Harry Reid’s Day (Way) Off

May 19, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, News media, Senate | 1 Comment 

Last week, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, stumbled her way through a chaotic press conference in which she tried to explain why it was that her account of her briefings by the CIA six years ago differed so much from the accounts of others who were present.

Today, it was the turn of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to embarrass himself before the press. Speaking to assembled members of the Fourth Estate, he was asked about the absence from the Senate chamber of Sen. Ted Kennedy. Reid stated that the senator was continuing to undergo treatment for brain cancer. Asked if the cancer was in remission, the gentleman from Nevada replied in the affirmative. Reporters checking with Kennedy’s own office later were pointedly told that the office would not confirm that statement or make any other response, and even before the conference ended Jim Manley, Reid’s own spokesman (and a longtime Kennedy staffer in years past) was retracting the statement.

Reid was also asked about the status of ailing Sen. Robert Byrd. He told the reporters that the 91-year-old legislator was to be released from the hospital sometime this week – a statement promptly denied by Byrd’s own spokesman.

Speaking about President Obama’s plans to close Guantanamo’s prison and transfer its inmates to American facilities, Reid declared: “We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States.” As Laurie Kellman observes in this AP account, no one at the White House had been advocating that terrorists run wild around this nation – another gaffe that Manley had to clarify.

All of this brings to mind the process by which Sen. Rod Burris finessed his way into his seat after Reid repeatedly declared he wouldn’t. Can the Democrats afford to keep Reid as Majority Leader until November of next year?

The President At Notre Dame

May 16, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, California politics, Congress, Culture, Democratic Party, Domestic issues, Election 2008, Lifestyle, Media, Obama administration, Political Philosophy, Presidents, Public Opinion, Religion, Republican Party, Supreme Court, Vice President Biden, economy, education | 1 Comment 

Tomorrow President Obama will receive an honorary degree at the University of Notre Dame, the nation’s quintessential Catholic institution of higher learning, and will deliver an address to the assembled graduates. The invitation extended by the school’s president has stirred considerable controversy (and plenty of vocal protests) because of the President’s espousal of the pro-choice viewpoint on abortion throughout his career. (It has been noted here and there that other pro-choice politicians like New York’s onetime Governor Mario Cuomo and the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan appeared at previous Notre Dame commencements without much incident. But it may have helped that they were lifelong Catholics, unlike Obama.)

The Chief Executive’s appearance tomorrow is an opportunity for him to extend a conciliatory hand to the large number of Americans who, whether or not they voted for him in November, are not supporters of some of the radical programs being espoused by a considerable number of Democratic-affiliated groups, such as an expansion of legal abortion, decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs, and gay marriage.

It seems to become more evident by the month that when voters sought “change” in voting for Obama and Vice President Biden last month, a substantial percentage of them were mainly concerned with the economy, health care, and perhaps increased opportunity of education, and were not that keen on the other aspects of “change” as defined in the agendas of MoveOn.org or other groups. This would especially apply to voters in the states surrounding the Deep South, large portions of the Catholic electorate, and churchgoing African-American voters nationwide.

In California, the voters in the latter group helped Obama carry the state, but at the same time provided the margin that passed Proposition 8 which reversed the California Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage. And it turns out that on abortion, the percentage of voters supporting Roe vs. Wade and the pro-choice line, after peaking during the Clinton years, has steadily been declining, to the point that this week, a Gallup poll revealed that a bare majority of those whose opinion was sampled – 51% – described themselves as “pro-life.”

This strongly indicates that a considerable number of voters – perhaps poised on becoming the majority – would not be looking forward to Al Franken taking his seat in the Senate and locking in a (theoretically) filibuster-proof majority that would then fulfill all the left’s fondest dreams in the social arena.

The events of the last few weeks involving Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean, might prove a harbinger of things to come. A few weeks ago, during the Miss USA pageant, Ms. Prejean, educated at Christian schools, was asked by the online gossip columnist Perez Hilton, one of the pageant’s judges, what her opinion was of gay marriage. The contestant replied that her own view was that marriage could only exist between a man and woman – which is still officially the view of Congress, as expressed in the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by a majority of both parties and signed by President Clinton a decade ago.

Hilton (followed by an avalanche of bloggers and left-leaning pundits) subjected Ms. Prejean to ridicule. But instant polls soon made it clear that most Americans supported her right to express her opinion, and even Gavin Newsom, the San Francisco mayor who spearheaded the legalization of same-sex unions in his city, acknowledged her right to free speech.

Ms. Prejean was then ridiculed as a hypocrite, after some rather mild and fairly tasteful photos of her in an unclad state appeared online. But Donald Trump, owner of the Miss USA pageant, rejected pressure to strip her of her crown, and so in recent days the beauty queen has managed to largely prevail in the court of public opinion.

The way this particular controversy has played out has not been conveniently timed for the supporters of same-sex marriage. As I noted last week in my post “Gay Marriage At The Crossroads,”  the District of Columbia city council just voted to recognize such unions as performed in other states. Under the Home Rule Bill, Congress has a right to challenge this decision – and GOP lawmakers have made it clear that they will pursue this option, which means that in a matter of months each member of Congress will have to vote yes or no on this question.

The issues of abortion, gay marriage, and narcotics delegalization will also be prominent when the President selects a nominee to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. It seems less and less likely that any thoroughly liberal, MoveOn-approved choice would automatically sail through the Senate.

So I think that the best approach for the President tomorrow is not to mouth a series of platitudes predicated on the idea that his listeners (or the American public in general) will automatically accept all of his positions, but to acknowledge that there are differences of opinion and to express a willingness to work within the Constitution to achieve a consensus that will bridge these differences. If he does that, and follows through, he may considerably improve the chances of his party maintaining control of Congress in 2010. If he pursues a partisan path, however, the GOP – perhaps as early as the Virginia election this year – could be on the comeback trail.

Gay Marriage Reaches The Crossroads

May 8, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Domestic issues, Election 2008, Election 2012, News media, Obama administration, Presidents, Public Opinion, Republican Party, Senate | 2 Comments 

The Obama Administration enjoyed a number of small triumphs this week.  The Dow stayed well over 8500. Despite an increase in unemployment, the overall economic picture has been showing signs of improvement.  The President announced some budget trims here and there, to the tune of $17 billion – just to make sure that the country understood that, when faced with an obsolete directional system, for example, he was not going to keep it around just because he’s a Democrat.

But on Tuesday an event happened that may well snowball into something that the White House, and Democrats on Capitol Hill, would probably not care to get involved with just yet. But more and more, it is becoming inescapable: after a Presidential campaign in which Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel (neither much of a mainstream figure) were the only candidates to support gay marriage, a situation is looming in which every Senate and House member may have to declare themselves on one side or another of the issue, and very soon.

Last year, there was talk about introducing a gay-marriage bill into the District of Columbia City Council. At the time, the capital’s newspaper for the gay community, the Washington Blade, argued that such a move was premature; it urged waiting until 2009. And so the proposal went unintroduced, as the nation elected a President who expressed support for the civil-union concept for gay couples, but drew the line at marriage.

This week,a few days after NBC News and the Washington Post announced poll results indicating, for the first time, that a plurality of Americans favor gay marriage (49%, with 46% opposed), the supporters of this legislation made their move, and so the City Council of the nation’s capital passed a bill recognizing gay marriages from other states, by a vote of 12 to 1.

The sole dissenting vote was cast by former Washington mayor Marion Barry. When it became evident that he would vote against the bill, this caused some surprise and consternation. For one thing, long before Barry’s drug use and lackadaisical administrative style gained him notoriety, he was one of the founders – indeed, the first chairman – of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commitee and, in those days, fought for civil rights alongside the iconic John Lewis, who now, as a Congressman, is a vocal champion of gay marriage.

And there’s also the fact that in his early years as mayor in the 1970s and early 1980s, Barry was a friend of gay rights, and his administration’s tolerant attitude had much to do with making the Dupont Circle neighborhood as much of a magnet for gays as Castro Street or the West Village. He also was a firm supporter of the Whitman-Walker clinic in the early days of its fight against AIDS, and Jim Graham, the longtime executive director of the clinic and one of the two openly gay City Council members, pointed this out (as seen in this Youtube clip) as he expressed his disappointment with Barry’s decision against the bill on Tuesday. (Meanwhile, David Catania, the council’s other gay member, represented the no-compromise attitude of younger gays in his remarks to Barry.)

Barry had actually gone on record as a sponsor of the bill when it was introduced. In the Youtube clip he suggests that his staffers had somehow arranged for this without his knowledge, but what is more likely is that strong opposition to recognition of gay marriages from churchgoers and older voters in Ward 8, which he represents, caused him to change his mind.

The council’s vote was greeted with a furious response from several African-American ministers in the area outside the meeting room, and it took the police to restore order, as seen in the clip. But this was far from the end of the story. On Wednesday, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a onetime Brigham Young University football star and convert to the Mormon faith (and also to the Republican Party – his Democratic father’s first wife, Kitty, later married 1988 presidential candidate Michael Dukakis), stated that he and other GOP lawmakers stood ready to challenge the new law within 30 days, as the Home Rule Charter provides.

Although the District’s representative in Congress, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, dismissed the idea that Congress will overturn the law, the situation is distinctly a worrisome one for the Democrats. It seems very likely that Republican lawmakers can garner enough support from their Democratic colleagues in the South and in the more conservative areas of the Midwest to force a vote.

And if the House votes to endorse the Council’s action, the next step for gay activists and their allies is plainly to seek the repeal of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which was passed by majorities of both parties and signed into law by President Clinton. Although voters, especially younger ones, seem to be steadily shifting toward support of gay unions, opposition still runs strong in a number of House districts that the Democrats only managed to recapture in the last two years, and in states, such as North Carolina, that were essential to Obama’s victory and which he would need in 2012. Therefore, both the White House and Congressional Democrats are walking a fine line for the next 18 months.

And the gay community is now determined to keep up the pressure, as shown in this editorial by Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff. He points out that President Obama, throughout his campaign, assured voters that he meant to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gay service personnel in place since 1993, and this language was repeated on the White House website after his inauguration. But then, the text was altered to refer to the President’s intention to change the policy “in a sensible way.” Following protests, this text was changed yet again, to state that the Admistration’s intention again is to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell” – but, to the irritation of activists, the “in a sensible way” phrase was kept. Given the eagle-eyed attention directed at the website’s statements, it’s a sure thing that every statement Obama makes about the District’s new law, when it comes up for Congressional review, will be meticulously analyzed. This may be as thorny a situation as any Obama faces in his first term.

Elizabeth Edwards Talks To Oprah Winfrey

May 8, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Ethics, Media, News media | Leave a Comment 

Yesterday, Elizabeth Edwards appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s show to discuss her new book, Resilience, and the ongoing saga of her husband John’s fall from the pinnacle of Democratic politics and its effect on his family.

It was thoroughly painful to watch, not least when, following 50 agonizing minutes in which his wife spoke of her struggle to come to grips with the scandal involving Rielle Hunter (whose name she asked Oprah not to speak) and of her continuing fight against cancer, it came time for John Edwards to almost nonchalantly show the talk-show host around his family’s palatial home, pointing out the basketball court where “Barack and me” tested their hoops skills.

Rebecca Traister of Salon.com, a self-confessed habitual Oprah-watcher from childhood, says that this was the first Oprah show that ever made her cry; an understandable reaction.

But as cathartic as the appearance might have been for Ms. Edwards, it is also true that the very act of going on national television to express her anger at “that woman,” and to declare that she did not see how “it” (as she called Rielle Hunter’s daughter Frances Quinn) could make any difference in her own life (whether or not it turned out that John Edwards fathered the girl), produces more problems for her husband, as Roger Simon says at Politico.com.

Almost as soon as the interview was taped, the report came from the National Enquirer (which has consistently broken stories about the affair later confirmed by the mainstream press) that Ms. Hunter has decided to seek a DNA sample from John Edwards to establish Francis’s paternity – a sample that Edwards told a nationwide TV audience last year he would be thoroughly willing to provide. (At the time, Ms. Hunter was declining to seek a paternity test.)

But less important than what that test might establish are the questions surrounding the strange and complex directions in which money moved from 2006 to 2008 between Edwards’s campaign, various nonprofits murkily associated with it, and Ms. Hunter. (And, perhaps, other individuals.) As Scott Whitlock points out at Newsbusters.org, apart from some determined newspapers and TV and radio stations in North Carolina, the national media have paid much less attention to that side of the story than to the personal drama involved.

But (as the Chicago Tribune’s site observed today) if the current Federal investigation finds some genuine fire amid the financial smokescreens, and the 2004 Democratic vice-presidential candidate ends up facing a ten-year prison sentence, it would not happen because he fathered a child out of wedlock.

Rude Awakening, or The Edwards Zone Redux

May 5, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Election 2008, Ethics, News media, Nixonland Nitpicks, Political Philosophy, Presidents, Senate | 1 Comment 

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” — Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire Of Louis Napoleon (1851)

Most of what Marx said has been proven wrong by history, but that quote still holds up with a vengeance. The opening pages of Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland describe vividly the days in which Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, having seemingly vanquished the forces of the Right for all eternity, was on the verge of ushering in a second Era Of Good Feelings (as defined by Democrats and seconded by Rockefeller Republicans) when the Watts riots gave the nation a brutal slap on the face and ushered in a series of violent and chaotic events that brought about the resurgence of conservatism.

In much the same way, as President Obama’s first 100 days closed last Wednesday with Arlen Specter’s defection to the Democrats and David Souter’s notifying the White House of his planned retirement, the stage seemed set for the final triumph of liberalism for this century, if not millennium. All that was needed was for Al Franken’s smirk to materialize in one chair in the Senate, and all would be well.

But alas, in the preceding weeks, a distant rumble of things to come could be heard. Early last month Knopf published How It Ended, the collected stories of Jay McInerney. best known for Bright Lights, Big City. This volume garnered its author the best reviews of his career. And, in some of these, it was mentioned that one of the tales in the book, “Penelope On The Pond,” imagined Alison Poole, the heroine of McInerney’s 1988 novel Story Of My Life, as a discarded mistress of a presidential candidate, biding her time in a quiet cabin somewhere in the Rockies. The reviews further noted that McInerney has often acknowledged that Alison Poole was based on Rielle Hunter.

Rielle Hunter? Wasn’t she involved with that guy who had the most famous hairdo in politics before Rod Blagojevich came along? Didn’t he once run for Vice President or something? What was his name, um…Edwards, John Edwards, right?

Yes, John Edwards, who, in the eight months since I last posted about him, heeded the bidding of the Democratic establishment and faded into the woodwork, appearing in public only at University of North Carolina basketball games, while Rielle Hunter, the mother of an infant girl whose precocious head of hair somehow brought him to mind, was banished from her mansion in Santa Barbara (after the death of her benefactor and Edwards’s finance chairman for his 2008 presidential run, Fred Baron, in October) and exiled to a modest house in South Orange, New Jersey. It seemed a sure thing that neither would be heard from again.

But that was before it was reported that Elizabeth Edwards, the terminally ill wife of the ex-Senator, was about to publish a new book, Resilience, in which she discusses her husband’s affair. And before the Raleigh News and Observer, which has quietly followed the ins and outs of the Edwards scandal ever since the onetime Veep-presumptive bamboozled the paper’s executive editor into killing an article about his affair in late 2007 (by denying it and claiming that such a story would cause needless suffering to his wife), informed America last Sunday that a Federal investigation into the financing of his 2008 campaign was now underway.

Yes, like the most evil genie imaginable, the Edwards Zone, with all its many mysteries involving campaign operatives with a taste for high-stakes gambling (and a propensity to claim parentage of babies whom they then completely ignore), trial lawyers who send their private planes on round trips from Texas to make hour-long stopovers in Caribbean islands noted for offshore banking, and nonprofit foundations that manage to channel millions to LLCs that abruptly vanish, has come back.

In a column to appear in tomorrow’s New York Times, Maureen Dowd articulates the frustration that many liberals in the media must feel. It’s been long understood that John Edwards’s narcissism was close to uncontrollable; it took all the weight of the Democratic establishment to prevent him from touring college campuses last fall and to quietly go back to the Tar Heel State.

But what drives Elizabeth Edwards to go on Oprah Winfrey’s show, as she did today (for a taping that will be broadcast on Thursday), to speculate on how much or how little young Frances Quinn Hunter resembles the man who might have been a heartbeat away from the Oval Office if a few thousand votes had gone the other way in Ohio four and a half years ago? What is going to happen when Andrew Young (not the venerated lieutenant of Martin Luther King and former UN Ambassador, but the aforementioned operative) goes before a grand jury and is asked to explain why his own mother told a reporter she does not believe his claim, made through a lawyer, that he fathered Rielle Hunter’s daughter? Or when such a body ponders the question of why the chartered plane carrying Ms. Hunter and her daughter from California to the US Virgin Islands would make a quick stop in Mobile, Alabama, to acquire a passport for the infant – a passport not needed for travel to those islands, but necessary for, say, a visit to the Grand Turks and Caicos, to which the aforementioned private jet traveled for an hour during Ms. Hunter’s sojourn?

Last year, I wrote a dozen posts on this subject, and posed the questions that I think need to be raised by diligent Federal prosecutors to a grand jury. Some more have arisen, notably regarding the three million or so dollars donated to a nonprofit affiliated with Edwards by Rachel Lambert “Bunny” Mellon, the 98-year-old heiress who, until now, has been best known for providing her nation with the beautiful landscaping design that the South Lawn of the White House has had since the Kennedy Administration. (The nonprofit then paid an equivalent sum to an LLC – with the same address as the nonprofit, and which vanished from the records at the same time the nonprofit closed up shop in 2008 – for “consulting” work.)

If the Democrats have any luck, sullying Ms. Mellon’s legacy of Camelot will be the worst that John Edwards will do to the liberal tradition. But I have the feeling that there’s a considerable chance that the true dimensions of the events involving Edwards and his associates between 2006 and 2008 will  emerge, little by little. The question is how many journalists will follow the lead of the News and Observer (and some other North Carolina media) in looking into the scarifying revelations in the heart of….the Edwards Zone.

Mr. Obama’s Enchanted And Selective Righteousness

May 1, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Ethics, History, Intelligence, News media, Obama administration, Republican Party, Terrorism, UK Politics, War on Terror | 3 Comments 

It was some enchanted event. While Dr. Seuss-like journalists lobbed sophomoric softballs President Obama’s way last Wednesday night, Mr. I-Never-Met-A-Teleprompter-I-Didn’t-Need managed to unintentionally juxtapose two polarizing issues in an ironic and upside down way. He was right about what he said. But answer “B” better fits question “A,” and vice versa.

After answering the predictable torture question: “I would not torture in a jail; I would not torture with a pail,” the president later was asked about the issue of abortion. He gave what could only be called a “tortured” response (pun intended). He spoke of how those on the pro-choice side of the issue “make a mistake when they – if they suggest – and I don’t want to create straw men here, but I think there are some who suggest that this is simply an issue about women’s freedom and there’s (sic) no other considerations.” He went on to describe the matter as “an issue people have to wrestle with” and that it is a “moral issue and an ethical issue.”

Or it might be called a case of selective righteousness.

He’s clear cut and dogmatic on the correctness of his view about not using “enhanced interrogation techniques” even in circumstances that might obtain life saving information from really, really bad people. But he’s “aw-shucks-it’s-a-real-toughie” about ending the life of the most innocent and precious.

He’s got his upside downs all mixed up.

As he talked about the torture issue, President Obama waxed reflective and cited an article he had recently read quoting Winston Churchill during the ferocity of the blitz as saying, “We don’t torture.” The president suggested that “Churchill understood – you start taking shortcuts, over time, that corrodes what’s – what’s best in people. It corrodes the character of a country.”

“Well” – as Ronald Reagan might say while flashing his contagious grin – “There you go again, Mr. President.” Articles and blogs can make good reading (this one, for example), but I suggest that Mr. Obama might be better off spending some time with an actual full-length biography of the rotund Briton. Presumably he’d have to dispatch an aid to a bookstore for such a volume. Likely all Churchill references in the White House during his predecessor’s administration have been sent back to London in a crate marked, “Churchill Bust and Books – Yes, We Don’t Need.”

You see, while Mr. Churchill may have uttered a choice opinion or two on torture, he was known to change his mind on occasion (even his party). He also could wrap the truth in a riddle or enigma. Bear in mind that he was the guy who said famously, “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” The kind of war being waged in the 1940s was vastly different from our current experience. In other words, ticking time bomb analogies don’t really work when looking at back then. The bombs were always ticking – and falling. Duh.

Yet, there is evidence that, in fact, torture did go on as part of the British World War Two effort. There is the story, for example, of The London Cage, a special operation run by MI19 (they were tasked with getting vital information from prisoners of war), housed at the posh Kensington Palace Gardens. Written reports based on information in the National Archives across the pond tell of more than 3,500 men being “processed” through the highly secretive “torture center,” even while Churchill was opining against torture.

How intense were interrogations in the “cage?” One written complaint found in the archives – from a German journalist who had also spent sometime under Gestapo “supervision” – talked about how much better he was treated by the German police. Do the math.

What is interesting though, is that Winston Churchill was the consummate warrior who regularly expressed a willingness to do what was needed to win a battle or war. Another example of his “whatever it takes” approach was when he, filled with fear that the Germans were working on a biological weapon, tried to persuade Uncle Sam to develop an extensive germ warfare program in 1942.

Churchill also contemplated the idea of trying to bring the war to an end in 1944 via bombs that would release anthrax, only to be disabused of the notion by his generals. And, of course, there is the strange case of Rudolph Hess, Hitler’s crony, who jumped out of a plane over Scotland on a mysterious mission, only to be rebuffed by the Prime Minister who quipped, “Hess or no Hess, I’m going to watch the Marx Brothers.”

How cool was he?

Later though, Churchill – who desired to keep Hess’ presence and purpose away from a surprisingly powerful “peace party” – one that sought to oust him from 10 Downing Street – had Hess locked up for the duration of the war. Think: Gitmo for one.

Therefore, Mr. Obama quoting Winston Churchill to try to bolster his argument is akin to George W. Bush citing Ward Churchill to defend his record.

As Charles Krauthammer writes, the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” – while certainly something that makes all decent people uncomfortable – can and should be permissible under two narrowly specific circumstances: the proverbial “ticking bomb,” and to glean information that will save lives. To take this option off the table is at best naïve and at worst foolish. At any rate, whatever Churchill said about torture, does anyone at all acquainted with the history of those days really believe he meant it – or that his enemies believed him?

President Obama has it all backwards. The taking of innocent human life via abortion should be the black and white moral issue that helps define national righteousness. It’s torture that should be “rare, but legal.” This would make for a better and safer world.

The Welcome Wagon Derails

April 30, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Congress, Democratic Party, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

This little story is a perfect paradigm of why the Republican Party is on a treadmill to oblivion.

While Republicans are obsessed with figuring out how many angels should be allowed to dance on the head of the pin they have yet to find in the haystack of popular elections, the Democratic leadership is out recruiting men to match the mountains they’ll be climbing later this afternoon.

In The Hill today, Alexander Bolton reports the unhappiness of a few Democratic Senators whose seniority will be disturbed by the 79-year old newbie.

The only one willing to be quoted is Maryland’s Barbara Mikulski, whose beef is legitimate but hardly Specter-caused.  A Senator since 1987, she is still without a major chair.  But even without Mr. Specter being moved to the head of the line, she is still fourth down on the Appropriations Committee’s food chain.

Senior Senate Democrats are objecting to the deal Majority Leader Harry Reid made with Sen. Arlen Specter, saying they will vote against letting the former Republican shoot to the top of powerful committees after he switches parties.

Several Democrats are furious with Sen. Reid (D-Nev.) for agreeing to let Specter (Pa.) keep his seniority, accrued over more than 28 years as a GOP senator. That agreement would allow Specter to leap past senior Democrats on powerful panels — including the Appropriations and Judiciary committees.

Specter’s terms of trade with Majority Leader Harry Reid apparently guarantees his retaining the seniority earned by his time in the upper body when the leadership is reorganized following the 2010 elections.

One anonymous Democratic Senator —whose tinfoil-covered welcoming casserole Senator Specter might want to pass first to a taster— was bitterly eloquent.

One senior Democratic lawmaker told The Hill that the Democratic Conference will vote against giving the longtime Pennsylvania Republican seniority over lawmakers like Harkin, Mikulski and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) when they hold their organizational meeting after the 2010 election.

Under his deal with Reid, Specter would jump ahead of all but a few Democrats when it comes time to dole out committee chairmanships and assignments.

“That’s his deal and not the caucus’s,” the senior lawmaker said of Reid’s agreement with Specter.

The lawmaker requested anonymity because the issue of Specter’s seniority is “a sensitive subject.” The lawmaker said it would be OK if Specter joined his panel as long as he “sat at the end of the dais” with junior members.

Since Reid and Specter announced their deal, Senate insiders have speculated that Specter could bump Harkin after the election from his chairmanship of the powerful Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services subcommittee or return to be chairman of Judiciary if the current chairman, Leahy, takes over the gavel at Appropriations. Specter was chairman of Judiciary in the 109th Congress when Republicans controlled the chamber, and ushered through the confirmations of Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

But the senior Democratic lawmaker disputed these scenarios: “That can’t happen. Seniority is decided by the caucus.”

A key factor that prompted Specter’s switch was a review of polling data that suggested he couldn’t beat former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) in the 2010 Republican primary. His new colleagues are not forgetting that.

“He was going to lose to Toomey and we were going to beat Toomey,” said the senior Democrat. “We did him a favor by allowing him to remain in the Senate.”

But a day in politics is a lifetime, and sufficient unto the day is the majority thereof.  And Harry Reid is a man with his eye fixed firmly on the prize.

But a source close to Reid told The Hill that Specter’s party switch brings Democrats “one step closer to the 60 votes necessary to choke off Republican filibusters.” The source said Democrats have close to a year and a half to resolve seniority disputes before setting committee assignments for 2011 and beyond.

“No one is going to lose committee or subcommittee chairmanships this Congress,” said the source, who added that the negative light Specter’s move has cast on the GOP will help Democrats pick up even more seats in the next election.

“We have a long time to sort this out,” said the source.

Welcome Aboard The Wilderness Express

April 28, 2009 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Democratic Party, Republican Party | 7 Comments 

The GOP has the Democrats right where it wants them now!

Now If He Could Only Do Something About The Polls

April 28, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

On the eve of his administration’s second Hundred Days, President Obama has some welcome news. Late this morning, Arlen Specter, the longtime Republican senator from Pennsylvania, announced (in the face of a planned challenge next year from former Representative Pat Toomey) that he is changing his party registration to Democrat and running in the 2010 primary as such.

This means that if the Democrats can figure out a way to seat Al Franken before millennium’s end, they will have a filibuster-proof majority of 60 in the Senate, presumably hastening the day when everything on the liberal agenda short of union card-checks, a Federal legalization of gay marriage, and a Congressional Gold Medal for Jane Fonda or Sean Penn can be passed.

Update: Republican strategist Roger Stone foregoes his customary sardonic tone to offer some thoughtful and fairly insightful observations on Specter’s defection at NewsMax.com.  I should mention that this clip is introduced by a commercial for Hampton Inns featuring a shirtless character with a spectacular example of what my wife would call a “Homer belly” (as in Simpson).  I was worried that when asked to follow that image with one of Stone in his usual finery, my computer would crash instantly. However, he is only heard on the phone in the clip, not seen; the person on the screen is his NewsMax interviewer, who looks something like Horatio Sanz’s thinner brother.

Michael Barone Reviews Nixonland

April 21, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Book Review, Democratic Party, International Affairs, Nixon Administration, Nixonland Nitpicks, Political Philosophy, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Vietnam | 2 Comments 

Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland came out in paperback last week, a month after his study of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign, Before The Storm, was reissued by Nation Books. And, as it happens, the Claremont Institute’s website has just put up the review of Nixonland by columnist Michael Barone that appeared in the Winter 2008 issue of the Claremont Review of Books.

Barone has often written perceptively about RN – one thinks in particular of his long article about the Nixon years which US News and World Report published some years ago – and this review continues that tradition, with a very insightful comparison of FDR and RN’s political styles. Its concluding sentences raise an important point about the Nixon presidency that escaped many of the book’s reviewers:

[I]n policy terms Nixon had his successes. His China policy, denounced by every successful presidential candidate but one since his day, remains in place, a more important part of American policy than ever. Some of his leftward domestic policies do, too. But the major difference, perhaps, between Roosevelt and Nixon was that the people Roosevelt professed to hate were still willing to serve with him because they wanted America to win a war. The people Nixon sincerely hated wanted America to lose a war. And, as we have seen in the past few years, the descendants of the people Nixon sincerely despised still want America to lose a war. Rick Perlstein’s indictment of Nixon is an even harsher indictment of the people who cheered when he was brought down.

Paging The Hardball Desk

April 10, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Media, News media, Presidents, Republican Party, Richard Nixon, TV News Personalities, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

At the website of the magazine Foreign Policy, David J. Rothkopf, a Washington-based consultant and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has written about “Five Books That Haven’t Been Written Yet” (but, he continues, “ought to be”). Four of these titles are:

Carla [Bruni] And I: The Early Years

A School For The Differently Humor-Enabled (about the school attended by Mr. Rothkopf’s daughters, which recently staged Mel Brooks’s The Producers, complete with the “Springtime For Hitler” extravaganza but without the swastikas)

Did The News Media Die Or Commit Suicide?

and The Takeover: Goldman Sachs And The Leveraged Buyout Of America.

But it was something Mr. Rothkopf said in his description of his fifth desired title, America’s Real First Family: The Daleys Of Chicago that caught my eye. After referring to Richard Daley’s role in the 1960 presidential election, he adds this parenthetical aside:

It would also be great to see a side-by-side comparison of say John Kennedy and Richard Nixon that would offer a fair evaluation of who really best exemplified the American dream of making it on one’s own, who actually committed the greater crimes in pursuit of their political futures and who actually was the better president. Of all these books…this last Kennedy vs. Nixon idea is the one least likely to actually get written given the machinery that would shut it down.

It’s been 13 years since Kennedy And Nixon by Chris Matthews was published, a book which went a long way toward making readers think about those questions (and answering them, to the degree the archival record permitted at the time), and in the years since then many, many documents have become public which would be invaluable in the writing of another such volume. It’s true that the most recent crop of Kennedy-themed books seeing the presses this year and next – spurred by the illness of Sen. Edward Kennedy – seem as if they’ll have a hagiographic tone, by and large. But not long after that the 100th birthday of RN will be approaching, so it may be the right time for a book such as Mr. Rothkopf describes.

Blago’s Agent (Man!)

April 7, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Media | Leave a Comment 

Leon Neyfakh, the diligent book-business reporter for the New York Observer, recently published an article shedding some light into former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s search for a book deal among the conglomerate behemoths in New York, before he reached an agreement with Michael Viner’s Phoenix Books in Los Angeles.

The article abounds in the unexpected and colorful, as we’ve come to expect from the helmet-haired politico. When it came time to secure the services of a literary agent, Blago did not get Bob Barnett at Williams & Connolly to rep him, as is often the case with statesmen in this fair land. Instead he picked an energetic 29-year-old who provides a rather arresting opening for the article:

Jarred Weisfeld was just about ready to file his $10 million defamation suit against Macmillan Publishers when he brought Rod Blagojevich to their building to see if St. Martin’s Press, the big commercial unit there, might want to publish the former Illinois governor’s memoir.

“I was completely upfront with them,” the agent said recently. “I said, ‘Hey, look, I’m gonna be suing you guys in a few days—is this gonna have any effect on my client?’ They said the two things had nothing to do with each other.”

Mr. Weisfeld’s client list includes such figures as Dustin Diamond, better known as Screech from Saved By The Bell, and Robert Englund, the thespian renowned for playing Freddy in the Nightmare On Elm Street movies. (Somehow Blago, with his mixture of goofiness and menace, seems to sit comfortably between the two.) Before entering the agenting business, Mr. Weisfeld pursued several varied careers: day trader, member of NSYNC’s touring staff, and manager of the late rapper known to readers of family newspapers as ODB.

ODB, indeed, is of no small significance to this saga. Following his untimely demise, Jamie Lowe’s biography Digging For Dirt argued that Mr. Weisfeld had not always acted in the best interests of the performer. The former manager disagreed, and started to look into taking the author and his publisher, Macmillan, to court. But before taking the final steps to a lawsuit, Mr. Weisfeld visited Macmillan’s offices with the ex-governor in tow.

According to the agent, despite the prospect of legal action on his part over the ODB book, St. Martin’s was entirely interested in working with him and Blagojevich. Indeed, at one point an editor at St. Martin’s indicated to Mr. Weisfeld that her company might offer an advance of between $200,000 and $350,000 – not quite in the realm of the $12 million another impeached politician was paid for his memoirs nearly a decade ago, but not chicken feed either.

But then Mr. Weisfeld was told that St. Martin’s preferred to look into some form of profit-sharing rather than a cash advance. The agent was disinclined to subscribe to this example of the new approaches being tried out by publishers in the face of the recession. He took Blago’s proposal elsewhere, and went ahead with his lawsuit. And thus the project ended up on the Left Coast. Sometime next year we’ll see the result.

Well Begun But Only Half Done

March 30, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Domestic issues, Economic issues, Obama administration, economy | Leave a Comment 

As the old saying goes: Well begun is half done.

GM, per Drudge, now stands for Government Motors.

Prexy Robin Wagner (he who had his wings clipped when he used the company jet to come abegging) has agreed to step down at the request of the White House.  There will also be changes in the company’s Board of Directors.

But it has taken two not to do the Detroit tango that could have led to the production of efficient and competitive automobiles.

So maybe Mr. Obama is really about to make some news —and real a difference— by also addressing the labor side of the labor-management equation.

There’s another shoe that needs to drop.

But don’t hold your breath waiting to hear that another President —the UAW’s ever intransigent Ron Gettelfinger— is suddenly going to have a lot of time to work on his golf game.  Ninety-two percent of the $74 million raised by unions in 2008 when to Democrats, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do that math.

One can agree or disagree with Mr. Obama’s decision.  But unless and until he puts some teeth into it, it isn’t really a decision at all — it’s just a way to distract the angry torch-bearing populist mob with another villain now that we’re once again making nice with AIG.

Well begun is only half done.  But any way you look at it, half done is half assed.

Equal time for Democratic Poker Party

March 14, 2009 by David Emig | Filed Under Art, Democratic Party, Republican Party, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

 

Both the Republican Poker Party “Grand Ol’ Gang” and Democratic Poker Party “True Blues” are reproductions from paintings by Andy Thomas.  Mr. Thomas does Civil War, Oil Well and Western Prints.  There is a local art gallery in town, “The Galloping Goose” that has both framed for $895 each.

 The reproductions of both are available with a simple Google search for various prices.  The original of “True Blues” is still available, though the original “Grand Ol’ Gang” has been sold. 

Personally, I would like the set.

Blue Orange?

March 14, 2009 by Jack Pitney | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, California politics, Democratic Party, Election 2008, Orange County, Republican Party, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

(Cross posted from Epic Journey)

Orange County, birthplace of Richard Nixon, may be on the cusp of political upheaval. In the Orange County Register, Dena Bunis reports:

Orange County Democrats have become so emboldened by how well President Barack Obama did here on election night that as far as they’re concerned they can compete for any seat in this Republican rich environment. Case in point: Irvine Councilwoman and former Mayor Beth Krom. She made it official this week that she is going to take on Republican Rep. John Campbell.

Outside of Southern California, Orange County is synonymous with wealth, glamour (e.g., The OC) and conservative politics. The reality is more complicated. Republicans have generally won there, but in 2008, McCain took the county by a slim 50-48 percent margin. What’s up?

• First, it’s now a majority-minority county, about 33 percent Hispanic, 16 percent Asian, and 2 percent African American.
• Second, while coastal areas are indeed as affluent as the stereotype holds, there are gritty working-class areas farther inland. (I used to live in one of them.)
• Third, it is home to large numbers of high-income professionals, who liked Obama. Nationwide, he won narrowly among voters making more than $200k a year, and by a 58-40 percent margin among those with postgraduate study. As Michael Barone has argued convincingly, The GOP cannot take upscale voters for granted.

Orange County Republicans will have to work hard to keep their turf from turning blue.

Helmet Head, Meet Printed Page

March 2, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Ethics, Media | Leave a Comment 

Word came this afternoon that impeached former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, after visits to several New York publishers a few weeks back produced “interest” but not much in the way of offers, has now contracted with Michael Viner’s Beverly Hills-based Phoenix Books to write a volume describing the process by which he decided to fill President Obama’s vacant seat in the Senate.

Viner, who early on made his mark as the mastermind behind the Incredible Bongo Band (which had a minor hit in the bell-bottom era with “Bongo Rock” but is nowadays best known for its cover version of the Shadows’s “Apache,” one of the most sampled tracks in hip-hop history) has been in the book business for about two decades. In the 1990s with his first company, Dove Audio, he pioneered the books-on-tape market, and earned a considerable sum publishing ink-on-paper volumes such as You’ll Never Make Love In This Town Again and seemingly countless volumes on the O.J. Simpson case.

After O.J.’s acquittal, Dove’s fortunes declined, and Viner moved on to found another company, New Millennium. New Millennium scored comparatively few bestsellers and went out of business in 2004, but Viner, undaunted, reemerged with Phoenix in 2006, and since then has specialized in the kind of list he’s always preferred – heavy on exercise and diet titles, showbiz biographies, and books by or about current headliners. (Phoenix just published the first book about Bernie Madoff, penned in a matter of weeks by Gerald and Deborah Strober, who in years past specialized in oral histories of such figures as Queen Elizabeth, JFK, Ronald Reagan, and, yes, RN.)

Blago’s spokesman says his boss went with Phoenix for a six-figure sum (nothing more specific given, but I have the feeling it was closer to 100 gees than 999) because the publisher promised he could tell his story “without any restrictions over content.” Could this translate to hair-raising revelations about our 44th Chief Executive’s days in Springfield? We should know before too long.

Meanwhile, Blago’s appointee to the Senate continues to amaze political veterans. It really seems as if Sen. Roland Burris, if not exactly made of the kind of Teflon that observers used to credit to President Reagan, is as thoroughly resilient as a crate of Super Balls.  Last week, I noted that the senior gentleman from Illinois, Dick Durbin, had asked his junior counterpart if he’d considered resigning after recent revelations regarding his contacts with Blagojevich’s associates before his appointment, and Burris answered in the negative. This afternoon, an AP article quotes Durbin thus:

“Well let me tell you, Sen. Burris’s vote still counts in the Senate. And it’s an important vote. He has helped us move forward President Obama’s agenda and I believe he will continue to do that so we’ll work together on this.”

But is this the tune we’ll hear next week? Or when (or if) Al Franken gets into the Senate?  The suspense continues.

Nixon The Communicator

February 28, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Election 2008, Featured Articles, George W. Bush, History, International Affairs, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Watergate | 1 Comment 

The recently released C-SPAN 2009 Historians Presidential Leadership Survey is an interesting, if predictable, snapshot of scholarly opinion about past chief executives. Honest Abe towers over the list, his position secured by history and his frequent postmortem appearances during the 2008 campaign and beyond. The rail-splitter has never been hotter. Look soon for some imagery morphing Lincoln and Che Guevera on a t-shirt near you.

Surprisingly – at least a bit – is that George Washington knocked Franklin Roosevelt out of the number two spot. Apparently the father of our country still trumps the father of modern big government.

Go figure.

Of course, recent retiree George W. Bush ranks in the lower tier – just above my ancestor (really) Millard Fillmore. But in fairness, a lot of modern historians have to actually die off before Mr. 43 will get much of a real without-the-venom look.

Richard M. Nixon ranks 27th on the list. Jimmy Carter ranks 25th. WhatEVER.

Clearly without Watergate, as well as every actual day of the Carter administration, Nixon would rank much higher. However, that’s asking a lot – even of historians. To so many, Nixon without Watergate would be like Kennedy without the Cuban Missile Crisis. In other words, the particular presidency defined by the crucial episode. However, it may just be that Nixon without Watergate would be more like JFK without the Bay of Pigs, or drugs and bimbos, but I am not going to win that one in most arenas, I know.

Jack Kennedy, by the way, moved from number eight to six in the recent survey. But again in all fairness – as with Lincoln, he did rise from the dead to campaign for candidate Obama.

These surveys analyze a president’s leadership in matters foreign and domestic. But I wonder what a ranking would look like if we tried to find out who the best communicators in the White House were?

It is quite clear that the public at large is enamored of our new president’s communication skills and, in fact, they are quite impressive. He is a gifted speaker and he knows how to use this ability very well. His predecessor was, by all accounts, not as accomplished as a speaker. It is like JFK following Ike. Both the great general and George W. had more than a few syntax challenges.

The list of presidents known as highly effective communicators usually includes Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. Clearly that’s a solid list. Most would not instinctively put Richard Nixon on such a list, but he was in many ways one of the most effective communicators ever to rise to the presidency.

Nixon cadence may not now be recalled as Rooseveltian, nor do many remember his eloquence as matching that of JFK/Sorenson, but he was an absolute master of the spoken word in a particular method that is often overlooked – the extemporaneous speech.

By this I mean he spoke very often without notes – or just a few notes – though with extraordinarily thorough preparation. He used a written text for major remarks and addresses (acceptance speeches, inaugurals, Oval Office remarks, etc.). However, he never used a teleprompter – often to the chagrin of younger staffers and others (such as Billy Graham) who constantly encouraged its use.

It would be hard to imagine a leader today saying no to the teleprompter. It has become the well-traveled rhetorical road. Nixon stuck with the road less traveled.

Richard Nixon preferred to make a thoroughly detailed outline and then deliver the remarks sans notes. His famous “Checkers Speech,” which I have written about before, is a classic example of this. And throughout his career he used the same method – working out his thoughts on yellow legal pads and much of the time delivering them in a conversational manner. The concepts were fixed in his mind, but the language was that of the moment.

Some confuse extemporaneous with impromptu – but they are not the same. The former describes a method of delivering something very well prepared. The latter is “off the top” of the head, and Mr. Nixon despised this. In fact, history tells us that he really only did this once – when he gave his concession remarks after losing the California governor’s race in 1962. And we all know that didn’t turn out very well.

The key to Mr. Nixon’s ability to speak so effectively without notes was, I believe, his love for reading. He lived out what Francis Bacon famously said roughly 400 years ago: “Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.”

In his book In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat, and Renewal, Nixon wrote about reading and the presidency:

A president must spend many hours a day reading for work. He should not forget to read for pleasure. Theodore Roosevelt, the most prolific reader of all American presidents, once said he would never go anywhere ‘not even to the jungles of Africa,’ without books to read. On safari he always had a book or two packed in his saddlebag or pocket so that no opportunity for reading would be lost. I did the same thing in the jungles of Washington.

It is considered clichéd these days to say, “leaders are readers” – but it’s still true. And great leaders tend to be effective speakers – the kind of people who read before they speak, not just while the teleprompter is on.

Burris: Not Budging

February 24, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Ethics, Obama administration, Republican Party, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

When I made my first post in December concerning then-Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s appointment of Roland Burris to the Senate seat vacated by President Obama upon his election, I noted that Burris, a former Illinois Attorney General, had a respectable record by the standards of Illinois politics, or, at any rate, Chicago politics.

Since then, Burris’s reputation has taken a tumble.  In early January, he spoke before a committee of the Illinois legislature looking into Blagojevich’s reasons for selecting him.  At that time, he told the committee there was no real quid pro quo involved in being chosen.  When asked if he had talked to the governor or anyone associated with him, Burris mentioned a conversation with Blagojevich’s chief of staff Lon Monk.   This testimony proved helpful in breaking down resistance to the seating of Burris from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid; Illinois’s other Senator, Dick Durbin;  and Obama himself.

Then, earlier this month, Burris submitted an affadavit intended to clear up some points about his testimony.  Among the points it cleared up was that Burris had actually talked to several of Blagojevich’s associates in the weeks before his selection, including the governor’s brother (and finance chairman).  And then, last week, Burris acknowledged that, when asked if he could raise money on the governor’s behalf after Blago’s arrest, he had made some calls, though he found no one willing to help.

This bombshell moved both the Chicago Tribune and Washington Post to publish editorials calling for Burris to resign.  These appeared nearly a week ago, and so far the junior Senator from the Land of Lincoln has proven as stubborn about such a suggestion as he was when he appeared on Capitol Hill last month and insisted on taking his seat.

This afternoon, Burris met with Durbin.  The senior Senator asked if he would consider resigning, and Burris replied that he had no plans to do so and also indicated that he would not rule out a campaign for a full term come 2010.  Back in Springfield, innumerable officeholders on both sides of the aisle, from Democratic Governor Pat Quinn on down, are calling for Burris to step down. But it appears that he is as determined as ever to keep adding to the credits etched on his now-famous “Trailblazer” mausoleum.

,At the moment, it appears unlikely that Burris can be budged if he doesn’t want to do the budging.  In the nearly 150 years since several Southern senators were expelled from the chamber for supporting the Confederacy, only one member of the upper chamber has come close to being so ejected: Harrison Williams, who, convicted in the Abscam scandal, resigned shortly before a planned vote to remove him in 1982.  There’s also the fact that if Burris leaves, pressure on Quinn to call a special election to fill the vacancy – an election which could quite likely put a Republican in the seat – will be overwhelming.  Therefore, the chances seem good that Burris has nearly two more years to go on Capitol Hill.

The Stimulus: Yes We Can’t

February 13, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Economic issues, History, Money, Republican Party, U.S. History, economy | 5 Comments 

Addressing the Democratic Party faithful last week in Williamsburg, Virginia, President Barack Obama brought the house down with a now-famous bit of political sarcasm about the stimulus package now emerging from the congressional laws-and-sausages-making mill. He mocked some who have been characterizing it as merely a “spending bill” with the question, “What do you think a stimulus is? That’s the whole point.” Then as the audience burst into laughter and applause (one could almost hear a Ralph Kramden-like “Har Har Hardy Har Har”), he added, “No, seriously, that’s the point.”

Seriously? Really?

These days it is accepted as gospel that government spending, spending, and more spending is the cure for America’s economic ills. Accordingly, still basking in the glow of an impressive victory last November, Democrats are gleefully using the cover of the current crisis to exact generational revenge on the politics and policies of those who decried big government in the past. Leaders such as Ronald Reagan and even, ironically, Bill Clinton who famously said the “era of big government is over” during his days in the Oval Office.

The president himself talked during his inaugural address about no longer wanting to define government as too big or small. He promoted a new standard; that being simply: “Does it work?” Well, if more is inherently better, then we are on the threshold of a golden age promising 17 chickens in every pot, with the pot itself made of gold, and a colorful rainbow not too far away. Of course, rainbows are all image with no substance.

Is unleashed and unprecedented government spending a stimulus to the economy as a whole, or does it just grow the government? Is the real plan for all of us to become more and more addicted to the toxic drug of statism? When Gerald Ford traveled around the country giving speeches as a congressman, vice-president, and ultimately president, one of his few memorable lines (he was not known for his oratory) was that “a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”

Okay, so Ford was no Lincoln – but he did have a point. We all know the phrase “it comes with strings attached,” meaning that there are times when receiving something can have dire, if sometimes deferred, consequences. Well, those stimulus strings are beginning to look a lot like piano wire.

I think all the talk of “doom and gloom” is not misguided; it’s misdirected. A catastrophe will not result from a failure to inject a trillion dollars of government spending into a struggling economy. The thing we should really fear is the fallout from a toxic overdose of federal dollars. If our economy actually survives the euphoric rush of a stimulus-driven high, it will just be a matter of time before an emerging majority of strung out neo-socialist junkies will be clamoring for another fix.

The fact is, there is no empirical evidence that massive government spending stimulates anything except massive government growth. Is anyone noticing that while unemployment nationwide is now at well over 7% – with some of the harder hit areas at twice that – that the bedroom counties around Washington, D.C. report jobless rates ranging from 1.9% in Arlington County to 2.1% in Fairfax County?

Guess what the big industry is in the area? Really, can you guess?

As Mitt Romney has been talking a lot about recently, the Obama spending bill would stimulate the government, not the economy. No matter how you view economics, it is simply true that funding for new and exponential government spending has to come from somewhere.

It can come via taxation. In the best-case scenario, the gain to the taxpayer is theoretically equal to the tax paid – which begs the question, why take it just to give it back? Of course, most taxpayers won’t get it back dollar for dollar because of “overhead” (or in the government’s case “big giant head”) and the fact that so many really nifty programs will be funded. Not to mention, the earth will cool down dramatically.

Awesome.

Additionally, in a “we’ll get the money from taxation” model, it’s hard to envision an expense so unprecedented to even be possible without tax increases coming from somewhere (better: someone). And there seems to be near universal agreement that raising taxes in a recession is just plain dumb. Therefore, congress will probably raise our taxes in the near future.

Another way to finance the mother of all stimulus packages is to borrow the money. But this would dramatically increase the demand on the lending mechanisms in the country; this at a time when credit is already pretty much paralyzed. One result of this could be a return to rising interest rates – certainly no stimulus there. The Japanese government tried this in the 1990s, yet the economy did not recover.

The third way for government to find a trillion or so dollars to save us all would be to create money. They could do so “ex nihilo” – from the Latin meaning “out of nothing” (often used by those of us who believe God created all things, pardon this awkward insertion at a time when all amoebas mark Darwin’s 200th birthday). However, absent any U.S. department of alchemy (wait – that would be making something out of something – oh well, you get my drift), the best the government could do is to print more money, possibly finding a place to put “yes we can” on the new currency.

Most economists admit that just printing money would be dramatically inflationary. No stimulus there, either.

Here’s a better idea – one that I know would really help working people in this country, as well as stimulating businesses to hire new workers. Simply declare a 90-day moratorium on the payroll tax, thus putting real money into the hands of those who earned it in the first place. Don’t take it away and then try to find clever ways to trickle it back. Leave it with “we the people.”

Someone might argue, “But what will government do? How will they fund all the programs?” Well, they were going to have to borrow money in the first place for the stimulus. Three months won’t break the bank – heck, the government has wasted that much of our money on wacky ideas before. But it might just be enough time for American workers to start really stimulating the economy themselves. Novel idea, huh?

It would save trees (no government checks), cut down on electricity (for electronic fund transfers), save money for the post office, and create real jobs the way real jobs are created – by private businesses. And if it meant that some federal employees would have little to do during the duration of this experiment, maybe they could work on the nation’s infrastructure – or the area around the Jefferson Memorial.

There might be a downside, though. If it worked too well, many current members of congress might find themselves out of work in two years. That would be just sad.

Speaking of Thomas Jefferson, I am sure some reading this are preparing to correct me about that Gerald Ford quote – thinking it goes back to Jefferson. But it really doesn’t. Here’s one that does, though, from his inaugural address on March 4, 1801:

Still one thing more, fellow citizens: a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government…

One thing for sure – the number of Democrats in America using this Jeffersonian nugget during recent Jefferson-Jackson Day festivities was less than the number of Republicans voting for the so-called stimulus package.

Sanctuary Gillenbrand

February 2, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under American Politics, Congress, Democratic Party, Domestic issues | 2 Comments 

New New York Senator Kirsten Gillenbrand has done a complete 180 on immigration politics now that her political oxygen supply must include Manhattanties, and more than what composed her upstate blue-dog district:

Apparently the rule of law means one thing in upstate New York, which Gillibrand represented in Congress, and another thing in New York City, where she has been hearing from the illegal alien lobby. Last week, that lobby mounted a public relations war declaring that the new Senate appointee would face a very short Senate sojourn if she continued to oppose amnesty for illegal aliens and to back a raft of measures acknowledging the difference between legal and illegal immigration.

Gillibrand has emerged from that ordeal a new woman. According to the New York Times, she is now OK with so-called sanctuary cities, jurisdictions that declare themselves immigration-law free zones and prohibit their employees from reporting immigration violations or cooperating with federal law enforcement authorities. As a Congresswoman, she had voted to penalize such cities, New York being one of them. Perhaps before casting her previous vote, she had heard about the grilling New York City officials got in Congress in 2002 after a gang of five Mexicans—four of them illegal—abducted and brutally raped a 42-year-old mother of two near some railroad tracks in Queens. The NYPD had already arrested three of the illegal aliens numerous times for such crimes as assault, attempted robbery, criminal trespass, illegal gun possession, and drug offenses, but had never notified the INS about their presence in the U.S.

The new Gillibrand is also pledging to help repeal a federal bill that discourages states from allowing illegal aliens to pay low in-state tuition fees.

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