Sly Stallone Is For McCain, Are You?

Real Men Vote for McCain
Top 10 reasons why.

By Lou Aguilar
(our edits in parentheses)

1. Barack Obama spent 20 years sitting in church while his preacher and others bad-mouthed the United States of America. Navy pilot John McCain spent five years being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton, and refused a chance to walk out ahead of fellow POWs with more seniority.
(see Rescue Dawn.)

2. Obama wants to cut and run from Iraq regardless of conditions on the ground or future consequences. McCain took on the president and secretary of defense in demanding more troops for Iraq, a policy that is inarguably winning the war. He also has two sons who fought in Iraq.
(Obama has only visited Iraq once. He was last there 923 days ago. McCain has visited Iraq numerous times.)

3. McCain supports nuclear power. Obama backs wind energy.
(McCain also supports hydroelectric power.)

4. Obama wants restrictive gun control because only economically depressed middle-Americans “cling to God and guns.” McCain unwaveringly supports the Second Amendment.
(Go Constitution.)

5. McCain has deviated from his party’s conservative base on several occasions (McCain-Feingold Bill, Gang of 14, McCain-Kennedy Bill, opposition to torture). Obama has voted the left-wing line every single time, and been designated the most liberal Senator in Congress.
(Though we may not always like it, McCain is far and away the more moderate/centrist of the two candidates.)

6. Obama is willing to meet with hostile state leaders like Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez without preconditions. McCain will set conditions first, talk later — maybe.
(that was a stupid thing for Obama to say.)

7. Obama is married to a bitter, angry lawyer who became “proud” of her country for the first time this year. McCain’s wife is a beer heiress who founded an organization to provide MASH-style units to disaster-torn world regions. Did I mention that she’s a beer heiress?
(better beer than ketchup, right?)

8. Obama supports higher taxes for a government-run nanny state that will coddle all Americans like babies. McCain trusts people to spend their less-taxed money however they wish.
(huzzah for limited government.)

9. The name John McCain sounds like “John McClain,” the action hero played by Bruce Willis in the manly Die Hard series. “Barack Obama” sounds like the kind of elitist villain John McClain has to outwit and defeat.
(can you name a better action series?)

10. McCain is endorsed by Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Obama gets support from Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, and every weenie in Hollywood. Plus, Susan Sarandon has vowed to leave the country if McCain gets elected. Case closed.
(we already blogged about Sarandon.)

Lou Aguilar is a fiction writer and former Washington Post video critic, Washington Times television critic, and USA Today reporter.


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Dangerous & Strange Bedfellows

In the most recent issue of "Natty Review" appears an article by Daniel Pipes--director of the Middle East Forum and Taube/Diller distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. In it, Pipes discusses the pragmatic alliance between "Islamists, Marxists, and the radical Left."

It is both persuasive and alarming.

For the hurried, an outline will be provided below, for those with a few minutes on their hands, click here.

Allied Menace
By Daniel Pipes

Overview: Despite their obvious ideological differences, Islamists and Leftists have begun to make common cause in their efforts against Western Civilization including the U.S., Great Britain & Israel.

Examples: Hugo Chavez's alliance with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; Ken Livingstone the Trotskyite former mayor of London; Noam Chomsky, friend of Hezbollah; Ella Vogelaar, Dutch minister for housing; the Workers World's (an American Communist newspaper) laudatory obituary of Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh; Carlos the Jackal & others actually converted to Islam; Norman Mailer called the 9/11 perpetrators "brilliant"; Michel Foucault supported the Iranian Revolution and called Ayatollah Khomeini a "saint"; during the Cold War, Islamists favored the Soviet Union and "the U.S.S.R. receive[d] but a small fraction of the hatred and venom directed at the United States;" the Cairo Anti-War Conference. The list goes on

Why the "unholy alliance?"

1. Similar enemy--Western Civilization, the U.S., Great Britain, Israel, Jews, believing Christians, and international capitalists.

2. Shared political goals: they want coalition forces to lose in Iraq, an end to the War on Terror, the spread of anti-Americanism, and the destruction of Israel.

3. Marxism-Leninism and Islamism have historical and philosophical ties: a stages view of history; crossover of Leftist thinkers like Franz Fanon, Che Guevara, Jean-Paul Sartre, Lenin, & Stalin. Additionally, Marxists have replaced the failed rise of the worker with the rise of the Islamists (ie. the Iranian Revolution, 9/11. et al.)

4. A pragmatic path to power. Both groups are able to subordinate conflicting pillars of their respective ideologies in order to combat their common enemy--here again, Western Civilization. Add to the examples listed above the Stop the War Coalition whose committee members are drawn from the British Communist party and the Muslim Association of Britain.

Conclusion: Where communists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Castroists and others "had been clinging to the dregs of a clapped-out cause," Islamists bring a new proletariat. This dangerous and strange partnership is a threat to Western Civilization which "must be exposed, rejected, resisted, and defeated."


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Whitewashing History, New York Times-Style

Sometimes we ask ourselves, "why do we still read the New York Times?"

And then we remind ourselves, "oh yeah, it's so the hypocritical haters don't accuse us of getting all our info--persuasive or otherwise--from the (what do they call it again? oh yeah, the "natty review." so clever, so original.) "Natty Review." It's the same reason we peruse the Daily Kos & Huffington Post, watch the Daily Show & The Colbert Report (genuinely funny, sometimes) and skim the angry-left ranting of the Seattle PI message boards.

Nevermind that the aforementioned hypocritical haters never read any of our stuff.
(And by that we don't mean this blog.)

Anywho, we ask ourselves these questions about our continued reading of the NYT because of ridiculous things like this, courtesy of James Taranto and Best of the Web:

The Jerusalem Post reports on a happy event for the Palestinian Authority:

President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday sent his regards to the families of Samir Kuntar and the other four Lebanese prisoners scheduled to be transferred to Hizbullah.

Abbas praised the prisoner swap and congratulated the Kuntar family.

Kuntar was in an Israeli prison for an attack that took place on April 22, 1979. Two years ago we quoted a survivor, Smadar Haran Kaiser, who described the attack:

It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border.

Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer.

As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat.

They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my mother," I thought.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.

If smashing a 4-year-old girl's skull with a rifle butt makes Kuntar a hero, you have to wonder what one would have to do for the Palestinians to consider him a coward. The New York Times, meanwhile, describes Kuntar's attack this way:

Perhaps Israel's most reviled prisoner, Samir Kuntar, will return to a hero's welcome when he crosses into Lebanon this week, 29 years after he left its shores in a rubber dinghy to kidnap Israelis from the coastal town of Nahariya.

That raid went horribly wrong, leaving five people dead, a community terrorized and a nation traumatized. Two Israeli children and their father were among those killed.

What does the Times think would have happened if the "raid" had gone right?

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David Horsey: Obama Backers Have No Sense Of Humor

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In response to Obamaniacs' outrage over The New Yorker's satirical cover, David Horsey, a fav cartoonist of ours from the Seattle PI, sketched this one with John & Cindy McCain.

General conservative pundit response? A few chuckles.

You see, this harks back to something we have discussed on the pages of this blog before. Since conservatives do not revere their Presidential nominees the way leftists do, we don't take it as a personal affront when they are lampooned--even ironically.

And we get that The New Yorker was irony--not part of the right-wing attack machine meant to derail the utopian-Presidential campaign of one Barack Obama. The New Yorker cover wasn't designed to make fun of Obama--it was designed a send-up of gun/religion clinging conservatives. Duh.

It's not that leftists aren't smart--we're sure they're roughly as intelligent as McCain supporters--it's that they are blinded by their love of Obama.

What's even funnier is the fact that many leftist commenters on the pages of the PI see the Horsey cartoon and say, "take that, Republicans!" As though The New Yorker cover and Horsey's cartoon were some sort of back-and-forth name calling game between Republicans and Democrats (as opposed to funny satire from two leftwing periodicals). They didn't get The New Yorker cover and they don't get that the McCain cover makes fun of their lack of humor.

Oh well, they can just go back to watching The Daily Show and laughing when prompted by the laugh track.


[laugh!]


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Tony Snow, RIP

For years we watched Tony Snow on Fox News. He was fair in reporting and persuasive in arguing a point and advocating policy. Though we never knew him personally, we always knew him to be a strong and ardent defender of conservatism. He was a good example.

In the aftermath of the Scott McClellan disaster, Tony Snow was, well, awesome. Longtime observers of the office of Press Secretary say Tony Snow was the best ever. And he was very good in a very difficult time for the Bush Administration and the country. He was loyal and competent and very, very good.

Today's Political Diary (h/t: S. Lybbert) ran a few pieces about Tony Snow which seem only appropriate to reproduce here.

John Fund on Tony Snow:

It took C-SPAN only a few hours after news that Tony Snow had died to begin airing the last major public speech he gave -- a closing address to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington last February.

The former White House press secretary was at his rhetorical finest in telling conservatives: "We've got more work to do and we have to do it as a team." He directly addressed those conservatives who were considering not supporting John McCain as the Republican nominee by suggesting they see a bigger picture. "You want to make every pundit look bad? Then stand tall for what you believe. Don't be shy. You want to stun the establishment? Then become a mighty force for conservative principles, and tackle the task with confidence and cheer. . . .This may be a time of testing. But it's not our swan song. Not by a long shot. Instead . . . this is our moment. This is the time to do what we do best -- turn adversity into strength."

It didn't take long after C-SPAN aired this speech for a viewer to call McCain headquarters and urge them to run excerpts at the Republican convention in Minneapolis as part of a tribute to the departed White House aide. Don't be surprised if Tony Snow is called on to rally the troops one last time.

John Podhoretz:

"[Tony Snow] wrote, he edited, he wrote speeches, he hosted television shows and radio shows and gave endless speeches. In all these pursuits he was agile and deft and successful. But I think it's safe to say that it turned out Tony's greatest achievement was his time as White House press secretary. At this crucial job, a central one in American political life, he proved to be the best -- the best ever, without qualification. He could speak with fluency, honesty, wit, and clarity on every subject under the sun; he remained poised, unruffled . . . sure of himself at the podium in the press room. Tony was a fascinating type. He was, literally, the opposite of a paranoid. He was a 'pro-noid.' He assumed people liked him. It is a rare quality for any person. It is almost unheard-of in Washington"

Brendan Miniter:

On Saturday conservatives lost a strong voice for their ideas and the world lost a thoroughly decent man. I knew him in a different capacity. I got to know Tony nearly a decade ago through a mutual friend, Ken Smith. Ken, the deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Times, himself died of liver cancer in July 2001. An article Tony wrote in response to Ken's death couldn't help but come to mind this weekend. "Suffering often does grotesque things to people: It transforms them physically and spiritually; twisting the body and desiccating the soul. But Ken never became bitter or morose. He didn't milk his plight to elicit pity," Tony wrote.

Ken remained himself, shared his kindness and never let on how much pain he was in. Later Tony would say that by keeping his dignity, facing his terminal cancer with the same conviction that he had used to build his life, Ken had performed one last service: He showed us all how to face our own mortality. A few years later, Tony returned to Ken in a column headlined "How to Be Sick." He wrote: "There are things far worse than illness -- for instance, soullessness."

I last saw Tony several years ago as he was heading out the door of a Starbucks in Alexandria, Va., on his way to work. He wasn't rushing. He had time for a man who was asking for spare change. Tony reached into his pocket, dug out several coins and at least one bill and handed it to the man. I saw Tony step closer to the man and heard him ask how he was. As the door closed, I couldn't hear what else he said, but as Tony walked away both were smiling.

*UPDATE 17 July 12:22pm PST: Today a funeral will be held for Tony Snow. In honor of the man and in addition to what we posted earlier, check out this NRO Symposium.


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This, Too, Is Satire

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For the record, and to forestall all you haters, this and this.


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Jesse Jackson Feels Threatened

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Regarding Rev. Jackson's threat to cut off Obama's you-know-whats, well, we definitely side with Senator Obama. Obviously the good reverend means this metaphorically, but still, does he think the secret service will even let him get close to Sen. Obama?

Per the New York Post, Jackson doesn't like the fact that Obama encourages young black men to be good fathers and recently "told students to stick with school and forget about careers as rap stars or pro basketball players."

Yeah, that's really bad advice, Senator Obama. What were you thinking?

Don't gets us wrong. We've listened to speeches and read others in which Obama does come across as incredibly condescending, but this wasn't one of them.

What "black leader" Jesse Jackson doesn't like about Obama is that a successful Obama, whose rhetoric about self-reliance more closely mimics Bill Cosby's than Jackson's and Sharpton's, threatens his status. To our mind, this might be the only positive resulting from an Obama win in November--a purge of the Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton hate mongering among the black community.

Or, if his Rev. Wright/Father Pfleger connections are any indication, it could get worse. Who knows?

Either way:

Barack Obama > Jesse Jackson

and

Democratically Elected President > Self Appointed Racist Hate Monger

*UPDATE 11 July 12:18am: After thinking for awhile about Rev. Jackson's whispered threat, we realized that this had deeper meaning than originally thought. Roots--a book we've read and documentary we've viewed (twice)--has a particularly shocking scene where the main character Kunta Kinte, having run away and been caught for a second time, is given the choice of cutting off part of his foot, leaving him unable to even walk normally, or castration. He chooses the former. The author, Alex Haley wasn't just making up this little bit of drama. Castration, or the threat thereof, was a frequent practice of the slaving type to keep the slaves in check.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton preach a particularly vile doctrine of hate and modern racism designed not to uplift and aid, but to keep under their thumb the very people they claim to help. Whatever else we (or anyone) may think about Obama's politics (we don't like them, at all), the mere fact that a black man in America is the leading candidate for the highest office in the land is a repudiation of everything for which Jackson stands.

But here again, Obama's past raises its ugly head.

Where do Reverend Wright and Father Pfleger fit in? Like everyone else, we would like to believe that Senator Obama is above and beyond the racist politics of Jackson & co. But his history leads us to conclude otherwise. Instead of bring change and hope to America and especially African Americans, the fear we have is that he will simply ensconce in the Presidency the attitudes embodied by Wright & Pfleger.

These are the tremendous risks you run when you elect someone who aspires to be more than just the next President of the United States.


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Happy Patriot Day

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Nathan Hale

"I only regret that I have but one life to give my country."

Independence Day Must Reads:

Apotheosis of Liberty - Thomas Jefferson
A Day at the Beach - Peggy Noonan
Celebrating and Safeguarding Our Freedom - Fr. Roger J. Landry


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Differing Worldviews

In our "Religious Generosity" post of a few days ago, we posited a philosophical difference between conservatives and liberals that we believe persists in this election.

Namely, we see conservatives, with their focus on individual giving, contrasting sharply with liberals who want to institutionalize every native, generous impulse. Then, they create confiscatory tax policy that unfairly taxes the rich simply because they're rich.

This they do to fund their behemoth federal bureaucracies and programs--bureaucracies and programs which too often fit the old maxim about the cure being worse than the disease.

We wrote about one example of this a few weeks ago.

And we know we're a little late to the game with this example, but Barack Obama's speech to the graduates at Wesleyan perfectly exemplifies the difference in worldview between conservatives and liberals. To wit:

But during my first two years of college, perhaps because the values my mother had taught me —hard work, honesty, empathy — had resurfaced after a long hibernation.

. . .

I wrote letters to every organization in the country I could think of. And one day, a small group of churches on the South Side of Chicago offered me a job to come work as a community organizer in neighborhoods that had been devastated by steel plant closings. My mother and grandparents wanted me to go to law school. My friends were applying to jobs on Wall Street. Meanwhile, this organization offered me $12,000 a year plus $2,000 for an old, beat-up car.

And I said yes.

Wow. Blatant self congratulation aside, other observers have noted that $14k/year was pretty average for college grads in the early 80's--not the pittance it seems today. And last year, he and Michelle took in $4.2 million--less than the Clintons, but far more than most Americans.

In all his talk of service to country and the world, you might expect to find a graph or even a throwaway sentence acknowledging service in the military.

You're going to be disappointed. There's nothing--not a word.

Certainly public service is important and admirable, but it is the dynamism of capitalism and the American economy--all those selfish people working their selfish jobs to give their families a better life--that make it possible for America to do anything remotely philanthropic anywhere. And obviously military service plays a large role here. Without a strong military and economy, we would have zero influence and power to "do good." Obama's view of America is one in which people in the Peace Corps are the only ones with souls and the rest of us are just out there to get ours.

*UPDATE 26 June 1:51pm: Dennis Prager sums up the attitude of many of today's progressive leftists--an attitude embodied by Obama's comments above and his repeated campaign boilerplate that "we (meaning he and his ilk) are the change we have been waiting for" or the other version "we are the ones we have been waiting for." Prager:

The modern secular liberal knows that he is not only morally superior to conservatives; he is morally superior to virtually everyone who ever lived before him.

Utopia? Yes We Can!

(commence self-immolation)


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More Superficial Drivel

[ed. note: we originally titled this "Answers To Your Questions." That was before we wrote the post. Once finished, we decided on this, more appropriate title.]

First off (though we don't know why we even have to clarify this), we have never pretended to be a moderate/centrist/non-partisan/post-partisan/bi-partisan blog. We're conservative first. This often leads us to support Republican candidates. How is this a surprise to anyone? We try to be fair and reasonable, but we know enough about bias to understand that objectivity is a pipe dream. Plus, this is an opinion blog, not a reporting blog. We've got no reason to even make a failing attempt at 'just the facts, please ma'am' reporting a la The New York Times. So, please, quit faulting us for not being something we never claimed to be in the first place.

When we bash what seems to our readers to be a far-left opinion. Don't take it personally. We very rarely pick on those precious few of you who choose to read and respond to our posts. We get that none of you advocate the ridiculous things we pan here at OL&L. Most of our readers are conservatives. Most of you who reply are moderate to liberal. To our knowledge, none of you fall into the extreme left camp we frequently lampoon. So, when we go after whacked out leftist/environmentalist ideas or whatever, don't take it personally. We're usually responding to something we read over at the Seattle PI or maybe our bi-weekly scan of the Daily Kos or Huffington Post--not your comments.

We like the idea of drilling independent of its political ramifications. The fact that it could be used politically to help get people we like elected is simply a happy coincidence. Our support of drilling is not so myopic or narrow as some of you seem to believe. We have repeated here (every time we talk about energy issues. check our archive.) that we support drilling along with a carbon tax, nuclear power, and increased R&D funding. What more do you want? We are wary of the economic cost to Americans and American businesses if we attempt large scale transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. It will hinder us competitively in relation to other countries and is an environmental burden we should not bear alone.

When it comes to policy recommendations, we are political realists. We like the idea of a carbon tax, but the likelihood of enacting one by itself is very slim. Coupling it with a reduction in income and corporate taxes improves its chances, but still makes it tough politically. This is why we half-heartedly endorsed McCain's $300 million initiative to award individuals or corporations who developed better battery technology. It's not the broad, market based solution we hoped for and RD mocked, but if McCain is elected President, it has a far better chance of passing Congress than his and our preferred carbon tax.

And all of these things have a better chance of passing if they are lumped together with increased drilling--a policy supported by a significant majority of Americans.

Part of the reason we disagree with some of you about drilling is that we do not entirely agree with the assumptions on which you base your conclusions.

We get the idea of "peak oil." We understand the price distorting effect of a cartel like OPEC. But we think some of these things are overblown. OPEC's influence has been overstated since the trade embargoes of 1979. Since then, their influence has diminished and with the increased supply coming from Canada's oil sands (our largest single supplier), they have been diminished even further. This isn't to say they have no or little effect, simply that their influence is less than you think because it's easy to demonize and hate the terrorist/oil producing countries.

Regarding peak oil and how that plays into this conversation, RD and some of the rest of you don't like the idea of drilling because it prolongs the influence and control OPEC has on the price of oil and therefore the American economy, national security, and our international interest. We don't like the idea of funding Saudi Wahabbists anymore than the rest of you. However, we believe that between the outer continental shelf, ANWR, and non-traditional supplies of oil found in shale-oil and Canada's oil sands, the increased supply will both decrease the price of oil in the long run and the price influence (what is the technical term? control of marginal supply?) of the OPEC cartel. Some estimate that shale-oil and other non-traditional oil reserves are actually several times greater than the oil reserves of OPEC nations. Again, accessing these resources would significantly diminish OPEC's cartel influence.

We are optimistic about oil because we believe that higher prices will drive the market to find more sources of oil like thermal depolymerization which could potentially manufacture oil indefinitely from things like garbage, sewage, and agricultural waste. We also believe that improvements in technology will make more oil more accessible. Higher prices and technology led to large oil field finds in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Brazil and of course drove the development of Canada's oil sands. We do not foresee a peak oil collapse in the near or even mid-term because of these factors. Heck, our faith in the markets is such that we think prices will eventually drive a near-seamless transition from fossil fuel to some other, perhaps yet-to-be discovered energy source. This is what our study of history has shown us.

Within the general framework we outlined the other day, we are of course open to new and different ideas. Hopefully our drilling fetish makes sense to you when considered in light of our assumptions about supply, demand, OPEC, peak oil and the other things we've written about in this post. Or, you could do as Krauthammer suggested Congress was doing (h/t: S. Lybbert) with some of their recent legislative posturing--repealing first the law of supply and then the law of demand because, of course, they're laws so they must have been put in place by some other idiot Congress--probably a Republican one.

The truth is, we blame most of the rising cost of gasoline on the weak dollar. Greenspan, the guy who seems like he wishes we was still in the game, is largely responsible for cutting rates to far and leaving them their too long. If Bernanke follows through on his commitment to raise interest rates and strengthen the dollar, we expect gas prices to fall accordingly.
/superficialdrivel

[cue Raisin's predictable mocking impersonation]

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Incentives You Can Believe In

You'd think there were some sort of backchannel communication and advisement going on between OL&L and the McCain campaign.

There isn't.

Though we have participated in a few blogger conference calls, we can't take credit for McCain's latest policy proposal (h/t: Matt Lybbert)--"a $300 million prize for whoever can develop a better automobile battery, and $5k tax credits for consumers who buy new zero-emission vehicles."

We like the first part better than the last part and we'd like that part even more if it were broader in its incentive to create more cost effective clean technology. That said, we're told by those who watch the tech industry closely that overcoming battery issues is one of the biggest hurdles to harnessing clean technology. As every competition needs a clearly definable finish line, we suppose the battery thing will do.

At least, until RD or someone else can come up with a better one.

*UPDATE 24 June 11:40am EST: Our man Charles Krauthammer on John McCain and his recent energy policy proposals: "McCain is a lot of things, but the man who opposed ethanol in Iowa — as Obama shamelessly endorsed the most abysmally stupid of our energy policies — is no patsy of the energy producers. Americans know that increased production is needed to complement reduced consumption as the only way to get us out from oil shocks, high prices and national security blackmail"

Refusing to even explore--let alone drill--the Outer Continental Shelf, ANWR, and develop our shale-oil deposits is bad, bad policy.


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Re: Drilling, A Few Points of Clarification

After reading a few of your comments, we figured the discussion on this blog would benefit from a little issue elucidation.

- First off, though we endorse a carbon tax, we do not believe that it is realistic to expect one in our lifetime. Americans would probably throw the president and party who enacted such legislation out on their posteriors. The only way this works is if it is coupled with a cut in income taxes and corporate taxes as we suggested in our last post. Even then, passage of of a carbon tax remains an extremely long shot.

- Let drilling be part of a comprehensive plan. The global warming fetishists also happen to be the same people who have been anti-nuclear and in our neck of the woods (Washington State) anti-hydropower. Of the alternatives to fossil fuels in providing electricity to Americans, nuclear power is the only one even close to having proven capacity to produce. All the other "alternative" energy options combined produce something like 0.5% of all the energy consumed in this country. And this, even after the huge subsidy to their production and the high price of oil.

- All of which brings us to our point about R&D (research & development, to the uninitiated). Spend money on R&D, but do so in a cost effective fashion. We'd like to see a competition with a $100 million prize to the team or corporation or university or whoever was able to come up with the cleanest most viable alternative energy source. It does no good to simply throw money at wind or solar or whatever when the "solution" (though we doubt there will ever be just one OR that we'll ever truly go away from fossil fuels) may be something that has not ever been discovered yet.

A command and control solution to our energy problem will not solve the problem. We guarantee that the cure will be worse than the disease. For those of you who doubt this guarantee, we point, once again, to the ethanol debacle. Mandate ethanol, starve the already poor and starving in lesser developed countries.

- We agree with Lomborg and the consensus conference of earlier this year. The money being expended trying to cool the earth could be better spent in other areas. And, efforts to curb global warming, which studies show will have little to no impact, will hinder economic development that would, in the future, enable us to develop the technology necessary to actually do something.

Want to do some good in this world? Good that would actually save lives and make them better--make the world a better place?

Per the consensus, the most cost-effective ways to help the world's poor:

1. Vitamin A & zinc supplements
2. Doha trade round
3. Iron supplements and salt iodization
4. Expanded youth immunization
5. Biofortification of seed stocks

Those of you who click through to the article will find global warming-related initiatives at the bottom of the list. Even global warming R&D is near the bottom of the list. But then, we don't really care about developing new energy sources because of the environment. We don't think it's as serious a problem as the GW fetishists.

- Re: the millions less miles Americans drive today versus a few years ago: this is due far more to the price of gasoline than to any efforts of the GWF's.

- Drilling off the coasts is only part of the solution. And admittedly, not a short term one. We hope only to derive short term political gain from the issue, but we believe, and there is reason to do so, that drilling could help America's long term issues with energy dependence. Banning development of domestic oil and shale-oil is a stupid policy and stupid Democrat Party "article of faith." If they want to hold to it, they should be punished at the polls. But in addition to drilling off-shore and in ANWR, we think Congress should open up America's shale-oil supply to development and production. The numbers we've read--1.5-2.6 trillion barrels--that could potentially come from those sources are huge. They could be and would be developed and produce oil the same way as the Canadian tar sands. Coal liquefaction is another fossil fuel alternative.

There is energy to be had on American soil. And it can be extracted cost effectively. We should free American corporations to get at it. Fossil fuels will always be part of the American energy picture because they are there and they are cheap--far cheaper than the "alternatives." And, as they dwindle, market forces will drive innovation that will bring other energy alternatives online--the same way we went from whale oil to light sweet crude.

- For those of you religiously opposed to fossil fuels, your next alternative should be nuclear power. It is proven and it is clean. Call on your local representatives to do what is necessary to free the American nuclear industry from onerous regulations and frivolous lawsuits. In the nuclear sense, we should follow the example of the French, whose energy needs are satisfied in large measure by their extensive nuclear power program.

Our comprehensive energy/environment policy recommendations:
- open American coastlines, ANWR to traditional oil drilling.
- permit development of shale-oil extraction.
- enact a carbon tax combined with a cut in income and corporate tax.
- expand nuclear power plant construction.
- introduce cost effective, competitive R&D legislation
- start worldwide campaign to divert money now being spent on ineffective global warming policy towards the Top 5 cost-effective ways to help the world's poor.


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Drill! Drill! Drill!

We return from our 2 week (or so) blogging sabbatical to advocate for drilling anywhere and everywhere--including ANWR. We also endorse enactment of some sort of carbon tax. However, we would only embrace said tax if it were matched by a concurrent cut in corporate and individual income taxes such that there be no net increase in taxes.

A few notes:

- Technology has improved in the last 20 years (since the coasts were placed off-limits) to the point at which drilling can be done safely and with minimal environmental impact. This is a non-issue.

- We understand that drilling will have no short-run impact on prices. We don't care. We only hope that the current furor over prices drives policy in a direction we like: towards expanded drilling.

- Though it won't eliminate the need for importing oil from the middle east, expanded use of domestic oil supplies (including the estimated 1.5-2.6 trillion barrels to be derived from shale-oil) will lessen our dependence on middle eastern oil.

- This issue could be a winner for John McCain. The Rasmussen poll we saw tonight said that 62% of Americans agree that we should drill domestically. Obama may be leaving behind Bill Clinton's centrist ideals, but he should not forget that Presidential politics are almost always all about the economy. We almost feel sorry for poor global warming fetishists whose green utopia has run headlong into economic reality.

This is one of those few, happy instances when the popular policy is also the right one.

All that remains is for high gas prices to hold long enough to bully Democrats in Congress into passing domestic drilling legislation OR give McCain and congressional Republicans an election-breaking issue come November.


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The Democrat Party

When Democrats took the House and Senate in 2006, they pledged to lower gas prices/fix the economy (somehow) and bring the troops home.

Uh, failure on both counts.

The reason for the latter failure is that cooler heads in the party prevailed and they realized the folly of allying themselves with America's enemies. Thank you, Joe Lieberman. Of course, General Petraeus' resounding success in executing President Bush's The Surge kind of took the wind out of the sails of extreme left of The Democrat Party.

On the former, Democrats, allied by a few compliant Ag-state Republicans, created a ridiculous federal program designed to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. The net result, however, has been to burn food (corn) in our gas tanks which has, along with a few other contributing factors, driven up food prices. This is fine for rich, San Francisco Democrats, but kind of sucks for those living in lesser developed countries.

Let's not forget another hoped-for benefit of Congress' command and control tendencies--specifically, that burning ethanol would be better for the environment than gas. True to the law of unintended consequences, the carbon cost of putting additional ethanol in America's gas tanks exceeds the original carbon cost of burning pure, clean gasoline.

For all the climate change fetishists, this colossal disaster (maybe not for the SF dems, but certainly for the growing ranks of the world's starving) should serve as a cautionary tale: "solve" climate change at your own risk.

But that's the problem, isn't it? Those who bring this craptastic legislation into being and those who advocate for it never have to bear the burden of its failure.


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Kelsey's Kitchen

Image link

Are you or have you ever been a fan of the Food Network? If so, be sure to tune into The Next Food Network Star every Sunday evening on, what else, the Food Network. Our friend, Kelsey Nixon, is one of the contestants. You can catch re-runs of last night's show--the first in the series--all week.

Additionally, please take the time to vote for Kelsey as your "favorite finalist." This can be done every day and holds the extra perk of entering you for some cooking implements, or something.

*UPDATE 2:51PST: There's a link to Kelsey's blog--Kelsey's Kitchen--in the right toolbar. Check it out.


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A Devil Gets His Pitchfork

We're always sad to see a fellow believer lose the faith. For that reason, we took Obama's resignation from Trinity United pretty hard. But when a supposedly faith-full decision is made for purely political reasons, what can you expect?

All of this raises a larger point that we have pointed out numerous times--mainly that Barack Obama, despite his unified rhetoric, is just like every other politician.

But that doesn't quite do it justice. Beyond choosing his church out of political expedience--Trinity United is a hugely influential church on Chicago's south side--Obama has demonstrated over and over again that the most important consideration in any decision is the political one.

Before anyone gets all in a tizzy over that last point, can anyone cite one example of a bipartisan or post-partisan stand that was politically unpopular? Anyone?

You can't because he hasn't.

Obama isn't post-partisan (whatever that means) post-race or even bipartisan. His voting record in Congress is more liberal than Hillary Clinton's.

John McCain is by far the most moderate candidate in this presidential race. Obama's prop-machine is doing it's darndest to paint him as Bush's 3rd term, a la Bush Senior, but they are so far unable because this country recognizes that McCain's maverick label is a deserved one.

Whatever we true conservatives may think about McCain's campaign finance reform and position on immigration, the independents and moderate Democrats in this country recognize that John McCain is more centrist than either of the two Democratic candidates. This is why he polls so well among those voters. It's why more states are up for grabs this November than might have been in 2004.

One point about McCain and Iraq, before we close. Before "the surge" became The Surge (!), John McCain advocated for a drastic increase in troops on the ground. Heck, he was critical of Rumsfeld's limited footprint policy from day one.

Savvy observers of the Iraq war recognize that McCain was right and that his staunch defense of our presence there and in Afghanistan, while clearly not a politically popular one (contrast again with Obama), has been emphatically affirmed.

The political gains Bush and McCain and others said would come in the wake of the security gains are happening every day. Things are drastically improved. And with that improvement, a lot of the wind has been taken out of the sails of the anti-war left.

The decision between McCain and Obama becomes clearer and clearer with each passing day: want a President willing to make tough decisions that buck partisan politics and, when necessary, popular opinion? The choice is clear: vote for John McCain.

One thing is certain. You cannot say you embrace moderate politics and choose Barack Obama over John McCain.

So, Obama & change you can believe in?

With John McCain you don't have to believe, you can know just by looking at his long record as a reformer.


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In Other News

According to the New York Post, Susan Sarandon threatened to move to Canada or Italy if John McCain wins this November. You know, because she's so patriotic.

To Sue, we would ask: do you promise?

Before and after the 2004 Presidential election many prominent leftists swore they'd flee to Canada in the event the haughty, French-looking Senator from Massachusetts (who bytheway served in Vietnam) lost. Inexplicably (and much to our dismay) they remain in the good ol' U.S. of A. Any bets on whether or not Ms. Sarandon makes good on her threat?

All of this to say, simply, that when John McCain wins in November, we think Sue will stay in the States.

(And Italians and Canadians will let out a collective sigh of relief)


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On Memoirs & Memoir Writing (re: Scott McClellan)

When writing your memoirs, be sure to keep in mind your two primary goals:

1. And by far the most important--to sell books. (duh)

[check]

2. Exculpate yourself. (also, duh)

[check & check]

Memoirs are supposed to be self-serving, so make sure yours serves you. The bigger the firestorm and more outrageous the allegations, the higher your sales will be. Cha ching, baby. Also, and this is important: take potshots at unpopular figures. It doesn't matter if what you write is true; the only thing that matters is that it confirm what people already believe.

What are you waiting for? Start writing.

Armed with these tips, you're well on your way to climbing the bestseller list, winning new friends (alienating all your old ones), making piles of cash and losing all credibility. (or was that gaining credibility?).


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Religious Generosity

This is a bit of a follow-up to our note about social conservative philanthropic attitudes toward lesser developed countries. The Journal Editorial Report brought the Hudson Institute's Index of Global Philanthropy to our attention. Among other things, this report showed that private organizations sent more than $35 billion to other nations with $8.8 billion coming from U.S. religious charity.

This report highlights a key difference between the liberal and conservative approach to charity, philanthropy and aid. Conservatives are often criticized for their skepticism of large government programs which will supposedly help the poor domestically or internationally.

It's not that conservatives don't have the bleeding hearts of their liberal friends, it's that we don't see appropriating someone else's money and creating vast government programs to spend it, while patting ourselves on the back, to be all that grand of an idea.

It's easy spending someone else's money--the "rich," for example--try spending a little of your own.

Government programs like the ones Clinton & Obama champion are simply liberal guilt for not giving, expressed in yet another bloated bureaucracy. These bloated bureaucracies serve only to create more job opportunities for self-righteous young progressives who shun the selfish and greedy business world. You know this world--the one that creates all the wealth and prosperity that allows them to fund their quest for a liberal, multi-cultural, hand-holding utopia.

Next time someone tries to peddle the canard that liberals are the only ones who care about the poor and suffering and that conservatives just want to get "theirs," well, remember that it is conservatives who actually give theirs while liberals want to spend yours.


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Memorial Day 2008

As citizens of the freest, greatest country in history, we express our gratitude for those who throughout our history, have paid the last full measure so that we, collectively, could enjoy the fruits of liberty.

Thank you also to the many men and women--among them, some of our friends--who even now defend the freedoms we hold so dear. May we never take our liberty, or those who defend it, for granted.

*UPDATE 2:53pm MST: Congressman Sam Johnson, Air Force vet, on what you can do to support the troops this Memorial Day.

**UPDATE 5:27pm MST: In today's New York Times, ignore the main op-ed and read Bill Kristol's piece about remembering Memorial Day.


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NewsBusted #2

From our friends at NewsBusters.org, today's edition of NewsBusted:





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What More Can We Say About Joe Lieberman?

Longtime readers know we are a big fan of Sen. Lieberman. He has taken strong, principled, and controversial stands on Iraq and other foreign policy issues. It was his position on Iraq that led to a Democratic primary loss to lightweight Ned Lamont (we had to look up his name in wikipedia.org). But that same position led to a general election win.

We have written about Lieberman numerous times:

Saving Lieberman
Lieberman: Making Us Proud
Can't Get Enough Lieberman
Joe Lieberman Is A Terrific American
The Choice On Iraq
Independent Joe Liberman: Still Awesome

In a speech given at a dinner hosted by Commentary magazine, he called his (former) party on the carpet. Democrats, pay attention. One particular excerpt (h/t: WSJ) bears reproducing here, as a summary simply will not do.

***

Democrats and Our Enemies
By Joseph Lieberman

How did the Democratic Party get here? How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose?

Beginning in the 1940s, the Democratic Party was forced to confront two of the most dangerous enemies our nation has ever faced: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In response, Democrats under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy forged and conducted a foreign policy that was principled, internationalist, strong and successful.

This was the Democratic Party that I grew up in – a party that was unhesitatingly and proudly pro-American, a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders. It was a party that understood that either the American people stood united with free nations and freedom fighters against the forces of totalitarianism, or that we would fall divided.

This was the Democratic Party of Harry Truman, who pledged that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."

And this was the Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy, who promised in his inaugural address that the United States would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of freedom."

This worldview began to come apart in the late 1960s, around the war in Vietnam. In its place, a very different view of the world took root in the Democratic Party. Rather than seeing the Cold War as an ideological contest between the free nations of the West and the repressive regimes of the communist world, this rival political philosophy saw America as the aggressor – a morally bankrupt, imperialist power whose militarism and "inordinate fear of communism" represented the real threat to world peace.

It argued that the Soviets and their allies were our enemies not because they were inspired by a totalitarian ideology fundamentally hostile to our way of life, or because they nursed ambitions of global conquest. Rather, the Soviets were our enemy because we had provoked them, because we threatened them, and because we failed to sit down and accord them the respect they deserved. In other words, the Cold War was mostly America's fault.

Of course that leftward lurch by the Democrats did not go unchallenged. Democratic Cold Warriors like Scoop Jackson fought against the tide. But despite their principled efforts, the Democratic Party through the 1970s and 1980s became prisoner to a foreign policy philosophy that was, in most respects, the antithesis of what Democrats had stood for under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy.

Then, beginning in the 1980s, a new effort began on the part of some of us in the Democratic Party to reverse these developments, and reclaim our party's lost tradition of principle and strength in the world. Our band of so-called New Democrats was successful sooner than we imagined possible when, in 1992, Bill Clinton and Al Gore were elected. In the Balkans, for example, as President Clinton and his advisers slowly but surely came to recognize that American intervention, and only American intervention, could stop Slobodan Milosevic and his campaign of ethnic slaughter, Democratic attitudes about the use of military force in pursuit of our values and our security began to change.

This happy development continued into the 2000 campaign, when the Democratic candidate – Vice President Gore – championed a freedom-focused foreign policy, confident of America's moral responsibilities in the world, and unafraid to use our military power. He pledged to increase the defense budget by $50 billion more than his Republican opponent – and, to the dismay of the Democratic left, made sure that the party's platform endorsed a national missile defense.

By contrast, in 2000, Gov. George W. Bush promised a "humble foreign policy" and criticized our peacekeeping operations in the Balkans.

Today, less than a decade later, the parties have completely switched positions. The reversal began, like so much else in our time, on September 11, 2001. The attack on America by Islamist terrorists shook President Bush from the foreign policy course he was on. He saw September 11 for what it was: a direct ideological and military attack on us and our way of life. If the Democratic Party had stayed where it was in 2000, America could have confronted the terrorists with unity and strength in the years after 9/11.

Instead a debate soon began within the Democratic Party about how to respond to Mr. Bush. I felt strongly that Democrats should embrace the basic framework the president had advanced for the war on terror as our own, because it was our own. But that was not the choice most Democratic leaders made. When total victory did not come quickly in Iraq, the old voices of partisanship and peace at any price saw an opportunity to reassert themselves. By considering centrism to be collaboration with the enemy – not bin Laden, but Mr. Bush – activists have successfully pulled the Democratic Party further to the left than it has been at any point in the last 20 years.

Far too many Democratic leaders have kowtowed to these opinions rather than challenging them. That unfortunately includes Barack Obama, who, contrary to his rhetorical invocations of bipartisan change, has not been willing to stand up to his party's left wing on a single significant national security or international economic issue in this campaign.

In this, Sen. Obama stands in stark contrast to John McCain, who has shown the political courage throughout his career to do what he thinks is right – regardless of its popularity in his party or outside it.

John also understands something else that too many Democrats seem to have become confused about lately – the difference between America's friends and America's enemies.

There are of course times when it makes sense to engage in tough diplomacy with hostile governments. Yet what Mr. Obama has proposed is not selective engagement, but a blanket policy of meeting personally as president, without preconditions, in his first year in office, with the leaders of the most vicious, anti-American regimes on the planet.

Mr. Obama has said that in proposing this, he is following in the footsteps of Reagan and JFK. But Kennedy never met with Castro, and Reagan never met with Khomeini. And can anyone imagine Presidents Kennedy or Reagan sitting down unconditionally with Ahmadinejad or Chavez? I certainly cannot.

If a president ever embraced our worst enemies in this way, he would strengthen them and undermine our most steadfast allies.

A great Democratic secretary of state, Dean Acheson, once warned "no people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies." This is a lesson that today's Democratic Party leaders need to relearn.

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Links! Links! Links!

Climate Change

- More Bjørn Lomborg. This time, you can read him in his own words in an op-ed he wrote for The Guardian, a British newspaper. Our opinion on Climate Change pretty well matches his--it's reasonable, empirical, and realistic.

- Lomborg Part II - Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review Online editor, interviewed Lomborg on the intersection of Climate Change and politics. Very interesting read.

Miscellaneous

- Jason L. Riley, member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board and pro-immigrationist, wrote about the problem of multiculturalism. Check out, Keep the Immigrants, Deport the Multiculturalists.

- In probably the best article we've read this year on the conservative outlook, Roger Kimball wrote an article entitled Conservative Gloominess. From that article:

Progressives cannot wrap their minds (or, more to the point, their hearts) around this irony: that “reform” so regularly exacerbates either the evil it was meant to cure or another evil it had hardly glimpsed.

- Looking for responsible energy policy? Larry Kudlow weighed in against cap & trade and tentatively in favor of a carbon tax.

- We wrote about it earlier this week when we quoted Pres. Bush's speech to the Knesset and asked readers to find "Barack Obama" in the speech. No one has succeeded yet. Mark Steyn, as usual, does a better job lampooning Obama and his Democrat apologists for their foreign policy idiocy--an idiocy which is even more indefensible in this instance than usual (no mean feat).

- Re: The appeasers in the Democratic party (and those among the Republicans): This, quote of the day:

Liberals think the way to deal with dangerous tyrants is to send in a sensitive president who will make Ahmadinejad fall in love with him. They imagine Obama becoming Ahmadinejad's psychotherapist, like Barbra Streisand in "The Prince of Tides.

- This next article, written by David Ranson, head of research at H.C. Wainwright & Co. Economics Inc., wrote about tax policy, much-maligned supply-siders, and the state of economic research. (subscription required, email us for a copy)

- Naomi Schaeffer Riley interviewed Roger Hertog about philanthropy and the cause of conservatism in higher education. Very interesting read.

- From the Seattle Times, a newspaper we usually only read for their sports coverage, on Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. This is quite the plane requiring a whole new style of production.

- Our fav. economist, Thomas Sowell, gave his recommended summer reading list.

- Finally, Dan Henninger, the other columnist we read without fail each week, on China and Burma and why non-democratic countries suck. It's summed up in the title, Democracies Don't Let People Die, but there's more to it than that. This is push-back against multiculturalists who think all governments, societies, and cultures are equally good, with no one better than the other.

*UPDATE 7:50pm MST: Pendulum Politics

- buruboi on the European demographics. This is a topic that interests us greatly. We'll leave it to buruoi to explain, but European demographics are such that their massive entitlement/welfare state programs are wholly unsustainable. This, combined with unemployment rates that are sometimes double the U.S.'s combine to create a dismal prognosis for Europe's economic future--Western & Northern Europe that is.

Countries in Eastern Europe and Ireland have produced low tax, pro-growth policies similar to the U.S.'s which should help them avoid the future pit and pratfalls of their euro-neighbors.

- RD on Moderation in U.S. politics. We read his post as an economic critique on the policies of the left and right. As in, apply a systematic way to value the priorities of both sides--his examples are the environment & abortion--and then compromise. This seems like wise counsel.

His critique of advocates on the right, so-called pro-lifers, is unfair and unsupported by empirical evidence. He says that the Right cares more about the lives of the unborn than it does people in less-developed countries. The truth is that religious organizations and self-described conservatives donate hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to charities and humanitarian philanthropies organizations around the world every year. Donations in the wake of the 2004 Tsunami are an illustrative example. (see the list of NGO donations).

RD, we agree with your call for moderation, but your critique of the pro-life right's motivations is not accurate.

**UPDATE 22 May 10:31am MST: Ben's assertion regarding a supposed contrast between Reagan, Nixon, (Olmert) responsible diplomacy and Bush's "chest beating" is inaccurately characterized--not least of all because liberals in the '80's used to bash Reagan for being a cowboy (Evil Empire, ramped up military spending, Star Wars, Iran-Contra, etc.).

The meme Ben (and Obama) willfully misread into Bush's comments is that we should never engage in diplomacy. But Bush never said that. This was not the point of Bush's Knesset speech.

It was that Obama's tea-with-Tyrants and Carter's handholding-with-Hamas/Hezbollah is irresponsible and ignorant of reality. Meeting without precondition with tyrants and rogue terrorist states gains American nothing while lending prestige and legitimacy to thugs who kill American soldiers and threaten America and her allies.

When Nixon went to China, it was the result of 134 secret meetings, 18 months "behind-the-scenes" discussions by Henry Kissinger, and another 7 months of diplomatic hard work. (h/t: S. Lybbert)

Similarly, Olmert has not personally met with the Syrians--neither has the Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni. We (OL&L) and the U.S. may not like the result or tenor of the talks between the Israelis and the Syrians, but they are low-level meetings (thanks Kurt M.) with preconditions--not direct, POTUS-to-thug meetings w/o preconditions as Obama naively suggested.

Like Ben, we are frustrated with the Bush Administration's failure to stop Iran from killing American soldiers in Iraq and their continued nuclear development. To a lesser extent, we're frustrated with North Korea's continued belligerence.

But these failures do not invalidate Bush's Knesset speech, nor do they mean that the next President should meet with every two-bit terrorist in the world. There are lessons to be learned from Bush's failures, but Obama's is the wrong one.


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NewsBusted

We have long been a fan of news and political comedy--late night monologues (especially Conan O'Brien), The Colbert Report, Weekend Update, Dennis Miller, etc.--and our internship with OpinionJournal Federation member NewsBusters.org brought their twice-weekly news comedy short to our attention.

Check it out.




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Let's Play: "Where's Obama?"

See if you can find "Barack Obama" in the following quote:

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

We didn't think so. The American Senator, besides being alive in 1939 (we believe Obama was born in 1961), was an isolationist Republican from Idaho.

Obama's response is, btw, the definition of narcissism.

But hey, if the shoe fits.


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We've Got Some News For Senator Obama

Obedwards? Really?

If only Obama and his handlers could be so good to Republicans. Running against an Obama-Edwards ticket would be a dream come true for John McCain.

Is John Edwards supposed to help Senator Obama with blue collar Democrats? Edwards is the guy who spends hundreds of dollars on hair cuts, lives in a multi-million dollar mansion, and made his money as a trial lawyer (admittedly, a strong Democratic constituency).

Obama's ignorance of West Virginia and Kentucky is of a piece with his "bitter" comments in San Francisco. We know how some of our Democratic friends feel about "small-town hicks." They, like their fav. candidate, can barely conceal their contempt for these people and their favorite issues.

As our friend Morgan would say, "we've got a newsflash for you, Walter Cronkite," Obama is going to need these voters to win the election in the fall. Otherwise, he'll be just another Michael Dukakis.

***

Speaking of Republican electoral dreams, liberals seem hell-bent on aligning the stars for Republicans in a year when they need everything to go right to win the White House or even hope to maintain seats (to say nothing of picking up new ones) in Congress. We're talking, of course, about the California Supreme Court decision to allow gay marriage. This, in defiance of 61% of California voters who, in 2000, voted in favor of an initiative defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Word out of California is that gay marriage opponents will have sufficient signatures to put a California State Constitution amendment on the ballot this November defining, once again, marriage as between a man and a woman.

In an uninspiring year for conservative voters, this could be just the thing to get them out to vote. And if they're already there voting on this amendment, it's likely they'll also vote for John McCain (and other conservative Republicans).

(evil genius alert: this ruling is probably one of Karl Rove's sinister plans)


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Why Karl Rove Is So Awesome

We've been thinking about this one for awhile. If you've been reading for the last couple of months, you no doubt read our posted notes from Rove's visit to our hometown.

Dubbed The Architect, Rove is pretty much either loved or hated--with no middle ground--depending on your political persuasion. But even Democrats grudgingly admit that he is good at what he does, referring to him as an evil genius.

To our mind, there are two things that separate him from other social scientists--specifically political scientists. We have taken lots of classes from lots of different social scientists. We've attended conferences with them and TA'd for them and read articles by them and watched them comment on TV and on and on.

Obviously, there are lots of other smart poly sci guys--lots of other intelligent political consultants. But Karl Rove is arguably the most influential (according to the Telegraph, he's #1) and successful of his breed for two specific reasons: 1. he is an incredibly able communicator/teacher and 2. he is not condescending.

We watch a lot of political coverage on TV and we read countless articles a day--the point is, Rove is by far the best at explaining sometimes complex and nuanced concepts. No one else, really, comes close. And we suspect that he could explain complex things to anyone who took the time to listen to him. This is rare. We have listened to pundits explain things we already understand and thought, "they just made that even more difficult and complex than it already was." We never think that listening to Rove.

The second thing--not being arrogant or condescending--is of equal importance. This seems to be the cardinal sin of academics--especially social scientists and especially political scientists. Their know-it-alledness just bleeds into everything they teach and say and it is incredibly off putting. They may very well have all the answer to the world's problems, but no one is going to listen to them if they present it in an arrogant manner.

This is part of the reason Rove is so persuasive, he comes off as an average guy. And he is anything but average. This is a talent we wish we had: the ability to first understand and then explain for the average or casual observer, complex and nuanced concepts.

*UPDATE 14 May 12:52am MST: Karl Rove on John McCain in the Wall Street Journal. The more we learn about John McCain, the better we like him.

Can anyone say that about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?

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Would Obama Wear This Lapel Pin?

Image link

The LA Times political blog, Top of the Ticket, has the story.
YouTube video.

Maybe if he were wearing "false patriotism" on his lapel, he could have done a quick count before misspeaking.

Remember when Obama insinuated that McCain was too old because he said that Iran was supporting Sunni insurgents in Iraq? You know, even though intelligence has proven than Iran (ostensibly Shiite) is playing both sides in Iraq.

What are we to conclude about the fact that Obama doesn't know how many states there are?

We aren't going to make any conclusions about Obama's intelligence or judgment or age based on this gaffe. To do so would be ridiculous. But so are Obama's subtle comments referring to McCain's supposed senility.

Give the agism a rest, Obamaniacs. Everyone says stupid things--even your prince of articulateness.


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Weekend Links

It's not much of a link post--just three articles. But all three are very good.
(edit: 5 articles)
(2nd edit: 6 articles)

- First up, "Why $70 Million Wasn't Enough." This was maybe the most entertaining article we read last year. It's tangible proof of something we've discussed with the guys at Pendulum Politics--specifically, that CEO pay has to compete with the guys in hedge funds and private equity.

- Next, an enlightening article about Bill Cosby and black conservatism. It's good and informative, but reader beware w/regards to the author's interpretation of African American history.

James Q. Wilson has shown that slavery caused by far the greatest damage to the black family. And Thomas Sowell's research has proven that African American families were gaining ground economically on white families prior to Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" and some of the other bad policy to come out of that era.

- Finally, from Commentary magazine, an in depth look at "the anatomy of The Surge."

*UPDATE 11 May 11:58pm MST: (hat tip: S. Lybbert) A friendly reminder for those who still think we should/could exit Iraq and everything would be hunky-dory. Popular historian Arthur Herman wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the lives lost after the US withdrew its support in Cambodia and Vietnam. Democrats can close their eyes and plug their ears but it wasn't pretty.

In other news, we still fail to understand the logic of those who argue for intervention in Darfur, but want the US to immediately withdraw from Iraq. Uh, ok.

**UPDATE 11 May 11:59pm MST: (hat tip: Matt Lybbert) We're not experts, but we are economically literate. Check out this article by David Leonhardt in the New York Times on the future potential of economics to solve social problems. (yes, that New York Times)

***UPDATE 12 May 1:03pm MST (h/t: Matt Lybbert): Which of the three remaining candidates is least populist? We think that award should go to John McCain. You see, McCain remains in favor of Nafta and is one of the few and definitely the most visible politician arguing for the virtues of free trade. Check out this article, another from the NYT.


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Happy Birthday, Israel

60 years.

That's how long modern Israel has been in existence. Considering its precarious position in the Middle East, their mere existence is quite an accomplishment. But they've achieved more than just survival.

Today, Israel is a modern, successful democracy experiencing strong economic growth. And this, despite Hezbollah Katyushas and Hamas suicide bombers.

Felicitations, Israel.

*UPDATE 12 May 1:22am MST: We agree with Mark Steyn, Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East (may Iraq soon join it). His article, commemorating Israel's 60th anniversary and commenting on the challenges it faces, is a must-read.


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End of the Road

We're almost as sad to see Hillary Clinton leave the race as we were to see Romney's exit. Any bets on whether or not her exit speech will be as classy as Romney's?

But we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves.

The Former Clinton Advisor (the world is full of 'em, isn't it?) we listened to this morning doesn't think she'll drop out until 3 June at the earliest. That means we've got, what, 3 more weeks of wackiness left? Whatever it takes to keep Barack fighting on two fronts.

Because, and we'll be honest here, we need the help. It's a theme we've touched on before, but Hillary's attack dogs have done a good job of de-canonizing Barack. Rev. Wright and his comments about Obama being just another politician helped too.

And even if it didn't really show up in the Democratic primary, you can bet it will in the general election. There, the moderates/independents/undecideds who aren't sipping the kool-aid will take a hard look at Barack's unity rhetoric and his divisive relationships and decide if reality matches His Airiness.

(it doesn't)

Because the truth is, he's just another San Francisco Democrat who has been able to mask his condescension in platitudes about change and hope. Or should we say Change! and Hope!. Yeah, that's better.

But we're not so wonkish that we think this Presidential election should be a non-stop policy debate. There is more to being President than just advocating another social or economic whatever policy. We are electing a man (or, and this one hangs by a thread, woman) full of world views and attitudes and personality and their life philosophy, how they see America and her place in the world and how they view everything from her history, the Founders, etc., will shape how they will be as President and what types of decisions they will make when the proverbial hits the fan.

We debate all the time with friends (usually libertarian leaning) who do not care about abortion as a political issue. We care about it because it is part of a bigger issue about the question of life. Questions about how someone comes into this life and how they exit it are important.

And even if the President may not author legislation one way or the other about abortion, what he thinks about it is important to us. Because the Presidency of the United States of America is more than just signing Congressional legislation and nominating Supreme Court judges (all important), it's about being the leader of the greatest country in the world and, as such, holding forth on all the important issues.

You may not like President Bush, but the the ability of the President to influence and persuade on a number of issues is incredibly powerful and does affect public opinion. This is why we want a President who matches our worldview as closely as possible.


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"Climate Change" &c.

- It's important to note that we didn't say no government, we argued for and will continue to argue for less government.

Every generation of government planners thinks they are smarter than the last, that they can solve the problems their predecessors could not through better targeted planning, etc.

Of course there is a role for government involvement through regulation and oversight, we just don't think government is the answer to all problems or even most problems.

Can anyone really point at Europe and say, "success!"? Their demographics can't support their welfare states and for the last 10 years, they've been pointing towards the U.S. and mimicking our regulation reducin', tax lowerin', ways. Eastern Europe is probably the best example of this trend, though the same thing has been happening with extreme success in Ireland and nearby Scotland, with their newfound power under devolution, is moving in the same direction.

The most successful Asian tiger? Hong Kong. And does anywhere have as low of taxes and little regulation as Hong Kong?

Ah, Milton Friedman.

- Have global warmists started calling it "climate change" because they don't really know what's going to happen to the weather? If so, how does that make them any different to the weatherman who can't predict what's going to happen beyond a 4 day forecast and even then, with very little accuracy.

(no, we don't doubt climate change just because weathermen can't predict the weather)

Don't call us climate change "deniers." We're skeptics.

Philosophically and broadly, we agree with Bjørn Lomborg. His prognosis for global warming is that the drastic measures many call for would have little impact and that the resources spent trying to reduce carbon output would be better spent helping the poor in lesser developed countries. And further, that a dynamic economy, unhampered by global warming restrictions, combined with human ingenuity, would best solve any future global warming problem.

Obviously this explanation is very simplistic, so don't dismiss Lomborg based on our explanation. He just seems eminently reasonable. And it's that reasonableness that seems to be lacking among most of the global warming true believers.

- What the latest problem global warming (er, climate change) hath wrought?

In U.S.-America, food prices tied even more than usual to rising fuel costs because of government mandated ethanol production and limits on ethanol importation.

(food responds to increases in fuel prices because.... corn prices respond to demand for ethanol, corn production responds to demands for ethanol, corn replaces other crops in production reducing the supply of wheat, potatoes, etc., food prices rise, the poor suffer)

But for the wine and cheese, Prius driving, San Francisco Democrats who patted themselves on the back for their green efforts, the costs are low. As so often happens with these ill-conceived and ill-implemented government mandates, the poor in lesser developed countries pay the price. The price? Starvation.

What if there is a more invidious force at work here than the simple law of unintended consequences? What if some global warmists wanted population reduction in lesser developed countries?

If you follow the intellectual history of the extreme left of the enviro movement, this won't seem like such a farfetched idea.

We don't normally traffic in conspiracy theories, but whacko environmentalists have been calling for population limits ever since Thomas Malthus. His ideas were retreaded by Paul Ehrlich and Jared Diamond.

Remember that idiot columnist from USA Today we linked to last week? Yeah. He called for population limits as a religious/moral duty.

And did anyone catch the news about the couple in Florida who decided not to have children in order to reduce their carbon footprint? Besides our obvious delight at them self-selecting themselves out of existence, their example highlights the incongruity of the population reductionists (double meaning intended).

If they have no children, for whom, exactly, are they preserving the environment?

We only wish that all idiots would make the same, no children decision.

*UPDATE 3 May 3:47pm MST: RD properly chided Clinton and McCain for their "summer break" tax cut. However, his "kudos" to Obama was misplaced. Though he opposes the summer break tax cut on gas, he wants to impose a windfall tax on oil companies. Yeah, that's a good idea. From today's WSJ op-ed on the three Presidential candidate's populist proposals:

This tiff over gas and oil taxes only highlights the intellectual policy confusion – or perhaps we should say cynicism – of our politicians. They want lower prices but don't want more production to increase supply. They want oil "independence" but they've declared off limits most of the big sources of domestic oil that could replace foreign imports. They want Americans to use less oil to reduce greenhouse gases but they protest higher oil prices that reduce demand. They want more oil company investment but they want to confiscate the profits from that investment. And these folks want to be President?

Domestic drilling? In favor. ANWR drilling? Also, in favor.


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