Post-‘Stimulus’

There was never any question that the "stimulus" – either in the form of an actual stimulus or as one big pork bill guised as such – would pass the Congress and be signed by the President. This was his first initiative. To reverse course and/or fail with overwhelming majorities in Congress during the zenith of his political power would have done irreparable damage to both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. This was a short term battle neither he nor Congress could conceivably lose, and so they would ultimately persevere and pass something come hell or high water, no matter how ugly and painful the endeavor became.

It did get ugly (the most unpleasant sausage making possible, in fact), but the Democratic establishment did finally pass something. Though it was a lot more painful and difficult than anyone had originally expected, the President has his first legislative "victory." Accordingly, now is the time for a post-mortem – an assessment of what he has gained, what costs he has incurred, what he now assumes, etc.

Of the greatest foregoing significance is the fact that Barack H. Obama has now become of flesh and blood. His and the Democrats failure to shove the package through Congress without meaningful deliberation, debate, or scrutiny came at a tremendous cost to the President's image. Though he is still residually very popular, and probably will be for sometime yet, President Obama had to sacrifice his transcendent status and assume the mantle of yet another politician to get the bill through. The scattershot spending on parochially liberal plantation initiatives incurred public disillusionment (as well it should have) and put the President and Democrats in an uncomfortable position defending it. On the merits this was an impossible task, so the agent of a new politics resorted to the tried and true Washington fallback of partisan attack, falsely accusing Republicans of favoring total inaction over action and demagogically predicting economic Armageddon if the "stimulus" was not passed. This dashed, in quite literally a matter of days, the pre-existing illusion that he could and would govern while hovering above the partisan fray. Now that the pinnacle of Olympus has been surrendered it's not at all likely he will be able to reclaim it.

Lost too was the mantle of hyper-competence and good judgment. A handful of his nominees to significant administration positions have been disgraced by ethical issues, a string of developments which condemns him as either incompetent or hypocritical. (It's incompetent if his team's vetting process failed to find these red flags and it's hypocritical if the President who promised to have the most transparent and ethical Presidency in history selected these tax cheats and lobbyists in full awareness of that baggage.)

Such loss of capital doesn't augur well for the next initiatives of his Presidency. He and the Congress plan trillions more in spending to help the economy but they've already cried wolf. They claimed that disaster loomed if the "stimulus" did not pass. Doing so again when the next round of generational theft comes up will not carry the same credibility. The public already had a hard time swallowing this massive new level of spending – the pill is only going to grow larger and bitterer the next time they're asked to ingest. Beyond that, how he will be able to justify vast expansions in government-provided health care and other entitlement spending after all of these emergency spending programs is a gapingly open question.

Most importantly, as the President affixes his signature to this "stimulus" he at the same time affixes it to the deed of ownership for the economy. This package was laid at his feet and he recognized it as his own. To gin up support for it he traveled the country doing the only thing he has ever known and that which he is most adept at – campaigning. He promised it would "create" or "save" 3.5 million jobs. He said we would suffer economic catastrophe if it didn't pass. For that the American people will hold him accountable. If they don't see an equitable return in value for the price of a trillion dollars he and Democrats will suffer terribly. As Irwin M. Stelzer explains:

He now owns the recession. He has asked to be judged by whether this bill and other measures he will propose, create or "save" 3.5-to-4 million jobs, the number lost so far since unemployment turned up. Forget "save" -- if unemployment keeps rising, voters are not likely to rally around the slogan 'It would be still worse if I hadn't spent your trillions'. What the President has done is to promise what he certainly can't deliver in time for the congressional elections next year -- a reversal of job destruction, and millions of new jobs. If the voters prove patient in 2010, they are unlikely to remain as forgiving when the presidential election rolls around in 2012. Since employment is what economists call a lagging indicator -- employers are not confident enough to start hiring until economic recovery is well underway -- Barack Obama will have a lot of explaining to do. Unless, of course, the Republicans find a candidate so inept that the President can once again rely on his very attractive persona to see off any challenger.

Of course, his fear-mongering will only hurt him in this decisive regard. Speaking ad nauseam about how terrible the economy is sends a terrible message. Sure it managed to get the "stimulus" passed but only at the steep price of scaring away investment, consumer-spending, and other engines of economic growth and job creation. As Jen Rubin writes,

Usually, the president and treasury secretary in an economic crisis try to project calm, certainty, and a sense of command. The Obama administration approach is something new indeed. Perhaps it is some Zen-like exercise to 'be the panic; own the fear!' Whatever they are doing they should knock it off. They're going to scare the living daylights out of markets, consumers, and businesses."

It's hard to fathom what victory the administration thinks they're winning when to pass a bill to generate economic recovery the President has to employ rhetoric that only terrifies people away from behaving in a manner conducive to generating that recovery.

The President won his crucial first victory, but the content of the victory itself and the means that had to be employed in securing it pretty much assure that he is in a weaker position politically coming out than he was going in. In fact it's very possible that this initial success has sown the seeds of ultimate failure and pain for the President and his party in the long run, which is also bad for the American people. (There's also that little fact that we just exacerbated our country's debt by a trillion dollars for something that is likely to yield few, if any, actual benefits.)

Sweet victory, Mr. President.

On Bi-Partisanship

One of the central promises of the Obama movement was a new age of bi- or post-partisanship – however you want to put it – and an end to the old games and tired bickering and disagreement. Since the "stimulus" debate has occurred at all and is doing so along strictly partisan lines, the punditry has spent time and ink debating whether such an age is possible and desirable or whether the President has utterly stopped pursuing it (he never substantively did). Not usually dependable for reasonability, the Speaker of the House was at least partly correct in responding to this hoopla by saying that excessive discussion of bi-partisanship tediously over-focuses on process.

The valid point she implicitly makes is that bi-partisanship is not an end in itself. It is not even a means to an end. It is only a characteristic of the means to an end. When we do try to make it an end – when we make a value-based judgment on the ultimate result of something based upon whether it was created in a bi-partisan manner – we are misguided, usually disastrously so. To reach a common consensus all too often you have to sink down to the lowest common denominator, watering down something to such a degree that everyone or a vast majority of people can agree to it. The upshot is ultimately a product that is ambiguous, contradicting, and ineffective. Seeking bi-partisanship for its own sake then is a recipe for a bad product, for it foolishly confuses process and means with the end product itself.

None of this is to say that pursuing bi-partisanship is always a bad thing. It is entirely salutary if you seek issues which enjoy broad agreement and take care of those first, moving on to more contentious matters after. This is no different than plucking the lowest hanging fruit before climbing the tree to grab the stuff nestled securely at the top.

Indeed, this is exactly what the President and Congressional Democrats should have done with the "stimulus" package. There are matters – even within the current legislation, odious as it is – that Republicans and Democrats can mostly agree to, such as some tax relief and infrastructure spending. Why not pass those common items in a smaller version first and take up the divisive stuff after? President Obama would have enjoyed an early success in his Presidency and he would have created an atmosphere of improved comity and seriousness right at the beginning. Instead he allowed Congressional Democrats to rashly create a mountain of disagreeable, wasteful spending that alienated Republicans and became a massive target for ridicule and scorn. (This error is the fruit of President Obama's sense of bi-partisanship, which is to declare "I won" and expect the opposition to support something completely inimical to their better judgment simply because it is his. That isn't bi-partisanship, it's hubris.)

Such a tack is much more productive than racing to the bottom in search of agreement among people who often fundamentally disagree, engaging in some fool's errand not for a good product but one arrived at on a bi-partisan basis. That is just a waste of time.

Self-Condemnation & Straw Men

Implicitly acknowledging the regrettable failure the "stimulus" promises to be, President Obama and Congressional Democrats have refused to defend it on its own merits. Instead, they have adopted the tactics of fear-mongering and straw men construction to resurrect and grow declining public support for it.

If we were to accept – for the sake of argument – that we face an economic "catastrophe" if nothing is done, then this legislation and the behavior of the President et al would be all the more abominable (or Obaminable). It would be malfeasance in the most extreme sense to concoct a trillion dollar appropriations bill with little economic stimulus (even in the Keynesian sense) or comprehensive logic while the country slowly slides over a deep precipice. Yet, if the President is correct in his apocalyptic warnings, that is exactly what is happening – in a time of mortal national danger Democrats are using the crisis as an opportunity to indulge in a smorgasbord of spending on initiatives they've long dreamed of, gorging themselves to gluttony at the public trough.

If things really were as dire as they say they are, they would be a lot more serious in devising a credible ameliorative (one would hope), one that is consistent with the "targeted, timely, and temporary" standard they originally devised.

The President also erred by misrepresenting the Republican position in his prime-time press conference last evening, creating a false dichotomy between passing the present iteration of the "stimulus" and doing nothing. I myself am a Republican, I know many other Republicans, and know of many more Republicans beyond that. None of us have claimed that the federal government should do nothing and that is certainly not the basis for our opposition to the Democratic package. We and many Democrats and Independents oppose it because in times such as these we cannot afford to mess up, especially when the price tag of such a mistake would be north of a trillion dollars. The federal government should enact a real stimulus package, one that addresses the problems plaguing the economy and one that creates the right incentives for future economic growth. We've crafted our own plans that would accomplish exactly that – they've been ignored by the powers that be.

If we are going to borrow so much money from our children and grandchildren we ought to make it worth our while, which is not what the President's package will do. It is little more than a massive scatter-shot of government spending and growth which will plunge us deeper into debt with little in return. Sophistry can only obfuscate this fact, it cannot change it.

Review: The War for all the Oceans

The War for all the Oceans – Roy Adkins and Lesley Adkins

A comprehensive review of the naval aspect of the Napoleonic Wars which, as the authors convincingly argue, was the decisive aspect in Napoleon's ultimate failure. The Adkins' instruct the reader by explaining the meaning of the day's naval terms in footnotes each time they are used or quoted and cite often from the participants diaries, letters, and other reminiscences to depict what life was like fighting on the high seas.

There were several weaknesses with the book. While the extensive quoting was a strength they do often go to excess, depriving the reader of the broader contextualization and analysis that hindsight permits the historian to engage in. I would have liked to have seen more in this way from the authors. Topics and focuses are also dropped and taken up rather clumsily at points and the narrative was not as exciting as it could have been.

Nevertheless, any reader of Forrester and O'Brien should take this book up to gain the historical basis and inspiration for Hornblower and Aubrey.

Same Old, Same Old

In his remarks to the House Democrats' retreat last evening President Obama's growing frustration was palpable. Gone was the calm and even demeanor that had previously been an alleged virtue of his, replaced by a peevish partisanship bred from anger and dismay that he has not gotten his way on the "stimulus." Some of the national columnists have written about how his magic and mystique have disappeared, taking with it the aforementioned tranquility in mien and post-partisan utopia that were supposed to have been hallmarks of the Age of Obama.

This was destined to happen sooner or later, so I will avoid deeper examination of it here. What is worthy of response and examination is the President's angry charge that Republicans dissenting from the "stimulus" are engaging in the same old game and that the solutions they offer are the same prescriptions that got us into this mess. Perhaps President Obama's extreme disillusionment has caused him to be given leave of his senses, for both prongs of this argument are easily refuted.

Criticism of the bill is not the same old Washington game and the President runs into absurdity when he attacks opposition just by virtue of it being opposition to himself. The minority party's province is to oppose, especially when confronted with an egregiously excessive and misguided appropriations bill guised as something it self-evidently is not. President Obama won the election, as he is fond of reminding everyone, but that does not excuse him or Democrats from having to defend their measures on their merits, which they have not done (and really cannot do), or to enact whatever he wants regardless of how much it conflicts with how he presented himself as a candidate. As Rich Lowry writes today, "Obama didn't campaign on a sprawling, nearly $1 trillion new spending plan. If he had pledged in October to double federal domestic discretionary spending in a matter of weeks—including increasing the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts by a third, spending hundreds of millions more on federal buildings and throwing tens of billions on every traditional liberal priority from job training to Pell Grants—he'd have been hard-pressed to win at all."

What is really an exercise in the old Washington game is the boondoggle the President and Democrats are trying to enact. The "stimulus" package is the very same bit of excessive, pork-barrel spending that Washington has traded in for decades. The only distinction is the degree, which is multiplied by Democrats using the present economic crisis as an opportunity to enact all of the spending they've dreamed about for years within the Trojan horse of a "stimulus." President Obama should take a breath and realize that he is indeed in his present position because of tired Washington ways, but that it is himself and his Congressional cohorts who are indulging in it.

The charge that Republicans are offering as solutions the policies that incurred this downturn demonstrates that they don't actually understand its causes. It was not Republican policies of lower taxes that got us here (those policies were the source of twenty-five years of unprecedented growth prior to the recession) but irresponsible borrowing and lending, especially in the give and take of home mortgages. Democrats had more than a hand in this, encouraging "fair lending" standards that led to mortgages being given to people who should have never received them. Echoing Victor Davis Hanson, "What exactly does [President Obama] think was the cause of the current financial panic if not over-borrowing, unsustainable household and national debt, and reckless government housing policies, along with too accessible amounts of capital?" Between the two parties, which one is now proposing policies that resemble this? It is of course the President and Congressional Democrats, both of which are now trying to engage in more irresponsible debt creation which will only be another drag on the economy and future generations of Americans.

The next time the President decides to bitterly vituperate he should get his facts straight.

The Worst Part

It's terrible enough that Sen. Daschle neglected to pay taxes he owed on a car and driver provided him by his employers. (That he ever got his foot in the door of the Obama administration is all the more astounding given the fact that they equate paying one's taxes merrily with patriotism.) But the fact that really grinds the gears of average Americans is the deeper circumstances behind his dereliction.

Sen. Daschle used the influence and prestige he had accumulated over years of service in Congress to cash in on millions from various interests paid to exercise that influence on their behalf. In other words, he used the benefits he had accrued from years of receiving the trust of his public constituencies to make a fortune for himself and then neglected to pay his fair share of every working American's social obligation – taxes. He got a lot from public trust and then contributed nothing back in return.

That is absolutely reprehensible.

Rough Start

The Obama Presidency has suffered a rough start in its opening fortnight, largely because it has cannibalized itself through self-generated hype and astronomical expectations that mere mortals could not possibly achieve. To aggravate matters, they have deliberately set-aside or betrayed those standards right out of the gate to an appalling degree, as the events of the day demonstrate. They promised to be the most ethical and transparent administration in history yet waived their ethical regulations – explicitly or implicitly – for a host of administration officials and nominees when they got in the way. Instead of the most ethical administration in history Americans have witnessed one which has installed high ethics standards only to cast them away with the flick of a wrist when they become inconvenient. Some "change we can believe in."

Also promised was a new Washington and an age of post-partisanship, which quickly met the same fate as the new ethics and transparency. The problem which they haven't been able to run away from any longer is that President Obama has always talked of bi-partisanship but never really practiced it. In the first major initiative of his presidency he reached out to pat Congressional Republicans on the forehead only to offer them a nakedly partisan bill full of Democratic pet-spending. The gesture was pleasant but it didn't actually change anything, i.e. make the bill any less partisan after the meeting than it was before.

Beyond the unfulfilled standards and expectations, the administration has also shown an early tendency to act clumsily and overly-passive at times. They foolishly allowed the partisan dogs of the Democratic Congress to write the "stimulus" bill, receiving in return a political headache that provided Republicans an easy means of principled opposition. And, worst of all for the President, it is the gift that keeps on giving: as each day passes the package appears less and less palatable. Despite this there has been little visible effort from the President to improve it. During the transition period he laid out clear guiding principles for a stimulus (timely, targeted, and temporary) but has done little to enforce them. He simply isn't control of the issue, despite the fact that he is at the zenith of his popularity and influence (or at least should be).

This fecklessness is all the more astounding when you consider the frame of mind the President revealed when he declared, "I won" on his second day in office. For all of the assertiveness and command this forceful statement conveyed he sure hasn't lived up to it. He did win and he is the man in charge, but from all appearances he has failed throw his political weight into the issue and forge a stimulus that isn't ripe for ridicule. Instead he's permitting his counterparts in Congress to make a mess that will eventually extend all the way down Pennsylvania Avenue, making him the owner of a stinking pile of refuse. His administration's one positive action to prevent this has apparently been to encourage disenchanted Democrats in Congress to go after their leadership, summoning others to do what they should be doing themselves. That kind of helplessness isn't worthy of a President who confidently replied, "I won." It's worthy of a lame duck, which we were supposed to have been rid of on the twentieth of last month.

Of course no observant person should really be surprised at the President's inauspicious start. His previous government experience was negligible, his executive experience non-existent. His personality and demeanor were always conspicuously passive. Throughout the campaign he demonstrated an unyielding reticence to make firm commitments, preferring instead promises to consider, review, and discuss issues. What's more, he and his supporting structure demonstrated little command of the governing and decision-making skills relevant to the unique demands of the Presidency. (Their talent was in marketing to America's youth culture and independents who simply wanted a Democrat who met the minimum of standards.) As Peter Wehner writes, "so much of his appeal has been aesthetic, theatrical, and tonal, based on creating a particular mood and impression. Obama's appeal was not, and never has been, grounded in anything solid, philosophical, or permanent."

The Obama team did little to hide the fact that they planned to govern as they campaigned, which you simply cannot do. A campaign is a practice in potentialities and hypotheticals, and is relatively brief and transient. Governing is a different animal, entirely a practice in coordinating and moving unwieldy and disparate parts in desired directions over a relatively extended period of time. The President and his administration will inevitably learn and improve going forward, but it has been made abundantly clear that they didn't understand this and so were woefully unprepared to do it when the time came. They better figure it out soon.

President Obama’s Clutter

The hero of the American Left wrote last week about the vastly increased number of personnel and officials President Obama has filled his administration with, specifically his White House Staff. These "changes to the management structure of the White House…will likely undermine his stated aims and create a more centralized and possibly incoherent policy process."

In one example of this, the President has apparently mastered the recipe for confusion and tension in his appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Sen. George Mitchell as a special envoy to the Middle East, and Richard Holbrooke as the same to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Each of these personages are points of accomplishment and power in their own right who have been lumped together with concurring jurisdictions in the same area. Almost inevitably this will entail jealous turf wars for influence and authority that will leave the President directly in the cross-fire, in much the same manner as his predecessor was caught between the turf wars of Secretaries Powell and Rumsfeld.

This tack is in keeping with the ideas the Left has of governance. To manage affairs you install as many managers as possible in a central point. These are either in the form of individuals ("czars") and/or offices, commissions, and agencies (bureaucracy). These entities are the brains in their fields; usually highly educated and experienced officials who are respected by other officials in the central government and trusted to knowledgeably manage a specific set of affairs from their central perch. (It's basically a system of reciprocal self-emolument). This conception of enlightened government runs all the way back in history to the Enlightenment ideology of the philosophѐs in the French Revolution. Messrs. Mitchell and Holbrooke are manifestations of it in the Obama Administration; Mr. Rove details even more in his piece. Congressional Democrats' pleas for a "car czar" to manage the bailout of Detroit were another, as was the creation of the Iraq Study Group. The ultimate example is the infinite number of cabinet departments and federal agencies that have malignantly developed within the federal government (and state governments too) over the decades.

And as Rove points out, it's all a cluttered mess of redundancy, excess, and confusion. It breeds jealousies, petty rivalries and, all too often, slow, stilted, unresponsive action. It's scarcely a wonder that the ship of state rarely ever gets anywhere when so many hands are on the helm pulling it in opposite directions. It is nothing but a big mass that is completely unwieldy, as are the areas it presumes to be able to manage effectively for that matter.

Regrettably, President Obama has deliberately permitted this sorry state of affairs to metastasize within his own White House and administration, almost inevitably guaranteeing its follies will metastasize as well. To respond to the sudden challenges that always pop up – especially in times like these – the President should have a more streamlined structure in place, one capable of rapid and effective response. This current iteration doesn't look to be it.

Some Honeymoon

The stimulus debate in Congress has placed President Obama in a difficult position. With large majorities in both Houses he and Democrats can essentially do anything they want, which in the first major effort of his Presidency is actually panning out to be a negative. Carte Blanche has given Democrats on the Hill all the latitude they need to succumb to their worst instincts, using the country's economic emergency as an opportunity to spend on all manner of their pet causes and special interest constituencies under the guise of "stimulus." As Peggy Noonan writes, Democrats are making themselves appear "not like people who are responding to a crisis, or even like people who are ignoring a crisis, but people who are using a crisis." The more the light of day is shed on this legislation the more terrible it looks, to the point now where just about everybody acknowledges it is a lemon, publicly or privately. Yet with such dominant partisan control of Congress it is probably going to speed down Pennsylvania Avenue to the President's desk, ripe and ready for his signature.

What is he to do? He surely knows that the bill is terrible and fails to fulfill its stated Keynesian purposes, which in turn incinerates his hope to get a bi-partisan bill that will solidify his post-partisan bona fides. Yet it's not like he can veto it or even lean too hard on party leaders privately without tearing the Democratic monolith asunder in its first few weeks; no way to celebrate what was supposed to be your honeymoon.

If and when he signs it though, without any Republican support if kept in its present form, he and Democrats will exclusively own it. They will own a bill that scarcely attempts to fulfill its nominal purpose at a great cost to the taxpayer at a time when money is scarce. Down the road voters will ask what they are getting in return for their assumption of an even greater debt burden, and they will hold the powers that be responsible for that answer.

Such conundrums are inherent to the circumstances the President finds himself in. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," and with power as absolute as it could possibly get Democrats in Congress have immediately become gluttonous. Republicans did too much of the same in previous Congresses with even less power, leaving President Bush the choice of either vetoing spending he was uncomfortable with or preserving party unity to enact higher priorities (Congressional cooperation in the execution of the War on Terror). President Obama now finds himself in the same chasm, forced to select between Option A and B, both of which are imbued with potential peril.

As I'm sure he is now realizing, the burdens of responsibility scarcely ever allow time for honeymoons.

The End of President Obama’s Transcendentalism

Jonathan Martin writes that President Obama couldn't earn a single House Republican vote for the stimulus bill this evening despite his personal visit with the caucus on the Hill yesterday. Thus does a central conceit of the President's (and of every new President's) flutter away into oblivion. He has persistently dismissed partisan disagreement as illegitimate or petty (most recently in his Inaugural) even though vibrant disagreement and debate are the symptoms of healthy democracies. In that same vain he has touted his post-partisanship and ability to bridge chasms between those who disagree. He was a transcendental figure, and would be a transcendental President.

This was a mirage. The President's meet-and-greet with House Republicans was a commendable gesture but it was just that, a gesture. Patting the heads of Republicans is not enough to get their support or basic acquiescence, especially when nothing is done to address their concerns in subsequence. The facts of the matter were the same after the meeting as they were before, and that was that the "stimulus" he was lobbying for is an opportunistic pretense through which Democrats are pushing through reckless spending for their own pet causes. There is nothing in it that any Republican – or any responsible, candid observer for that matter –can support.

President Obama cannot be blamed for trying get a little without giving anything. But neither can he realistically expect to get anything without giving something in return. That is the lesson of this evening's vote.

Of course he doesn't need any Republicans for ultimate passage, but if he wants shared responsibility for this abomination of appropriation he's going to have to make it a lot less abominable. Otherwise he won't be the transcendental figure he fashions himself as and he and Democrats will be all alone with responsibility for their actions. Such is real life. You can't be post-partisan and still be straight-partisan at the same time. Not even if you're Barack Obama.

Review: Shroud for a Nightingale

Shroud for a Nightingale P.D. James

P.D. James' typical sterling characters, plot, and finely-tuned setting are as present in this book as in her previous ones. What are especially present in Nightingale though are examples of perhaps her greatest literary talent, which is her ability to use and describe the subtle phenomena that are peppered in human existence. Take this excerpt from p. 70:

"The recently dead had their own mysterious charisma; not without reason did men talk in whispers in their presence."

On p. 143:

"This, after all, was the commonest, the most banal of personal tragedies. You loved someone. They didn't love you. Worse still, in defiance of their own best interests and to the destruction of your peace, they loved another. What would half the world's poets and novelists do without this universal tragicomedy?"

On p. 305:

"He was in that state of physical tiredness when the mind and body seem detached, the body, conditioned to reality, moving half consciously in the familiar physical world, while the liberated mind swings into uncontrolled orbit in which fantasy and fact show an equally ambiguous face."

No literary figure I've ever come across has done this as well as James. Whenever she drops one of these in her stories you know instantly the feeling or phenomenon she is describing. This only comes from a keen awareness of human nature and experience and it makes each one of her stories a pleasure to read, Shroud for a Nightingale included.

How Not to Stimulate the Economy

Lawrence Summers, President Obama's chief economic advisor, appeared on Meet the Press yesterday. Asked a question about the administration's plans for the Bush tax cuts, he all but declared that they would be repealed the minute the economy starts to make a recovery. "I don't think there's any question they have to be repealed. The country can't afford them for the long run…they can't be part of the long-run budget picture…they're not going to be with us for long…"

Dr. Summers is self-evidently a smart guy and knows a thing or two about economics, but there a couple of items wrong with these statements.

First, declarations from him and other Democrats that we can't "afford" the Bush tax cuts ring a bit hollow given all of the additional deficit spending they propose. The most immediate of these is the trillion dollar "stimulus," which is in fact not a stimulus but more like one big pork-barrel spending bill (unless you believe that spending taxpayer dollars on contraception and sod for the Jefferson Memorial isn't pork…). Beyond that there is the universal health care coverage they'd like to see enacted as well as other egregious forms of government expansion that young Americans and their children will involuntarily foot the bill for down the road.

Second, if the Obama Administration's ultimate aim is to boost confidence in the economy then promising to raise taxes at the first opportunity is counterproductive. In fact it will only shove the date of recovery further down the road as consumers and investors et al become dissuaded from investment and expenditure with the specter of looming tax hikes haunting them from straight ahead. When recovery does arrive, raising taxes will indicate that the administration has fallen into what Matthew Continetti has labeled the "stimulus trap," in which the government tries to recoup lost revenue from a recession by raising taxes; which then aggravates or creates anew another recession. Call it "double-dipping," as James Pethokoukis does.

Suffice to say, promising to raise taxes in the future is not the relief the American people need and is not the stimulus the economy requires. Given our current trajectory, it is unfortunately very likely that we're going to witness just how true this really is.

The Stimulus & the Congressional GOP

Congressional Republicans reportedly presented President Obama with several tax cuts they'd like to see included in the proposed "stimulus" package at the White House today. They should think long and hard about this. Are these cuts – if included – really a source of salvation for the bill? Do they actually countervail the fact that it will be an irresponsible creation of debt that will fail to fulfill its stated purpose, if for no other reason than because it's a stimulus in name only? (The Congressional Budget Office is reporting that less than forty percent of the funds will actually be spent anytime soon, and most of the money is simply being directed towards liberal pet causes and projects.)

The real stimulus the economy needs is federal cession, if you will. The Congress and the President ought to approve across the board, permanent tax cuts that will yield a greater portion of the economy to the private sector and give individuals, families, and businesses an increased income that they can depend on year in and year out. Only this will create the conditions required for economic growth, not further inflationary, deficit, and one-time spending. For this reason no Congressional Republican should deem it responsible to support the legislation in any form that will be acceptable to a Democratic Congress and President.

Politically, supporting the stimulus won't help improve the Republican brand either. If Democrats want to saddle future generations with more debt without accomplishing anything for that steep cost than they shouldn't be given any cover. If they want to jump off of a bridge then Republicans can't stop them, but neither do they have to join them.

The choice in this matter is easy. As the saying goes, good governance is good politics; so too is the opposite. Oppose this "stimulus."

Farewell, President Bush

The presidency of George Walker Bush was eight years in length, a quantity that hardly seems sufficient in conveying its actual span. His were two terms longer than their years, replete with one large crisis after another. No president since FDR encountered as much, and by the end all Americans were simply weary of him and the baggage.

His tenure was especially trying for his supporter, who now in the immediate aftermath is made to cope with a gamut of emotions that few other political figures could possibly induce. As a president and a man he was a figure of disparate polarities, endowed with faculties that would at different times cause one to love him and at others shake their head in confused demoralization.

The foundation of this was his feast or famine executive skills. More so than any modern President save for Reagan, he possessed in spades the "vision thing" his father had so struggled with during his presidency. This was a leader who envisioned big things, whether it was a new "ownership society" at home or a reinvigorated, democratic Middle East abroad. He refused to settle for a presidency that would simply bide its time in office or occupy some space in the history books as his predecessor had.

Following the attacks of 9/11 (the first crisis of his presidency) he decided against simply consoling a shocked, grieving nation and lobbing a few cruise missiles in retaliation, instead interpreting the acts as a de facto declaration of war, beginning what he believed to be a long, generational struggle against radical Islam. To prevail, he committed himself and the republic to the daunting task of remaking the Middle East into a land of freedom and democracy. The most complete expression of this was his second inaugural, a paean to the power of freedom and America's eternal mission to promote it.

To commence his second term he pushed hard to reform Social Security, the "third rail" of American politics and a program on the quick road to insolvency. He sought personal savings accounts which would have allowed young workers to invest their payroll tax dollars into the stock market instead of sending them to the treasury to be spent and replaced by IOUs. Few in government were politically willing to touch the issue, but President Bush persisted for months in advocacy of it nonetheless.

This effort was a symptom of another of his executive skills – incorrigible determination or, some might say, stubbornness. He would have his big vision and would push for it no matter what. Whether this was a virtue or vice depended upon the issue. With his Social Security campaign it was a vice, not giving it up until well after it was clear that it wasn't going to happen (and long after its failure had done irreparable harm to his own political strength). With Iraq it saved this country from a humiliating, strategically ruinous defeat. As the Editors of National Review pointed out, his decision to support the surge when nearly everyone else sought withdrawal demonstrated "far better judgment and character than a political establishment that largely approved the initial invasion of Iraq and then sought to abandon it to terrorists." His stubbornness on Iraq was the virtue of his presidency.

His weaknesses as an executive were often times debilitating though. His ability to construct an overall vision was a virtue, as was his courage of conviction in pursuit of them (usually), but at times he lost sight of more immediate imperatives and unfinished business. His understanding that the ultimate defeat of terror depended on the spread of democracy in the Arab world was correct, and that this first and foremost required succeeding in Iraq, the geographical and strategic center of the Middle East. Yet it took far too long for him to grasp the fact that success in Iraq depended upon securing and stabilizing the country first, an accomplishment only belatedly realized by the implementation of the surge policy of 2007.

This was part and parcel to the central failing of his presidency, which was, as Jeffrey Bell writes, a tendency to set a correct objective, pursue it successfully for a time, and then founder. On a host of issues he exhibited a pattern of "excellent initial judgment, strong will, fair to decent early execution, culminating in distraction and in an ultimate failure to finish." Such was the case with tax cuts, marriage, faith-based initiatives, etc.

Undoubtedly, this flaw was a symptom – at least partly – of his spotty record of personnel selection and his penchant, consistent with his stubbornness, to stick by poor selections for far too long. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld might have been the correct choice for a 1990's/post-Cold War military, but he certainly was not for the extended, nation-building reality of the War on Terror. In no way should he have lasted six years.

The incompetence of Michael Brown and FEMA post-Katrina was a calamity his presidency never recovered from, tainting them from then on with the label of incompetence (Alberto Gonzales at the Justice Department and others made their contributions to this as well).

Additionally, his freedom agenda was undercut by the promotion of Scowcroft protégé Condolezza Rice to State, who tacked his administration's foreign policy back to the conventional establishmentarian policy of dialogue and diplomacy for its own sake. The upshot has been a complete failure in efforts to dismantle North Korea's nuclear program and to prevent Iran from developing one of their own, or to promote democracy in Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

By the last year or so of his presidency matters had seemingly collapsed. His unpopularity was at historically high levels not seen since the Carter presidency and the only issue he seemed to direct his traditional spunk and feistiness towards was his Iraq policy, which had been under a visceral and execrable attack by the Democratic Congress since '07. With the last significant measure of his presidency he lamely released TARP funds to boost the Detroit automakers, saving them for a few months from the death they were unwilling to save themselves from permanently.

After all of this his faithful supporter was left disheartened and confused. He had always admired his vision, moral clarity, and moral courage but ultimately became frustrated with his poorly chosen cast of subordinates and excessive farsightedness, all of which left far too many of the ventures he and the President shared unaccomplished. He had charged ahead enthusiastically in his re-election fight of '04 only to discover somewhere in the second term that the President wasn't always there next to him, but instead had fallen quite a bit behind.

Now at the end the President's supporter is left to deal with a conflicting miasma of emotions in evaluating what he witnessed the previous eight years. There were many failures and about-faces to brood about: Democratic-style spending, immigration, North Korea, Iran, Harriet Miers, Katrina, etc. But so too did the President have his share of accomplishments in spheres foreign and domestic., many of which have been obscured by the controversies of a political atmosphere imbued with bitter partisanship (which President Bush's Texas bluntness and self-assurance helped to create).

He cut taxes at a time in 2001 when the economy was in a post-boom slowdown and did it again in 2003, both rounds of which helped lessen the length and severity of the recession he inherited from his predecessor. He appointed Samuel Alito as an associate justice of the Supreme Court and John Roberts as chief justice, "whose sterling qualifications appear to include a deep commitment to respect the broad play the Constitution gives to the operations of representative government," as Ed Whelan has written. His committed opposition to federal funding of stem cell research, rooted in a belief in the sanctity of life and the concurrent need to develop other means of research, was vindicated by the announcement in 2007 that scientists have developed a way to turn regular human skin cells into the equivalent of embryonic stem cells. Yuval Levin is right in stating that "he acted to demonstrate that science and ethics are not mutually exclusive, but could be championed together in a way that demonstrated our commitment to the value of every human life."

In the sphere of foreign affairs he withdrew the United States from the Kyoto protocol, which excluded the world's largest polluters from its obligations and would have been a sullen drag on the economy. He helped foster stronger relationships with East Asian democracies – specifically Japan – and helped to grow a bilateral relationship with India which could be instrumental in managing China's growth going into the future. Despite the incessant talk of America's broken image in the world, pro-American regimes are also in power in Germany, France, Italy, England, and other Eastern European countries. What's more, we have good relationships with Columbia (a fact imperiled by our inability to pass the Columbian Free Trade Agreement), Mexico, and Brazil. And for some reason the lines are as long as ever to get into this country, despite the fact that anti-Americanism is supposed to be higher than ever.

His record of strengthening presidential power and the federal government's capacity to combat the war on terror is mixed, but generally positive as well. Eleven times he vetoed congressional measures which would have weakened the power of the President, and he persisted in the practice of issuing signing statements – despite inane criticism – on the principle that the President is the chief executive officer and not "the legislature's errand boy," as Matthew J. Franck has written. His administration dismantled the al Qaeda network and detained and interrogated many of its operatives, setting up procedures for their continued detention and surveillance. So too did it devise means to monitor terrorists communications in an era of cell phones, e-mail, etc. He put in place an infrastructure to combat the War on Terror which had not existed prior to 9/11 and the country is safer as a result. His only folly was doing all of this unilaterally. He should have struck when the iron was hot, securing congressional implementation of these programs on a permanent basis. That way there wouldn't have been the confusion and controversy that enveloped him at the end of his administration. Further, codification would have established a permanent structure for future administrations to effectively wage the global war.

The results cannot be questioned though, and in what is without doubt the seminal achievement of his presidency there has not been another terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. That is something no one would have predicted following that terrible day and it was due entirely to the decisive actions he implemented from that point forward. In fulfilling the President's main task of serving as commander-in-chief and defending the United States he consistently did right and did well, persisting regardless of the flak he got from critics, too many of whom were small men. As Congressman Peter Hoekstra writes, "President Bush demonstrated the character and patriotism that define a true American leader despite unrelenting partisan criticism over his decisions."

It was indeed a long eight years, and there were many mistakes the President made. But when the smoke and dust are gone history will remember that George Walker Bush did pretty well. He, like so many Americans, responded to the attacks of 9/11 with grace and determination, recognizing the monumental task before him. It will remember that he ordered the overthrow of two cruel regimes, leaving fifty-million Muslims safer and freer as a result. It will remember that when the chips were down in Iraq; when he could have given in to pressure and despair, he didn't fold but doubled his bet and America snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. It will remember that he lucidly did the hard things needed to be done and kept the American people safe. And finally, it will remember that despite his failings and weaknesses as a leader he never misrepresented who he was, he never lost his class or grace (even when so many of his detractors never demonstrated any themselves), and he never gave up.

And if history doesn't remember him for this, his supporter will.

I will.

Farewell and thank you, President Bush.

The President’s Guantanamo Pickle

After a campaign spent lambasting the Bush Administration for operations at Guantanamo Bay the new President has declared that the facility will be closed within the year. Unfortunately, more problems are created by this than by actually keeping it open.

For one, what is the administration going to do with the combatants being detained there? You know, the people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terrorists who have committed their lives to incinerating the United States? They obviously can't release them without multiplying the folly of Gov. Dukakis' infamous furlough program by powers of a hundred. They could send them back to their countries of origin but that would seem a little hypocritical given the fact that President Obama waxed indignantly at his predecessor for such rendition (a policy the Clinton Administration practiced as well, incidentally).

Neither of these are an option obviously, so the detainees will have to be moved to a new facility, which entails even more problems. Trying to relocate them to domestic military installations, as has been suggested, will be met with fierce resistance from the communities they're located in, and understandably so. As the Wall Street Journal points out today, to have these men on American soil without the security the isolation of Guantanamo provides invites terrorist attack.

There's also that nagging little reality that all of this is farcically symbolic, as the Obama Administration will simply have to create another Guantanamo under another name to fulfill the very same purpose Guantanamo has fulfilled to date. The aforementioned problems seem a steep price to pay for such empty gestures, so wouldn't it be more pragmatic to simply reform the operations within Guantanamo that the President has objected too instead of enduring all of this heartburn? Sure he might look a little duplicitous after having promised to close the installment during the campaign, but there's been a number of positions and sentiments he held as a naïve candidate that he's since had to change when confronted with reality as President-Elect and President. This is just another one of those instances.

But as has become a pattern with this issue, there are even problems with that. He wishes to replace the system President Bush and the Congress set up in 2006 with a hypothetical process that will accord with the "basic principles of [the] Anglo-American legal system." Of course that is predicated upon the fallacy that the war we're in is a province for law-enforcement, which it most certainly is not. The detainees of Guantanamo aren't criminals but illegal combatants engaged in a type of war against the United States that we have not seen before and which, prior to 9/11, our institutions weren't constituted to respond to. Quoting the Journal again, "many of the Guantanamo prisoners haven't committed crimes per se but are dedicated American enemies and too dangerous to let go. Other cases involve evidence that is insufficient for trial but still sufficient to determine that release is an unacceptable security risk."

Unfortunately for the standing of President Obama's and the Left's previous sanctimony on the matter any responsible system that recognizes this fact while providing a fair legal process to deal with these terrorists is going to have to look like a lot like that which had been set up previously by Constitution shredder-in-chief George Bush. The President should just cut his losses, admit as much, and avoid making one of his first mistakes in office.

Lincoln & Obama

I was consumed in a convulsive shock when it was suggested a few weeks ago that President-Elect Obama is not a contemporary Lincoln. But now that I have gotten over it and my heart-rate has normalized I have been given pause to reflect. After due deliberation, I must accede that this may be the case. Maybe.

All sarcasm aside, of course the President-Elect does not drink at the same bar as Lincoln. One of their similarities – both took hold of the public spotlight in acclaimed speeches – illustrates this. Obama's keynote at the 2004 DNC and Lincoln's Cooper Union address reflect their disparate perspectives, temperaments, and depth of thought.

Then-St. Sen. Obama's keynote was short and platitudinous, uplifting but innocuous. He mostly avoided the specific issues relevant to the election and bemoaned the abstract problem of division and bitterness. He warned against unnamed, nefarious operators "who are preparing to divide us -- the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of 'anything goes.'" He declared that "there is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there's the United States of America." The election wasn't about Iraq, the War on Terror, tax cuts, jobs, immigration or what have you, but whether "we participate in a politics of cynicism or…in a politics of hope."

Since complaining about partisanship is (ironically) about the only thing Americans can join hands in on a bi-partisan basis, the speech was an exercise in snatching the lowest-hanging fruit. Obama was able to endear himself to the base with uplifting vapor delivered in a sonorous voice without offending anyone else, which can always be accomplished when you never really say anything. Memorable was the presentation, not the content, such as there was.

Lincoln's at Cooper Union was a substantive and extended exposition on the Constitution's meaning on the dominant issue before his country – the expansion of slavery into the western territories. He prefaced his discourse with the perfectly scholarly question, "Does the proper division of local from federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Government to control as to slavery in our Federal Territories?" From that he entered a long examination discussing every instance in which the Congress had dealt with slavery in the territories. He cited the actions of the thirty-nine signers of the Constitution, twenty-three of which voted on the issue in the Confederacy and/or Constitutional Congresses. He concluded

that of our thirty-nine fathers who framed the original Constitution, twenty-one - a clear majority of the whole - certainly understood that no proper division of local from federal authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control slavery in the federal territories; while all the rest probably had the same understanding.

Quite distinct from Obama's tack, Lincoln did not speak of anonymous forces but addressed his critics by name – Southern Democrats – and exhorted them to take him and Republicans up in a reasoned debate. He mentioned each of their accusations and answered them; that Republicans were revolutionary, that they were enflaming the slavery issue, and that they promoted insurrection among the slaves. Then he used the historical evidence from the first half of his speech to make the case that it was his antagonists who were trying to bend the Constitution to their will, not the Republicans. Their "purpose…plainly stated, is that [they] will destroy the Government, unless [they are] allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as [they] please, on all points in dispute between [them] and us. [They] will rule or ruin in all events."

Lincoln certainly didn't waste time urging Northerners and Southerners – Republicans and Democrats – to put aside their differences and unify. Far from it:

Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man.

Instead he exhorted his audience to "have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."

At Cooper Union Lincoln used a deep understanding of history to answer a very specific question, demonstrating a profound degree of thought and awareness. He wasn't picking fruit from his knees but took on an issue that divided the country until it bled.

In the four years that elapsed between his keynote and election the President-Elect hasn't done the same. It is quite clear that he still does not know his own mind, either flipping positions or being conspicuously vague on the FISA bill, meeting with dictators, plans for Iraq, tax cuts, etc.

In the years before the White House Lincoln dedicated himself to considering and debating the issues of his age. President-Elect Obama used the same period to advance himself by focusing on himself, running a campaign based on personality, not issues or ideas.

Barack Obama is no Abraham Lincoln.

Myth Vaporizing

Gay rights activists' anger with President-Elect Obama's decision to have Rev. Rick Warren deliver the invocation at the Inaugural represents another instance of the Obama myth (held deeply in the hearts and minds of his most liberal supporters) vaporizing. Stung already by his moderate to conservative personnel appointments, the Left must now absorb another body blow to their deepest hopes and expectations.

That the President-Obama actually shares Rev. Warren's position on marriage (officially at least) is immaterial. As Byron York writes, "no matter what Obama says, a number of gay activists appear to believe the president-elect is, deep down, with them on the issue."

For their disappointment his more robotic supporters have no one to blame but themselves, falling prey to the Obama campaign's deliberate nebulosity, which encouraged them to project whatever views they wanted on him, all of which could fit under the umbrella of "change."

But now that he is in a position of action (the Presidency) and not one of talking (a candidate) he has to pull a reversal and project himself, whoever that may be. As Jennifer Rubin writes, "The essence of governing is doing and choosing. Rick Warren or Jesse Jackson? Secretary of Defense Robert Gates or Chuck Hagel? A tax increase or not? At some point your actions make clear your intentions. And inevitably one side or the other, both which thought he was with them, is disappointed."

The upshot is an inevitable conflict. A transition from diplomatic rhetoric to specific actions means that someone is left feeling hurt. You can be all things to all people when all you have to be is a blank canvas for other's disparate projections; you cannot be when you have to project something yourself. Quoting Rubin again,

All of the elevated expectations and conflicting promises might have helped get him elected, but they will make the governing more challenging. As President Obama is forced to choose on issue after issue, the ambiguities will become fewer and the complaints greater. It happens to all politicians, and even President Obama can't change that.

The unhappy truth for the Left is that the PE needs the support of a broad expanse of Americans to be successful, most of which don't share the values of the standard urban or campus liberal, his most robotic supporter. They should prepare themselves for more heartbreak.

The Fed Rate Cut

If the purpose is to raise confidence in an economy plagued by inertia and thereby loosen credit and cash flow, how does the Federal Reserve's rate abolition yesterday accomplish it? It is a tax on credulity to accept that confidence in the health of the economy increases in response to a desperate act by one of the economy's central entities. If the times can be so bleak as to justify such drastic measures then you'd be a fool to feel bully about releasing capital.

Accepting that the Wall Street Journal
is right – as I do – that the basic ailment of the economy is a surfeit of uncertainty, than this gambit hardly suffices as treatment. If anything, it looks like the kind of thing that put us in this mess, which was years of handing out credit like they hand out rosary beads in a Catholic Church.

As the Journal writes, "Banks, consumers and business are dug in their foxholes, conserving their cash until they believe the worst has passed. Meanwhile, investors around the world are deleveraging to reduce risk and cut their losses, a process that the Fed can do little about." Hail Mary's are not going to encourage anyone, and the groundhog will not be enticed from its hole until the mania above has stopped and the terrain has stabilized.

Automaker Bailout II

Edmund Burke wrote that an entity "without the means of change is without the means of its conservation." For such reason do the Detroit 3 and UAW whither.

The bailout package passed earlier by the House collapsed in the Senate last evening because of the Democratic leadership's and UAW's refusal to accept some of the stipulations set out in Sen. Bob Corker's (R-TN) restructuring plan, foremost of which was a requirement that Ford, GM, and Chrysler bring labor costs into line with their foreign-owned competitors by 2009 to receive federal money.

To give a dime to Detroit without such a mandate would negate the very point of the bailout, and would be the equivalent of throwing taxpayers dollars into a flushing toilet. The reason Detroit is here is because it is uncompetitive, and it is uncompetitive because of the exorbitant union-negotiated wages and capital structuring they have in place. An infusion of cash will not alter this dynamic, but only stave off the day of ultimate insolvency for a time. Continue to refuse to alter the wage and capital structure and it will fall into destitution again sooner or later; probably sooner.

The only condition under which it could remotely be appropriate to give taxpayer money to Detroit is in the form of a "bridge loan;" as an infusion of cash following a thorough restructuring as a means to making it through a perilous short-term. As Jim Geraghty points out, the need to reduce costs is all the more essential in a deep recession with low demand for new cars.

Detroit will not survive without changing its business model to reduce labor costs and overhead. Until it does so – and demonstrates a will to live – the stewards of taxpayer dollars shouldn't throw one dollar their way.

Voting ‘Present’

The President-Elect is receiving criticism today for his vague answers and response to questions about his own and his transition's knowledge and role in the Blagojevich Senate sale. Whether or not it's worthy of criticism, this ambiguity is characteristic of the man as a political figure and leader; he simply chafes at certitude and commitment.

In the late campaign his opponents criticized his penchant for voting "present" in the Illinois State Senate. At the Saddleback Presidential Forum in August all he would say about abortion was that "I'm absolutely convinced [there] is a moral and ethical element to this issue." As a candidate he was conspicuously vague about the economy as it crashed, and this has continued as President-Elect. He delayed announcing his selection for treasury secretary for weeks, ignoring the clamor from the markets. As a guest on Meet the Press last Sunday his common answer to questions about the economy was some variation of "my advisors are looking at this."

The person who ran on the empty bottles of "Hope" and "Change" simply does not like to commit himself on record; which entails taking a specific position, which means disappointing or even angering some group of people or another. As long as he floats in nebulosity he can be all things to all people. Should he be decisive he would actually have to descend into the squabbles of mortals, diminishing his transcendence.

If this were to happen, Barack Obama would not be Barack Obama.

An Iran Policy, Please

The latest from the IAEA reports that Iran is quickly approaching the point where it will have sufficient nuclear material to construct an atomic bomb. The very same regime that has threatened to wipe Israel off the map, in other words, will imminently have the means to do so.

Remarkably, the only audible response to this by the United States and the international community is that of crickets chirping in an ominously quiet night. Heretofore these parties have tried the much-hyped tack of diplomacy, with European powers meeting with the Iranian regime since 2005 to try to negotiate some settlement that will stop the Islamic Republic's nuclear mobilization. It very clearly hasn't worked though, and representatives of the regime have recently indicated that they have no intention of pursuing or agreeing to any carrots and sticks package the incoming Obama Administration may propose.

As a result the West is mired in a state of self-induced paralysis. Our treasured notions of soft power and diplomacy have failed, a failure that is shared by everyone. Bowing to criticism of its alleged unilateralism and international bullying (apparently), the Bush Administration decided to let Britain, France, and Germany have a go at negotiations with the mullahs that were doomed to failure from the start. To add injury to futility, no meaningful economic sanctions have been enacted or even pursued by the UN Security Council, which might have actually worked. In essence we pursued a doomed policy with no backup strategy for when it inevitably failed.

Now we are at a crossroads. As the leader of the West and the free world, the United States must make a decision on the fundamental question that we have refused to discuss: is it acceptable for the Islamic Republic of Iran to have a nuclear capacity? Consideration and decision of this question will permit us to do something; either prepare for the management of a state of affairs redefined by Iranian nuclear capacity or prepare a new strategy for preventing that. If not answered almost immediately the question will soon be immaterial, for the regime will have that capacity. Once arrived at this point we will find ourselves in a situation we are unprepared for and unequipped to advantageously respond to.

We need a policy; almost any policy. Whatever it is, it will be better than our present state of paralysis and denial.

The Arrest of Gov. Blagojevich

It is still very early to develop or offer any comprehensive opinion on the arrest this morning of Gov. Ron Blagojevich, Democrat of Illinois. But I can't help but sadly marvel at not only the laundry list of crimes he is alleged to have committed but also his base audacity in the perpetuation of them. For years now he has been under scrutiny for corruption, which a reasonable person might assume would deter him from further criminal commission.

On the contrary, his sewer Chicago politics has continued apace, with the governor wasting no opportunity to use his public trust for personal profit. Not only is this incredibly despicable, but incredibly stupid.

435 Caos

Angh "Joseph" Cao's victory in the Louisiana 2^nd Congressional District special election on Saturday was certainly welcome. It was a GOP pickup, of which there have not been many lately. It sent a virulently corrupt politician home, far away from the public trust he has abused for his own personal profit. And, adding to a year of barrier-breaking, it was the first instance of a Vietnamese-American winning election to the U.S. Congress.

Some grains of salt must be retained though. It was a special election with pathetic turnout. Had it occurred on Nov. 4 – with massive black turnout in a preponderantly black district – the result would have been different. And because it is such a Democratic district the national environment for Republicans is going to have to improve significantly for Cao to stand any chance of reelection in '10.

Nevertheless, I do agree with Patrick Ruffini. "In crafting our 435 district strategy, the lesson is that we don't need to run risk-averse politicians in longshot seats. We need to run everyday heroes like Cao. We need to identify people outside politics who've done things in the community and who can capitalize on the incumbents' mistakes."

The types of candidates Republicans should seek to run under our banner are local heroes. They're the people who didn't run for office once they were out of the cradle and haven't spent their entire adulthood working in government. They're regular folks. They've worked hard, overcome obstacles, and achieved in the private sector. Such individuals and candidates do not simply articulate conservative values and principles, they personify them. That is a verbatim description of Joseph Cao, and we should seek out more variations of him. As Ruffini points out, "Every district has a Joseph Cao."

The Executive to Be

As President-Elect Obama continues to announce the various officials he will be filling his administration with he gives an increasing indication of what type of executive he will be. His appointment of Congressman Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff is particularly noticeable given his reputation as a cutthroat (though not exceedingly ideological) partisan. This is a conspicuous difference from the image of trans-partisan healer the President-Elect has heretofore fashioned for himself.

Perhaps fitting in with a pattern of the man, some of the subordinates he surrounded himself with as a candidate and the underlying tone and behavior of his campaign didn't precisely fit in with his overall narrative either. His closest aide, David Axelrod, was "an expert at clandestine political attacks," Mark Hemingway writes. "According to BusinessWeek, he is the 'master of "Astro-turfing'" – the art of planting messages on the Internet and elsewhere to make it look like there's a grassroots movement supporting your position."

Further, when a Chicago radio station planned to interview NR writer Stanley Kurtz about the PE's ties to Bill Ayers the Obama campaign sent an action wire to Chicago supporters urging them to pressure the station into dropping the interview. The campaign also tried to use various government agencies to shut down organizations running ads critical of the PE.

While it may be a stretch to call these tactics the beginning of a thugocracy, they are something slightly less than savory. While the campaign and now the administration plays ball in the mud – slinging it around without inhibition – the executive himself conveniently remains disassociated, keeping his hands clean while others get theirs dirty. Call it a kind of good cop/bad cop dynamic, as the editors of National Review have.

Whatever it is, it is not befitting an American president and his administration (especially when the PE and so many of his supporters railed against shadows on the wall of Bush administration malfeasance).

Hopefully the early indicia never bear their poisoned fruit.

This Bailout Farce

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

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

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

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

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

This farce will be over when all of that happens.

RE: The Chambliss/Obama Victory

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

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

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

The Chambliss/Obama Victory

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

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

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

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

MTP's New Moderator

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

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

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

The PE & Iraq

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

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

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

The Gates Retention

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

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

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

Eric Holder Selection

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

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

It’s a curious choice.

Automaker Bailout

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

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

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

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

Steele for the RNC

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

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

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

To the President-Elect

Mr. President-Elect:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With the Sincerest Best Wishes,
Geoff Smock

Sec. of State Clinton?

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

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

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

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