Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
A Sign of the Times
There's some rumbling among DC Republicans about "the polls are wrong; the models are over-sampling Democrats; cellphone users don't vote; the moon is in Aquarius," etc., etc. Let's set aside that polls (with the exception of network exit polls of actual voters which aren't worth the computer screens they appear on) are notoriously accurate, not in exact outcomes but giving one the general sense of the race. Let's set aside that the polls this year seem to correspond rather exactly with the sense of momentum and interest in the race. (My office is next to Judiciary Square in Washington where one would, if one were a citizen of the District of Columbia, would go to vote early. The lines have been 1.5 to 2 hours long in a jurisdiction that is notable for its lack of impact on presidential elections, and I don't think these voters are standing in line for McCain.)
Setting all these things aside, the argument for the closeness of the race would be a lot more persuasive if it were reflected by the campaign schedules of the candidates. It seems to me that it is entirely consistent with the public polling that both candidates are campaigning almost exclusively in states that President Bush won in 2004: Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Missouri, etc. Of recent note, Barak Obama campaigned this week in the Shenandoah Valley, Harrisonburg to be exact. Any guesses how long it has been since a Democratic presidential candidate visited Harrisonburg? Answer: 148 years ago when Stephen Douglas came through.
That Obama has moved that far down his Virginia target list (not Fairfax County, not Hampton Roads, not even Richmond) is an indication just how empty the talk about bad polling is.
There's some rumbling among DC Republicans about "the polls are wrong; the models are over-sampling Democrats; cellphone users don't vote; the moon is in Aquarius," etc., etc. Let's set aside that polls (with the exception of network exit polls of actual voters which aren't worth the computer screens they appear on) are notoriously accurate, not in exact outcomes but giving one the general sense of the race. Let's set aside that the polls this year seem to correspond rather exactly with the sense of momentum and interest in the race. (My office is next to Judiciary Square in Washington where one would, if one were a citizen of the District of Columbia, would go to vote early. The lines have been 1.5 to 2 hours long in a jurisdiction that is notable for its lack of impact on presidential elections, and I don't think these voters are standing in line for McCain.)
Setting all these things aside, the argument for the closeness of the race would be a lot more persuasive if it were reflected by the campaign schedules of the candidates. It seems to me that it is entirely consistent with the public polling that both candidates are campaigning almost exclusively in states that President Bush won in 2004: Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Missouri, etc. Of recent note, Barak Obama campaigned this week in the Shenandoah Valley, Harrisonburg to be exact. Any guesses how long it has been since a Democratic presidential candidate visited Harrisonburg? Answer: 148 years ago when Stephen Douglas came through.
That Obama has moved that far down his Virginia target list (not Fairfax County, not Hampton Roads, not even Richmond) is an indication just how empty the talk about bad polling is.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
My Scary Halloween Costume
I've decided I will give the neighborhood children a lesson in politics and economics this Halloween by dressing as a wealth-spreader. The costume is a simple, bureaucrat gray suit, starched white shirt and blue tie. When I answer the door, rather than dropping candy into the bags of the little darlings, I will apply a carefully developed protocol for determining whether the child or children have too much or too little candy. I will carefully balance questions such as the cost and complexity of their costume (indicating whether they come from a poor, middle income, or affluent family) as well as whether they appear, to my eye, to be at the appropriate spot on the weight distribution curve for a child of their height. The effort and enthusiaism involved in constume design, relative door-to-door strategies, and vocal delivery of the traditional "trick-or-treat" greeting will not be taken into account as such considerations are inherently unfair when one considers the varying socio-economic backgrounds of the children.
Having applied my protocol, instead of adding to the total pool of available candy from my own resourcs, I will, rather, redistribute the candy among the bags to assure the most just balance of candy products among the neighborhood children taking special note of the mix of chocolate and non-chocolate items. Chocolate is more desirable and must, therefore, be rationed more carefully.
I'm sure the children will appreciate the justice of this system and the superior outcomes it produces within the community of children who consume candy, and I anticipate that next year, the lines of children at our house on Halloween will be longer than ever!
I've decided I will give the neighborhood children a lesson in politics and economics this Halloween by dressing as a wealth-spreader. The costume is a simple, bureaucrat gray suit, starched white shirt and blue tie. When I answer the door, rather than dropping candy into the bags of the little darlings, I will apply a carefully developed protocol for determining whether the child or children have too much or too little candy. I will carefully balance questions such as the cost and complexity of their costume (indicating whether they come from a poor, middle income, or affluent family) as well as whether they appear, to my eye, to be at the appropriate spot on the weight distribution curve for a child of their height. The effort and enthusiaism involved in constume design, relative door-to-door strategies, and vocal delivery of the traditional "trick-or-treat" greeting will not be taken into account as such considerations are inherently unfair when one considers the varying socio-economic backgrounds of the children.
Having applied my protocol, instead of adding to the total pool of available candy from my own resourcs, I will, rather, redistribute the candy among the bags to assure the most just balance of candy products among the neighborhood children taking special note of the mix of chocolate and non-chocolate items. Chocolate is more desirable and must, therefore, be rationed more carefully.
I'm sure the children will appreciate the justice of this system and the superior outcomes it produces within the community of children who consume candy, and I anticipate that next year, the lines of children at our house on Halloween will be longer than ever!
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Food for Democratic Thought
Once every so often, a New York Times reporter says something useful. This is one of those times. For all my Obama-supporting friends, just bear this in mind as you take the reins of power in January: in this environment, things can turn on a dime. The failure to govern from and for the center of American politics invites backlash, as this article so ably points out.
Once every so often, a New York Times reporter says something useful. This is one of those times. For all my Obama-supporting friends, just bear this in mind as you take the reins of power in January: in this environment, things can turn on a dime. The failure to govern from and for the center of American politics invites backlash, as this article so ably points out.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Vileness in America
This is the kind of thing to make you believe that regardless of the consequences, voting for Senator Obama just might be a moral duty. It is difficult to comprehend this kind of sentiment in America.
This is the kind of thing to make you believe that regardless of the consequences, voting for Senator Obama just might be a moral duty. It is difficult to comprehend this kind of sentiment in America.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Beware the Bathwater
The forthcoming electoral deluge is already laying the groundwork for electoral reaction a few years down the road. The liberal commentariat has been chaffing under the burden of the center-right quality of the American electorate, since, oh, say, President Kennedy's short term of office, and even then it had to accept the idea of what looks today suspiciously like supply-side tax cuts. Johnson was pretty good, they usually say, except for that Vietnam War thingy he got tangled up in. On the whole, the Johnson Administration, from the liberal view point, was just about right on domestic policy and the great tide of social welfare programs it produced. Since then, even when Democrats won, they had to be satisfied with the half-measures of the Carter and Clinton presidencies. (By the way, is it just me, or does Bill Clinton's presidency look better by the minute? All that careful triangulation looks quite acceptable compared to what's coming down the road after January 20.)
E.J. Dionne looks at the coming November 4 wave constitutes an implosion of the GOP and a fundamental re-writing of the laws of American political gravity. The brave new dawn of American liberalism is at hand.
Maybe. But I would caution these folks that drinking one's own bathwater is disgusting and unhealthy. We are in the midst of one of the great economic dramas of American history and those who see anything but fog in this situation are kidding themselves. The American character, with its inherent skepticism of solutions emanating from central government, remains very much intact. Hence the public's decisive rejection of the bailout package by a 3-to-1 margin in opinion polling. And, is it just me, or do others have a growing sense the public policy toolbag might be just about empty? There has to be a limit to what government, whose asset is the American economy, can borrow and spend to ameliorate the condition of the financial system and, coming soon to a life near yours, the real economy of production and consumption. I suspect we are closer to end than the start of that amelioration process.
In this light, what, exactly is President Obama going to do? People can't eat his rhetoric, no matter how sweet and beautiful it is and the rest of the cupboard is bare. Raise taxes? No, that invites disaster and Hoover's lesson has not escaped even committed redistributionists. Higher spending? I think we have or will shortly reach some sort of ceiling in that department. What, then?
One thing is for certain. Look for a very hasty withdrawal from Iraq and a scaling back of the Afghanistan operations as budget imperatives meet philosphical predisposition. We are cursed to live in interesting times.
The forthcoming electoral deluge is already laying the groundwork for electoral reaction a few years down the road. The liberal commentariat has been chaffing under the burden of the center-right quality of the American electorate, since, oh, say, President Kennedy's short term of office, and even then it had to accept the idea of what looks today suspiciously like supply-side tax cuts. Johnson was pretty good, they usually say, except for that Vietnam War thingy he got tangled up in. On the whole, the Johnson Administration, from the liberal view point, was just about right on domestic policy and the great tide of social welfare programs it produced. Since then, even when Democrats won, they had to be satisfied with the half-measures of the Carter and Clinton presidencies. (By the way, is it just me, or does Bill Clinton's presidency look better by the minute? All that careful triangulation looks quite acceptable compared to what's coming down the road after January 20.)
E.J. Dionne looks at the coming November 4 wave constitutes an implosion of the GOP and a fundamental re-writing of the laws of American political gravity. The brave new dawn of American liberalism is at hand.
Maybe. But I would caution these folks that drinking one's own bathwater is disgusting and unhealthy. We are in the midst of one of the great economic dramas of American history and those who see anything but fog in this situation are kidding themselves. The American character, with its inherent skepticism of solutions emanating from central government, remains very much intact. Hence the public's decisive rejection of the bailout package by a 3-to-1 margin in opinion polling. And, is it just me, or do others have a growing sense the public policy toolbag might be just about empty? There has to be a limit to what government, whose asset is the American economy, can borrow and spend to ameliorate the condition of the financial system and, coming soon to a life near yours, the real economy of production and consumption. I suspect we are closer to end than the start of that amelioration process.
In this light, what, exactly is President Obama going to do? People can't eat his rhetoric, no matter how sweet and beautiful it is and the rest of the cupboard is bare. Raise taxes? No, that invites disaster and Hoover's lesson has not escaped even committed redistributionists. Higher spending? I think we have or will shortly reach some sort of ceiling in that department. What, then?
One thing is for certain. Look for a very hasty withdrawal from Iraq and a scaling back of the Afghanistan operations as budget imperatives meet philosphical predisposition. We are cursed to live in interesting times.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Time to Buy GOP
The Republican Party is like a great American standard - say IBM - that has fallen on hard times. A few engineering errors, a bad marketing plan, the arrival of Microsoft all seem to herald the collapse of an institution. The thing is that political markets are just as brutal and efficient as any other. The company, in this case a political party, has tremendous underlying assets including a still-whopping market share of between 40 and 50 percent of the public on a normal election day. Sales are down right now but just wait. The shiny new company on the market is the equivalent of the Dutch tulip market: irrationally inflated and built on ideas that not only haven't stood the test of time they have been decisively rejected by a half century of experience. Excessive taxation and government regulation of the economy and pie-in-the-sky foreign policy didn't just become good ideas because their alternatives, rampant spending, excessive deregulation and neoconservative Wilsonianism, turned out to create dangerous overhangs.
It is just a matter of time before some enterprising young executive will come along to pick up the pieces of the badly damaged but inherently valuable GOP and figure out how to make the company climb back toward its historical average. President Obama is going to provide a very valuable assist. Circumstances, logic, and the truth about economics and a hard, cruel world will do the rest.
Buy GOP. There's nowhere to go but up.
The Republican Party is like a great American standard - say IBM - that has fallen on hard times. A few engineering errors, a bad marketing plan, the arrival of Microsoft all seem to herald the collapse of an institution. The thing is that political markets are just as brutal and efficient as any other. The company, in this case a political party, has tremendous underlying assets including a still-whopping market share of between 40 and 50 percent of the public on a normal election day. Sales are down right now but just wait. The shiny new company on the market is the equivalent of the Dutch tulip market: irrationally inflated and built on ideas that not only haven't stood the test of time they have been decisively rejected by a half century of experience. Excessive taxation and government regulation of the economy and pie-in-the-sky foreign policy didn't just become good ideas because their alternatives, rampant spending, excessive deregulation and neoconservative Wilsonianism, turned out to create dangerous overhangs.
It is just a matter of time before some enterprising young executive will come along to pick up the pieces of the badly damaged but inherently valuable GOP and figure out how to make the company climb back toward its historical average. President Obama is going to provide a very valuable assist. Circumstances, logic, and the truth about economics and a hard, cruel world will do the rest.
Buy GOP. There's nowhere to go but up.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Why I'm a Republican
My oldest daughter, let's call her Miss Potomac, Sr., asked me two pointed questions this morning on the way to school. First, what's a neo-conservative? Second, why are you one?
I've got a checkered political past. My first political involvement was to hang a Mondale-Ferraro sign on my dorm window as an undergrad. My second political involvement was to be a volunteer on the campaign of a Republican senator from my home state. Go figure.
I gradually got myself straightened out politically when three central themes became fixed points in my political decision making. I'm one of those compassionate conservatives with a strong belief in the dignity of the human person, and it just so happens that that particular concern extends to women and their unborn children. Democrats were caught in the grip of an individual rights mania that made reasonable discussion impossible. Second, and by extension, I'd like to see poor Americans get off the islands of poverty they inhabit and join the mainstream of American life. To be sure, poor Americans own a large share in their own problems but still, it would be nice if we organized our relief efforts in such a way that maximized the chance to empower as many as possible. One of my main beefs with the Democratic party was its resolute insistence that, since American society was so unjust, it didn't matter whether our anti-poverty programs worked as long as we spent more money every year to salve our consciences. Results matter, I decided, more than the moral satisfaction of punishing American taxpayers with programs that wasted their money.
Finally, and I'm late-comer to this issue, national security. Apropos the above discussion about the guilty nature of American society, for many years I shared a wide-spread belief among Democrats of the moral equivalency between American society and the Soviet Union. The Soviet system couldn't be thought of as worse; that was moral imperialism. On the other hand, there was no degree of self-criticism that was excessive for a right-thinking liberal to direct toward his own country. I shook most of this off in the late-1980s and early 1990s but it was completely stripped away by the events of September 11, 2001. America is an exceptional and an essential nation and the world would, and will, be much worse off without us. Whatever the problems with our system, and there are many, they pale to insignificance when one imagines a world without us left to the tender mercies of the Chinese, North Koreans, Russians and Iranians. Order is a tenuous thing and we are the Federal Reserve of order and security.
There it is. My complete political philosophy to date. It serves me well.
My oldest daughter, let's call her Miss Potomac, Sr., asked me two pointed questions this morning on the way to school. First, what's a neo-conservative? Second, why are you one?
I've got a checkered political past. My first political involvement was to hang a Mondale-Ferraro sign on my dorm window as an undergrad. My second political involvement was to be a volunteer on the campaign of a Republican senator from my home state. Go figure.
I gradually got myself straightened out politically when three central themes became fixed points in my political decision making. I'm one of those compassionate conservatives with a strong belief in the dignity of the human person, and it just so happens that that particular concern extends to women and their unborn children. Democrats were caught in the grip of an individual rights mania that made reasonable discussion impossible. Second, and by extension, I'd like to see poor Americans get off the islands of poverty they inhabit and join the mainstream of American life. To be sure, poor Americans own a large share in their own problems but still, it would be nice if we organized our relief efforts in such a way that maximized the chance to empower as many as possible. One of my main beefs with the Democratic party was its resolute insistence that, since American society was so unjust, it didn't matter whether our anti-poverty programs worked as long as we spent more money every year to salve our consciences. Results matter, I decided, more than the moral satisfaction of punishing American taxpayers with programs that wasted their money.
Finally, and I'm late-comer to this issue, national security. Apropos the above discussion about the guilty nature of American society, for many years I shared a wide-spread belief among Democrats of the moral equivalency between American society and the Soviet Union. The Soviet system couldn't be thought of as worse; that was moral imperialism. On the other hand, there was no degree of self-criticism that was excessive for a right-thinking liberal to direct toward his own country. I shook most of this off in the late-1980s and early 1990s but it was completely stripped away by the events of September 11, 2001. America is an exceptional and an essential nation and the world would, and will, be much worse off without us. Whatever the problems with our system, and there are many, they pale to insignificance when one imagines a world without us left to the tender mercies of the Chinese, North Koreans, Russians and Iranians. Order is a tenuous thing and we are the Federal Reserve of order and security.
There it is. My complete political philosophy to date. It serves me well.
A Question of Race
In my soundings among Democrats, there is tremendous nervousness, a sense that victory is imminent but that the train might, at the last minute, jump the track. As one friend said, "It's happened to us before, you know." A good point, that.
At the base of this nervousness, I think, is the fear that America is so deeply racist that a giant "Bradley effect" is about to put McCain in the White House. As the Ombudsman has noted, the idea that the only reason one could possibly find to vote against Obama is his race is patently ridiculous. Even if one were inclined to vote against Obama because of race, there are scores of reasons to vote against him (abortion, for instance) and for McCain (abortion, for instance) before one ever gets to the race issue.
I think Obama will win in large part because of his race. Legions of white voters are so anxious to prove they aren't racist that they are willing to overlook the rather considerable gaps in Obama's experience and a highly questionable political philosophy. In addition, I suspect the turnout among African-Americans will be nothing short of astounding in support of the first black man to have a serious chance of holding the nation's highest office. Moreover, the man's race is probably the best conservative argument for electing him. As John O'Sullivan noted last spring, the election of a black man to the White House would have a stablizing effect on American society in that it would be a coda on the nation's troubled racial history. Race may be a factor in this election but, on balance, it will do far more to help Obama than to hurt him.
In my soundings among Democrats, there is tremendous nervousness, a sense that victory is imminent but that the train might, at the last minute, jump the track. As one friend said, "It's happened to us before, you know." A good point, that.
At the base of this nervousness, I think, is the fear that America is so deeply racist that a giant "Bradley effect" is about to put McCain in the White House. As the Ombudsman has noted, the idea that the only reason one could possibly find to vote against Obama is his race is patently ridiculous. Even if one were inclined to vote against Obama because of race, there are scores of reasons to vote against him (abortion, for instance) and for McCain (abortion, for instance) before one ever gets to the race issue.
I think Obama will win in large part because of his race. Legions of white voters are so anxious to prove they aren't racist that they are willing to overlook the rather considerable gaps in Obama's experience and a highly questionable political philosophy. In addition, I suspect the turnout among African-Americans will be nothing short of astounding in support of the first black man to have a serious chance of holding the nation's highest office. Moreover, the man's race is probably the best conservative argument for electing him. As John O'Sullivan noted last spring, the election of a black man to the White House would have a stablizing effect on American society in that it would be a coda on the nation's troubled racial history. Race may be a factor in this election but, on balance, it will do far more to help Obama than to hurt him.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Joe Biden: God's Gift to the Next Four Years
He really is living up to his billing as an eight-cylinder, dual-carb gaffe machine. Vroom! Vroom-vroom!! Today's offering is of the "if you elect Barak, I guarantee some tin-horn dictator will toss the world into a Cuban missile-style crisis just to see if he's as weak as he looks" variety. I think we can anticipate that this wasn't in David Axelrod's script for the VP and that it will be one of those things that kind of seeps into the Red state bloodstream over the next few days. Gallup notes that there's been a slight shift away from McCain among men. Joe's probably taken care of that problem.
It won't be enough, of course. Short of an actual foreign policy crisis (where is Bin Laden's election day greeting?) nothing would be. But I think we can all look forward to at least four years of Joe Biden hopping around with his foot in his mouth. He's a full employment program for the late night comics.
He really is living up to his billing as an eight-cylinder, dual-carb gaffe machine. Vroom! Vroom-vroom!! Today's offering is of the "if you elect Barak, I guarantee some tin-horn dictator will toss the world into a Cuban missile-style crisis just to see if he's as weak as he looks" variety. I think we can anticipate that this wasn't in David Axelrod's script for the VP and that it will be one of those things that kind of seeps into the Red state bloodstream over the next few days. Gallup notes that there's been a slight shift away from McCain among men. Joe's probably taken care of that problem.
It won't be enough, of course. Short of an actual foreign policy crisis (where is Bin Laden's election day greeting?) nothing would be. But I think we can all look forward to at least four years of Joe Biden hopping around with his foot in his mouth. He's a full employment program for the late night comics.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Today, at a gathering of the bright lights of my workplace division, I served up
Creole Contentment*
1 pony cognac
1 pony of madeira
1/2 pony maraschino (The original recipe calls for a pony but the author of the book recommends half that amount and increasing the cognac, which worked well for me as I has plenty of cognac and was cleanng out the maraschino bottle.)
dash of orange bitters ( lacking orange bitters and figuring that it was supposed to be a New Orleans cocktail after all I used Peychaud's.)
Stir or shake with ice. Serve up in a manhattan glass garnished with maraschino cherries.
I can attest that, while not Creole, I am very contented indeed.
* From The Gentleman's Companion (Vol II): Being an Exotic Drinking Book. I'm no gentleman, but the book is a hoot and a half.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
The Style Editor has not been posting because she has been trying to ignore the world.
This technique hasn't gotten her very far, except in the expansion of her drinking habits.
She recommends the Jack Rose
1 1/2 oz applejack
1 tsp grenadine
juice of 1/2 a lime
Shake with ice. Serve up in a manhattan glass with a lime twist if you want swank, without the twist if you just want to get to the business at hand.
Have another.
File this under the obvious and the ominous:
Hawaii's governor scraps their seven month old universal child care system because the state can't afford it. Wow, really? Here's the money line:
"People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free," said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. "I don't believe that was the intent of the program."
Shocking! People stopped paying for something they could otherwise get for free?
Put this in the context of a Democratic uber-majority next year and their yearning for some kind of universal health care plan ... and a $1 trillion dollar deficit ... and people wanting to get something for free rather than paying ...
Hawaii's governor scraps their seven month old universal child care system because the state can't afford it. Wow, really? Here's the money line:
"People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free," said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. "I don't believe that was the intent of the program."
Shocking! People stopped paying for something they could otherwise get for free?
Put this in the context of a Democratic uber-majority next year and their yearning for some kind of universal health care plan ... and a $1 trillion dollar deficit ... and people wanting to get something for free rather than paying ...
Thursday, October 16, 2008
McCain Surge or Dead-Cat Bounce?
Today's Gallup tracking poll has Obama's lead down to two points among likely voters -- as those voters have traditionally been defined and screened. Gallup's second model, which attempts to adjust for heightened voter interest among young people and minorities, has Obama with a six point lead which is identical to his lead among registered voters. All the interviews with voters were completed prior to last night's debate.
Two notes of caution. First, we're entering into that final period of volatility just before people go to the polls where voters are giving both candidates that last look so polling numbers will shift around some. Second, despite the apparent closing at the national level, McCain is playing defense in so many Red states, I've lost track and is being buried in those states by his opponent's financial advantage. As much as I love Joe the plumber, I think it will take more than that to blunt the Democrats' drive to the goal line.
The final analysis: dead-cat bounce.
Today's Gallup tracking poll has Obama's lead down to two points among likely voters -- as those voters have traditionally been defined and screened. Gallup's second model, which attempts to adjust for heightened voter interest among young people and minorities, has Obama with a six point lead which is identical to his lead among registered voters. All the interviews with voters were completed prior to last night's debate.
Two notes of caution. First, we're entering into that final period of volatility just before people go to the polls where voters are giving both candidates that last look so polling numbers will shift around some. Second, despite the apparent closing at the national level, McCain is playing defense in so many Red states, I've lost track and is being buried in those states by his opponent's financial advantage. As much as I love Joe the plumber, I think it will take more than that to blunt the Democrats' drive to the goal line.
The final analysis: dead-cat bounce.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
More From the Neighborhood Email Chain
One of my Obama-supporting neighbors sent this Bill Ayers apologia around.
Here's my response, written but not sent to keep the neighborhood peace:
Before we all give Bill Ayers a great, big group hug take a gander at this. Mr. Ayers convicts himself more eloquently than anyone else ever could. And note the publication date: 9/11/01. One of the planes, as I recall, hit the Pentagon and killed a couple hundred people. Do you suppose Ayers was appalled at the idea of Islamic terrorists trying to finish the job he started all those years ago? Or did he exult in the attempted smashing of the U.S. military's nerve center? I really do wonder, and I also wonder why Senator Obama would associate with him in any way even if they don't "pal around."
But, for the sake of this exchange, let's say I agree with the idea that McCain's effort to link Obama and Ayers is ridiculous and that their association says nothing about Obama's political pedigree, his view of the country he asks to lead, and his sense of America's place in and contributions to the world, all of which is possible. In fact, one of the things that commends Obama to me as a potential president is his utter pragmatism about throwing old cronies like Ayers and Wright under the bus when his associations with them get uncomfortable. It gives me hope he will be far more hard-headed and practical than his record would otherwise indicate.
Setting all the Obama-related considerations aside, I still want an apology, the more abject the better, from Bill Ayers and the rest of the Weather Underground. These folks, in their zeal to bring their very peculiar vision of heaven to earth, abandoned the democratic process for domestic terrorism. Rather than apologize for their crimes, Ayers and his wife seem to revel in them. It is one of the glories of living in a free country that people like Ayers are allowed to roam the streets and spout their nonsense. But we shouldn't lionize an unrepentant criminal and terrorist. That would be more ridiculous, and far more dangerous, than a whole evening full of John McCain ads.
One of my Obama-supporting neighbors sent this Bill Ayers apologia around.
Here's my response, written but not sent to keep the neighborhood peace:
Before we all give Bill Ayers a great, big group hug take a gander at this. Mr. Ayers convicts himself more eloquently than anyone else ever could. And note the publication date: 9/11/01. One of the planes, as I recall, hit the Pentagon and killed a couple hundred people. Do you suppose Ayers was appalled at the idea of Islamic terrorists trying to finish the job he started all those years ago? Or did he exult in the attempted smashing of the U.S. military's nerve center? I really do wonder, and I also wonder why Senator Obama would associate with him in any way even if they don't "pal around."
But, for the sake of this exchange, let's say I agree with the idea that McCain's effort to link Obama and Ayers is ridiculous and that their association says nothing about Obama's political pedigree, his view of the country he asks to lead, and his sense of America's place in and contributions to the world, all of which is possible. In fact, one of the things that commends Obama to me as a potential president is his utter pragmatism about throwing old cronies like Ayers and Wright under the bus when his associations with them get uncomfortable. It gives me hope he will be far more hard-headed and practical than his record would otherwise indicate.
Setting all the Obama-related considerations aside, I still want an apology, the more abject the better, from Bill Ayers and the rest of the Weather Underground. These folks, in their zeal to bring their very peculiar vision of heaven to earth, abandoned the democratic process for domestic terrorism. Rather than apologize for their crimes, Ayers and his wife seem to revel in them. It is one of the glories of living in a free country that people like Ayers are allowed to roam the streets and spout their nonsense. But we shouldn't lionize an unrepentant criminal and terrorist. That would be more ridiculous, and far more dangerous, than a whole evening full of John McCain ads.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Questions for the Ombudsman
I have heard the Ombudsman hold forth eloquently on the nature of true conservatism. He has made the point repeatedly to me (a political practitioner and occasional trench warrior) that real conservatism is non-ideological. Traditionally, conservatives like, say, George Washington, were foxes (who knew many things) rather than hedgehogs (who knew one big thing.) Conservatism, I gathered from his eloquent discourses, is not about grand schemes but about the application of sound prudential judgment against the problems of the day. Conservatism, in short, is about conserving rather than preserving.
First question, have I correctly summarized, Mr. Ombudsman, your well-informed view?
If I am correct, my second question relates to how this view of conservatism applies in the context of the current financial crisis. My ears are ringing from the complaints of DC-based conservative movement types about the bailout bill and Treasury interventions to address Freddie, Fannie, AIG, Bear Sterns, etc. Conservatives tell me these interventions will ultimately destroy economic freedom, and that it would be better to go through Depression 2.0 than risk that kind of loss. The hedgehog believes economic meltdown can be survived; the loss of economic liberty cannot.
The fox view, using the Ombudsman's interpretive frame, might lead to a very different set of conclusions. The abstract commitment to economic liberty might yield to prudential concerns about the impact of economic free-fall on democratic capitalism's crowning achievement, the modern financial system. It might also be concerned with the threat such a collapse would pose to social and political stability here and abroad. The fox might have an appreciation for the subtle turns of mind emanating from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury seeking to head-off panic and restore the flow of credit that, left unchecked, could strangle a $14 trillion economy.
Mr. Ombudsman, which of these views is truly conservative?
I have heard the Ombudsman hold forth eloquently on the nature of true conservatism. He has made the point repeatedly to me (a political practitioner and occasional trench warrior) that real conservatism is non-ideological. Traditionally, conservatives like, say, George Washington, were foxes (who knew many things) rather than hedgehogs (who knew one big thing.) Conservatism, I gathered from his eloquent discourses, is not about grand schemes but about the application of sound prudential judgment against the problems of the day. Conservatism, in short, is about conserving rather than preserving.
First question, have I correctly summarized, Mr. Ombudsman, your well-informed view?
If I am correct, my second question relates to how this view of conservatism applies in the context of the current financial crisis. My ears are ringing from the complaints of DC-based conservative movement types about the bailout bill and Treasury interventions to address Freddie, Fannie, AIG, Bear Sterns, etc. Conservatives tell me these interventions will ultimately destroy economic freedom, and that it would be better to go through Depression 2.0 than risk that kind of loss. The hedgehog believes economic meltdown can be survived; the loss of economic liberty cannot.
The fox view, using the Ombudsman's interpretive frame, might lead to a very different set of conclusions. The abstract commitment to economic liberty might yield to prudential concerns about the impact of economic free-fall on democratic capitalism's crowning achievement, the modern financial system. It might also be concerned with the threat such a collapse would pose to social and political stability here and abroad. The fox might have an appreciation for the subtle turns of mind emanating from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury seeking to head-off panic and restore the flow of credit that, left unchecked, could strangle a $14 trillion economy.
Mr. Ombudsman, which of these views is truly conservative?
The State of the Race
It will come as a shock to almost nobody when I say, "It's over." By my count, Obama will win with at least 375 electoral votes by sweeping the Northeast, industrial Midwest, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. He will also make serious inroads in the GOP's Southern base by capturing Virginia, North Carolina and Florida and I wouldn't take Georgia completely off the table either. It appears that about a million Senate seats are going down, too. I haven't had time to look at the House races but Murphy's Law is sure to be broadly applied.
The Democrats will have, gulp, the White House and a working majority on Capitol Hill for the first time since, gulp, Jimmy Carter. I need to go lay down.
It will come as a shock to almost nobody when I say, "It's over." By my count, Obama will win with at least 375 electoral votes by sweeping the Northeast, industrial Midwest, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. He will also make serious inroads in the GOP's Southern base by capturing Virginia, North Carolina and Florida and I wouldn't take Georgia completely off the table either. It appears that about a million Senate seats are going down, too. I haven't had time to look at the House races but Murphy's Law is sure to be broadly applied.
The Democrats will have, gulp, the White House and a working majority on Capitol Hill for the first time since, gulp, Jimmy Carter. I need to go lay down.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Defender of the Old North
The Fourteenth President of the United States, Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, died on this day in 1869. Pierce aficionados are few and far between, but the Man from Hillsborough deserves a better fate. A hard-working Bowdoin graduate and one of New England's finest attorneys, Pierce came to the presidency in an impossible time. He tried to conserve the Union, the Constitution, and the laws when Americans showed alarmingly little attention to all three.
Historians have long written on the Old South. But Pierce embodied and defended the Old North, the Jeffersonian North of small towns and small farms pushed aside by Whig (and then Republican) industrial cities and factories. As the country descended into Civil War, he turned to drink and died in Concord, NH this day.
The Fourteenth President of the United States, Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, died on this day in 1869. Pierce aficionados are few and far between, but the Man from Hillsborough deserves a better fate. A hard-working Bowdoin graduate and one of New England's finest attorneys, Pierce came to the presidency in an impossible time. He tried to conserve the Union, the Constitution, and the laws when Americans showed alarmingly little attention to all three.
Historians have long written on the Old South. But Pierce embodied and defended the Old North, the Jeffersonian North of small towns and small farms pushed aside by Whig (and then Republican) industrial cities and factories. As the country descended into Civil War, he turned to drink and died in Concord, NH this day.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
St. Marie Church in Manchester, New Hampshire, circa 1907
St. Marie Church was built in the 1890s by Monsignor Pierre Hevey of St. Hyacinthe, Quebec. He was ordained in 1857, came to Lewiston, Maine in the 1870s, and eventually to Manchester in the early 1880s. A small Catholic enclave rose around St. Marie's over the next two decades, including a hospital, orphanage, rectory, and school. In addition, Monsignor Hevey is widely credited with founding the first credit union in the U.S. in 1908. He died in March 1909.
St. Marie Church was built in the 1890s by Monsignor Pierre Hevey of St. Hyacinthe, Quebec. He was ordained in 1857, came to Lewiston, Maine in the 1870s, and eventually to Manchester in the early 1880s. A small Catholic enclave rose around St. Marie's over the next two decades, including a hospital, orphanage, rectory, and school. In addition, Monsignor Hevey is widely credited with founding the first credit union in the U.S. in 1908. He died in March 1909.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Phew, I'm Awake
Judging by the focus group's (aka Mrs. Potomac's) reaction, I'd say Our Sarah had a pretty good night. She was real and down-to-earth and, in the words of the Weekly Standard, "smart as hell." Biden was just about what you'd expect from a senator with 32 years experience: well-versed and smooth. But (and it's a big one) he was talking to Ifill, with all the Sunday morning talk show glibness we'd expect, while Our Sarah, doggonit-Joe-say-it-ain't-so, was talking to America.
The CBS focus group called it for Obama; Fox's went overwhelmingly for Palin. Let's see if the polls go bounce in the night.
Judging by the focus group's (aka Mrs. Potomac's) reaction, I'd say Our Sarah had a pretty good night. She was real and down-to-earth and, in the words of the Weekly Standard, "smart as hell." Biden was just about what you'd expect from a senator with 32 years experience: well-versed and smooth. But (and it's a big one) he was talking to Ifill, with all the Sunday morning talk show glibness we'd expect, while Our Sarah, doggonit-Joe-say-it-ain't-so, was talking to America.
The CBS focus group called it for Obama; Fox's went overwhelmingly for Palin. Let's see if the polls go bounce in the night.
Why Am I At School Without My Pants?
I've been having this recurring dream that Sarah Palin turned out to be well...not so smart. In my dream, she does interview after interview with Katie Couric where she, well, blathers mindlessly. And it just keeps going and going and you think, "I'm never going to get out of this dream", and there are six or seven or eight interviews, each one worse than the one before. It's horrible.
Except that I am beginning to wonder whether it really is a dream. Maybe it's true. Maybe the smart, articulate woman I remember from the Republican convention a few weeks ago (can it only have been a few weeks?) has had her body taken over by a high school cheerleader who can't name ONE Supreme Court decision that concerns her other than Roe v. Wade and thinks that a "narrow maritime border" between Alaska and Russia equates to foreign policy experience.
No, that can't be it. I'm going to wake up NOW, and Sarah, our Sarah, the crusading governor of Alaska, will be kicking Joe Biden so hard that his foot will finally pop out his mouth.
Please, somebody, wake me up!
I've been having this recurring dream that Sarah Palin turned out to be well...not so smart. In my dream, she does interview after interview with Katie Couric where she, well, blathers mindlessly. And it just keeps going and going and you think, "I'm never going to get out of this dream", and there are six or seven or eight interviews, each one worse than the one before. It's horrible.
Except that I am beginning to wonder whether it really is a dream. Maybe it's true. Maybe the smart, articulate woman I remember from the Republican convention a few weeks ago (can it only have been a few weeks?) has had her body taken over by a high school cheerleader who can't name ONE Supreme Court decision that concerns her other than Roe v. Wade and thinks that a "narrow maritime border" between Alaska and Russia equates to foreign policy experience.
No, that can't be it. I'm going to wake up NOW, and Sarah, our Sarah, the crusading governor of Alaska, will be kicking Joe Biden so hard that his foot will finally pop out his mouth.
Please, somebody, wake me up!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)