In latest news that will shock almost no one with a mediocre understanding of economics - it turns out that the Bush Tax Cuts of 2001 and 2003 resulted in greater than expected federal revenues. Its almost like that whole Laffer Curve and Supply Side Economics thing actually works. But that won’t keep the liberals from trying desperately to tell us that it really doesn’t work at all.
Myth #1: Tax revenues remain low. Fact: Tax revenues are above the historical average, even after the tax cuts.
Myth #2: The Bush tax cuts substantially reduced 2006 revenues and expanded the budget deficit. Fact: Nearly all of the 2006 budget deficit resulted from additional spending above the baseline.
and
Myth #5: The Bush tax cuts are to blame for the projected long-term budget deficits. Fact: Projections show that entitlement costs will dwarf the projected large revenue increases.
Myth #6: Raising tax rates is the best way to raise revenue. Fact: Tax revenues correlate with economic growth, not tax rates.
I really wish people would stop basing tax policy on the vagaries of their hearts and start basing it on cold hard facts.
Well we finally have video proof that the current liberal meme is complete and utter bullshit. This video from that Conservative Broadcasting Bastion NBC:
Jamie posted this at 12:18 PM EST on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 as Iraq
Our glorious alma mater has a tradition, phone nite, where unsuspecting students call alumni. When I participated, I got, among others, a man who started talking about what it felt like to be on the phone naked. So I normally try to avoid these calls—on a previous occassion, I was between jobs when they called and I was moderately hostile—but they finally got me. The kid tried to get me up “for CMC’s 60th anniversary!” to give an extra $10, but I held firm to my original (still too much) pledge.
Confidential to my caller: S., remember to ask Professor Valenza about the camel joke.
I, perhaps more than any other blogger amongst The Bastards, come down the hardest on George Bush and his prosecution of the Iraq War and the GWOT. At times it may seem that I have become, in the words of Lee over at Right Thinking, a Christ Punching Leftist. Every once in a while I read an article that snaps the entire struggle back into focus. As already mentioned by Hubbard, the recent protest in Washington D.C. showcased the worst of the American Left. The Blame America First crowd was out in full swing and demonstrated why we should never take them seriously. But don’t take my word for it. Here is Ed Koch, Democrat, saying it much better than I could.
My favorite paragraphs (hate the term graph, its for douchebags ):
These people and their counterparts do have the capacity to bring down the government and prevent the President from being effective in pursuing the war. They were successful against President Johnson, destroying his reputation and sending him into oblivion. It is not far fetched that they can do the same to the idea and those who believe it that Western civilization is at great risk. Pre-WWII in Great Britain, some in British universities — the leaders of the next generation — said they would not serve in the military forces. Many said they were pacifists, others supporters of the apparently invincible Nazis. Even the then-King Edward VIII before he abdicated to marry his love, Wallis Simpson, conveyed by his statements and his Nazi salute caught by a photographer his support for Hitler. In America, there was the rise of the America First movement led by the national hero, Charles Lindbergh. Nevertheless, when the chips were down and the Nazis began their conquest of the West, the British stood up and so did the Americans. The French collapsed quickly.
Will the spirit and willingness to die for the concept of freedom rise again? I don’t know, and I worry. We in America are leading la dolce vita. We’ve never had it so good. Sure, there are plenty of problems, but unemployment is down to 4.5 percent. More than half of America’s adults are in the stock market and it is rising. We are a country of wealth and prosperity, even if not fairly distributed. We love life. Our enemies, the Islamic terrorists, love death and martyrdom. Remember what Zarqawi, an al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, said, “Killing the infidels is our religion, slaughtering them is our religion, until they convert to Islam or pay us tribute.”
and
Irrespective of whether or not we should have gone into Iraq in the first place, and I believe we were right to do so because of CIA director George Tenet’s statement that WMD in Iraq was a “slam dunk,” it is surely a fact that today Iraq is a center of terrorism. While Shia and Sunni hate one another and are embroiled in a civil war, they are united in their hate of America and the culture of the Western world and were we to leave Iraq, they will seek to follow us across the sea in their endeavor to kill us, unless we convert or pay tribute.
My only problem with the piece is that it ends rather abruptly after a short and perfunctory attempt to discuss possible solutions to Mess-0-Potamia. His belief that the “surge” will probably not work is one I share , but his hope that we will be able to draw in allies from neighboring Arabic States through the threat of a withdrawal is a fleeting one. I honestly don’t know what the solution is - but hoping for help from some of the prime sponsors of terrorism is pretty idiotic.
I’m a fan of a certain kind of psychoanalysis. Great works of art and literature can sear one’s soul, and writing about the blending of art and life is a difficult but rewarding task in the hands of a great writer. My gold standard for this kind of writing remains Edith Efron’s anaylsis of Clarence Thomas. Based on an interview Thomas gave to Reason, Efron was able to tease out what was going on inside Thomas’s head during those terrible confirmation hearings. This kind of writing is dangerous to do, however, because any set of facts can be given a false theory that fits.
The Anchoress poses an interesting hypothetical along these lines:
The film ET, The Extra-terrestrial is Steven Spielberg’s baby - his intellectual property, his copyrights, etc. Obviously, if I wanted to write a play or a book or whatever using that story and those characters, I’d run into all sorts of copyright issues, and perhaps Spielberg would be exceedingly protective of it and not even allow a purchase of the rights. Is there a way around such a circumstance?
For instance, suppose rather than write a variation of the story of ET, I decided to write a fictionalized account - a play or book - about the life of Stephen Spielberg, and within that media I tried to weave ET throughout as a subconscious parallel - a means of digging into Spielberg’s psyche. Since ET is a historical part of Spielberg’s life and I’m writing a historical fiction of that life, wouldn’the ET story then be fair game, used within the context of the newer work? You can’t copyright life details, can you? Wouldn’t I be able to write a story that said, essentially: Spielberg lived, he created art, this was the art he created, this was why.
It depends a great deal on how much Spielberg wanted to haggle over things. He might want to avoid it altogether, given that the legal hassle could lose in court and lead to huge publicity over the book, rather like the mistake Margaret Mitchell’s estate made over The Wind Done Gone. Still, even though Spielberg would probably lose in court, the sheer legal mess of it all would make me want to avoid writing fiction with ET characters and names woven in with Spielberg’s actual life. It’s probably safest to write a roman à clef like Bellow’s Ravelstein or Welles’s Citizen Kane, or to stick to a nonfiction essay like Efron.
The term “minority” has clearly ceased to be a term that denotes any numerical circumstance. It is a political definition used to suggest “social and economic disadvantage.” The term was used consistently throughout the MCRI campaign to describe those who suffer from “institutional racism in a society dominated by white males.” This definition would allow those of Mexican descent in California, who are rapidly becoming the numerical majority, to be viewed as a “minority,” despite their fast-approaching majority numerical status.
Amen. When I ran a college newspaper, on stories about racial preferences I replaced the word “minority”–there is no racial majority in Los Angeles County–with “non-white.” At different meetings, both the college president and dean of the faculty asked me about this and I asked them to find one instance when “non-white” was not a more accurate term. Needless to say, they failed. One of the ways it’s far more accurate is that it emphasizes the only thing so-called “minorities” have in common. “Minority” is in part an attempt to form a bond between groups that have no more in common with each other than they have with whitey.
Some worthless weasels in my state’s legislature cannot resist the idea of digging their hands deeper into my pocket by slapping a 5% additional tax on gas (which would come to about 11 cents a gallon right now-on top of 17.5 cents per gallon already in taxes-but which would be an unpredictable source of revenue in the future). Sen. Kenneth Stole of Virginia Beach seems like a man after my own heart, calling the idea “counterproductive and idiotic” because it undermines a compromise he worked out that would have funneled money from other state programs into the transportation budget.
Saslaw said the idea of taxing gasoline more heavily would allow the state to get money from out-of-state motorists and truckers who drive on the roads but do not pay local or state taxes. He said 40 percent of Virginia’s interstate traffic is made up of people who do not live in the state.
Outrageous. Just who do those bums think they are, driving on my roads? Oh, yeah, federal taxpayers.
“They want to take the money from the schools, the state police and higher ed to pay for it, all to avoid charging anyone from out of state,” Saslaw said of his colleagues who oppose higher gasoline taxes. “They want to live with that; that’s fine. But that’s not a solution.”
Actually, that is a solution, a great one. I’d love to live with that. And while we’re at it, we can cut even more money from “the schools, the state police, and higher ed” to give me a tax cut. That’s an even better solution.
According to Popular Science, Adama and Roslin’s plan to bring humanity to Earth may be flawed:
The South Korean government and Samsung Techwin recently debuted SGR-A1, a weaponized robot that autonomously tracks intruders up to about two and a half miles away with high-resolution and infrared cameras. Anyone who doesn’t give the robot’s voice-recognition system the correct secret code is identified as an enemy to a remote human operator, who directs the ’droid to unleash a warning, rubber bullets, tear gas or live rounds.
…South Korea has one of the world’s lowest birth rates and shares a border with one of the most feared military dictatorships. The government is pouring millions of dollars into the development of guard robots to ease manpower shortages along borders, coasts and terrorism targets, and expects the robot to enter service after 2008.
Tom posted this at 10:04 PM EST on Monday, January 29th, 2007 as Toaster Update
The Palestinian who blew himself up in the Israeli resort of Eilat on Monday was unemployed, despondent over the death of his baby daughter and driven to avenge his best friend’s killing by Israeli troops, relatives said.
Dozens of neighbors celebrated outside 20-year-old Mohammed Siksik’s house after the fiery attack that killed him and three other people, waving his photo and praising him as a martyr. Inside, his mother greeted mourners with a smile.
“He told me: ‘Meeting God is better for me than this whole world,’” said Rowayda Siksik, wearing a white veil.
She said her son told her only that he was going to carry out an operation inside Israel. “He said, ‘Goodbye, I am going, mother. Forgive me.’ I told him, ‘God be with you.’”
Siksik never found steady work, getting by with occasional jobs with his father, installing tiles. “You can’t find work in this place,” his mother said. Her son lost his 7-month-old daughter to a nerve disease, she said.
A disturbing story (H/T) but it does have a potential bright spot:
Outside the house, Islamic Jihad and Fatah members argued heatedly over who would sponsor Siksik’s funeral. The two groups claimed to have jointly planned the attack.
Since they love death so much, perhaps someone will bomb the funeral. For that loathsome mother, perhaps the mother of all bombs?
One of the benefits of being left-wing is never having to say, “I’m tacky.” Protestors just sprayed graffiti on the Capitol:
Anti-war protesters were allowed to spray paint on part of the west front steps of the United States Capitol building after police were ordered to break their security line by their leadership, two sources told The Hill.
According to the sources, police officers were livid when they were told to fall back by U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) Chief Phillip Morse and Deputy Chief Daniel Nichols. “They were the commanders on the scene,” one source said, who requested anonymity. “It was disgusting.”
New mayor Adrian Fenty’s first test: fire Morse and Nichols. You just don’t allow scum to defile the Capitol.
Approximately 300 protesters were allowed to take the steps and began to spray paint “anarchist symbols” and phrase such as “Our capitol building” and “you can’t stop us” around the area, the source said.
The last time something like this happened was the war of 1812. Disgraceful.
Dinesh D’Souza says in a Washington Post op-ed that “the reaction to my new book, ‘The Enemy at Home,’ has felt, well, a little hysterical,” a response that seems a predictable enough reaction to a hysterical book.
In this book I make a claim that will seem startling at the outset. The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11. … In faulting the cultural left, I am not making the absurd accusation that this group blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector, and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world. The Muslims who carried out the 9/11 attacks were the product of this visceral rage—some of it based on legitimate concerns, some of it based on wrongful prejudice, but all of it fueled and encouraged by the cultural left. Thus without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened.
Apollo’s quip that D’Souza seems to have been “possessed by a Coultergeist” is more apt than anything original I can offer.
Let’s compare the above quote from the book with an excerpt from his Washington Post op-ed:
Why the onslaught? Just this: In my book, published this month, I argue that the American left bears a measure of responsibility for the volcano of anger from the Muslim world that produced the 9/11 attacks. President Jimmy Carter’s withdrawal of support for the shah of Iran, for example, helped Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime come to power in Iran, thus giving radical Islamists control of a major state; and President Bill Clinton’s failure to respond to Islamic attacks confirmed bin Laden’s perceptions of U.S. weakness and emboldened him to strike on 9/11. I also argue that the policies that U.S. “progressives” promote around the world — including abortion rights, contraception for teenagers and gay rights — are viewed as an assault on traditional values by many cultures, and have contributed to the blowback of Islamic rage.
It’s pretty good evidence for the falsity of an argument when its originator defends it by obscuring his original words. In the book, the cultural left is “responsible for causing 9/11.” Without them, “9/11 would not have happened.” In the op-ed, the left “bears a measure of responsibility for the volcano of anger from the Muslim world that produced the 9/11 attacks.” Those statements are strikingly different in substance and style.
Even the watered down, op-ed version of D’Souza’s argument is wrongheaded.
He writes:
Contrary to President Bush’s view, they don’t hate us for our freedom, either. Rather, they hate us for how we use our freedom. When Planned Parenthood International opens clinics in non-Western countries and dispenses contraceptives to unmarried girls, many see it as an assault on prevailing religious and traditional values. When human rights groups use their interpretation of international law to pressure non-Western countries to overturn laws against abortion or to liberalize laws regarding homosexuality, the traditional sensibilities of many of the world’s people are violated.
The passage is intellectually dishonest because D’Souza cherry-picks the most controversial manifestations of Western liberalism — matters of controversy even within the United States — without noting that radical Muslims are as adamantly opposed to core Western practices like religious freedom, the separation of church and state, co-ed workplaces, bars and health clubs, etc.
Nor does he note that Western interference with radical Muslims abroad include efforts to halt such practices as the genital mutilation of young girls, the stoning to death of women who are raped, and even genocides against non-Muslims.
In short, the grain of truth to D’Souza’s argument — that radical Muslims hate us, and attack us, because we threaten the way of life they prefer — hardly proves his conclusion that they wouldn’t have attacked us but for the cultural left because the American mainstream, and even religious conservatives, hold views utterly incompatible with radical Islam.
D’Souza goes on to write:
What would motivate Muslims in faraway countries to volunteer for martyrdom? The fact that Palestinians don’t have a state? I don’t think so. It’s more likely that they would do it if they feared their values and way of life were threatened. Even as the cultural left accuses Bush of imperialism in invading Iraq, it deflects attention from its own cultural imperialism aimed at secularizing Muslim society and undermining its patriarchal and traditional values. The liberal “solution” to Islamic fundamentalism is itself a source of Islamic hostility to America.
Never mind that far more Muslim suicide bombers have died for the Palestinian cause than any other, or that Islamic fundamentalism predates what D’Souza terms “the liberal solution” to it.
Ultimately the weirdest thing about D’Souza’s argument — gleaned from his op-ed, since I haven’t slogged through the whole book — is that it ignores the fact that Islamic radicals aren’t just attacking the United States. How does D’Souza’s argument explain a commuter train bombing in Mumbai, or the Jordanian wedding reception blown apart by a suicide bomber, or the Bali nightclub where another suicide bomber wrought carnage?
Let’s hope his book is quickly consigned to the dust heap of history.
conor friedersdorf posted this at 1:28 AM EST on Monday, January 29th, 2007 as Uncategorized
Here’s a disturbing video showing U.S soldiers watching as their Iraqi Army colleagues - Shia - brutally beat Sunni civilians to near-death, as U.S. soldiers hoop and holler in support. It shows what this president is now risking: that the U.S. will become a party to one side in a sectarian civil war. It is happening already. It must be stopped. However grim things are in Iraq, this president’s policy could make things far, far worse.
Our soldiers’ behavior in this film is clearly unacceptable — what’s the point of being there if not to intervene in situations like this? On the other hand, I think the Shia soldiers’ actions had as much to do with finding mortars in the “victim’s” car as with ethnic/religious tensions. The mortars are mentioned twice in the video; first by the American soldiers, then by the snarky narrator.
Either Andrew Sullivan is the worst researcher in the world, or he’s dishonest.
Peter Drucker once noted that men with great strengths invariably come with great weaknesses; he also noted that great weaknesses were no indication of hidden great strengths, as the most common type of human being was the universal incompetent. Newt Gingrich, a disciple of Drucker’s, spoke on the second day of the NR Conservative Summit. Gingrich may be as close as anyone in the 2008 race comes to being a candidate for all seasons, but great weaknesses still shadow him.
First, the strengths. Speaking at 8 a.m., he was full of energy, funny, and effective. He got (and deserved) a standing ovation. I didn’t spend the whole day at the conference—I left around lunch time and went home to lie down—so perhaps Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney were better speakers. I wouldn’t know. But I can give my thoughts on the Newtster.
Gingrich managed to cover a great deal of topics and tied them all to American traditions. Whether it was tax reform, freedom, national unity, or America’s place in the world, everything was tied to the idea that American conservatism focuses on individuals, families, and communities rather than government. It’s tough to take so many issues and connect them, but Gingrich did so, seemingly without effort. But anybody who’s ever tried to write or give a speech like that knows that it only comes about with tremendous work. Mark Twain once referred to this style of speaking as the “Counterfeit Impromptu,” meaning that although it looks like the speech was off the cuff, it was the work of a lifetime of thinking and revising and practice. Twain would have loved Gingrich that morning.
Despite all of Gingrich’s hard work, he’s still not perfect. One of Drucker’s other maxims seems to have been forgotten: first things first, second things not at all. When Gingrich wanted to sum up his speech, he mentioned three key points which rather quickly multiplied:
The first point was that we needed to talk to America differently. In three subpoints, one must firstly talk personally—how a policy would affect families and communities. One must secondly talk historically—how a policy would fit into American traditions and ideals. One must thirdly talk politically—how we’ll get a good policy through the political meatgrinder.
The second point had seven (count ‘em) subpoints. They were conveniently listed on a handout we all got:
There will be four-to-seven times as much new scientific knowledge in the next twenty-five years as in the last twenty-five
There is a customer market and values system which leads to dramatic change and innovation
Pragmatism changing things now to get things done is the classic American philosophy
There are systems of productivity that are very powerful such as the Toyota production system, Six Sigma, the quality principles of Deming and Juran, the management principles of Peter Drucker, and the concept of lean manufacturing
Historic American culture as exemplified by George Washington and Benjamin Franklin simply works: the work ethic, courage, individual initiative, responsibility, team work, energetic effort, saving and investing, recognizing and rewarding achievement, having high expectations.
Insist that everyone be included and that a “new birth of freedom” (in Lincoln’s words) extends to every American
You have a lot to contribute to your family, your life, and your community.
The third point was that we needed to do what it takes politically to win the war on terror. He referred to a speech he’d given that listed 18 points of what politicians needed to do. God help me, I’m searching his site, and I don’t know what those 18 points are.
Even Woodrow Wilson, the first (and last) Ph.D. elected president got by with 14 points, and Wilson’s contemporary Georges Clemenceau noted that “Even God did fine with 10.” Gingrich overflows with ideas; the moniker “a one man think tank” fits him, but one may overflow with ideas and still be ineffective. Worse, failing with otherwise good ideas could discredit them and lead us into the realm of bad ideas. Gingrich is unquestionably brilliant, but he’s also prone to doing too much at once, as this speech demonstrates. Gingrich could be a great president, but he needs to focus if he doesn’t want to go the route of Wilson, Carter, Nixon, or Clinton.
Hubbard posted this at 2:24 PM EST on Sunday, January 28th, 2007 as Philosophy, Politics
“Isn’t this cool?” asked Joe. “How many places could you get your picture taken with John Bolton?”
Joe was asking this as I was watching John Bolton get mobbed with right-wing dorks asking for pictures. Bolton handled it much better than I would have; the crowd got to me several times, and I excused myself to a convenient lounge to sit and think alone on several occasions during the evening.
I decided to attend the National Review Institute’s Conservative Summit because I wanted to immerse myself in the right. Reading blogs is all well and good, but there’s no substitute for hanging out in person with fellow dorks from time to time. The open bar didn’t hurt anything, either. What follows are my thoughts and impressions from the evening. Please bear in mind that I have no editor as I write this, and that, as National Review editor Rich Lowry noted: “We should, when discussing the state of conservatism, be tanked.”
[Note: All quotes are from my notes, and may not be quite accurate, as I lacked a tape recorder. So if I misquote anybody, he has my sincerest apologies. Although if I misquote any woman, she had it coming.]
[Note to my humor-impaired readers: that last sentence was a joke. Now back to the evening.]
David Frum gave a nice anecdote about former Secretary of State George Shultz. Every time the Senate confirmed a new ambassador, Shultz would take him or her to his office and show them a globe. He’d ask the ambassador to point out his or her country. Invariably, the ambassador would point to Uruguay or Morocco or wherever he was going; Shultz would then say, “No, THIS” pointing to the United States, “is your country.” Bolton never forgot who he represented—a rare ambassador.
John Bolton was charming and gracious. Much more so than I probably would have been had I been filibustered to death in the Senate. Bolton mentioned that he had three job offers one Summer: research assistant to Alexander Bickel, intern at National Review, and intern in the office of the vice president. He chose the third option; a few months later, Spiro Agnew resigned. Some people have the magic touch.
After Bolton’s speech, I slipped out to the lobby to collect my thoughts. I heard one young man excitedly chatting away on his cell phone, “Oh my God! I just talked to Laura Ingraham!”
Miss Ingraham dominated a panel on the state of conservatism with Michelle Malkin, Mona Charen, Kate O’Beirne, and Kathryn Jean Lopez. Everybody got off many good lines, but it seems as though Ingraham, the one radio talk show host, talked the most. K-Lo said, “Welcome to The View . . . Only we’re not as diverse; we’re all sane.”
O’Beirne continued, “The federal government is too big and does too much—like Rosie O’Donnell.”
Ingraham seemed pessimistic about Jim Webb’s successful populism defending the little guy, but Charen dryly noted: “It’s just one guy with testosterone. Everybody else in the party is Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Obama, Edwards.” Not a real man among them, I suppose. Throughout the evening, I was mildly surprised at these women’s praise of manliness. I half expected them to pull out pom-poms. While it’s better than feminist deprecation of men, it felt a bit overdone.
Ingraham: “I’m afraid that the Democrats are learning. Should we have the same Republican leadership after our clocks got cleaned? It feels like it’s 1996 again.”
Malkin: “The key Republican is still Bush.”
Ingraham: “Yes, but he’s gone in 2 years. The House leaders will still be there. I think everybody’s looking for the next Reagan.” This drew the largest applause of the night. “But he was out there, ignored, for decades. Who’s out in the wilderness right now?”
Malkin: “We need to ratchet down expectations. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” landing was wrong, a disaster, because we need to establish civil order.”
Ingraham agreed, but noted: “The administration does a bad job getting the names of heroes out. The president should be the teacher-in-chief. Tony Snow suggested on my show that soldiers upload videos to youtube.com; a listener wrote in ‘I’m in Iraq right now, and we’re kind of busy with other things right now.’” Bush definitely seems afraid to use the bully pulpit. It’s probably the best way for Republicans to get any kind of public support for their policies, as Ronald “The Great Communicator” Reagan and Richard “Speaker for the Silent Majority” Nixon demonstrated.
O’Beirne: “We don’t see dead terrorists [on the news]. We want the terrorists to lose hope. And we have a bipartisan group of senators saying that the soldiers’ job is hopeless. It’s a disgrace.”
Charen agreed: “We’re sending signals of weakness that are heard in Tehran and Beijing.”
My favorite punches of the night came when the ladies discussed what President Hillary Clinton’s cabinet would look like. Charen suggested that Sandy Berger could be Attorney General, but Ingraham said that maybe he could make the deficit disappear.
Random Notes on the Evening
I bumped into one of my old professors, Charles Kesler. I doubt he remembered me from his class about The Federalist Papers. But he was as nice as I remembered.
I met Jack Fowler, publisher of National Review. He’s also a neat guy, and he told me a bit about the writer who got me reading NR, Florence King. He defended her (not knowing, apparently, that she once wrote porn with titles like Moby’s Dick) and she’s been grateful ever since. Hence the dedication in Deja Reviews.
The best dressed people seemed to be the young intern types. They abounded around the tables sponsored by think tanks: Cato, AEI, Hudson, Heritage. I saw a table reserved for the Manhattan Institute, but they weren’t there. [Note: they arrived the next day.] I wondered why Rudy Giuliani’s in-house think tank wasn’t there; they apparently drove down and got a bit delayed, so they weren’t there on the first night.
Michelle Malkin hugs a lot of people. I sometimes got the impression that she breathes fire from her blog, but it appears she’s quite human. Thank God.
I met Paul Mirengoff. Smart guy. He mentioned feeling bad about not posting much; given that he posts about twice as often as I do (or so it seems) I think I know why Powerline shapes the agenda, and we Snarky Bastards are around for comic relief. Of course, there’s also the reason best explained in a paraphrase of Cole Porter: Anything I can do, he can do better.
Hubbard posted this at 1:36 PM EST on Sunday, January 28th, 2007 as Nerdom, Politics
Sad news today, as President Bush said that he was the “decision-maker” regarding troop levels in Iraq. Sad because his previous assertion that he was “the decider” was, I thought, inspired. “Decision maker” is such a clunky phrase, yet in our bureaucratic world, it’s a phrase that we use more and more. Who’s the person who decides matters but doesn’t implement the decisions? “Decider” is a great word, to-the-point, concise, and perfectly clear in meaning. “Decision maker,” aside from being much longer and two words where one could do, is not as clear. Is it the person who decides the matter, or the person who phrases the decision so that the decider can decide? And it conflicts with the superior idiom, “faced with a decision.” If we can “face a decision,” that means a decision is an object, something that exists. That would mean that a “decision maker” is not one who decides, but one who creates the decision that faces us. “Decider” cleared this all up.
Bush’s boobishness aside, his continued use of the word “decider” would have helped the word stick around. I hope it still does (certainly I shall use it), but here, as in so many other ways, this president has shown potential only to let me down.
Turns out even the triple-soy-caramel-machiato drinking, hemp-wearing, dirty, unwashed hippies of Santa Cruz can’t stand Air America:
Liberal AM radio fails to pay its own way in Santa Cruz
By Shanna McCord
Sentinel staff writer
SANTA CRUZ — Al Franken, Randi Rhodes and Sam Seeder — articulate liberal pundits — don’t sell well, even in Santa Cruz.
The trio are part of the nationally syndicated Air America, which was dropped from Santa Cruz radio station KOMY 1340 AM on Thursday and replaced with music from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.
The left-leaning radio network, aimed at taking on Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk shows, debuted on Central Coast airwaves in July 2005, but local advertisers never bought in, station owner Michael Zwerling said.
“We didn’t sell a single ad in a year and a half,” Zwerling said Thursday. “I thought liberal radio would work as a viable advertising business in the most liberal town in America. I was wrong
You mean people don’t want to listen to 4 hours of “I hate Bush. That DVD player you bought at Walmart means you’re an evil hearted capitalist. The world is going to end if we don’t stop breathing out too much CO2″!! I’m shocked. SHOCKED, I tell you.
As someone who used to listen to Randy Rhodes, or as Tom and I call her Crazy Drive Time Conspiracy Bitch, I can tell you that it is perhaps the most annoying, screeching, mind numbingly soul crushing experience
Jamie posted this at 6:41 PM EST on Friday, January 26th, 2007 as Uncategorized
I’m not sure the NYT reporter thought this one through:
With the Democrats in control of Congress, labor unions hope they can reverse their decline by persuading Congress to enact the Employee Free Choice Act, which would give workers the right to unionize through an easier, less antagonistic method — signing pro-union cards.
But many business groups favor the current system in which employers can insist on using secret-ballot elections to determine whether a majority of workers want to join a union.
Business groups assert that elections are fairer, while labor unions assert that elections often involve employer intimidation of workers and the firing of union supporters.
Waaa? Which way seems more likely to cause intimidation: a secret ballot system where only a vocal few are actually known as union supporters, or a sign-up process where every union supporter’s name is listed on a card? If firing “union supporters” is a key concern, then wouldn’t you want to let people support the union without doing so publicly?
A more likely outcome is that through sign-up cards, thuggish union types could use public peer pressure to intimidate people who may not want to unionize into signing. I note, though, that the reporter doesn’t see the possibility of pro-union intimidation. Obviously does not know many pro-union types.
There’s also this delightful bit:
At a news conference on Wednesday, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. pointed to polling results showing that 53 percent of nonunion workers said they would vote to join a union tomorrow if they could.
“Sixty million Americans say they would join a union tomorrow if they could — that’s far more than the 15.4 million now in unions,” said Stewart Acuff, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s organizing director. “What’s stopping them is employer resistance.”
I wonder what results would look like from a poll asking people if they wanted a tree that sprouted $100 bills? The union question, as a hypothetical, comes down to, “Would you like to work less, get paid more, and be in a position to tell your boss what to do?” Even I’d say yes to that, except, obviously, most American are smart enough to realize that this is not exactly the best thing to do for the long-term fiscal health of your employer.
The most interesting news from this Time poll is not that Hillary would beat Obama in a primary held today (everyone should know that), it’s that 24% of people have a negative view of Obama. The man has only been a national figure for less than two years, and received unceasing media attention that covered the spectrum from flattering to fawning. The worst thing that’s been reported about him is that he smokes.
Meanwhile, Giuliani was a national figure during his eight years as mayor of New York–a city not exactly reknown for creating squeaky clean politicians–and he only has a negative rating of 14%, ten points lower than a first term senator who’s never taken a single controversial stance. I’d wager that never in American history has a mayor of New York been the most respected politician in the country.
And then there’s this:
If the election were held now, Rudy Giuliani appears to have the support of the greatest number of respondents of both parties, with 56% indicating they would “definitely” or “probably” support him — followed by Hillary Clinton (51%) John McCain (50%) and Barack Obama (50%).
Huzzah!
Apollo posted this at 2:25 PM EST on Friday, January 26th, 2007 as Politics
Now I’m not one to tout the positive attributes of General Wesley Clark. I think he’s an opportunistic politician with a vaguely slimy feel to him - basically Bill Clinton without the charm. Yet as I was watching Hannity and Colmes last night my jaw hit the floor as I see Sean - an ex-contruction worker - explain to Wesley - an ex-4-Star General - why Sean has a better grasp of military strategy than he does. (Excuse the link to a liberal trash website but it was the only place I could find the video.)
In transcript form:
Hannity: Alright. You said there was no new strategy. Let me tell you what the new strategy is ‘cause clearly uh I guess you’re missing what the President’s saying here. The prior strategy, and the President admitted that there were some mistakes made, was that they go in and they’d clear out the insurgency and they didn’t stay long enough or hold those areas long enough. Now the new strategy with the troop surge will be go in, remove the insurgents, hold the areas as pa…and also accelerate the training of Iraqi troops and police. That is a new strategy.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK:: I don’t think that’s a new strategy. […] I’ve heard him for a year talking about “seize, clear and hold.”
Hannity: No that’s what it is now.
Excuse me Sean, I may think Wesley Clark is a douche bag, I may disagree with his politics, but I’m gonna take his word on military strategy over yours. Okay? If you want to explain to him how to build a roof, or write a bestselling muckraking propaganda book I’m willing to listen. Military Strategy - I’m gonna leave that to the professional soldier.
I normally like Peggy Noonan, but it looks like it was deadline time and she was drunk (at least, I hope she was on something) when she wrote her most recent column:
Mr. Hagel said the most serious thing that has been said in Congress in a long time. This is what we’re here for. This is why we’re here, to decide, to think it through and take a stand, and if we can’t do that, why don’t we just leave and give someone else a chance?
Mr. Hagel has shown courage for a long time. He voted for the war resolution in 2002 but soon after began to question how it was being waged. This was before everyone did. He also stood against the war when that was a lonely place to be. Senate Democrats sat back and watched: If the war worked, they’d change the subject; and if it didn’t, they’d hang it on President Bush. Republicans did their version of inaction; they supported the president until he was unpopular, and then peeled off. This is almost not to be criticized. It’s what politicians do. But it’s not what Mr. Hagel did. He had guts.
Rich Lowry has a tart rejoinder in a column also published today:
[T]he windy Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel congratulates himself for his bravery in sponsoring a nonbinding resolution representing an anti-surge position supported by almost 70 percent of the public . . .
If Noonan had done any kind of research into Hagel, she’d know that he’s specialized in silliness for quite some time (this article was back from 2002, and I’ve emphasized the sections I thought were intriguing):
There’s nothing Hagel likes less than talking about right and wrong in the context of foreign policy. Pro-Israeli groups view him almost uniformly as a problem. “He doesn’t always cast bad votes, but he always says the wrong thing,” comments an Israel supporter who watches Congress. An April speech is a case in point. “We will need a wider lens to grasp the complex nature and consequences of terrorism,” said Hagel. He went on to cite a few examples of terrorism: FARC in Colombia, Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, and the Palestinian suicide bombers. Then he continued, “Arabs and Palestinians view the civilian casualties resulting from Israeli military occupation as terrorism.” He didn’t exactly say he shares this view — but he also failed to reject it.
“Foreign policy is not some theoretical, esoteric, Kissinger-esque thing hanging out there. It’s foreign trade,” Hagel said in 1998. Like a few other farm-state senators, he hasn’t met a country he won’t trade with. Last year, Hagel was one of just two senators who voted against extending the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. He’s strongly opposed to the trade embargo against Cuba — so much so, in fact, that he was the single lawmaker Jimmy Carter invited to accompany him to Havana this year. Hagel considered going, but ultimately didn’t because he wanted to participate in the Senate debate over Trade Promotion Authority. He nevertheless hailed Carter’s trip: “What Jimmy Carter’s saying . . . is exactly right: Our 40-year policy toward Cuba is senseless.” Hagel so staunchly advocates trade with China that he’s willing to sell out a traditional U.S. ally. “When we say we’re going to defend Taiwan, what are we saying there?” he asked a New York Times reporter three years ago. “Are we saying that if the Chinese send a missile over, we’re at war with China? It’s a big thing to say. I think we’re rather careless.”
Hagel certainly knows something about carelessness. In 1998, when the Lewinsky scandal was smashing Bill Clinton’s credibility, Hagel gave a speech on global conflict. It was vintage Hagel, full of high-minded apprehension, and it earned the rookie senator plaudits from the likes of the Washington Post’s David Broder, the embodiment of the capital’s liberal establishment. “Congress must be very careful in what we say and what we do as we proceed along a very dangerous path. We must be careful not to weaken or neuter the president in front of the world,” said Hagel. “America must speak to the world with some sense and some semblance of unity. We cannot allow our foreign policy to unravel before the eyes of the world during a very dangerous time.”
It’s the exact reverse of Hagel’s behavior toward President Bush. Someone might remind him that words have meaning.
Based on my reading of the first 70 pages of The God Delusion, I can say with some confidence that Richard Dawkins — to my surprise — treats the subject of theism seriously, thoughtfully, and rationally. Based on conversations with Hubbard, I can say with equal assurance that Ramesh Ponnuru gives abortion the same treatment in The Party of Death.
Why, however, have two such intelligent and thoughtful authors — both writing to change the minds of those who disagree with them through reason and argument — chosen such inflammatory titles?
Certainly, there’s a marketing value to shock, and both titles are memorable by virtue of it. While that might appeal to potential readers of Sean Hannity or Michael Moore, I can’t believe the open-minded theists and pro-choicers Dawkins and Ponnuru are courting will be likely to pick up a books that give every appearance of being written by bullies who disagree with them.
Second, I can’t imagine that anyone would want to be seen reading either of these books in public, unless they’re actively seeking a verbal or physical fight. Frankly, I wouldn’t be caught dead with either of these books on a subway, bus or airplane, simply because I wouldn’t want to deal with the angry zealot or self-righteous feminazi who would undoubtedly take the seat next to me.
City Journal has the best summary of the argument for Rudy Giuliani that I’ve yet encountered. It’s long, but only because the feats of Rudy the Conservative make a lengthy list. He took over a city ruined by rampant unionism, welfarism, and crime and, through conservative reform, returned it to its status as America’s greatest city. There is no Republican in American who has enacted as much conservative reform as Rudy, and he did it in an extremely liberal city, with a plainspokenness that is shocking from a modern politician. I saw him on tv after the State of the Union on Tuesday, and he referred to government healthcare as “socialism.” I can’t remember the last time I heard a Republican use the word “socialism” as an insult, but I likey.
Pretty much every graph in City Journal story is worth reading, but here’s the one I found most inspiring:
After years of tax hikes under Dinkins, Giuliani proposed making up the city’s still-huge budget deficit entirely through spending cuts and savings. Even more audaciously, he proposed a modest tax cut to signal the business community that New York was open for business, promising more tax cuts later. “I felt it was really important the first year I was mayor to cut a tax,” Giuliani later explained. “Nobody ever cut a tax before in New York City, and that was one of the reasons I wanted to set a new precedent.”
If George Bush has taught us conservatives a lesson–and I hope he has, though it is the exact same lesson we seem not to have learned from Nixon–it is that we need to gauge a man’s conservatism by his actions, not his words or meaningless stances. Rudy Giuliani is a genuine conservative, who has enacted free-market conservative reform in one of the most liberal cities in the country, and if others turn their back on him because of policies where he would have no impact (he might be pro gun control, but he’s not making an issue out of it and, thanks to the NRA, it couldn’t get through Congress; he might be pro civil unions, but so is GWB, and it’s not a federal issue; he might be pro-abortion, but during eight years as mayor he never made a policy that encouraged abortion), we will regret it for decades.
All I need are those eight magic words, “Justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas,” and I will pound the pavement for this man.
Apollo posted this at 9:23 PM EST on Thursday, January 25th, 2007 as Conservatism, Politics
First, Smarter than Wellington posted about Michael Fertik. Now, Positive Liberty has been hit by his company. If you’re feeling supercilious, sanctimonius, or superior—all signs of irony deficiency—read about Kuznicki’s spat with Christina Parascandola.
And if Fertik et al. want to bug me, they’ll have to go after Google first, which is where I got all the above links. While they try that, I’ll be busy trying to patent a substitute for common sense.
Continuing in the “Apollo Has Too Much Time on His Hands” series, I thought I would contrast the success of governors in winning the presidency with the not-so-successful record of senators. Governors, it would seem, are at something of a disadvantage to senators insofar as very few governors have a national reputation. I could probably name fifteen or twenty current governors, but aside from those in Missouri and California (states I used to live in), I couldn’t tell you peep about any of them except for my current governor here in Virginia. Yet the success of governors in winning the presidency, especially since 1876, is quite impressive.
Bill Richardson is the only person who will be governor in 2008 who has announced candidacy, but four former governors (Tom Vilsack, Jim Gilmore, Mitt Romney, and Tommy Thompson) have announced, and former governor Mike Huckabee is expected to run as well. None of these men are considered front-runners in the way that sitting Sens. Clinton, Obama, and McCain are, but it’s worth keeping in mind the relative successes of governors and senators who run for the presidency. So I’ve assembled some factoids.
Out of 55 elections:
Sitting governors (which for our purpose includes those who were governor in the year of the presidential election and, in the case of reelection, anyone originally elected as a sitting governor) have won 12 elections. The first of these was 1876, when both Rutherford Hayes (Ohio) and Samuel Tilden (New York) were sitting governors. This was also the first time that a sitting governor was nominated by a major party.
Those twelve elections were won by only 6 men: Hayes, Cleveland (1884), Wilson, F. Roosevelt, Clinton, and Bush the Younger. The only president elected as a sitting governor who lost a bid for reelection (Hayes did not run for reelection as part of his 1876 campaign pledge) was Grover Cleveland, who lost the 1888 election only to win reelection in 1892 (but that counts as a former governor).
Sitting governors have lost 9 elections, though to be fair 3 of them (1876, 1936, 1944) were won by other sitting governors.
Of those 9 losses, 6 came in a 9-election span from 1920-1952: James Cox in 1920, Al Smith in 1928, Alf Landon in 1936, Thomas Dewey in 1944 and 1948, and Adlai Stevenson in 1952). The only loss by a sitting governor since Stevenson’s first lost was Michael Dukakis in 1988.
Former governors (men who had been governors but who were not during the year they were originally elected) have won 14 elections, making a total of 26 out of 55 elections won by sitting or former governors.
Former governors have lost 6 elections, three in the 20th century: 1796 (Jefferson), 1840 (Van Buren), 1868 (Horatio Seymour), 1916 (Charles Evans Hughes), 1956 (Adlai Stevenson), and 1980 (Carter).
Overall, former or current governors have won 26 elections and lost 15, making a winning percentage of 63%. Sitting governors have a 57% winning percentage (12 wins, 9 losses), and former governors have a remarkable 70% winning clip (14 wins, 6 losses). Compare that to the senatorial numbers (41% total, 20% sitting, 48% former–and only winning a major party nomination 29 times, vs. 41 times for governors). Interesting that former office holders for both positions have a notably higher win rate.
In the 33 elections from 1876 to 2004, governors have won 20 times, including 7 of the last 8. During that same period, senators have won 7 elections, the last in 1972.
Of the 16 men who have won multiple presidential elections, 9 were governors (4 sitting, 4 former, and Grover Cleveland, who was elected once as a sitting and once as a former). Only 3 senators (all former senators–Monroe, Jackson, Nixon) have won multiple elections, and they were all men for whom their time as senator was but a small portion of their public record. Of the 9 multi-election winning governors, the same can only be said about two (Jefferson and Monroe, though Monroe was twice elected governor). So it can be said that the senate has never propelled a man into the presidency who then won reelection, while governorships have been the main qualification of 7 multiple-termers: Cleveland, McKinley, Wilson, F. Roosevelt, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush the Younger.
Two presidents have been both senators and governors: James Monroe and Martin Van Buren, though Van Buren was only governor for two months before being sworn in as Secretary of State.
Excluding Monroe and Van Buren, in head-to-head matchups between governors and senators, governors have won won 9 out of 12 times (75%). Sitting governors have a 2-1 record versus sitting senators (senatorial wins italicized: 2004, 1996, 1920). Sitting governors have a 2-2 record versus former senators (1884, 1888, 1948, 2000). A former governor has never faced off against a sitting senator, but former governors have defeated former senators in all 5 matchups (1804, 1808, 1844, 1892
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