Absent Bush, Dems Make Straw Man Of Rush (UPDATED)

I should have said, "Democrats & the media (but I repeat myself) make a straw man out of Rush Limbaugh."

That joke doesn't get old.

My man at NewsBusters, Noel Sheppard, wrote up a good piece about recent revelations from the left that they want to make Limbaugh the new Republican bogeyman--used to scare the public into submitting to their nefarious plans.

Well, new revelations suggest that Democrats began a smear campaign against the conservative talk radio host last October, and now it's really caught steam.

Apparently, the Left feared its message would be muted without having George W. Bush to blame for all the world's problems, and Limbaugh made a nice substitute as the object of their disaffection to distract the public from real issues.

Given White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's connections to key media figures such as ABC's George Stephanopoulos as well as CNN's Paul Begala and James Carville, disseminating the hate was a piece of cake.

It almost goes w/o saying that I think their plan will fail--most importantly, because Rush is a far better communicator than George W. Bush. And because Rush already has 20 million regular listeners.

I don't want to say Emanuel & Begala & Carville & Co. are dumb, but this strategy strikes me as pretty stupid. Seriously, folks, when you are the establishment, it doesn't help you to elevate the competition.

I don't think there is a smarter, more persuasive communicator of conservative ideals that Rush Limbaugh. If these people are persuadable, they will be persuaded by Rush.

Note that I'm not talking about the leftist progressives who already hate all things conservative. These people are dead to reason until they realize how much their feel-good policy preferences suck in the real world.

Independents--the same ones who were persuaded about offshore drilling. The same ones who have begun to turn against the spendulus. The same ones who are skeptical about bigger government & higher taxes--these people will turn to Rush and large numbers of them will be persuaded by him.

UPDATE 6:17pm BST: Jonah Goldberg weighs in on El Rushbo's controversial statement that he hopes Obama "fails":

Here we go again. Rush Limbaugh is public enemy No. 1. Liberal bloggers and media chin-strokers are aghast at Limbaugh's statement that he hopes Barack Obama fails. Well, given what Obama wants to do, I hope he fails too. Of course I want the financial crisis to end -- who doesn't? But Obama's agenda is much more audacious. Pretty much every major news outlet in the country has said as a matter of objective analysis that Obama wants to repeal the legacy of Ronald Reagan and remake the country as a European welfare state. And yet people are shocked that conservatives, Limbaugh included, want Obama to fail in this effort? What movie have they been watching? Because I could swear that conservatives opposing the expansion of big government is what conservatives do.

European elites and visiting liberal American backpackers love Europe. All they ever see are the tourist traps. They don't see the vast numbers of welfare state lower class--many immigrants--who live, for instance, in the banlieues of Paris.

These people--and their equivalents in Germany, et al--firebomb the cars of the wealthy every night. And the liberal elites of these countries just don't get it. They think, 'we gave these people welfare and universal healthcare and public housing, what the hell more do they want!?!!'

I don't want to go off on a rant here, because what I have to say on the subject could occupy at least a fortnight's worth of my intermittent posts, but is this what you all want America to look like?

In Europe, the lib elites keep throwing more money at the masses because unlike America, there is no chance in hell of the elites ever allowing the hoi polloi to move up to the next income bracket.

This is why these types of socialist policies should never translate to America: Here, the poor don't stay poor forever. There is a lot of movement from one bracket to the next. That just doesn't happen anywhere else.

If Obama gets his way, it might not happen in America either.


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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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Obama Selects Ari Gold As White House COS

He's name had been floated for awhile, but yesterday it became official as President elect Barack Obama selected Rahm Emmanuel as his chief-of-staff. Reader Morgan H. weighs in:

Looks like Obama picked Ari Emmanuel's brother to be his Chief of Staff. In case you didn't know, Ari Emmanuel is the founder of Endeavor, a well known agency here in LA. Ari Emmanuel reps Marky Mark among others Ari/Endeavor is who and what Ari Gold and his agency on Entourage is/are rumored to be based on. I can't imagine what Yom Kippur gatherings must be like in that family. Especially if they play a "friendly" game of Monopoly or Acqui[re].

Now, imagine Ari Gold running the White House. Good times.

Honestly though, according to a bio of the Emmanuel brothers from the NYT that my brother, Matt L., dug up, Rahm comes across as a pragmatic centrist. His signature piece of policy whatever was helping push through Nafta.

As a free-tradist, this bit-o-news is encouraging. However, and conversely speaking, if he is more pragmatist than centrist (they are not the same thing), he may be ideally suited to unilaterally re-negotatiating Nafta per Obama's twice stated campaign promise.

It doesn't help that Democrats in Congress have experienced a bit of a 'back-to-the-future' of their own and have opposed free trade agreements with Colombia & South Korea. Additionally, their desire to eliminate unionizing by secret ballot indicates an altogether higher level of pandering to their Union donors--the likes of which hasn't been seen around DC since unions actually mattered. You know, back in like 1980something.

This is one of my Big Problems with the Democrat Party--their complete ignorance of the economic gains to be had from free trade. Alternatively, maybe they're not ignorant about the gains to be had an are just flat out selling their principles to the unions. Clearly, the latter optino is worse. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they just don't know any better.

I do not buy the "better labor & environmental regulations" argument as their reasoning for opposing free trade. I think it's a smoke screen of a type with the anti-genetically modified foods posture taken by the Europeans. They're both crap reasons.

Let's bring this back to where we started: I hope Obama's choice of Rahm Emmanuel signals two things: Love for free trade and a pro-Israel foreign policy stance.


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