This Bailout Farce

If you were to select a word of the year for the nearly-concluded 2008 it would probably be "Change," the ever vacuous and open-ended term that was the byword of the Obama campaign and was used to encapsulate the desire of the American electorate. If you had to turn the dime though and predict the word of 2009 it would be a safe bet to go with "bailout." The term is ubiquitous in political discussions today as the Democratic majorities in Congress and the administration-to-be contemplate bailouts for all manner of entities in this declining economy – the auto industry, the deficit-ridden states, and the country as a whole in the form of a massive stimulus package.

The economy is in a state of extremity, or at least perceived to be, so it is no surprise that the powers that be, desperate to demonstrate they are doing something to solve the problem, are preparing to take extreme measures themselves. In this maelstrom of hysteria we are losing our senses though. The reasons that Detroit and most of the states are so deep in a fiscal quicksand is because they have put themselves there, awarding ridiculous labor compensation that makes them uncompetitive in the case of the former and spending ludicrous sums of their residents' money in the case of the latter.

Throwing federal dollars at them will do nothing but temporarily alleviate the symptoms of an underlying sickness. It will neither rework their business model to make them competitive nor cut their unsustainable and profligate expenditures to balance their budgets. This they need to do on their own, and they are the only ones that can. Ultimately the federal government cannot help them, but it can waste a lot of money trying, which is the added tragedy of this growing farce. Spending money it does not have to give to other entities so they can spend in a manner they couldn't otherwise afford is going to catch up with us sooner or later, and when that day comes whom will be the ones to bail us out? Who are we going to turn to when this country has to satisfy the exorbitant unfunded obligations our government has incurred over the decades?

The federal government is ignoring this nagging question, exacerbating our long-term financial problems for short-term band-aids and political gain. In so doing they are not only kicking the can down the road a little further but also shortening the road still left to kick it down.

Somebody needs to stand up and end this before we sink ourselves. Instead of wasteful bailouts that will not work, the entities demanding them need to get their own house in order and come to terms with the self-created problems that have brought them to pathetic supplication. The federal government needs to do the same, drastically reforming the institutions that we are slowly realizing we can't afford (and never could). And if we want to restore the long-term health of the economy we ought to take our medicine for the national pandemic of reckless lending and borrowing that brought us here and then foster the conditions requisite for economic recovery, which will not be defined by blind, arbitrary government adventurism deep into the wilderness of the economy.

This farce will be over when all of that happens.

RE: The Chambliss/Obama Victory

It is far, far too early to tell, but Sen. Chambliss' double digit victory last night also provides a little evidence that PE Obama's success and popularity is not only a result of his predecessor's deep unpopularity, but of his own unique personality as well, which might not necessarily transfer to Democrats in general when he is not at the top of the ballot in an environment looking to punish the incumbent of the other party. If true (an open if), this would belie the claim that the President-Elect's ascendance is a reformative moment in American politics which has or will secure the Democrats as the republic's dominant party. The groups that constituted a large part of his margin of victory and his competitiveness in Georgia (unusual for a Democrat) – young voters and blacks – scarcely showed up in the run-off after all.

For the reasons mentioned in the previous post not much should be read into that, but it does at least leave the question begging about whether President-Elect Obama has brought these new voters into the party and the electoral process permanently or just to himself when he is on the ballot.

Let's wait until he has been sworn in (at least) before we try and answer this question.

The Chambliss/Obama Victory

Charles Krauthammer posited an interesting theory during the "FOX All-Stars" segment of Special Report today. In his mind the real winner of last night's runoff election contest in Georgia was President-Elect Obama, the reason being that Jim Martin's deficit was three points in the general election when the PE was on top of the ballot but was fifteen points when he was not. This will allow the President-Elect to make the claim to Democrats in Congress, in Krauthammer's estimation, that his political star is carrying them and that they need to get behind him and insure his administration's success to insure their own.

It is an interesting idea, but not especially persuasive. For one, the next President will be able to make that argument anyway as any President eligible for re-election would. The success of the party who holds the White House is determined by how the public perceives its individual occupant. If they view him positively, it helps the party; if they view him negatively, it is a drag, to one degree or another.

Also, run-off elections are notorious for their low turnout because they come after a long campaign after which everyone is usually campaign-weary and not especially keen on voting again. As a result the vote usually goes to the default choice, i.e. to the incumbent or member of the predominant party in the voting area. This is exactly what happened in Georgia, a reliably Republican state where the Republican incumbent won convincingly.

If the result from yesterday tells us anything beyond that it is that President-Elect Obama's convincing victory was almost entirely predicated upon the extreme unpopularity of the outgoing Republican incumbent. For practical purposes now the PE is the President, and so the fuel for his and the Democrats' success is gone, at least for their recent success. Sen. Chambliss was able to run in the last month against a Democratic President and Congress, plausibly billing himself as a needed check against this liberal juggernaut. That's the recipe for success in a state reliably Republican.

MTP's New Moderator

David Gregory is to be the late Tim Russert’s successor as moderator of Meet the Press. A feckless choice really. His brand of pompous, partisan sniping as a means of questioning – too typical among the contemporary Washington media class – will stand as a stark departure from the tough but usually fair questioning Russert greeted his guests with each week.

Besides, Jonah Goldberg is right; MTP ought to live up to its name now and have a diverse panel of media figures moderating each week, which would actually distinguish the program from its Sunday morning brethren and make it a much more compelling watch. As Goldberg points out:

What's wrong with bringing three or four hard-hitting journalists to ask questions the way they used to? This is not only the best way to get a more diverse line of questioning (I would love to see Byron York or Steve Hayes on there asking questions no one else would ask), but it would help forestall some truly awful choices that seem to be in the hopper...David Gregory seems like a terrible choice for among other reasons, he's not very likable on TV (Russert's likeability was a huge asset).

The PE & Iraq

During the press conference announcing his national security team yesterday President-Elect Obama gave mixed signals on his plan for Iraq. At one point he asserted that he remains dedicated to his sixteen month plan while at another he said he’d be flexible and listen to his commanders on the ground, even commending the recent SOF passed by the Iraqi parliament. What’s more, though he initially predicated his entire campaign on his fervent opposition to the war and determination to bring it to a premature end he is retaining the Defense Secretary responsible for implementing the current President’s surge strategy, which the President-Elect never went on record removing his opposition to. As his national security advisor he has even selected an individual who appeared with his opponent during the course of the late campaign.

In reality the requirement on President-Elect Obama regarding Iraq is straight forward and simple: don’t screw it up. The Bush Administration has handed over an Iraq almost completely pacified of al Qaeda and sectarian violence and increasingly stable and functional. In fact, as Rich Lowry points out, "Perhaps never has someone owed so much to a policy he opposed so vehemently. First, the success of the surge diminished the Iraq War as an issue in the general election. Second, it makes it possible to contemplate a responsible drawdown in Iraq."

That is all the next President needs to do for American victory – allow the present policy to proceed and conclude the success it has achieved.

The Gates Retention

Reports are that President-Elect Obama has made the final decision to retain Secretary of Defense Robert Gates for at least the first year of his presidency. This is a commendable act and the President-Elect deserves the fullest praise. Secretary Gates has done a fine job in Defense, stabilizing that Pentagon after the tumult of the Rumsfeld years and overseeing and implementing the surge of forces in Iraq which has led to such a stunning turnaround and level of success there.

The fact is that the world is still a very dangerous place with an increasingly belligerent Russia, a nuclearizing Iran in collusion with Syria and Hezbollah, a still nuclear North Korea, and a myriad of other threats to American security. Keeping the seasoned and wise hands of Secretary Gates in the Pentagon in these circumstances will help provide the continuity and stability America needs to competently respond to its challenges.

Jennifer Rubin is entirely right. Well done, Mr. President-Elect.

Eric Holder Selection

From the perspective of the President-Elect I do not understand the putative selection of Eric Holder as Attorney General. His campaign was predicated on the aura of change and a new politics, yet Mr. Holder carries with him some odious baggage from his stint in the Clinton Justice Department. This is already being hashed out and will continue to be to a greater degree when his confirmation hearings arrive, serving as a distraction and detraction from the themes the new President will be trying to strike.

So then to what point and purpose does he select Mr. Holder? There is nothing evidently superlative in him and he doesn’t offer anything more than any number of other potential Democratic nominees could provide. What incentive is there to go through the extra heartache then?

It’s a curious choice.

Automaker Bailout

The risk assumed in enacting the $700 billion bailout was the creation of a precedent that would encourage the federal government to bailout other industries in the future. Manifestation of this is the bailout Democrats in Congress and the President-Elect – at least at one point – support and are trying to pass.

The legislation is a bad idea, for its sole accomplishment will be to lengthen the long, agonizing death Detroit is slouching towards on its current path. Through coercing excessive and unaffordable compensation packages from the big three automakers, the unions are responsible for this death march, strangling the companies with onerous labor costs that render them uncompetitive with other companies with less overhead. Throwing millions of borrowed dollars at the Detroit three will not alter this, just temporarily delay the inevitable.

This is the outrage. That we should incur further debt to effectively subsidize a failing business model – when doing so won’t actually fix the companies and resolve the circumstances which have brought them to this point – is a gross abuse of the public trust. It is a waste of money that we don’t have.

What the Detroit big three need is bankruptcy and a concurrent fundamental reorganization of their structures. The proposed bailout will only stave off this reckoning for a little while, bailing out some water without fixing the gaping hole in the bottom of the boat.

Steele for the RNC

A reassuring indication that the powers that be in the national Republican party have learned from the previous two elections and intend to genuinely play ball in the Obama Administration would be the election of Michael Steele as RNC Chair. Mr. Steele is a fresh voice, has an impressive life story and experience, and is an effective spokesman for conservative and Republican values. Further, he would help combat the creeping notion that the party is a shrinking group of angry, white, male southerners.

Unfortunately, most RNC committeemen (who are the electorate for the chairmanship) have anonymously snubbed their noses at the notion. They shouldn’t. Any concern that Mr. Steele is not a skilled political tactician really isn’t a concern, for the RNC can easily install one such person directly below Mr. Steele to take care of that sphere while Mr. Steele himself appears as a face and spokesperson for the party, traveling the country recruiting Republican candidates and raising money.

Michael Steele is the right choice to be the next chairman of the Republican National Committee. I can think of few national Republicans who would be as effective publicly responding to the positions and policies of the incoming Obama Administration.

To the President-Elect

Mr. President-Elect:

I am rapidly approaching the point at which I will become responsible for my own living and that of a family of my own, and at that threshold I will inherit the future I looked forward to and prepared for as a child and adolescent. For this I am quite excited and hopeful, but so too am I fearful. I am fearful because my future and the future of my generation is in jeopardy, and with all respect and humility, some of the policies you proposed and supported as a candidate will only increase that peril.

Our country is in a very dangerous moment economically, and as you prepare to assume the presidency in a few months you are no doubt aware of this. How you and the rest of our leaders act in this time (in all levels of government) will determine how America meets and answers these challenges, whether we tackle and solve them or whether we are consumed by them.

In regards to young Americans such as myself, the job market we are soon to enter will be severely harmed should you and the Congress agree to raise taxes on Americans anywhere on the income scale. Taking capital out of the economy at a time when it is already suffering from a lack thereof will reduce business and investment even further, leaving us with fewer jobs and opportunities and higher costs of living. Diminishing free trade with the global community will only aggravate this. As new entrants into the workforce, such a troubled state of affairs would burden young Americans immensely, highly reducing our chances for success and prosperity as we begin to build lives of our own.

Specifically, on the campaign trail you often derided loopholes in the tax code that gave breaks to large corporations such as oil companies. I think you and I can both agree that all taxpaying Americans should pay their fair share under our tax code, but I fervently urge you to refrain from raising taxes on corporations and businesses because, very simply, they do not pay them. An increased tax burden will cause business either to leave our shores for cheaper locales or they will pass their increased costs down to average Americans through job layoffs and/or higher costs for their goods and services. The little people and not big business will, for all intents and purposes, pay for the increases.

Our future is also threatened by the leviathan of debt accrued from years of extravagant spending. This constitutes a crippling obligation incurred by current and past generations that will have to be paid by ours. After decades of short-sighted and mindless appropriation it is time the government put its financial house in order.

The source of much of this debt are entitlement programs that are lavishly expensive and will soon lapse into insolvency if allowed to continue on their current path. If this were to occur Americans would face the unfathomable choice of massive tax increases and/or cuts in benefits. Either choice or a combination of both would be ruinous, and so federal entitlements are in dire need of comprehensive reform. However your programmatic proposals would do quite the opposite, adding more unaffordable entitlements on top of the ones we already cannot afford. This will only hasten the day we face the painful choices mentioned above and increase the severity of the pain on their arrival.

Mr. president-elect, I sincerely commend you for your historic victory and I wish you the very best as the next president of the country you and I love. Your success will be mine and every American’s success, so I will hope and pray for your good fortune as our republic’s chief executive.

But with this said the fact remains that there are many points in your agenda that I cannot in good conscience support, and I regretfully believe that their enactment would have a number of adverse effects on our economy and on our future. I fervently urge you to reconsider them and adopt measures that will grow our economy, reduce our debt, and reform entitlements for the 21st Century. Doing so will strengthen and secure the future for myself and for all Americans.

With the Sincerest Best Wishes,
Geoff Smock

Sec. of State Clinton?

Reports are that President-Elect Obama has offered Sen. Clinton the important post of secretary of state in his new administration. The punditry’s initial response to this is very positive, touting it as an act of political brilliance that will remove a potential rival out of the Senate and (possibly) out of the running for the 2012 Democratic nomination. This is one possibility, but another is that it could be a terrible mistake that will plague his presidency as long as she holds the position (assuming the reports are true).

It’s an incredibly open secret that the relationship between the two has been frigid, and the fact is and always shall remain that the Clintons have their own agenda. Period. We know the Clintonian penchant for vindictiveness and self-interest, so there is a very concrete reason to believe it possible that somewhere in the next four years we will be in receipt of leaks about disagreement and infighting between the President and his chief diplomat, if and when they occur. This specter might even be a probability if the Obama presidency goes through any real period of turbulence, specifically in the realm of foreign affairs. (Remember, it was the vice president-elect himself who predicted that his boss would be tested quickly once in office and that it wouldn’t be, to paraphrase, evident right away that his response would be the correct one.) I essentially agree with Peggy Noonan:

But the downside is equally obvious: To invite in the Clintons—and it's always the Clintons, never a Clinton—is to invite in, to summon, drama that will never end. Ever. This would seem to be at odds with the atmospherics of Obamaland. "Loose cannon," "vetting process," "financial entanglements," questions about which high-flying oligarch gave how much to Bill's presidential library, and what the implications of the gift are, including potential conflict of interest. More colorfully, and nostalgically: people screaming through the halls, being hired and fired, attacking the press, leaking, then too tightly controlling information, then leaking, and speaking in the special patois of the Clinton staff, with the famous dialogue evocative of David Mamet as rewritten by Joe Pesci.

If President-Elect Obama has made this offer to Sen. Clinton and she accepts, he could be removing a potential rival from causing him trouble outside of his administration...or he could be planting a cancer in the very center of his administration. I think the latter scenario is almost as likely as the former, but we shall see.

Sen. Obama's Iraq Pretzel

The Obama Campaign announced today that their candidate will be delivering a “major” address on Iraq tomorrow in Washington. This comes on the heels of Sen. Obama’s op-ed in the New York Times on Iraq today, or more appropriately, on his new and improved Iraq Plan 2.0.

In this piece he conspicuously neglects a few little pieces of truth which are a bit inconvenient to him and his claims of heightened judgment. He opens:

The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.

It is true that he has long called for a retreat – euphemistically labeled a “phased redeployment” – from Iraq, but that is not something he ought to go around pounding his chest over, for it demonstrates his poor judgment since – at least – January ‘07. That was the month when President Bush announced his surge of forces, a decision which – for the record – Sen McCain had been calling for since American forces set foot on Iraqi sand. Then, as now, Sen. Obama went on the record and boldly made the following black and white argument:

I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse. I think it takes pressure off the Iraqis to arrive at the sort of political accommodation that every observer believes is the ultimate solution to the problems we face there. So I am going to actively oppose the president’s proposal…. I think he is wrong, and I think the American people believe he’s wrong.

To his ultimate chagrin however, events (or what Machiavelli called fortuna) would not stand by Sen. Obama. The surge was and has been an unqualified success. That he did not have the judgment to see that this was possible and that he failed to either recognize or acknowledge the surge’s dramatic effect subsequently is something he would like us all to forget, and is something he neglects entirely in his piece. Specifically, in touting his long-held plan of “phased redeployment” he does not mention the policy – which he opposed and consistently preached would fail – that has made it even remotely possible for us to leave Iraq without it being an unmitigated disaster in every conceivable way to do so.

He will never admit it, but as Peter Wehner writes, “It is because President Bush endorsed a counterinsurgency plan which Senator Obama fiercely opposed that we are in a position to both withdraw additional combat troops and prevail in Iraq.” Nor will he admit that it was because Sen. McCain took such a personal and momentous role in seeing that Congress supported – or at least did not thwart – the successful implementation of that surge that Sen. Obama can claim the recalibrated position on Iraq he does today.

Sen. Obama continues in his NYT opinion that “I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.”

Even if we accept that going into Iraq initially distracted us from our fight against al-Qaeda, that still does not absolve the fact that Sen. Obama recklessly called for American retreat from Iraq after it became the central front in the war on terror. In other words, it may not have been so originally, but the fact is indisputable that Iraq is now the central front – as al Qaeda itself has said – and has been since the end of initial combat there.

Sen. Obama also declares that as president he will “give the military a new mission: ending this war.”

Of course, ending the war has been the goal of everyone on every side of this issue since it was an issue, the disagreement being over the prudent and most effective way of ending the war, not actually whether to end it.

Sen. Obama determined that we ought to get out yesterday, consequences be damned. He sought nothing but ending the war for that sake alone, either neglecting to consider the adverse ramifications that would come as certainly as gravity or callously disregarding them.

Sen. McCain took the opposite tact. He determined that anything less than ending the war in victory would entail costs far more than this country could bear. So he doubled the bet and lobbied for increased force levels which then secured the country and put a strong foot up the collective ass of al Qaeda. As a result, the United States is now courting victory and it is possible for Sen. Obama to advance the one half of his plan that never would have been made possible by the other.

*****

At this point Sen. Obama’s pretzel is complete. After all these months and even years of tearing Sen. McCain to shreds over his judgment on Iraq, he has slowly walked over and taken a position right next to him, secretly adopting the Republican’s positions while still criticizing him every bit as vociferously as before. He has begun to admit – or his surrogates have – that circumstances might render his plans inoperable and has even pledged to consult with commanders on the ground before making any definitive and ill-advised decisions. Ultimately, his “phased redeployment” – now that victory in Iraq is all but achieved – probably isn’t that much different from the process of redeployment currently in operation.

Essentially, Sen. Obama is now the beneficiary of Sen. McCain’s judgement and statesmanship. He scored his political points assaulting Sen. McCain on Iraq and can now enjoy the fruits of those very same policies as a candidate in the general.

Accordingly, I would submit that Sen. Obama ought to thank Sen. McCain, at least when no one is looking. If it weren’t for him he might have had to actually answer for the consequences of his proposals, or would at least have to spend time finding some other way to blame Sen. McCain for the mess in Iraq that in reality his own policies prescripted.

Don’t worry, Sen. Obama; words need not be spoken. On behalf of Sen. McCain and all those who opposed your reckless positions – you’re welcome. Enjoy the pretzel.

Preserve the Electoral College

The Electoral College has come under increasing siege in recent years, to the point now that there is an effort – touched upon in these pages a few days ago by Scott Lehigh – to undermine it through the national popular vote interstate agreement. The Washington State Senate has already passed a version of this accord once and it will undoubtedly come into consideration once again when the legislative session begins early next year. Washingtonians as well as all Americans should be on their guard, for a national popular vote will fail to yield the benefits its proponents promise.

In describing the Electoral College as "that most antiquated of arrangements," Mr. Lehigh blithely ignores the real benefits it confers upon our democracy. It compels candidates to adopt moderate approaches and to build truly national coalitions of voters, thereby discouraging political extremism from either the right or left.

Further, trading the Electoral College for a national popular vote would bring about a smaller – not broader – national campaign. Only required to get the most popular votes, the major candidates would need only to retreat to the major metropolitan areas and/or into their biggest bases of support to engage in dueling contests of running up the score. Without the allure of electoral votes, they would have no incentive to visit and address the concerns and interests of the middling to minimally populated states that do receive attention now, such as Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Missouri, New Hampshire and, yes, Washington.

The Electoral College also serves as a bulwark against corruption and electoral fraud. In a close presidential election decided by popular vote, fraud in one major metropolitan area could be enough to swing the election one way or another. That this is a real possibility only increases the incentive – and thus the likelihood – for someone to engage in such an effort in the right circumstances.

Under the current system though, voter fraud can be isolated to one state without it necessarily swinging the entire election. The threat of corruption is still real, but the Electoral College goes a long way in reducing it.

Mr. Lehigh also misses the point when he bemoans the fact that so many states are currently ignored to the benefit of a select few "battleground states." As Tara Ross has pointed out, the reason these states don’t receive the attention more closely-contested ones do is because they "already feel that one of the two presidential candidates represents their interests fairly well."

Ultimately, even though there is nothing technically illegal or unconstitutional about the national popular vote effort, it is a (borrowing Mr. Lehigh’s term) "clever" short-cut in changing the Constitution without actually going through the process of amending it and winning the national debate doing so would require. In other words, it has the same drawbacks as a national popular vote, which is reason enough for us to preserve a system that has always given us the benefit of truly national and moderate presidential elections and presidents.

Simply put, the Electoral College is good for American democracy and we should keep it.

Davis v. FEC

Follow and support the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform (McCain-Feingold) too much and you might begin to think we live in some strange vortex where the Constitution and its First Amendment do not really mean what they say. Disabusing this notion if and where it exists (in this case at least), the Court held in Davis v. FEC that §§319(a) and (b) violate the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. In his opinion for the Court, Justice Alito wrote that, "the unprecedented step of imposing different contribution and coordinated party expenditure limits on candidates vying for the same seat is antithetical to the First Amendment" and the "argument that a candidate’s speech may be restricted in order to ‘level electoral opportunities’ has ominous implications because it would permit Congress to arrogate the voters’ authority to evaluate the strengths of candidates competing for office."

Justice Alito and the Court are correct and their conclusion is the only one reconcilable with the text of the First Amendment, which mandates that "Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech." The language is pretty explicit, and it certainly does not say (as it would have to for this provision to be Constitutionally permissible) that "Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, except when Congress determines that doing so will help level the playing field between competing candidates for Congress."

Hoping to preserve its prerogative to regulate political speech, the government argued that the provision is justified "because it ameliorates the deleterious effects that result from the tight limits that federal election law places on individual campaign contributions and coordinated party expenditures." However that is neither here nor there. The First Amendment says without exception that Congress shall not abridge the freedom of speech period, irrespective of the putative salutary effects and benefits of doing so. As Justice Alito pointed out, by penalizing an individual’s unfettered exercise of his right to free speech the government therebyn abridges it.

Noble intentions do not justify violating the text of the First Amendment. The Constitution does in fact actually mean what it says.

'Change' Defined

Those who have wondered what it was in specific that Sen. Obama meant in his oft-delivered promises of "change" should now have an answer. The "change" Sen. Obama promises and stands for is the prerogative to change his mind, memberships, mentors, commitments, etc. whenever it is expedient and convenient for him to do so. Previous manifestations of this include his relationship with Rev. Wright, his family’s membership at Trinity United, and his back-tracking on his previous promise to sit down with America’s enemies without condition, to name a few.

There is another case in point today. After promising to "aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election" Sen. Obama announced that he will forego public financing–with nary an attempt to work out an agreement with Sen. McCain—in the upcoming campaign. His only justification for his blatant duplicity is a lame argument that "John McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs." That is rich coming from a man who refuses to break one step with liberal special interests and distorts his own pious refusal to accept money from lobbyists.

We’ve tread on this ground before. Is Barack Obama really a new kind of politician? Hardly. He is simply a typical politician with a conspicuous chasm between word and deed, between Barack Obama the man and Barack Obama the myth. Ironically the person most determined to prove this is Sen. Obama himself.

Stick to the Code, Sen. McCain

Republicans in the branches of Congress and throughout the Washington establishment are hiking enthusiasts, we can only conclude. How can we not? In the three and a half years that have elapsed since the election of 2004 we have demonstrated an incorrigible determination to delve deeper and deeper into the dark recesses of the political wilderness. We were punished for this avant garde tendency in ‘06, decisively losing our governing majorities in Congress that we so uselessly squandered. A lesson was to be gleaned from this punishment, a lesson which has apparently fallen upon inattentive ears.

The establishment GOP for too long has been far too tolerant of corruption within its midst. Residing within government simply to gorge upon its trough is antithetical to every principle which defines the party, yet too few within the party’s apparatus are willing to undertake the dirty work of preserving the integrity of those principles and of the party in general. Thus we march deeper into the wilderness.

Pork-barrel spending—the nectar and sustenance, nay the seed of corruption—also flies antagonistic to our party’s principles, yet in the years since we have controlled Congress until this day it has grown exponentially among the caucuses in the House and Senate, even after our ass-whipping in November ‘06. A recent proposition by House Minority Leader John Boehner that House Republicans adhere to a moratorium on pork was easily defeated. What is more, some of the caucuses’ most disreputable appropriators maintain their positions of leadership within the caucus and on committees. Thus we march deeper into the wilderness.

Though many good, credible conservative solutions there be, Republicans in Congress still provide no compelling agenda to address the country’s problems and the concerns of the American people, such as health care, energy, the economy, Iran, North Korea, etc. Democrats have their own (big government, terrible) ideas, we appear to have none. Thus we march deeper into the wilderness.

The upshot is that Republicans face losses this year every bit as significant as those in ‘06, losses which will strengthen the Democrats’ grasp on the levers of power in Washington and their ability to inflict real harm through their disastrous prescriptions. It does not help Republicans that their own malfeasances have coincided with Democrats’ long-awaited realization that to win Congressional seats within generally conservative America you have to run candidates who are themselves conservative, specifically on social issues, immigration, spending, etc. Witness Travis Childers’ recent victory in a House special election in heretofore Republican Mississippi.

Without reformation, complacent Republicans will only watch their seats dwindle further and further year after year. This leaves Sen. McCain in the position of having to enforce the Pirate’s Code: Whoever falls behind, is left behind. He has to press ahead with his reform agenda, touching upon those issues of concern to the American voter that Congressional Republicans at least appear to be ignoring. Be prepared to go it alone; if Republicans in Congress want to follow great, they’ll be doing all of us a favor. If they do not, press forward regardless. I wouldn’t wait for them to return from their furlough into the wilderness.

It's Been Decided For Awhile, Folks

The political commentariat is now operating under the assumption that Sen. Obama has at long last clinched the Democratic nomination by his landslide victory in the North Carolina primary and his near upset of Sen. Clinton in Indiana. This is wrong from the standpoint that Sen. Obama was effectively assured of the nomination following his string of victories following Super Tuesday, long before this past Tuesday. Indiana and North Carolina did not change anything except convince many of what was already, for all intents and purposes, inevitable.

Sen. Clinton intends to carry on, of course, because she is Sen. Clinton. As David Kahane writes, “She’s not going to quit because she has nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do. She lives for this, and without it, she has no life. In fact, without it, she doesn’t exist at all.” Since her husband raised his right hand in ‘93 she has been preparing for the day that she could raise hers. Until Sen. Obama’s nomination is official, she is not going to let that go.

Though it is all but inevitable at this point, it is only all but inevitable. That is how she will view the situation at least. She will look forward to large victories in the upcoming Kentucky and West Virginia primaries, hoping significant margins there will stoke further discussion of Sen. Obama’s inability to win over white, blue-collar voters and give Democratic super-delegates further pause as they size up the strength of Sen. Obama as a general election candidate. She will also continue to push for the seating of Michigan’s and Florida’s delegates at the convention (she sent a letter to Sen. Obama today laughably urging him to support that effort), arguing–not without some semblance of a point–that to deny those delegates seats would be to disenfranchise Democratic voters in those respective states and harm Democrats politically in what will be two pivotal battlegrounds in the fall.

Ultimately, these efforts will fail and Sen. Obama, warts and all, will accept the nomination in Denver this August. All that is really left to be decided is whether Sen. Clinton can and even wants to muscle herself onto the ticket and how exactly such a ticket would play in the fall. The race for the Democratic nomination is essentially decided and has been decided for sometime, but the saga and theater shall continue hence.

Sen. McCain & the Judiciary

Second only to the role of commander-in-chief, a President’s most solemn and consequential function is to appoint judges to the federal judiciary. Once appointed these jurists serve for life, kept accountable only by the substance of their own jurisprudence and the dictates of their conscience. From behind their august bench it is entirely within their power to willfully manipulate the laws and the Constitution of the United States in all manner of ways which their textual import does not bear.

If privileged to serve as our 44th President, Sens. Clinton and Obama have made it all too clear that this is exactly the type of judge they will appoint to the bench and the Supreme Court. Assuming awesome powers they do not rightfully possess, these judges would continue the federal judiciary’s steady trespass into the provinces and functions of the elected branches of the federal, state, and municipal governments that has been problematic for the past half-century. These are judges who will interpret the Constitution as entirely malleable to the dictates, caprices, and “evolving standards of decency” of themselves and their colleagues.

This is not acceptable. The province of the federal judiciary is to interpret and apply the text of the laws and Constitution of the United States in accordance with the import they carried when they were originally adopted, not to refashion them in a manner they deem appropriate, which is always inappropriate. In a regime based upon popular consent, judicial adventures into the realm of the political branches are intolerable and an absolute anathema to democracy. As President Lincoln so ably put it in his first inaugural, “the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”

In his speech on the federal judiciary today Sen. McCain recognized this, pledging to

"look for accomplished men and women with a proven record of excellence in the law, and a proven commitment to judicial restraint. I will look for people in the cast of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and my friend the late William Rehnquist — jurists of the highest caliber who know their own minds, and know the law, and know the difference. My nominees will understand that there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power, and clear limits to the scope of federal power. They will be men and women of experience and wisdom, and the humility that comes with both. They will do their work with impartiality, honor, and humanity, with an alert conscience, immune to flattery and fashionable theory, and faithful in all things to the Constitution of the United States."

Let this sentiment not be once uttered in today’s speech and never again in the campaign. I would urge the senator return to it again and again, creating a clear distinction and choice for the voter between his opponent and himself. He ought to reiterate that whether you are conservative or liberal, those issues of the greatest significance to the republic must be decided the correct way through the legal and Constitutional political processes that have served us as a people throughout our history, whether you agree with the ultimate results or not. The federal judiciary has its place in our Constitutional republic, it should remain within that. This is only achieved by appointing the right type of judges to the bench, the type of judges Sen. McCain now promises to appoint as President.

Sen. Obama's New Outrage

Sen. Obama has finally found himself in the position where anything less than an open and unconditional condemnation of Reverend Jeremiah Wright is politically untenable. This is primarily because his and other’s assertions that the multiple comments of the reverend that have surfaced before the public over previous weeks were taken out of context has been belied by Rev. Wright’s reiteration and extension of those viewpoints in his various public appearances this week.

In consequence, Sen. Obama has finally asserted his outrage publicly, which of course only raises the question, why now? It would strain credulity to accept that he was never aware of Rev. Wright’s deranged views for the past twenty years he sustained a close relationship with him, so then why is it now—only now—that Sen. Obama has become outraged? Why never in the two previous decades when he was sitting in the pews listening to this bile? You and I can be forgiven if we suspect that the answer to this question is very plain: he is now running for President of the United States and his prospects of being elected as such are being jeopardized by his intimate association with Rev. Wright.

As we go forward from this, Sen. Obama’s problem will be that Americans hold this suspicion too and that, beyond this, they begin think Sen. Obama’s only real objection to Rev. Wright’s views is their political inexpedience to his campaign, not their actual content and substance. This would be fatal, and Sen. Obama must now train his focus on doing all he can to prevent this suspicion from permeating the consciousness of the American voter. Doing this is all the more pressing because he is hemorrhaging in his race against Sen. Clinton. Good luck, Senator.

Some Clarification

It would probably be helpful to infuse a little clarity where it might be lacking regarding the objections towards Sen. Obama’s recent “bitter” comments, for those who may misunderstand the substance of those objections that is. We who do object–or at least myself–do not do so to Sen. Obama’s contention that many small-town Americans are “bitter” or upset at economic hardship and suffering. Where this hardship exists, there is obviously bitterness and angst and we nor anyone else would deny this.

What is objectionable and frankly offensive is Sen. Obama’s belief that small-town Americans simply “cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations” for any reason. This fully de-legitimizes those beliefs and practices and reduces them to mere childish and irrational reaction to and epiphenomena of adverse circumstances. As Rich Lowry points out, this is an irrefutable refusal to meet people on their own terms and reveals an “assumption…that only liberal attitudes are normal and well-adjusted: If only these small-town people could earn more income, get an advanced degree, and move to a major metropolitan area, then they could shed their chrysalis of social conservatism.”

That is what is objectionable.