Barackonomics; or Obama Conflicted II

First, it was the big press conference last Friday. The one with all the big-shot executives lining the stage behind him; looking almost like the line up of the old Soviet commie-party big-shots on Lenin’s tomb on the May Day parade. Now, we have news that Obama is trying to get Bush to push a big auto bail-out before he takes office. What’s with President ultra-cool’s sudden attachment to gray-haired honkies who dress like Republicans. You know that Obama’s beginning to realize that he really got a lot more than he bargained for on November 4th. 

He’s got an economy that’s tanking and, now with Detroit, he’s got one piece of the economy that really counts since he’s got to throw a lifeline to his buddies in the UAW. Giving Obama the benefit of the doubt, that he is indeed a student of history, I suspect that he realizes that he inherits the mantle of power as Hoover and not FDR. 

He was supposed to waltz into the Oval Office and like Divine Caesar distribute largess to his adoring masses (there was a reason for the pillars at Denver, too bad he didn’t wear a toga). Largess from the wealth of a nation that hasn’t known a serious downturn since Reagan. ACORN and Ayers were to finally reap the benefits of the Long March from the days of Weatherman radicalism to the peak of power of the Presidency. Now, their acolyte, Obama, would dispense free abortions, free medical care, free day care and reparations. Never mind the three R’s, our children would be brainwashed with rain-forest-math. This was the election that would push America past the tipping point to a new future as the newest member of the EU. The New Socialist Man finally stepped onto the shores of America.

But, there’s a short shelf-life to Obama’s slight of hand. A slight of hand that needed to be pulled off before the American public gets over its November 4th temper tantrum. Obama, Reid and Pelosi have about a six-month window of opportunity to jam their socialist remake of America through.

Except. We got a little wrinkle in the plan. Six weeks before the election, the cupboard was stripped clean; thanks to ACORN and the Community Reinvestment Act. And Freddie. And Fannie. The symbiotic parasitic relationship between ACORN and our economy will no longer work.  

Moreover, the ACORN economic paradigm of economic redistribution works on two assumptions. The first is that you have a booming economy that will provide the slack to allow you to sell the snake oil of redistribution. You have a time when everyone is so flush, that they’ll just pay you to just go away; kinda like when a bunch of ACORN activists, Alinsky-style, would make a lot of noise in your bank lobby. And, you had enough economic slack to sell the conceits of such enviro-idiocies as global warming, cap-and-trade and very expensive battery powered cars.

The second assumption is that you have the economic slack to extort. Now, all of a sudden, you need to keep the old car running since you don’t have the dinero to run down to Toyota for your Prius. All of a sudden, you need to do icky things like drill for oil, here, because gas over two dollars per gallon is really getting expensive. Now, you need to put down that Starbucks Latte and actually sully your hands doing dirty uncool tasks that you used to outsource to some third-world country swarming with inconsequential people like the one you hire to mow your lawn (or some “bitter” rubes in Western Pennsylvania). Now, all of a sudden, having a job, never mind the carbon footprint, is what really matters.

All of a sudden Obama’s glib rhetoric is starting to catch up. Comments trashing small businessmen like Joe-the-Plumber. Or, glib comments of using cap-and-trade to bankrupt the coal industry. The market is listening and taking Obama at his word. And, it is dwindling. 

Instead of a bunch of suits from established corporations, all having their fingers in the federal pie, Obama needed to have a bunch of Joe-the-Plumbers on stage at his last Friday’s new conference. He needed, onstage, not the Bill Gates of 2008, but the Bill Gates of 1980, when Microsoft overturned the world of IBM and lived to tell. But, who wants icky Joe up on the stage; he of such piddling attainments compared to Obama’s oh-so lofty intellectual stature from Columbia, Harvard and the University of Chicago. Come on, what business does a plumber, for God’s sake, have poking his nose in such deep economic matters that only the Messiah can hope to understand. 

If Obama is more of a student of history than Biden, besides realizing that FDR didn’t get on a yet-to-be-invented TV in 1929, he’d realize, that from 1929 to 1932, it was Hoover who mismanaged the economy. And, he now stands in Hoover’s, and not FDR’s, shoes. But, Barry, never you mind my senseless pratings and you just “manage” the economy just like Hoover. You just do a Smoot and Hawley and kill free trade. Come 2012, Sarah Palin is going to do to you what FDR did to Hoover in 1932.

 

 

 

 

Market Wisdom and the Discounting of the Democrats

The Market slide continues.  The MSM has successfully hidden a lot of the truth of Obama and his socialist, that is, Democratic Party fellow travelers.  But, the markets don’t lie and the truth is slowly leaking out.  Unfortunately, while a lie will travel half way around the world while the truth is just saddling up.  And, one week till the election is just too short a time for the truth to truly resonate.

What is being discounted?  Foremost is the slow accretion of policies that have diverged from the simple message of Reagan of low taxes and low regulation. 

First, the markets are discounting the fundamental deceit of socialism.  The whole premise of socialism is using the coercive power of government to take from what are deemed less deserving groups and giving what is taken to what are deemed more deserving groups.  What is deemed more or less deserving is entirely left to the whim of the self-made philosopher kings of Obama and his party stalwarts.  

But, in making those distinctions, some how a lot of cash manages to remain in the pockets of those philosopher kings.  Like Franklin Raines recent multi-million dollar condo purchase.  Like Obama’s 1.5 million dollar mansion with some discounting courtesy Rezko and a sweet heart mortgage.  Like Michele’s job promotion and a doubling her salary to $300,000 per annum.  Like the hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign cash to each of the Democrat congressional leaders from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Or, the special loans to Dodd, Senator from the great state of Countrywide.  This is no different than the Communist Party leaders of the old USSR being whisked to work in their Zil limousines or spending their weekends in their country dachas. 

This is crony capitalism.  Or, for a party hacks like Obama, this is Chicago Machine party graft and favors.  Obama mastered that system and is being richly rewarded.

Restraint in taxing and spending is dictated by maintaining a delicate symbiosis between the host that is the private sector and the parasite that is the government.  It about fleecing your sheep to within an inch of their lives; yet keep your sheep alive to so as to have something to continue to fleece.

There was a very successful economic paradigm established by Reagan that the Democrats managed to destroy by their corruption.  Now they are on the verge of seizing power trying to sell the proposition that the current economic crisis is a failure of free market economics.  Only, the markets are not buying that the what has worked so well for the last thirty years is now suddenly decrepit and will be replace by a socialist economic paradigm that will, in spite of its abysmal record over the last century, all of a sudden perform in a manner that will completely belie its past performance.

The next issue is energy.  This is tightly tied to the conceit of environmentalism and it current bandwagon of global warming.  And, this will be one of the principal vehicles to burden our economy with regulations that will allow  economic micro-management right down to the carbon footprint of the weed whacker in your garage.  It will also create vast opportunities for graft and favors as business, large and small, will need to pay tribute to the cap-and-trade commissars that will stand astride all business and economic aspirations of all of our Joe-the-Plumbers.

Attempt after attempt has been made to come up with a rational energy policy that have been stymied by the very forces that now threaten to control the White House and both houses of Congress.  In fact, if it weren’t political suicide, you’d have European style gas taxes and five, six, seven dollar per gallon gas years ago.  In fact, for many of these same Democrats, the four-dollar per gallon gas of last summer was a dream come true.

All of this mess concerning energy comes down to down the line opposition to domestic offshore drilling; we couldn’t have oil derricks spoiling the view from all of the multi-million Malibu mansions of Barack’s Hollywood donors.  No ANWR, oil shale or nuclear power.  Detroit’s big three auto manufacturers were actually in the process of recovery until this latest energy crunch and four-dollar gas totally upended those plans.  And, even before the mortgage crisis really hit, high priced energy, due to this purposeful inaction, was already starting to drag down our economy.

Third factor that the market is discounting is that the Democratic leadership about to take control is economically ignorant.  As in rank ignorance.  Both Obama and Biden never worked out side of a career that involved spending other people’s money. Obama’s career has been organizing vote fraud through his connections at ACORN.  Or, working with his pal Ayers on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to distribute $100 million in graft.

Biden graduated from law school in 1969 and was elected to the Senate in 1972; a man who has spent his entire adult life as a Senator.  For the last 36 years, for essentially all his life, Biden has drawn a paycheck from the Senate; his only job. A community organizer with the honorific of “Senator.”

McCain has been in government employ for all of his life–Naval officer, congressman, senator.  But, he has the decency to at least not presume to tell others how to live their lives or earn their livings.  He has the decency, in private economic affairs, to keep his mouth shut and his hands to himself.

And, Palin; probably one of the few politicians on the Washington scene who isn’t a millionaire.  Probably one of the few politicians who’s net worth is comfortably this side of $500,000.  A politician, who with her husband, actually ran a business.

We have a whole Democratic hierarchy who simply has no clue as to what Joe-the-plumbers go through on a day to day basis to juggle business demands, payrolls, rent, taxes, and the like.  Obama’s proposal to grant a $3000 tax credit two years running for every new job created amply demonstrates this vast void of economic understanding. 

From my point of view, as a small businessman, a new employee will cost my business $50,000 to $70,000 per year.  For my practice to hire a nurse will cost about $25 per hour.  That works out to $1000 per week; or $50,000 per year.  Then you add in medical benefits, Social Security, safe-harbor 401K contributions and you’re easily adding another $20,000.  Barack’s proposed $3000 chickens–t check is not going to sway a single business to add a single job.

Or, again the ridicule heaped on Joe-the-Plumber, by Biden, for the temerity to have aspirations in excess of $250,000 again reflects a complete ignorance as to what it takes to run a business.  Even in “small” business, $250,000 is not a lot of money.  Between trucks, tools, inventory, shop facilities, employee wages and warehousing $250,000 gets eaten up very rapidly.  Remember, business expenses have to be paid up front; you don’t maintain inventory on consignment.

Economic knowledge for the likes of Obama and Biden was having supply and demand concepts learned in Econ 101 deconstructed by some Marxist professor.  For much of the claque that seems poised to run the White House and both Houses of Congress, intellectual discourse is the college dorm room bull sessions now continued in the Hamptons over white wine and brie.  Indeed, what passes for profound intellectual insight, is really abject fear over getting knocked off the social A-list for uttering the truth that Adam Smith economics still matters.  That, what Joe-the-Plumber says actually reflects the real truth about basic economic concepts so derided by many an ivory-towered intellectoid professor.

Then, we get into the intrusion of the outside world.  After Russia’s invasion of Georgia this summer, we have two rogue powers–Russia and Iran–that have control of significant portions of known oil production from the Artic Circle to the Straits of Hormuz.  One of those powers is already nuclear.  The other, in the grips of an Islamic death cult, is perhaps only a year away. 

What if Iran detonates a nuclear weapon over an American carrier task force in the Persian Gulf?  What will Obama’s reaction be?  Will he be prepared to mitigate the sudden rise in energy prices?  Will he be willing to acknowledge an act of war as such?  Will he be willing to then act in a manner appropriate to an act of war?  The markets know, just as does the MSM, what the real response will be; except the market are not hiding the answer.

William F. Buckley, Jr. once remarked, to the effect, that he rather be ruled by the first one hundred names out of the Cambridge phone directory that by the Harvard faculty.  In that vein, the markets are saying the same; that they rather be ruled by the likes of Sarah Palin and Joe-the-Plumber than by the Georgetown cocktail circuit.

In the end, the only way out of this crisis is the promotion of economic growth.  You know, the boring mantra a low taxes, low regulation and free trade.  It just hasn’t the sparkle to get you into the Getty digs like Barack last spring. This is one of those situation where the more you do, the worse it gets.  In some respect, you get a perverse pleasure in the prospect that the guilty parties will have the full responsibility of this economic mess thrust upon them.  And, Obama will have the unique opportunity to create a legacy that will double up on Carter and Hoover.

 

 

 

Running Out the Clock

Obama’s margin of victory, for the Democrat nomination, centers on winning Red State caucuses and using the preponderance of the black vote among Democratic primary voters, in the South, to win those Red States. With the Democratic party grandees to afraid to offend a voting block that consistently votes ninety plus percent Democratic and a compliant MSM, Obama stumbled across the finish line first. Or, more accurately the MSM dragged him across.

Everyone was just supposed to step aside and fade as the anointed one steps up to the throne; just like in Chicago when your the machine endorsed candidate.  Remember all the rancor when Hillary kept the campaign going right out to June. 

Throughout this campaign, Obama has been a Johnny-one-tone. “Inspirirational” but vague pronouncements about “change.” “Change” turns out to be a very perishable product that depended on his getting across the finish line fast and before it spoiled. It depended on coasting on the discontent of an electorate fed up with a GOP that foolishly squandered its capital on big government. And, most recently, it depended on taking this financial meltdown, borne of Democratic Party corruption, and riding it out to November 4th.

As distasteful as it was, the bailout legislation had to be passed. Regardless of the future consequences, and those consequences will haunt us for years to come, McCain had to take this financial meltdown off the table; and fast. His coming off the campaign trail was more than a gimmick. I was a necessary maneuver to force immediate action to give his campaign and that of the GOP time to recover. His presence in Washington DC forced Obama and Biden to react and do the same. Moreover, his presence so spotlighted the problem that the Democrats could no longer allow the problem to fester–until November. And, the public spotlight coming from McCain’s anti-corruption credentials force necessary revisions that prevented this bailout from becoming a ACORN earmark. (I know, there was a lot of pork anyway. But, there were some tax breaks put in the bailout.) 

Now, if played out right, it can show McCain as the leader and man of action who played a role in sorting this problem.  His trip to Washington, seen over the events of the last two weeks can now be seen as a plus; meaningful action to start to settle this financial mess.

Palin played a very important role. Her performance serves to bracket this crisis giving she and McCain time to contrast their anti-corruption credentials with the Obama/Biden status quo that created this mess in the first place. And, an energetic Palin against Biden served to heighten a contrast of reform versus status quo. A contrast of Senate-ese with the clarity of an American untouched by the “sophistication” of the power enclaves of our bi-coastal elites. A contrast that left Biden just looking so yesterday.

But, Palin gave McCain the opening. He’s still got to run the ball. And, he’s got to take the attack to Obama who’s going to continue to try to do as little as possible to allow the MSM, events and the clock carry him to victory. Obama’s the quarterback, who in the last 29 seconds of the game falls on the ball to preserve his team’s two point victory. But, he’s a quarterback who has only the “change” play in his repertoire. A quarterback whose only contribution to the financial meltdown was “give me a call if you need me.” And, truth be known, the last thing he wants is a solution to this crisis, at least until November 4th.

The Infill Conflict of Interest II

I’m beginning to wonder about the utility of the presidential debates.  The first, in modern times, between Kennedy and Nixon, turned out to be a political dirty trick in which someone turned up the heat, making Nixon sweaty and haggard looking.  It may have cost Nixon the election.  If you think that this is hyperbole, check out the rules of engagement that specifies every tiny detail right down to temperature and lighting candlepower.

Time was that it was considered beneath the dignity of the office of President to be seen in public. The State of the Union was a letter from the President to the two Houses of Congress (Wilson the preachy professor ended that practice).  Presidential campaigns were conducted not by the candidates themselves, but by party representatives who actually went out and did the speechifing for the candidates.  The whistle-stop campaign was started by Williams Jennings Bryan in the 1896 election.  What most people don’t realize about the Gettysburg address was that Lincoln was just the sideshow; a brief five minutes of comments following the main act of a two hour speech. One of the articles of impeachment, against Andrew Johnson, was “public harangues.”  

Seriously, what did anyone learn from the first debate between McCain and Obama that we didn’t know already. And, if we sway an election because the man-child looked prettier than McCain I really fear for the future of this Republic. In some respects, the debates serve the Democrats better since they are forever trying to package the same old tax and spend into some slick new package that will somehow be more palatable to the American public than the last package.  Carter and Clinton both looked so much better than the old fogey Ford and Bush. What did good looks buy?

Quite bluntly, I really don’t think that our Republic is going to much miss an abolition of the Presidential debates.  On the other hand, as reported in Palin Facts, if Sarah Palin in facts tears the still-beating heart from Biden’s chest, I’ll take back this entire post.

Polls, Polls Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

The polls have had a very unsettling effect for we McCain partisians. But, face it. The financial meltdown with a Republican in the White House and the MSM totally pushing the Democratic version of events is going to take a toll.

Frankly, it’s a wonder it isn’t worse. And, it isn’t worse because there is a blogosphere and talk radio to counter what was the MSM monopoly on information.

Also, we have to give McCain credit for using his position and prestige to come off the campaign trail and bring the glare public scrutiny on a bail out plan that was being turned into a pork barrel vehicle for even further corruption. This scrutiny has only further heightened the public disgust with this whole sordid affair. So much so that Pelosi, though she has the votes to work without the GOP, needs strong bipartisan cover to pass any bailout plan. This in turn as given the GOP in the House the leverage to re-craft the bailout to more cleanly address the specifics of the financial meltdown with out the pork such as payout to ACORN. That leverage, with his strong anti-pork and anti-ear mark bona fides, comes from McCain’s presence in Washington last week. 

While the MSM narrative is that McCain messed up a done deal, he in fact did. By messing up the deal on the table, he created the opening for the House GOP to step up and significantly alter the bailout. McCain did not receive any immediate benefit. But, the benefit will accure over the next several weeks. Fortunately, there is time before the election for McCain’s crucial role to become manifest to the electorate.

But, McCain’s got to do the following:

First, the deal, as imperfect as it may be, must be complete by this Monday. There has to be a closure so passions can cool; which is probably the real reason for Obama’s rise in the polls. Also, once the deal is complete, McCain’s role can become more evident.

Second, blame must be pinned on the Democrats. The vice-presidential debate will be a great place to do this because of Palin’s credentials as a reformer and corruption fighter. This is no time for “reaching across the aisle.” That’s being done now in cutting the bailout deal in order to prevent plunging this country into a recession or even a depression. But, once the deal is completed, it will be time to make the guilty parties take responsibility. If for no other reason to try to prevent a repeat of this whole mess. And, to demonstrate that the melt down was not a failure of free markets but of corrupt governmental meddling in the free market.

Third, McCain must use this deal to show how he is the anti-corruption fighter. He must use his role in the bailout to show that he saw this coming as participated in legislation, in 2005, to better oversee Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac. And, how this oversight legislation failed on a straight party line vote.

The third presidential debate will be focused on economics. This will be the time to pull the rug out from under Obama by showing the campaign cash Obama collected from Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac. It will be the perfect time to demonstrate the abysmal economic stewardship, on the part of the Democrats, in their role to properly supervise Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Taranto Principle

A hat tip to the American Spectator for the term. But, the Taranto principle, fortunately has been in operation for a lot longer than this election cycle.

There has been a liberal deceit in operation for decades. It was not as apparent in the 40’s and 50’s because the political melieu was that of big government Democrats and me-too Republicans. The debate was a difference over degree and not kind.

But, two shocks hit the world of the liberal MSM. The first was the election of Reagan in 1980. This election brought a critical mass to Washington that questioned the role of government. It was no longer the debate over how much government. And, any debate that brings free market principles to the fore will by default question whether government has a role. This was a shock that resonated all the way back to the foundations of big government philosophies that had their origins in the Progressive movement of the late 19th century.

The second shock was the Republican takeover of both houses of congress in 1994. 

The MSM responded with increasingly biased coverage that became only more blatantly partisan with each election cycle. The real problem with exposing the faults of the GOP and covering over those of their liberal fellow-travelers in the Democratic party was that the Democrats are starting to pile up with a lot useless dead wood. 

Bill Clinton, by virtue of being the only Democratic president to be re-elected since FDR, is probably the most successful Democratic politician in recent memory. And, had he played his cards right could have effected a major electoral alignment to allow a generational center-left electoral coalition. But, because of lack of vetting by the MSM, his legacy was sexual scandal.

No, it not priggish victorian morals. It was an abuse of power and public trust that extended to his days as governor of Arkansas in which he used public employees on state time to procure and facilitate these base sexual liaisons. This violation of martial fidelity carried over into all aspects of Clinton’s administration with corruption everywhere. Yet, if anyone had really looked and asked around Little Rock, the moral turpitude of Clinton was manifest.

Jimmy Carter was another example. In the pre-internet, pre-talk show era, the MSM hid the real facts of a man who was a mean, but weak leader. But, he was a closet liberal; a fact that the MSM hid with a knowing wink as he was portrayed as a conservative born-again. The man as president was a disaster. Thought few remember, Carter’s administration was the one with “bracket creep,” a double digit “misery index,” the “hollow military,” the Iran hostage crisis and the Desert One debacle.

The fact remains, that the MSM, in a very Darwinian fashion systematically scrubs all of the weaker GOP candidates. Yet, by going easy on the Democrats, dead wood piles up leaving a very shallow bench. In what should be a strong Democratic year is going to be constrained by what passes for Democratic leadership.

Reid wasn’t the first to have a one vote majority in the Senate. LBJ faced similiar constraints as majority leader; but, the cut deals and got things done. Pelosi thinks that natural gas isn’t a fossil fuel. The presidential contenders are a machine hack from Chicago, a paleo-feminist who’s rise to power came from a name acquired in marriage and an ambulance chaser who, with the cooperation of the MSM, hid his “love child” while still running in the primaries.

In the spirit of enlightened self-interest, all of these pathetic examples of Democratic leadership should have been scrubbed by the MSM with the same enthusiasm as the breathless reportage on the out-of-wedlock pregnancy of a 17 year old Bristol Palin (she can’t even vote).

The Palin Smears and Chicago Politics

There’s news that some of the Palin smears may come from sources closely tied to the Obama campaign. Among the smears was the charge that she belonged to a secessionist party in the past. (here from Power Line and here from Jawa Report)

I’ll leave to the computer and internet pros to dissect the webs of deception that allow these smears to metastazie over the internet and into the MSM. But, I’ll certainly comment on Chicago machine politics as usual.

One of the things that you’ll never see however is a direct link between the smear sources and Obama. Never a quid pro quo or a specific exchange of money. This will probably go only to Axelrod if you follow out the trail.

But, this too is typical for “honest” graft that pervades Chicago machine politics. For example, Obama got a really sweet mortagage deal for his 1.5 million, 5000 square foot mansion he bought shortly after his election to the US Senate. How did that happen? Well it was just “understood.” A rising machine star walks into the bank offices and a nice deal just materializes. Not a word out of Obama. Not a hint of a deal. 

Then courtsy Rezko, he get half of a neighboring lot to said 1.5 million dollar home way below market. Can you pin it directly on Obama. Of course not. It just happened. It just fell from the sky.

Over on the distaff side, Michelle Obama get a promotion and her salary doubled to $300,000 per year. Oh, where oh where did that come from. Obviously the blue bird of happiness that rains down all sorts of favors on people who’s husband happens to make it into the Senate courtesy the machine.

The Chicago machine is based on favors from the public coffers. Not on governance based on a sense of the general welfare as envisioned by the Founding Fathers. It is a one-party regime that will not tolerate dissent. Dissent like why is Cook County (where Chicago’s located) running a deficit with a 9.25 per cent sales tax and we need to increase that tax further. Now this win at any cost mentality is being foisted upon the entire nation because Palin’s mere presence is asking those same questions about governance for the benefit of the office holders and their friends.

 

From the Gut

Here’s another article, from across the pond, about the “cerebral” and intellectual Obama versus the from the “gut” or “heart” McCain and Palin. I don’t know where Biden falls in; maybe not past the ear plugs. Again we’ve more drivel about how we’d all vote for the Democrats if we voted with our “head.” But, being the non-sophisticated rubes from the American heartland we vote with some other organ (you choose).

Yet, if you look at the psychology of decision making, you’ll find the neophyte making will be a very conscious and linear processing of a checklist. The experienced pro will view the same situation and give a brief answer. That pro, in fact, may not be able to give the reasons for the decision other than it was, in fact, right.

There was a such an example given in a WSJ article, about a decade ago, on this  subject,  using the example of a fireman evacuation a particular room in a burning building just before the floor of that room collapsed. The neophyte would have recognized the same situation by the fact that the room was hot but with little visible flames; giving to the conclusion that the floor beneath was burning making the imminence of the floor collapse a near certain probability. The seasoned pro, in the same situation, would have looked at the same scenario and just give the preemptory order to “get out now.”

Everyone has had to learn lessons and “show your work” just like in algebra class. But, as we mature, the lessons are internalized. Our subconscious mind makes these decisions, sorting at lightening speed the myriad of permutations and producing a conclusion; a brief imperative on how to act.

But, the right conclusion, the right imperative comes only if you learned the proper problem-solving protocul in the first place.

And, so we come to Americans voting this November 4th. Live experiences will choose between two candidates, McCain and Palin, who’ve come up the hard way, with plenty of mistakes in their wake. They have challenged the status quo and succeeded. 

Or, Obama and Biden who’ve come from senator-for-life careers who’s only challenges are keeping their political machines fat and happy. They talk well and never lived in a world outside of politics. They are the people Buckley referred to when we remarked that he rather be ruled by the first 2000 names out of the Cambridge phone book that the Harvard faculty.

McCain’s own father once noted that history is made by poker players and not analysts. Analysts are frozen into inaction wondering about all the bad things a given decision could bring and through their inaction allow the very situation they feared to happen anyway.

That’s the world and its problems. You need leaders who’ve been bloodied by working in the real world and who will have developed the instincts to act and not dither. Leaders who know how to distill hard decisions down to a brutal bifurcation of “yes” or “no.” Leaders who know from bitter experience that crucial decisions are almost never a choice between unalloyed good and bad; rather a choice between bad and worse. A decision like one coming in the next six months as to whether to accept Iran as a nuclear power or to take (very messy) action to stop it before Iran acquires such a capability. 

Obama’s going to get rolled by reality. You don’t need a degree from Harvard to figure that out.

 

 

 

Guns; the Other Reason to Hate Palin

The private ownership of firearms is a rebuke to this utopian zeal. To own firearms is to affirm that freedom and liberty are not gifts from the state. It is to reserve final judgment about whether the state is encroaching on freedom and liberty, to stand ready to defend that freedom with more than mere words, and to stand outside the state’s totalitarian reach.

A Nation of Cowards;  Jeffrey R. Snyder

Palin’s own life is a rebuke to the liberal mindset. Her decision to knowing carry to term a Down’s baby was a slap in the face of the NARAL crowd. And, that has been commented upon by many others.

But, little mention is made about guns. The Democrats make little mention because their last anti-gun crusade lost them both houses of congress in 1994. Their fellow travellers in the MSM tiptoe around the subject for the same reason. 

Oh, to be sure, Palin’s moose hunting skills are news in the MSM. Such highlighting adds “color” to the story. And, such highlighting, in the minds of the MSM, without saying as such, is there in order to portray Palin as a missing-tooth rube. But, once again, gun ownership and Palin’s marksmanship skills are common in red-state America. What may be a slight intended for the oh-so-knowing bi-coastal elite only serves to emphasize the commonality that Palin has with the rest of America. If the MSM is not careful, it only serves to further emphasize the “bitter” comment Obama made at the Getty San Francisco digs.

But, this skillful gun handling bothers the Obama’s fellow travelers in their drive for a statist utopia. The first reason is the mere fact that lethal force in the hands of the private individual creates a barrier to have  some of Obama’s more objectionable ideas forced down unwilling throats. Since the founding of our republic, the armed citizenry has always provided a quiet and unspoken check against a temptation against excesses, that in other countries, have degenerated into bloodbaths–the reign of terror in the French Revolution, the Final Solution or Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans. The Second Amendment’s purpose was to allow for self-defense against criminal threat whether from the common street variety or agents of a criminal government.

The temptation remains. Look at this quote from Michelle Obama (via power line):

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

No, this isn’t from the man running for president, but this is from a person who has actively campaigned for him. More importantly, it represents a mind set that you will do what we think is good for you. It’s frankly Orwellian. And, it contra this mind set; it is this reservation of the person, the individual outside the totalitarian reach of government; that most upsets the statist mindset. It is the individual that defines the state; not the other way around.

And, excuse me, but I’ll be just a cynical or as isolated or as comfortable as I choose to be. I’ll push myself to be better because I choose to be. I’ll engage when I feel like it. No, I’m not going to show up for a daily shout-fest like the Two Minutes of Hate.

A firearm is not a talisman that will allow you to shoot your way out of any problem. Rather, it creates a clarity of mind that comes by having the means to handle the situation should it degenerate into the gravest extreme. But, free of the paralyzing fear of the gravest extreme, you can consider other options to face the problems that the world may throw at you. 

It also starts to leak out into other arenas. An independence of thought that begins to pervade into a lot of other areas not just related to self-defense. And, it begins to reflect an independence in action and deed. Heck, you’re already politically incorrect as hell by just having the fire stick. What does it matter if the rest of you becomes politically incorrect as well?

At the very least, Palin can feed her family with out resorting to food stamps.

As a parting thought, it is interesting to note the fear, deference and self-censorship many publishers and newspapers have shown in the face of jihadist threats. Dhimmihitude. The Mohammed cartoons come to mind. Or, Random House’s spiking the release of The Jewel of Medina. It’s no concidence that the editorial offices of these publications are in Second Amendment-free zones. I very much doubt that such jihadist threats would carry a lot of water in the editorial offices of Guns and Ammo.

MSM Bias, Thy Name is Charlie Gibson

“Is it not enough to know that they are servants of the Enemy?… Flee them! Speak no words to them! They are deadly!”

So is Gildor’s advice to Frodo concerning the Black Riders from Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Rings. 

And, such is the advice any GOP candidate, especially Palin, should heed when dealing with the MSM. The problem with agreeing to be interviewed with Gibson was that it would not further your candidacy. All you could hope to do, at best, is come out even.

I’ll leave it to someone like William Katz to point out the aspects of staging and showmanship that puts Palin at a disadvantage and the need to create some distance between the performer and the audience. Palin needs, like Reagan, to talk over the heads of the MSM directly to the American electorate. Anything filtered through the MSM will be distorted, badly, to that conservative’s disadvantage. Here’s a comparison of Palin’s questions from Gibson as compared to the softball questions he asked Obama. (see Nancy Kallitechnis on the Hillary Clinton Forum)  Then, here’s Allesandra Stanley’s take from NYT courtesy Urgent Agenda:

Mr. Gibson, who sat back in his chair, impatiently wriggling his foot, had the skeptical, annoyed tone of a university president who agrees to interview the daughter of a trustee but doesn’t believe she merits admission.

Finally, here’s a transcript of what actually went on the air and what would up on the cutting room floor. Here’s one quote that never made it on TV:

But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to — especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.

We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn’t have to lead to war and it doesn’t have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that’s a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.

This whole affair, this interview, was, in a genteel way, set up to destroy Palin. The crude attacks on her 17 year-old daughter didn’t work. So, it was now Gibson’s task to politely strangle Palin in a beautiful living room setting. Gibson’s body language, camera angles, facial expressions, tone of voice were all calculated to place Palin in as bad a light as possible.

Oh, it couldn’t be too over the top. ABC and Gibson knew that such treatment would only serve to reinforce the impression of gender bias. And, that would defeat the whole purpose of Gibson’s interview. But, fortunately, the bias leaked through.

Frankly, this no longer the era of the big three networks and the NYT. I can never figure out why conservatives need to prove themselves or seek the approval of the MSM. There’s talk radio, the internet and Fox to provide favorable, or at least unfiltered, channels of communication. Most people have figured out that the MSM merely channels propaganda. That’s why NYT’s stock in tanking. People who need accurate information have learned to sift through a number of sources to get to the truth. It’s almost getting to be like Pravda in the old USSR–you assume the opposite of what the MSM is saying is the truth.

 

Palin Envy

It’s coming out of the mouth of Biden himself.  He’s flat out admitted that Hill would have been a better choice for veep. I guess if you’re buried and flattened by the Palin steamroller, you’ll do anything for publicity. Seriously, he’d so fallen off the media radar in the last week or so that I thought his picture was going to wind up on the side of a milk carton. Now more speculation of dumping Biden from the ticket for Hill or perhaps another woman politician. And, that’s not the first time that little story’s come up. Rush Limbaugh made mention of such rumors even before the GOP convention died down.

What is so funny about this will be the Ahab-like search for the liberal Sarah Palin by the Democrats. This going to be like the search for the liberal Rush Limbaugh that ended in the Air America/Al Franken debacle. In their frustration, the Democrats are calling for the restoration of the “fairness doctrine” to silence Rush.

Maybe the Democrats can have the Palin fairness doctrine. You can’t run a candidate like Palin unless the opposition can find a similarly dynamic woman with an equal number of kids and similar marksmanship bona fides.

The search for the liberal Palin will be in vain of course. Because Palin, unfettered by political correctness, unfettered by the compound mentality, unfettered by the abject fear of being banished from the bi-coastal social A-list, simply lived her life according to her best lights. Such women do not exist in liberal land.

Frankly, the novelty of a woman handling a gun with skill is not news in huge swaths of middle America. Likewise, a woman being active in the PTA, her church, on the local city council, serving as mayor are again, for most of middle America unremarkable. It was the MSM, swooning over these things that magnified them to the tsumni that is now washing away the Obama campaign. I pass over the inherent patronizing in such MSM coverage that many women find insulting. 

It only gets better (or worse) for Barry and Hill. By the time 2012 rolls around, both Barry and Hill are going to be so yesterday in the Democratic rush to find the this liberal Palin. The too desiccated Governor Sebelius won’t make the cut either.

In any event, Biden’s not going to last beyond October because (from Palin Facts):

         “Sarah Palin’s finishing move in the VP debate will be pulling Biden’s

       still beating heart from his chest & taking a bite.”

The Jesus Community Organizer; Pontius Pilate Governor Echo Chamber

Maybe the Democrats are on to a new theological revelation about the purpose for the birth of Jesus as Messiah.

But, I, your humble blogger, by virtue of vast knowledge in the areas of antiquity and theology can reveal the true purpose for the birth of Christ.

Contrary to New Testament accounts, the Democratic Party Book of Revealed Truth says otherwise. These ancient documents were discovered by digging a little deeper in the very grounds that rendered the Dead Sea Scrolls. These documents will soon be added to the Bible as yet another New Testament chapter; you can throw your old one out.

It appears that thousands of Galileans were thrown out of work from the thriving iron smelting industry by the unexpected arrival of cheap iron imports from Rome. Needless to say despair gripped Galilee. Jesus was really sent to earth to organize the despairing Galileans by revealing to them the writings of the blessed Saul Alinsky and the holy protections of the Richard M of Daley.

In a pig’s eye.

Procurator Palin, governor of Alaska, is going to crucify that machine toady community organizer from Chicago this November. 

Less Abortions Are Now a Problem

Via Power Line, we find this. It seems that Palin’s decision to keep baby Trig despite the foreknowledge of Down’s syndrome may result in more women being inspired to do the same; resulting in less abortions.

This is obscene. It is one thing to have abortion availiable as an option. It was supposed to be so a woman could have control over her body. It was, if one follows the orginal rationale of Roe v. Wade, supposed to be for privacy. The abortion option was supposed to be a key building block for female empowerment. Abortion was supposed to be the parachute clause for truly intractable problems caused a set of circumstances that would otherwise destroy a young woman’s life. It was supposed to be a second chance, so to speak. It was supposed to be, according to a recent ex-president, an option that was supposed to be “safe, but rare.” 

But, “choice” seems to be a one way street. God help you if your “choice” goes off-script and becomes a choice for life.

Now the decision of Palin, to keep Trig, is now a blot on her public persona by not creating a “positive” abortion-for-Down’s-baby role model. Keeping a Down’s baby entails a lot of work above and beyond what a child not so handicapped would entail. I’ve been blessed with two healthy girls, so I cannot know the day-to-day efforts such a decision entails. But, I, as a physician, do treat children so handicapped and can appreciate these difficulties.

And, are there genuine medical situations where the continuation of a pregnancy is simply incompatible with the life of the mother. One must choose–mother or baby. Those are the times when the physician must make a truly gut-wrenching decision; a decision hopefully guided by a strong moral grounding.

Yet, a woman steps up to show the world that there is another choice. That there is a choice based on life and love. A woman steps up to shoulder the responsibility that saving that life will entail. But, in the process, she steps on the toes of a eugenics movement that never died. And, so we have Dr. Andre Lalonde, executive vice president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, in Ottawa worried about less abortions. 

The real contribution of Hippocrates, as the “father of medicine,” is the concept that the physician, at least the Western sense, was this. To be a physician, as opposed to the healers, pagan priests, witch doctors and the like that through history functioned like physicians, was to reject the option and power of death many of these healers held. The physician, in the tradition of Hippocrates, would only preserve and support life. Yet, some two thousand years later, we are, especially with late term or partial-birth abortions, no better than our forbearers of antiquity who simply threw unwanted babies into the town dump.