Sep 11 2008

Libertarians vs. conservatives on the role of the presidency

Category: Bush,Congress,constitution,freedom,Group-think,legislation,liberty,politics,White House — harmonicminer @ 9:02 am

I love it when the libertarians and conservatives square off and start punching. It’s always instructive, and is a good tonic for those who believe “the right” is monolithic.

Claremont Institute fellow Michael M. Uhlmann has a dismissive review of The Cult of the Presidency in the current issue of National Review: “It’s Not Just the Executive,” September 15, 2008. (Here it is if you get NR Digital, otherwise it’s available in the print edition). It seems to me that the review largely consists of inaccurate characterizations, unsupported assertions, and non sequiturs. But hey, I’m the author, and understandably biased, so check it out and judge for yourself.

Uhlmann writes that “The bulk of Healy’s book is devoted to various sins, offenses and negligences of the Bush administration.” That’s a bizarre statement, given that the book has nine chapters and an introduction, and only three of those chapters cover GWB’s tenure. In fact, the “bulk of the book” is devoted to demonstrating that, as I write in Chapter Two, “the problems of the modern presidency did not begin when George W. Bush emerged victorious from 2000’s seemingly interminable Battle of the Chads” and that–despite what some on the Left seem to believe–those problems will not vanish in January 2009 when he heads back to the ranch to cut brush.

Read it all.

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Sep 02 2008

THE ONE

Category: election 2008,humor,Obama,politics,White House — sardonicwhiner @ 9:41 am

Obama being THE ONE and everything, do you ever find yourself wondering if there are any Obamas left in the alternate universes of the multiverse?

I’m trying to remember:  I used to live in an alternate universe myself, and I’m pretty sure there was no Obama in it.  Maybe there’s a reason he’s so accepting of “illegal aliens“…  Just ask yourself:  if the Obama we know is from another universe, how would we know?  Would it be the sparks when he makes an entrance (no border fences will be stopping this guy)?  Or something else?    Maybe like this?.

If Obama starts in with the flashy kung fu stuff, I’m outta here.

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Aug 31 2008

Complaints from the Right about Gov. Palin’s nomination

Category: Biden,economy,election 2008,McCain,Obama,Palin,politics,White House — harmonicminer @ 9:20 am

This fairly mild criticism from Powerline assumes “facts not in evidence” about the nature of economic knowledge required by a President, or Vice-President:

When I traveled with Senator McCain last November, just about the first question he answered was, what will you look for in a running mate. McCain responded that, first and foremost, he would want someone already qualfied to be president. Second, he said that because the economy is not his strong-suit, he would want someone with strong expertise in this area.

McCain did not say he wanted someone who would appeal to a potentially disaffected constituency within the Democratic party, or call attention (in an ironic way) to the inexperience of the Democratic nominee, or make such a splash as to counteract any Democratic convention bounce, or create a contrast to the Democratic vice presidential nominee, or “shake up” the Republican party, or “freshen up” the ticket, or reinforce his image as an opponent of corruption.

From the Left, such a criticism of Obama makes some sense, because the Left believes in complicated, frighteningly sophisticated economic models that supposedly allow the government appointed economic elites to tinker with the economy in the just the right way to make everything come out right.  These are essentially rooted in Keynes and Galbraith, both liberal progressive icons, because they are thought to have described a way to combine markets and capitalism with government management of the economy. Leaving out the fact the no one in the world knows enough to do such a thing, at least criticism of Obama makes sense, to the effect that he doesn’t know enough about economics to be President (economics of the liberal progressive brand, that is). Obama surely doesn’t have a detailed background in these matters, and so will be totally dependent on his advisers, economic rasputins all.

Does it make sense to level a similar criticism at Sarah Palin?

In a word, no. Here’s why.

Economics as understood from the right does not require a President who is deeply versed in complicated theories of market manipulation, and academic theories of how to rob Peter and pay Paul to make us all better off. It requires a President who knows enough to avoid wasteful spending, to keep taxes low, to keep regulation to a minimum, to encourage the development of energy resources, to remove as many barriers to free trading as possible, etc. It is not complex, and mostly requires a President who will avoid doing harm, supported by advisers who can help with the details.

Arguably, Sarah Palin has far more background in economic management than Obama, because in her executive roles she has cut taxes and spending. It is not complicated, and her behavior in office tells us all we really need to know about her economic background and perspectives, which is more than sufficient.  It is not an overstretch to say that if Congress had spent the last 8 years voting to do the sorts of things Palin has advocated, and has done as governor, we would all be in far better shape economically.  In fact, it’s more likely that the Congress would still be Republican.

So who, exactly, is unqualified here?

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Aug 27 2008

She lies so casually, and so grandly, but tells the truth once… or twice

Category: election 2008,McCain,Obama,politics,White House — harmonicminer @ 9:04 am

Hillary has always had a very distant relationship with the truth, of course, all the way from the lies she told the press to protect Bill from his dalliances, to the lies she told investigators about Whitewater (“I’m sorry, Senator, I don’t recall.”) and the White House travel office firings (she masterminded FBI accusations to taint innocent people so she could install her cronies in their places), the lies she told investigators about her role in the Vince Foster coverup (she had his office “sanitized” before investigators could get there), blah, blah, blah, the list is so incredibly long that it would take a week to write it all down.

Her speech to the Democrat convention in Denver was no different, just on a grander stage.

Just to mention one of her more minor lies of the evening, did you know that John McCain is not for equal pay for equal work for women? I didn’t either. Neither does he.

Did you know that the US government “gave” the oil companies their recent large profits? Imagine that. She is either a breathtaking liar, or breathtakingly ignorant about how the economy works. I’m betting on the former.

Nearly every paragraph (sometimes every sentence) either assumed a lie, or told one outright. Again, the list of lies in her speech is so long, I just don’t want to waste the time listing it all.

But she told the truth in two ways, at least, one explicitly, the other implicitly.

She said that unless Obama is elected, the Democrats would not be able to complete their makeover and utter restructuring of American life, the economy, universal health care (meaning, if you work, that you pay for someone else), punitive taxation, new entitlements, etc. That’s absolutely true.

And while she endorsed Obama, I did not notice much about Obama’s preparation for the job in her speech. She did not praise his character, his background, his abilities, anything at all that might be positive about Obama directly. It was all about the policies she wants, and the observation that if Obama loses, they won’t happen.

In her omission of any particular praise about Obama, she told the truth, both objectively, and in terms of her “personal truth” about him, given the disdain in which she holds him, and given her previous sober assessment of Obama’s preparation for the job:

That must have been some speech he gave in 2002.

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Aug 26 2008

Do we want the Rookie at bat in the bottom of the ninth with two outs?

Category: election 2008,Iran,Islam,McCain,Obama,politics,White House — harmonicminer @ 9:00 am

Obama is not the heavy hitter we need to deal with this.  Neither, will all due respect, is his pinch-hitter, who has a flashy looking swing, but simply misses the ball way too often.

A senior Iranian atomic official said Sunday that Iran has chosen the site for and started designing a new 360 megawatt nuclear power plant.

Iran has yet to complete construction of its first nuclear power plant and has previously sent conflicting signals about the state of work on a planned second plant. An Iranian official said this year construction work had already begun.

Can we have a show of hands for all of you who would like Obama to be the one we depend on to navigate the treacherous waters of Iran’s nuclear armament intentions?  This is not a misused cliche…  if Iran’s nuclear facilities are attacked, they plan to close the Strait of Hormuz.  They’ve been buying Russion Kilo-class subs to do it with, along with lots of land-based ship killer missiles from both Russia and China.  We’ll reopen it, of course….  but it will take some time, and will leave huge unresolved problems.  How does $250 per barrel of oil sound to you?

Personally, I’d like to be putting at bat a player with sufficient reputation that the opposing pitcher decides to walk him instead of just throwing fastballs at his head, followed by a change-up that leaves him whiffing.

This is the big-leagues, not celebrity baseball.

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Aug 24 2008

Petraeus on the war. Subtext: we REALLY need a grown-up in the White House

Category: Afghanistan,election 2008,Iraq,McCain,middle east,Obama,Petraeus,politics,terrorism,White House — harmonicminer @ 8:47 am

Q&A: Gen. David Petraeus on Leaving Iraq | Newsweek Iraq War | Newsweek.com

we have to be very careful, and we are with respect to Anbar. We know [the insurgents are] trying to come back in … and we have picked up a number of those individuals who have tried to come back in. And of course they attacked and killed several of our marines and sheiks in the attack [June 26 in Karmah, near Fallujah]. But the fact is that the level of violence in Anbar is the lowest in our recorded history, literally, the lowest of any of our data.

Read it all. Hope he enters politics someday. He seems to tell the unvarnished truth.

h/t: Michael Yon

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Aug 19 2008

Clarence, Barack, Clarence, Barack….. Clarence!

Category: election 2008,judges,Obama,politics,White House — harmonicminer @ 9:32 am

At the Saddleback Civil Forum, Barack Obama let it be known that Clarence Thomas was his first choice as the Supreme Court Justice he would NOT have appointed, and cited what he considered to be Thomas’ thin record of achievement before being appointed to SCOTUS by Bush the Elder.

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, if they want to live in the White House, anyway. The point: for Barack to refer to Thomas’ preparation as inadequate is risible, coming from him.

In the spirit of fair comparison, here is info on the careers of each man: Barack Obama and Clarence Thomas.

Thomas pre-SCOTUS career included being Assistant Attorney General of Missouri, private practice attorney, legislative assistant to a US Senator, Assistant Secretary of Education for the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education, and Chairman of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, not to mention a year already on the DC Court of Appeals, the nation’s second highest court.

Obama’s pre-Presidential campaign career included working for a couple of NGOs, being a community organizer, some work with a couple of private law firms, lecturer in a law school, state senator in the Illinois legislature, and finally about a year as US Senator before announcing his presidential bid.

At the time of appointment to the Supreme Court, Thomas was about 42. Obama is running for President at age 47.

It is not clear to me that Obama’s resume is a whit more impressive than Thomas’, though Thomas was 5 years younger than Obama the Presidential candidate, at the time of Thomas’ appointment to SCOTUS. And, in his last major pre-SCOTUS role, Thomas served for 8 years as Chairman of the EEOC, with major administrative responsibilities. Obama had been US Senator for exactly one year before deciding he was of Presidential timber.

In fact, on balance, the kind of experience Thomas had was more in keeping with the kinds of roles a President must fill than the kinds of experience Obama has had, up to now.

For that reason, for those who just can’t stand the idea of voting for McCain, let me suggest you write in Clarence Thomas. He’d be a FAR better choice than Obama. And hey… if you don’t like Thomas, that’s one way to get him off the court!

In the meantime, Obama might be well served by doing a little resume comparison, and thinking more carefully before dissing a more capable man.

Doubt this? Read Thomas’ recent book, and then read Obama’s, each autobiographical. That’ll tell you all you need to know….

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Aug 13 2008

Not a voter “literacy” test: a civics test instead

Category: Congress,constitution,election 2008,White House — harmonicminer @ 9:09 am

So, here is a civics test for prospective voters. The test’s author, Doug Patton, has devised a 27 question test that 8th graders would once easily have passed. He thinks you should be able to score at least 18 in order to vote. That’s 66.6%, a “D” when I was in school.  Patton’s introduction to his test:

I have never been an advocate of the popular notion that “everyone should vote.” Some people look at me as if I am somehow un-American when I say that I am not in favor of encouraging people to vote who would otherwise never darken the door of a polling place. I really don’t want someone on the streets of Hollywood, who just failed to identify the vice president of the United States on one of Jay Leno’s “Jay-Walking” segments, helping to select the person who will lead my government for the next four years.

Take the test here.

I have to report, sadly, that enormous numbers of high school graduates cannot pass this test (that is, get a score of 66.6%). More college graduates than I would wish are similarly unprepared. Yet this test is not hard, for anyone who has the vaguest notion of how our government functions, and the barest minimum of knowledge about current events. I know it is politically impossible that a test such as this will ever be adopted. But if you can’t pass it, you should be embarrassed to be voting. And in all honesty, I think the author of the test was too generous. In my opinion, if you can’t score about 24 out of 27, you should go out to lunch on election day (since you’re already there…), and then go home, and read a book or something.

Continue reading “Not a voter “literacy” test: a civics test instead”

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Aug 07 2008

Obama’s speech to the Germans: trying to make sense of it

Category: election 2008,Europe,McCain,Obama,politics,White House — harmonicminer @ 9:00 am

Dennis Prager has written two articles analyzing Obama’s speech to the Germans:

First article

Second article

As this analysis makes clear, Obama employs just about every progressive-liberal cliche in the Left’s panoply of double-think and half-truth. He reveals himself to be exactly what objective measures say he is: the farthest Left senator in the United States Senate, and the farthest left nominee for President of the US in history. The main stream dinosaur media won’t report this, or do fair analyses of his speeches, preferring to talk about his tone and delivery, rather than his substance, such as it is.

Instead of holding Obama’s feet to the fire for ducking townhall style debates with John McCain, the media continue to swoon in abject worship at his hypnotic oratory…. when they aren’t throwing their underwear at the stage, like rock-star groupies everywhere. (Except for the French reporters, of course, who are reputed to “go commando”. I really don’t want to think about what they’re throwing at the stage.)

After all, we can’t force Obama to go off teleprompter… people might find out what he really thinks, and how well he thinks, neither of which is conducive to his being elected. Who knows, though: maybe a couple of extra-enthusiastic reporters’ boxers will accidentally land on the teleprompter, and Obama will have to speak off-script because the cameras are rolling.

I can hear it now: “America must cease acting only in its own self-interest and step up to its responsibilities to coordinate multilaterally with… with…. Fruit-Of-The-Loom… and…. and….. Joe Boxer….”

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Aug 05 2008

Christians, War and Obama

Category: election 2008,McCain,military,Obama,politics,White House — harmonicminer @ 9:26 am

The appeal of Obama to some Christians is his stance on war. He is not a pacifist… not considering his (ill-considered) threats to invade Pakistan and his plan to do a surge in Afghanistan. Yet, simply because he wants a complete, hurried pullout from Iraq, essentially regardless of consequences in Iraq, he seems to reap the “peacemaker award” from some Christians, just because they think he seems more reluctant to go to war… although how they square that with his plans for Pakistan is beyond me.

Nevertheless, here are two statements about the Christian requirement to wage just war.

The first is a straightforward “everyman” type of argument, that is quite clear, concise, and hard to deny.

The second is a very thorough treatment of the entire topic of just war, pacifism and jihad. It is the product of very careful scholarship, with references aplenty for every assertion it makes about Christian tradition. At the Amazon link, there are a couple of reviews. Be warned that the single very negative review commits all the failures to engage with the central arguments of the book that it accuses the author of the book of committing. I can only encourage you to read the book for yourself, and come to your own conclusions about the scholarly rigor and theological care the author employs. The writer of the very negative review does not want you to read the book. One wonders what he is afraid you might learn.

It is odd that the Left gives Obama “peacemaker” status because he chooses to fight different wars, to different degrees, than the Bush Administration.  It is, I suppose, more evidence of Bush Derangement Syndrome.

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