Bush Pardons A Hero

Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich--in exchange for cash or favors or whatever (see Caroline Kennedy, Rod Blagojevich, etc.)

George W. Bush pardoned Charles Winters, early defender of the modern state of Israel.

In the summer of 1948, Winters, a Protestant from Boston who exported produce, worked with others to transfer two converted B-17 "Flying Fortresses" to Israel's defense forces. He personally flew one of the aircraft from Miami to Czechoslovakia, where that plane and a third B-17 were retrofitted for use as bombers.

"He and other volunteers from around the world defied weapons embargoes to supply the newly established Israel with critical supplies to defend itself against mounting attacks from all sides," New York Reps. Carolyn Maloney, Gary Ackerman, Jose Serrano and Brian Higgins said in a Dec. 15 letter urging Bush to pardon Charlie Winters. "Without the actions of individuals like Mr. Winters, this fledgling democracy in the Middle East almost certainly would not have survived as the surrounding nations closed in on Israel's borders."

The three B-17s were the only heavy bombers in the Israeli Air Force. It is reported that counterattacks with the bombers helped turned the war in Israel's favor. In March 1961, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir issued a letter of commendation to Winters to recognize his contributions to Israel's survival as an independent state.

You be the judge: Who was more deserving of a Presidential pardon? Rich or Winters?


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Hopefully We Can All Hang Out

You know, when Michelle Obama sends those of us in the loyal & conservative opposition to liberal re-education camps, to teach us not to be racists for voting for John McCain & that Prop 8 is bad. Bad! Bad! Bad!

Since my daily blog readership doesn't quite break 4 digits--yet (haters), I'll probably last a little bit longer than my heroes Ace & Iowahawk.

But rest assured, when Michelle's T800s (all designed to look exactly like Rachel Maddow. sick & wrong, I know) put me in the camp, all you'll have to do is look for those guys, and you'll find me. No doubt we'll be planning a little Great Escape-style escape. We'll name our tunnels Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley Jr. (WFB, for brevity's sake), & Milton Friedman.

Be sure and check out Iowahawk's latest offense against his lordship, the high Obama:

WASHINGTON DC - Ending weeks of speculation and rumors, President-Elect Barack Obama today named Bill Clinton to join his incoming administration as President of the United States, where he will head the federal government's executive branch.

"I am pleased that Bill Clinton has agreed to come out of retirement to head up this crucial post in my administration," said Obama. "He brings a lifetime of previous executive experience as Governor of Arkansas and President of the United States, and has worked closely with most of the members of my Cabinet."

Clinton said he was "excited and honored" by the appointment, and would work "day and night" to defeat all the key policy objectives proposed by Mr. Obama during the campaign.

To all my liberal friends: Please show mercy on me now, in your moment of supreme power and might and dominance. I mean, all I did was use Obama's middle name in my posts over and over and over again in a vain attempt to scare Americans into thinking he was a jihadist in disguise.

That's not so bad, right?

Right!?!!

If I promise to take some of those lame 48 loves 52 pictures, will you let me off with a simple, Berkeley-style brainwashing, and a little bamboo under the fingernails? Please?

I don't think I can take the John McCain Experience. (heh. you see what I did there, with "experience?")


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More On Rahm Emmanuel & Free Trade

Longtime friend, Dan K., an econ PhD student at Cambridge, provided a very instructive response to my earlier post about the prospects of free trade under an Obama administration.

Just a few things regarding your concerns about free trade.

1. Clinton promised to renegotiate NAFTA to include strong labor and environmental measures. And he did, which took an extra year to get to congress. In reality, those measures deliberately had zero enforcement power. The Clinton negotiators wanted it that way. And the Mexican and Canadian negotiators laughed at the lack of enforcement power, particularly with labor. The book "How the Deal was Done" by Cameron and Tomlin documents this well. The lesson seems to be that while the democrats signal an awareness of labor and environmental concerns with trade agreements, it's not really a credible threat. It's largely because all of that involves the creation and enforcement of international labor and environmental laws which are close to impossible to create and enforce. They do pander to labor unions. But that's because they can't get elected without them. But the end result is the same. So if empty rhetoric and promises are what it takes to calm down the labor groups, then so be it. We now have one President who is exceptionally good at it. I think Obama knows that playbook.

2. No trade economist (that I know of) think it is possible that Obama would unilaterally renegotiate NAFTA. Why? Because it sets a dangerous precedent of unilateral renegotiation on regional and multilateral FTA's for other countries who feel 'cheated' by such agreements. As you know, while the overall benefits of free trade is positive, there are bound to be losers within a domestic setting. Unskilled labor is the loser of NAFTA (economical jargon: less abundant production factor). Every free trade agreement has losers, thus domestic pressure for reform. The precednet for Unilateral negotiation means that many free trade agreements could unravel, to say nothing of the WTO. So, unilateral renegotiations of NAFTA is not an option for Obama, and he knows that. (Let it go Jake. He did what he had to beat Hilary, which I don't mind at all.) He may not be a complete free trader, but he also does not want the blame of dismantling the world free trade network.

3. Have a look at the current tarriff rates of the United States. Almost every product is close to zero (large exception being agriculture). There are not that much more trade benefits to be had with more FTA's. The South Korean FTA is more of a gesture to strengthen political ties anyway. The only (real) thing left now is to promote global efficiency by concentrating on the WTO. There's significant evidence to suggest that bilateral FTA's hurt that goal. By definition, FTA's create preferential treatment. This diverts trade from efficient to inefficient producers (equals dead weight losses). So, if you really want to be a free trader, argue about granting fast-track authority to the Obama administration and pushing through the Doha round. Because the other FTA's are not going to create much benefit (in fact it may create losses in the long run). I say this because you can be a free trader (like myself) and oppose the Columbia and South Korean FTA's (provided for a strong support for WTO). The WTO is the battle ground where the big boys (Brazil India China Russia and EU) play their economic games. I don't mind the least bit if Obama scores some political capital by opposing regional and bilateral FTA's and gets the job done at the WTO.

Dan blogs at From One Cambridge To Another.
(better start blogging again, Dan)


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Fine Time For A Vacation

The grand dame of conservative politics, Peggy Noonan wrote about the almost imperceptible shift in the Presidential race yesterday. She wrote that for the first time in the election, it looks like John McCain just might maybe have a shot.

She's not alone in thinking so.

The trend & projection lines at fivethirtyeight.com seem to agree with her.

It doesn't help that Democrat leaders in Congress and Obama* are on the wrong side of the drill-here-now question. This really looks like a winner for Republicans in November. At the least it staunches the bloodletting everyone has predicted for the last 2+ years.

The Democrat brand has been taking hits. First, the news that wasn't new--John Edwards' affair. Then, Detroit Mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick (D) was arrested, again. We hate to bring up Eliot Spitzer, but, well, there he is too.

If Spitzer were still around, he likely would have had a prominent part to play in the DNC later this month. We know for certain John Edwards would have after his endorsement of Barack Obama when Hillary was still in it.

And speaking of Hillary, there are rumblings about how much of a symbolic show she wants to make of her run at the convention. After endorsing Obama, Hillary wasn't treated super well and that didn't sit well with Bill.

Imagine how this could play out at the convention. Former President Clinton speaks one night and we all know how good he is at the convention speaking thing. Then his wife, once-time-would-be President Clinton speaks the next night. Obama is good. But he and his speech writers are going to have to come with something extraespecially good for his speech to close things out.

Watch the trend lines and opinion polls. It's not unlikely that we get to the convention, listen to Bill and Hillary, and have mass nostalgia among the Democrat conventioneers.

All of this is to say that it is probably not the best time for Obama to join Congressional Democrats on vacation. Sure, Americans have said that they're on Obama-overload. But to whom, exactly, is he going to cede political airtime?

Oh yeah, the Olympics. Thank goodness for the Olympics.


*Guitar Hero: Over-the-top performance, no real skill or experience.


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Dem Debate

We've scanned the web to get a general sense (salute) of last night's Democratic debate and have been surprised to find that we disagree with most people--at least, according to the Drudge Report poll.

We thought Hillary was sharp, composed, articulate, funny at times, and generally, good. Obama was less impressive than usual. And we don't mean, less impressive according to the standard he set for himself. He seemed less articulate and more convoluted in his logic than we have seen him in the past. We were especially bothered by his default tack: lecturing.

George Stephanopoulos was good. Charlie Gibson was also good. We were shocked, shocked that these two guys actually put hard questions to the two candidates. This was a sharp departure from the love-fest nature of past Dem debates.

On Monday was we drove somewhere, we listened to the Sean Hannity show on the radio. We don't listen to Hannity very often, but when he has an interesting guest, we like to tune in. And on Monday, he talked to Karl Rove and George Stephanopoulos. Sean wanted to know why the press hadn't asked Obama about William Ayers. We won't get into the nitty gritty of the relationship, suffice it to say that Obama's relationship with this admitted terrorist is troubling.

Stephanopoulos has taken a lot of flak today for posing that, and other questions, to Obama. What do these people think? That McCain or anyone else is going to let Obama slide on these things in the general election? The only reason Obama has been as successful as he has been so far is because the press has treated him differently to how they have treated Hillary Clinton.

And this may be the wonderful irony of this election. Because of the press' love for Obama, they may in fact be doing him a disservice by not giving his record the vetting and scrutiny it might normally get during this stage of the campaign. As a result, things are going to come out in the general election--Chicago machine--that will seem like they are being sprung on or swift-boated on the Obama campaign. The truth? The press won't have done it's job so it will take that long to be found out by bloggers or some other source.

This is the double edge of the fawning press sword. Sure, he gets good, free, propaganda from the MSM, but because they don't ask the tough questions he doesn't have to sort through any of the tough things in his past. And we suspect this stuff will come back to bite him.

We first read Stephanopoulos' book, All Too Human, back in 2002. It was fascinating for a number of reasons: it was a window into Clinton's presidency and showed the man to be a flawed genius; it talked extensively about the policy development and rivalries among the Clinton staff; it illuminated interesting points in American history. Now, Stephanopoulos' book suffers from all the same problems common to memoirs: it is hugely tainted by the bias of the author.

It has but one source.

Still, Stephanopoulos seemed pretty fair in the book. He didn't point a finger at everyone else and exculpate himself. He certainly showed himself to be a smart, fair, and idealistic young Democrat. We obviously don't agree with his politics, but his book presented him as fairly reasonable.

And after last night's debate, he gained a whole lot more credibility in our eyes. He asked tough questions of both Hillary and Barack--questions no one else seems to be asking. Partisan supporters of both camps certainly didn't like Stephanopoulos' questions, but we sure did.


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Barack Hussein [Bad Satire] Obama

Thanks to those of you returning to OL&L after a long absence and for adding your comments to the ongoing and building dialogue.

Yesterday's post prompted a castigating response in comments. We were taken to task for always using Senator Obama's full-name--Barack Hussein Obama. The commenter assumed, as many of you may have as well, that we do so to inflame populist conservative opinion against his candidacy. We don't mean to scare away negative critique of our blog or those who disagree with us, but if this particular commenter had read our posts for any length of time, he would know we don't buy or sell any of that nativist, anti-Muslim rhetoric.

No, rather our use of Senator Obama's middle name is an admittedly lame attempt at satire. Those following the campaign will know that liberal pundits use Obama's middle name at least as much as conservative ones. Click here, here, here, here, here, or here if you don't believe us. We even used ultra-liberal website Media Matters to further prove the point.

We find it mildly amusing, bordering on humorous, that liberals--the open-minded, enlightened half of American society--pound on the Hussein key as much or more than Rush Limbaugh (we only found one Limbaugh reference to Obama's middle name). We believe this has something to do with the fact that liberals tend to take their politics a little more personally than Republicans do. [huge generalization alert]

What's even more interesting is the fact that both frontrunners (if we can call them that, now that the gap has narrowed) in the Democratic primary have middle or third names they'd rather voters forgot. Does anyone remember that Hillary always used to be Rodham-Clinton? But now that she wants to get elected, it's simply Clinton AND, according to Drudge, "love" drove Bill bat-crazy in South Carolina, prompting his latest outburst. All of this to prove their mutual love and affection, and the normalcy of their marriage (hasn't it been disproved beyond a shadow of a doubt? Clinton Marriage, read: union of political, power-grabbing convenience).

Therein lies the satire and by explaining it all, it's completely lost its amusement. That's the thing with humor, once explained, everyone kind of says, "oh, how nice." If you look back at our posts, we refer to Senator Clinton as Hillary Rodham-Clinton and Senator Obama as Barack Hussein Obama. Again, not because we want to inflame populist conservative opinion (longtime readers know we detest populist politics) but rather to satirize the two candidates and their party's supposedly enlightened, open-minded moral condescension. Our friend the commenter further proves our point with his own name-calling.

Readers would be justified in saying that our humor was lame or too subtle, but mistaking it for anti-whatever is baseless. We wouldn't care if Barack's name were Barrack Saddam Hussein Osama bin Laden Adolf Hitler Joseph Stalin Obama, and neither should anyone else. Our point in using his middle name is not to conjure up an image of Saddam Hussein and scare the Republican base. If reading or hearing his middle name makes you think he's a Wahhabist terrorist/sympathizer, you've probably been watching too much 24.

And besides all that, we're tired of liberals thinking that conservatives are stupid enough to believe anything based on Barack's middle name. We don't know any conservatives who believe Barack is some 5th cousin of Saddam or a closet islamofascist.

We'll continue referring to Senators Clinton and Obama by their full names, now not simply for satirical purposes (though they remain) but more in protest of those who take it personally. If they want to dredge up Romney's or any other Republican candidates' sacred, personal religious beliefs and make fun of them, well, we'll let the reader decide who is acting in poor taste.


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South Carolina, Nevada, &c.

- We watched Mike Huckabee on Hannity and Colmes today and were impressed, again, with his articulate affability. This guy can talk. And he's friendly. Our brother, who had not heard him speak before, was equally impressed. If only he were a truly conservative candidate.

- A friend called today and informed us that she is a precinct captain for Mitt Romney. She was proud to report that she had persuaded 7 friends to go with her to her caucus in Nevada. It's good to see that not everyone is jaded about presidential politics.

- We'd actually like to see Fred Thompson win South Carolina. Like everyone else, we had great hopes for candidate Thompson--thought he might be able to channel some sort of inner/actor-Ronald Reagan mojo and unite and galvanize Republicans everywhere. He didn't. Instead he constantly reminds us in word ('I don't really care to be President, but if I made it, it'd be cool') and deed (seemingly lazy/lackadaisical campaigning) that he doesn't seem serious about the whole thing. If Fred would actually show that he wants this thing, people might take him seriously and vote for him. Maybe.

- Good to see Bill Clinton on the campaign trail. CNN showed him berating some poor reporter. Doesn't he know that the MSM loves Democrats--especially him? We suppose the reporter was probably guilty of straying from the usual questions:

Reporter: Why are you so awesome?
Bill Clinton: [affects southern accent] When I was President the economy was strong and the world loved us.
Reporter: [dog-begging-for-food look]
Bill Clinton: No more questions?
Reporter: Would you sign my book? [hands over well-worn copy of "My Life"]
Bill Clinton: [signs "Bill Clinton, & "vote for me", scratches out "me" writes "Hillary" ]


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Mitt Romney Going Forward

Big win for Romney last night. He needed the win and he got it. According to the numbers we've seen, he did well among Republicans and Independents and split the Evangelical vote with Huckabee. With Michigan's economy in the tank, Mitt won because he finally highlighted his greatest strength--his business/economic, call-it-what-you-will background.

In Michigan, his message met the needs of the voters. In the Republican debate ahead of the primary, both he and Senator McCain answered questions about auto industry and other jobs that have been lost. Senator McCain, ever the realist, left that debate with the sound-bite that 'the jobs [were] gone, and they [weren't] coming back.' He went on to say that they needed to get new and better jobs, but the damage was done and his line was out there.

McCain may be right. This blog doesn't believe in the protectionist measures it would take to "revitalize" the American auto industry. We agree with McCain and his free-trading ways. But realism doesn't win elections.

We don't think Mitt is a protectionist either, but he understood (better than McCain) that Michigan voters didn't want to hear that their jobs were gone and not coming back. Mitt's message of "optimism" had substance because of his successful business background. He has turned around failing enterprises--Bain & Co, the Salt Lake Olympics, and Massachusetts.

As the year and presidential primaries progress, this is a message that might just do it for Romney. Stocks and real estate prices are down and sub prime mortgage problems have everyone worried. If the economy enters a slowdown or recession, Mitt might just resurrect Bill Clinton's old message that it is "the economy, stupid."

This might be the one issue that overcomes questions about his pro-choice past and his religion. If he can present himself as the candidate with the most know-how and best plan, he might just win the Republican nomination.


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Dennis Miller on Harry Reid 6/10/07

Like hip hop, we were introduced to Dennis Miller and his "rants" by our friend Michael J Mouncer. We listened to Miller with our beloved debate coach, AP government teacher and committed liberal, Chuck Hammaker-Teals. As the lone conservative in that triumvirate, we took a lot of flak for a lot of things. This was back when Bill Clinton's "peccadillos" were all the rage, you know, back when al-Qaeda was plotting 9/11 and America's demise.

Counting Miller, we guess that triumvirate was really a fearsome foursome. And like many other former libs, Miller woke up to reality in the post-9/11 world and joined the forces of liberty, justice, and the American way. All three (Hammaker-Teals, Mouncer, Miller (in spirit)) remain friends. We're glad the political numbers have evened out a bit since 1999.

Hey MJ, still a big Miller fan?

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