Sunday, October 12, 2008Scary thought for the dayVictor Davis Hanson notes: And even then I would withhold judgment had Obama earned any record of success rather than played on identity politics. He had no distinguished record as an undergraduate at Columbia (so far as we can tell, given his refusal to release his transcripts) that would have won entry to Harvard Law School. Once there, he published nothing, in contrast to past editors at the Law Review. There is no record that his community organizing helped any but the career of Obama, and many of the Rezko projects are now boarded up. As a state legislator there is no record of legislative achievement, but plenty of ‘present’ votes to prepare for further career aggrandizement. As a Chicago Law Professor, there is not a single scholarly article of the sort Chicago insists on for everyone else. And as a US Senator, there is essentially a campaign for president from the day he was sworn in. So, yes, there is a pattern or rhetoric at the expense of achievement.Comes the question: If Obama has spent his entire career preparing for the next rung up the ladder, what does he do when as President he's reached the top? Some will say he starts running for his second term from day one (shades of Clinton). Others - the more paranoid - think he will run for Maximum Leader. I'm beginning to think it's most likely though that we're looking at another George H.W. Bush. There is a difference, of course: Bush believed in service, Obama believes in Obama. But neither of them stands for a grand idea outside of their identity - Bush the Northeastern steward, Obama the emblem of Hope and Change. I'm not the best at predictions and I've blown my share of calls. But if I had to make my guess, the upshot of an Obama presidency, should we fail to ward it off, is not the revelation of a sinister hidden agenda but the discovery of an ideological vacuum where the only things that happen are those that reinforce the branding of The One. 
posted by gbarto at 4:45 PM
Saturday, October 04, 2008Scary thought of the day, in a Pajamas Media comments section:Chilloutyo:
posted by gbarto at 11:44 AM
Saturday, September 27, 2008When Criticizing Obama is Outlawed, Only Outlaws will Criticize ObamaObama's general counsel has sent letters to a bunch of television stations saying that an NRA ad against Obama is wrong (as determined by the Washington Post) so: 1) the stations aren't required to run it 2) they're liable for the content of the ads The claim is based on a string of cases, all tangential to the matter at hand. The bottom line, though: If you don't want to risk your broadcast license or fines, all you have to do is take down the ads our campaign doesn't like. *** Supporters of Obama in Missouri, meanwhile, are promising to use their full powers as prosecutor and sheriff to stop unfair speech against Obama. Since libel and slander are civil crimes, and since politicians running for office enjoy only the weakest protections against potentially defamatory speech, it's a little bit mysterious what they could actually do. But, again, it's not about whether or not you have the right to disagree with Obama and express your disagreement. It's about making people just a little bit more nervous about speaking up because of the cost in time and money that might be required to defend your rights. Here's the initial Instapundit post on Barack Obama's suppression of free speech, with lots of links. And here's the latest. So just remember, if you don't have anything nice to say about Obama, shut up before you wind up in court.
posted by gbarto at 8:31 PM
The Debates I didn't see the debates. From what I read, a lot of people didn't. Instapundit wonders: Could it be that outside of the political-junkie crowd people just aren't that excited about this election?Or maybe, it's that people inside the political-junkie class aren't that excited. At Commentary, John Podhoretz estimates viewership at around 50 million and says: The overnight ratings aren’t the final tabulation; they are a sample, and the numbers can grow when the whole nation is factored in. Even so, at best, it appears this debate will still trail Bush-Kerry’s. That is surprising, considering the historic nature of this election and the supposed universe of engaged new voters we’ve been hearing about all year.But according to the people running and the people jockeying for ratings, every election is the most historic ever. And according to the campaigns, there are always tons of new people who are as excited as all get-out at the chance to rally for candidate X. In reality, the new engaged people that Barack Obama is supposedly rallying rarely seem to know the news from last week's Time magazine, never mind what's in the news today. They don't need to watch the debates because they know who they're voting for and the facts have little to do with it. As for McCain, a large sector of the political junkie class on the conservative side is voting Republican in spite of him. If there's a desire to watch him mop up the floor with Obama, it's because we're rooting against Obama, not because we're for him. So the urgency of firing up the boob tube for the debates is rather less. This will be my second campaign without television, and I'm loving every minute of it. I'm glad McCain seemed to hold his own and even score some points because I think he'll keep us on the offensive in the war on terror and screw up the country less than Obama. But in this election I'm not exactly hunting for YouTube clips or commentaries because that sentiment of rooting for the home team isn't nearly as strongly as it was with Bush. No idea how far out of the mainstream I am on this, but it's fair to suppose that if McCain pulls off a win he may be put over the top not by a last minute building of enthusiasm but a surge in conservative resignation to the need to do the needful.
posted by gbarto at 2:50 PM
Wednesday, September 24, 2008Is it time to nationalize the banks?Over the last couple decades, we have had a very nice system in place: The bankers give Congress lots of money. The Congress passes laws favoring the bankers. The bankers issue credit like crazy and collect bonuses on all the interest they would have gathered if only the loans had been good. The loans go bad, the bankers leave with their bonuses and a new group of bankers gets help from the Congress and Washington's other institutions to keep the game going since the banks are "too big to fail." The secondary remedy for saving banks that are too big to fail is to merge them with other banks, thus creating ever larger banks whose failure would pose ever more dire consequences for the economy. The balls kept in the air a little longer, the politicians claim credit for expanding home ownership, etc, while hoping that if we can just juggle a few more balls, we'll make it through the next election cycle before the process restarts. * * * Since we've nationalized failure, it would be tempting to nationalize success as well. Right now, we have a lot of inefficiencies in the system to make it harder to see the extent to which our politicians and bankers manipulate things to insure their re-election and their bonuses respectively. The problem with nationalization, of course, is that it would probably just improve the efficiency with which these two parties messed with our economic well-being for their own purposes. It's time to figure out what "too big to fail" actually means. We should let more banks fail. And if it means a credit crunch while we sort out the mess, that is something we'll have to negotiate. Because right now, we're just setting the stage for the next bailout to prevent a credit crunch, a loss of faith in the financial system or whatever the excuse du jour is. Are we headed for a catastrophe? Absolutely. Are we already there? Quite possibly. Are we doing the same thing we always do? You bet. Which means we're headed for the same results. It's time to try something new. Maybe even real capitalism, with all the scariness that comes with the Schumpeteerian "creative destruction." Post-script: In 1993, it was learned that French Prime Minister Pierre Bérégovoy was living in a damn fine apartment thanks to a sweetheart deal with some backers. His party was thrown out, and one afternoon he took a walk in the park and shot himself. While I would wish no physical harm to Senator Chris Dodd and friends, the comparison is instructive. It's time our political class found a little shame for their role in this.
posted by gbarto at 12:51 PM
Monday, September 15, 2008Did Obama negotiate to prolong the Iraq war until He could be The One who ended it?If so, forget the Logan Act... Just stare on in breathless wonder at the arrogance. But first, remember the source ain't perfect. The source for the latest rumors, Amir Taheri, has a less than perfect record on this stuff, so don't shout it from the rooftops till we know more. But, word on the street (via Insty) is that The One asked the Iraqis to hold off on making arrangements for drawing down U.S. forces till after the election. There are questions raised about whether this violates the Logan Act, but while such actions could be taken to subvert the foreign policy of our elected government, I don't think that's the right reading here... Sure, Obama runs around with former terrorists who thought they were going to overthrow the evil American government. But don't think he's Bill Ayers' disciple. Anything Obama does is, first and foremost, about Obama. Which means, if this is true, that his actions were probably rooted not in treason, but in vanity: He wants to be the one to bring the troops home, even if they have to wait for him to do it. The one scary note: The few responses I've seen on the left are not dismissing the charge, but arguing why it's overblown. Anyway, I've got one comment to make that I believe will stand regardless of how this plays out: If you want the troops to come home when the time is right, vote for McCain. If you want the troops to come home when the time is right for Obama, you can vote the other way.
posted by gbarto at 11:04 PM
Sunday, September 14, 2008Obama: Vote for me! I can type better than John McCain!If you put this with Joe Biden's call for a man in a wheelchair to stand up, it becomes pretty clear the Democratic ticket is about as clueless and insensitive about disabilities as you can get. For the record, McCain goes through his personal e-mail with his wife. But since injuries incurred as a POW in Vietnam make it hard for him to type, e-mail is a thing he watches being done rather than doing himself. Had the web-savvy Obama campaign mastered google, they would have known this, as this Hot Air piece makes clear. Also for the record, at last public demonstration Joe Biden apparently can't heal the lame. It's not like he's Obama or something. All old news, of course. But just in case the aggregators are counting, I thought it worth putting one more reminder out there that yes, Obama made fun of a Vietnam POW's typing skills, and his campaign thought itself quite clever for doing so.
posted by gbarto at 2:17 PM
Wednesday, September 10, 2008Biden and BentsenWe know that Obama's no JFK, but is Joe Biden the new Lloyd Bentsen? Bentsen, it will be remembered, decided that just because he was Dukakis' running mate didn't mean he was going to risk not having the Senate to fall back on. Now Biden has offered this: "Make no mistake about this," Biden responded. "Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight. She’s a truly close personal friend, she is qualified to be president of the United States of America, she’s easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America, and quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me. But she’s first rate, I mean that sincerely, she’s first rate, so let’s get that straight."Commenter Rita says, I'm beginning to agree with Biden, not because I think Hillary would have been a better pick, but because Biden cannot even produce confidence in the ticket!!! What is he trying to do?Others are suggesting that Biden's an idiot or a buffoon. True enough, but in this case, he's got it right. Just as Lloyd Bentsen protected himself from the fallout over the Dukakis disaster, old Joe Biden is making sure he'll be prepared to return to the Senate as senior statesman Senator Biden, not be demoted to assistant loser, if the Obama slide continues. Which suggests that if you're a Democrat running for President, picking an old Washington hand as your running mate might not be the best strategy: They've gotten where they are because they know how to play the game and keep their options open, and that doesn't mean sacrificing their own careers or stature so this season's flash in the pan will have a better shot at power.
posted by gbarto at 10:30 PM
Tuesday, September 09, 2008Obama didn't really call Palin a pig, but he set himself up to be accused of it.Obama tossed this out in a speech a little earlier: "You can put lipstick on a pig," he said as the crowd cheered. "It's still a pig."Now you don't have to have studied literary symbolism in grad school (though I did) to know that Palin is the pig and McCain is the old fish. But that doesn't mean Obama was tagging either of them with these labels in any literal sense. Imagine that one person at a company worked hard and kept to himself while another person complained incessantly about the pay and conditions. Imagine, then, that the complainer got rewarded with a modest raise while a share of his work got dumped on the first poor sap. You might be inclined to say, "The squeaky wheel got the grease." This in no way implies that the person in question was round with spokes or spoke in falsetto. Likewise, Obama didn't say that Palin is a pig or McCain is an old fish. He made remarks about them using common analogies to make his point. But... just because Barack isn't in the wrong here, doesn't mean he's in the right. This is the man who has told us countless times what a faceless "They" will say to the public about him. And he's made it pretty clear that any criticism of him is to be dismissed as a racist lie. Having deliberately tried by his rhetoric to create a climate where we're hypersensitive to the most anodyne remark, he must now live in that climate, fighting for piety points with all the rest of society's aggrieved. I tell ya, Barack, as a lover of language, of rhetoric and of politics, I hate to see it come to this, hate to see a world where you can't toss out a single good zinger without everyone coming after you. But you're the one who brought us here. If you're really The One, maybe you can lead us back. Naah.
posted by gbarto at 9:12 PM
Monday, September 01, 2008Apocalypse NotGustav could have been worse. It wasn't. So says Brendan Loy, the Weather Nerd for PJM. I remember Brendan's commentary in the run-up to Katrina - he's solid on this stuff. He says that it was right to evacuate given the data at the time, so keep the snark at a minimum about that. But if you're watching cable news people standing in the wind acting like they're reporting from the disaster of the century, yes, snark there is appropriate. Note, though, that it's folks like the Weather Nerd who were beginning to scale back forecasts and offer optimistic scenarios along with the pessimistic yesterday - and were right - instead of just trying to sell disaster stories. If you want smart commentary, go to the blogs. Meantime, it's worth noting a Category 2 hurricane still isn't any fun if you're right there. Thoughts and prayers for the folks in Houma.
posted by gbarto at 8:46 AM
|
Archives
|
Old TurkeyBlog here.
