Betsy's Page
Thursday, May 15, 2008
When doing what feels right turns out to be the best thing you ever did
My husband explains it all.
All my love, too.
Blaming his staff
Jake Tapper has been having fun keeping a running tally of all the times that Senator Obama is asked about some embarrassing contradiction between one of his previous stands that is politically uncomfortable today and Obama wriggles out of the story by blaming someone on his staff. Add in when some contradiction emerges between Obama's claim to be a new sort of candidate who doesn't go negative on his opponents.Yesterday, in an interesting New York Times look at Obama's rise in Chicago politics, we learned that in 2004 some Jewish supporters became alarmed to learn that in a questionnaire Obama refrained from denouncing Yasir Arafat, or from expressing strong support for Israel's security fence.The list goes on and on. Tapper is up to 14 examples of this blame-shifting technique. Tapper concludes,
Reports the Times: "In an e-mail message, Mr. Obama blamed a staff member for the oversight, and expressed the hope that 'none of this has raised any questions on your part regarding my fundamental commitment to Israel’s security.'"
In January, during MSNBC's presidential debate in Las Vegas, Obama was asked about a document put together by one of his South Carolina staffers that listed comments made by the Clinton campaign that some perceived to be attempting to stoke racial fires. "In hindsight, do you regret pushing this story?” asked Tim Russert.
"Our supporters, our staff get overzealous," Obama said. "They start saying things that I would not say, and it is my responsibility to make sure that we're setting a clear tone in our campaign.”
In February in a meeting with the Chicago Tribune, Obama was asked about an earmark that went to the University of Chicago while his wife Michelle Obama worked there.
"I don’t think that I was obligated to recuse myself from anything related to the university," Obama said, adding, "when it comes to earmarks because of those concerns, it’s probably something that should have been passed on to [U.S. Sen.] Dick Durbin, and I think probably something that slipped through the cracks. It did not come through us, through me or Michelle, and Michelle has been very careful about staying separate and apart from any government work. But you could make a good argument that this is something that slipped through our cracks, through our screening system.”
In a March 2008 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times to answer questions about Tony Rezko, Obama was asked about the fact that Obama had told the newspaper in November 2006 that he had never been asked to do anything to advance Rezko's business interests. But the Sun-Times had subsequently learned about a October 28, 1998 letter Obama wrote to city and state housing officials on behalf of a housing project for seniors that Rezko was working on.
The letter, Obama said, "was essentially a form letter of the sort that I did all time. And that I wasn’t, by the way, aware of.”
A reporter asked: You weren't aware that he was associated with the project?
Responded Obama: "I wasn't even aware that we wrote the letter. The answer that I gave at the time was accurate as far as I knew...This was one of many form letters, or letters of recommendation we would send out constantly for all sorts of projects. And my understanding is that our letter was just one of many. And I wasn’t a decision maker in any of this process.”And for the record, yet again, let me state that I find Sen. Obama's staff unfailingly competent and polite, courteous and efficient, and I once again express my regret that Sen. Obama does apparently not feel the same way.Greg Pollowitz points to a bit from that hagiographic piece in Newsweek's present cover story where the reporters quote Obama saying that he will not point fingers of blame at his staff after a primary loss. Maybe he won't blame them for campaign losses, but if there is any embarrassing stories out there, he'll toss them under the semi along with Reverend Wright and his grandmother.
You think you have irritations on the job?
Watch these overpaid, overcoiffed prima donna reporters and anchors have on-air meltdowns. Caution: inappropriate language for television, but they said it anyway.
That Bill O'Reilly or Sam Donaldson would act that way is no surprise. But TV weathermen?Labels: The media
John Edwards clambering aboard the bandwagon
So John Edwards has come out and endorsed Barack Obama. The train has left the station and he's clambering on board. His endorsement will perhaps send his 19 convention delegates into Obama's column.
What I find interesting is that Edwards waited until after North Carolina's primary vote to make his endorsement. If Edwards has any pull at all, wouldn't it be in his own state? I suspect that the reason that Edwards held off with an endorsement before North Carolina voted is that he was afraid that the polls showing Clinton closing in North Carolina were accurate. He didn't want to endorse Obama and then have Clinton lose by only a few points. It would have become clear how little clout the former senator has in his own state. So he waited and then Obama, without his help, won a decisive victory here. So, the last bit of clout Edwards had was to jump on the bandwagon a week later and garner one last headline and hope that Senator Obama will be grateful. But Senator Edwards is just a footnote now and no one really cares all that much whom he endorses.Labels: John Edwards
More proof of the Democrats' lies about Colombia
One of the fake reasons that Nancy Pelosi used to block bringing the Colombian free-trade agreement to a vote on the House floor was that Colombia wasn't doing enough to crack down on the paramilitary groups. As the Wall Street Journal reports, President Uribe of Colomia has just taken action to show how hollow that criticism was in the first place.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's main excuse for trying to kill the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement is that Colombian President Álvaro Uribe winks at atrocities by his country's illegal paramilitary groups. The charge has always been false, and yesterday Mr. Uribe proved it by extraditing 14 "para" leaders to the U.S.Shame to the Democrats who are so reflexively against free trade that they won't even bring to a vote an agreement that would open Colombia's markets to American businesses with our strongest ally in South America. That is what this agreement would do - allow American businesses more latitude in doing business there and helping to further Uribe's goals in raising his country's economy. And by so doing, there would be even less support for those paramilitary groups the Democrats pretend to be so concerned about. Actually, we all know that their true concern is kowtowing to their masters in organized labor. The Democrats have used the complaints of human rights groups as their excuse for not bringing the agreement up for a vote. The Washington Post's editorial page today shows how empty those human rights protests always were.
The 14 include major paramilitary leaders who have been engaged in a long struggle against FARC terrorists. Mr. Uribe has been fighting the FARC even as he has tried to reduce violence by the "paras," who have sometimes been complicit in killing trade unionists. The 14 have been serving time in Colombian prisons for various offenses and are wanted in the U.S. for drug trafficking. They had been arrested under a Justice and Peace law that allowed them to avoid extradition if they agreed to certain conditions.
But Mr. Uribe said yesterday that the 14 had failed to honor those commitments, which included compensating their victims. The popular two-term president said some of them were continuing to run criminal gangs from prison, and so they were put on Drug Enforcement Agency aircraft for the flight to face trial in the U.S.
Illegal gangs and paramilitary groups remain a problem in the Colombian countryside, a legacy of the state's long failure to stop FARC depredations. Mr. Uribe has done more to reduce violence, from both right and left, than any president in modern Colombian history. He views the free-trade pact with the U.S. as a chance to continue that progress by connecting his country to the global economy to raise living standards. Yesterday's extradition is further proof of his efforts to see that justice is done – and of his goodwill toward the U.S.Yet in Washington, Mr. Uribe's coup was received sourly by the same people who called for it. A Human Rights Watch statement grudgingly acknowledged that the extradition "increases the odds" of "substantial prison sentences" for the bosses but then claimed that Mr. Uribe had short-circuited investigations that touched on political allies. "The government has shipped the men with the most information out of the country," complained -- yes -- Mr. Vivanco [a director of Human Rights Watch who had previously objected to Uribe not extraditing those paramilitary leaders.]What do you want to bet that Uribe's action does nothing to persuade Pelosi to allow the agreement to come to the floor for a vote where it would probably be approved?
In fact, under the terms worked out by Mr. Uribe's government, Colombian prosecutors will continue to have access to the paramilitary commanders in U.S. prisons. Having been subjected to the fate they "fear most," the bosses will presumably be happy to provide any incriminating information they may have on the president. In the meantime, Human Rights Watch and its congressional partners are running out of excuses for their campaign against the U.S. free-trade agreement with Colombia. The murders of "trade unionists" they decried have drastically decreased; the paramilitary leaders they claimed would go free are in U.S. custody. If their agenda is genuinely human rights -- and not opposition to free trade -- it's time for them to change course.Labels: Foreign Policy
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
What has Barack Obama done as senator?
Rich Galen, a Republican operative, summarizes the extent of Barack Obama's inexperience.• Hillary Clinton is a Woman. Barack Obama is Black. John McCain is 71.But somehow he can tout his abilities as a leader. The one responsibility has has had in the Senate and he can't even do that! Running for president took precedence over maintaining oversight on the rather light efforts of NATO in Afghanistan, the focus of the war on terror that Obama vows he would have. Just not now. He's too busy running for president.
• Those are facts. For most people those particular facts don’t matter. For some, maybe for a lot, they do.
• I did a phone interview with a newspaper reporter yesterday afternoon and after sparring for about 20 minutes, the reporter finally asked me “and you can answer this off the record, if you want” whether I thought America was ready to elect a Black President.
• I said (on the record) that America was ready for a Black President, but I didn’t think it was ready for this particular Black man (Obama) to be President.
• I reminded the reporter that Obama has been in the US Senate for three years and has been running for President for two of them.
• Remember, that Hillary Clinton said at the debate in Cleveland this past February that Obama“chairs the Subcommittee on Europe. It has jurisdiction over NATO. NATO is critical to our mission in Afghanistan. He’s held not one substantive hearing to do oversight, to figure out what we can do to actually have a stronger presence with NATO in Afghanistan.”
• To which Obama responded: “Well, first of all, I became chairman of this committee at the beginning of this campaign, at the beginning of 2007.”
• He was too busy running for President to (a) do the things a Senator is paid to do, or (b) learn the things that a President needs to know.
• Go figure.Labels: Obama
Inauspicious signs
Well, there were two inauspicious signs for each party in yesterday's election results. Hillary Clinton's blowout in West Virginia, while not enough to slow OBama's inexorable ascension to the nomination, does indicate the major problem he has with white voters in the Appalachian regions.
And the loss of the Republican congressional seat in Mississippi does not augur well for the Republican prospects in congressional elections this Fall.Labels: Election 2008
Breaking the High Price of Oil
Investor's Business Daily has been running an important serios on "Breaking the High Price of Oil." Today they explore all that Democrats and Congress have done to keep us from drilling to increase American supplies of oil.• For the past 31 years, Congress repeatedly prevented us from building any new oil refineries that we now badly need.Check out the rest of the series for some clear explanations of what is wrong with a windfall profits tax or what is the real way to break the back of OPEC, and it doesn't involve Hillary's idea of using the WTO to go after OPEC.
• More recently, congressional Democrats defeated and discouraged any bill that would let us drill in the deep sea 100 miles out. However, it's somehow OK for China to drill there.
• As a further indictment of our Congress, since the 1980s it has continually stopped all building of nuclear power plants while France, Germany and, yes, Japan, plus 12 other major nations, did build plants and now get 20% to 80% of their energy from their wise and safe nuclear plant investments.
• From 1990 to 2000, U.S. crude oil demand rapidly accelerated by 7.41 quadrillion BTUs, according to Department of Energy data. And our rate of foreign oil dependency dramatically increased while our domestic oil production steadily declined.
Under the eight Clinton years alone, U.S. oil production declined 1,349,000 barrels per day, or 19%, while our foreign imports increased 3,574,000 barrels per day, or 45%.
During this time, President Clinton vetoed ANWR drilling bills that would have clearly made Alaska our No. 1 state in the production of our own vitally needed oil supply, not only for all Americans but also for national defense emergencies.
So were Democrats and members of Congress together merely short-sighted, with only a few having any real business experience?
Or were they just ignorant about economics — the fact that the law of supply and demand determines the price of all commodities such as oil, steel, copper and lumber?
Or were they simply and utterly irresponsible and incompetent in their actions that led us to become dangerously dependent on increasing oil imports from foreign countries?
We think it was "all of the above."
The unintended consequence of the Congress members' poor judgment and meddling micromanagement of U.S. energy policy is that they actually hurt most the very people they always profess to be able to help — the average American consumer, lower-income workers and those in the inner city who can't afford an extra $100 a month to drive to and from their jobs.
Democrats kowtowed to the wishes of their environmental supporters over the basic needs of 300 million American citizens.
It is a national disgrace that all they now know how to do is relentlessly criticize, complain and condemn. They always attempt to blame, investigate and scapegoat someone else, in this case U.S. oil companies, when Congress is the true villain of ineptness for constantly blocking and obstructing every effort for us to become more productive and less dependent on foreign oil.
Do those now in Congress really think Middle America's voters are so gullible that they will believe that its latest best and brightest answer to increasing our supply of oil and gas is to slap a 25% windfall penalty tax on oil companies and remove all other incentives for oil companies to drill and explore for oil?
The right time to release oil from, or stop adding to, our Strategic Petroleum Reserve is not now. That will do nothing to increase our ongoing oil supply needs and will have limited affect on oil prices while increasing our national security risks.
Only after we first announce to the world a bold new change in our policy by proclaiming that we intend to begin drilling in ANWR and selected outer sea areas, plus adopt new conservation programs, will the release of oil from our reserves have a major impact on breaking the price of oil.
If our congressional leadership can't muster the courage to begin reversing past mistakes now and allow our companies to drill in ANWR and off-limits offshore areas, and build essential refineries and safe nuclear power plants, what will an even-more-discredited Congress do in 2009, 2010 and 2011, when millions of new city dwellers in China and India will be driving the cars their countries are now producing, thereby materially increasing their already huge demand for oil and gas?
It's wake-up time for America. Maybe we should investigate the blame-throwing investigators in Congress.Labels: Energy
Why was it playing the race card?
There were lots of gasps when Hillary Clinton noted to USA Today that she was doing better with the white vote? That charge was immediately thrown at her. But she was stating a fact, based on the polls. And my first thought was to wonder why it was fine to talk about Obama's support among black voters but not to talk about Hillary's support from white voters. Tom Bethell has the same thought.Put another way, why is it okay for Obama's supporters to tout the high percentage of African-American votes he is receiving -- 90 percent in North Carolina -- but not okay for Hillary's supporters (and Hillary herself) to mention his relatively low percentage of white votes (40 percent in Indiana and North Carolina)?I guess that is one more of those Obama rules. Only his side can refer to race and his near monolithic support among black voters.
Liberals feel entitled to accuse Hillary of playing the "race card" for drawing attention to the voting preferences of whites. Meanwhile, the voting preferences of blacks is touted as one of Obama's great strengths.
My guess is that when the mainstream media say it is time for a discussion about race, what some of them really want is to start leveling accusations of racism.Labels: Hillary Clinton
Rebirth in Basra
Now that it's become clear that Prime Minister Maliki's government has won a victory in Basra, will all those who happily touted the fighting in Basra a few weeks ago as a sign that the Maliki government was failing to pull its own weight in fighting admit their error? Probably not.However fitfully it began, the Basra campaign is a sign that Iraqis are in fact "standing up" for their own security. It is also a personal vindication for Mr. Maliki, who recognized to his credit that his government had to have a monopoly on violence in Shiite neighborhoods as much as in Sunni enclaves.Even the New York Times Iraqi reporter admits that something momentous has happened in Basra. And the people are happy that Maliki and the Iraqi army has restored freedoms there. Freedom they didn't have when Sadr's militia controlled the city.
In the last year we were told first that the surge was a military failure, and later that it was a military success but that Iraq's political class had not lived up to its end of the bargain. In fact, just as surge supporters said, the Iraqis have become more confident and effective the more they have become convinced that the U.S. was not going to cut and run.People feel new freedoms and compare it to the fall of the regime in 2003 when the coalition forces kicked Saddam out of power. Now they can speak freely, they can go to the market at night. Especially women, who were staying home to avoid being killed or kidnapped.This was an Iraqi victory fought for by the Iraqi army with the help of Americans. Isn't this just what the critics of our involvement in Iraq say that they want to see happening - the Iraqis stepping up and, with out support, taking care of their own internal problems?
No government cars with tinted windows drive in the street like before, when most assassinations were carried out by officials in uniform. An Iraq soldier assured me that all cars used by criminals have been seized and they are not free any more to use them.
Night life in Basra is totally different from the old days. Fear is gone because of the number of security checkpoints in the street, restaurant and shops are open by night.
I went shopping at night; I bought dates for my friend. Basra is well known for the date palm. I was with two friends when I stopped a taxi to go back to my hotel. I asked: “How do you feel?” The driver said immediately: “If I didn’t feel okay I wouldn’t stop for three guys at 8 p.m.”
I said, “Why?”
He answered: “I have been robbed three times in the past, for two years I never went working at night. I was lucky I survived.”
I told him as joke: “Who told you we are not going to hurt you?”
He smiled and answered: “Try if you can, you will not escape arrest. Every 10 meters you will be stopped by checkpoints.”
He added: “If you thought about doing it before, I would have said, ‘You can and I won’t resist,’ because resistance was in vain.”
I was told it is the first time for years that songs, movies, CDs and cassettes can be sold freely in the streets, and I saw people buying them.Labels: Iraq
Greenwashing
The Boston Globe looks at products whose manufacturers claim are "green" and good for the environment. Guess what. A lot of that "green" advertising is deceptive.As the world goes eco-friendly - even eco-vodka is coming to martini bars - it's not clear how much environmental good will come from all the green products consumers are buying. Companies regularly tout something as green when it is not even good for the environment - it might just be less harmful than a competitor's product or than one the company sold previously.But who cares about the facts if you can feel sanctimonious about your purchases.
Few companies out and out lie, but they often use vague terms with no defined meaning, such as "earth friendly," or tout an environmental benefit while leaving out the environmental harm their product can cause.Labels: Environment
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The media playing by Obama's rules
If you can write the rules in politics in your favor, then you're halfway to victory, especially if you get the media to parrot and champion the rules you've written. Rich Lowry pokes fun at the rules that Obama has written for the campaign. Basically, the golden rule of Obamaland is anything that makes Obama looks bad is a distraction from the real concern of the American people which is how to make Obama look good.Here are the Obama rules in detail: He can't be called a "liberal" ("the same names and labels they pin on everyone," as Obama puts it); his toughness on the war on terror can't be questioned ("attempts to play on our fears"); his extreme positions on social issues can't be exposed ("the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives" and "turn us against each other"); and his Chicago background too is off-limits ("pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy"). Besides that, it should be a freewheeling and spirited campaign.Charles Krauthammer noted this Obamanian tendency a few weeks ago after the ABC Pennsylvania debate when Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous had the temerity to ask him questions about Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers.
Democrats always want cultural issues not to matter because they are on the least-popular side of many of them, and want patriotic symbols like the Pledge of Allegiance and flag pins to be irrelevant when they can't manage to nominate presidential candidates who wholeheartedly embrace them (which shouldn't be that difficult). As for "fear" and "division," they are vaporous pejoratives that can be applied to any warning of negative consequences of a given policy or any political position that doesn't command 100 percent assent. In his North Carolina speech, Obama said the Iraq War "has not made us safer," and that McCain's ideas are "out of touch" with "American values." How fearfully divisive.
We could take Obama's rules in good faith if he never calls John McCain a "conservative" or labels him in any other way. If he never criticizes him for his association with George Bush. If he doesn't jump on his gaffes (like McCain's 100-years-in-Iraq comment that Obama distorted and harped on for weeks). And if he never says anything that would tend to make Americans fearful about the future or divide them (i.e., say things that some people agree with and others don't).What is Obama to do? Dismiss all such questions about his associations and attitudes as "distractions." And then count on his acolytes in the media to wage jihad against those who have the temerity to raise these questions. As if the character and beliefs of a man who would be president are less important than the "issues." As if some political indecency was committed when Obama was prevented from going through his latest -- 21st and likely last -- primary debate without being asked about Wright or Ayers or the tribal habits of gun-toting, God-loving Pennsylvanians.Such concerns are distractions from the real issues. The Obamaman has spoken and the media, particularly Newsweek has bowed, touched their cap, and obeyed with their umpteenth cover story this week on how Obama will run a campaign that will necessitate fighting back against those dirty Republicans.If the candidate seemed weary and peevish or a little slow to respond at times, he never lost his cool. But the real test is yet to come. The Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968, when Richard Nixon built a Silent Majority out of lower- and middle-class folks frightened or disturbed by hippies and student radicals and blacks rioting in the inner cities. The 2008 race may turn on which party will win the lower- and middle-class whites in industrial and border states—the Democrats' base from the New Deal to the 1960s, but "Reagan Democrats" in most presidential elections since then. It is a sure bet that the GOP will try to paint Obama as "the other"—as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters.Mark Salter, John McCain's chief aide responded with a doozy of a letter excoriating the Newsweek writers for their one-sided portrayal of political history.By accepting the Obama campaign construct as if it were objective, Evan and Richard framed this race exactly as Senator Obama wants it to be framed—every issue that raises doubts about his policy views and judgment is part of a smear campaign intended to distract voters from the real issues at stake in the election, and, thus, illegitimate. And even if Senator McCain might not be inclined to support such advertising, if he can't stop them from occurring then he will have succumbed to the temptation to put ambition before principle. How this notion could appear credible after MoveOn, the AFL-CIO and the DNC launched negative ad campaigns weeks ago, and after leaks from the Obama campaign that they would soon start running negative ads against McCain, is mystifying. When a conservative talk show host emphasized Senator Obama's middle name, Senator McCain immediately denounced it himself in the strongest possible terms. When a left wing radio host called Senator McCain a "warmonger;" when Senator Rockefeller disparaged Senator McCain's war record; and when Howard Dean consistently accused Senator McCain of corruption, dishonesty and various other smears, the response from the Obama campaign has been either silence or a spokesperson releases an anodyne statement saying they don't agree with the characterization.This is all true, but Salter is doomed to failure because McCain is playing on the gameboard that the Obama rules have established. And such arguments are distractions from the Obama story of political glory and thus violate the rules.
To see how completely Evan and Richard have accepted the Obama campaign spin look at the example of an illegitimate smear they cite: Senator McCain raising the Hamas spokesman's comments welcoming Obama's election. The Senator has never said that Senator Obama shares Hamas' goals or values or proposed a relationship with Hamas different than the one he would propose. On the contrary, he publicly acknowledged that he doesn't believe Senator Obama. He did note that there must be something about Obama's positions, particularly his repeated insistence that he would meet with the President of Iran (Hamas's chief state sponsor), that was welcomed by Hamas. Imagine if a right wing death squad spokesman announced that they welcomed McCain's election. Would Evan or Richard treat that as an illegitimate issue or would they examine which of McCain's stated positions might have found favor with the terrorists? That seems obvious on its face to me. Rather than argue that his position on Iran is the right one and has no bearing on how Hamas views him, Senator Obama makes a false charge that we accused him of advocating a different relationship with Hamas than Senator McCain's supports. His false characterization of Senator McCain's statement was accepted uncritically by Evan and Richard.Labels: Obama
Americans distrust government, but want it to do more and more
Gene Healy, author of The Cult of the Presidency, has a historical overview of the expanding role of the presidency which has accompanied our evolving understanding of what the responsibilities of the federal government are.In the revival tent atmosphere of Barack Obama’s campaign, the preferred hosanna of hope is “Yes we can!” We can, the Democratic front-runner promises, not only create “a new kind of politics” but “transform this country,” “change the world,” and even “create a Kingdom right here on earth.” With the presidency, all things are possible.As Healy explains, such a vision of the powers of the president would be quite alien to the Founders who conceived of a limited presidency and narrow powers of the federal government.
Even though Republican nominee John McCain tends to eschew rainbows and uplift in favor of the grim satisfaction that comes from serving a “cause greater than self-interest,” he too sees the presidency as a font of miracles and the wellspring of national redemption. A president who wants to achieve greatness, McCain suggests, should emulate Teddy Roosevelt, who “liberally interpreted the constitutional authority of the office” and “nourished the soul of a great nation.” President George W. Bush, when passing the GOP torch to his former rival in March, declared that the Arizona senator “will bring determination to defeat an enemy and a heart big enough to love those who hurt.” Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, suggests she is “ready on Day 1 to be commander in chief of our economy.”
The chief executive of the United States is no longer a mere constitutional officer charged with faithful execution of the laws. He is a soul nourisher, a hope giver, a living American talisman against hurricanes, terrorism, economic downturns, and spiritual malaise. He—or she—is the one who answers the phone at 3 a.m. to keep our children safe from harm. The modern president is America’s shrink, a social worker, our very own national talk show host. He’s also the Supreme Warlord of the Earth.
This messianic campaign rhetoric merely reflects what the office has evolved into after decades of public clamoring. The vision of the president as national guardian and spiritual redeemer is so ubiquitous it goes virtually unnoticed. Americans, left, right, and other, think of the “commander in chief” as a superhero, responsible for swooping to the rescue when danger strikes. And with great responsibility comes great power.The Constitution’s architects never conceived of the president as the man in charge of national destiny. They worked amid the living memory of monarchy, and for them the very notion of “national leadership” raised the possibility of authoritarian rule by a demagogue ready to create an atmosphere of crisis in order to enhance his power.With the Progressive Era and New Deal, our vision of what we asked of the federal government changed forever. Add in World War II, the Cold War, Great Society, and the War on Terror and it's clear that we're never going to return to a limited federal government or presidency. Liberals and libertarians will complain about the executive authority that George W. Bush has used in fighting against terrorism, but think of all that the Obama campaign is promising for their candidate. Some people have less concern for a presidential usurpation of power in order to defend us against terrorists and some people prefer to look to the president to use that power to fix our broken souls as Michelle Obama has promised that her husband, if elected president, could do for all of us."We have lost the understanding that in a democracy, we have a mutual obligation to one another -- that we cannot measure the greatness of our society by the strongest and richest of us, but we have to measure our greatness by the least of these. That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I am here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this who understands that. That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation."Whether we're looking for a president to keep us safe or fix our souls, we're certainly conceiving of a very different president than James Madison or even Alexander Hamilton ever envisioned. And we look to the federal government to have power encompass all of this. We're never going to be able to turn back the clock to an 18th or 19th century understanding of the presidency or the federal government. And perhaps there are few who would want to. When disaster strikes, whether it's a terrorist attack or a powerful hurricane, Americans will expect a president who can act with power and dispatch. If you think that George W. Bush is unique in his expansion of presidential powers, then you just haven't studied enough of our country's history. And there is not going to be some great return to an earlier understanding of what a president can or should be able to do whether we elect McCain or Obama.Today’s “presidentialists of all parties”—a phrase that describes the overwhelming majority of American voters—suffer from a similar delusion. Our system, with its unhealthy, unconstitutional concentration of power, feeds on the atavistic tendency to see the chief magistrate as our national father or mother, responsible for our economic well-being, our physical safety, and even our sense of belonging. Relimiting the presidency depends on freeing ourselves from a mind-set one century in the making.
Simple economics is just not emotionally satisfying for politicians
Thomas Sowell explains why gas prices are going up. It's simple economics - increased demand. But such an explanation doesn't help politicians who feel that it is absolutely necessary to propose some domestic policy that will stick it to some demon who is behind the price hike. There is nothing that politicians here can do about increased demand in China and India, so they have to pick some other villain closer to home to beat up on. Why? Because they can and that's much more politically satisfying than explaining to the voters that there isn't much that the politicians can do. Or at least much they can do that doesn't involve letting oil companies drill and extract more oil and thus make more so-called "obscene profits."With all the commotion in the media and in politics about the high price of gasoline, is there really some terribly complex explanation?Check out these maps at Gateway Pundit of the No Zone -areas where the Democrats and some Republicans have banned drilling for oil. Note particularly, all the areas where we've banned drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and where now the Chinese are drilling on behalf of Cuba.
Is there anything complex about the fact that with two countries-- India and China-- having rapid economic growth, and with combined populations 8 times that of the United States, they are creating an increased demand for the world's oil supply?
The problem is not that supply and demand is such a complex explanation. The problem is that supply and demand is not an emotionally satisfying explanation. For that, you need melodrama, heroes and villains.
It is clear that many people prefer to blame President Bush. Others prefer to blame the oil companies, who have long been the favorite villains of the left.
Politicians understand that. Numerous times they have summoned the heads of oil companies before Congressional committees to be denounced on nationwide television for "greed," with the politicians calling for a federal investigation to "get to the bottom of this!"
Now that is emotionally satisfying, which is the whole point. By the time yet another federal investigation is completed-- and turns up nothing to substantiate the villainy that is supposed to be the reason for high gasoline prices-- most people's attention will have turned to something else.
Newspapers that carried the original inflammatory charges with banner headlines on page 1 will carry the story of the completed investigation that turned up nothing as a small item deep inside the paper.
This has happened at least a dozen times over the past few decades and it will probably happen again.
What about those "obscene" oil company profits we hear so much about?
An economist might ask, "Obscene compared to what?" Compared to the investments made? Compared to the new investments required to find, extract and process additional oil supplies?
Asking questions like these are among the many reasons why economists have never been very popular. They frustrate people's desires for emotionally satisfying explanations.
Sowell's point is that simple economics isn't as fun for politicians who prefer to blame some evil robber barons rather than explain to the American people how demand has gone up and supply hasn't and their role in all of this. They prefer to pretend that they're knights riding to the rescue of the American people rather than being drab economists explaining what is really going on.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Obama's shifting positions about meeting with Iran's leaders
Dean Barnett notes how Barack Obama is now trying to spin what he said last fall in the youtube debate about how he'd meet during his first year in office without preconditions with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Cuba, and North Korea. Mrs. Clinton made a big deal of her differences with Obama on such a willingness to meet with dictators without setting any preconditions and Obama didn't back down and highlighted this as one of the differences between them. Now, however, he's backing away from that promise and blaming the media for misinterpreting this exchange.QUESTION: In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since.Now the Obama team has rethought that position.
In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?
OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous.
(APPLAUSE)
Now, Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them and they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we had the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward.
And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them. We’ve been talking about Iraq -- one of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria because they’re going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses.Susan E. Rice, a former State Department and National Security Council official who is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic candidate, said that “for political purposes, Senator Obama’s opponents on the right have distorted and reframed” his views. Mr. McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly stated that Mr. Obama would be willing to meet “unconditionally” with Mr. Ahmadinejad. But Dr. Rice said that this was not the case for Iran or any other so-called “rogue” state. Mr. Obama believes “that engagement at the presidential level, at the appropriate time and with the appropriate preparation, can be used to leverage the change we need,” Dr. Rice said. “But nobody said he would initiate contacts at the presidential level; that requires due preparation and advance work.”Well, nobody perhaps except Barack Obama himself.
Barnett posits three possible reasons for Obama's change of heart.Clearly, Obama has had a change of heart regarding whether or not to have a love-in with Ahmadenijad. The real interesting question is what brought this change of heart about. There are three possible scenarios:You can figure out for yourself which of these choices you believe and what it says about Obama's vaunted judgment. Barnett votes for the third choice and thinks that it actually says something worse about Obama. Rather than simply being a cynical politician shifting as he campaigns for differing constituencies, he's one who is essentially clueless on foreign policy.
1) Obama always thought that meeting with the world's tin pot despots was a goofy idea, but made such a pledge nonetheless in a craven effort to appeal to the far left of the Democratic party which thinks a hope-based foreign policy is preferable to one based on iron and steel.
2) Obama still believes that a goodwill tour of chatting up the world's worst people is a swell idea, but has abandoned it in a craven effort to appeal to the vast middle of the American body politic which thinks the idea is screwy.
3) Obama originally thought the Kumbaya foreign policy was a good idea, but having considered the matter more fully has since realized that it's rash and naïve and thus has abandoned it.Yes, his campaign has done a swell job raising money and corralling voters, but when forced to discuss serious issues without the aid of a teleprompter, Obama often seems ill-informed yet still supremely confident. It took Obama 10 months between the YouTube debate and this weekend to realize his Goodwill Tour for Bad Men was a crazy idea. But as president, his decisions and policies, even the half-baked ones, will have consequences in real time.So true. So true.Labels: Obama
The threat that Obama represents to the GOP
James Edmund Pennington puts his finger on something that I believe Republicans would do well to consider. Barack Obama seems like a genuinely likable guy. And Americans like to vote for someone whom they see as a nice guy whom they would like to hang out with. Pennington compares that likability factor to what Reagan had.It should be no difficult task to convince conservatives of the first (the chasm separating McCain and Obama on national defense, federal judges and taxes, to mention but three simplicities, should suffice). No sane person disputes the wretchedness of the political terrain. But there is disturbing talk among McCain supporters about the alleged weakness of the opponent. One hears and reads about a possible McCain walkover, stemming, variously, from Obama's hard left voting record, his inexperience, his awful associations or some combination of the three. These are all indeed legitimate campaign issues and themes, and they need to be hammered home ruthlessly, but any talk of making an easy case against Obama should cease.I have seen lots of similar comments in the blogosphere about how Obama will be such an easier opponent to defeat than Hillary Clinton would have been. I've just never bought that. People enjoy supporting him. They're proud of their support and excited about voting for him. I don't see many people having a similar reaction to voting for John McCain. And that likeability may well trump any doubts that are planted about his liberal positions, his elitist tendencies, or his angry wife.
Sensible McCain supporters need to begin this struggle with the following painful acknowledgement: on a personal level Barack Obama is one of the most ingratiating, likeable, least threatening, and intelligent-seeming men to run for the Presidency in the last hundred years.
There. Though I would no more vote for him than for Robespierre, I said it. It is a fact of consequence that needs to be faced.
In personal gifts relevant to political success, only three Americans during the twentieth century merit mention with Obama: Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan. This trio, as the historically well-schooled will recall, shared not only great political talent, but a common destiny: they all won.
So let's have no more talk of how much obviously weaker an opponent Obama is than what's-her-name. He is formidable enough, particularly for the execrable circumstances we confront.
I can almost sense the rage of the convinced rising up in blogosphere : "He is the most dangerous leftist to run for the presidency in a hundred years, perhaps ever;" "His odious associations will sink him like a concrete block." "He has the most Liberal voting record of any United States Senator." "He is a typical academic elitist who can't relate to the common man." Yes, yes, yes. All true. But there's a problem: to me -- a reliably conservative, serious and dour male of considerable vintage -- Obama seems like a nice guy.In sum, it's been a long time since the White House occupant, or anyone with a serious chance of becoming one, has been easy to listen to. As long as one disregards what he's actually saying, which, as I say, many normal people automatically do when listening to a politician, Obama is pretty easy on the ears. This salutary gift, and the personal likeability that comes with it, is going to be a considerable asset in his coming struggle against (yet another) verbally challenged Republican.I don't find him particularly likable and I've been immune to his supposed inspiration since I listened to his 2004 convention speech and thought that it all sounded very nice but was just one platitude piled on another. But I have learned that I'm very unrepresentative of how most people react to politicians.
Perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised this fall, but right now I'm not blithely optimistic. I'm not sure how Republicans combat that likability factor. I'm not sure that attacks on his positions or past associations will be enough to overcome that thrill that runs up people's legs or the genuine reaction that hundreds of thousands of people have had to Obama.Labels: Obama
Forced unionization
The Wall Street Journal reports on a bill that looks like it will soon pass through Congress with enough votes to withstand a Bush veto.Unions keep losing membership as a share of the national workforce, which explains why organized labor's main political focus is changing the rules to force more workers into unions. Witness a bill that Senate Democrats are pushing this week to require that hundreds of thousands of local police and firemen submit to collective bargaining.Workers have a guaranteed right to join a union if they want. Now Congress wants to take away their choice and force them to join unions that they haven't already joined. This is quite a powerful unfunded mandate and would place a big burden on local communities. With quite a few Republicans going along with this bill, it is likely to pass with something approaching a veto-proof majority.
Under current law, every state has the ability to set policies that govern its public workforce. In some states, police, firefighters and paramedics belong to unions that collectively bargain for their contracts. In others, unions representing public-security workers can bargain over pay, but not over benefits or work rules. And in some others, these workers can choose not to belong to a union.
Democrats want to change this for the entire country. A bill that passed the House last year would make the top officials at local unions the exclusive bargaining agents for public safety officers in every town or city with more than 5,000 people. They would also have the authority to bargain for everything -- pay, benefits and work rules. The goal is to give labor the whip hand with local governments, and further coerce nonunion members to join the dues-paying ranks.Local officials nationwide are fighting the bill, and the Bush Administration has promised a veto. But the House passed it 314-97, and it may be veto proof. That leaves the Senate, where the bill has 11 Republican co-sponsors, most of whom are up for re-election this fall. Oregon's Gordon Smith and Minnesota's Norm Coleman seem to believe that the unions will go easier on them in November if they throw them this concession. Right. If Republicans can't even oppose monopoly unionization, who needs Republicans?That would leave the Supreme Court as the last hope to stop this imposition of unionization. I learned after the Court upheld McCain-Feingold not to place my hopes in the Supreme Court.
Put this bill together with the proposal to prevent workers from having a secret ballot when they vote on whether or not to join a union and you can see how politicians, particularly the Democrats, are fulfilling the wishes of their union masters.Labels: Congress
If not Burma, where?
Fred Hiatt reminds us of a resolution that passed the United Nations a few years ago.When a parent abuses or neglects a child, government steps in to offer protection. But who steps in when government abuses or neglects its people?I'm sure you remember the United Nations intervening to protect the citizens of Sudan or Zimbabwe? No, of course not. It's just more high-sounding rhetoric that the United Nations has failed to live up to. And what could be a better place for the U.N. to intervene to protect citizens of a country whose leaders are putting their own survival in power above their citizens' survival.
Nearly three years ago, the United Nations announced an answer to that question: It would. At a summit celebrating the organization's 60th birthday, 171 nations agreed that they would intervene, forcefully if necessary, if a state failed to protect its own people. The action was seen as both a sign of remorse for the failure to stop genocide in Rwanda and a rebuke to the United States and its unilateral ways.But the stalemate in Burma, also known as Myanmar, shows how difficult it is to translate "responsibility to protect" into action. It's hard to imagine a government more deserving of losing the national equivalent of its parental rights; yet it seems more likely that hundreds of thousands of people will die needlessly than that the United Nations will act.I had given up any faith in the United Nations years ago. But this tragic story in Burma should give pause to anyone who regards the U.N. as a force to protect the downtrodden and helpless in the world. If these Burmese tyrants don't deserve the world to deprive them of their sovereignty, there is no suffering people on earth whom the United Nations would intervene to protect.
Dr. Chris Beyrer, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has spent years in and around Burma, fighting the intransigence of the regime to help the Burmese people. What he has learned, as he said last week, is that "the regime does not have the interest of the people as its fundamental concern." Almost all its actions before the storm and since can be understood in this light: The junta cares about its own survival, not the survival of its people.
So even before the devastating storm swept in around midnight May 2, the Burmese were vulnerable. One-third of children under 5 were undernourished. With 3 percent of government spending going to public health, compared with 40 percent to the military, there was a dearth of doctors and clinics. In many areas malaria and tuberculosis posed severe threats.
The government failed to warn people of the approaching storm and has failed to help them since. It apparently does not want to risk whatever benefit might redound to Western countries for deploying the "soft power" of assistance. Saturday it deployed its army northward, to beat and browbeat people to vote yes in a phony referendum intended to make military rule permanent, rather than southward, where 1.5 million people were homeless and 65 percent of territory was under water.
Yet when France reminded the United Nations of its "responsibility to protect," China, Russia and their ever-reliable voting partner, Thabo Mbeki's South Africa, slammed the door. So tons of aid float just offshore as Burma's generals sleep comfortably in their remote jungle capital and China's rulers can proudly, once again, take credit for defending the principle of national sovereignty.Labels: United Nations
Saturday, May 10, 2008
The benefits of tort reform
Stephen Moore chronicles how quickly Mississippi has started turning around in the wake of the massive tort reform efforts led by Governor Haley Barbour. It has gone from being a haven for every crackpot lawsuit in the country to having one of the fastest growing economies of the 50 states.We were America's No. 1 judicial hell hole for jackpot jury verdicts," the two-term Republican governor told me. "For trial lawyers, this was the state you wanted to come to if you wanted to sue someone."People were losing jobs and not being able to find medical care because of lawsuits. With Barbour's leadership, Mississippi passed a tough tort reform and the results have been relatively quick.
But it was not the state to come to if you wanted to start a business. Mississippi's antibusiness reputation was so awful, Mr. Barbour said, that the CEOs of several Fortune 500 companies told him specifically that they wouldn't consider locating in the state unless the tort system was fixed.
For doctors, the situation was a little different – many who were inside the state were getting out as fast as they could. With 25% annual increases in malpractice premiums, many physicians simply couldn't survive if they stayed. The outflux left some counties without a single obstetrician. In some cases, residents had to drive 100 miles to find a doctor.Almost overnight, the flow of lawsuits began to dry up and businesses started to trickle in. Federal Express invested $1 billion in a new facility in the state. Toyota chose Mississippi over about a dozen other states for a new $1.2 billion, 2,000-worker auto plant. The auto maker has stipulated that the company would pull up stakes if the tort reforms were overturned by the legislature or activist judges.Unfortunately, Mississippi may be a unique example as trial lawyers spend billions to elect Democrats who promise to block any more tort reform around the country. Talk about give-aways to the wealthy special interests!
That hasn't happened. About 60,000 new jobs have arrived in four years – not a small number in a workforce of about 1.3 million – and a sharp improvement from the 30,000 jobs lost in the four years before Mr. Barbour took office. Since the law took effect, the number of medical malpractice lawsuits has fallen by nearly 90%, which in turn has cut malpractice insurance costs by 30% to 45%, depending on the county.
Thanks to Mr. Barbour, the state's unemployment rate is down to about 6% from nearly 9%. Last year, Mississippi's per capita income growth was 6.7%, third highest of the 50 states and well above the national average of 5.2%. Mississippi tort reform is making the poor richer, and the rich lawyers less fabulously rich. Now that's a good way to close the income gap.
Those who would ridicule and stop tort reform should come to Mississippi.Labels: Economics, Legal issues
Israel at 60
Mark Steyn writes today about the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding and the increasing efforts to delegitimize the entire state.By most measures, the Jewish state is a great success story. The modern Middle East is the misbegotten progeny of the British and French colonial map makers of 1922. All the nation states in that neck of the woods date back a mere 60 or 70 years – Iraq to the Thirties, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel to the Forties. The only difference is that Israel has made a go of it.Despite this success which should be evoking the admiration and imitation of its neighbors, Israel faces not only the hateful efforts to exterminate its citizens by terrorists, but the tut-tutting of western intellectuals who would deny Israel the right of self-defense.
Would I rather there were more countries like Israel, or more like Syria? Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East (Iraq may yet prove a second), and its Arab citizens enjoy more rights than they would living under any of the kleptocrat kings and psychotic dictators who otherwise infest the region.
On a tiny strip of land narrower at its narrowest point than many American townships, Israel has built a modern economy with a GDP per capita just shy of $30,000 – and within striking distance of the European Union average. If you object that that's because it's uniquely blessed by Uncle Sam, well, for the past 30 years the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid has been Egypt: their GDP per capita is $5,000, and America has nothing to show for its investment other than one-time pilot Mohamed Atta coming at you through the office window.Like the Jewish merchants in old Europe, who were tolerated as leaseholders but could never be full property owners, the Israelis are regarded as operating a uniquely conditional sovereignty. Jimmy Carter, just returned from his squalid suck-up junket to Hamas, is merely the latest Western sophisticate to pronounce triumphantly that he has secured the usual (off-the-record, highly qualified, never to be translated into Arabic and instantly denied) commitment from the Jews' enemies, acknowledging Israel's "right to exist." Well, whoop-de-doo. Would you enter negotiations on such a basis?Following this logic, the United States shouldn't exist. What country today does not have some element of conquest and conflict in its history? But look what Israel has done since its founding and what has been done in the surrounding Arab states. Look what the Palestinians have done with Gaza since Israel moved out and ask yourself if the world would be better off with more Gazas instead of Israel.
Since Israel marked its half-century, the "right to exist" is now routinely denied not just in Gaza and Ramallah and the region's presidential palaces but on every European and Canadian college campus. During the Lebanese incursion of 2006, Matthew Parris wrote in The Times of London: "The past 40 years have been a catastrophe, gradual and incremental, for world Jewry. Seldom in history have the name and reputation of a human grouping lost so vast a store of support and sympathy so fast. My opinion – held not passionately but with little personal doubt – is that there is no point in arguing about whether the state of Israel should have been established where and when it was" – which lets you know how he would argue it if he minded to.
Richard Cohen in The Washington Post was more straightforward: "Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself."
Cohen and Parris, two famously moderate voices in the leading newspapers of two of the least anti-Israeli capital cities in the West, have nevertheless internalized the same logic as Ahmadinejad: Israel should not be where it is. Whether it's a "stain of shame" or just a "mistake" is the merest detail.
And, as Steyn points out, European states may well be facing their own demographic challenges down the road.Arabs will soon be demanding one democratic state – Jews and Muslims – from Jordan to the sea. And even those Western leaders who understand that this will mean the death of Israel will find themselves so confounded by the multicultural pieties of their own lands they'll be unable to argue against it. Contemporary Europeans are not exactly known for their moral courage: The reports one hears of schools quietly dropping the Holocaust from their classrooms because it offends their growing numbers of Muslim students suggest that even the pretense of "evenhandedness" in the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" will be long gone a decade hence.Be careful what fate you wish on Israel, for it may in the future be coming to European nations facing their own demographic destinies.
The joke, of course, is that Israel, despite its demographic challenge, still enjoys a birth rate twice that of the European average. All the reasons for Israel's doom apply to Europe with bells on. And, unlike much of the rest of the West, Israel has the advantage of living on the front line of the existential challenge. "I have a premonition that will not leave me," wrote Eric Hoffer, America's great longshoreman philosopher, after the 1967 war. "As it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us."Labels: Israel