Saturday, July 09, 2005

 

What do you think was going through Bush's mind when this photo was shot?

Your suggestions welcome.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 5:10 PM 0 comments

 

David Gelernter contrasts Woody Allen and Natan Sharansky. Not a fair matchup, is it?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 4:33 PM 0 comments

 

I meant to blog on this article a few days ago, but it got lost in the shuffle. Thank you to Republitarian at Attack Machine for reminding me and sending the link.

Der Spiegel, the German paper, has an eye-opening interview with James Shikwati, a Kenyan economist, who pleads with the West to stop sending aid to Africa. Shiwati's argument is that the aid stops local institutions from forming and provides such cheap agricultural and other products that local farmers and manufacturers can't compete and so never develop their own independent enterprises.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...

Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?

Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

SPIEGEL: Even in a country like Kenya, people are starving to death each year. Someone has got to help them.

Shikwati: But it has to be the Kenyans themselves who help these people. When there's a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program -- which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. It's only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help. And it's not uncommon that they demand a little more money than the respective African government originally requested. They then forward that request to their headquarters, and before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa ...

SPIEGEL: ... corn that predominantly comes from highly-subsidized European and American farmers ...

Ruandan President Kagame has over a million deaths on his conscience, says Shikwati.
Shikwati: ... and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unsrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN's World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It's a simple but fatal cycle.

SPIEGEL: If the World Food Program didn't do anything, the people would starve.

Shikwati: I don't think so. In such a case, the Kenyans, for a change, would be forced to initiate trade relations with Uganda or Tanzania, and buy their food there. This type of trade is vital for Africa. It would force us to improve our own infrastructure, while making national borders -- drawn by the Europeans by the way -- more permeable. It would also force us to establish laws favoring market economy.

Bush tried to propose that both Europe and America give up their farm subsidies and he got nowhere. This would be one great way to aid African and Latin American farmers who just can't compete with our subsidized farmers. It seems like such a win-win for everyone except for rich corporate farmers who have come to depend on those subsidies. I don't see these subsidies ever disappearing. There are too many politicians who represent farm states who will never cast that vote. And European farmers would shut down the continent if the EU ever tried to do this. Farmers would block all the highways with their tractors if they didn't get their subsidies.

Sadly, I don't see this calamitous aid cycle that Shikwati describes ever ending. It just feels too good to western politicians. Whether it accomplishes anything is besides the point. Remember, as Bob Geldof said,

Something must be done, even if it doesn't work."

Even if it's counterproductive, let's just do it. And if we can throw in some rock and roll or some hearty back-patting while doing it, all the better.

Read the rest of Shikwati's interview. You rarely see such forthrightness as his. Sadly, I don't think he has a snowball's chance in the Sahara of changing things. If you want to read more along these lines, try George Ayittey's Africa Unchained.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 4:22 PM 0 comments

 

Reliapundit reminds us of something that some have forgotten.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 4:20 PM 0 comments

 

Harry Reid gave the Democratic response to Bush's radio address by asking him to appoint someone who will united the country. Say what? Since when has the country been united by the appointment of a Supreme Court justice. First of all, the great majority of people can't name even one justice. Did anyone feel closer to their neighbors because of the appointment of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, or even Sandra Day O'Connor. Did you invite your friends over for a nomination dinner and lift your glasses to this great country where a person like John Paul Stevens ar Anthony Kennedy can ascend to the highest court in the land? What piffle! Why use rhetoric like that when what he really means is "please, pretty please, don't put a conservative on the Court. We can't stop you but we'll fuss and whine about it and raise lots of money for our interest groups, but we know we can't prevent this terrible event from happening."

I say that Bush can unite the people all right. He can unite the left in opposing his choice and the right in supporting it. That's about all the uniting that is going to happen. And the great majority of Americans will be totally oblivious to the whole thing.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 2:04 PM 0 comments

 

Reliapundit has some thoughts on those who blame Bush for the terrorist bombings and a round-up of those on the left who blame Bush.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 2:01 PM 0 comments

 

Amen to Alan Dershowitz!

Within a day of the horrific multiple bombings in London, the G8 announced a $3B grant to the Palestinian Authority. The symbolism of this connection may be lost on some Westerners, but it clearly sent a powerful message to terrorists and potential terrorists: namely, that terrorism works.


There were no grants announced to the Tibetans, who have been occupied more brutally and for a longer period of time than the Palestinians. The Tibetans, however, have never resorted to terrorism.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 1:59 PM 0 comments

 

Mona Charen argues that the terrorists made a mistake by uniting the British public against them when they could have just waited for political correctness to take such a toll in Britain that they would have gotten so much more.

People who can use a word like "blessed" to describe men, women, and children being blown to pieces or having their eyes gouged out by flying glass or losing limbs are not just barbarous, they are twisted. Theirs is a perversion of mind and spirit that almost defies imagination. But thankfully, they are also not very smart.

By committing such atrocities, the Islamists manage to stiffen whatever small residue of resolve remains in flaccid Western civilization. Before the vicious attacks on London civilians, the G8 conference in Scotland focused primarily on global warming, poverty in Africa, and economic matters. But now the leaders of the industrial giants will inevitably turn their attention to the war on terror.

The Islamists could make huge strides in their campaign to undermine Western societies if they used any tactic other than terror. And, in fact, in Great Britain, they have made incredible progress by playing upon Britain's overindulgence of any minority complaint.

....If the Islamists had but the patience to play upon the guilt-ridden West's weakness, they might have their victory in a few decades. Leaning over backwards has become so common in the West that its enemies could reasonably wonder whether any spine remained at all. Brutal attacks like that in London snap us back to reality and remind all but the most weak-minded Europeans and Americans that appeasement is nothing less than slow surrender.

She recommends that you visit Daniel Pipes' website where he has a list of examples of the British bending over backwards to indulge Muslim complaints. For example, how about letting in an exemption for polygamous families to accomodate Muslims?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 1:50 PM 0 comments

 

Here's Michael Barone on the New York Times editors of the opinion page inserting totally biased sentences into a column by Philip Carter about the need for Bush to do more to call people to serve in the armed services. This was totally inexcusable and the Times correction leaves the impression that it is standard practice to insert sentences to serve a political agenda into a contributor's column. Michael Barone knows that this is not standard editorial practice and is absolutely right that such an editor should have been but probably wasn't fired. Here is the totally unsatisfactory correction notice.

The Op-Ed page in some copies of Wednesday's newspaper carried an incorrect version of the below article about military recruitment. The article also briefly appeared on NYTimes.com before it was removed. The writer, an Army reserve officer, did not say, "Imagine my surprise the other day when I received orders to report to Fort Campbell, Ky., next Sunday," nor did he characterize his recent call-up to active duty as the precursor to a "surprise tour of Iraq." That language was added by an editor and was to have been removed before the article was published. Because of a production error, it was not.

Notice how the sentences inserted are totally out of place for the column that Carter wrote. What is this cockamanie excuse that they inserted such sentences but meant to take them out later? Garbage!

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:12 AM 0 comments

 

Mark Steyn writes in The Spectator about how September 10 we seem. We're beack to blaming America for everything from terrorism to genocide in Africa. September 11 is just part of long span of history of man's inhumanity to man and not one sole moment to be remembered.

According to the International Freedom Center, the cultural centre will ‘nurture a global conversation on freedom in our world today’. In other words, Ground Zero is going to be turned into what the columnist Michelle Malkin calls the Ultimate Guilt Complex. Thus, early plans for a mural showing an Iraqi going to the polls were ditched in favour of a picture of Martin Luther King. Nothing wrong with folks learning about civil rights and Pinochet’s victims, but not at the site of the bloodiest attack on the American mainland.

I never cared for the Twin Towers, which were never anything more than a couple of oversized slabs of Seventies tat. But once the Islamonutters had taken them down and the various ‘internationally acclaimed architects’ began submitting designs of ever more limpid tastefulness, I decided Donald Trump had it right: rebuild the ugly muthas but make ’em taller, and stick a giant extended middle finger on the top of each one, or maybe pose that Saddam statue hanging sideways off the roof so he’s being toppled in perpetuity. The latest hastily revised design for the new Freedom Tower eliminates the ‘life-affirming vertical gardens’ and other milquetoast features proposed by the architect Daniel Libeskind but it’s still a feeble un-American wimp-out.

Nonetheless, even though I was resigned to architectural disappointment, it never occurred to me that the internal display would be so easily hijacked. Inevitably, once Miss Burlingame went public with her concerns, the New York Times and co. decided the controversy was all about the right of brave artists to challenge preconceptions: it would be a terrible thing, declared the Times, if ‘the vital impulses represented by the arts are handcuffed in the name of freedom...’. Do they have a software programme that generates that kind of portentous boilerplate or does some poor editorialist have to try to stay awake while typing it in by hand?

Who cares about the ‘vital impulses’ of the ‘arts’? When did Ground Zero become just another outpost for lame provocations by publicly funded ‘artists’? If that’s your bag, there’s a zillion places in town. Needless to say, that’s not how the alleged artists feel, their general line boiling down to: but enough about the 3,000 dead — let’s talk about me.

Read the rest. It's high quality Steyn, a redundancy, I'm sure.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:55 AM 0 comments

 

Speaking of Novak, do you think that Rehnquist and the White House has a little soupcon of pleasure by proving him wrong as to the timing of Rehnquist's retirement?

I suspect that Novak's sources are on Capitol Hill. He has lots of contacts among the GOP in Congress. I would bet that his connections with administration sources has never been great and probably, since the Plame investigation, he's toxic for the people in the know in the White House. So, it makes sense that he wouldn't know everything about what is going on between the Supreme Court and the White House.

But, what would the fun be if we didn't speculate based on rumor? Erick Erickson says that his sources say that Rehnquist has officially resigned and they're just holding the formal announcement until next week so that it doesn't get lost in the terrorism coverage. They want something more fitting for the retirement of the head of the third branch of government.

Take all this with a grain of salt. I don't know why an attorney in Georgia would have all these sources that are leaking more to him than anyone else. Does anyone else know?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:58 AM 0 comments

 

Dick Durbin has blamed Robert Novak for Mayor Daley's criticism of Durbin's remarks comparing Gitmo to Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, and Cambodian killing fields. But Novak says that Daley made his remarks before Novak talked to Daley.

I wonder if Durbin will cry and make his apology to Novak and Daley.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:56 AM 0 comments

 

Richard B. Schmitt of the LA Times has an article acknowledging that no one really knows anything about the Valerie Plame leak case and that Karl Rove may or may not have done something unethical but, hey, why not speculate and smear Rove's name while we're at it.

I thought that was what bloggers were for, but that journalists only reported news that they could substantiate with sources.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:52 AM 0 comments

Friday, July 08, 2005

 

RadioBlogger has the transcript of Christopher Hitchens having the cojones to just destroy Ron Reagan on MSNBC. I wish I'd seen it. Sounds like a true humiliation.

RR: Christopher, I'm not sure that I buy the idea that these attacks are a sign that we're actually winning the war on terror. I mean, how many more victories like this do we really want to endure?

CH: Well, it depends on how you think it started, sir. I mean, these movements had taken over Afghanistan, had very nearly taken over Algeria, in a extremely bloody war which actually was eventually won by Algerian society. They had sent death squads to try and kill my friend Salman Rushdie, for the offense of writing a novel in England. They had sent death squads to Austria and Germany, the Iranians had, for example, to try and kill Kurdish Muslim leaders there. If you make the mistake that I thought I heard you making just before we came on the air, of attributing rationality or a motive to this, and to say that it's about anything but itself, you make a great mistake, and you end up where you ended up, saying that the cause of terrorism is fighting against it, the root cause, I mean. Now, you even said, extraordinarily to me, that there was no terrorist problem in Iraq before 2003. Do you know nothing about the subject at all? Do you wonder how Mr. Zarqawi got there under the rule of Saddam Hussein? Have you ever heard of Abu Nidal?

RR: Well, I'm following the lead of the 9/11 Commission, which...

CH: Have you ever heard of Abu Nidal, the most wanted man in the world, who was sheltered in Baghdad? The man who pushed Leon Klinghoffer off the boat, was sheltered by Saddam Hussein. The man who blew up the World Trade Center in 1993 was sheltered by Saddam Hussein, and you have the nerve to say that terrorism is caused by resisting it? And by deposing governments that endorse it?

Read the rest. I wonder how soon Little Ron will have Hitchens back on.

UPDATE: Political Teen has the video. Notice how Monica Crowley and John Fund just sit there quietly enjoying the show.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:56 PM 0 comments

 

The California Yankee thinks that Silvio Berlusconi has blown it by announcing after the London bombing that the Italians are pulling out of Iraq.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:48 PM 0 comments

 

In case you delayed dinner waiting for the Rehnquist announcement, the rumors now are that it has been pushed back until Monday. Darn, did they know that I'm busy on Monday?

Charging Rino liveblogged the nonretirement if you want to follow all the rumors of what didn't happen.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:43 PM 0 comments

 

And keeping up with the job of relaying perhaps baseless rumors, Andrew over at Confirmthem says that Garza is off the list. Apparently, he wrote something that they think would be hard to defend. They haven't gotten to word over at TradeSports where Garza is up with a bullet and Gonzales is steadily sinking. I love all this speculation by people who probably have no real inside knowledge. Myself included.

Meanwhile, Capitol Buzz and Erick at Red State are trafficking in the Rehnquist retirement rumors today. No suprise that it is the senators who seem to be doing the leaking. (Anyone wonder why the White House never wants to give them more documents? The place is a sieve.) Erick thinks the announcement will come at 4:50 today. Not 4:45 and not 4:55. However Bob Novak thinks it will be at 4:55 today. Can't they get their rumors straight? Set your watches.

And Erick adds fuel to the Stevens retirement rumors. What do you bet that the source for all the Stevens rumors all over the place is the same person, whoever that is? So, it's not a preponderance of the evidence thing, but one rumor repeated over and over. Or not.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 3:16 PM 0 comments

 

Michelle Malkin checks in to see how the protestors who were gathered to protest the G8 Summit have reacted to the bombing in London. They are....literally....clowns.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 3:10 PM 0 comments

 

So now Bob Novak is really going out on a limb and predicting that Rehnquist will retire when Bush lands back in the US this afternoon. I'm still skeptical, but ready to be proved wrong.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 2:48 PM 0 comments

 

Well, here is one reason to nominate Alex Kozinski to the Supreme Court He's too much fun and has a great sense of humor for the liberals to be successful in demonizing him. Can you picture Pat Leahy asking Kozinski questions about Kozinski's self-nomination last summer to be the top Judicial Hottie in Article III Groupie's contest for Hotties of the Bench. Read this profile of him from George Magazine in the winter of 1995/1996. I think the public would fall in love with him as would the media. No way they would filibuster a guy who says this about his own qualifications to be nominated as a Judicial Hottie.

I have it on very good authority that discerning females and gay men find graying, pudgy, middle-aged men with an accent close to Gov. Schwarzenegger's almost totally irresistible.

The media would go into full swoon mode such has not been seen since John McCain ran in 2000. How many times would we see this video of a young, suave Alex Kozinski on The Dating Game? He'd take them to watch him bungee jumping and show videos of himself snowboarding and the Democrats in the Gang of 14 would cry "No mas, no mas."
(Thank you to Underneath Their Robes for all these superb links and for hostessing the Judicial Hottie Contest)

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 2:25 PM 0 comments

 

Article III Groupie shoots down rumors that either John Paul Stevens or Ruth Bader Ginsburg are set to resign by reporting that both are interviewing and hiring clerks for the October, 2006 term. However, it is true that Sandra Day O'Connor had hired three clerks for the October, 2005 term. I hope those guys will get jobs with whomever the new justice is or work for one of the other justices.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 1:51 PM 0 comments

 

William Saletan also understands that the bombing yesterday wasn't about Iraq.

Bin Laden's whole game plan is to turn the people of the democratic world against their governments. He thinks democracies are weak because their people, who are more easily frightened than their governments, can bring those governments down. He doesn't understand that this flexibility—and this trust—are why democracies will live, while he will die. Many of us didn't vote for Bush's government or Blair's. But we're loyal to them, in part because we were given a voice in choosing them. And if we don't like our governments, we can vote them out. We can't vote out terrorists. We can only kill them.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 1:28 PM 0 comments

 

One of the biggest challenges we will face, or at least I hope we will face, is how to balance our concern for freedoms with the desire to protect our citizens. We are such an open society and allow anybody to say almost anything under the umbrella protections of free speech that it is hard to protect ourselves from those who want to preach hatred and encourage violence. As one cleric said in 20oo,

"We will use your democracy to destroy your democracy."

Or as Lenin predicted,

The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.

Change Capitalists to democracies and we have the same situation. I am not sure where the line is, but the Constitution is not a suicide pact.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 1:19 PM 0 comments

 

Erick of Red State is now walking back the rumor that Rehnquist will resign today. I hadn't thought he'd want to resign amidst the coverage of the London bombing and, according to Erick's sources, that is indeed the case.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:38 AM 0 comments

 

John Cole at Balloon Juice summarizes all the rumor-mongering over whether the Jews knew about the London attack ahead of time. Watch for these rumors to be big stuff over in the Arab world and certain fringe places here.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:23 AM 0 comments

 

Charles Krauthammer sums up what was wrong with O'Connor's approach to the law - she was too much of a legislator.

Perhaps the most telling moment of Sandra Day O'Connor's nearly quarter-century career on the Supreme Court came on her last day. In her opinion on the Kentucky Ten Commandments case, O'Connor wrote that, given religious strife raging around the world and America's success in resolving religious differences, why would we "renegotiate the boundaries between church and state. . . . Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?"

This is O'Connorism in its purest essence. She had not so much a judicial philosophy as a social philosophy. Unlike a principled conservative such as Antonin Scalia, or a principled liberal such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, O'Connor had no stable ideas about constitutional interpretation. Her idea of jurisprudence was to decide whether legislation produced social "systems" that either worked or did not.


But that, of course, is the job of the elected branches of government. Legislatures negotiate social arrangements. Judges are supposed to look at their handiwork and decide one thing and one thing only: whether the "system" the politicians produced comports with the Constitution. On what other grounds do judges have the authority to throw out legislation? Do they have superior wisdom about what works, superior capacity to decide which social boundaries require negotiation and which do not?

O'Connor says that America has negotiated church-state boundaries so successfully that we should not rock the boat. But we went 170 years allowing school prayer and other kinds of public religious expression. Then, from 1960 on, we changed course and systematically stripped religion from the public square. In neither era -- school prayer or post-school prayer -- was this country particularly given to jihad or pogroms. How, then, does history recommend one negotiated boundary over the other?

Some people now recommend that we have justices on the Supreme Court who have had some political background, but the danger in the at lies in their tendencies to act like legislators rather than interpreters of the Constitution. We can vote against legislators that we don't like, but we have no tool to use against justices we don't like. That is why they must leave the law-making to those who will come before the electorate.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:16 AM 0 comments

 

Mark Steyn says what a lot of British are probably feeling today. It is time to start looking at the Islamofascist groups at home and not allow political correctness to keep the government from serious investigation of those groups that seem to be all too common in Britain and Europe.

They thought the same in the 1930s - back when Czechoslovakia was "a faraway country of which we know little". Today, the faraway country of which the British know little is Britain itself. Traditional terrorists - the IRA, ETA - operate close to home. Islamism projects itself long-range to any point of the planet with an ease most G8 militaries can't manage. Small cells operate in the nooks and crannies of a free society while the political class seems all but unaware of their existence.

Did we learn enough, for example, from the case of Omar Sheikh? He's the fellow convicted of the kidnapping and beheading in Karachi of the American journalist Daniel Pearl. He's usually described as "Pakistani" but he is, in fact, a citizen of the United Kingdom - born in Whipps Cross Hospital, educated at Nightingale Primary School in Wanstead, the Forest School in Snaresbrook and the London School of Economics. He travels on a British passport. Unlike yours truly, a humble Canadian subject of the Crown, Mr Sheikh gets to go through the express lane at Heathrow.

Or take Abdel Karim al-Tuhami al-Majati, a senior al-Qa'eda member from Morocco killed by Saudi security forces in al Ras last April. One of Mr Majati's wives is a Belgian citizen resident in Britain. In Pakistan, the jihadists speak openly of London as the terrorist bridgehead to Europe. Given the British jihadists who've been discovered in the thick of it in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Palestine, Chechnya and Bosnia, only a fool would believe they had no plans for anything closer to home - or, rather, "home".

Most of us can only speculate at the degree of Islamist penetration in the United Kingdom because we simply don't know, and multicultural pieties require that we keep ourselves in the dark.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:08 AM 0 comments

 

For what it's worth, a Gonzales nomination has had a huge drop over at Trade Sports. Garza is way out there in the lead.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:57 AM 0 comments

 

Dan Balz has a story about the Plame leak that has no new information but manages to imply that somehow the focus is on Karl Rove. Is all this vagueness because Balz knows something that he can't report or because he just wants to say that focus is on Karl Rove?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:49 AM 0 comments

 

Both Katherine J. Lopez at Bench Memos and Erick ar Red State report the rumor that William Rehnquist will resign by 10:00 this morning. I wouldn't have thought that he'd want his resignation to be lost in stories about the London bombing, but perhaps he just doesn't care.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:40 AM 0 comments

Thursday, July 07, 2005

 

Amir Taheri explains what it is that the jihadists want. And it is not something that we can bargain with them about or appease them to stop from killing us.

But sorry, old chaps, you are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything specific, and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or round-table discussions. Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill you.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:14 PM 0 comments

 

My daughter links to a study from Adam Lerrick at AEI and a study he did (and for which she helped compile the data) to show what a scam debt relief has been for 20 years. Basically, every time a nation paid back some of their debt, they were then given a new loan of almost the exact same amount that they had just paid back. It just kept getting rolled over and over.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:10 PM 0 comments

 

Erick at Red State has more gossip from unnamed insiders who may or may not know anything about the Supreme Court nomination game and an imminent Rehnquist retirement. The word seems to be that Rehnquist is set to retire. I don't know if he would want to wait while focus on the London bombing dies down a bit so that his retirement wouldn't be swallowed up terrorism reporting.

Erick also reports that Gonzales seems to be off the list.

Alberto Gonzales has never been on the list. The list is generally considered to be Luttig, Roberts, Garza, McConnell, Edith Brown Clements, Edith Jones, Priscilla Owens, and very possibly John Cornyn. "It'll be a cold day in hell before Gonzales gets it," says the digest. Others agree completely. In fact, they all say that the only way Gonzales will get it is if he and the President sit down to review the list and the President just says, "Al, I want you."

There is also some reporting that Bill Frist knew that O'Connor was going to retire before the White House knew and didn't tell them. No wonder they brought in a different Tennessean to shepherd the nominee through the confirmation process.

As Erick says,

What to make of all of this? The answer is clear: we have no freaking clue, but the rampant speculation is fun.

And it almost seems a relief to return to political speculation instead of terrorism speculation. But it does make the partisan back and forth seem so much smaller.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:41 PM 0 comments

 

A year and a half ago, the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, thought he had a line on the dangers that the world was facing. This is what he said in November of 2003,

"I actually think that Bush is the greatest threat to life on this planet that we've most probably ever seen. The policies he is initiating will doom us to extinction."

Perhaps, he has a better idea of threats to life tonight.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:50 PM 0 comments

 

Thomas Lifson links to this story of eminent domain in action. Thanks to the Supreme Court, a family's livelihood can be removed to make room for redevelopment.

But to John Revelli, whose family has operated a tire shop near downtown Oakland for decades, the implications hit home on Friday.

A team of contractors hired by the city of Oakland packed the contents of his small auto shop in a moving van and evicted Revelli from the property his family has owned since 1949.

"I have the perfect location; my customers who work downtown can drop off their cars and walk back here," said Revelli, 65, pointing at the nearby high- rises. "The city is taking it all away from me to give someone else. It's not fair."

The city of Oakland, using eminent domain, seized Revelli Tire and the adjacent property, owner-operated Autohouse, on 20th Street between Telegraph and San Pablo avenues on Friday and evicted the longtime property owners, who have refused to sell to clear the way for a large housing development....

Fung and Revelli said the money offered by the city, about $100 per square foot plus relocation costs, was insufficient, saying the real estate boom has priced them out of nearby properties. They own their properties outright and have operated with low overhead.

"John works alone; I have one technician working with me -- that's it, '' said Fung, who bought his 2,500-square-foot shop in 1993. "The cost of buying or leasing a new site is prohibitive. The money the city offered me does not cover it."

Revelli, who has worked alone for the past 35 years, said no other location is as good as what he is losing.

"My customers are mainly women who work in the offices downtown. They can take BART if they have to leave their cars overnight," Revelli said. "There's really no equivalent location around here."

Both men said Friday that losing their businesses was like losing a piece of themselves.

"I've worked here full time since 1959, and I looked forward to coming to work every day," Revelli said. "I'm not ready to retire, but the city forced me into this. I don't have many options."

Fung, who is in his late 40s and raising his children, said retirement is not an option.

"I'm an immigrant from China, and this has been the fulfillment of my American dream," Fung said. "I worked hard. I played by the rules. But now it's all gone. I've got to start all over."

Thank you David Souter and Anthony Kennedy.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 5:00 PM 0 comments

 

This Australian writer gets it. He understands that Kyoto and more aid to Africa without any political reforms are fruitless, feel-good measures.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 4:53 PM 0 comments

 

Do these anarchists appreciate how puerile their protests seem in juxtaposition with today's tragedies.

ANARCHIST protesters brought chaos to the city centre today as they clashed with police in a series of violent confrontations.

Every business in the city centre was advised to close their doors as riot police confronted protesters along Princes Street and in the West End.


Bottles and plants were used as missiles as the violence spilled over into Princes Street Gardens.

Police appealed for motorists to steer clear of the city centre.

About 200 protesters, some dressed as clowns, tried to break through police lines after being corralled in to Canning Street in the West End as they staged their Carnival for Full Enjoyment.

Officers were punched and kicked as they lined the road to prevent the hoards of protesters pushing on towards the Capital's financial quarter....

The music then stopped and the protestors started chanting obscenities such as 'F**k the police'.

One anarchist managed to climb onto the roof of an annex building and egged on the crowd.

He threatened to urinate over the police, but instead resorted to dropping his trousers and showing his behind.

One anarchist from Sussex said: "I don't have a problem with violence against property because the people with the money can pay for it to get it fixed.

"We're all autonomous individuals."

Do they understand that nations at war, and we are at war, don't appreciate noisy protestors destroying private property and attacking the police just because they want to protest world leaders trying to come up with ways to help Africa. Now, on Britain's newspapers this morning, people read stories of the anarchists silly demonstration while they watched the news of the terrorists' murderous attacks on the subways on television. The juxtaposition couldn't have been helpful for whatevery the hell these silly protestors wanted.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 4:40 PM 0 comments

 

Here is Christopher Hitchens on the attacks.

It is ludicrous to try and reduce this to Iraq. Europe is steadily becoming a part of the civil war that is roiling the Islamic world, and it will require all our cultural ingenuity to ensure that the criminals who shattered London's peace at rush hour this morning are not the ones who dictate the pace and rhythm of events from now on.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 4:39 PM 0 comments

 

Jonah Goldberg is so spot on with his analysis of what a nothing Live8 was. They didn't even raise money for Africa. They just got to pat themselves on their collective backs about how much they care. And pick up $12,000 goody gift bags. And they could pretend that the millions who watched all watched out of their concern for Africa rather than just because they enjoy seeing these guys perform. Here's Jonah.

And the spectacle was impressive, so much so that Chris Martin of Coldplay declared it "the greatest thing that's ever been organized probably in the history of the world." (You've heard of the Normandy invasion, the Manhattan Project, the Marshall Plan, various moon landings, the 2,000-year-old Catholic Church? Impromptu flea markets! We've got a major-league telecast here.) Passing over Martin's slight overstatement, no harm will come from conceding that it was a very nice concert for those interested in such things.

But tell me, how exactly was Live8 a monumental demonstration of support for helping Africa?

Perhaps we could organize an ice-cream and candy giveaway at the local mall to show that children are against the deficit? Anyone who shows up is for raising taxes. Or, hey — and I'm just thinking out loud now — maybe Madonna could invite everybody to show their concern about global warming by coming to her mansion (pick one) and helping themselves to whatever's in her fridge.

You see my point? Presumably this was a concert most of the attendees wanted to go to anyway. To say that two billion people favor debt relief for Africa is akin to saying that everyone who watches Desperate Housewives is pro-choice because the producers are.

You may be wondering how much money this intercontinental jam session raised for the sick and dying of Africa. Alas, not a farthing. Sir Bob Geldof was very explicit about this point. Live8 was intended to raise consciousness and exert political pressure on the G8 summiteers. No one was allowed to actually raise money for the masses of starving people in Africa. None of the dollars spent on the concert by fans, corporate sponsors, or television networks will reach Africa. Charities couldn't rattle tin cups outside the porta-potties and concession stands. This was solely an effort to prod the West to get behind the slogan, "Make Poverty History."

I can just imagine some poor, homeless person in Zimbabwe who has been cast out of his home and sent into a drought-ravaged countryside to watch his family starve to death so Mugabe can tighten his control on power. Now imagine some news babe telling this dying Zimbabwean that the wealthy rockers of the world have united to help Africa. Hopefully, he'll lift his head and ask, "Are they sending us food? Are they going to build us homes? Are they going to get rid of that murderous tyrant, Mugabe?" And the news babe has to say, "Er, no, not exactly." "Well, what are they doing to help Africa?" "They're raising consciousness and playing rock and roll music. Oh, and there are T shirts, too." I'm sure that that will be a great comfort as he turns his head and sees his children dying there beside him.

When will we learn that just expressing the right feelings is not enough. Giving money is not enough. Establishing free-market societies that respect property rights and obey the rule of law is what is necessary. Read Hernando De Soto's The Mystery of Capital. And someone get some copies of De Soto's book to put in the gift bags.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 3:04 PM 0 comments

 

George Will gives a push to George Allen's candidacy for the presidency by reviewing a visit George Allen just made to New Hampshire.

This presents a possible trivia question. I ask my students every week a Question of the Week and they can get extra credit by researching the answer. I think this will be one for the upcoming year. Try to figure out the answer without looking it up.

If George Allen is elected in 2008, it will be only the second time in our nation's history when two consecutive presidents shared the same first name. When was the other time?

If you want some more, here are the QOW's from my American history and my government classes from my school website. And here were the questions from my Revolution and Civil War class. See how you can do.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 2:24 PM 0 comments

 

Bob Novak says that Rehnquist may retire by the end of the week. I guess his "sources" tell him that.

Adding to the tension is word from court sources that ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist also will announce his retirement before the week is over.

Novak also is rather huffy about the chances of getting a conservative justice are less because Bush is the main obstacle and that Bush really wants to appoint Gonzales. The thinking is that, with two nominations, Bush could appoint Gonzales and one true conservative.

This is what Gonzales himself says.

longtime friend and adviser to the president, Gonzales has been answering questions about the Supreme Court for years, he said. And though he would not rule out the possibility of being nominated, saying that was up to Bush, his answer now is the same it's always been, he said.

"I've been asked since 2001 whether or not I'd consider going on the court, and I've consistently said, 'I'm not a candidate for the Supreme Court' - and that remains true today," Gonzales said. "I love being attorney general. My job, currently, is to help the president make this decision."

Not quite Shermanesque, is it.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 2:12 PM 0 comments

 

I bet you didn't know how overpoweringly evil and omnipotent Karl Rove really is, did you?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 2:02 PM 0 comments

 

The Hotline's Blogometer is now available online for everyone to access. Before it was only available by e-mail for the select few. It's a nice roundup of what blogs are talking about from both the right and left. Check out their beta test of the Blogometer.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 1:56 PM 0 comments

 

I know that there are those who want to blame this all on Blair's support for Bush in Iraq. But the British have already announced that they are drawing down their numbers in Iraq. I think this relatively unrelated to Iraq, but an attempt by Al Qaeda to show that they're still powerful in Europe. If they could have, they would have done it here in the United States. If they had really wanted to have made a message about Iraq, wouldn't it have been better to have done it before the British elections, or even the American elections? There will now be a rally around the flag effect in Britain that will strengthen Tony Blair and British resolve. The British will not want to be compared to the Spanish. They will hang tough.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 1:18 PM 0 comments

 

Just a thought. Will Reuters use the word terrorists now or will it still get quotation marks?

UPDATE: And yes, I know that Reuters is a British company. That is why I was wondering. They aren't terrorists when they kill Americans, Iraqis, or Israelis. What are they when they kill British?

David M., in the comments box, links to this BBC report which rediscovered the word, terror.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:27 PM 0 comments

 

How terribly sad for those in London. I can't imagine what it must be like to see your loved ones off on the way to work and for this to happen. The media has a lot more coverage than I can link to at this point, so I'm just going to take a break from blogging for a few hours today.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:03 AM 0 comments

 

Vodka Pundit has done some very excellent research into another reason why Nancy Pelosi might have not wanted to come out against the Kelo eminent domain decision. Remember the really stupid comments she made trying to equate that decision with the word of God? The major media didn't tell us about those words, only that she refused to criticize the decision. Well, Vodka has found out some intriguing evidence of Pelosi's connections with a major developer that is involved in some of the biggest eminent domain cases.

As Vodka wonders, why did a blogger find this out and not anyone in the MSM? He wonders what would have happened if Tom DeLay had been the one to equate the Supreme Court to God and who had had such financial connections to a major developer. Watch for this story to be ignored by the MSM even now when Vodka has all his research posted online for them to find out. (Link via The Anchoress)

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:42 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

 

Jules Witover thinks that the Democrats have boxed themselves in with their Gang of 14 deal. From his computer to God's ears.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:38 PM 0 comments

 

Thomas Bray in the Detroit News looks at the vulnerabilities of Senatory Deborah Stabenow in next year's election.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:52 PM 0 comments

 

Since when can the UN impose taxes? Someone explain that to Kofi Annan.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:39 PM 0 comments

 

Lindsay Graham told Sean Hannity that, if the Democrats filibuster over ideology that the deal is off. All we need is one more GOP Gang of 14 to go on record and it will change the dynamics of the Democratic strategy. It seems to me that I heard John Warner last week say that he would do the same. Did anyone else see that interview on Brit Hume's show. I still maintain that they will not want to push it all the way to goading the Republicans to do away with the filibuster.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:21 PM 0 comments

 

Slate has a rundown on how the judges being talked about for the nomination stand on abortion.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:19 PM 0 comments

 

Promote this judge!

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:58 PM 0 comments

 

This Supreme Court nomination battle is a great thing for all these interest groups. They are raising money hand over fist for the upcoming fight. They're going to make big money because raising people's fears is a profitable enterprise for them. All these people are willing to donate money at this point just based on the assumption that they will either hate or love the nominee. You can't raise money if you don't scare your donors by demonizing the other side. So, that becomes obligatory. What a pitiful state our system is at now.

It is now a political campaign. It is going to be harder for senators to resist these activists. Remember that every senator up there pictures him or herself holding higher office one day. And you don't get to do that if you tick off your party's base. So the battlelines are set before the poor nominee is ever led into the arena for the lions to be set on him or her.

My only hope is that notwithstanding all the noise, the nominee gets approved rather comfortably and the pattern is set that all this activity is just wasted motion. But it is a forlorn hope. I think we're just using at escalation of the warfare. And I sure hope that the nominee never made a dirty joke at work.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:16 PM 0 comments

 

Niall Ferguson looks to Charles Dickens to understand why Bob Geldof and Bono will fail in their efforts to help Africa.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:48 PM 0 comments

 

Harry Reid is out there defending Alberto Gonzales and saying that he could be confirmed. Q and O translates this for us. Thoughts on Line notes an interesting observation about how skewed Harry Reid is about Gonzales.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:33 PM 0 comments

 

Barbara Bush, the President's daughter, has apparently been working for the past month and a half in a chilcren's hospital in Capetown, South Africa. What is remarkable is that the administration has steadily resisted getting any publicity for Barbara's good works and declined comment on the story. She has been keeping such a low profile that those working at the hospital also seem unaware that she was working there. I guess you can imagine what a security risk it must be to have a First Daughter working in Capetown.

As Wizbang says, class and breeding will tell.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:03 PM 0 comments

 

Drudge catches Chuck Schumer plotting "war" on Bush's nomination. Remember, Bush hasn't nominated anyone yet.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:28 AM 0 comments

 

Here's a SCOTUS drinking game. You could get seriously inebriated with this one.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:26 AM 0 comments

 

Tony Blankley shows how Joe Biden is like Humpty Dumpty. And no, he's not discussing what would be the natural state of Biden's pate if he hadn't gotten hair plugs. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:16 AM 0 comments

 

James Taranto makes a compelling case for what he calls the Roe effect.

Compounding the GOP advantage is what I call the Roe effect. It is a statement of fact, not a moral judgment, to observe that every pregnancy aborted today results in one fewer eligible voter 18 years from now. More than 40 million legal abortions have occurred in the United States since 1973, and these are not randomly distributed across the population. Black women, for example, have a higher abortion ratio (percentage of pregnancies aborted) than Hispanic women, whose abortion ratio in turn is higher than that of non-Hispanic whites. Since blacks vote Democratic in far greater proportions than Hispanics, and whites are more Republican than Hispanics or blacks, ethnic disparities in abortion ratios would be sufficient to give the GOP a significant boost--surely enough to account for George W. Bush's razor-thin Florida victory in 2000.

The Roe effect, however, refers specifically to the nexus between the practice of abortion and the politics of abortion. It seems self-evident that pro-choice women are more likely to have abortions than pro-life ones, and common sense suggests that children tend to gravitate toward their parents' values. This would seem to ensure that Americans born after Roe v. Wade have a greater propensity to vote for the pro-life party--that is, Republican--than they otherwise would have.

The Roe effect would have made itself felt before post-Roe children even reached voting age. Children, after all, are counted in the population figures that determine states' representation in Congress and the Electoral College. Thus, if the greater prevalence of abortion post-Roe affected statewide fertility patterns, the results would have begun showing up after the 1980 reapportionment--in the 1982 election for Congress, and the 1984 election for president.

The first post-Roe babies reached voting age in 1991, in time for the 1992 election. In 1992 the Roe effect would have been minimal, since it was limited to a small segment of the electorate (18- and 19-year-olds), who tend not to vote. The affected segment of the population grows with each election, ranging up to 23-year-olds in 1996, 27-year-olds in 2000, and 31-year-olds in 2004. The Roe effect is compounded over generations. Children who are never born do not have children or grandchildren.

Critics of the Roe effect hypothesis point out that abortion does not necessarily diminish a women's lifetime fertility. A woman may, for example, have an abortion while in college, but later marry and bear children--children she might not have had, had she been forced to carry her collegiate pregnancy to term. Yet it is not clear how much this might mitigate the Roe effect. Some women do abort their final pregnancy, and delayed childbearing is one manifestation of the Roe effect. If a woman has a child at, say, age 30 rather than 20, one additional census passes before the child counts toward his state's congressional and electoral college apportionment, and two or three presidential elections pass before he reaches voting age. The compounding element applies here as well; if a woman has a daughter at 30 rather than 20, the daughter reaches childbearing age a decade later than she otherwise would have. Moreover, attitudes about abortion and politics are subject to change with age and experience, and usually in a conservative direction. Thus, some women who delay childbearing contribute to the Roe effect on both ends: by having abortions when they are young, single, and pro-choice, and by bearing children when they are older, married, and pro-life.

When I first read about this, I was skeptical that there could be enough of an effect. but he is starting to convinve me. Talk about the law of unintended consequences!

The other irony is that if (which I don't think is likely to happen) Roe were struck down and the decisions on abortion were sent back to state legislatures, I think the Democrats would see a big boost electorally. The American people don't want to outlaw abortion all together. They just want some reasonable limitations. Anti-abortion absolutists would be in the minority except for a few very conservative states. Republicans would not be allowed to weasel anymore; they would have to come out either against abortion every time or willing to allow abortion, albeit with some restrictions. And the conservative base would rebel against such abortions. I think the politics of having abortion fights in every state legislature would help the Democrats. They should be praying that Roe is overturned. As long as it stays in effect, they're in the position of arguing against where the majority of American people are on abortion. They have to oppose a ban on partial-birth abortion and favor allowing minors, who can't get their ears pierced without a parent's permission, should be able to have an abortion without that permission. Republicans, as Taranto points out, can appear to be the reasonable non-extreme ones. All that would change if the debate were on the central issue of whether abortions should be legal at all, rather than on the peripheral issues.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:58 AM 0 comments

 

Check out Captain's Quarters for an extensive interview with Bernard Goldberg, author of 100 People Who are Screwing Up America.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:47 AM 0 comments

 

Steve Feinstein thinks that the Kelo decision should and will be big at the hearings for the new nominee to the Court. I don't think that that is how it is going to play out. Sure, the Republican senators may make a big deal out of finding out how the nominee stands on property rights and may even talk about that issue on the talk shows. But all the clips on the evening news from the hearings will be of Democrats like Leahy, Kennedy, and Schumer pounding away rudely at the nominee about abortion and affirmative action. It will be like when Condi Rice went before the Senate Foreign Relations committee. All we saw were the attacks by Barbara Boxer. No one cared what the Republicans said unless they were attacking Boxer. We'll see a similar pattern with these hearings. The Democrats will allege all sorts of apocalyptic events if the nominee gets on to the bench. The nominee will answer with dignity and reason but that won't be enough. If some Republican like Cornyn then attacks the Democratic senators, he might have a chance of getting on the news. The script is written. It doesn't matter what the nominee or the Republican say. The media will only cover the showdown quotes. And it will all come down to the Republicans in the Gang of 14. Will they go to the mattresses with the rest of the GOP or will they stand nobly up for the spirit of comity in the Senate. Comity! Ha! As if there has been comity in the Senate since the GOP took over.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:24 AM 0 comments

 

I see over at tradesports that Gonzales had shot up yesterday into the lead, but now is sinking. Garza is holding steady, but Roberts and McConnell are on the rise. They have a long way to go to catch up with Garza, however.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:19 AM 0 comments

 

Terry Eastland says that Gonzales should let the President know that he, Gonzales, would not make a good candidate for the Supreme Court. Eastland does a nice job summarizing briefly why this is so.

I suspect that Gonzales has already done this. That is why I think Emilio Garza or Edith Jones fit the bill of being true conservatives but also having either a Hispanic or woman to replace O'Connor. I think that that is something that Bush is concerned with. And so my bet would still go with Garza.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:56 AM 0 comments

 

I'm just an ignorant teacher and blogger unfit to understand the higher calling of journalists, yet I can't see where the great ethical principle lies in nobly going to jail rather than giving up the name of a source, when the sources themselves have waived any right of protection and the prosecutor himself knows who the source is.

Here are some intriguing tidbits from the Washington Post story on all this brouhaha.

Michelle Malkin notes this,

Sources close to the investigation say there is evidence in some instances that some reporters may have told government officials -- not the other way around -- that Wilson was married to Plame, a CIA employee.

Wouldn't that be a hoot?

And then there is this,

In his filings yesterday, Fitzgerald used strong language to complain about the reporters' professed goal of protecting their sources. It would be "pointless" for Cooper to go to jail, he said, because Time effectively identified the source whom Fitzgerald is interested in when it turned over Cooper's notes and e-mails. Cooper's source has also waived Cooper's promise of confidentiality.

Likewise, Fitzgerald has repeatedly said he already knows the identity of Miller's source and that person has relieved Miller of her duty to protect the source's anonymity. Yesterday, he suggested Miller will likely spend time in jail thinking about "whether the interests of journalism at large, and even more broadly, the proper conduct of government, are truly served" by her continued refusal to discuss her sources.

So, Fitzgerald knows everything and just wants Miller and Cooper to acknowledge that he knows everything. It sounds like he's on a power trip. It's like a mother who knows that her kid broke the window but wants to force him to acknowledge it and apologize and then receive his punishment.

I wish this weren't such a weak case. It is far from clear that a crime was committed here. Or, if there was a crime, was it lying to Fitzgerald about something that wasn't a crime. Fitzgerald has spent a lot of money and time tracking all this down. If he has all his evidence already and doesn't really need Cooper and Miller to testify, then he should go ahead without them. I would much rather see a showdown over whether journalists could/should refuse to testify in a worthier case. And one where they weren't protecting the name of someone who had already waived confidentiality. I think everyone should be spanked and sent into the corner. Then Fitzgerald should make public what he knows and we can go on from there.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:46 AM 0 comments

 

Personally, I don't care a bit which city got the Olympics. I think New York and the United States shoudl be glad not to have the expense and headache of putting on the show. Can you imagine what the security sitution alone would be? But it is nice to see one more finger to the eye of Jacques Chirac. If he were relying on an Olympic bid to prop up his deservedly sagging ratings, it is adieu to those hopes. Oh, darn. And if London's winning bid helps Tony Blair, then that's all the better.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:41 AM 0 comments

 

Bill Israel, who apparently taught a class once with Karl Rove on politics and the press thinks that Karl Rove is the reincarnation of Machiavelli and Richard Nixon. He accuse Rove of manipulating reporters like Matt Cooper,knowing that they will hide between their journalistic ethics and protect him as a source. What Mr. Israel does not offer is any specific evidence at all of anything that he alleges. Lefty bloggers are all excited about his accusations because it fits in with the demonic image that they have of Rove. But it would help if someone somewhere had some evidence of all this. All they have now is rumor and innuendo. The fact that Rove talked to Cooper seems totally obvious. Of course, someone investigating this would have given Rove a call. We don't know what Rove said and there are as many possibilities for his having said something that was not illegal or unethical as there are for his having said something that was. Let's try hving the trial first and the hanging later, okay?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:30 AM 0 comments

 

The Democrats are sounding the word that they are going to be looking at ideology in assessing a candidate. That is code for saying that they will reject someone who doesn't see the Constitution as a living, breathing organism that changes to adapt to the times.

As Byron York reminds us, Charles Schumer set the stage for this in 2001 in the months when he was head of the Judiciary Committee after the defection of Jim Jeffords.

The Democrats in the Gang of 14 are also signaling that they would filibuster a candidate for "extraordinary ideology," whatever that is. We need very clear signals from the 7 GOP senators in the Gang that they would regard that as breaking the deal and would then vote for ending filibusters on judicial nominations. It must be clear that the Democrats are the ones taking the first step to break the deal and that they are doing so simply to prevent a candidate who says that he or she wants to follow the Constitution. It just goes to show that people who say that a nominee like Gonzales or one who has recently been approved would have an easier time getting through. No one would have an easier time getting through. The Democrats will probably be willing to filibuster the first Hispanic nominee also.

Amazing that that would seem to be a disqualifying belief for someone to be on the Supreme Court. What a topsy-turvy world people like Chuck Schumer inhabit.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:18 AM 0 comments

 

Thomas Sowell describes how these are the best of times and the worst of times. Then he traces how many problems stemmed from Court rulings.

Some judges and Supreme Court justices may flatter themselves that they are helping the poor and the disadvantaged but their arbitrary notions often hurt the less fortunate most of all.

Whose homes are going to be bulldozed to make way for a new shopping mall or hotel complex under the Supreme Court's expanded notion of eminent domain? Mansions in Beverly Hills? Condos on Park Avenue? Or working class homes and apartment buildings?

The fact that the NAACP and the AARP filed briefs on the side of the homeowners should be a clue.

When a handful of hoodlums can prevent a whole class from learning, as a result of judicial rulings that make it more dangerous to the school to crack down on classroom disrupters than to tolerate their destroying all the other children's education, whose children are most likely to see their whole future lost this way?

Children whose parents can afford to put them in private schools? Children in upscale neighborhoods who get a lot of their education at home anyway? Or poor children for whom a decent education is likely to be their only ticket out of poverty?

The civil rights organizations have not yet come to understand and protest the staggering lifelong price to be paid by a whole generation of low-income and minority youngsters when liberal judges create new "rights" for hoodlums in school.

It's the law of unintended consequences. Over and over.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:12 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

 

I know it seems totally unnecessary, but Andrew McCarthy rips Teddy Kennedy a new one.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:45 PM 0 comments

 

Reason Magazine asked several legal experts from the right, middle, and left who is their favorite Supreme Court Justice and whom they'd like to see take Justice O'Connor's seat.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:02 PM 0 comments

 

First we had journalists posting reactions to the President's speech before he'd given it. Now, we have Democrats announcing their reaction to the President's nominee before he's made one.

Democrats signaled that whoever the nominee is, their three likely lines of attack will be to assert the White House did not consult them sufficiently, then paint the nominee as ideologically extreme and finally assert that the Senate had not received sufficient documents about the candidate. But Senate Democratic aides said they will focus for now on bipartisan consultation and not publicly prejudge the nominee.

And they want to pretend that they're open-minded. We all knew that this is what they're going to do, but these talkative Democratic Senate aides made the mistake of announcing that policy ahead of time. Now, if they're on the ball, as soon as Bush makes his nomination and Democrats start saying that he or she is extreme, every Republican can pull out this Washington Post story and just read from it and note that the Democrats are following the strategy that they'd determined even before Bush had named anyone.

UPDATE: Is it the Washington Post or Scrappleface?

Kennedy Slams Unnamed Supreme Court Nominee

(2005-07-02) -- Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA, today criticized President George Bush's as-yet-unnamed replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as a "brutal, Bible-thumping, right-wing ideologue who hates minorities, women and cocker spaniels."

"He or she is clearly outside the mainstream of American values," said Sen. Kennedy. "President Bush has again ignored the Senate's 'advice and consent' role, forcing Democrats to filibuster this outrageous nominee."

The Massachusetts Senator said his aides have already discovered "reams of memos" showing that the man or woman Mr. Bush will appoint has "a history of abusing subordinates, dodging military service, hiring undocumented workers, spanking his or her children and rolling back the clock on human rights to the days when the Pharaohs ruled Egypt with an iron fist."

The Senator's office issued a news release to the media documenting the allegations against the potential high court judge, with a convenient blank line allowing reporters to fill in the nominee's name as soon as that information is leaked.

And how is this satire all that different from the Washington Post story above? Scott Ott's prescience and humor shows how predictable this all is.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:57 PM 0 comments

 

I'm a realist. What are you? Take the Neocon Quiz. (Link via Ted Frank)

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:35 PM 0 comments

 

Edith Jones really has not been acting as someone who thinks she's a possible Supreme Court nominee. A more ambitious person would perhaps be more circumspect and hide her views. However, here she is talking to The American Enterprise Magazine just this past issue. It's like she just doesn't care how her words will be twisted and just wants to speak her mine. Good for her, but I hope it doesn't come back to bite her.

TAE: You have stated that the values imposed by the Supreme Court have contributed to the decay of our society. Could you give us some examples?

JONES: The philosophical underpinnings of our government are the contract theory which says that we are a self-governing people, and the historical view that in order to be properly self-governing we must have a moral foundation. The Supreme Court's porno-graphy cases, the cases involving free speech that included those where people were allowed to spout the "F" word in public venues, the criminal procedure decisions which allowed many, many guilty people to go free because of rights that justices discovered in the Constitution for the first time in its two centuries of existence are examples of the overstepping of bounds. In several notable areas the Supreme Court has been operating on fatally flawed philosophical premises not well tested in actual society.

TAE: You recently authored an opinion in the McCorvey v. Hill case that got a fair amount of attention. This is the case that attempted and failed to reopen the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling. Your opinion highlighted the tension between the Supreme Court's ruling and modern scientific knowledge about what happens to babies and to women during abortion.

JONES: I was trying to point out that by Constitutionalizing the right to abortion, the Supreme Court had removed from the ordinary political processes any debate in which facts about prenatal advances, or health effects on women, could be heard and taken into account. In fact, the Court's exceptionally broad ruling removed fact-finding processes even from the Court's own debates. Facts, I concluded, no longer matter to the Supreme Court in certain cases.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 4:42 PM 0 comments

 

John Hawkins argues the same point, with much more detail, that I was trying to make on Saturday. Hawkins has a roundup of various comments from the so-called moderate senators so that we can get a gauge of what they might do if the Democrats were to filibuster Bush's nominee. Olympia Snow sounds like the most squishy. She thinks abortion is the most important issue. Warner sounds a bit squishy, but I heard him on Fox last week saying that, if the Democrats filibustered a Supreme Court nominee, the deal would be off. DeWine and Graham have said similar things. And John McCain is sounding good, but who knows about McCain. I suspect he's telling his Democratic buddies that, if they filibuster, they might lose everything: the nomination and the right to filibuster in the future. Of course, Arlen Specter sounds as weasly as possible. As if that is a great surprise.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 3:37 PM 0 comments

 

This is how Valerie Plame guards her privacy.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 1:33 PM 0 comments

 

Erick at Red State says that his sources, and gosh knows how knowledgeable they are, think that Rehnquist is still going to retire and that he and Bush have had a private discussion at some time about something.

I wouldn't be surprised if Rehnquist did not retire this summer. However, if he plans to retire, I also wouldn't be surprised if he gave Bush a heads up about that. He must know that it would affect Bush's calculations on whom to pick to replace O'Connor if he knew that he would have another nomination to make very soon for Chief Justice. Also, I heard somewhere that Warren Burger gave Reagan a month's notice before his retirement was announced. Maybe that is wrong. Maybe it was when he was first nominated by Nixon to replace John Marshall Harlan II. Whichever, it was Rehnquist who was then nominated to fill the opening that the president had had a month to know was coming. I just bet that Rehnquist, being a courtly, traditional sort of guy, would want to do the same thing for Bush.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 1:12 PM 0 comments

 

The San Antonio paper profiles hometown boy, Emilio Garza. What I like is that he doesn't socialize. Good. The less of a chance to be influenced by the Washington elite if he were to be put on the Court. When I heard both Andrea Mitchell and Judy Woodruff reminiscing about their familiarity with Sandra Day O'Connor from social situations, I thought, "I want a justice who doesn't go to parties with Andrea Mitchell and Judy Woodruff." (link via Confirmthem)

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:49 PM 0 comments

 

Top secret info at Los Alamos has less security protection than the new Harry Potter book.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:11 PM 0 comments

 

Heather MacDonald fisks Dahlia Lithwick. Dahlia is a wilted flower after this.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:00 PM 0 comments

 

Bob Geldof perfectly encapsulates liberal ideology.

"Something must be done, even if it doesn't work."

You can't just make this stuff up.
(link via Jonah Goldberg)

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:45 AM 0 comments

 

Oops. Forget all that demonization of Tom DeLay for having interest groups paying for his trips. Seems like Nancy Pelosi did the same thing. And the Democrats took more such trips than Republicans.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:40 AM 0 comments

 

Byron York reminds us of how Clinton chose Justice Ginsburg. And it isn't the nice story that Orrin Hatch tells in his book.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:38 AM 0 comments

 

If Bush doesn't choose Edith Jones, Thomas Lifson has some good arguments why he should choose Janice Rogers Brown.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:25 AM 0 comments

 

Richard Baehr has a column up at American Thinker that debunks some myths that have become to be accepted CW in TV pundit commentary.

He also says that if Bush nominates Gonzales, it will be because Bush knows some things about Gonzales that we don't. Perhaps they've had some deep discussions about issues of ideology and the courts. I'm not as sanguine about Gonzales judging by some of his opinions from when he was on the Texas Supreme Court. Also, I cannot forget how he interfered to water down Ted Olson's brief in the Michigan affirmative action cases.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:12 AM 0 comments

 

Some people are so overcome by their partisan loyalties that they have to hesitate about buying a Nationals baseball cap.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:07 AM 0 comments

 

Even Democrats on the Hill think Nancy Pelosi is, as I said last week, a true idiot. They have no explanation how she could have said such dimwitted things about the Supreme Court's Kelo ruling on eminent domain. Here's a reminder in case you missed the full depth of her ignorance.

Ms. Pelosi. Again, without focusing on the actual decision, just to say that when you withhold funds from enforcing a decision of the Supreme Court you are, in fact, nullifying a decision of the Supreme Court. This is in violation of the respect for separation of church -- powers in our Constitution, church and state as well. Sometimes the Republicans have a problem with that as well. But forgive my digression.

So the answer to your question is, I would oppose any legislation that says we would withhold funds for the enforcement of any decision of the Supreme Court no matter how opposed I am to that decision. And I'm not saying that I'm opposed to this decision, I'm just saying in general.

Q Could you talk about this decision? What you think of it?

Ms. Pelosi. It is a decision of the Supreme Court. If Congress wants to change it, it will require legislation of a level of a constitutional amendment. So this is almost as if God has spoken. It's an elementary discussion now. They have made the decision.

Q Do you think it is appropriate for municipalities to be able to use eminent domain to take land for economic development?

Ms. Pelosi. The Supreme Court has decided, knowing the particulars of this case, that that was appropriate, and so I would support that.

And here is what some anonymous Democrats said about her remarks.

We briefed her on it. She seemed to ask questions as though she understood it, but clearly she didn't," says a Boxer adviser on Capitol Hill. "How else to explain it?"

And then, there is this.

Even after the press remarks, Pelosi, according to other Democratic staffers, didn't seem to understand what the fuss was all about. "She was oblivious. She really thought she had a handle on some basic ideas about the Supreme Court, the way Congress works with the rulings of the court," says a Democratic leadership staffer. "A generation of 'Schoolhouse Rock' gets this and she doesn't? Her staff should be ashamed of itself for putting her out there."

There's an ecomium to her genius: Nancy Pelosi: Knows less about the Constitution then a generation of 'Schoolhouse Rock' listeners. Heh.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:51 AM 0 comments

 

Bernard Goldberg's new book, 100 People Who are Screwing Up America, is now out and the Seattle Times has information on who made his list.

The "100" list counts backward and culminates with a photo of movie producer Michael Moore, who made "Fahrenheit 9/11," a documentary argument against President Bush and the war in Iraq in which McDermott played himself. The top 20 include Sen. Edward Kennedy, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Democratic Chairman Howard Dean and billionaire George Soros, who spent millions to defeat Bush in last year's presidential election.

The Washington state natives who made the list, the Seattle Times notes, are Congressman Jim McDermott and Courtney Love. I can buy McDermott, but I don't see Courtney Love. She is so....yesterday.

Also reported on the list are Paris Hilton's parents and Al Sharpton.

In fact, Goldberg's list doesn't seem that far different from the 20 people selected in a survey by John Hawkins of conservative bloggers of who they think is screwing up America.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:42 AM 0 comments

 

Jonathan B. Wilson has some more revealing quotes from Edith Jones. Here are some quotes that I like from a speech at the Federalist Society (oooh, the Dems regard the Federalist Society as a den of conservative in iniquity)

"The integrity of law, its religious roots, its transcendent quality are disappearing. I saw the movie 'Chicago' with Richard Gere the other day. That's the way the public thinks about lawyers," she told the students.

"The first 100 years of American lawyers were trained on Blackstone, who wrote that: 'The law of nature . dictated by God himself . is binding . in all counties and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all force and all their authority . from this original.' The Framers created a government of limited power with this understanding of the rule of law - that it was dependent on transcendent religious obligation," said Jones.

She said that the business about all of the Founding Fathers being deists is "just wrong," or "way overblown." She says they believed in "faith and reason," and this did not lead to intolerance.

"This is not a prescription for intolerance or narrow sectarianism," she continued, "for unalienable rights were given by God to all our fellow citizens. Having lost sight of the moral and religious foundations of the rule of law, we are vulnerable to the destruction of our freedom, our equality before the law and our self-respect. It is my fervent hope that this new century will experience a revival of the original understanding of the rule of law and its roots.

"The answer is a recovery of moral principle, the sine qua non of an orderly society. Post 9/11, many events have been clarified. It is hard to remain a moral relativist when your own people are being killed."

And then she said this on the explosion of lawsuits we've seen in the past few decades.

"We see lawsuits wielded as weapons of revenge," she says. "Lawsuits are brought that ultimately line the pockets of lawyers rather than their clients. . The lawsuit is not the best way to achieve social justice, and to think it is, is a seriously flawed hypothesis. There are better ways to achieve social goals than by going into court."

Jones said that employment litigation is a particularly fertile field for this kind of abuse.

"Seldom are employment discrimination suits in our court supported by direct evidence of race or sex-based animosity. Instead, the courts are asked to revisit petty interoffice disputes and to infer invidious motives from trivial comments or work-performance criticism. Recrimination, second-guessing and suspicion plague the workplace when tenuous discrimination suits are filed . creating an atmosphere in which many corporate defendants are forced into costly settlements because they simply cannot afford to vindicate their positions.

"While the historical purpose of the common law was to compensate for individual injuries, this new litigation instead purports to achieve redistributive social justice. Scratch the surface of the attorneys' self-serving press releases, however, and one finds how enormously profitable social redistribution is for those lawyers who call themselves 'agents of change.'"

You gotta like a jurist who refers to Philip Howard's The Death of Common Sense: How the Law is Suffocating America. and other books by Howard.

Read her full remarks and it's clear that this is not a woman who has been tempering her remarks in order to make herself a more appealing nominee for the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee. I can just imagine how they'll caricature such statements like these.

Natural law provides "a framework for government that permits human freedom," Jones said. "If you take that away, what are you left with? Bodily senses? The will of the majority? The communist view? What is it - 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need?' I don't even remember it, thank the Lord," she said to the amusement of the students.

"I am an unabashed patriot - I think the United States is the healthiest society in the world at this point in time," Jones said, although she did concede that there were other ways to accommodate the rule of law, such as constitutional monarchy.

I like this lady. Ralph Neas would have a coniption if she were the nominee. Good.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:13 AM 0 comments

 

Larry Ribstein makes a good point in looking at some of the media coverage of the upcoming judicial nomination. He says that, since the media was expecting Rehnquist to be the one to retire, they were not as focused on possible female nominees. That changes now with O'Connor's retirement. Both he and Todd Zywicki push for Edith Jones. Zywicki posts an extract from comments that Judge Jones made about the nomination process and how the bitterness and rancor in the judicial selection process stems from the fact that so many now look to the courts to act as glorified and unaccountable legislators. Ribstein links to this Wall Street Journal profile of Edith Jones. (subscription required)

Social conservatives are comfortable with Judge Jones, who passes their abortion litmus test with high grades. In a 1993 case, writing for the majority, she upheld a Mississippi law that prohibits certain minors from obtaining abortions without the consent of both parents, saying it doesn't unduly burden the right to seek an abortion. In another abortion case, Judge Jones, who agreed on a narrow technicality with an abortion-rights decision, nevertheless went out of her way in a concurring opinion to say that the Supreme Court's seminal abortion-rights case, Roe v. Wade, was "an exercise in raw judicial power."

On another issue, she also ruled that a female police officer's work environment wasn't hostile simply because there were some derogatory references to her in a police newsletter's satirical column. And in a case involving capital murder, Judge Jones said that the fact that a defendant's attorney fell asleep during parts of the prosecutor's presentation wasn't sufficient grounds for ruling that he was inadequately represented.

Judge Jones also was a member of the 1997 federal bankruptcy law review commission that spawned the pro-creditor overhaul of the code ultimately passed by Congress earlier this year. In a dissent from a commission's report that urged more protections for debtors, Judge Jones said that the majority report "ignores creditors' complaints that their interests are systematically shortchanged by the (report), while those of debtors are enhanced."

Boy, you can hear the attack ads now.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:04 AM 0 comments

 

Jayson at Polipundit has a good post up about the difference between moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats. That is why it is so self-defeating for conservative Republican voters to get mad at the Republican Party and throw up their hands and refuse to vote or to go a third party route.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:53 AM 0 comments

 

President Bush has an interview in USA Today about the Supreme Court nomination. It's mostly boilerplate and he is either hopelessly optimistic or just trying to sound good. There's no way that this will happen.

Part of the consultative process with the Senate, of course, will be to determine how best to get a speedy resolution to the nomination. I look forward to consulting with the Senate to make sure that the dialogue and tone of the debate is one that will bring credit to the country. This is a good opportunity for the Senate to get rid of the bitterness and rancor that seem to have been prevalent in a lot of the recent debates.

Oh, yeah. I wouldn't sell short on Bitterness and Rancor. They're going to go way up in the next few months.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:46 AM 0 comments

 

Nicholas Kristof has remarkably fair look at what he regards as the strengths and weaknesses of Bush's policies on Africa.

Those who care about Africa tend to think that the appropriate attitude toward President Bush is a medley of fury and contempt.

But the fact is that Mr. Bush has done much more for Africa than Bill Clinton ever did, increasing the money actually spent for aid there by two-thirds so far, and setting in motion an eventual tripling of aid for Africa. Mr. Bush's crowning achievement was ending one war in Sudan, between north and south. And while Mr. Bush has done shamefully little to stop Sudan's other conflict - the genocide in Darfur - that's more than Mr. Clinton's response to genocide in Rwanda (which was to issue a magnificent apology afterward).So as the G-8 summit meeting convenes this week, focusing on Africa, it's worth acknowledging that Mr. Bush, and conservatives generally, have in many ways been great for the developing world. At their best, they bring a healthy dose of hands-on practicality to their efforts.

The liberal approach to helping the poor is sometimes to sponsor a U.N. conference and give ringing speeches calling for changed laws and more international assistance.

In contrast, a standard conservative approach is to sponsor a missionary hospital or school. One magnificent example is the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, where missionary doctors repair obstetric injuries that have left Ethiopian women incontinent.

Read the rest. I think that Kristof downplays a bit the importance of establishing democratic reforms and, perhaps most importantly, respect for property rights. Without those, few will want to invest in African countries. And it is with such investment, rather than handouts, that Africa will truly rise. Needless, to say, feel-good extravaganzas like Live8 are incidental to what really needs to be done there.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:53 AM 0 comments

 

Richard Brookhiser pays tribute to Alexander Hamilton. The more I read about Hamilton, the more impressive I find him. Sure, he was a flawed man, but he did more than any other man to place the United States on a sure economic footing, an amazing feat considering the shambles that the economy was in when the Constitution was written. Although Madison and Jefferson opposed his economic plans almost every step of the way, it was due to Hamilton that the young country's credit was so strong that Jefferson was easily able to borrow the money to make the Louisiana Purchase.

I just read Ron Chernow's biography of Hamilton this summer and found it engrossing. Chernow does not sugarcoat his profile of Hamilton, but also vividly portays the many, many contributions Hamilton made to this country's founding. And you will be amused to read about the partisan wrangling of the period. It made an interesting counterpoint to be reading about the ugly partisan battles of the 1790s while also reading about our political battles today. And we still do not measure up to the those early leaders, even in the extent of our partisan attacks.

If you are not up for a long read, try Richard Brookhiser's book on Hamilton. Although not as comprehensive as Chernow's book, Brookhiser does a great job of covering the major landmarks and contributions of Hamilton's life in a very enjoyable and fast-paced book.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:35 AM 0 comments

 

Ah, Jacques Chirac, the master of diplomatic decorum and class.

Anglo-French tensions heightened last night after Jacques Chirac delivered a series of insults to Britain as London and Paris fought to secure the 2012 Olympic Games and faced fresh disagreement at the G8 summit.

The president, chatting to the German and Russian leaders in a Russian cafe, said: "The only thing [the British] have ever given European farming is mad cow." Then, like generations of French people before him, he also poked fun at British cuisine.

And they accuse Bush of being the one to offend foreign leaders. He also knocked Finnish, Scottish, and American cuisine. I hope they confine him to a diet of haggis for the rest of the summit.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:31 AM 0 comments

 

Dennis Prager explains why Democrats will attack whomever Bush nominates for the Supreme Court. Beyond his second and third reasons that they decline to engage in serious debate on the issues and are overly dependent on the courts to resolve issues that they can't persuade a majority of Americans to vote for, we must not forget the first, most fundamental reason. It lies at the heart of all partisan and ideological debates both nationally and internationally.

First, Democrats believe that conservatives by definition are bad people. As Howard Dean, the head of the Democratic National Committee recently said, "in contradistinction" to Republicans, Democrats care if children go to bed hungry at night. In most Democrats' minds, conservatives/Republicans do not care if children go to bed hungry, and they are racist, intolerant, regard women as inferior, are stingy and mean spirited, and prefer war to peace.

The reason they see conservatives this way is that most people on the Left are certain that they mean well; therefore their opponents do not mean well. Moreover, liberals tend to assess policy positions on that basis -- are the motives good? -- rather than on the basis of what actually does good.

For example, liberals advocate bilingual education for immigrant children despite the fact that bilingual education hurts immigrant children. It slows learning the language of the adopted country and integrating into it, and thereby hurts their chances for success. Nevertheless liberal educators and politicians prefer bilingual education -- out of compassion for immigrant children (and antipathy to American assimilation). Therefore liberals believe that since compassion leads them to favor bilingual education, only a lack of compassion can explain conservative preference for English immersion.

Likewise in liberal eyes, the Republican/conservative preference for lowering taxes can only emanate from selfishness and apathy toward the poor. And conservative support for the war in Iraq cannot emanate from love of liberty and a moral desire to destroy Islamic totalitarians, but rather from love of oil, commitment to American imperialism and macho adoration of military might.

On issue after issue, Democrats perceive Republicans as not merely wrong, but bad. And when fighting the bad, almost any weapon may be used.

We see this over and over again. If a conservative proposes economic tools to fight the environment because they have been shown to be more effective than regulations, liberals will counter that only they truly love the environment. The implication seems to be that Republicans just hope that the air and water get more and more polluted. If conservatives propose choice in education, it must be because they want to destroy public education. And so it goes on issue after issue. I believe that conservatives are willing, for the most part, to grant that liberals have good intentions, just faulty ideas. Liberals rarely grant us the benefit of believing we even have good intentions.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:45 AM 0 comments

Monday, July 04, 2005

 

Mark Steyn takes on Live8. It's not an even match.

Yet, throughout the weekend's events, Dave Gilmour and Co were too busy Rocking Against Bush to spare a few moments to Boogie Against Bureaucracy or Caterwaul Against Corruption or Ululate Against Usurpation. Instead, Madonna urged the people to "start a revolution". Like Africa hasn't had enough of those these past 40 years?

Let's take it as read that Sir Bob and Sir Bono are exceptionally well informed and articulate on Africa's problems. Why then didn't they get the rest of the guys round for a meeting beforehand with graphs and pie charts and bullet points in bright magic markers, so that Sir Dave and Dame Madonna would understand that Africa's problem is not a lack of "aid". The tragedy of Live8 is that its message was as cobwebbed as its repertoire.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:11 PM 0 comments

 

No one is better at snarkily making fun of self-satisfied celebrities than the British. Check out this description of celebrities quaffing down champagne and gobbling up caviar as they jockey for star building backstage at Live8. And what is it with these celebrities and the names they inflict on their kids. Gwyneth Paltrow chooses "Apple" for her little one. Bob Geldof's kids are Fifi, Peaches, and Pixie. Yeesh! Sounds like names for poodles.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:58 PM 0 comments

 

Protein Wisdom has thought of nine other analogies that Brian Williams forgot to make, but the MSM will probably be making in the next few weeks. (Link via Michelle Malkin who also links to Brian Williams' lame apology. Once again, it is our fault for misunderstanding him. How unfortunate for Williams and Dick Durbin that people just keep taking what they say in the wrong way.)

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 3:18 PM 0 comments

 

You think there is a connection between the last section of this story and the first section?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 3:13 PM 0 comments

 

This Tom and Katie thing is getting creepier and creepier. It seems he won't even let her go to the bathroom alone. Free Katie!

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 3:04 PM 0 comments

 

Michael Barone thinks that the Democrats will filibuster whomever Bush nominates because they are so dominated by liberal interest groups. (As I said the other day. I like it when I'm in accord with Michael Barone.)

Nor is there any indication that People for the American Way or the Alliance for Justice will not oppose any Bush nominee with every ounce of strength they have.

These groups exist for the purpose of defeating Republican judicial nominees, and their financial supporters -- the big money people and those sending in small amounts in response to direct mail appeals -- would be furious if they meekly accept a Bush appointee as Republican senators accepted Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg when they were nominated by Bill Clinton. Not opposing nominees would be an act of self-destruction for these groups, and Washington lobbying groups are not in the habit of self-destruction.

As for Democratic senators, they have almost unanimously accepted direction from these groups. As independent-minded and candid a senator as Russ Feingold of Wisconsin was seen reading questions to a Bush nominee off the papers supplied by these groups. A major Democratic constituency, the feminist left, expects a fight against any Bush nominee. The Democratic senators surely will not disappoint.

This means that Democrats will filibuster any Bush nominee, while the left groups attempt to tar them with any charge they can dream up.

It all points back to the GOP 7 on the Gang of 14.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:20 PM 0 comments

 

Mark Steyn has some fun whacking around some of the recent Supreme Court decisions. First off, he notes Nancy Pelosi's asinine statement that a Supreme Court decision was as if God had spoken. Then he has fun with Stephen Breyer's swinging on the Ten Commandments decisions. Still having fun, he lays into the eminent domain decision.

But the Supreme Court's decision took a far more expansive view -- that local governments could compel you to sell your property if a developer's proposal would generate greater tax revenue. In other words, the "public interest" boils down to whether or not the government gets more money to spend.
I can't say that's my definition. Indeed, the constitutional conflation of "public interest" with increased tax monies is deeply distressing to those of us who happen to think letting governments access too much dough too easily leads them to create even more useless government programs that enfeeble the citizenry in deeply destructive ways.
Nonetheless, across the fruited domain, governments reacted to the court decision by sending the bulldozers round to idle expectantly on John Doe's front lawn: Newark. N.J., officials moved forward with plans to raze 14 downtown acres and build an upscale condo development; Arnold, Mo., intends to demolish 30 homes, 14 businesses and the local Veterans of Foreign Wars to make way for a Lowe's Home Improvement store and a strip mall developed by THF Realty.

(Link via Volokh)

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:07 PM 0 comments

 

Victor Davis Hanson has some proposals for American diplomacy in the couple of years. First he notes the new calculus in the world for determining what is good and what is not.

While the world debated whether an American guard at Guantanamo really flushed a Koran down a toilet, Robert Mugabe may have bulldozed the homes of 1.5 million Zimbabweans.

Few seem to have cared.

To do so would be a messy, complicated thing — lecturing a black third-world leader to stop tormenting his own poor; pleading with other African states not to allow the genesis of another Rwanda; and, probably, being embarrassed by someone who doesn’t give a hoot what a Western elite liberal says.

Mao, whose minions killed somewhere between 40 and 50 million, is still popular in China. That Communist country is deemed by many Western allies as less of a threat than the United States and its elected president, who routinely appears with a Hitler-moustache in European demonstrations.

The new general rule: Global morality is established by the degree the United States can be blamed. Millions of lives lost, vast corruption, thousands of refugees — all that can’t quite equate with a U.S. soldier showing insensitivity or an American detention center with mere doctors, ethnic food, and religious accommodations.

His solution would be to pull back or, at least, threaten to pull back, from bases and commitments where we have no vital interests and are not wanted. For example, if the South Koreans think we're the real roadblock to peace with North Korea, we could pull our troops out of South Korea. Pull them out of Greece and Turkey. Get closer to our real allies and let Europe and other pusillanimous nations start fending for themselves. It's an interesting argument; see if you agree.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:54 AM 0 comments

 

Mark Levin makes a great point about how liberals today act as if Constitutional originalists would be rolling back the clock to Plessy v. Ferguson. That is such a crock. It was Dred Scott and Plessy which were the activist decisions. Scalia has even said that Brown v. Board is always the bloody shirt that proponents of a living constitution wave in front of originalists. However, he claims that he could have found support for an originalist position by voting with the dissenters in Plessy.

One of the biggest judicial activists was Roger B. Taney who authored the infamous Dred v. Scott decision. Not only did he find that Dred Scott couldn't bring a case before the Supreme Court because blacks were not citizens, but he struck down the power of the Congress to legislate about slavery in the territories. This contradicted what the Congress had been doing since even before the writing of the Constitution in the Northwest Ordinance. Lincoln brilliantly disproved Taney's logic in the Cooper Union speech. (Read Harold Holzer's Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President
, for more on this.) Taney was trying to write a decision that would end debates about the spread of slavery for ever and always. He was substituting his own personal opinions on slavery for Constitutional interpretation. Taney was a judicial activist. Scalia is so right when he says that adherence to the idea of a "living constitution" is really a form of judicial arrogance that substitutes the views of judges over that of elected officials. (This New Yorker article summarizes his views, but then lets Scalia's critics get in with the last word. If you want an unadulterated view of a Scalia speech, read this report from a law school blogger.)

Those who are originalists shouldn't let judicial activists get away with claiming the high ground on segregation.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:19 AM 0 comments

 

Gil Troy reminds us of how Reagan's choice of O'Connor flummoxed the liberals and infuriated the conservatives. Something that Reagan didn't mind doing.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:01 AM 0 comments

 

The Washington Post has a story about how several GOP members of the Gang of 14 are hinting that the deal would be off if the Democrats filibuster a Supreme Court nominee. There is only one Democratic member of the Gang who is quoted in the piece, Ben Nelson, who says that they would not filibuster unless a nominee were extreme in ideology. Well, that is rather a weak denial, isn't it? Extremity is in the eye of the beholder. What Democrats regard as extreme does not mesh with what most of the American people regard as extreme.

However, this article does substantiate what I predicted on Saturday. The key to the approval of a Bush nominee are the so-called RINOs in the Senate. They're the ones who will decide if they are going to support a vote to end filibusters or not. The Democrats can launch a filibuster, but with enough Republicans willing to vote to end judicial filibusters, it's an empty threat and one that would come back to bite the Democrats. The threat for such a vote might be enough to convince enough Democrats not to support a filibuster. Or, if it didn't, and the GOP really carried through on such a vote, the Democrats would have lost their major weapon in these battles. But, it's a weak weapon, one that they can't use, only threaten to use. Once the GOP had voted to stop judicial filibusters, then all of Bush's nominees will go through, including Myers and Saad. Estrada's nomination could be back.

The key is holding in the support of the RINOs. The media should be chasing after all 14 members of the Gang to get them on the record, but they should be paying special attention to the GOP members, since they hold the key. Stop talking to Leahy, Shumer, and Kennedy. What they are going to do is totally predictable. The real chance for making a decisive impact hangs with the RINOs. It's their moment to put up or leave the party.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:49 AM 0 comments

 

Charles C. Mann has a column in the New York Times today to try to show that the Founders took their inspiration from Native American tribes such as the Iroquois. Just showing that there were rights and liberties granted by the Iroquois and that the Iroquois Confederation had a slight similarity to the American Confederation doesn't prove that this was the inspiration for the Founding Fathers. Note how really sparse his evidence is.

Historians have been reluctant to acknowledge this contribution to the end of tyranny worldwide. Yet a plain reading of Locke, Hume, Rousseau and Thomas Paine shows that they took many of their illustrations of liberty from native examples. So did the colonists who held their Boston Tea Party dressed as "Mohawks." When others took up European intellectuals' books and histories, images of Indian freedom had an impact far removed in time and space from the 16th-century Northeast.

Sure, many Enlightenment writers, particularly Rousseau, were struck by what seemed to them the example of man in his natural state. But Locke, Hume, Rousseau, and Paine were all Europeans who had very little idea of how the native tribes were organized and run. The ideas of the Enlightenment were not inspired by the tales of natives in America. There is very little evidence that the American Founding Fathers were looking to the Iroquois for their inspiration. This is reading history backward from our own PC period rather than arguing from evidence.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:36 AM 0 comments

 

Have some fun. Check out your knowledge of Jews in Rock and Roll and then check into the Challah of Fame of Jewish rockers (and no, that's not an oxymoron.) They've settled their lawsuit with the humorless Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Take the quiz. It's a lot of fun.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:14 AM 0 comments

 

Arlen Specter and Orrin Hatch are out there trying to prop up Alberto Gonzales in the face of conservative opposition.

If the White House is truly worried about the Democrats pulling the Estrada option by demanding all sorts of documents of any nominee who ever worked in the executive branch in order to slow down and stall the approval process, wouldn't Gonzales be the absolutely worst candidate? They could demand all sorts of new memos from the past 4 1/2 years. And then go on TV and solemnly swear that they want to confirm Gonzales, but for a lifetime appointment, it is just too important to approve him without all these documents available. They would say that this was so different from approving him for the Attorney General spot since this would be a lifetime appointment.

My gosh, they stopped Estrada with their phony, unprecedented demand for memos he wrote when he was in Clinton's Solicitor General's office. Imagine what they would do for Gonzales who worked for Bush.

And just imagine this. If they hadn't been successful in barring Miguel Estrada two years ago, wouldn't Estrada be the name on everyone's lips today to be a the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice? In fact, if Estrada had stuck it out and waited, he would have been part of the deal from the Gang of 14 and might still be a possibility.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:58 AM 0 comments

 

Here's an intriguing mystery. Someone has slipped forged documents into the British national archives. The documents purport to show that the British murdered Heinrich Himmler when he was in their custody rather than that Himmler committed suicide as has been believed. Now, who could want to show the British committing war crimes in WWII? Screenwriters, call your office.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:54 AM 0 comments

 

Edward Feser has a great well-reasoned article countering all the arguments about whether felons should get the right to vote. And he correctly notes that the real motivation is for the Democrats to expand their natural base - to felons.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:48 AM 0 comments

 

See how much you know about Canadian economic history.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:47 AM 0 comments

Sunday, July 03, 2005

 

Erick Erickson has an update on Red State Radio on the tactics that both the White House and the Democrats expect to employ in the coming battle. He reports that the administration has decided that it is better to nominate a real conservative first and not try to pick a supposedly more moderate candidate since the Democrats could let that nominee go through and then filibuster a second nominee (for Rehnquist's seat) by saying that, if Bush had only picked a real moderate like the first person they wouldn't be forced into the filibuster. He also says that the Democrats, to no one's surprise, are gearing up to try to drag out the hearings as much as possible by calling for documents, posing a bazillion questions in writing, and asking for more time to read through the nominee's record. The leftist groups are already taping commercials using celebrities to warn about essential liberties that will be lost if Bush's nominee is approved.

It's going to be a very long, hot summer.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:41 PM 0 comments

 

Mark Kilmer does a great job summarizing the Sunday morning talk shows. Thank you.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:37 PM 0 comments

 

Gerry Daly has a flight of fancy about the role John McCain might play in the upcoming battle over judicial nominations. Bascially, he thinks that McCain will move to get back in the conservatives' good graces by leading some or all of the GOP members of the Gang of 14 back into the fold. They would announce that they were willing to vote to end filibusters on judicial nominees. I suppose at that point, the Democrats would either cave or that vote would take place. You have to read all of Gerry's reasoning. I just don't see it happening. I think McCain was sincerely opposed to such a vote and he wouldn't change his mind on that. I would be more optimistic of Graham, DeWine, and Warner switching back. And that would be enough. (Link via Hugh Hewitt) Gerry however believes that McCain is so eager for the presidential nomination that he will do something dramatic to win back conservative support. Apparently, McCain told Tony Snow that, if the Democrats filibuster a mainline conservative, the deal will be off. Sorta depends what your definition of mainline is, doesn't it?

Meanwhile, Hugh Hewitt envisions an even nastier fight that I did. He thinks that people will come out of the woodwork to make up or exaggerate stories about the nominee. It won't matter if the story is true or not; the Democrats can say that the accusation is so ominous-sounding that it "bears further investigation." Then, they can do what Fred Barnes fears - demand more and more private documents. They'll ask for copies of e-mails he or she sent friends about any and all Supreme Court decisions. In the hearings they'll pick every case that was decided 5:4 with O'Connor as the swing vote for the liberal side. They'll ask the nominee if she or he agrees with the Michigan Law School decision, and if the nominee disagrees, they'll run ads saying that the nominee doesn't want black students to go to law school and "in ----'s (fill in the nominee's name) America, minority students won't be able to go to college."

Hugh wants Specter to hurry up and hold the hearings so that the nominee doesn't twist in the wind all August with wild accusations playing out in the press every day or so. , while the interest groups put pressure on the RINOs.

It's all very depressing as to what state our politics has gotten to. And the Democratic senators will pretend to be all above this sort of thing. They'll just blame it on the interest groups and act as if they aren't getting and using blast faxes from Nan Aron and Ralph Neas every 15 minutes.

However, I still think that Bush's nominee will eventually get through. Bloodied, but unbowed. Perhaps, that is why I think Garza might be a good choice. I imagine that an ex-Marine would have the strength of character to withstand the onslaught.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:59 PM 0 comments

 

The Washington Post has a long cover story about Howard Dean's tenure as DNC chairman. Much of the article could have been written for Dean's presidential campaign. There are lots of anecdotes about Howard as a kid and a young man. Probably, a lot of these stories are left over or recycled from the campaign. Then the author talks about Howard's big mouth gets him into trouble, but that he regards this as a rather endearing quality of being frank and saying what he's thinking. So what if what he say is impolitic and gets him into trouble. He's just being Howard. As far as what he's accomplishing as DNC chair, what strikes me is that it is all about his aspirations. He wants to have better organization. He wants to raise more money. He wants to have better grass roots connections. He wants to sell the Democratic message (whatever that is) in red states. So, he's traveling around a lot and talking to people. But there isn't anything that I saw in the article about what he's actually accomplished beyond setting these goals. It's less than a year and a half until the 2006 elections. It's about time that he starts accomplishing something rather than just talking. And since he tends to create waves and offend people with about every fifth time he opens his mouth, he still seems like a gift for the Republican Party.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 2:07 PM 0 comments

 

Yikes! I couldn't resist heading over to jozjozjoz to see the picture of the winner of the ugliest dog contest. I thought to myself, how ugly could a dog be - even the ugliest is still sweet somehow. But, I have to admit, that is one dang ugly dog. (Link via Professor Bainbridge)

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 1:50 PM 0 comments

 

I just don't get the big excitement about the information that Matt Cooper had talked to Karl Rove. Big whoopty-di-doo. Isn't that what we would have expected. When the story first broke and reporters were trying to find out who had leaked to Robert Novak, Joseph Wilson was alleging that Rove was the leak and should be frog-marched out of the White House. Wouldn't every reporter have tried to speak to Karl Rove in that period? So why is there any shock that Cooper spoke to Rove? Cooper was investigating this after the Novak column so Cooper's conversations don't mean that Rove was the leaker and Rove's lawyer denies that he was or that Rove is a target of the investigation.

It seems that all the excitement is stemming from Lawrence O'Donnell shouting that Karl Rove was Matt Cooper's source. So what? It is Novak's source that matters to the investigation and it isn't even clear that that source was breaking the law. Mark in Mexico reminds us of what an over-the-top partisan O'Donnell is. Mark also has a roundup of blog reaction to this story. (Link via Lorie Byrd)

Gerry Daly reminds us of how Robert Novak described his source.

During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.

As Daly notes, "no partisan gunslinger" sure doesn't sound like Karl Rove. Rove could have been the second official, but it doesn't sound like that guy broke the law or was deliberately leaking Plame's name. And John Hinderaker reminds us that the only one so far shown to have lied to the American people is Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband. And what is also getting ignored is that Karl Rove waived any protection from reporters that had talked to him. So, we could have known about Rove's role a lot earlier if reporters had wanted to talk about it. I know that some reporters don't like to give their sources even when secrecy has been waived. However, I just don't think that, if Rove had done something dirty, that reporters would have kept that secret until after the election.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 1:18 PM 0 comments

 

Fred Barnes looks at the lessons that the Bush people have hopefully learned since Bork's defeat.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 1:10 PM 0 comments

 

Shannen Coffin argues the fact that liberals are praising O'Connor so much now shows that the real issue that means everything to them is abortion. Her other decisions on which she sided with the conservatives on the bench don't bother them enough to cancel out their appreciation for upholding Roe v. Wade.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 1:05 PM 0 comments

 

Orrin Kerr thinks that the Court won't change all that much with O'Connor's retirement, basically because Anthony Kennedy has become such a swinger. Thus, the core conservative group will still be a minority, even with a new conservative justice replacing Sandra Day O'Connor. NOw, if Kennedy were to retire....

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:59 PM 0 comments

 

David Frum sums up what there was about Sandra Day O'Connor's history on the bench.

The logic of O'Connor's judgments very often can be reduced to a sheer arbitrary personal preference: "this feels right to me." Since what "feels right" to her very often happened to coincide with what "feels right" to academic lawyers and the big media, O'Connor collected a great deal of praise for her highly personal approach to law.

It is seldom explained, however, what right a justice has to substitute her own single personal preference for the voting decisions of tens of millions of her fellow citizens or the negotiated compromises of elected legislators. The one justification for judicial review is that the justices are expressing, not their own wishes, but some higher law duly enacted by the people themselves. And since it is seldom obvious how this higher law applies to the case at hand, the justices (unlike congressmen or senators) are expected to explain themselves, to give reasons: that's why they do not hand down mere "yes" or "no" edicts or 6-3 vote tallies, but opinions full of arguments.

O'Connor went through the form of offering opinions, but too often disregarded the form's purpose and substance. When she held in a series of redistricting cases that the use of racial criteria was okay provided that the resulting district borders were not "bizarre" (her preferred word of condemnation), she was not engaged in appellate consideration as British and American courts have traditionally understood it. She was, to borrow an ancient metaphor for what Anglo-American courts should not do, "acting like the qadi sitting under a tree," nodding yes to this plaintiff and frowning no to that one.

O'Connor is often praised for having been "unpredictable." The suggestion is that she was non-ideological, impartial, fair. But the truth is that she was "unpredictable" because she was arbitrary. She was dangerously unwilling to think about whether and when judicial review can be justified in a democracy, and because of that unwillingness to think, her ultimate decisions too often looked less like law and much more like a raw assertion of power.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:51 PM 0 comments

 

One of the gifts you could give yourself this Independence Day is to read David McCullough's book 1776. I'm just starting it, but already enjoy it very much. Chuck Chalberg has a good review of it here.

UPDATE: George Will is also an enthusiastic reader of the book.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:35 PM 0 comments