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.

Barack Obama, Teflon Man?

Phil Klein and Jim Geraghty considered yesterday whether Sen. Obama is Teflon Man, immune and impervious to any negative ramifications that would stand to be incurred by the politically erosive toll of controversies such as “Bittergate”, Rev. Wright, Tony Rezko, etc. It is an open question well worth the discourse, and I submit that we will not be in a position to answer it anytime soon, not until this perpetual contest between Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama is decided that is.

Much of the available polling data tends to inform us that the aforementioned controversies have not had any substantial negative effect on Sen. Obama among Democratic primary voters. But this is only half the story, as the dynamics of a primary race—for both political parties—and a general election campaign are two beasts in complete disparity. Democratic primary voters are, speaking generally, decidedly more liberal than the great swath of voters in the general electorate. Their principles, perceptions, ideologies, and priorities are of a different form. Accordingly, they would tend not to take much offense towards Sen. Obama’s close association with Rev. Wright, an anti-American bigot, or Sen. Obama’s de-legitimization of millions of blue-collar Americans’ religious views and practices, their lifestyles, and political principles.

This might not be the case among the general electorate, of which only a minority slice is distinctly liberal. The rest is comprised of centrist Democrats (Reagan Democrats), independents, and Republicans. In consequence, what was not an issue in the Democratic primary may very well be a big issue in the general and a burdensome yoke hampering Sen. Obama’s candidacy. We will not know this until Sen. Obama actually becomes the Democratic nominee and the dynamics of a general election campaign between himself and Sen. McCain reveal themselves.

Along this train of thought, Mr. Geraghty questions whether Sen. Obama’s “bitter” comments are or possibly can be a “killer gaffe”. I doubt they can be, but I also don’t think that is the point. Demeaning millions of Americans is not a gaffe that once uttered dooms his chances, but along with Rev. Wright, Rezko, and his previous political record they can serve to create a general impression about Sen. Obama among Americans that is deleterious to his prospects in November. It might be one component piece among a general corpus which fosters a suspicion and conviction among independents and others that Sen. Obama is one who looks down upon those who are deeply or actively religious, are hawks on immigration, and/or who own and use guns.

If this becomes the case among enough voters, Sen. Obama will be at pains to win what has been thought to be a shoe-in victory for Democrats this November. As Michael Goodwin writes, “Already facing a racial barrier made worse by the incendiary comments of his pastor, the Rev. Wright, the notion that Obama is also a liberal elitist could prove fatal in swing states.” Time will tell if this becomes so, or if Sen. Obama is a man of Teflon and in time the forty-fourth President of the United States.

On Sen. Obama's "Bitter" Remarks

Sen. Obama’s recent comments regarding residents of small town Pennsylvania reveal and demonstrate a stereotype and misunderstanding of rural and heartland America that is endemic among the elite of the American left, of which Sen. Obama is himself a part. This segment has a common conception that much of blue collar and rural America is gun-toting, irrationally religious, isolationist, xenophobic, and intolerant “of people who aren’t like them” (i.e. homosexuals, blacks, you name it). This is a perception held in corners of academia, the national media, the urban intelligentsia, Hollywood and the entertainment industry, and among the permanent civil service elite in Washington and within many state governments. To wit, it is no accident Sen. Obama’s comments were made before an audience in San Francisco.

Possession of this worldview is compounded, in Sen. Obama’s case at least, by condescension and unseemly paternalism. Not only are these segments of America all of the aforementioned, but they are so because it’s their emotive and rash response to economic suffering. Small town America is irrational and extreme because things haven’t gone their way, and are embittered and blame others for their misfortune.

It is to Sen. Obama and enlightened liberals to remedy this through their pure enlightenment and cosmopolitan understanding. They are the good shepherds that will lead the American flock of sheep to greener pastures through progressive governance. If you don’t believe that you’re just bitter.

Shine Coming Off

Heretofore it has been conventional wisdom in conservative circles and within the political community in general that between Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama, Sen. Clinton would be the weaker Democrat in the general election. This indeed may be true, and there is ample reason to believe that it is, but the events of the past month have begun to tarnish the validity of that theory.

Until recently Sen. Obama’s self-constructed and purveyed image as a transcendental candidate and beacon of hope and unity in an otherwise sordid political age had gone largely unmolested. But alas, reality has begun to set in. His claim to be an unideological and post-partisan leader was betrayed by revelations from National Journal that he is the most doctrinaire liberal in the U.S. Senate. His new politics has been accosted by, among other things, the commencement of the trial of his former fundraiser Tony Rezko. Most damaging of all, his message of unity and hope was slapped across the face with the publicity of many, shall we say, impolitic remarks by his pastor and mentor with whom he has had an intimate relationship for two decades.

The shine has begun to come off and new questions have begun to surface regarding his viability as a candidate in the fall, questions which only add to those which most national Democrats have apparently been too disinterested to ask, namely those concerning Sen. Obama’s unsettling degree of inexperience.

The upshot of all of this is that it is clear that Sen. Obama is susceptible to a political fall of a kind greater than most candidates for President. He has billed himself as a figure that is tantamount to a political messiah, a lofty standard that is, at best, extremely difficult to live up to. Any stumbles, such as the multitude we have witnessed of late, and the whole facade could come crashing down. As Yuval Levin writes, for those voters who have flocked to him so far, “learning more about Obama will not only be disconcerting, it will be disillusioning, which is far worse. Obama’s trouble is not only that people know little about him, but also that much of what they know is not true.”

Sen. Obama has not built his candidacy on anything solid, such as a record or concrete principles and prescriptions, only on pleasant platitudes and catch phrases which are nothing more than empty bottles. Should Democrats nominate him they may very well be building their entire house on top of a vaporous myth, a myth which may very well evaporate in an election cycle they have no business losing. I by no means assert this is foreordained, only that it is a very real possibility.

On Plato's Cave

With no commentary on the validity of Plato’s conception of human nature, his allegory of the cave is not a good metaphor for it. Plato uses the cave and its inhabitants to represent man’s natural state, yet nothing of or within the cave is or can be said to be remotely natural. Each of the men are prisoners, not free-dwelling residents thereof, bound in chains and artificially proscribed from moving in any manner. What they see and are subject to perceive is determined by their prison masters. All is controlled, nothing is natural or variable.

The individual who does leave the cave does not do so through his own fruition, but is chosen at random (presumably) and compelled to go towards the surface and the light of day. How then can this person, who has left the cave and seen the sun in its pure form (the representative of the good), represent that rare species of human endowed with the capacity for philosophy and the contemplative life when the only difference between him and his fellow captives is that he was compelled to ascend while the others remained bound in chains below? He is distinguished not by natural gift or superior cognitive capacity, but by fortune.

Instead of providing a compelling metaphor for his view of man, Plato unwittingly provides those with views opposite his own a compelling metaphor to describe the regime he (in his critics’ view) and the masters of totalitarian states would impose (and have imposed) on their servile peoples. To wit, those masses are confined in a state of imprisonment by the few, bound in bondage and proscribed from any sort of meaningful freedom and liberty. What they are allowed to see, know, experience, and perceive is strictly regulated and controlled by the masters at the top.

This is the formulation of the totalitarian state, and is it not the exact formulation of Plato’s cave? Therefore the image of the cave, which Plato utilizes to convey the natural state of man, can logically be said not to convey that true natural state to Plato’s critics, but only the artificial state Plato and his ilk would impose on man. Plato would have done well to have found a different metaphor.

Bush Redux?

By now each of us has heard the claim by the two Democratic candidates for President and other minions of the Democratic Party that Sen. McCain is running for a “third Bush term.” Of course this is nonsense. Sen. McCain was never one, for better or for worse, to toe the administration line and would not seek to perpetuate that line were he to become President.

The only reason his Democratic critics can allege that he is Bush redux–despite all those pesky matters of public record to the contrary–is because he, like President Bush, is determined to win in Iraq and stave off the devastating effects American defeat would incur.

But on second look, Sen. McCain and the Bush Administration have had two distinct positions on Iraq throughout the course of most of our involvement there, as David Brooks points out this morning. From nearly the moment that Saddam’s statue fell in Baghdad, Sen. McCain criticized the administration’s reconstruction strategy and advocated an infusion of American forces into Iraq to bring security to the country, the absolute requiem for a democratic process to develop. Only in January of last year did the Bush Administration abandon its own failed strategy and adopt that of Sen. McCain and other bright military minds in the country.

Sen. McCain never toed the administration’s line, and in fact it was the Bush Administration that eventually conformed itself to Sen. McCain’s line. Now Democrats would like to convince Americans that the opposite is true, seeking to penalize Sen. McCain for the fact that the Bush Administration eventually wised up and adopted his strategy.

Of course the irony in this is that it is now Democrats who support the old Bush/Rumsfeld strategy, preaching as gospel phased withdrawals of American troops with the simultaneous transfer of security responsibilities to Iraqi forces that are not yet ready to shoulder that entire burden themselves, the recipe for–as we have seen–al Qaeda terrorism and sectarian bloodshed.

In the end, as Mr. Brooks concludes, “Anybody who thinks McCain is merely continuing the Bush agenda is not paying attention.”

The Age Issue

Ellen Goodman has written a column this morning on some of the questions we should be discussing and considering regarding Sen. McCain’s age and the effect (if any) it has on his competence to be President. This is not the first time this issue has been raised and it will not be the last, especially once Democratic partisans are released from attacking each other and can focus their fire on Sen. McCain.

Assuming the liberty that I so often have on this august site to counsel Sen. McCain, allow me to offer that though the issue has to be addressed, it should not be done so by direct address for the simple reason that though words matter, conduct and action matter even more.

Running for re-election in 1984, President Reagan answered questions about his advanced maturity by delivering a memorable quip that completely disarmed the issue and sealed his victory. For his part, Sen. McCain is a funny guy but is no Reagan, and so will not be able to diffuse the issue in the same effortless manner. Instead, it will be dispelled or confirmed through the day to day strain of the campaign. If Sen. McCain is active on the trail and energetically engages with the voters in the town hall meetings that have typified his campaign-style to date, age will not be an issue. If, on the other hand, voters tune into the evening news each night and see a listless nominee reading a tired stump speech through the bags under his eyes, doubts will inevitably develop, and justifiably so.

Sure it is nice to point to your ninety-year old mother as, to borrow Mrs. Goodman’s humorous term, a “genetic ambassador” when questions are presented regarding your age, but the best way to invalidate concerns that you are too much of an old man to vigorously execute the office of President of the United States is to not act like one.

Indeed, the issue of whether voters will believe Sen. McCain is too old will not turn on whether his critics say he is or whether he says he isn’t, but on the degree of energy and vitality he exhibits in traveling across the country asking Americans for their votes. If Sen. McCain continues to be the same candidate he has been so far, accusations of senility will ring hollow and die by absence of merit.

What’s more, age might not even turn out to be Sen. McCain’s cross to bear but that of his likely opponent, whose youth and inexperience compared to Sen. McCain’s years of impressive service to country could be politically emasculating in an election when perilous times place a priority on experience and preparedness.

The age hurdle is and will be cleared if Sen. McCain demonstrates that, far from being the target of a hooded reaper that some would portray him to be, he is the one statesmen in this election experienced and prepared to lead the nation through a quadrennium that will be both decidedly consequential and tumultuous.

Polls Gone Crazy

There has been a spate of polls released in the last few days by many different organizations and on many different things—whether they be national or state polls. And each one of them seems to reveal a completely different race. For example, Gallup has Sen. Clinton defeating Sen. McCain in a potential match-up 51% to 46% whereas Rasmussen has Sen. McCain defeating Sen. Clinton 51% to 41%. This wide disparity holds in polling of a Sen. McCain-Obama race as well.

The only lesson that can be drawn from this is that polls aren’t to be trusted at the moment. In both possible general election races we can only hold that it is essentially a tie; just take a look at the RealClearPolitics averages of each match-up. Until the Democratic nominee is determined and the dynamics of the campaign reveal themselves there is only so much value in general election polling at the moment, and until then all candidates seem to be on pretty equal footing (which is pretty good for Sen. McCain).

What can be determined from recent data is that Sen. Obama is coming down to earth, nay falling down to earth. Examine some state polling numbers released today. Rezko, ‘3a.m.’, and Rev. Wright have all inflicted body blows on Sen. Obama and there is irrefutable evidence that at this point his campaign is swooning.

The Economy

It is beyond argument that the hyperventilating economy is a drag on Republicans—and in consequence Sen. McCain—this election year. Further deterioration will only exacerbate that fact and Sen. McCain and his campaign need to remain on top of the issue.

It is entirely appropriate and beneficial that he is abroad right now, demonstrating his command of the foreign policy sphere and his qualifications to be commander-in-chief; but if it is not already than the economy is likely to be the preeminent issue of concern in the campaign, and disproportionate emphasis on foreign affairs runs the risk of neglecting that which is of the most concern to the voter. This cannot happen. Peter cannot be robbed to pay Paul.

In the coming weeks Sen. McCain needs to be out in front talking about the economy, acknowledging its perilous state in the present and demonstrating that he understands the concommitant apprehension among Americans. He needs to identify the general objectives his administration will pursue economically and some specific policies and programs tailored to curing what ails the economy at this time. His economic advisors and surrogates need to be running the cable news, radio, and Sunday morning gauntlet doing the same.

Most importantly, Sen. McCain needs to get above the Democrats on this issue. Their two presidential candidates propose immense government solutions to the economy, which they promise will be the solution to its deficiencies. But there is only so much oxygen in the atmosphere and the more government consumes the less there is for the economy and the market to grow and prosper. Sen. McCain’s requiem is to demonstrate this. Persuade Americans that there are real problems with this economy but that the Democrats’ prescriptions will not rectify but only aggravate them. The Democrats’ economic program aims to empower the federal government, his seeks to empower the American people.

A specific example of how I would have Sen. McCain approach the economy and his Democratic opponent regards trade. In I think every single speech I have heard Sen. Obama deliver on the campaign trail he has promised to end tax loopholes for American companies that ship jobs overseas. But why, Sen. McCain should ask, do these companies outsource? Because labor costs are cheaper in those foreign countries. Closing tax loopholes and otherwise raising taxes and attacking American business will not stop outsourcing but only create greater incentive for them to practice it even more.

Sen. McCain can be aggressive on the tax issue from another angle as well. As Jeffrey Bell wrote in his excellent article in last week’s Weekly Standard, he “can note that Democrats insisted [that all the Bush tax cuts] expire, a fact that is now causing uncertainty among workers and investors as stiff tax increases loom ever closer.” He must look at the Democratic nominee and “demand that he [or she] explain how leaving the prospect of stiff tax increases in place will help today’s economy and stock market.”

Sen. McCain and down-ticket Republicans cannot alter the fact that the economy will be a burden on them this year, so long as Americans feel burdened by it themselves at least. All he and they can do is tackle the issue aggressively and forthrightly, acknowledging the economy as it is, promoting reasonable policies and approaches, and convincing the voters that Democrats don’t have remedies, only prescriptions for further aggravation. Do this successfully and we just might win an election.

On the Obama-Wright Fiasco

I do not know exactly what to make of the recent Obama-Rev. Wright controversy. Sen. Obama condemned the remarks at issue this past Friday in much the same language and tone that I would, but his explanation that the controversial statements “were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation” strikes me as strikingly insufficient and unsatisfying. As has been demonstrated in recent examinations into the Rev.’s past, these comments and views have not been isolated nor uncharacteristic of their author, but indeed coincide with years of statements and general opinion to that effect.

How is it then possible that in the twenty years Sen. Obama has been a parishioner of Rev. Wright that he was not aware of any of these comments or views of American society and history? As Michael Crowley writes, “Wright’s oft-iterated political world view, which apparently includes the belief that the US created AIDS to keep the Third World in poverty, should be quite apparent to anyone who knows him as well as Obama does.”

And if Sen. Obama was aware of this, as it seems he must have been, why did he still attend the Reverend’s church if those views were so revolting to Sen. Obama’s own? Moreover, why would he have planned to have Rev. Wright introduce him at his presidential candidacy announcement?

These are legitimate questions for voters to have, all the more so because, as Dean Barnett points out, “Obama doesn’t have any real record on ‘values, judgment and experience’ as a public figure.” It is accordingly difficult to judge and determine what relationship and symbiosis Rev. Wright’s views have to Sen. Obama’s because we do not have a sufficient understanding of and experience with Sen. Obama through which to contextualize this.

At this point I have a hard time believing that Sen. Obama’s views closely coincide with Rev. Wright’s, but it is galling how one could have the close personal relationship that Sen. Obama has had with Rev. Wright when the comments and opinions we have heard from both are so fundamentally irreconcilable with each other. It just runs so diametrically counter to the admirable post-racial stance he has taken for most of this campaign.

In the end, it is probably as William Kristol writes,

Obama seems to have seen, early in his career, the utility of joining a prominent church that would help him establish political roots in the community in which he lives. Now he sees the utility of distancing himself from that church. Obama’s behavior in dealing with Wright is consistent with that of a politician who often voted “present” in the Illinois State Legislature for the sake of his future political viability.

Sen. McCain & Lady Fortune

Pollster Scott Rasmussen posits and addresses the question of whether Sen. McCain’s heretofore success in the presidential campaign has been based on luck and good fortune. Whether you believe that it has been or has not, this is a worthy question to consider.

In answering it myself, I would like to at first be clear that, more than anything else, Sen. McCain’s nomination victory is due to his strengths as a candidate and his tenacity and perseverance on the trail. With that said, it seems irrefutable that he has indeed been the beneficiary of a significant degree of good fortune, as I think any successful politician must be to some extent or another.

Take Iraq. Sen. McCain "owned" the surge and staked his candidacy on American success there at a time when nearly everyone else—Democrat and Republican alike—was creating all manner of distance and distinction between themselves and our involvement there. Yet in the nearly fourteen months that the surge has been implemented and executed it has become an obvious success, and though much of the credit for this belongs to Sen. McCain and his statesmanship and political courage in advocacy and defense of it, the tide of events in Iraq is and always has been outside of the control of one individual. Had it not been for the American resurgence there, I doubt we would have seen the simultaneous resurgence of Sen. McCain.

The fractured Republican field also served to Sen. McCain’s advantage. The portion of the conservative base which stood in opposition to him never coalesced around an alternative. In consequence, he was left an opening through which he was able to surge and capture the nomination in an ultimately quick and convincing manner.

In this same vain, Mayor Giuliani absolutely vanished from the campaign once it began to intensify in the month or so prior to Iowa and New Hampshire, leaving no one to credibly challenge Sen. McCain for the national security and moderate Republican/Independent primary vote, such as there was.

Each of these developments, for the most part out of his control, amounted to a perfect storm of good fortune by which Sen. McCain leaped from the political graveyard to the Republican nomination in a span of three months.

His good fortune does not seem to have dissipated either. Senators Clinton and Obama are deadlocked in the race for their party’s nomination, and to create distance between each other they are criticizing the multitudinous flaws of both to a degree that Sen. McCain could only hope to match. Whether this fatally cripples the eventual nominee and erases the inherent advantages they would and should enjoy will be determined in November. But that fortune could sweep Sen. McCain not just to the nomination (for which he was the most qualified) but to the White House as well (for which he is the most qualified) is entirely conceivable.

Race & Sen. Obama's Success

Joe Klein makes more than a few suspect claims (superficial, unsupportable claims really) in his post yesterday on Time’s "Swampland" blog.1 But I would agree to an extent with his main assertion, that Sen. Obama has been successful because of his talent, not his race.

I would actually recalibrate that statement just a bit. Sen. Obama has come a long way by virtue of his talent—as Mr. Klein correctly points out, he is "the best public speaker the Democratic Party has produced since John F. Kennedy"—, but the extent of his success (at this moment, favorite to be the Democratic nominee for President) has been determined by his race to a large degree.

As Ramesh Ponnuru has documented, there have been camps within the Democratic Party for forty years now; the traditional Democrats (the most notable representatives including Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Al Gore, and now Hillary Clinton) and what we may call the "new" Democrats (George McGovern, Gary Hart, Bill Bradley, etc.). The former has usually been more materially concerned— focusing on entitlements, welfare, and other government programs—while the latter, being more affluent on balance, has focused on the "ethereal," like change, hope, and a new politics.

Heretofore "new" Democrats have not been very successful, with George McGovern losing in one of the largest landslides in American history in ‘72 and both Hart and Bradley failing to capture their party’s nomination in ‘84 and ‘00 respectively. What has made the difference with Sen. Obama though, as Mr. Ponnuru writes, is race. "Obama’s blackness expands the new party’s coalition in two ways. It brings in his fellow black Americans [who had previously favored traditional Democrats]. It also heightens his appeal to the party’s natural constituents. Well-off liberal white voters are delighted to have the opportunity to vote for a nice black man."2

Mr. Klein is only half-right then. Sen. Obama has gotten to the top by virtue of his talent—which is impressive in many ways—but what has put him over the top, and has distinguished him from previous failed Democrats of the same cloth, is his race.

1. Klein, Joe (2008, March 13). [Weblog] On Ferraro. Swampland. Retrieved March 14, 2008, from http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/03/on_ferraro.html
2. Ponnuru, R. (2008, March 10). The Warrior and the Priest. National Review, LX(4), 17-18.

Sen. McCain & FISA

Despite substantial bipartisan support, House Democrats have continued to drag their feet on legislation, already approved by the Senate, which will extend the American intelligence services’ ability to electronically monitor terrorist communications abroad. House Democrats passed an alternative version of that legislation today, but it was an alternative which inaugurates new privacy rights for foreign enemies of the United States and which preserves liability for telecommunication companies which have assisted the United States in that monitoring in good faith.1 The upshot is that now no legislation is in place for the President to sign and will not be for two more weeks at the earliest, which is when Congress will return from recess.

Until legislation is passed, American intelligence will be compelled to follow probable-cause standards in gathering foreign intelligence, standards which are inappropriate for that sphere. As Andrew McCarthy has written, "Having probable cause means you already know someone is dangerous...In gathering foreign intelligence, it is necessary to case a wide net of suspicion in order to detect which regimes, organizations, and operatives might be a threat to Americans."2

The House Democrats’ recalcitrance is unacceptable, compromising national security to placate their left-wing base which, as Matthew Continetti points out, "is adamant that the [telecoms]...not be granted immunity from litigation for cooperating with the government on foreign surveillance of terrorists during the years when FISA did not have authority over the program."3

Sen. McCain is now for all intents and purposes the leader of our party, and his credibility on issues of national security with the American people can be utilized. I would encourage him to address this issue in public and on Capitol Hill, calling out the minority of members of Congress—including Sen. Obama—on their lack of responsibility on this legislation. He would do a great service to his country and our security interests were he to assume a leadership role here. So much of our ability to identify and understand our enemies should not be shorn away at the behest of the over-zealous fringe on our country’s left.

1. McCarthy, Andy (2008, March 14). [Weblog] FISA Bait & Switch. The Corner, National Review Online. Retrieved March 14, 2008, from http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmRlOWM3OGUwYzYyOGFlZjE2YWQ1NmFjMGYyNmRmYjc=
2. McCarthy, Andrew C. (2008, March 10). A Most Dangerous Game. National Review, LX(4), 22-24.
3. Continetti, Matthew (2008, March 17). The 'Don't Protect America' Democrats. The Weekly Standard, 13(26), 5-6.

One Term Pledge?

In the April 2, 2007 issue of National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru wrote in the interest of the McCain campaign that the Senator should pledge to serve only one term as President if elected. By doing this, he writes, “McCain would implicitly be placing himself on the right side of the divide between those politicians who run to be someone and those who run to do something…that ’something’ would be to see America through an especially dangerous phase of the war on terrorism and, secondly, to address the nation’s looming fiscal wreck.”

I have to agree that a one-term pledge would be beneficial. It would enhance his image and reputation as an unconventional politician, especially among independents, who have had it with Washington and the poisoned politics that have come to fester therein.

I think it would also assuage some conservatives’ concerns that Sen. McCain is trying to remake the Republican Party anew, especially if he were to pick a young and enterprising conservative who would, presumably, run in his own right in 2012.

Finally, it will define him as the statesman in this race; not a messiah or someone solely interested in his own political advancement, but one solely interested in serving his country and helping it resolve some of its most pressing challenges and issues. He commonly says on the stump and in his victory speeches that he owes everything to his country, is proud to have served it for decades, and asks only to serve it a little while longer. Pledging to serve only one term as President would only confirm and enhance that sentiment, and I think it would be rewarded by the American voter.

An Immigration Compromise

Among the paramount sources of consternation between conservatives and Sen. McCain has been his positions on immigration reform. Whether it is the case or not, a significant segment of the Right have regarded these as amnesty, and no one will be able to convince them otherwise.

Instead, the senator should offer a compromise, one which recognizes and respects the disagreements and disparate points of emphasis between conservatives and himself. Specifically, I would advise Sen. McCain to adopt a tripartite approach to immigration reform that he would implement as President.

First and foremost, he ought to commit to enforcing immigration law as it currently exists in the United States Code. Too much of that law has gone unenforced for years and a simple rectification of that dereliction would go a significant distance in diminishing the problem that our open southern border presents.

Second, devise and implement other useful policies that would further enhance the administration’s effort to provide border security.

Third and finally, commit to considering and devising humane and benevolent policies to address the millions of undocumented immigrants already in the country only after—with emphasis on only after—the border has been secured and the flow of illegal immigration has stopped.

Writing in opposition to the comprehensive immigration reform Sen. McCain cosponsored with Sen. Kennedy last Spring, the editors of National Review asserted that until "we see [border] enforcement taking place—and see the government standing up to the interests that will squeal when it does—we should not contemplate providing an amnesty." This is the basis for compromise. If Sen. McCain adopts an approach similar to the one I propose here, he will commit to securing the border as President before acting on any other approach, with conservative’s end of the bargain being that they will cooperate in good faith with him if and when this is achieved and it comes time to address the undocumented immigrants currently within the country but outside of our laws.

Sen. McCain has already signaled he is open to this, declaring on the stump that he has received the message from the voters that the border must be secured as a precondition to anything else. I hope conservatives will be willing to meet him halfway.

Letter to the Editor, PLU MAST, for the PLU GOP

In the February 22, 2008 issue of the Mast, Ethan Jennings conveyed in his column a neat, black and white understanding of the situation in Pakistan that does not conform with the messy realities that exist on the ground in that country. He wrote that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has "enjoyed the backing of the Bush administration in yet another case of America supporting a morally corrupt dictatorship in favor of convenience, something it has been doing since at least the beginning of the Cold War."

This is snide misrepresentation. The choice on who to support in Pakistan is not between the corrupt dictator Musharraf and the pluralistic, accountable, and democratic party of the late Benazir Bhutto, as Mr. Jennings insinuates.

That Musharraf has been corrupt we do not deny nor seek to controvert. What we do feel compelled to point out is that Bhutto was no better than Musharraf. Her party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was founded by her grandfather, and has monarchically remained in the family’s control ever since. Also, as the observer of Pakistani affairs Jonathan Foreman points out, in her two stints as Pakistan’s prime minister her government was "marked by spectacular corruption and incompetence."*

In this light it is manifestly unfair for Mr. Jennings to assert that the Administration has sided with a despot instead of democrats "out of convenience." There have been no good options in Pakistan and are none now. We have supported and cooperated with Musharraf not because he is the best choice, but because he is the only viable one at this point. We’ve worked to get his country’s assistance in fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda elements that use Pakistan as sanctuary, which has been crucial, all the while pressing him to hold free and fair elections on schedule (which, as Mr. Jennings points out, we have been successful in) and to cooperate with the PPP and other non-Islamist political parties in Pakistan.

Mr. Jennings closes his piece by advising the Administration to support the new Pakistani government—which it will do—and "send a message to the Muslim world that the U.S. is not only interested in its own wealth and power, but in the welfare of others, and the furtherance of democracy as the most important of American interests."

However, President Bush has been sending this message since 9/11. We are militarily supporting two democratic governments in the Middle East at this moment and continue to press governments in the Middle East to reform their governments and societies towards democracy. As the President said in his second inaugural, "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world." He has not always taken the proper or adequate course in advancing representative government in the Middle East in our view, but that the furtherance of democracy is one of the most important American interests and goals of his presidency is clear.

*Foreman, Jonathan (2008, January 28). The Real Bhutto. National Review, LX(1), 24-28.

A Tale of Two Revolutions

John Adams once wrote that "It is much easier to pull down a government...than to build [one] up."1 Trite though it may be, this little aphorism reflects a great deal upon the differences in kind between the American and French Revolutions. Each occurred within years of each other, but ultimately culminated with entirely different results; the American resulting in the establishment of a free society and the French ending with the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Inherent to the ultimate success of the American Revolution was its markedly un-Revolutionary character. Prior to the outbreak of war with Great Britain in the Spring of 1775, the thirteen American colonies had decades of experience in self-government, having operated within a largely defacto state of sovereign self-government for decades. Each had a colonial legislature, popularly elected to varying degrees, which collected the revenues and controlled the purse. This was undergirded by a generally vibrant civil society, with colonists often literate in the British Constitution, the English Common Law, and their rights as Britons under both.

After the conclusion of the French and Indian War, the British Parliament had begun to levy increasingly burdensome taxes and duties on the colonies, which they understandably resented. The slogan "No taxation without representation" reflected the popular belief that only the colonial legislatures popularly elected by the colonists, and not the British Parliament, had the authority to levy taxes and duties on them. When the colonies finally declared independence in 1776 they did so not to tear apart one regime and replace it with another ex nihilio, but rather to preserve the system of self-government they had held and cherished for years. They were severing their bonds with Great Britain to preserve the free, self-governing society that had existed a priori, in other words.

In fact, the formal governments that were formally established during and after the war—the state constitutions, the Articles of Confederation, and ultimately the U.S. Constitution—were similar in nature to the antebellum colonial governments. As Charles Austin Beard wrote in his book American Government and Politics, the state and national governments of the nascent republic were "based as far as possible on the experience of the colonies and the states. The very names applied to the Senate, House of Representatives, and President were taken from the institutions of some of the states, while many clauses of the Constitution...were taken almost verbatim from state constitutions."2

The American Revolution resulted in a free society then not because it created one out of scratch, but because it preserved one through the war and independence and simultaneously built systems of government at the state and national level based upon the experiences and models of their previous colonial governments.

The same does not hold for the French Revolution. What began as a popular demand for representative government and the end of absolute monarchy rapidly degenerated into a tumultuous force which uprooted and destroyed the central institutions that had governed France for centuries—most notably the monarchy and the church establishment. The ancien regime was swept away in its entirety. Whereas the revolutionary Americans had preserved the general structure of their traditional English and colonial governments, reforming and adapting the new constitutional governments where appropriate, the French began de novo, divorcing themselves entirely from the traditions and experiences of their history.

In doing this they condemned themselves to failure. Reflecting upon the Revolution from across the English Channel, Edmund Burke wrote that a people "will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors...the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation and a sure principle of transmission, without at all excluding a principle of improvement. It leaves acquisition free, but it secures what it acquires."3

Untethered from the pillars of their history and tradition, the Revolution that was premised on notions of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité) morphed into a Reign of Terror which resulted in the deaths of thousands of French men and women.

Further, by eradicating so many of the foundational vestiges of the French social structure as they had existed at that time, an open void and state of anarchy and chaos was created which left France vulnerable to a strong man placed to swoop in and assert himself. This is indeed what happened with the absolute dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte, which culminated a revolution that had begun as a movement to replace absolute monarchy. The Revolution failed.

1. Letter from John Adams to James Warren (Jan. 9, 1787), in Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, as quoted in McCullough, David (2001). John Adams. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, at 473-4.

2. Charles Austin Beard, American Politics and Government 2 (J.S. Cushing Co.-Berwick Smith Co. 1910).

3. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), reprinted in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, at 552 (David Wootton ed, Hacket Publishing Company, Inc. 1996).

Sen. Obama & The Press

It has long been clear to anyone who cared to pay any real attention that Sen. Obama had been skating through the campaign, and the only way that is possible is with the compliance and cooperation of the national press corps, who have fawned and swooned at the senator’s feet since his keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Incorrigible in their support and adulation, they have largely refused to pass a critical eye towards him and take a look beneath the uplifting veneer the campaign has constructed around itself and its candidate.

This dereliction does a double disservice to the American public. One, it provides a view and understanding of Sen. Obama that is of his own construction. As he has defined himself, he is a trans-partisan agent of change who will revolutionize American politics, provide universal health care to every American, bring our men and women home from Iraq without consequence, and resurrect America’s standing among the international community—among other lofty promises—all by the sheer force of his optimism, enlightenment, and charm.

This has been taken at face value by the fourth estate, without any intervening examination as to whether this self-crafted mystique is reconcilable with his actual real-life record. A basic cursory examination of such would reveal that his talk of trans-partisanship and unity is betrayed by an inveterate, party-line liberalism. National Journal ranked him as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, and he has assiduously avoided offending any of the Democratic Party’s constituent special interests in his three plus years in the Senate.

Second, not having had to deal with any semblance of media scrutiny he has gone untested and unchallenged, not providing the electorate with any opportunity to see how a man who would be our nation’s commander-in-chief responds to adversity. After all, if he is the one to raise his right hand on January 20th of next year his presidency will not be all rainbows, lollipops, and unicorns, regardless of what the implication of his messianic campaign has been. We live in a time of war and in a dangerous world, and there will be difficulties and crises that confront the next president, unexpected and unprepared for, and we simply cannot afford to wait until after Sen. Obama is President to witness how responds to and manages these.

That the national press has failed to act in any manner whatsoever to prevent this from occurring is gross malfeasance. Their purpose is to be our agent, examining and scrutinizing what our leaders in government present to us to divine its accuracy and legitimacy. They have not, and it would be to the American voter’s unyielding benefit if they began to, lest we elect a myth to our highest office.

WFB, Jr.: In Memoriam

I mark with sadness the passing yesterday of William F. Buckley, Jr. Over fifty-years ago Mr. Buckley founded what has become the nation’s preeminent conservative periodical, National Review, and in so doing helped begin the modern conservative movement.

Mr. Buckley took it upon himself to "stand athwart history [and yell], ‘Stop!’, and because of that our republic is stronger and more prosperous than it would have otherwise been. As the editors of his magazine wrote in his honor yesterday, "He created modern conservatism as an intellectual and then a political movement. He kept it from drifting into the fever swamps. And he gave it a wit, style, and intelligence that earned the respect and friendship even of his adversaries." Thanks in no small part to his efforts and intellect conservatism has become and will be for sometime a powerful and credible political, social, and economic creed working for the benefit of the United States of America.

Conservatism has lost one of its ablest voices, but more importantly America has lost one of its greatest patriots. We honor his memory this day and give him our highest and most sincere gratitude for the lifetime of service he provided. He will not soon be forgotten, and his legacy will inspire and inform us for years to come.

In Honored Memory of William F. Buckley, Jr.

The Stimulus Package

Good conservative that I am, I get nervous when the federal government spurs itself into action to stimulate a slowing economy, as is the case now.

With that said, the recent plan agreed to by Congressional Democrats, Republicans, and the White House seems entirely palatable. It is not a silver bullet that will rescue the economy from recession if recession there will be, but at best it will give a little shot in the arm to an economy that has been staggered by a floundering housing market and at worst it will have no effect positively or, most importantly, negatively on the overall performance of the economy. It might also have the benefit of easing public fear a little bit, lest fear of recession become self-fulfilling prophecy.

Assuming the plan makes it out of the Senate and conference predominantly in its current form—possibly an audacious assumption given a senators’ general taste for including his or her own pet projects in any and every piece of legislation—this stimulus is worthy of support. As Irwin M. Stelzer writes, "The proposed stimulus is not large enough to cause any real harm, and just might help the economy right itself...The plan that is taking final shape will not add to the structural budget; it will target the right people, and get the cash to them quickly, and it will be temporary." That is exactly the criterion that this and any stimulus in these circumstances must meet.

Finally, if for nothing else, this stimulus will return tax dollars to the American people from whom they originally came. There is never anything wrong with that.

RE: 'McMentum vs Huckmentum'

Mark Steyn:

A McCain victory in SC has to be good news for Giuliani because the narrative becomes "Stop McCain!" and Rudy's best poised to do that - not just because his numbers in Florida haven't yet collapsed to the same undetectable levels as they have everywhere else, but because Huck and Mitt and Fred will be fairly proven failures at the "Stop McCain" game. So, if stopping him's your priority, then Rudy's the one-stop shop after everyone's stopped shopping around. He'll be the last ABM (Anyone-But-McCain) in with a shot.

A Huck victory in SC, by contrast, keeps the other fellows alive, which makes it more likely that the attrition in Rudy numbers will continue.

But Mark's right. If Rudy wins in Florida, those of us who said he can't recover from sitting out the first month will have to acknowledge that he's a towering genius who cannily foresaw that leaving the early states to be squabbled over by weak and divisive candidates would render their victories irrelevant and leave him to stroll on in the Second Act and take the throne as king on a field of corpses.*

(*I assume there's an internal memo somewhere that lays it out like that.)



My E-Mailed Response:

Mr. Steyn:

Just read your 'McMentum vs. Huckmentum' post on the Corner and I say I have to disagree totally with your assertion that Mayor Giuliani will be the one conservatives might coalesce around to stop Sen. McCain in Florida should he win this evening in South Carolina. I don't find any logic in Mayor Giuliani being that person. Presumably those who wish to stop Sen. McCain do so because of his inconsistent or maverick Conservatism. Why then would they coalesce around Mayor Giuliani, whose conservatism is also, to put it kindly, inconsistent?

No I believe that it is the most viable candidate of traditional conservative dispositions who conservatives would flock to to beat Sen. McCain, probably Gov. Romney (though his conservatism by no means has not been put into question during this campaign).

On Mitt Romney

Throughout this perpetual presidential campaign of ‘08 Mitt Romney has struck me as that good guy in high school who portrays himself to be something he is not in an effort to convince the hot girl in school to go out with him. Every intimate account I have read of the governor has painted the picture of a decent and intelligent man whose greatest talent is his executive competence. His record of accomplishment in the private business sector is undoubtedly impressive, and to a certain extent so to is his record as governor of Massachusetts.

What’s more, as profiles have demonstrated in the Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard, his approach to politics and the individual issues that present themselves in government is refreshingly non-ideological, based instead in assessing objective data and the various options available.

This is Governor Romney’s greatest asset, and should therefore be the theme of his campaign. Logically he should be running as an accomplished executive who will bring and utilize that prowess as the nation’s chief-executive, enabling him to resolve the various challenges that face this nation, notably deficit, debt, health-care, and Social Security.

But this has not been the message what I and I think many other Republicans have taken from his campaign. He has tried to present himself—in a field noted for its lack of a standard, consensus conservative—as the pro-life candidate in the race, the ideological representative of the culturally conservative base of the Republican Party.

The problem is that until very recently this was not reflected in his record in Massachusetts. He was, by his own admission, "operationally pro-choice" as a candidate for U.S. Senate in ‘94 and again as a candidate for governor in ‘02. At those times he presented himself in the terms I outlined above.

Running now for president, he has done an about face. I do not intend to question the personal validity of Governor Romney’s conversion in matters of life, and in fact welcome it1, but merely point out that this has understandably created concerns among the Republican electorate about the veracity of his principles. His evolving positions—on life and other issues—has given some cause to believe that he is willing to say what is necessary to get him elected, the consummate paragon of the stereotypical politician.

My advice to Governor Romney would be to stop trying to be something you are not—the tribune of the pro-life right—and run on your strengths; as the candidate with the best executive accomplishment and competence. That is a compelling message in an election where competence is of such salience.


1. As the editors of National Review have written on multiple occasions in this campaign, social conservatives should embrace and celebrate those who convert to their cause, not shun and question their motives. For the cause to succeed it needs to compel people to convert, in the exact manner Governor Romney has.

Sen. Obama on 'Face the Nation'

Sen. Obama appeared on Face the Nation this past Sunday and made a few comments worthy of examination and response.

Host Bob Schieffer asked him about recent comments from former President Clinton to the effect that Sen. Obama does not have the experience in government–specifically in foreign affairs–that entitle and qualify him to be President of the United States. The Senator parried the criticism by pointing out that President Clinton had met the same criticism in his run for President in ‘92, which clearly did not end up disqualifying him for the Presidency in November of that year, at least not in the minds of the American voters.

Sen. Obama is correct to a certain extent, in that the same criticism was directed towards then-Governor Clinton is now being directed towards Sen. Obama. But time and circumstance in 1992 and now are quite different.

In the former election year the nation was just emerging from victory in the Cold War and was witnessing the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the threat it had posed since the end of World War II. In consequence, the salience of foreign affairs faded dramatically in the mind of the American voter; it was "the economy, stupid." President Clinton was able to run on the "Peace Dividend", an implicit acknowledgment by Governor Clinton that he was indeed inexperienced and untested in the sphere of foreign affairs but that it did not matter and would not matter in a decade which has been dubbed by many—accurately in my mind—a "vacation from history."

Now the vacation is over. The United States is immersed in a struggle with radical Islam of a global scale and reach, the fulcrum of which is our involvement in Iraq. We are at a point there where the direction this nation decides to take in the next year or so will make all the difference in American victory or defeat.

Beyond Iraq, it is a dangerous world we live in. We are in a struggle with al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan that has never truly received the attention from this country and the global community that it warrants. Right next door we face a possibly explosive situation with the unrest and instability in Pakistan. We have made some progress in regards to the North Korean nuclear program, but must make a great deal more. Iran, despite a disingenuous NIE from the CIA contending otherwise, continues its advance towards possession of a nuclear arsenal, a development which could have devastatingly destabilizing effects in the Middle East. China continues to grow as a global power and contender with American hegemony, while Russia continues its slow march away from democracy and back towards a Soviet-style state.

In other words, foreign affairs matter a great deal this time around, and therefore so must experience in foreign affairs and issues of national security. This is not 1992, and what was not a disqualifier then is, or at least ought to be this time around.

Specific to Iraq, Sen. Obama demonstrated marked misunderstanding of the situation and dynamics in Iraq later in that same interview. As a result of the surge, said the Senator, all America has done is essentially come "full circle. We had intolerable levels of violence and a dysfunctional government back in 2006; we saw a huge spike in violence, to horrific levels. The surge comes in and now we're back to where we were in 2006, with intolerable levels of violence and a dysfunctional Iraqi government."

That is simply not the case. Prior to and after the sharp spike in violence of which Sen. Obama spoke of, Iraq’s Sunni community was not only not participating in the political process, but they were actively supporting and participating in al-Qaeda’s and the insurgency’s war against that political process.

One year later this is not the case any longer. Because of the extra security and commitment provided by our surge in Iraq, Iraq’s Sunnis have had been given the cover to turn against al-Qaeda and re-enter Iraqi politics. Sunnis have indeed used this cover, comprehensively rejecting al-Qaeda and fighting against it with the cooperation, assistance, and support of the American military. They are participating in the defense and security of their own villages and towns, signing up for the local police forces and the Iraqi armed forces in astonishing numbers. There is also an irrefutable development and growth in Sunni political organization and participation.

The central government in Baghdad has indeed not passed oil-sharing, de-Baathification, and other pieces of legislation we in America would like to see it enact. But this does not render the surge a failure, nor should the success of the surge ultimately be determined based on whether or not the Iraqi government passes certain pieces of legislation. When it eventually comes time for history to render its verdict the surge will have succeeded if a viable representative government is ultimately in place where the country has a legal process and forum in which national issues, questions, and debates are legitimately decided and resolved. It will not be what the Iraqis agree to and enact that will matter, it will be if they have a legal and peaceful process in place through which to deal with matters. America will have succeeded if Iraq settles its issues through politics and not the barrel of a gun.

We have made progress towards this, and this is what delineates December ‘07 from December ‘06. Sen. Obama’s inability to recognize this demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the situation in Iraq.

Open Letter to Republican and General Voters

Friends and Fellow Americans:

For most of this campaign cycle I have supported the presidential candidacy of Mayor Rudy Guiliani. Recently I have seen fit to forge a different course. Accordingly, I endorse Senator John McCain for the Republican nomination for President of the United States.

*****

Circumstances must always control the mind of the conscientious and reasoned voter. Two circumstances weigh upon me at this time, and ought to weigh upon every Republican voter.

The first is our party’s political straits. We are in rough shape. The President and standard-bearer of our party has poor approval ratings. We lost both houses of Congress last year, and face the prospect of further losses next year. In every poll voters prefer the generic Democrat over the Republican, for both Congress and the White House. Democrats now have a majority of the state governor’s mansions and a plurality of state legislatures as well.

In my admittedly brief political consciousness the Republican brand has never been mired in such public unpopularity, and lest we nominate the absolute right candidate next year Democrats will control both political branches of the federal government and the ability to shape the third, the judicial branch, in their favor. As Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnoru pointed out recently in a compelling article in National Review, the expansion of government that would surely ensue would "make voters less likely to turn toward conservatism in the future."

My friends, we cannot nominate the generic Republican. We need a nominee who transcends party, who can reach the American people on his own terms.

Senator McCain would be that nominee. Having run for President eight years ago and having been one of the most prominent elected officials in the federal government since, he has been introduced to the American people and has earned their admiration and respect. His record of nearly forty years of service to the United States, beginning with his heroic service as a pilot and POW in Vietnam, also needs no preface nor explanation.

As our party endeavors to recover from the stain of corruption and our lost standing as the party of competence, Senator McCain would be a standard-bearer with an integrity of granite. His career in the Senate has been marked by the pursuit of honest and accountable government (though this has admittedly led him to excess on occasion, see the McCain-Feingold Act).

Herein is part of the impetus for my departure from Mayor Giuliani. Rumors and reports of his ethical lapses as Mayor of New York City would only be a distraction in the general election, despite his other advantages, and this would be the last thing the party needs in the wake of Tom Delay, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney et al.1

This would not be the case with Senator McCain. He represents the best of the party regarding ethics, as well as our squandered instincts of fiscal discipline. As the Republican nominee Americans would see a man whom they could trust to be a good and dutiful steward of their hard-earned tax dollars.

What’s more, Senator McCain’s honesty and ethics would shine all the more brighter in comparison to Senator Clinton and her and her husband’s long list of ethical lapses, should she in fact be the Democrats’ nominee.

*****

That second of the two circumstances I spoke of earlier is Iraq and the broader war on terror. Presidential elections are obviously always important, but especially so when the nation is at war.

We are at war; at war with an insidious enemy which follows none of the conventional rules of war and basic standards of human decency. They kill blindly and indiscriminately, and in their twisted worship of death feel no hesitation in perishing themselves in the process.

In our history we have faced our share of threats, but none greater than that presented by these barbarians. To defeat them will require sustained national resolve on the part of the people, and commanders-in-chief with the personal fortitude and good wisdom and judgment to execute this war effectively.

Winning this war first requires us to win in Iraq, the place which our enemies themselves have declared its central front. From the very beginning of our involvement in Iraq Senator McCain has been a steadfast supporter of our military effort there and has recognized the vital strategic importance victory represents.

In this vain he had been a major critic of President Bush’s and then-Secretary Rumsfeld’s original counterinsurgency strategy—which was failing—and was the first elected official within the federal government to propose and support the current counterinsurgent strategy which has led to the recent dramatically positive improvements on the ground. These views have not always been popular, but they have always been right.

In this time and at this place in history such fortitude and good judgment is exactly what we need in our next President. More than any other candidate whose name is before the American people, Senator McCain can be expected and trusted to do right by our involvement in Iraq—to achieve victory there and to get us out when that has been achieved—and to do right by our prosecution of the broader war against extremist Islam. He is the man who is able to stand up to Democrats in Congress and those running for president whose policy is get out now, disastrous consequences of retreat and defeat be damned.

My fellow Republicans, I know Senator McCain is not a perfect conservative, and he has indeed taken a few positions with which you and I have disagreed. But there is no perfect conservative or Republican, and we certainly do not have the luxury of holding out for one now. Let us not fall into the temptation to compare every poor soul who seeks our party’s nomination to the late President Reagan, himself not a perfect conservative, and then reject them when they inevitably fail. President Reagan was a man whose memory should inspire us, not one whose ghost haunts us in our futile and self-defeating attempt to find him reincarnate in our next nominee.

Senator McCain is a strong, principled conservative and he has the best chance of any of the Republicans who would be our nominee of insuring that conservatism will have a home in the White House for the next four years.

*****

Circumstances always demand that certain figures rise to the occasion. This has especially been the case with America. At our founding we had George Washington. At our time of disunion we had Abraham Lincoln. At the time of world war we had Franklin Roosevelt. And in the face of an evil empire we had Ronald Reagan.

On this occasion—at this pivotal place in the history of our blessed republic—the occasion and the arena calls for Senator McCain. I have no doubt that he is the man for the moment.

I urge my fellow Republicans and my fellow Americans to join me in supporting Senator McCain for President of the United States.

Geoff Smock,
Pacific Lutheran University

1. Of the two—Senator McCain and Mayor Giuliani, both of whom I believe represent the party’s best chance of winning in the general—Senator McCain also stands the better chance of appealing to moderate Republicans, independents, and centrist Democrats while maintaining the pro-life portion of the Republican coalition within the party. I do not know if Mayor Giuliani could.

The 2007 Supreme Court Term

The 2007 Supreme Court term began last month within an interesting and entirely unfamiliar context and atmosphere. There is widespread despair within the American left that after decades of movement to the left—movement sometimes distinct and rapid, other times moderate and slow—the Court has veered suddenly and entirely to the right. If we were to take them at their own word, the Court has begun an assault on women’s reproductive rights,1 has eroded the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech,2 and has even overturned Brown v. Board of Education.3

This goes much (much, much, much) too far.

To be sure, in the 2006 term there was a noticeable and not insignificant change in the Court’s jurisprudence, generally and within several different areas of the law. In Gonzales v. Carhart the Court upheld a restriction on the practice of abortion for the first time in its history. In Morse v. Frederick it ruled that public school officials can prohibit students from displaying (what can be interpreted as) pro-drug use messages and that protective standards set in Tinker v. Des Moines over thirty years ago would not always be applied. And in what finally sent the left into full hyperventilation, the Court found two racial balancing schemes used in Seattle and Louisville public high schools to be violative of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1.

These decisions were certainly not of the kind that Court watchers have grown accustomed to, but they hardly constituted a sharp swerve to the right by the Court. Carhart II fit entirely within the parameters set forth in the plurality opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, not a conservative or constitutionalist decision by any means. Parents Involved fit similarly within the Court’s previous decision in Grutter, also not a Conservative or Constitutionalist decision. And in Morse the Court only mildly altered (or tinkered with) Tinker.

Jonathan Alder correctly wrote after the conclusion of the term that the balance of "Warren and Burger Court precedents that most stoke conservative ire remain on the books."4 The Court has not become what the left says it has. Far from taking a sharp turn to the right, it at most retracted a bit from its generational drift to the left.

And yet it might not have even done that. From all indications, the 2006 term may have been no more than a blip, a puny little anomaly on the chart.

In every single one of the cases from last term that have so rankled liberals, the Court was split five to four and Justice Anthony Kennedy was the deciding vote. And in most of those split decisions he did indeed side with what is considered to be the conservative block on the Court.

But was this because Justice Kennedy is reliably and consistently conservative himself? From all indications, no. Justice Kennedy is "conservative" on some legal issues and not on others. It so happened that those areas of law in which he does tend to have a conservative jurisprudence were often covered in cases on the ‘06 docket.

Quoting Mr. Adler again, "The Court appeared more conservative last term, in part, because of the particular mix of cases on the docket. This term presents a decidedly different mix, however, and will show that the Court remains significantly less conservative than some would like, and others fear."5

A brand new docket with new cases and new areas of law addressed may very well produce a different looking Court entirely. A few of those cases will touch upon detention of enemy combatants and the death penalty, both areas which Justice Kennedy has tended to be liberal on.

What’s more, decisions rendered by the Court last term that were ostensibly conservative may in fact not be. Retired Circuit Court Judge Robert Bork opined that some of the decisions handed down by the Court from last term "at least occasion for speculation that Roberts and Alito may be willing to make only minor adjustments to liberal doctrines that have no basis in the Constitution."6 In such a scenario all the left would have to fear is that the days of the Court’s advance to the left—of obfuscating, manipulating, and basely disregarding the text of the Constitution—are over, with the Roberts Court largely declining to overrule the precedential products of that advance however.

Regardless, the point of all of this is that no one has any place to make a conclusion on what the Roberts Court is right now and what it will become, certainly not the kind made by Jeffrey Toobin that the Court is now "dramatically more conservative" than previous Courts and by Linda Greenhouse that it is now the "Court that conservatives had long yearned for and that liberals feared."7

The Roberts Court, with Justice Alito in place of the retired Justice O’Connor, has only one full term’s slate of cases on record to examine, not nearly a large enough sample from which to draw any definitive conclusions. There are many important areas of law heretofore untouched by this Court, and at most any one area of law has been addressed only once or twice. It will take at least this upcoming term, and probably a few more terms, before we can draw any major conclusions. Accordingly, the left ought to at least wait until next July before it mournfully engages in any more hymns of Armageddon.

1. Memorandum from NARAL Pro-Choice America Legal and Policy Research Department on Supreme Court Decision in Federal Abortion Ban Cases to Interested Parties (April 19, 2007). http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/assets/files/federal-abortion-ban-legal-memo.pdf
2. Editorial, (2007, June 26). Three Bad Rulings. The New York Times, Retrieved November 4, 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/opinion/26tue1.html?n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Editorials
3. Editorial, (2007, June 29). Resegregation Now. The New York Times, Retrieved November 4, 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/opinion/29fri1.html?n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Editorials
4. Adler, Jonathan H. (2007, July 5). How Conservative is this Court?. National Review Online, Retrieved November 11, 2007, from http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2Y3NjNkM2ZkYTcxNzQwYTBhZWZkNzEyZGYyMWExMjE=
5. Adler, Jonathan H. (2007, October 1). First Monday. National Review Online, Retrieved November 11, 2007, from http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTM3ZmRmZmM2ZWQ5NzFlZTE3YWEyMTk2NzAyOGRjYTg=
6. Bork, Robert H. (2007, July 30). 4+1. National Review, LIX(13), 18-20.
7. Greenhouse, Linda (2007, July 1). In Steps Big and Small, Supreme Court Moved Right. The New York Times, Retrieved November 4, 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/washington/01scotus.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Reading Response, Tourism & Globalization, INTC 251 (Cultural Globalization)

As I read David Nicholson-Lord’s article "The Politics of Travel", it reminded me of some of the points made by Jonah Goldberg in a little piece he wrote in a recent issue of National Review. In that piece Mr. Goldberg opined that there was an inherent contradiction and tinges of hypocrisy within some of our (western) culture’s conceptions of tourism. We value cosmopolitanism and the sophistication and enlightenment that comes from having visited and absorbed multiple cultures, yet we believe that these foreign cultures should be left in their pristine, traditional form—for the benefit of our enjoyment.

This is an issue we have discussed on occasion in class and many have expressed and sympathized with the concern that the process of globalization is contaminating and eliminating traditional cultures throughout the world.

But in holding this opinion aren’t we applying a different standard to ourselves than we do to the rest of the world’s peoples and societies? We welcome and relish the opportunity to amalgamate with other cultures, but try to prevent the same thing from happening to those cultures. As Mr. Goldberg writes, "The man who wants to see Vietnam stay Vietnamese is enlightened or exotic, but never provincial. The man who wants America to stay American is a boob."1

I do find hypocrisy in this sentiment.


1. Goldberg, Jonah (2007, September 10). Global Village People. National Review, LIX(16), 8.

Letter to the Editor, PLU MAST, for the PLU GOP

In an Op-Ed in the October 5, 2007 edition of the Mast, Ethan Jennings made several assertions regarding Iran that we feel we must respectfully but wholeheartedly respond to and correct.

The picture that Mr. Jennings paints of Iran does not resemble reality. He writes that "Iran is not stupendous" in the category of human rights, which suffice to say is a deep and frankly startling understatement. There is no democracy in Iran whatsoever, only tainted and fixed elections and a despotic class of mullahs which have ruled the country for over two-decades now.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s anti-semitism runs beyond simple holocaust denial as well, extending into repeated calls for the nation of Israel to be destroyed and wiped off the map entirely. He has also declared that there are no homosexuals within Iran, which would be true if the Iranian policy of persecution and execution were carried out in full.

Mr. Jennings also grossly distorts fact in asserting a similarity between Iran’s persistent support for terror and previous actions by the United States. Iran actively supplies and supports terror within Iraq, and in many cases it is Iranian weapons which are responsible for the deaths of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians in that country. Iran is also the patron of Hezbollah, a large and destabilizing terrorist organization within the Middle East.

Iranian support for terror is an institutionalized state policy, and to compare that to American support of anti-communist and anti-Soviet elements in the Cold War—as Mr. Jennings does—is completely misguided.

Finally, the reason that the United States does not object to countries such as France, Britain, and India possessing nuclear weapons is because those countries and ourselves are legitimate democracies accountable to their people. Iran clearly does not meet that criterion. It is and ought to be the United States’ and the civilized world’s policy to prevent a terror-sponsoring nation with hegemonic designs within the Middle East from having nuclear weapons. Does anyone really think it is acceptable to allow a country who has professed a desire to destroy Israel the means to do exactly that?

Iran is no ally of the United States or of free and peaceful peoples, and any truly "holistic picture of the situation" will demonstrate as much.

Geoff Smock
President, PLU GOP