummeting. As a Yale Ph.D., I have a perfect right to my scorn.) People who can't see how smart Palin is are trapped in their own narrow parochialism -- the tedious, hackneyed forms of their upper-middle-class syntax and vocabulary.

As someone whose first seven years were spent among Italian-American immigrants (I never met an elderly person who spoke English until we moved from Endicott to rural Oxford, New York, when I was in first grade), I am very used to understanding meaning through what might seem to others to be outlandish or fractured variations on standard English. Furthermore, I have spent virtually my entire teaching career (nearly four decades) in arts colleges, where the expressiveness of highly talented students in dance, music and the visual arts takes a hundred different forms. Finally, as a lover of poetry (my last book was about that), I savor every kind of experimentation with standard English -- beginning with Shakespeare, who was the greatest improviser of them all at a time when there were no grammar rules.

Many others listening to Sarah Palin at her debate went into conniptions about what they assailed as her incoherence or incompetence. But I was never in doubt about what she intended at any given moment. On the contrary, I was admiring not only her always shapely and syncopated syllables but the innate structures of her discourse -- which did seem to fly by in fragments at times but are plainly ready to be filled with deeper policy knowledge, as she gains it (hopefully over the next eight years of the Obama presidencies). This is a tremendously talented politician whose moment has not yet come. That she holds views completely opposed to mine is irrelevant.

Even if she disappears from the scene forever after a McCain defeat, Palin will still have made an enormous and lasting contribution to feminism. As I said in my last column, Palin has made the biggest step forward in reshaping the persona of female authority since Madonna danced her dominatrix way through the shattered puritan barricades of the feminist establishment. In 1990, in a highly controversial New York Times op-ed that attacked old-guard feminist ideology, I declared that "Madonna is the future of feminism" -- a prophecy that was ridiculed at the time but that turned out to be quite true. Madonna put pro-sex feminism on the international map.

But it is now 18 years later -- the span of an entire generation. The instabilities and diminishments for young women raised in an increasingly shallow media environment have become all too obvious. I had grown up in a vibrant pop culture with glorious women stars of voluptuous sensuality -- above all Elizabeth Taylor, sewn into that silky white slip as the vixen Manhattan call girl of "Butterfield 8." In college, I feasted on foreign films starring sexual sophisticates like Jeanne Moreau, Anouk Aimée and Catherine Deneuve. Sex today, however, has become brittle and superficial. Except for the occasional diverting flash of Lindsay Lohan's borrowed bosom, I see nothing whatever that is worth a second glance. Pro-sex feminism has worked itself out and, like all movements, has degenerated into clichés. And even Madonna, with her skeletal megalomania, looks like a refugee from a horror movie.

The next phase of feminism must circle back and reappropriate the ancient persona of the mother -- without losing career ambition or power of assertion. Betty Friedan, who had first attacked the cult of postwar domesticity, had long warned second-wave feminists such as Gloria Steinem about the damaging exclusion of homemakers from their value system. The animus of liberal feminists toward religion must also end (I am speaking as an atheist). Feminism must reexamine all of its assumptions, including its death grip on abortion, if it wishes to survive.

The hysterical emotionalism and eruptions of amoral malice at the arrival of Sarah Palin exposed the weaknesses and limitations of current feminism. But I am convinced that Palin's bracing mix of male and female voices, as well as her grounding in frontier grit and audacity, will prove to be a galvanizing influence on aspiring Democratic women politicians too, from the municipal level on up. Palin has shown a brand-new way of defining female ambition -- without losing femininity, spontaneity or humor. She's no pre-programmed wonk of the backstage Hillary Clinton school; she's pugnacious and self-created, the product of no educational or political elite -- which is why her outsider style has been so hard for media lemmings to comprehend. And by the way, I think Tina Fey's witty impersonations of Palin have been fabulous. But while Fey has nailed Palin's cadences and charm, she can't capture the energy, which is a force of nature.

Out For a Dozen Counts

2008-10-04T21:33:00.003-04:00

Nobody likes pundits who claim that they predicted results but offer no documentary evidence to that effect.

Oh, Jay is not like that.
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12032

OBiden vs. McPalin

2008-10-03T04:53:00.007-04:00

Hey, I was watching the ballgames. My beloved Phils beat the Brewers and their best pitcher, CC Sabathia. And God still hates the Cubbies, 10-1.

Two quick takes, one of each:

---Sarah Palin pronounced it "NUC-u-lar," just like a well-derided, highly unpopular current president. I'd think that's enough to blow the whole thing.

---But Al Gore beat Dubya on debating points in 2000, but forgot that these debates ain't debates, they're campaign appearances. Gore acted like a creep, Dubya acted like an OK human being.

Tonight, Joe Biden addressed his debating points to moderator Gwen Ifill, looking down and to the side. Sarah Palin looked directly into the camera and spoke to the American people.

All I know is that you can't win the game until you know what the hell it is. Joe Biden, like Gore in 2000, brought a hockey stick to a baseball game. By all odds, the eminently experienced Sen. Biden should have enjoyed a laugher tonight over Gov. Palin, who isn't that long off the turnip truck.

But you can't hit a home run with a hockey stick, even if you're Babe Ruth.

_______________________________________

Congress Mortgaged our Markets

2008-09-23T22:45:00.001-04:00

The financial markets in this country are weathering a severe storm. My strategy in life, modeled for me by some great people, has always been to face rough times with humor. Right now, though, is no time for a belly laugh, not with a lot of very good people watching their net worth slip through the netting and down the drain. But a chuckle is still appropriate, even if it comes with a grim echo.

The funniest gag of all comes from Nancy Pelosi, blaming the Bush administration for the collapse of the nation’s mortgage base. This occurred, she says, because of a lack of regulation and oversight. For people living out here in the real world, that is a real thigh-slapping screamer. What brought so many mortgage banks down was a surfeit of regulation and oversight, but regulation designed for goals other than fiscal security.

Look, anyone who has bought or sold a house in the last twenty years is well aware of the situation. The real estate agent or mortgage broker whom you work with will certainly clue you in to the existence of FHA mortgages, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. You, as a middle-class person, will be told that you must put up 20 percent of the cost of the home you purchase. It is possible also to pay 10 percent in advance and borrow 90 percent, but then you will have to pay a monthly charge above the mortgage payment. That charge is to pay for mortgage insurance, where the bank gets some additional degree of protection from loss in case they foreclose and the house only sells for 80 percent of value.

But if you are poor, the agent or broker adds, then you are in good shape. Between Fannie and Freddie they can lend you up to 95, 97 and 100 percent of the price.

Now, I have been both buyer and seller of real estate over these two decades, and I have been shaking my head quietly over this situation. It was clear to me, as it should have been to any responsible person, that this system was a disaster waiting to happen. There is a reason why banks do not agree to lend more than 80 percent of the value of the property, more than one reason in fact. Values often go down twenty percent on their own, and the value of a home in foreclosure is also hurt by the process. There is also a reason to demand that a buyer put up some money, more than one reason here too. It is important that a person has some ability to manage funds well enough to accumulate some; it also bodes well for repayment when the purchaser has put some of his own capital on the line.

The idea of helping a poor person get a house is wonderful, but it flies against some of the harder edges of reality. It could work in many cases, or even in most cases, but it puts the lender in the position of having no margin for error. As long as the borrower can keep his job, with a salary increasing in proportion to inflation, without radical new expenditures caused by illness, and as long as the house keeps its value, the result will be a win-win. But if any one of those elements takes a hit, the whole house of cards will come tumbling down.

Clearly, then, the only way this system works is by eventually pushing the bad debt back to the government. Yet the government bureaucrats do not have their own money at stake. What they do have at risk is their job if they cannot show Congress that enough poor people are getting into homes. An unhealthy paradox evolves, where the government worries more about pushing loans than about collecting loans. Lenders and brokers get the message, so they run around recruiting new buyers among the barely-employed. How could this fail to fail?

Fail it has. After years of scratching my head, trying to figure out how this works, I have achieved perfect clarity. No mystery here after all. The answer is simple: it does not work! Never did, never could have.

As with any crisis, the only hope is if the villains are correctly identified and blame is reasonably apportioned. What are the chances that Congress will suddenly hit themselves in the collective forehead and yell, “Eureka, two plus two equals four”? Now there is a thought that has to make you chuckle.

No Gloating, Rethuglicans!

2008-09-11T21:41:00.007-04:00

Well, that's what the leftosphere calls you. Rethuglicans, fascists, Nazis, whatever.

Yes, John McCain's Hail Sarah pass worked. Definitely. He threw it, she caught it.

McCain and the GOP were headed for a November drubbing on the order of Goldwater or the 2006 congressional elections. And now, McCain/Palin is even or even ahead in the polls of the popular vote, although the Electoral College remains problematic.

So a wipeout looks unlikely.

Gov. Sarah Louise Hussein Palin [R-Caribou Country] came out of almost-nowhere and found herself thrust upon the world stage. She's handled herself with other-worldly dignity, grace, and aplomb, far surpassing Barack Obama's at this point. But Brother Barack had the same sangfroid at the start of his journey. It's only recently that his wheels have begun to wobble, and his cool meter is pegging on "overheated."

Me, I think Sen. Obama is reaching his Peter Principle Point, where we all excel until we reach our level of incompetence and then sit and die there. Barack Obama's PPP is getting nominated by his party for president: think Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and Bob Dole before him---good men all. [Some notable omissions there, but let's move on...]

I could be proved wrong, of course, come November 5, 2008, although we all hope not sometime in December. Lord, can you please spare us that much? The Gore-ocrats are still whining about the year 2000!

John McCain himself will figure into this circus at some point, perhaps, being as he's the one running for president and all.

I think John McCain knows what he believes and who he is, and his opponent illustrates every day that he remains unsure of either one. Americans've had a radar for such distinctions for practically ever. We'll find out pretty soon if the American radar is still online.

_________________________________

Sarah for Veep, and lest we forget, McCain for President

2008-09-07T22:47:00.011-04:00

Well, John McCain's selection of Gov. Sarah Louise Hussein Palin (R-Alaska) makes me 0-for-4 in my prognostications. But that's cool. This is my favorite wrong one.

New polls give McC/Sarah a 4-point general lead and a 10-point lead among "those most likely to vote." Astonishing.

"The Democrats are in trouble. Sarah Palin has totally changed the dynamics of this campaign."---Willie Brown

Now, Willie Brown is mebbe the most astute politician I've ever seen. He was king of the California Assembly for so many years that California put in term limits just for him. Still, when the GOP finally won a 39-39 standoff in the state house---something I expect them never to get close to again in this writer's lifetime---WB peeled off a couple of GOP turncoats, put them "in charge," got himself declared "speaker emeritus," and kept control. It was a beautiful thing.

The old white boys got taken fair and square.---WB

Hehe, they sure did. The old white boys got mad instead of appreciating and applauding Willie's mastery of their own game. Did 'em no good, though: in fact, they downright disappeared, like Whigs or mastodons.

[Republicans are still rumored to survive in California, either as changelings like Arnold Schwarzenegger or as sasquatches somewhere out by Fresno.]

Anywayz, if party man and consummate pol Willie Brown---when he needed a new gig, he easily scored the mayor's job in San Francisco even though he was an Oakland man---says that this Palin thing has turned the game completely on its head, I believe him more than any poll or pollster or pundit or analyst. Willie is the best.

If Sarah can make it through her upcoming media colonoscopy---or if the press finally gives Barack his, which is way way past due (there are surely more "investigative" reporters in Alaska right now than were ever dispatched to Sen. Obama's Chicago)---well, you see where I'm going with this:

Election night 2008 celebrations will consume far more Budweiser than soy products. That would be good for America, I think---if not its bodies, its soul.

____________________________________

Combing Through the Whole Story

2008-08-27T18:17:00.002-04:00

Yes, the piece you are about to read exemplifies the very reason you regularly make the trek to peruse this inimitable blog. Er, on second thought you have not been trekking here. On third thought, you may not be reading even this, having drifted away to greener pastures.

Anyway, you will notice in this item about Mackenzie Phillips being arrested for uncontrolled possession of a controlled substance that the spokesman for the LAX cops is Sgt. Holcomb. If you Google the earlier story about Britney Spears scuffling with a photog at the airport you will note the good Sergeant's role in that saga as well.

To readers of the Perry Mason series of novels, there can be only one Sergeant Holcomb, the bumbling cop who keeps trying to work his way up to Homicide and then gets demoted when Mason humiliates him on the witness stand.

If you Google the name Sergeant Holcomb, you will find tales of a number of heroes by that name, both soldiers and police officers, including some who were killed on duty.

But to actually have a police officer by that name in Los Angeles, where the Mason stories are based, is delightfully rich. We wish him well in the arduous world of celebrity law enforcement.

Keith Olbermann on Michelle Obama's Convention Speech

2008-08-25T23:01:00.004-04:00

"I'm sounding borderline sycophantic on this, I know..."---K. Olbermann, MSNBC newsanchor

Not at all, Keith. Truth is your game, and Truth is your middle name. This is why you're such a respected journalist. Ed R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite or Rachel Maddow couldn't have done it any better. Go for it, dude.

The Oracle Blinded

2008-08-23T02:23:00.006-04:00

Oh well, I'm oh-for-three (0-3) on the prez-veepstakes: it wasn't Rudy or Hillary and now it ain't Evan Bayh either.

(Although I'm really delighted it's the One Democrat Who I Always Wanted To Say I Like, Except He Just Keeps Saying Incredibly Stupid Stuff. Go Get 'em, Joe, speak your mind! Let 'er rip!)

So, I'm going quadruple or nothing on Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, although Mitt the Twit wouldn't be the pits by current standards. We're looking at an all-twit final four after all, so what the hell.

But I've caught Pawlenty here & there, and adjudge him to be a non-twit. He's actually kinda cool.

I have a wife who genuinely loves to fish. I mean, she will take the lead and ask me to go out fishing, and joyfully comes here...She loves football, she'll go to hockey games and, I jokingly say, 'Now, if I could only get her to have sex with me.'"

The governor quickly clarified, "It's a joke, it's a joke."

I mean, Pawlenty even knows that whenever he tells a joke, politics dictates that you tell everybody it's a joke, just in case. And it was funny to boot.

Dude's OK. He gets this 21st century thing.

__________________________________________

Hello, Good Bayh

2008-08-04T19:14:00.003-04:00

HuffPo has an educated guess that Barack Obama will name Evan Bayh his VP pick as soon as Wednesday.

I got the rest of the races wrong, counting out McCain early and picking Hillary, of course. But I've been a Bayh man all the way.

It makes sense for Obama to do it now. The GOP narrative of Obama-as-leftist is sinking in, and Obama's poll numbers are flattening.

Evan Bayh, a Democratic ex-governor and now senator of a red state, might not be able to swing Indiana to the Obama column, but he would certainly help arrest what appears to be a spiraling distrust of Obama's centrist impulses.

[A distrust, which in my opinion, is well-founded...]

Judeo-Christianity

2008-07-28T05:37:00.006-04:00

Oooops, I should have used scare quotes in the title. "Scare quotes." "Judeo-Christianity."

Because "Judeo-Christianity" doesn't exist of course. The term is a neologism, more specifically a retronym, where the old term loses its meaning and needs a qualifier to make any sense. Like "acoustic guitar." Once upon a time, all guitars were acoustic, like before electricity and before Les Paul invented the electric guitar.

Acoustic Guitar.

Guitar.

Note how guitars are now pointed upwards, but in the olden days, they were always horizontal. That's just the least of the differences, but this illustration do for now.

Anywayz, way back when, there were yr Jews and there were yr Christians, and never the twain should meet, least of all in a hyphenated word. Might as well call Thomas Jefferson a "Democrat-Republican"! But today, necessity dictates the miscegenation of "Judeo-Christian" in trying to make some sense out of the religious landscape at the founding of this here US of A.

You see, our first four or five presidents believed in the Bible more or less, but didn't believe Jesus was God or died for our sins or is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, whatever that is. But they believed that the Bible wasn't total bunk and that man was created in God's image like it says in Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 9:6.

That meant that man was endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights, blah, blah blah. But it was still a statement that the human race, for all its intellectual fortitude, hasn't managed to get around yet. Whether truth, myth, or illusion, the idea founded the greatest nation in history [IMO], and is imitated around the world through the present day.

I was struck by something the atheist Jürgen Habermas [who was one of the philosophical founders of post-WWII Europe] wrote recently:

Christianity has functioned for the normative self-understanding of modernity as more than a mere precursor or a catalyst. Egalitarian universalism, from which sprang the ideas of freedom and social solidarity, of an autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, of the individual morality of conscience, human rights, and democracy, is the direct heir to the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation. To this day, there is no alternative to it. And in the light of the current challenges of a post-national constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage. Everything else is just idle postmodern talk.---Jürgen Habermas, “Conversation About God and the World,” Time of Transitions, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006): pp. 150-151.

Ah. Judeo-Christianity. At last.

Now, intellectual honesty would oblige Jürgen Habermas to deny that Jesus is God or even that the Old Testament [another retronym, eh?] is revelation from God. Or that God even exists. Still, Habermas, a manifestly good man, can't get around that ol' Bible, which had certain unique ideas. "Judeo-Christianity" sums up those ideas, justice, and then on to love [which I read as mercy].

I think the Founders, even the first four presidents, were cool with that. Were they "Christians?" Nah. Were they Jews? Hah! "Judeo-Christians?" Mebbe.

[Oh, BTW, Jefferson always seemed quite in accord with rabbinical Judaism to me. No Jesus-is-God, emphasis on good works. Turns out he WAS Jewish!]

Cross-posted @ American Creation.

Shameless Self-Promotion

2008-06-28T16:19:00.004-04:00

My new paper on the private-sector contribution to pharmaceutical science, coauthored with Joe DiMasi and Chris Milne (both of Tufts University), can be found here (pdf) or here (HTML). The attendant op-ed, from today's Wall Street Journal, can be found here. Comments welcome.

Vouchers and Public Education

2008-06-19T07:12:00.000-04:00

So the typical objection to vouchers is that they would undermine the public school system and "leave behind" the weakest of of students. But that's always seemed to me largely nonsensical, given that the choice is between largely what we have now and a voucherized system - and that know we already have school choice. It's just one organized by geography and income.

It seems to me that the *real* objection to school choice - and this is where liberals' willingness to have other systems voucherized comes into play - is that it would trim the state's ability to use education to shape its future citizens. When people talk all swimmingly about "public education" and its "role in building our country" what they're channeling (perhaps only unconsciously) is the idea that education is about (in part) separating children from their parents' benighted, un-progressive views and turning them into constructive citizens. Voucherized systems would make that more difficult, I think. It's one of the reasons, after all, that the first "homeschoolers" really showed up among the hippies in the 1960s - they didn't want "the man" getting a hold of their kids.

NYT: Obama Better Than Bush

2008-06-17T03:58:00.009-04:00

The New York Times makes the difference between Barack Obama and George W. Bush nice and sparking clear. All from the same article, mind you:

Mr. Bush’s critics, including former aides, have portrayed him as too cloistered, too dependent on a small coterie of trusted aides...

But Mr. Obama’s ease belies a more controlling management style. For all the success his campaign has enjoyed with grass-roots organizing, the operation is highly centralized around Mr. Axelrod; David Plouffe, the campaign manager; Robert Gibbs, the communications director; Pete Rouse, his Senate chief of staff; Valerie Jarrett, a longtime friend from Chicago; and a handful of senior advisers that has barely changed since he opened his campaign in January 2007.

Oh, I can see the difference. I'm sure you can, too. Actually, and to their credit, I think the NYT reporters are trying to slip the truth in there somewhere, knowing that most folks only read the headline and the first few grafs that appeared on the front page.

Their secret is safe with us. You'd have to actually read the whole article to see what they're up to. Their jobs are safe.

Even more braintwisting from the NYT on how Obama's better than Dubya is chronicled here by Erick at Red State, comparing this NYT story with one on Dubya in the year 2000. Take an Alka-Seltzer before clicking over, word up. Valium might be better.

Biblical and Talmudic Perspective - III

2008-06-15T14:19:00.002-04:00

My first two entries were in two separate categories. The first referred to miraculous and revelatory matters in Biblical and Talmudic sources that can be tracked into our present reality. The second focused on the rich source material for getting a better glimpse into the day-to-day lives of our ancestors two to three thousand years ago.

Here is another example of the former.

Scientists consider the fact that there is very loud noise emanating from the corona of the sun, but getting lost in space, to be a recent discovery, developed over the last forty to seventy years. This segment gives a good synopsis of what is known.

Here is the Talmud weighing in on this subject 1500 years ago. And I quote (Yoma 20b): "Our Rabbis taught, there are three sounds that travel from one end of the world to the other, the sound of the corona of the sun, the sound of large urban populations and the sound of the soul as it leaves the body; some say also the sound of childbirth; and some say also the sound of Radia (or Radio)."

There was a clear awareness that the corona of the sun produced sound, but that it somehow did not reach us in an audible form.

Tangentially, Radia is explained to be an angel who somehow is tasked with connecting the heavens and the earth. (Maimonides famously explains that all angeels are scientific forces. But, he complains, the masses are not subtle enough to understand this, and they think him a heretic for not taking the prophetic images of creatures with wings literally.)

Incidentally, as a kid I found that Ripley, in one of his Believe It or Not books, was amazed that a sound said to traverse the globe (or the universe) was called Radia or Radio. If indeed the title came from the Latin word for ray, it shows that they believed sound to be a form of ray, which touches on the recent approaches of merging wave and ray theories in modern acoustics.

Biblical and Talmudic Perspective - II

2008-06-15T11:44:00.002-04:00

Perhaps the most vivid example of basic knowledge that is lost to our secular encyclopedists by their ignorance of the Bible and Talmud is the history of table utensils.

Some years ago, an article in the Chicago Tribune traced the practice of eating with a fork and a knife to the 1600s, a mere four hundred years back. That totally blew my mind, considering my own life history, as I shall explain. Sure enough, this seems to be accepted wisdom. This segment from Diner's Digest is typical. It indicates that in the 11th century a Greek princess brought forks to Venice and was branded a heretic. They did not come into common use until the early 17th century.

The first apparent mention of a fork in the Bible is in Exodus (27:3) where it uses the Hebrew word "mazleg" to designate an implement used in handling meat on the altar. However, Rashi (1040-1105) interprets this to mean a hooked prong that was used from a distance to manipulate meat still burning on the altar.

However, the same word "mazleg", this time clearly meaning a fork, is used in Samuel I (2:13-14). "And the Priests made a rule among the populace, that whenever a person slaughtered an offering, the young Priest would come as the meat was cooking, with the three-toothed fork in his hand... whatever came up on the fork the priest would take..."

In modern Hebrew, mazleg is in standard use to mean a fork.

In Hebrew School in the 5th Grade,we began basic Talmud study with the chapter that discusses returning lost objects. As a general principle, items found in situations where the owner is likely to be optimistic about their being returned, and with identifying marks, must be advertised and may not be kept. If there are no unique markings, or if they are found in situations where the owner will assume loss (such as at a huge carnival), they may be kept.

One of the cases dealt with (Bava Metzia 25b) is when things are found amid the collected neighborhood trash. The decision is that forks and knives found there may be kept, because the owner will entertain no hope of it resurfacing in the garbage dump.

The Talmud was compiled in the 6th Century. Not only are forks and knives mentioned casually, but we even encounter the common scenario of accidentally clearing some utensils into the trash along with the food remnants.

The way this subject became a personal issue for me in the 5th Grade was because the Talmud uses the Aramaic word for fork, which is pronounced either 'hemnik' or 'himnek'. You can imagine what my classmates did with the similarity to my family name, devising all sorts of gags and pranks.

Incidentally, the Jews do not take credit for inventing this implement. Here is the the quote from Rabbenu Hananel, the 11th Century commentator from North Africa, on the above section of Talmud: "A himnek is an implement with multiple prongs, like the (Biblical) fork with three teeth, and it is the practice of the Greeks to steady the piece of meat while cutting with the knife, then eating. He can take what he cut and put it in his mouth without his hands touching the food at all, thus avoiding the grease."

Clearly, having this sort of basic knowledge as part of our cultural heritage enables us to know better the history of civilization.

Biblical and Talmudic Perspective - I

2008-06-15T03:19:00.004-04:00

When my daughter recently was assigned the anaconda snake as a topic for a school assignment, I was enlisted to assist, if only by doing our modern lazy form of research, i.e. Google.

The lowest form of parenting is pointing out the correct book without revisiting it yourself at all. To avoid being tarred that way, I did a quick scan of the basic info.

To my shock, the section (in Encarta, the kid-friendly encyclopedia) on physical characteristics begins thus: "Like boas and pythons, anacondas retain primitive features that indicate ancient lizard ancestors. The snakes have traces of a pelvis and hind limbs."

As a child in Hebrew School, we studied the story of the snake in the Garden of Eden. We were taught the Biblical text along with the Jewish traditional exegesis. The full story is that the snake was an upright animal who stood on legs and was attracted to Eve. His scheme was based on enticing her with this fruit, eventually luring her away from her husband. When he was punished, God tells him (Genesis 3:14): "You will travel on your belly." As a consequence, his legs were taken away.

For some odd reason, I found this image one of the hardest to accept, the idea that the snake had legs and they atrophied in some way over time as an expression of a moral consequence.

Still, my teachers clearly were not aware of this astonishing vestige that can be witnessed in the current structure of the serpentine anatomy.

Nor are the writers of the encyclopedia conscious that they are communicating material that provides support for the very first incident described in the Bible.

This occasioned in me the meditation that an odd disconnect has crept into the modern consciousness. The basic premises of the Bible, whether in physical or theological reality, are simply not in the forefront of our cultural awareness, rendering us poorer as a people.

Hopefully, this can be the first in a series of notes expanding upon this theme. Please let me know if you find this of interest.

The end of summer vacation?

2008-06-13T08:01:00.000-04:00

I have real sympathy for folks who struggle to make ends meet but there's nothing more annoying than upper-class writers who just can't figure out what those folks' lives are really like. Consider, for example, this article in Slate on the lack of vacation for many American workers. Why are vacations imperiled? Well, part of the reason is:

There are several factors at work here. To begin with, technology has helped iron downtime out of the economy. Many Americans are struggling to cope with job creep—the phenomenon of work quietly grabbing more and more of our leisure time. We are forever receiving co-worker or client messages on our BlackBerrys, or responding to work e-mails on our home computers on weekends, or lugging our laptops on vacation.

Yeah, all those down-scale workers who are constantly checking their blackberries and laptops - it's a real challenge to our vacations....

The Victim President

2008-06-13T06:01:00.008-04:00

Obama combats darker side of Internet politics
Sayeth the AFP, a French news agency...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Democrat Barack Obama has shown the stunning power of the Internet for political fundraising. Now he is fighting its darker side as a vehicle for "smears" against his bid for the White House.

Pausing from a war of words with Republican John McCain over taxes, the African-American senator Thursday unveiled an interactive website to debunk false rumors peddled by email and right-wing media outlets.

The site at www.fightthesmears.com was created after one recent, and thus-far unfounded, assertion that Obama's wife Michelle had been caught on tape slurring white people.

"We created an interactive tool to allow our supporters to fight back against these smears in the same way that they received them -- on the Internet," campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

President Barack's victimhood amounts to this so far: Somebody, not a "right-winger," alleged a tape involving Mrs. Barack saying bad stuff that probably doesn't exist. [I won't repeat the charge here in case it's false.]

And some folks, who easily could have been Hillary supporters as "right-wingers," sent emails around awhile back saying President Obama is a Muslim, although he actually professes Christianity.

Is there anything else? At some point, disagreeing with President Obama will not just be "smears," but honest disagreement on the issues of the day.

2010, I make it, if then, if ever. I'm feeling damn unified already, howbout you? Duckspeak, doubleplusgood.

__________________________________

Eulogy for Neo-conservatism

2008-06-08T19:05:00.014-04:00

Like the Bush Administration itself, I mostly gave up defending the decision to go ahead and topple Saddam quite awhile back. There's simply no percentage in it. Fellows like this fellow are on about WMDs Bush lied people died blood for oil, whatever. Case closed, as the victors get to write the history.

I've admitted that I'm a neo-con, or at I least was one, if neo-conservatism isn't already dead and buried in an unmarked grave in Iraq. And our friends on the left throw dirt on the neo-conservative grave at every opportunity, as if somehow neo-conservatism was a brand new thing invented by Paul Wolfowitz, the Kristols père et fils, and of course, Leo Strauss.

And there are no small number on the right who have agreed, not in the least the late William F. Buckley, a "traditional" conservative, although his "traditional" conservatism actually dates back to only the mid-1950s.

So let's take a look at this mess---

Before Edmund Burke [1729-1797], a British parliamentarian, became the “First Conservative,” he was quite the liberal, supporting the American colonists, opposing slavery, and fighting for expanded rights for the Irish. It was his opposition to the Jacobins that led to his being trashed by the liberals [Whigs, his own party] of his day, most of whom thought the French Revolution was a great idea.

Burke supported war against revolutionary France, to quarantine what he saw as the contagion of a diseased ideology.

That the neo-cons were in favor of warring against both Caliphatism and its secular counterpart pan-Arabism [Ba'athism is one variety] seems quite consistent with the classical liberalism---or Burke's original conservatism---that favors both individual liberty and social order.

Although arguments from prudence against the Iraq war are worthy [too expensive, too much carnage], the neo-con scheme just might work. Pan-Arabism is quiet, and according to some, the book may be closing on bin Ladenism as a growth industry because of the tyranny and brutality it has already shown to be in its nature.

Are the neo-cons [R.I.P.?] conservative or liberal? The answer is yes. Will we go the way of the Whigs? As a political force, it sure looks like it. But neo-conservatism has actually been around for awhile now. Things---if they hold truth---have a way of coming back around, in different times and in different forms, when they are needed.

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In Defense of Small-Town Life

2008-06-06T14:29:00.000-04:00

Jim Manzi's quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. He's clear, sensible, and (mostly) right. This (blog post) essay at NRO really hit home with me. Not because I grew up in that sort of town. I didn't - I was an Air Force brat who moved from suburb to suburb. Rather, it hit home because it so clearly articulates what's missing in our contemporary political options: if there is one thing that at least the national Democrats and Republicans can agree on, it's that things local must go, whether by virtue of chain-store reconstruction or bureaucratic centralization (or, preferably, I suspect, both). Local communities don't fit into "rationally" planned ideals - they are too thorny, too full of idiosyncratic traditions that don't always make "sense." The essay is well worth your time and reflection.

Hillary for VP?

2008-06-05T23:40:00.007-04:00

As I write this, cable news is flashing that Hillary and the Man Who Would Be King are meeting face-to-face.

My observation is that Barack Obama has always taken the path of least resistance. Hillary would be the easy choice here, just as joining a high-powered and somewhat wack black church in Chicago was, as was accepting the support of William Ayers and his considerable Chicago network, Ayers being the ex-terrorist who helped bomb the Pentagon and now masquerades as a respected academic.

The no-brainer choice [and I don't mean that in a bad way] would be to select Gov. Phil Bresden of Tennessee or Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio. Both would give Obama considerable clout in the Caucasian Belt, which leans Republican, and where Obama struggles even against Hillary.

The smart choice would be the best man for the job---Evan Bayh, son of the legendary Democrat Birch Bayh, a staunch Hillary ally, and himself both a two-term governor and now senator from Indiana, a Republican state and one with a lot of white people.

Two birds, one stone.

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Quick Take on Election 2008

2008-06-05T04:10:00.005-04:00

I'd love for the United States of America to elect a black president. Especially one with the middle name of Hussein.

I'm totally sincere. It would clear the decks of white male imperialism/racism that's really Europe's fault, although many white Americans take the shame for it, stupidly.

[Our Founding Fathers thought Europe sucked, which is why they and their own fathers fled it. I think Europe sucks too, past and present. I hate white people myself, and I am one.]

If Barack Obama uses the word "liberty" in a meaningful way between now and November---"liberty" as the Founders understood it, the freedom for every individual to pursue his own excellence, what made the USA the greatest nation in man's history---then I'll vote for Barack Obama my owndamnself.

But I'll bet against him ever speaking of liberty meaningfully. The word is so far missing from his life's vocabulary. He believes in community organizing, of fighting for "us" against "them," whoever "them" is. [I think it's me.]

Obama does not speak of liberating each individual soul to seek the best it can be. We call that "freedom." When he speaks to his giant crowds, he sees only the crowd. Crowds by definition are not free.

America was not built on crowds, nor did it become great by crowds demanding full service from their government. Ask not what your country can do for you, one admired American president once said.

I don't think President Obama gets us.

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Lucas Strikes Again!

2008-06-01T06:54:00.002-04:00

So a few buddies and I went to see the new Indiana Jones movie, full of expectations that it wouldn't really be all that good. Sure glad it wasn't like I expected - it was much, much worse. How bad? Well, let me count the ways... (no doubt there are spoilers here, so read as you will).

1. Harrison Ford's been taken over by some sort of zombie spirit. That's the only explanation I can give for his most lackluster performance ever. His heart just didn't seem to be in it. He's got a couple of clever lines, but he really should switch back to the caffeinated stuff. Can't hurt...

2. Plot. Who in the world thought this was a good plot. The first movie works so well because it manages to tiptoe along that line between being merely fantastic and being simply ludicrous. This one just goes ludicrous (and is bizarrely complex to boot). Aliens? Who are inter-temporal and all sorts of powerful, but lose a skull to some half-baked conquistador?

3. Any movie that can turn Cate Blanchett into that bad of an actress has, I'll have to admit, really accomplished something. It's like Lucas and Spielberg were watching a Boris and Natasha marathon right before production. When Blanchett gets one of those lifetime achievement awards many years hence, I suspect that this little part may be neatly excised from her history. I'd be happy to have it excised from mine.

4. What was up with the McCarthyism stuff? The first 20 minutes are full of it and then it disappears - the only explanation I can come up with is that it's a way of "balancing" the anti-communist stuff in the rest of the movie. It's odd, but you come away with the sense that the movie doesn't really *like* commies, but there's no equivalent to the famous "Nazis! I hate Nazis!" catch-phrase, especially odd given that there are so many other parts of the movie that are clearly meant to be tributes to the earlier ones. I guess commies are bad, but not that bad.

There are probably many other ways the movie sucks rotten eggs, but that's enough...

Witness to History: Sydney Pollack

2008-05-30T03:25:00.018-04:00

Film director Sydney Pollack passed away on Monday. He was a great man, directing Tootsie, of course as well as They Shoot Horses, Don't They?.

Mr. Pollack directed me in one of my films [yes, there were at least two], in Absence of Malice, starring Paul Newman.

That handsome man behind Sally Field's head is me. Although you can't exactly see my face, if you squint, it's almost visible if you watch the scene in the movie. Me, I think my arm looks danged good there, especially since I was wearing my favorite shirt, the white one with blue checks.

As I diligently did my "work" as reporter Tom X [I don't appear in the credits, as I didn't have a line], Mr. Pollack kindly stopped by my desk between takes and said encouragingly, "That's good. Keep on doing what you're doing." So I did.

I'm being playful here, but all of the above is true. With the ten thousand things that are buzzing in every movie director's head, he took the time to make me feel a part of his film. Sydney Pollack was by all accounts a great guy, always with a good word for his people, a genuine artist, and was loved by all who knew him. A true gentleman, and he will be missed. R.I.P.

Julius Caesar Found

2008-05-26T04:23:00.013-04:00

...under the Rhône River. This bust was apparently made during Caesar's lifetime, so it's it's thought to be somewhat accurate.

Looks like a cross between Ollie North and Tom Brokaw, doesn't he? That fits--- Caesar was a warrior-journalist, writing highly popular chronicles of his exploits in the Gallic Wars.

Today, he'd be a bestselling author, have a show on Fox News, or be in the White House. Maybe all three.

Founded as a Christian Nation! [?]

2008-05-24T20:47:00.014-04:00

Thomas Paine published Age of Reason in 1794, advancing a decidedly unProvidential and therefore unChristian God---remote to the point of disconnectedness---and attacking the Bible as fable and fantasy. He received almost universal condemnation from the new American nation, including from Samuel Adams, erstwhile brewer, semi-"key Founder," and of course, cousin of the 2nd president.

Sam wrote to Paine in 1802:

"[W]hen I heard that you had turned your mind to a defense of infidelity, I felt myself much astonished and more grieved that you had attempted a measure so injurious to the feelings and so repugnant to the true interest of so great a part of the citizens of the United States.

The people of New England, if you will allow me to use a Scripture phrase, are fast returning to their first love. Will you excite among them the spirit of angry controversy, at a time when they are hastening to unity and peace?"

Now, this might indicate that even if there was a re-swell of religious affection happening, the Founding landscape was not one of church-going holy rollers.

Still, Adams adds:

"Our friend, the President of the United States [Thomas Jefferson], has been calumniated for his liberal sentiments, by men who have attributed that liberality to a latent design to promote the cause of infidelity. This and all other slanders have been made without a shadow of proof."

We may read this as indicating that the Founding landscape obliged public figures to keep their religious unorthodoxies to themselves if they wanted to remain public figures. Most of Jefferson's repudiations of Christian orthodoxy appear in his private letters, and only after he'd left office.

Was the United States founded as a Christian Nation? The answer is definitely yes. And definitely no.

As for Paine himself, the full correspondence may be found here. Paine even claims to have saved the revolutionary French from atheism! Who'd a-thunk it?

A few excerpts:

"There is however one point of union wherein all religions meet, and that is in the first article of every man's creed, and of every nation's creed, that has any creed at all: I believe in God. Those who rest here, and there are millions who do, cannot be wrong as far as their creed goes. Those who choose to go further may be wrong, for it is impossible that all can be right, since there is so much contradiction among them. The first therefore are, in my opinion, on the safest side.

...I have but one God....

Since I began this letter, for I write it by piece-meal as I have leisure, I have seen the four letters that passed between you and John Adams. In your first letter you say, 'Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age by inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity and universal philanthropy.'

"Why, my dear friend, this is exactly my religion, and is the whole of it. That you may have an idea that the "Age of Reason" (for I believe you have not read it) inculcates this reverential fear and love of the Deity I will give you a paragraph from it.

'Do we want to contemplate His power? We see it in the immensity of the creation. Do we want to contemplate His wisdom: We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible whole is governed. Do we want to contemplate His munificence? We see it in the abundance with which He fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate His mercy? We see it in His not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful.'

"As I am fully with you in your first part, that respecting the Deity, so am I in your second, that of universal philanthropy; by which I do not mean merely the sentimental benevolence of wishing well, but the practical benevolence of doing good. We cannot serve the Deity in the manner we serve those who cannot do without that service. He needs no service from us. We can add nothing to eternity. But it is in our power to render a service acceptable to Him, and that is not by praying, but by endeavoring to make his creatures happy."

This is the God of Deism---unremarkable in today's world of mushy theistic secularism, but Paine stood virtually alone with Him in the Founding era. Even Jefferson himself, who was supportive of Paine's freedom of conscience [and who shared Paine's disdain for things like the concept of the Trinity and the miracles of the Bible], believed in a Providential God who was quite interested in man's affairs, a God Who smiled on the virtuous and withheld His favor from the wicked. Jefferson was no Deist, and people should stop saying it, because it's not true.

More on that later perhaps, but one need only look at the Jefferson Memorial for starters. Jefferson says "I tremble for my country" at the thought that his just and providential God might not abide the obscenity of slavery for very long.

Was Jefferson's God---the God of the Founding---the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham? Not exactly. But He was no other God than the God of the Bible, either. Not Aristotle's, not Tom Paine's, not even Albert Einstein's.

The Jews Killed Kennedy

2008-05-19T20:43:00.003-04:00

...according to the leftist Daily Kos, anyway. Hmmmm, I didn't know that.

Now in fairness, it's only in a "diary," which is different than the main page. Still, it's been up for weeks, and LGF has been all over it. Rest assured, if the conservative Red State site [which uses the same format] were hosting such paranoia and bigotry, they'd be spat upon for it, and rightfully so.

And so, Daily Kos, I spit on you, and rightfully so. First your people chased out all the Hillary supporters in favor of Obama, and now this ugliness from the left's most influential website, the cradle of the "reality-based" community.

Reality, indeed.

Obama's Ox Gored, and Gored Good

2008-05-16T23:47:00.011-04:00

I'm a strong believer in civility and I'm a strong believer in a bipartisan foreign policy, but that cause is not served with dishonest, divisive attacks of the sort that we've seen out of George Bush and John McCain over the last couple days...---Barack Obama, US Senator and apparent Democrat nominee for President

Dang, where I come from, folks listen to what a man's saying and not just how he says it. Maybe they honestly don't believe what you honestly believe, dude---that you can talk radicals out of murdering for their cause. Perhaps people of good conscience can disagree.

You're damn liars and disagreeing with me is dividing our country, is what I hear you saying here, Senator, and not all that civilly, really.

Now, where I come from is Pennsylvania, a "swing" state that you'll need to carry to be elected.

Make your case to those voters, Senator, without calling the other fellows liars and dividers, even if they are. That would be the most liberal and unifying thing to do. Walk the walk that you talk, and by the way, save your real outrage for the murderers in this world, not your fellow Americans. When will you raise up your genuine passion---if you have any---and your demonstrated ability to move your fellow Americans, against murder and tyranny and not just against words you don't like?

You're going to need that passion, concentrated to the best of your ability, if you hope to be any kind of president and leader of the free world at all.

______________________________________

Bye Bye Huck: Thank God We Never Got to Know Ye

2008-05-16T20:23:00.017-04:00

Even though I disagree with almost everything Barack Obama stands for [yeah, yeah, I know---what does he stand for?], I'd have voted for him if Mike Huckabee had been the GOP nominee, for a number of reasons.

Via The Hill via NRO:

During a speech to the National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky Friday, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee joked to the audience that an offstage noise was Barack Obama avoiding gunfire.

'That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he's getting ready to speak. Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.'

I can excuse a lot of stupidity in American politics, but this is the lowest this year for either party, and nothing's in second place. Assassination has been a palpable concern for black leaders and presidential candidates since the nightmares of April and June of 1968, and Barack Obama is of course both of these things.

The line was met with laughter.

Both Huckabee and the NRA brass owe Sen. Obama an apology bigtime. And Gov. Huckabee needs to get off the GOP stage immediately, and for the foreseeable future. I suspect I shall never hear the words "President" and "Huckabee" in the same sentence ever again, thankfully. But if I do, either me or the GOP is going to have to go.

Now, to consolidate the vote of the evangelical right, the Republican Party might consider it clever to slip Rev. Huckabee a speaker's slot at its convention in September. But of such small symbolisms [think Jimmy Carter and Michael Moore sitting together at John Kerry's coronation], elections are lost, and rightfully so.

As David St. Hubbins once noted, there's a fine line between stupid and clever. Me, I don't even think there's a fine line here. People know.

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"The New Cold War"

2008-05-14T22:38:00.003-04:00

Thomas L. Friedman of the NYT takes a lot of ridicule from both left and right, depending on whose ox he gores. But he's an original thinker, and most importantly, he's one of the very few who actually travels to all the corners of the earth and talks with the people who live there before he pontificates on the problems of mankind.

Tom Friedman puts himself wherever the rubber meets the road. No ivory-tower type or bland theorist. He has earned every man's ear.

This is one of his very best, IMO. Excerpted here, but his entire essay is worth your time:

The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the Cold War. Yes, the next U.S. president is going to be a Cold War president - but this Cold War is with Iran.

That is the real umbrella story in the Middle East today - the struggle for influence across the region, with America and its Sunni Arab allies (and Israel) versus Iran, Syria and their nonstate allies, Hamas and Hezbollah. As the May 11 editorial in the Iranian daily Kayhan put it, "In the power struggle in the Middle East, there are only two sides: Iran and the U.S."

For now, Team America is losing on just about every front. How come? The short answer is that Iran is smart and ruthless, America is dumb and weak, and the Sunni Arab world is feckless and divided. Any other questions?

THE TICKET?

2008-05-14T21:37:00.007-04:00

...asks Drudge.

Oh, I sure hope so. In the merger business, we call it putting two turkeys together trying to make an eagle...

Like most everybody else, my initial prediction was Hillary, but my call for her #2 would still the best for the Democrats.

Evan Bayh. Even more now, since he's a Hillary ally who was pretty obviously positioning himself as her VP, he'd help heal the Demo HRC-BHO* rift better than any "dream" ticket.

A two-term Democrat governor from Republican Indiana and now its junior senator, a centrist with impeccable credentials and qualifications [he cut taxes, fer crissakes!], I have to admit Evan Bayh had a shot at my vote for president regardless of the GOP nominee was, but he decided not to run.

In this day of leftists and radicals claiming the American center, I have a weakness for good ole-fashioned Democrats, the few that are left. He'd balance the ticket between wack and not so wack, bigtime. Word up, BHO*.

_____________________________________

*Sen. Obama is the victim of bad initials. As much as using Barack Obama's "H"-for"Hussein" might be considered pejorative or racist or associating him with jihadists or Islam or certain exterminated Iraqi dictators, not using it seems even more pejorative. Even if his lovely missus has confirmed to the national press that yes, he is and he does.

Obama Shies Away Again

2008-05-08T21:36:00.011-04:00

The most interesting thing about this blog post at Commentary is the first comment, by Michael J. Totten. The subject is the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas declaring its preference for Obama as some sort of new JFK. Totten writes:

Obama could easily make this go away: “Hamas will be VERY sorry if I am America’s president. They need to be careful what they wish for.” He doesn’t have to say anything else, but I doubt it occurs to anyone on his staff to go after Hamas instead of McCain. To me, that’s the obvious fix. What could McCain possibly say after that?

Simple. Elegant.

Sen. Obama had a chance to repudiate Hamas—at no cost to his candidacy. And once again Obama shied away from, just once, a spontaneous Sista Soulja moment, not to mention it would have been the right thing to do. They are murderers.

But Obama’s instincts took him elsewhere, to attack McCain. So much for “new politics.” So far, he never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity, as the saying goes about the Middle East.

Michael J. Totten rules. The honest man’s honest man. Do visit his website http://www.michaeltotten.com. [Uncompensated endorsement.]

Totten has traveled the Middle East so much in the past 5 years that for practical purposes, he lives there, especially Lebanon, where the Islamicist rubber meets the Western road. The force of his honesty is such that the local freepaper [lefty, unlistenable altrock, bodypiercing and personal escort ads, etc.], the LA Weekly, published him regularly.

So, when a commenter appreciatively wrote, "McCain could actually use that," Totten replied:

Both Obama and McCain can take my advice. It’s free!

If I had to guess, Totten would decline an offer from either campaign to join as a paid advisor, as it would put his impartiality in doubt for the rest of his career. He's a journalist in the highest sense of the word---in the only sense of the word, and in fact, his Middle East travels are financed by freelance sales of his articles and his blog tipjar.

Nobody owns Michael J. Totten, and that's the highest praise I can give to any man.

Even when Totten writes stuff I don't want to hear, I listen. He's earned my respect and my trust. The Western world---and the world all over---ignores him at its peril. And its folly.

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The Nutty Perfesser...

2008-05-02T06:16:00.000-04:00

This post by Todd Zwicki over at The Volokh Conspiracy defending Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright seems to me a pretty good one, actually. I'm rather surprised it hasn't gotten more play in the blogosphere. Maybe it's because it doesn't quite fit into what's becoming the tripartite partisan narrative: the hard left defends Wright since he more or less thinks what they do (maybe excepting the "govt created AIDS" stuff); the right thinks he's a wacko and so is everyone who hangs out with him; and the libs think Wright is mostly wrong, but are more worried about his electoral effect (will he kill Obama's chance at winning the presidential race?). The virtue of Zwicki's post is that it notes, entirely correctly, that it's not quite right to judge people by their friends, since most of us have friends and close associates who have some peculiarity that, when looked at singly, makes them seem entirely crazy.

That all seems right, but I'm not sure it quite gets Obama off the hook. I don't think Obama should be judged per se because he's friends with Rev. Wright. Rather, it seems to me that his relationship with Wright at least illuminates something about Obama's social and political views. After all, according to Obama's own memoirs, it was the way that Wright connected the gospel to social and political critique that first really attracted him to Trinity. What's more, his membership in Trinity is but of a larger pattern, where Obama seems often to inhabit the most starkly left-wing precincts of our society. He does, as Zwicki notes, seem like quite the decent guy and, truth be told, I would probably rather have him as president than the junior senator from NY. But show me where he is friends with, regularly interacts with, and engages with some set of people who don't think The New Republic is some sell-out rag, and then I'll begin to think that maybe we should give him a bit of a pass on Wright. Otherwise, it's another piece to the puzzle that is Obama and the picture it shows ain't exactly to my liking.

My Bad

2008-05-01T19:59:00.002-04:00

Alas, work has piled on, the usual array of office crises has intervened, and the defense of capitalism this year has proven more burdensome than even my rare and finely-honed bemused cynicism envisioned. Accordingly: My promised posts on Doug Feith's book will have to wait until next week at the earliest. May empires not fall on this tragic news. At least not the NewsWalk Empire.

Sooo...

2008-04-28T21:19:00.000-04:00

Rev. Wright has decided not to keep his head down until November. Instead, it's all about him - he sees just how the US govt is capable of "anything" (like infecting people with AIDS), that it's unfair to demand that he criticize Farrakhan (after all, Mandela didn't throw Castro under the bus!), that 9/11 occurred because we're terrorists ourselves, and so on and so on.

Hoo-buddy! We've all really wandered into the fever swamps now and Rev. Wright has decided, apparently, that he's not backing down an inch. No sir, he's got nothing to apologize for. And that Obama denunciation/disavowal? Just "politics," dude, can't you see that?

So Obama has a choice. He's certain to be asked about these sets of remarks; what does he do? If he continues to denounce Wright's views (as opposed to Wright himself), he's just setting himself up, isn't he? Isn't it clear that Wright just *loves* the attention and will play things up as much as he can? And eventually, he's going to have to start answering specific questions about specific claims - does *he* believe the AIDS stuff, etc.?

The problem is, though, that if he goes whole hog and gets serious about his denunciations, that is what will dominate the news for at least the next week, right up through the Indiana primary, and he'll be dealt another big loss. What's more, he's in danger of becoming *defined* by his association with the wackadoo fringe of American religion. But here's the real kicker: setting aside some of the more conspiratorial stuff (e.g. AIDS), what about Wright's views would the hard-core lefties that populate too much of American academia actually disagree with? America as structurally racist? Check. Islamic terrorism essentially "caused" by US foreign policy? Check. Israel as the "problem" in the Middle East? Check. How many of these folks will sit still if Obama goes after Wright's views - who will pen the first essay lamenting Obama's capitulation to monied Jewish interests? Or the lack of his "real" progressive politics?

I'd really be enjoying this more, though, if I didn't think that he wasn't still the odds-on favorite for the presidency. Gulp.

Why Barack Obama Shunned the Flag Pin

2008-04-28T03:38:00.014-04:00

Via the often-elegant Don Surber---

Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest. I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”—B. Obama (D-IL)

Some of us---many of us---believe this country is already great, despite its flaws and its checkered history. The flag pin isn't just about the war in Iraq. You have to lose all sense of perspective to believe that.

We massacred each other over slavery, and could have sat out World Wars One and Two and gave Germany and Japan free rein over Europe and Asia since it didn’t affect us.

As to what proto-president Obama believes will make this country truly great at last, well, I’m willing to listen.

Perhaps he’s thought of something new.

_________

N.B.---The invaluable Mr. Surber also includes this quote:

The reason that I don’t always wear a flag pin is not that I disrespect the flag, it’s that when I started wearing a flag pin after 9/11, I gotta admit that sometimes I would misplace it and so I didn’t always put it on.

Well, that's a perspective that every man in America who left his wallet on the dresser while hustling off to work could sympathize with, and that's every single one of us. You could vote for a guy who understands that.

Word up, Brother Barack. When all else fails, stick with the truth.

_____________________________________

Decision 2008

2008-04-25T18:09:00.001-04:00

From WLS over at Patterico, and just too delicious not to pass on:

A caller into the Dennis Miller Show this morning had a particularly insightful view into the coming general election choice that will be before the country:

The Dems offer a witch who is a lawyer and who is married to a lawyer, or a lawyer who is married to a witch who is a lawyer.

One of those will be matched up against a war hero who is married to a hot babe who owns a beer distributorship.

How hard is that choice?

War And Decision

2008-04-22T10:29:00.002-04:00

Run---do not walk, do not wait for Amazon's SuperSaver delivery schedule---to your local bookstore and buy Douglas J. Feith's War and Decision. It is unlike any book that has come out of the Beltway in years, written by a member of that rare species, the objective insider seeking to set the record straight rather than settle scores or engage in desperate self-justification. It is, in a word, scholarly; with massive references to documents and the actual decisionmaking record, Feith sets out the evidence on how the decision to go to war in Iraq was made, on who and which institutions supported what courses of action, etc. If you want hard evidence to refute the various disinformation campaigns of the left---and others---this is the work in which to find it.

I will begin a series of blogs on this book next week.

You Just Don't Get It, Dude

2008-04-17T22:53:00.012-04:00

They like stirring up controversy and they like playing gotcha games, getting us to attack each other. And I have to say Senator Clinton looked in her element...She was taking every opportunity to get a dig in there. You know, that's all right. That's her right. That's her right to kind of twist the knife a little bit.---Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), alleged Next President of the United States of KKK-A

You mean like your dig when you casually put the knife right back where it came from, bringing up Bill Clinton's midnight pardon of the Weather Underground?

By the way, who's "they?" Hillary? Me? Seems like The Great Unifier has at least 2/3 of God Damn America on his spitlist. A whole lotta "they" coming out of the woodwork, and a shrinking "us."

That was the roll-out of the Republican campaign against me in November. That is what they will do...they will try to focus on all these issues that don't have anything to do with how you pay your bills at the end of the month.

Yeah, they just might. Unlike you, Sen. Obama, many in the GOP believe that when Americans enter the voting booth, they just don't cling to their checkbooks. They have more than their material well-being on their minds.

You call those things "distractions." Many of your fellow Americans prefer to think of them as "principles."

_____________________________________

Words Escape Me

2008-04-17T21:00:00.003-04:00

And, believe me, that happens, well, rarely. With respect to how Obama's bitterness quote happened to become public, I quote Michael Barone:

Kit Seelye in the New York Times and Pajamas Media correspondent Bill Bradley (the California political writer, not the former New Jersey senator) fill us in on how the story got on the pro-Obama Huffington Post. It seems that Arianna Huffington approved it by cellphone while on David Geffen's 454-foot yacht in Tahiti. No, I'm not making this up.

Like I said: Words escape me.

Elitism, Judicial Activism---You Name It

2008-04-16T18:29:00.005-04:00

Basically, the charges of Barack Obama's "elitism" stem from a perception that he believes he knows better than you, and that your disagreement comes from irrationality.

By a 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court just upheld lethal injection as constitutional. Justice John Paul Stevens dissented. Why? “I have relied on my own experience in reaching the conclusion that the imposition of the death penalty [is unconstitutional]."

Oh.

But Antonin Scalia rides to the rescue, and comes down on Justice Stevens bigtime. Justin Levine over at Patterico kindly types out this gem from the PDF of Scalia's opinion:

As JUSTICE STEVENS explains, ‘objective evidence, though of great importance, [does] not wholly determine the controversy, for the Constitution contemplates that in the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment.’

Purer expression cannot be found of the principle of rule by judicial fiat. In the face of JUSTICE STEVENS’ experience, the experience of all others is, it appears, of little consequence. The experience of the state legislatures and the Congress—--who retain the death penalty as a form of punishment—--is dismissed as “the product of habit and inattention rather than an acceptable deliberative process.”

The experience fellow citizens who support the death penalty is described, with only the most thinly veiled condemnation, as stemming from a “thirst for vengeance.” It is JUSTICE STEVENS’ experience that reigns over all.

And that's elitism in a nutshell. Principled disagreement with the "Elect" is impossible; it's stupidity or irrationality or bitterness or just being downright lazy. Opposing views don't even rise to the level of being wrong---they're simply not valid.

Such arrogance rubs some people the wrong way, like me, tens of millions of other Americans, and the great Nino Scalia.

___________________________________

The Trouble With Talking

2008-04-16T11:09:00.000-04:00

So Nobel Peace Prize winner, former US President, and peanut farmer Jimmy Carter has spent his time in the Middle East laying a wreath at the tomb of Yasser Arafat and will now, reportedly, be meeting with leaders of Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls the Gaza strip and is officially committed to the destruction of Israel, the establishment of an Islamist state, and is on the State Department's terrorist list, among other highlights. Giving honor to Arafat, an unrepentant terrorist and scourge of his own people, is bad enough, but even Obama wouldn't meet with Hamas. (Though why, exactly, is unclear, since they're certainly not any nastier than Iran).

We're often told - and Carter seems to be operating under this premise - that it does no harm and possibly great good to talk to enemies. "You make peace with your enemies, not your friends," or so the saying goes. But in what way is that true - when exactly should one talk to your enemies? It seems to me that Carter's view - talk to everyone - betrays a dangerous and rather silly naivete, particularly because it lumps all of one's "enemies" together. Of course, you make peace with your enemies, but any reasonable understanding of history shows that you don't make peace with *all* of your enemies. Or, to put it a bit too bluntly, sometimes the only peace available is the peace of the dead - you get peace, but only because one of you is no longer on the scene.

But surely just talking to one's enemies couldn't do any harm, could it? Well,consider what talking might accomplish (and by "talking" I have in mind general diplomatic exchanges, to include everything from meet-and-greets to formal negotiations). Talking could very well clear up misunderstandings and provide greater transparencies, mitigating conflicts and solving problems before they get dangerous. Talking can also be a vehicle for getting one side to understand clearly that their position is untenable and finding ways for them to do a "climb-down" with minimal damage. Talking can also be a means for bargaining, where one side gives something up in exchange for something else.

But none of that covers the sort of "talking" Carter and others have in mind with respect to Hamas and, say, Iran. What seems to be at work in this sort of talking is the profoundly naive hope that simply by talking to them, both will come to see the unreasonableness of their views and will modify their behavior accordingly. But why, if one talks to them (and does so publicly) without preconditions, will they come to see the unreasonableness of their views and modify their behavior? It is precisely those views (and the actions they produce) that have pushed you (so they will think, perhaps rightly) to the talking table. With Hamas, if you are willing to talk to them, willing to "negotiate" with them, then haven't they already won half the battle? Haven't they pushed you to a position of "talking" precisely with the sort of behavior you hope they will give up? And if their most fundamental goals - say, the destruction of Israel - are precisely what you want them to give up, isn't the "talking" inevitably bound to fail, unless you allow them to maintain those fundamental goals? That is, Hamas (and a similarly constructed argument could be made with respect to Iran as well) is constituted fundamentally as an organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel. They will not give that up (whatever they may claim) except that they decide to close up shop and exit the stage of history; talking to them will not change that and will instead merely put you in a position of implicitly legitimating that goal, since it is something that can be negotiated over.

It's a shame ol' Jimmy wasn't satisfied with peanut farming.

Just a Thought...

2008-04-15T13:58:00.000-04:00

Wouldn't it be ironic if the first serious black presidential candidate in American history were undone in part because of a perception that he was "elitist"?

I mean, if Obama goes down - and who knows at this point what will happen - it will be because some portion of the Democratic or general electorate decided that his views were more representative of Harvard Law School than deepest, palest Pennsylvania. That's pretty remarkable, isn't it?

Giving Obama a Break, Sort Of

2008-04-14T20:23:00.004-04:00

In fairness to Barack Obama, I sincerely believe that by "religion" he was explicitly referring to opposition to gay marriage, and politically, to the GOP's exploitation of the issue in Ohio '04. [Although it may not have made the difference, contrary to popular Democrat belief.]

From Barack's backtrack today:

So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage...

The rest of his explanation was sophistic hogwash, but I think he was honest there. After a free pass from the chattering class, it's ironic that he's getting it both barrels [gun pun intended, sorry] for the wrong reason.

On the other hand, Obama falls into Thomas Frank's Marxist-friendly "What's the Matter with Kansas" view of the human condition, that the Great Unwashed should vote their pocketbooks instead of their social values about what kind of country they want to raise their kids in.

Hey, I live in a cosmopolitan area---I know lots of folks who are unsympathetic, if not hostile, to organized religion. I can take it. But this is why Frank doesn't get Kansas, why Obama doesn't get America and why the left doesn't get what all the hubbub's about:

It's the leftism, stupid.

____________________________________

Other than Tibet, China's OK?

2008-04-14T10:41:00.000-04:00

So here's what I don't get about the current contretemps regarding the Olympics and whether heads of state should boycott the opening ceremonies and all: it seems entirely framed in terms of the recent events in Tibet (where China has been behaving thuggishly for a good half-century). Soooo...if the crackdown hadn't happened in Tibet, would we be talking about this at all? Is the idea that the repression in Tibet means that China has crossed some line but that its continued repression of political opposition and religious liberty, forced abortions, support for genocidal regimes, and the like don't cross the line? Is the message that we want to send that you can throw Christian pastors in jail at your whim, lock up and torture people who merely ask for free speech, and act as a de facto sugar daddy to some of the world's ugliest regimes, but just don't act similarly toward the Tibetans?

I'm not especially impressed with calls for Olympic boycotts or whatever - they seem to me a sort of grandstanding that makes the protesters feel good, but has little actual effect. (It would be much better if each American athlete, for example, carried with them a picture or name of a Chinese dissident in jail or under house arrest - or even better if they decided to go meet with them and dare the Chinese to arrest them or get in their way). But what seems to me the rather weird way in which some events galvanize opposition and others are merely par for the course is troubling and doesn't speak well of us.

McCain People Sleeping Just a Bit Easier These Days

2008-04-13T18:13:00.003-04:00

Religion, Government, and Obama

2008-04-13T15:50:00.002-04:00

Has anyone else noticed that Obama seems to think that bitter people will abandon their descent into religious faith when they have a government that they can count on? Do I actually have that right? Well, OK then: In Obama's sophisticated view, religion is just the opiate of the masses!

I think that the McCain people ought to be sleeping just a bit easier these days.

Statistically Proven: No Republicans Watch CNN!

2008-04-12T03:22:00.008-04:00

Well, by now you've heard about Barack Obama calling the small-town people who aren't voting for him firearms-humpin' Jebus-lovin' xenophobes. Even worse than that, protectionists!

"And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations...

Most fascinating is CNNPolitics.com's report, with hundreds of comments---but not one from an apparent Republican, just a few Hillaryistas being gobbled up by a swarm of Obamans.

Now, a commenter at the righty blog The Ace of Spades says CNN is censoring his $0.02. Either way, censorship or 100% Democrat readership, CNN is toejam.

Equally fascinating---in over 800 comments at the Daily Kos, scarcely a whisper from the Hillary corner. Since the Obamans descended on them with all their savagery last month, Daily Kos, the jewel of the leftosphere, is a Hillary no-go zone.

I used to think when I got into a scrap with a lefty, it was all in the game. But after seeing how they treat each other, I'm thinking something more pathological is at work, if not downright eerie.

No more Republicans at CNN, no Hillary people left at Kos. The Disappeared. Soon all that'll be left is the Obamans, unified, hopeful, agents of change...

______________________________________

Numbers Don't Lie! (Though sometimes people do bend them).

2008-04-10T12:53:00.000-04:00

Larry Bartels, a political science professor at Princeton, has gotten a lot of play in "the internets" (as a friend of mine calls it) for his argument that Democratic presidents help create more economic growth and more egalitarian distributional effects than their GOP counterparts, at least since WWII. Jim Manzi's dismantling of at least the inequality claims over at NRO almost make me wish I had spent more time doing stats in grad school and less reading Plato or whoever. Well, almost.

What's remarkable about Manzi's analysis - and deadly for Bartels' claims - is that he makes clear that Bartels is playing a shell game with his numbers. When calculating presidential effects, Bartels gives himself a "lag year" and so Jimmy Carter gets credit for whatever happens economically for a year after he stopped being president. (That's 1980 for you young'uns). But as Manzi shows, if you get rid of the lag year or make it two years, all of Bartels' effects disappear. Poof! Now, maybe there's something robust about a year, but my guess is that Bartels fidgeted around a bit with the lag until he got what made sense to him.

Someone Ought to be Fired

2008-04-10T08:18:00.000-04:00

Another example of university administrators not having a clue as to what the First Amendment requires of them: a state university has reprimanded a tenured professor because they've decided that the things he's posted on his door constitute "harassment", not "protected free speech." Nonsense upon nonsense. Administrators are not going to learn their lesson on these things - if you're working at a state university, you can't tell someone not to say something except under very limited circumstances - until people start losing their jobs. The professor and his legal team should do more than ding the school for some cash, they should demand firings.

Condi for Veep?

2008-04-06T20:32:00.005-04:00

Speculation abounds.

My first instinct is that she's too connected with the Current Occupant to be anything but a drag for McCain.

But according to the ABCNews blog, not only does she want the gig, but

The survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted during the last few days of March, found that the Secretary of State enjoys a solid favorability rating: 56% expressed a good opinion of her, compared to 29% who did not.

I mean, if she could split the 15% "Don't Know" crowd, who right now are busy getting abducted by aliens and writing letters to Elvis, her favorables would be over 60%, even better than Barack ["I'll Unify Your Ass"] Obama's.

An interesting thought, anyway. If John ["I'll Unify Your Ass Even Better"] McCain finds himself in a poll hole come convention time, Condoleezza could be a helluva Hail Mary.

_______________________________________

Alas

2008-04-04T09:35:00.000-04:00

My friend Ashley Woodiwiss, who teaches political theory at Erskine College in South Carolina, has suffered what can only be considered the most grievous of tragedies: his daughter Anna has been killed in an accident while working in Afghanistan. Go read Alan Jacob's touching memorial. RIP.

Juan Williams on Obama and Wright

2008-04-04T01:43:00.001-04:00

But when Barack Obama, arguably the best of this generation of black or white leaders, finds it easy to sit in Rev. Wright's pews and nod along with wacky and bitterly divisive racial rhetoric, it does call his judgment into question. And it reveals a continuing crisis in racial leadership.

What would Jesus do? There is no question he would have left that church.

Well said, sir.

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Sunday Night Network "News"

2008-03-30T23:03:00.004-04:00

60 Minutes had an ex-Gitmo guy named Murat Kurnaz on tonight, charging all sorts of torture during his detainment.

Maybe too juicy a tidbit for 60 Minutes, but in an interview with Radio Bremen last year, Murat Kurnaz apparently alleged

Almost every time that someone had to go to the medical center and was away for a few days, he usually came back with a body part missing. I saw this with my own eyes: that one or another of my neighbors was taken to the medical center and then came back and something had been amputated. Even though he had not been sick and it wasn't necessary. For instance, fingers that were perfectly healthy.

Now, some people find this sort of thing easy to believe, I'm sure. Me, it makes me think Murat Kurnaz is not the type of fellow who always tells the truth.

And there was Lesley Stahl's nodding, fawning interview with Al Gore. Excellent. Then, flipping over to NBC, there was "journalist" Keith Olbermann fulminating over Bush with NBC "news analyst" Rachel Maddow of Air America. In prime time, on NBC, not MSNBC.

The mainstream media, fair and balanced, as always.

An Obama "Pivot"?

2008-03-29T07:47:00.000-04:00

No Left Turns points us to a shift in Obama's rhetoric regarding Rev. Wright. Obama was smarter to let things lie as they did after the Philly speech - and let his allies, especially in the media, intelligentsia, and black church establishments, construct apologies (in the sense of providing arguments) on his behalf. By starting to shift his position, he risks ending up with what we might call the "Kerry" problem. Kerry lost the 2004 elections, in my view, largely because he couldn't explain what he *really* thought about the war in Iraq. His classic "I voted for it before I voted against it" fatally wounded his campaign precisely because it so perfectly exemplified his waffling and left him without a coherent narrative to pull the campaign together. Likewise with Obama, as he tries to subtly shift his positions away from Wright, it will become all the more difficult for him to explain that relationship. The questions will just pile on: now, instead of just having to answer why he stuck around TUCC, he'll have to answer why he's saying something different than he said before. The problem, I suspect, is that there's more Wright nastiness out there and that Obama has realized that while Wright probably doesn't represent a fatal problem in the primaries, he's a heavy burden to carry in the general election. But the "pivot" here (if that's what this is) may end up being the thing that does him in.

Pelosi's Brave Dissent

2008-03-28T20:51:00.004-04:00

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime critic of China's human rights policies, said Friday it would be wrong to boycott the Beijing Olympics.

She said in a statement that while the Chinese government has failed to live up to its commitments to improve human rights conditions in China and Tibet, "I believe a boycott of the Beijing Olympics would unfairly harm our athletes who have worked so hard to prepare for the competition.

Not to mention they'd cut off our supply of Elmo dolls.

Y'know, I could vote Democrat now and then if they were willing to pay a price, any price, some price, for their loudly expressed principles.

As I said in India last week where I met with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, if freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China's oppression in Tibet, we have lost our moral authority to speak out on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world," she said.

Talk, talk, talk. At least Jimmy Carter was willing to hiss some people off by boycotting the 1980 Soviet Olympics after they invaded Afghanistan. Maybe not the best decision, but a principled one, one with a price, and to his credit.

Oh well, back to Bush, to make sure he doesn't get re-elected and invade Iraq again.

_____________________________________

Brilliant?

2008-03-28T11:29:00.001-04:00

Jennifer Rubin over at Commentary's blog contentions picks up on something that's been bothering me about the whole Obama-Rev. Wright thing.

In his big speech in Philly, Obama essentially excused Wright by saying that he'd grown up under different circumstances and that his "static" views on race were thereby understandable, if still wrongheaded. It's a nice rhetorical move, even if Wright grew up quite comfortably and even if Obama's "distancing" coincided precisely with his presidential ambitions, but it doesn't quite square with the idea that Wright is somehow "brilliant," does it?

In my mind, if someone's pretty smart, they have the capacity to look beyond their own particularities (never perfectly, of course) and do better than Wright has done - he seems stuck in 1968. All goes to the idea that Obama's really just playing games here (and was probably playing games with his embrace of Trinity UCC). Just another pol, I suppose.

Oh ye of little faith...

2008-03-26T15:37:00.000-04:00

So the Obamas sure are chintzy with their charitable donations, at least when they're making less than a cool quarter-million. Or, to be even a bit more cynical, when they're thinking about running for president. So in 2002, the Obamas made roughly $260,000 and gave $1050 to charity. That's awful, simply awful. Obama's looking more like the most ordinary pol around every day.

But maybe there's a way he could turn this to his advantage. Maybe he could say, see, I wasn't all *that* invested in Rev. Wright's church - I hardly gave them any money most years. I just sat in the pews and heard all those sermons and thought about the wonderful things that the church was doing for the poor, things that I, of course, had nothing to do with financially...hmmm, maybe that won't work so well after all.....

So how is Obama anything other than an eloquent dyed-in-the-wool liberal law professor? He has no political views that the vast majority of faculty don't hold. He has been a part of a church that is defined as much by radical academic theories as by any biblical gospel. He makes claims to be close to certain people and then pushes others away whenever it is convenient for his political goals. He doesn't spend any of his own money helping others but thinks that others should have their earnings taken so that the state can spend it. And so on and so on...

Eyewitness Testimony about Chicago Politics

2008-03-19T23:07:00.002-04:00

It's not our custom to be a reblogging blog around here.

But Caroline Glick sounds like a righteous dude. Offered for America's consideration, word up.

It's the Leftism, Stupid

2008-03-19T19:53:00.014-04:00

Barack Obama is getting high praise from the MSNBC/NYT types for having the "courage" to tell America that there are a lot of chronically hissed-off black folks.

Duh. White folks know all about it; they buy more rap records than blacks, and if they didn't read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, they caught a few minutes of the movie on cable.

But it's wrong to read Rev. Jeremiah Wright's jeremiads as racism against whites, his church as "black separatist," or his anger as a uniquely black phenomenon. Rev. Wright mostly rails against the adolescent Hollywood image of the bad guy: rich white men, the common enemy of all mankind, what Peter Sinfield called "gargoyles chewing on dead cigars." There are white faces at the Trinity Church services nodding in agreement along with the black ones---the tirades against the gargoyles are hardly different than what you'd hear from a caucasian/minority-wannabe like Ward Churchill, at any Young Democrat chapter meeting, or at most lunch tables on the Harvard campus. You don't have to be black for your politics to be jejune and angry, you just have to be a member of the left.

And there's the rub with Sen. Obama---little of this has to do with race, and little of the upset on the part of conservatives, and most importantly, the independents he must court. It was Obama who made the focus of his speech race and racism, in a clever 3-Card Monte. The problem with Rev. Wright isn't that he's black and angry, it's that he's wack.

Look, in a two-party system, you can hardly expect the other guy to boot out all his strange bedfellows, because if you do, your bed gets pretty empty in a hurry. Lord knows the GOP doesn't discourage the snakehandling vote. For Obama to accept support from the black left, indeed the left as a whole, is as American as, well, declining to wear an American flag pin.

But when you climb into the strange bedfellow's bed all on your own instead of the other way around, that's when it's worrisome, and that's what Sen. Obama did by joining Rev. Wright's church two decades ago. If he truly disagrees with Rev. Wright's stance on most things, then he evidently cannot tell the difference between the duties to principle, the reality of two-party politics and mere cynical opportunism.

Either way, most Americans don't want a wack leftist for president, or an opportunist either. Senator Obama has done little to prove he's not one or both.

Obama Plays the Otter Card

2008-03-18T13:33:00.004-04:00

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmation action, that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap," he said. "On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation, that rightly offend white and black alike...

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street....These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.---Barack Obama, Philadelphia '08

Masterful. In times of crisis, consult the repository of all human wisdom, the classics.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules or took a few liberties with our female guests. We did.

But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few sick, perverted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general?

I put it to you, Greg, isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do what you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you bad-mouth the United States of America! Gentlemen!---Eric Stratton, Faber '63

Obama: Between His Black Rock of Ages and a Very Hard Place

2008-03-17T21:00:00.011-04:00

Tomorrow, Barack Obama is going to Philly to give the speech of his life to save his candidacy.

Now, it might be that Obama can survive the superdelegate game and still win the Democrat nomination. But in this Feiler Faster 24/7 newsuniverse, his 20 years as a member of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's congregation have hit the fan.

With the pivotal Pennsylvania primary another 5 weeks away, Obama is already looking at a substantial defeat. One poll had him down to the lovely and talented Hillary Rodham Clinton 55-36, and that was before the nation started learning about Rev. Wright's jeremiads against "white" America: "White greed" makes the needy world suffer. 9-11 was a justifiable payback. The white US government used AIDS as a weapon against the browner people on Earth, to kill them off just on general principles.

Dude's wack, the black equivalent of a Kennedy assassination theorist, a UFO believer, an anti-fluoridation activist, and a guy who sends Elvis a card every year on his birthday.

Sen. Obama, who's had his path to the presidency strewn with garlands and rose petals, has to negotiate his way around the biggest turd in recent electoral memory.

As Mickey Kaus, a leading proponent of the Feiler Faster Theory asks, what if Obama loses Pennsylvania by 20 points? Who knows? It could be worse than that. Rasmussen, admittedly an outlier, shows some ominous numbers: since Rev. Wright hit the sleepy consciousness of national fan, Sen. Obama's national negative rating has leapt to 50%, and 54% among white voters.

Now, the actual fact is likely that the young and politically ambitious Barack Obama found a power center in Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, and you go to church where the votes and kingmakers are. Who's listening, anyway? Just shake some hands afterward, cut a lunch date with a potential contributor, throw a few smiles to the crowd and get home by noon for the Bears game.

Now, the sentiments on the left [and the Obama campaign] are that talk can solve everything, whether with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or the American electorate. Barack Obama gets his chance to talk. I suppose he'll say he disagrees with "some" of Rev. Wright's rantings.

But although I expect some world-class eloquence tomorrow that'll satisfy some, I suspect there is a critical mass of voters who will not elect him president until and unless he tells us which one rantings he does disagree with.

And if and when he does, he'll lose some of his strongest supporters.

Because, as it turns out, not all talk can be talked away with more talk. It's gotta be this or that, quoth The Duke. There are fundamental disagreements in the American polity, and although George Washington was elected by unanimous vote, it has not happened since, nor will anyone ever be again.

Rev. Wright...

2008-03-16T22:13:00.000-04:00

So how to think about the quite estimable Rev. Wright, the now not-so-close adviser to Sen. Obama? Well, take two poles out of play: I doubt it's the case that Obama shares many of Rev. Wright's particular views (e.g. that AIDS was brought on by "Whitey" to get the black man) but neither do I think that he's entirely immaterial to our evaluation of Obama. Very few of us churchgoers agree entirely with our pastors and sometimes we may even stay at churches where the pastor makes us grind our teeth on a weekly basis. But being a part of a church that's so powerfully centered around the personality of a particular pastor for *20 years* has to suggest that Obama at the very least didn't feel all *that* uncomfortable with Wright (and here I'm assuming that he's basically lying when he says that he wasn't aware of Wright's controversial statements - even if he didn't know anything about those particular statements, it beggars the imagination to suppose that Wright hadn't said similar things in his presence) and, what's more, he felt comfortable enough about the church that had his two daughters there and continued to tithe pretty well. That Obama didn't suppose that Wright would be a problem for him and his campaign also speaks a great deal to Obama's real blindness about Wright - and how extreme his statements sound to most Americans. And that's the real problem here: to the degree that Obama continued to play up his association with his church and Rev. Wright, it at the very least shows that he thinks Wright's noxious statements are not outside the pale, regardless of whatever damage control he's begun. It's not unlike Edwards' willingness to nod and look thoughtful when the 9/11 "Truthers" would go on about the government's complicity with terrorist attacks. (Note that Bill Clinton, in contrast, has been pretty forceful in slapping down the wackadoos...). Neither really believes that crap, but their willingness to allow it into the national conversation is troubling, to say the least.

Everything I ever needed to know, I learned in Rome . . . .

2008-03-12T18:36:00.000-04:00

This should sound familiar:

"The fact of the matter, nonetheless, was that Vespasian and Mucianus had agreed on a plan of action already. When they received the news of Otho's accession, during Titus' absence, they decided to acknowledge him as their emperor, and administered the oath of allegiance to their troops forthwith. Neither of them was particularly enthused about Otho's cause. Rather, they were playing a waiting game, planning--according to Tacitus--to sit on the sidelines while Otho and Vitellius slugged it out. In their view, it did not matter which contender won the war, because both were so horribly flawed that the one would be brought doen by the war, the other by his victory. This is a classic example of a motif as popular with Greco-Roman historians as are conspiratorial theories of history today, that of the tertius gaudens, the third party who waits till a struggle between two other rivals has been fought, and the victor has been so weakened by his success that he can be defeated."

--Gwyn Morgan, 69 A.D.: The Year of Four Emperors at 180 (OUP 2006).

We are now in for five solid weeks of Hillary v. Obama, no holds barred. "Tertius gaudens" seems like a pretty good strategy for Sen. McCain, eh?

The Crimes of Spitzer

2008-03-12T10:23:00.003-04:00

My contempt for Eliot Spitzer is absolute, but it seems to me (an amateur) that the criminal charges that are being talked about are just this side of phony. The Mann Act? Please. The financial structuring issue seems dubious to me as well, since I've seen no reports that any one of the services purchased by Spitzer cost more than the $10,000 threshold for a formal financial report; instead, it looks like he purchased a series of services, each of which cost less than $5000, but the total of which summed to more than $10,000. I can't believe that to be a structuring violation; over the course of a year, I spend more than $10,000 at the Agoura Deli for corned-beef sandwiches, $10.95 (plus tip) at a time. Is that "structuring"? Interstate travel to commit a crime? See comment on the Mann Act above. Wire fraud? The last refuge of prosecutorial scoundrels. Conspiracy to commit money laundering? It looks more to me like a conspiracy to preserve anonimity. Etc.

We aged veterans of the NKVD know that strict adherence to the letter of the law is essential; that's why confessions, however obtained, are necessary. Spitzer, of course, during his salad days as an Aspiring Governor knew this as well, which is the source of the supreme contempt that he enjoys from, well, everyone. Yes, he deserves to rot in hell, and, for that matter, to rot long before he gets there. But that is no excuse for the current efforts of the prosecutors to find some paddle, any paddle, that would fit his backside. This is supposed to be a nation governed by the rule of law.

Should Prostitution Be Illegal?

2008-03-12T09:59:00.000-04:00

As Tom commands, so I obey...

So over at The Corner (and elsewhere) they're having a rather spirited discussion of whether prostitution ought to be illegal in the wake of Gov. Spitzer's recent shenanigans, with Andrew Stuttaford leading the libertarian (and libertine?) charge. He's wrong (as is so often the case), but not for the reasons typically adduced.

First, we might think that prostitution should be illegal because it's immoral. (Note that Stuttaford has not yet - so far as I can tell - actually said that he thinks prostitution is even immoral; he merely grants it arguendo). But that clearly won't fly, as there are plenty of things that are immoral that we don't make illegal. If we were to make lying a crime, for example, we'd have to lock up darned near every real estate agent in the country. Not that that would be a bad thing, but still....

Another line of reasoning might suggest that we make prostitution illegal because of its pernicious consequences. Lisa Schiffren at NRO has taken this line, noting that, for whatever reason, the particularities of prostitution seems inevitably to include coercion, violence, exploitation and the like. That seems right as a practical matter, but it's vulnerable to the breezy Stuttafordian reply that we can solve such problems with proper enforcement and that in any case making it illegal merely exacerbates those problems. I can't really say which of the two has the better empirical case and imagine that there are plenty of arguments on both sides.

My argument for making prostitution illegal rests on quite different grounds, though it may help explain why prostitution seems to end up involving all sorts of nasty characters, whether it is illegal or not. Consider the following: in western liberal societies we recognize something we might call sexual liberty. At a minimum, this means that we think that someone should not be obligated to have sex with someone without his or her consent. The exact extent of this sexual liberty is, of course, deeply disputed, but consent certainly is a common touchstone. Well, why do we have this view? In large part, I think, we have this view because we understand sex (as with, say, religion) to be something of such intimate importance that to have the clumsy, bumbling state involved makes for some very bad policy outcomes. Whatever else human beings are, we are the sorts of creatures who value greatly our ability to live "in conscience," in accordance with what we take to be true; coercing us in matters of sex treads on that ability in important, even crucial, ways.

Making prostitution legal might seem to accord with a generalized sexual liberty but it actually runs deeply against the grounds for such liberty precisely in that it makes sex out to be something quite different than the generalized liberty claim depends upon. When we legalize prostitution, we say then that sex is or can be a mere commodity, a "thing" that can be the object of an economic transaction. But to be that sort of "thing," it then cannot be the sort of deeply personal, crucially important "thing" that grounds our claims to sexual liberty. If sex is a thing we can legitimately pay for, then it may be a thing that we can regulate, tax and tie up in all sorts of minute state control, much like any other "recreational" activity. We can treat it like rockclimbing and can largely do what we want with it politically. But that's not what sex is and whether we admit or not - and our popular culture tries powerfully to convince us that it's just another recreational "thing" - we recognize that as such, which is why even its "legal" manifestations are rife with coercion, violence, and nasty characters. Prostitution is inherently vicious and degrading and it is no surprise that when we try and make it legal, its vices don't go away.

Eliot Spitzer, Human Being, or: Eliot Spitzer, Human Being?

2008-03-10T22:46:00.007-04:00

Since Spitzer's a Democrat, and quite a self-righteous one, I'm trying not to enjoy this all too much. A GOP senator named Vitter got named in a DC hooker ring, and he was given a pass, as it was indeed a private matter between him and his wife.

Proper, in my view.

But Spitzer was a prosecutor. My rules for hypocrisy are pretty liberal---Spitzer said he failed to live up to his own standards, and that's fair---among human beings who actually have standards, failure is inevitable.

But to prosecute---persecute---others for the same thing you do yourself, and he apparently did, is another matter entirely, and fits my definition of hypocrisy. Spitzer, according to the link above, prosecuted prostitution.

Now, if it turns out he gave hookers a break---and because there is no moral difference here between buyer and seller---perhaps he's just the victim of bad luck.

Me, I just wonder how he could afford Emperor's Club courtesans on a civil servant's salary. Up to five grand a pop? At least we can hope he selected from the Three Diamond menu instead of the Seven, as any fiscally responsible politician would.

[Nice to see Messrs. Simpson and Evanston check in. This blog has always been about dialogue and not speechifying. There will be much to dialogue about in the coming months about the future and fate of this here republic...]

So Sorry...

2008-03-09T21:21:00.000-04:00

To have been gone from these parts for so long. It has been an "interesting" few months, as we've been considering changing jobs, cities, and much else. But I'm back around and will try to throw things up for your oh-so patient consideration a bit more in the days to come...

Remembering A Memorable Man

2008-02-29T00:52:00.000-05:00

When I heard that William F. Buckley Jr. had departed, I thought of this oft-quoted epigram from the Talmud: “The righteous need no monuments, their words provide their memories.” Beneath that burnished truism lies an unexamined premise; namely, that one can hardly lay claim to righteousness without leaving words to edify the public, words to treasure. Mister Buckley clearly bequeathed a rich legacy of words and his memory shall not lack for laurels, for garlands or for wreaths.
Like so many others, my political consciousness was firmed up under his tutelage. I began with his columns in the New York Daily News, then I read a number of his books. Whether he was winning me over, or confirming my own intuition, is worth pondering, but the outcome was undeniable: his camp was my camp.
Buckley was many things, some of which have died with him, but the modern conservative movement, much enhanced by his ministrations, will continue to edge its way forward, if a trifle attenuated by his absence. It has been argued, sometimes by Reagan himself, that Reagan could not have become President sans Buckley, but those larger causes and effects juggle too many variables to allow for definitive assertion. This much is indisputable: that the movement that Reagan led by mood, by a nod and a wink and a grin, by a gibe and a vibe and a shrug, Buckley and his protégés ensouled with words.
Yet, if one spark of inspiration must be gleaned from his fiery cascade of ideas, I would choose this very simple idea. The idea of naming the movement “conservatism”.
Even if conservative and movement are not deemed oxymoronic in their partnership, the title would have been absurd anyway, based on its formative context. Buckley’s very first book, God and Man at Yale, was published in 1952, and it is already quite clear that liberal political thought was the regnant orthodoxy of the public square, academia most of all. He demonstrates in that work the systematized, if not quite systematic, effort by faculty to stamp out religious consciousness from the impressionable mind of the Yale undergraduate.
The movement Buckley was encouraging was the furthest thing from conservative, if that adjective is construed as preservative of a status quo. Four decades before that time, Woodrow Wilson had declared the Constitution outmoded and irrelevant, and no one thought it worth a reference except as a fig leaf to cover the prurient. Franklin Roosevelt had certainly paid it no mind in fashioning a vision of modern governance. Buckley and friends were proposing a notion that was not so much conservative as restorative, irredentist if you will, revanchist if you must.
The genius inhered in the realization that the general conservative impulse of the Middle American family man, the kind that winced at sexualization of the culture, that grimaced at the glorification of violence, could be harnessed to support this Constitutionalist drive. The person who feels that the best parts of his sensibility are the ones that are least incendiary can be shown that it is the last residue of the wisdom of our Founders that is animating his better angels.
He used all the arguments for the Constitution that clergymen use for the Bible – and that the Bible uses for itself. It is the right thing to do, it actually works better, you owe it to previous generations, you owe it to future generations. He did a tight-rope walk between the argument that enlightened self-interest produces virtue and the argument that the citizen’s spirit of altruistic philanthropy is what entitles him to be the arbiter of his own compassion. He was by turns trenchant and piquant, cerebral and playful, but he never demanded obeisance by entitlement. He forbore to work for every logical point he scored.
What the future holds for this set of ideas seems to be in abeyance, by most accounts. This is at least partially because past victories have dulled the urgency of the revolution. Stop any Democrat at random and mention ninety percent tax rates under Roosevelt, and he will be completely shocked and astounded.
There was really nothing to conserve before Buckley came, save a yellowed document and a cracked bell. William F. Buckley Jr. lives no more, but he leaves behind a Constitution that is not ‘living’ but alive, and a bell that tolls for thee and thine freedom.

Nothing Human is Alien to Him

2008-02-25T20:59:00.004-05:00

Barack Obama is enduring some ridicule for dressing up in a silly local costume while touring a foreign country:

Not the first time a Democratic presidential candidate looked like a mook while trying out the silly customs and dress of a strange people in an unfamiliar land:

Mississippi, I think it was. Kentucky, mebbe.

Can Something Bad Happen and It's Nobody's Fault?

2008-02-22T00:01:00.015-05:00

Not in America, it seems. You can always sue somebody, right?

But Riegel v. Medtronic is creating quite a stir in the legal industry.

Basically, the Supreme Court decided just the other day that those huge medical-device product liability suits cannot proceed if the FDA pre-approved the medical device.

In short, what we're seeing here is that the federal government, via what's commonly called the Interstate Commerce Clause [that's in the Constitution, for those who came in late], can short-circuit state laws and state lawsuits against corporations that do business nationally.

The interesting thing is that the decision was 7-1, Justice Breyer mugwumping and only Justice Ginsburg dissenting, on grounds that states have compelling interests, etc., etc.

Now, I'm a Fred Thompson federalist---power devolved to the states---but it seems that the ICC is totally applicable here, and the best thing is that it's not another chafing, apparently partisan-ideological 5-4 decision.

Even the Supreme Court can largely agree on what the Constitution means every once in awhile. Thank God and may He continue to bless This Here Republic.

Next up: lawsuits on pharmaceuticals---Warner-Lambert v. Kent, and more here. The powerful plaintiff's bar---which at the top levels makes far more money than those grunts who defend corporations---is in quite a tizzy, running out of people to sue.

A fair reading of the constitution beats even "tort reform" anyday.

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Homnick on Darwin and Genesis

2008-02-08T20:27:00.000-05:00

Even the greatest walking encyclopedia of the King James Version of the Bible can't begin to penetrate the mysteries of the Book of Genesis without being grounded in Judaism, and more precisely, the rabbinic tradition.

Hereabouts, we're lucky to have a fellow who is---Jay D. Homnick. Christians and atheists, creationists and Darwinians alike need to understand the Torah as it understands itself before they start spouting off about it.

{{{Photo: Jay D. Homnick (right), with unidentified friend questioning his thesis

Jay's essay on what Genesis really means to those who wrote it should open a lot of eyes and ears about "what the Bible says." Translating it into English---and reading that translation 400 years later---frustrates any search for truth.

Homnick's most interesting points are that The Creator doesn't go poof!, here's the world. The Seven [well, Six Working] Days of Creation show a process, and each succeeding life form [evolution?] comes from the existing material on God's Good Earth and is not plunked down ex nihilo at every stage. Life lives, grows, is fruitful and multiplies. It's permitted to find its own course, to grow and differentiate, from the trees to the grasses.

There's more there than one can do justice to with a brief tout. Read it. All I can say is that the great Jewish medieval Maimonides [b. 1138], when introduced to Aristotle and the wisdom of the Greeks (while living in Muslim Spain!) was a reasonable man.

{{{Jay D. Homnick [artist's conception]

He [Maimonides, not Homnick] wrote that if Aristotle were proven right, he'd accept the Greek view that the universe was eternal, always had been and always will be. Seemed reasonable, but in the meantime, he'd hold onto an idea, the idea, of Creation as set forth in his scriptures.

Good call, Moses Maimonides, משה בן מימון I mean, أبو عمران موسى بن ميمون بن عبد الل القرطبي الإسرائيلي. [Moshe ben Maimon, AKA Abu Imran Mussa bin Maimun ibn Abdallah al-Qurtubi al-Israili.]

Big bang. Heavens. Earth. Life. Man comes in at the end. After nearly 1000 generations of squalor, God says hello to Abraham. Read the Homnick, already, it's all there.

Ex-nun Karen Armstrong wrote a popular book called "A History of God," where man comes first and starts developing his notion of God. The Bible, in contrast, is a History of Man, told in first-person perspective---not merely an autobiography but a diary, and we see him grow in his understanding of himself and his God day by day and chapter by chapter.

That he gets many of the essential details about his origins right from the very very first, topping even the most reasonable of men in their time and for over 1000 years, the ancient Greeks, suggests to Mr. Homnick---and perhaps us all---that man's autobiography has an omniscient point of view that could only originate from Divine Inspiration.

The genesis of Genesis, if you will.

Well done and thank you, Jay. More, more!

Jay D. Homnick, most recent sketch [Courtesy: FBI]

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Idea of a Genesis

2008-02-08T12:59:00.000-05:00

Permit me to strongly recommend my article on the Jewish understanding of Genesis, and how that reflects upon evolution and related issues. After years of reading Jewish articles on the subject, I decided to write up a basic presentation of the main building blocks in the Talmudic/Midrashic system. The others never seemed to marshal the material in a coherent way. Hopefully I will succeed in achieving that goal.

A Great Day for the GOP

2008-02-07T22:01:00.000-05:00

Mitt Romney dropped out, and so, he must surrender our newsticker over there on the right margin>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

Mitt, we hardly knew ye, but that was your fault, not ours. I wasn't the only one who noticed Mitt gave his best, most impassioned, and sincere speech of the campaign, betraying a love for America and the American ideal, and revealing that he's not made of printed circuits after all.

[Well, not entirely, anyway, although if he were hit by a stray round or a falling girder and revealed as a cyborg, it wouldn't surprise me.]

Mitt did well, and if he'd said "I'll be back" in an Austrian accent, that wouldn't have surprised me either. We're all brought up to think we should want to be president, but the reality's more than a little scary, and I think Rudy and Fred permitted overcomeable reverses to chase them off, too.

Alan Greenspan said of the seven presidents he's known, only Gerald Ford wasn't weird, and of course, Ford backed into it.

But I think Mitt's just weird enough to give it another go. Which leads us to John Insane [McInsane?]:

He gave an ace speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, which had just been stunned by Romney announcing his withdrawal from the race. The new Republican standard-bearer, perhaps a 7 on the conservative scale, and has done it despite all the force 10s of talk radio [the toy store]. Republicans, being temperate and reasonable people, sorted out their differences with him immediately, cheering him on many points, and McCain while healing his rift with the hard-core, was already appealing to independents and "Reagan Democrats" as well.

So, after Super Tuesday confirmed the writing that was already on the wall, the GOP took all of about about 36 hours to achieve consensus.

As for where the Reagan Democrats may or may not have gone home, it could be months before anything coherent emerges. Things being what they are over there, we could inaugurate a president in 2009 and still have a court case pending about who the rightful nominee was.

It's hard to take that party's EEG right now since Hillary's a 9 and Obama's a 9 1/2 if not a perfect 10. There is little to disagree about---therefore little for the hard core to get exercised about---but the papers tell me there still could be a war for months to come, as the "superdelegates," who aren't selected in the primaries, represent 20% of the total at the convention.

I was of the opinion that Obama has risen like a tsunami, but political genius Karl Rove just said that Obama's best demographic days will be behind him after the end of February. Decisive African American majorities, and caucuses, where he does extremely well as they are attended largely by the hard core.

We shall see. Me, I like Obama too, and was at one of his rallies the other night. [Don't ask.]

I must admit I was unnerved by a messianic current [We'll change not only the nation, but the world!] that would have been out of place even at a Huckabee do, although I appreciated that they vilified neither Hillary nor the Current Occupant, except in nod-nod wink-wink code.

But since I speak Democrat as well as Republican, I understood---so well in fact, that I "passed" as one of Them. Even got a t-shirt: He's Black and I'm Proud!

McCain? I dunno. We're Lukewarm, But He's Hot!

Anyway, he, and we, had a helluva day.

It's McCain For Me

2008-02-04T23:42:00.000-05:00

I let it go to the wire, even wasting 50 bucks on Fred Thompson's prom dress [he stayed home], but it's decision time here in California. The general election, especially if Obama's the Dem nominee, will be fought at the 8th-grade level. Hope. Inspiration. Youth. Energy. Nobody's going to hear a word about policy positions.

Mitt Romney's just too mooky---like Al Gore and John Kerry, who probably both should have smoked the weaker/vulnerable Dubya, let's face it.

Favorable ratings among even Republicans give McCain the edge 72-54. How is a guy with favorable ratings of only 54 in his own party gonna win the general? Sorry, Mitt. We can't nominate Urkel, even if he's rich.

So let's get real. John McCain is a war hero, and unlike Barack Obama, who follows almost every liberal dot [95% rating from Americans for Democratic Reform], is his own man. The GOP's only hope is that PJ O'Rourke is right, and that age and guile beat youth, innocence, and a bad haircut. Although Obama even has him on the haircut.

John McCain for President: We Could Do Worse.

Obama Solves His Latino Problem

2008-02-04T16:11:00.000-05:00

Barack Obama's good, real good. He found the only way out of his conundrum [see post below]: the cure for identity politics is more identity politics. If there's a problem between Us and Them, find another Them to scapegoat.

On Friday, he sent demagogue extraordinaire Ted Kennedy out to California for a little race-baiting: anyone who thinks you can't wave a magic wand on illegal immigration simply by making everyone legal is a "bigot," the same as those who opposed the civil rights acts of 1964 and 1965. The problem isn't Us, it's Them, that other Them.

Obama, being far slicker, today noted that "They" hated the Ellis Island immigrants back in the day, anti-Irish, anti-Italian. Obama also noted that not all the Ellis Island folks had their papers, a "fact" he simply made up to square the circle with today's Hispanic illegal immigrants.

But what technique, showing Teddy for the piker he is: Obama narrowed "Them" down to the nativist Mayflower crowd of a century or more ago, who are dead and don't vote, not even in Chicago.

No wonder he's erased Hillary Clinton's lead in the polls here in California with the bat of an eye, a nod and a wink, and marches on to the nomination.

Dang. He's good, real good.

Hillary: Woman. Barack: Black. What's a Hispanic to do?

2008-01-31T00:06:00.001-05:00

Identity politics.

Valid? There have unquestionably been groups excluded---indeed, kicked around---by whatever Powers That Be, those powers in human history tending to be Europeanish males, with mebbe exceptions like the Huns and Mongols and Aztecs and Bantus, who were still males.

Accruing to his everlasting credit, the great Rush Limbaugh immediately slammed Mike Huckabee's touting his credentials as a Christian minister in his Iowa ads as "identity politics," which are by definition divisive, no?

Once you got an Us, that means We ain't Them, and you got divisiveness.

I won't deny that the "power" thing is a legitimate historical criticism, and perhaps a legitimate way to look at the world. Females and non-whites have seldom if ever enjoyed unquestioned first-class staus.

But the unintended consequences of pursuing that line and using that prism include this piece on the LA Times' opinion page.

Now, the essay by some Hispanic notables elides the facts on the ground---that Hispanics and African Americans, each of which vote heavily Democratic, are often in competition more than cooperation when it comes to political power.

And here in Los Angeles, in competition across the board, neighborhood by neighborhood.

Even in attempting to ignore that reality, the authors are still stuck with identity politics---their contention is that Hillary will win the Hispanic vote not particularly because Hispanics won't vote for Barack Obama---who happens to be black---but because HRC had the sensitivity to reach out to major Hispanic political figures from the first and secured their support.

OK, fine. But that's still identity politics, something every American should recoil from. That the Democratic Party at last hoists itself on its own petard of race over reason, well, I'm pretty good with that.

Hehe. Real good.

The Clintons and the Black Electorate

2008-01-25T17:23:00.000-05:00

There is a good deal of commentary in both the mainstream media and the blogosphere to the effect that the Clinton attacks on Obama, whatever their basis in truth or fiction, have had the effect of inducing black voters to rally around Obama as one of their "brothers," or something like that. It seems to me that there is something more fundamental going on: The Clinton position---again putting aside the relationship of the assertions to the truth---smacks of the old racist putdown, "Keep your place." And not in a very subtle way either. After all, the Clinton attacks grew in intensity and decibel level and acidity just as the polls showed Obama to be a serious rival. I don't think that this is an accident, as Pravda in its glory years used to put it, and it does not speak well for Bill's much-lauded but illusory political skills or for Hillary's ability to see political subtleties. And let's face it: Bill and Hillary would be perfectly willing to lynch someone if they believed that their political fortunes would be enhanced. But we already knew that.

Debate Wrapup

2008-01-25T02:41:00.000-05:00

Quick takes from the 1-24-08 debate:

Romney: I just don't see how a man with so little charm can win the presidency unless his opponent is Hubert Humphrey. Maybe if her last name is Clinton.

McCain: Not bad. Sorry, Mr. Limbaugh, but he still sorta looks like a Republican, if you squint hard enough. Especially compared to what the Democrats are up to these days.

If he faces Hillary, it'll be Bill Clinton vs. McCain's mom. Sounds like a fair fight, although she has her wits more about her, and seems more presidential.

Giuliani: Not dead yet. Still the sharpest and most spontaneous knife in the GOP drawer. Has that actor's gift of making his rehearsed lines sound like he's saying them for the first time.

Huckabee: As previously noted, I'll see him in hell before he gets my vote. Sorry, Rev---you can aim at being FDR or Billy Graham in this life, but not both. And I don't want either of you as my president.

Ron Paul:Always good for a laugh. Abolish Social security? Sure, why not. Almost as irrelevant and doltish as talking about abolishing the Internal Revenue Service. Oh, wait---Mike Huckabee actually did that. If this guy ever got the nomination, the electoral fallout would yield the Democrats 70 senate seats, as America ran screaming.

Most amusing moment of the night: Mainstream news insider/NBC "reporter" Andrea Mitchell telling and MSNBC host [and putative Republican] Joe Scarborough how conservatives are diggin' John McCain. Twice.

Even the quisling Morning Joe couldn't keep a straight face on that one.

Rush is Wrong, Statesmanship, or: The Year of the Mixed Bag

2008-01-21T20:17:00.000-05:00

"I can see possibly not supporting the Republican nominee this election, and I never thought that I would say that in my life."--R. Limbaugh, January 21, 2008

Well, I must admit that if it's Huckabee vs. Obama, I might cross party lines for the first time since 1988 myself. Rush shares my antipathy for Huck, but I think he's really talking about John McCain.

Now, McCain has his sins against conservative orthodoxy, and wrote a bill with Ted Kennedy for what amounted to amnesty for illegal aliens. Very unpopular, but President Bush supported the idea, too, after all. McCain has since retracted this apostasy, and says he'll support border enforcement as the Will of the People.

Not great, but hey, that's the idiosyncratic McCain. Scarcer than honest men in Washington are people who agree with McCain 100% on the issues. It's part of his charm, what makes him appealing to independents, and what makes him the only Republican who, according to the current polls, is in a statistical dead heat with the Democrat candidates---any, all, and each, even against the odious John Edwards.

But what puts a burr under El Rushbo's bottom most is McCain-Feingold, a law that admittedly puts a dent in the First Amendment's protection of free political speech. Bad idea.

McCain was also one of only two GOP senators to vote in 2001, '02 and '03 against the Bush tax cuts [known today as "the Bush tax cuts"], a pillar of one of conservatism's three-legs-of-the-stool, economic liberty. But McCain's right out front in 2008 that he wants to make them permanent, under the somewhat twisted but clever logic that to repeal them would amount to a tax increase. McCain is philosophically against tax increases---and in this, the Year of the Mixed Bag, that should be sufficient.

As for the other two pillars of the conservative coalition, McCain's credentials on national security are nonpareil, and it was he who wanted to whack the counterattack in Iraq even more than Bush and the neo-cons did. As for social conservatism, McCain's record as a pro-lifer is nigh-perfect on abortion issues, although he's not an absolutist on banning embryonic stem cell research.

And if his "Gang of 14" bi-partisan coalition with 7 Democrats in the Senate was offensive to conservatives who wanted to go to the mattresses over Bush43 judicial nominees, it was that very peace treaty that put John Roberts and Sam Alito on the Supreme Court, neither of whom conservatives view as "compromise" candidates.

In fact, they may stand as the Bush43 administration's greatest accomplishment, and it may very well have been John McCain's statesmanship that made their confirmations happen.

So when the estimable Mr. Limbaugh says

The Drive-Bys [mainstream media] consider McCain's 'straight talk' anything they agree with, and the first item on the things they agree with him is: 'Bush sucks.'

I think he's missing the bigger picture here. Although it's unfair to call Bush43 a divider [he reached out to Ted Kennedy, after all, with "No Child Left Behind"], even Dubya's admirers confess that his style became more autocratic than statesmanlike. It was John McCain who buried the hatchet after the 2000 primaries, campaigned for him in 2004, and carried his water in Congress without losing himself and his credibility as his own man in the process.

"Bush sucks?" Hardly.

Look, Rush, I realize that you see yourself as a conservative first and a Republican second, and that's OK. You yourself admitted to the mistake of carrying the Bush administration's [and the GOP's] water, and regretted losing yourself in the process.

John McCain never did. That's presidential timber: his personal heroism is unquestionable, his statemanship and character as well.

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