Imagine how awesome it must be to live in Alabama, where voters get to choose their next Chief Justice on the Alabama Supreme Court.

On the one hand, there's the Republican candidate, Roy Moore. He had the job before, at least until a few years ago when he was kicked off the bench. He's the judge who insisted on having a copy of the Ten Commandments displayed in his courtroom. When a federal court ordered it removed, he refused, and the Alabama Court of the Judiciary responded by removing him from the post.

Moore is also not too fond of teh gay:

To disfavor practicing homosexuals in custody matters is not invidious discrimination, nor is it legislating personal morality. On the contrary, disfavoring practicing homosexuals in custody matters promotes the general welfare of the people of our State in accordance with our law, which is the duty of its public servants... The State carries the power of the sword, that is, the power to prohibit conduct with physical penalties, such as confinement and even execution. It must use that power to prevent the subversion of children toward this lifestyle, to not encourage a criminal lifestyle... Homosexual behavior is a ground for divorce, an act of sexual misconduct punishable as a crime in Alabama, a crime against nature, an inherent evil, and an act so heinous that it defies one's ability to describe it.

So that's the Republican.

Then there's his opponent, Democrat Harry Lyon, who favors mandatory random drug testing for all high school students, in public and private schools. Also, one day while discussing the illegal immigration problem, this came out of his mouth:

"My idea is to bring attention to the problem and let the Legislature [and courts] decide," Lyon said. "I'd give them 90 days to make arrangements to make them leave and if after that, you'd have to go to public execution."

He also gave an interview, partially transcribed here:

Tim Lennox: "'It would only take five or 10 getting killed and broadcast on CNN for it to send a clear message not to fool, or not to step foot rather, in Alabama.' Is that an accurate quote?"

Harry Lyon: "That's an accurate quote. You have have to get tough on things like this. We're losing 35 to 50 soldiers a day in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a tough proposal, but the legislature would have to approve it."

Lyon: "If I were an illegal alien in Alabama and I read that in the newspaper, I wouldn't wait around for laws to be passed, I would be going back to my homeland. They broke in here, they violated our laws. It's no different than breaking into your house."

And then somewhat later:

Lyon: "Now, I can assure you that proposal would fly right through the Alabama legislature is one of these illegal immigrants were to blow up the Galleria, OK?"

Lennox: "Well, but there's no indication that any immigrants in Alabama, illegal or otherwise, have done anything along these lines--"

Lyon: "Well, there's no indication about 9/11 until the buildings came down."

Lennox: "I mean, are you suggesting that this is a real concern of yours?"

Lyon: "Absolutely. These people are not here legally, they are here illegally. What do they care about the laws of Alabama, or the United States? Slap in our face."

He now claims he was being facetious (see the comments), but you can watch the actual interview (starts around 6:00, the second part comes around 19:50) and decide for yourself.

Roy Moore's campaign page is here (warning: plays audio on load).

Harry Lyon's criminal defense firm web site is here (although I wouldn't recommend him if you're worried about collateral immigration issues).

(Hat tip: Ed Brayton)

Today I did something that probably would have disappointed my father if he were still alive: I voted in the Republican primary.

My father was a yellow dog Democrat. Oh, there were a few Democrats he wouldn't vote for -- such as Tip O'Neill, whom he considered corrupt -- but he would never have voted for a Republican. In his declining years, he hated George W. Bush most of all. Whenever I took him to the VA hospital, he always insisted I position his wheelchair in the waiting room so he wouldn't have to see Bush's portrait on the wall. I was glad he lived to see Bush depart the Whitehouse.

Of course, as regular readers could probably guess, I voted for Ron Paul. His positions on several issues differ from mine in some important ways, but he comes a lot closer to my views than anyone else in the Republican party, and I long ago lost all respect for the current occupant of the Whitehouse. Paul hasn't got a chance in hell of winning, but I hope he'll have more influence after this. More importantly, I hope his libertarian ideas of freedom will become more popular, and that future candidates will make more of an effort to win the votes of people who hold libertarian values.

I also just like messing with Republicans.

I don't know if I could explain my vote in a way my dad would have understood. But I do know that the reason my dad hated George Bush so much is because he got our country into these painful wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And Barack Obama has turned out to be every bit the warmonger Bush was. I don't think my dad would agree with many of Ron Paul's other policies, but I'd like to think he'd be okay with me voting for the only candidate of either party who wants to end the wars.

Even if he is a Republican.

Oh my God. Seriously? Houston criminal defense lawyer Mark Bennett has just announced on his blog that he's running for office as a Judge on the Texas Court of Appeals. It even brought Old Man Greenfield out of retirement.

The good news is that he'd be a great person to have on the bench. The bad news is that he's running on the Libertarian ticket. To which I can only respond:

Mark, my friend. You're running as a Libertarian? Do you realize they are insane? Are you insane? You haven't got a chance. Not prayer, not a hope. If I hooked up an electron microscope to the Times Square JumboTron, it wouldn't be powerful enough to see the infinitesimally small possibility that the voters would pick a Libertarian, let alone a Libertarian criminal defense lawyer. It just can't work.

So how can I help?

Update: A couple of weeks ago, in response to Scott Greenfield's announcement that he was shuttering his blog, Mark Bennett wrote:

...some day--probably very soon--someone will publicly say something so outrageously stupid, illogical, unethical or ugly that it will pull Scott back in.

Congratulations, Mark, on being the one!

I'm always late to this party -- it's become a Twitter thing -- but as has been my occasional custom, here are a few thoughts about the President's State of the Union address. Obama should, of course, be judged more by his actions than by what he says, but as with anyone in authority, understanding his thoughts and ideas is helpful.

Arguably, the State of the Union speech is just a big show, and that Obama's less well-planned statements are more revealing, but I think the speech is worth looking at for two reasons. First, this is Obama at his most considered and prepared, with his whole team participating, so you're seeing his governing philosophy presented at its best. Second, precisely because it's been so carefully prepared, this is one speech he can't back away from.

This is the entire text, taken from the official White House transcript, although I have reformatted it slightly and removed all the notations of when the audience applauded, because that's the silliest possible way to evaluate this speech.

It begins the customary way.

THE PRESIDENT:  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:

The title is not about Mitt Romney winning the Iowa caucus, it's about Rick Santorum coming in second. I explain my reaction over at Nobody's Business in this post. If nothing else, watch the three minute video in which Santorum explains why freedom is bad and ask yourself if this is the guy you want to have the power to detain Americans without a trial.

It's not too early to start drinking, is it?

For whatever it's worth, I've started writing a series of posts about Occupy Wall Street over at Nobody's Business.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

So let me see if I get this right. If I understand the new budget deal correctly, the Republicans got the spending cuts they wanted without any tax increases, and all Obama got was an increase in the debt limit large enough that it won't need to be raised again until 2013. (I'm ignoring the 12-member "super-congress" that will make future proposals for balancing the budget because who knows what they'll do, if anything.)

The key here is that the next debt-ceiling crisis will come after the next election. In other words, Obama gave lip service to wanting new revenue for the good of the country, but when it came down to the wire, he gave it all up in return for a chance at avoiding a big fight while he was running for re-election. He sold out everybody else in return for personal gain.

Sad news, everyone: Former Drug Czar William Bennett has himself fallen victim to the curse of drug abuse. At least that's the only explanation I can think of for his absurd pro-Trump editorial on CNN.com:

Proving he is willing to call 'em as he sees 'em, and not following the traditional advice for prospective candidates that it's not a good idea to anger your audience, he jumped right in to challenge the Ron Paul supporters in the crowd, saying of Paul, "He has zero chance of getting elected."

Donald Trump has never won any elections. If I've counted right, Ron Paul has been elected to office twelve times. Just sayin'.

Trump was booed and jeered, but he did not care. He did not couch or backtrack. Instead he looked right into the crowd and then said something that converted the heckles to applause, "If I run, and if I win, this country will be respected again."

Because...why? Candidates say stuff like this all the time. It doesn't mean anything.

What most observers picked up from this small moment was: A) Trump would not be a poll-tested, talking point candidate. B) He would be willing to challenge audiences in front of him, caring less about their applause and more about speaking his own mind. C) There is an authenticity to him.

The Donald has an authenticity to him? Has Bennett ever seen Trump's hair? Okay, that's a cheap shot, but Trump has authenticity the same way a babbling street person has authenticity: No matter how crazy it sounds, you know they both sincerely mean every bit of it while they're saying it.

There was something about his speaking up for a newly respected America that rang honest and sincere -- and most importantly, was needed.

Gosh, he wants America to be respected. That would be so cool. I wonder why none of the other candidates thought of respecting America.

Already he has given new life to the dying trope that President Barack Obama might not have been born in the United States. While many of us think the "birther" issue is a distraction and nonstarter, Trump has put it back on the table, raising questions that many of us had long-ago stopped asking, giving a new element of respectability to the question itself.

No. Not really. It's still the same question.

Then there is the latest CNN poll showing Trump to be tied for first place in the Republican field of candidates, beating other, more experienced, politicians such as Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum, and Haley Barbour. Much of this renewed fascination with Trump could be the result of an early blasé attitude about the current candidates in the field.

Polls taken this far before the election are nonsense. Remember that at some point during the last election cycle, Rudy Giuliani looked like the unstoppable Republican nominee.

But Trump has succeeded in doing two things the GOP base wants in its candidates: he will not be rolled or take flak from the mainstream media (see, for example, his recent interview on the "Today" show or his recent letter to The New York Times directly criticizing an established columnist there); and he has stated he is now anti-abortion (in a way that actually sounds authentic rather than convenient to some anti-abortion analysts).

Yes, because Trump always sounds so sincere.

Right now, Trump has captured the imagination of those looking for straight talk and celebrity. But despite his early 2011 apprenticeship in politics, Republicans will still need to hear a lot more from Donald Trump. Can he explain his donations to Democrats? What are his foreign and defense policy plans? His tax plans? His views on controlling our deficits? How will he do in debates with other, more seasoned, politicians?

I don't know what Trump's answers will be to these questions, but I predict that if he bothers to spell out actual policies, they will be quite insane...which, unfortunately, isn't always a barrier to winning the Presidency.

A couple of years ago, shortly before the 2008 elections, some people were making fun of undecided voters for being stupid: How could anyone not tell the difference between Barack Obama or John McCain after 20 months of campaigning? How could anyone not know which one they thought would make a better president?

At the time, I wrote a defense of undecided voters premised on the idea that the occupant of the White House makes little practical difference in the lives of most people. And even to the extent the right president would make a difference, I argued, an individual voter has almost no effect on the election result, so their time would be better spent improving their lives more directly. I also argued that neither the news media nor the campaigns make it easy to figure out where the candidates stand on the issues that many people care about.

In retrospect, I probably should have emphasized that last point more. In particular, I should have pointed out that politicians routinely say things during the campaign that they promptly forget about once they are in power. Consider presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2007:

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

...History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.

And now that same guy has just ordered our military to carry out airstrikes into Libya without obtaining Congressional approval.

Defenders of Obama's actions could probably argue that this is in response to a U.N. resolution and that Congress has control over all the treaties and laws that control the United States' relationship with the U.N., so therefore Congress has technically given it's approval. That argument may even be correct. But is that really what anyone thought he meant when he said it? I don't think so.

Here's another Obama quote from that same interview:

5. Does the Constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants?

No. I reject the Bush Administration's claim that the President has plenary authority under the Constitution to detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.

Obama has backed so far away from that position that last year he ordered the assassination of an American citizen without a trial. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't one of the reasons we're attacking Libya because Gaddafi was killing his own people?

Suppose that back when Obama was elected, I had written a blog post in which I predicted that,

• the Guantanamo Bay detainees will still be detained two years later,
• Obama will order an American citizen executed without trial and then use Bush's "state secrets" doctrine to derail a lawsuit over the assassination order,
• Obama would also use the "state secrets" doctrine to cover up the Bush presidency's warrantless wiretapping, rendition for torture, and questionable surveillance of an Islamic charity, and
• Obama would take us to war with yet another middle eastern country.

If you were an Obama supporter back then and read those predictions, wouldn't you have accused me of being an anti-Obama nutcase? I know I would have thought those predictions were nutty.

It's not just Obama, of course. George Bush, from the party of smaller government, presided over an enormous increase in the size of government.

Politicians are masters of deception. They're experts at saying something that carries a strong implication without actually committing themselves to a course of action or limiting their future actions. And in the event they do commit themselves in a statement, they're experts at re-explaining what they really meant, or explaining why the current situation is special and their earlier statements don't apply. Or sometimes they just lie to us.

No wonder so many people were undecided between Obama and McCain. Once they factored in the lies and deception, they couldn't tell what either of them would do in office.

I just found this video of Bill Maher's commentary on Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear." It's a bizarre mix of a few good points and a lot of partisan hackery, so I thought I'd add some commentary. And, really, Bill Maher just makes me feel like ranting.

With all due respect to my friends Jon and Stephen, it seems to me that if you really wanted to come down on the side of restoring sanity and reason, you'd side with the sane and the reasonable, and not try to pretend that the insanity is equally distributed in both parties.

It's not okay to talk bullshit just because the other side spews even more bullshit. You don't have to have an opinion on how the bullshit is distributed across the parties to know that you don't want to get any on you.

But the message of the rally, as I heard it, was that if the media would just stop giving voice to the crazies on both sides then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all non-partisan and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side, forgetting that Obama tried that and found out there are no moderates on the other side.

If by "moderates," Bill Maher means people who will roll over and give Obama whatever he wants without getting something in return, then that's probably true. And the other side feels exactly the same way, I'm sure. After all, with the Democrats controlling the White House and both Houses of Congress, I'm sure they haven't exactly been accomodating to Republican interests.

When Jon announced his rally, he said that the national conversation is dominated by people on the right who believe Obama is a socialist and people on the left who believe 9/11 was an inside job, but I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11 was an inside job, but Republican leaders who think Obama's a socialist? All of them: McCain, Boehner, Cantor, Palin. All of them.

The real problem here is that Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are both subject to their own liberal biases. I don't usually throw around loaded phrases like "liberal bias," so let me explain.

When I lived with my parents, they used to get into some fierce family arguments, and whenever I happened to think my mother was wrong, she always asked me, accusingly, "Why are you taking his side?"

I never did come up with a good answer, because I thought the question was unfair. I wasn't taking my dad's side. I was taking the side that I thought was correct. As far as I was concerned, my dad and I were only on the same side because we were both on the right side. My mother never considered that, because she thought she was on the right side.

Now Bill Maher sees that a lot of Republicans think Obama is a socialist, and he concludes that they're all insane. He's making the same assumptions as my mom was. He's ignoring the possibility that Republican leaders think Obama is a socialist because he is, in fact, a socialist. Bill Maher is a liberal, so to him, that seems wrong. That seems insane.

Jon Stewart also has the same liberal viewpoint, which is probably why thinking Obama is a socialist seems just as crazy as thinking Bush planned the murder of 3000 people on 9/11. But it's not quite that crazy.

I know, I know. Obama isn't a Socialist socialist. He's not a member of a socialist party, and he doesn't advocate government ownership of the means of production. But if you're willing to accept that his opponents are bending the definition as a bit of political hyperbole, to attract attention to what they see as Obama's bad policies, then they've got a point.

Obama may not have plans to transfer all corporate capital to the government, but his healthcare reform plan is something of a takeover of the the health insurance industry. The goverment won't actually become the owner of these insurance companies, but there's clearly going to be a lot of regulation, and a lot of business decisions that used to be made by the insurance companies will now be made by one of the many regulatory bodies created by the new reform laws.

That's kind of what American socialism looks like: We keep the private companies around, but we subsidize them, tax them, and regulate them so much that they are essentially owned by the government. Joe Biden's beloved Amtrak is a prime example, as were Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. And don't forget, Obama did nationalize a couple of automobile manufacturers.

As another example of both sides using overheated rhetoric, Jon cited the right equating Obama with Hitler, and the left calling Bush a war criminal. Except thinking Obama is like Hitler is utterly unfounded, but thinking Bush is a war criminal--that's the opinion of General Anthony Taguba, who headed the Army's investigation into Abu Ghraib.

So Maher's defense of calling Bush a war criminal is that somebody else has also called him a war criminal? I haven't been following the issue closely and don't know what Taguba's report really says, so maybe that's stronger than it sounds. Some bad things certainly happened, and it's possible Bush has some kind of direct responsibility for them. After all, he did just admit to approving waterboarding.

But if George Bush is a war criminal, or if there are war criminals in his administration, then Obama seems to be covering up for them. After his election victory, someone on the change.gov website asked him if he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate crimes within the Bush administration, and here's his response:

We're still evaluating how we're going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth. And obviously we're going to be looking at past practices and I don't believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. ... My orientation is going to be moving foward.

Looking forward sounds great, but it also means nobody has been looking into the alleged crimes of the Bush administration--certainly nothing much has come to light so far. Either Bush's people never got involved in war crimes, or Obama is helping to cover them up. As evidence for the latter, consider that Obama's administration is using "state secrets" claims to stop lawsuits by Binyam Mohamed and Maher Arar, both of whom claim to have been tortured as a result of U.S. policies under Bush.

Back to Bill Maher:

Republicans... You see, Republicans keep staking out a position that is further and further right, and then demand Democrats meet them in the middle, which is now not the middle anymore. That's the reason healthcare reform is so watered down. It's Bob Dole's old plan from 1994.

This is more than a little disingenuous. When it came to healthcare reform, Republicans would have been happy to leave things the way they were. It's the Democrats that wanted to make a lot of changes. The resulting healthcare reform act was a compromise that made some changes--not as many as the Democrats wanted, but more than the Republicans would have made if they'd been in charge. Since when is "leave it the way it is" an extreme position?

I can remember hearing the same sort of "why won't you compromise?" crap about gun control. The anti-gun folks would pick some until-then perfectly legal piece of firearm technology--large magazines, expanding bullets, non-expanding bullets, plastic parts, bayonet mounts, pistol grips--and propose a total ban. When pro-gun opponents objected to this ban, the anti-gun folks accused them of being unwilling to compromise, even though the anti-gun folks offered nothing in return.

Also, since when is it wrong to stand up for what you want? That's how negotiations work: Everybody tries to get what they want, then they negotiate. Maher's just sore that the middle turned out not to be what he wanted it to be.

Same thing with Cap and Trade--it was the first President Bush's plan to deal with carbon emissions. Now the Republican plan for climate change is to claim it's a hoax. But it's not. I know that because I've lived in L.A. since '83 and there's been a change in the city: I can see it now. Yeah. All of us who live out here have had that experience. "Oh, look! There's a mountain there!"

Bill Maher is being an idiot. Smog consists of low-lying banks of suspended particulates and chemicals in the air. It is created by vehicles and industrial processes in cities, and it is a local problem for the cities that create it. If the L.A. basin has clearer air now, it's because the people living there did something about it. Climate change--by which I assume Maher means anthropogenic global warming--is a matter of the entire planet's heat balance, and it has little to do with localized polution (although some gases contribute to both problems).

Government, led by liberal Democrats, passed laws which changed the air I breathe for the better. Okay, I'm for them. And not for the party that is, as we speak, plotting to abolish the EPA.

Just because they got one thing right, doesn't mean they're getting everything else right.

That said, I don't know what the Republicans are really planning to do, but because pollution is a result of market failure, a little government-organized environmental protection seems like a good idea, providing it's done with some intelligence with respect to how tradeoffs are made. I don't know if that has anything to do with what the EPA does these days.

And I don't need to pretend that both sides have a point here, and I don't care what left or right commentators say about it, I only care what climate scientists say about it.

Global warming--the idea that the Earth has been heating up slowly due to the release of certain man-made chemicals--is a relatively new theory, and because of its broad implications, it was the subject of a lot of controversy among scientists. But the scientists have reached a consensus on the important issues, and unless that begins to shift, global warming seems to be pretty real.

Good for Bill Maher, standing up for the importance of paying attention to client scientists. Too bad, though, that he doesn't have the same respect for medical scientists such as immunologists and epidemiologists:

MAHER: I'm not into western medicine. That to me is a complete scare tactic. It just shows you, you can...

KING: You mean you don't get a -- you don't get a flu shot?

MAHER: A flu shot is the worst thing you can do.

KING: Why?

MAHER: Because it's got -- it's got mercury.

KING: It prevents flu.

MAHER: It doesn't prevent. First of all, that's...

KING: I haven't had the flu in 25 years since I've been taking a flu shot.

MAHER: Well, I hate to tell you, Larry, but if you have a flu shot for more than five years in a row, there's ten times the likelihood that you'll get Alzheimer's disease.

This is far more insane than calling Obama a socialist, or even being skeptical about global warming. See, Bill?  Insanity is not just for the Republicans.

Back to Maher's commentary, where I'll close on one of his better points:

Two opposing sides don't necessarily have two compelling arguements. MLK spoke on that mall in the capital, and he didn't say, "Remember folks, those southern sheriffs with the fire hoses and the German Shepherds, they have a point too."

No, he said, "I have a dream. They have a nightmare."

Indeed. It's foolish and misguided to pretend to an inequality you don't believe in. If you have the courage of your convictions, if you belive that you are right and they are wrong, then it's alright to stand up and say that you are right and they are wrong.

I don't follow politics as much as I probably should, but the Republicans advances in this election, including retaking the House of Representatives, appear to have been the result of voter dissatisfaction with the economy, jobs, and government spending. To a political simpleton like me, this implies that the Republican controlled House will therefore focus their legislative efforts on the economy, jobs, and government spending.

Or they could do something like this:

The GOP plans to hold high profile hearings examining the alleged "scientific fraud" behind global warming, a sleeper issue in this election that motivated the base quite a bit.

Now that's just what Mark Ambinder of The Atlantic says they're going to do. I don't know anything about Ambinder. I don't know where he gets his information, and I don't know if he has an agenda. But it wouldn't be the first time a political party rode one set of public concerns to get into office, and then began pursuing a completely different set of issues once they had power.

(Hat tip: The Raw Story)

I usually try to avoid outright partisan battles here on Windypundit, but with all the complaining people are doing about the state of the country today, I was struck by a recent tweet by Roger Ebert:

Say, how d'ya think we'd be doing about now with McCain and Palin?

Yes, let's try to imagine what life in this country would be like if the country had been run by these right-wing zealots for the last year and a half instead of the Obama administration. If McCain and Palin had been in charge...

• ...healthcare reform would still be a distant dream.

[Update: A number of commenters were confused by this first item, but I'm actually serious. I felt it only fair to list Obama's one major accomplishment before I began snarking at everything else. Unfortunately, as the comments reveal, the change in irony level confused some of my readers. My mistake.]

• ...the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) would still be holding prisoners without trial or any real proof they had done something wrong.
• ...the unemployment rate would be not have returned to the lows of the Clinton-Bush era.
• ...federal law enforcement agents would still be raiding medical marijuana operations that are legal under state law.
• ...no one would be looking into the reasons why police agencies keep killing innocent Americans and their dogs.
• ...the government would be seeking outrageous new ways to spy on American citizens.
• ...Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell would not have been repealed.
• ...moral busybodies would be emboldened to try to force their values on America.
• ...we would be getting hit by wave after wave of bank failures.
• ...no one from the Bush administration would have been prosecuted for torture.
• ...the government would be using claims of national security to protect private people and corporations involved in torture during the past decade.
• ...the government would still be trying to drum up fear and paranoia among the citizens.
• ...government agents would continue to abuse the anti-terrorism excuse to pry into our lives.

Any other suggestions?

Update: How could I forget? If the McCain/Palin warmonger party had won...

• ...we'd still have troops fighting in Iraq.
• ...there'd probably be death squads killing American citizens accused of disloyalty.

The Republicans' have now revealed their new Pledge to America, an idea based loosely on their old Contract With America. I haven't read any of it yet, but it's 48 pages long. Somehow that strikes me as a bad sign for the future of small government...

Update: Yeah, I looked it over and there's nothing much here we haven't heard before, from the impossible, through the vague and the ridiculous, all the way to the things we know they won't really do if they win... I doubt I'll write much more about it.

[Note: This is not the real 2010 Republican response. It's the 2009 response. I thought I'd post it instead of the real one to see if anybody actually paid attention. No one noticed. Which means...nothing, really. And it was stupid of me to deceive my readers in order to test them. Sorry about that. I don't think I'll be doing that again...except maybe on April Fool's Day.]

This year, I thought I'd also take a look at the Republican response to the State of the Union address. As with my post on the State of the Union, I've quoted the entire speech, so this post is pretty long.

Now here's Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, [as reported by CNN]:

Tonight, we witnessed a great moment in the history of our Republic. In the very chamber where Congress once voted to abolish slavery, our first African-American president stepped forward to address the state of our union. With his speech tonight, the president completed a redemptive journey that took our nation from Independence Hall to Gettysburg to the lunch counter and now, finally, the Oval Office.

Indeed. That we've come so far in race relations is a very cool thing, and something we should be proud of. Electing a black man to the presidency is not the end of racism, but you can see it from here.

More after the break...

I usually try to make a few comments about the State of the Union address. This time, I've decided to include the entire text of the speech---even the parts I have nothing say about---so this post is going to be very long.

Working from the official Whitehouse transcript:

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
January 27, 2010

Remarks by the President in State of the Union Address

9:11 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT:  Madam Speaker, Vice President Biden, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:

Our Constitution declares that from time to time, the President shall give to Congress information about the state of our union.  For 220 years, our leaders have fulfilled this duty. They've done so during periods of prosperity and tranquility.  And they've done so in the midst of war and depression; at moments of great strife and great struggle.

It's tempting to look back on these moments and assume that our progress was inevitable -- that America was always destined to succeed.  But when the Union was turned back at Bull Run, and the Allies first landed at Omaha Beach, victory was very much in doubt.  When the market crashed on Black Tuesday, and civil rights marchers were beaten on Bloody Sunday, the future was anything but certain.  These were the times that tested the courage of our convictions, and the strength of our union.  And despite all our divisions and disagreements, our hesitations and our fears, America prevailed because we chose to move forward as one nation, as one people.

As one nation? That never really happens. Also, did Obama just use the battle of Bull Run during the frickin' Civil War an example of moving forward as one nation? We were literally killing each other!

More, after the break...

...is still crazy:

Ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich says he's "blacker than Barack Obama" and tells Esquire magazine that he was a real person in a political arena dominated by phonies.

Blagojevich, referring to the president as "this guy," says Obama was elected based simply on hope.

"What the (expletive)? Everything he's saying's on the teleprompter," Blagojevich told the magazine for a story in its February issue, which hits newsstands Jan. 19.

"I'm blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived," Blagojevich said. "I saw it all growing up."

The White House refused to comment.

Yeah, I'm sure they had nothing to add to that.

A little later, I read something I like:

Blagojevich continues to accuse prosecutors of persecuting him for routine political deals.

We can only hope he's right. And that it catches on.

 

Well, now that the Nobel Committee has decided that the major qualification of a peace prized laureate is being Not George Bush, I think there's a few folks worth considering, beyond those usually being mentioned.

Hell, restricted this just to folks who, like Nobel Laureate Jimmy Carter, have been President, we've got quite a few choices.  I suggest the following

Bill Clinton: in the Agreed Framework, when President Clinton explored the inadequacy of remuneration for absention agreements in limiting nuclear proliferation, he expanded pioneering work beginning with Aethelred the Unready's payments to the Danes and continuing with the surprisingly un-awarded Neville Chamberlaine's work, almost a thousand years later, at the Anglo-German declaration in Munich.  For this expansion on previous implementations of danegeld, Clinton is far more worthy of the Nobel than Obama.

Ronald Wilson Reagan:  there are few things in modern history that have both distanced the spectre of global war and increased the opportunity for peaceful development than the collapse of the Soviet Union. While quite literally billions of people aided in that effort, the final push culminated during the Reagan administration, with the Strategic Defense Initiative, which finally forced the Soviets to spend themselves into bankruptcy and irrelevance; the fall came soon after.  While, clearly, the fathers of SDI include not only General Daniel Graham, as well as Pournelle and Possony -- see the Strategy of Technology -- the final push by the Reagan administration included persuading the Saudi entity to lower oil prices, forcing the Soviets to deplete their cash reserves, rather than selling oil to enhance them, a .

Harry S. Truman: Operation Downfall would have finally ended WWII, certainly, but at a huge cost of lives, both US and Japanese.  Casualty estimates for the Olympic campaign vary, but there's little reason to quibble with the Shockley estimates of hundreds of thousands of Allied deaths, and multiple millions of Japanese.  The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in roughly a quarter million deaths -- an order of magnitude smaller.   

I'm thinking, more and more, that the whole Henry Louis Gates thing is a racial Rorschach test.  It's a misshapen blob of an incident that, regardless of what can and should be learned from it, everybody with a strong opinion about The Important Issue of Race in America learns, once again, what they already believed.

I don't think that's necessary to explain what happened.  I'm not, at this point, interested in discussing the actual racial aspects of their encounter, or the aftermath. 

Because there is a much simpler explanation -- one that might even be true -- which quite fully explains the unpleasantness, the deception, and the bombastic behavior on both of their parts.

Let's review the facts.  Well, no, we can't; we don't have the facts.  We have some of the facts, and, far as I can tell, they're summarized pretty well here. My short version:

Guy comes home from a trip, with a driver. Front door is jammed, so he goes in through the back door, and then comes back around to try to force the front door open. Neighbor, seeing two guys apparently (and, in fact) trying to force a door open, calls 911 to report it, adding that maybe it's not a burglary because they've got suitcases and might be returning from a trip or something.

Cops are dispatched, and arrive more or less promptly, but after the driver is gone, and the resident is home alone.

So far, everybody agrees on that, more or less.

The next part is unclear, to me, and not just because there's two stories.

According to the police report, the cop -- Crowley -- asks Gates to step outside.  This means to me that, at least according to the police, Gates was inside the house, and suggests that Crowley was outside when he was doing the asking.  Okay.

According to Gates, Wikipedia says that "when the officer asked for ID, Gates replied he had to get it inside, and then officer Crowley followed him into his home without permission."  Which suggests that Gates was outside his house when asked for the ID.

I'm sensing some idiocy here.  (I think both the cops and Gates are lying, actually, and each is doing so against their own best interests.)  But let's, for the sake of argument, go with this:  Gates is inside his house when there's a knock on the door, and there's a cop there, asking him for ID.  He agrees to provide it, and leaves the door open as he goes to get it; he does, and it makes clear to the cop that this is the guy who lives there, and that there's no reason for any further investigation.

Up to this point -- assuming that all that's just what happened, and nothing more is -- nobody's done anything wrong, although at least arguably Gates has been stupid by not locking the door.

Let's try that again, this time with a bit more sense.  There's a knock on the door, and Gates answers it -- why not? -- to find a cop there, demanding ID from the person inside the house.  Now, he's in his home (provided to him by the U, but it's his home), and he's got every right to say, "No, thank you; go away, please," and, leaving the door locked behind him, go to bed, but he doesn't. 

Let's let him be reasonably cooperative.  "Sure.  I'll get my ID."  He does, holds it up to the door; the cop reads it, and we're at about the same place.

Except, of course, that didn't happen. Both men tried to pull rank, and I'm guessing that both of them did it for precisely the wrong reason -- as they're both members of classes of people who often both see themselves as beleaguered and oppressed, while both live a life of almost preposterous privilege, often seeing it as their due.

Gates is a tenured professor, and Crowley's a cop.  Both are surrounded by colleagues and sycophants -- fellow tenured types and students in one case; other badged types, badge bunnies, and badgelickers in the other -- who will, even without request, leap to the unfounded and often utterly preposterous conclusion that they did the right thing simply because of who they are, and both have been inculcated to believe that they have earned special respect from all they encounter because of the status that they have achieved.  Both are used to having their word taken as holy writ, no matter whether or not they happen to be full of it -- and, in the case of both tenured professor types and badged types, they often are full of it, and rarely called to account.

Why would it surprise anybody that when two such archtypical examples of puffed egos and manifest privilege would bump heads -- regardless of their relative status as a man in his own home and a cop investigating a report of a possible break-in -- it would be anything but ugly?

So, yeah, it is possible to discuss their encounter, and explain it fully, even without reference to race.

Why the racial explanation utterly dominates the discourse about this is, alas, yet another sign that this society is just too obsessed with the whole subject.
 

Shortly before President Obama took office, I posted a freedom scorecard by which I could judge his presidency. Although it was hardly a formal assessment document, it's a nice framework for a post reviewing Obama's first 100 days.

I started with a list of some discrete things Obama could do to make us more free:

Stop the federal government from raiding medical marijuana users and suppliers.

Done. Eventually. At least for a while, although the Obama administration sure isn't bothering to help Charlie Lynch.

End warrentless wiretapping.

Obama doesn't seem much better than Bush, and he may be worse. 

Allow needle exchange.

Nope. And, in general, Obama sucks on the drug war.

Fire U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan.

The bitch is still in office.

There were also some things Obama could do to make us less free:

Reinstitute any version of the Fairness Doctrine.

There's talk, but it's more Republican fear mongering than Democratic legislation at this point.

Ban assault weapons.

Obama's still in favor of this, and he's playing it up as a solution to the drug-war-related violence in Mexico. No legislative movement to speak of.

Prohibit gay marriage.

Nope. But he hasn't gone the other direction either.

I also listed a number of general trends. For example, the population-adjusted size of the prison population is a negative indicator. I'd like to find indicators or discrete events I can use to track some other subdivisions of our national freedom:

Government transparency.

Obama has released a lot of documents, but he hasn't kept his promise to post legislation on the web for five days before signing, and he's actively obstructing queries into torture under the Bush administration.

Free trade.

I don't think there's been much action, but there's been a lot of nasty anti-free-trade talk.

Immigration.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Right to keep and bear arms.

As always with the Democrats in charge, our right to keep and bear arms is threatened. There hasn't been much activity other than talk of renewing the assault weapons ban.

Property rights v.s. civil forfeiture.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Property rights v.s. eminent domain.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Access to elected office.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

I didn't even bother to list the economy or the war on drugs, I guess because they seem so large and obvious (and hard to measure). Perhaps I should have included them.

Obama is actively taking parts of the economy away from the free market, building on the financial panic started by the Bush administration.

As for the war on drugs...meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

A few other notes:

Obama's release of information about waterboarding and the Gitmo detainees is a good thing, but I have a hard time getting excited about it because (1) it seems to be a niche issue that doesn't affect most Americans, (2) it seems to be more about scoring partisan points than about justice, and (3) it's not clear Obama's approach will be much better.

Obama appointed the Mother of All Nannies, Chuck Hurley, to head up the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Look for more of MADD's crazy policies to become federal law.

(I'm not sure "secessionism" is really a word.)

God, I hate partisan ranting.  I've been listening to a lot of MSNBC lately, and the very liberal commentators are going nuts over Texas Governor Rick Perry's talk of secession:

Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.

"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

The liberal commentators talk about it, rant about it, and interview constitutional law experts. It's all very silly. By far, the dumbest comments came from Chris Matthews:

"That's the kind of talk we heard in 1861. That's what killed 600,000 Americans. Why is he talking like this?"

Here, let me explain: Texans talk like this all the time. It's just how they are. Get over it.

Also, it takes two sides to fight a war. We had a civil war because some states wanted to secede and the remaining states fought to prevent them from seceding.

Despite my cynicism, I have to agree with Radley Balko that this is a good way for Obama to start his term. I've always believed he sincerely wanted a more open government---his legislative career made this clear---and unlike the economy, it's a problem he truly has the power to fix on his own.

More like this, please.

Andy Levy has some mostly-good advice for the Obama opposition. For example,

• DON'T make it personal. We don't need another Derangement Syndrome. We don't need people doing things like emphasizing Obama's middle name in a derogatory fashion. How anyone would think that's beneficial to their cause, or to the country as a whole, is beyond me. Also, it's not even clever. Neither are smushwords like BusHitler, or sillywords like Rethuglicans and Dhimmicrats.

I would add that all the sneering references to Obama as "the one" or "the messiah" stopped being clever long ago.

• DON'T pretend you're being brave when you criticize your government. Not while people in other countries actually, y'know, DIE, when they do that.
• DON'T use the word "divisive." At this point, all that word means is "You disagree with me," and the English language gets mangled enough these days.
• DON'T say or do everything in your power to drive this country apart and then claim you want unity when it's your guy in power. This is like the convicted felon who conveniently finds God when he's up for parole.
• DON'T automatically think people who disagree with you are stupid or evil. Some of them are, of course. But most of them aren't, and you might actually learn something if you listen to them.

Most of these items are, of course, things Bush's opposition was doing for the last eight years, and Levy addresses that too:

• And finally, DON'T use the fact that many on the left behaved abominably for the past eight years as an excuse to behave the same way. America needs adults. And if it bothered you when they did it, it's a good sign that you shouldn't do it.

Read the whole thing.

Technically, Barack Obama didn't swear out the correct presidential oath, as specified in the constitution. Chief Justice Roberts flubbed it, which lead Obama to flub it too.

I sure hope one of the thousand or so lawyers standing nearby (or taking the oath, even if he's not authorized to practice law) thought to dot the i's and cross the t's by having him swear out the correct oath later in the day, because you know the deranged Obama haters are going to go crazy insisting he's not really the president.

Update: Yup, he swore the oath again.

It's official. As of noon yesterday, Barack Hussein Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America. Despite the truly horrible history of how black people have been treated in this country, we've just elected a black man to the highest office in the land.

It's not the fulfillment of Martin Luther King's dream. It's not the end of racism, but it is the point in history at which the end of racism became inevitable. It is something we should all be proud of.

So let's enjoy it while we can, because this is the highpoint of the Obama Presidency. It's all downhill from here.

As the most glamourous presidential candidate in decades, his supporters have been projecting their hopes and dreams onto Obama for almost two years. He's been Harry Potter's Mirror of Erised, reflecting back their heart's desire.

That's all about to change. Starting today, his ambitions are going to get a lot more specific and concrete than just "change" and "renewal" and "rebuilding." Starting today, we're going to judge him not on what he says, but on what he does and---even more importantly---on what he accomplishes.

If you have high hopes for Obama, he's going to disappoint you. He has to. He's made over 500 campaign promises, and he can't possibly keep them all. He hasn't even given his daughters their new puppy yet.

If Obama wants to get anything done, he's going to have to make some tradoffs, and then his choices will reveal his true nature. His supporters will find out what his presidency is really all about. They'll find out which of them he really loves, and which get left in the cold.

As a libertarian, I have little to look forward to in an Obama administration. The most I can hope for is that he'll undo Bush's threats to our civil liberties without doing too much violence to our economic freedom. And maybe...maybe...as a black man who's lived in an American city, he'll do something to stop the police from trampling our rights...instead of giving them federal funding to do so.

Or maybe I'm just catching a glimpse of the Mirror of Erised myself.

The reality can never live up to the dream, and starting today, the reality of the Obama presidency is unavoidable. Whatever it is, here it comes.

I'm trying to put together a freedom scorecard for the Obama administration---stuff to watch out for over the next 4 to 8 years. Here's what I've got so far.

Discrete things Obama can do to make us more free:

• Stop the federal government from raiding medical marijuana users and suppliers
• End warrentless wiretapping
• Allow needle exchange
• Fire U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan

Discrete things Obama can do to make us less free:

• Reinstitute any version of the Fairness Doctrine
• Ban assault weapons
• Prohibit gay marriage

I'm also looking for things I can use to track some general trends. For example, the population-adjusted size of the prison population is a negative indicator. I'd like to find indicators or discrete events I can use to track some other subdivisions of our national freedom:

• Government transparency
• Free trade
• Immigration
• Right to keep and bear arms
• Property rights v.s. civil forfeiture
• Property rights v.s. eminent domain
• Access to elected office

Any ideas?

In a New York Times story, writer Monica Davey describes the governor of Illinois this way:

Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich is a polished speaker who can win over elderly women at luncheons in southern Illinois with his earnest attention and eloquently recite historical anecdotes from the lives of the leaders he says he most admires...

Then, a few paragraphes later, there's this anecdote:

In 1996, John Fritchey, a Democrat who shared a campaign office with Mr. Blagojevich, was told that his stepfather had suffered a serious stroke. He walked over to Mr. Blagojevich, who was making fund-raising calls, and shared the news.

"He proceeded to tell me that he was sorry, and then, in the next breath, he asked me if I could talk to my family about contributing money to his campaign," recalled Mr. Fritchey, now a state representative and a critic of the governor. "To do that, and in such a nonchalant manner, didn't strike me as something a normal person would do."

No, not a normal person. But maybe an abnormal one?

I'm no psychiatrist, and even a great psychiatrist can't diagnose a mental illness in someone he's never met, but these personality traits---charm and lack of empathy---suggest an interesting possibility. I think the governor of Illinois is a psychopath.

The movies are filled with psychopathic killers, but in reality psychopathy doesn't necessarily result in violence. In fact, many people believe that some of the basic personality traits of the psychopath---lack of empathy, superficial charm, and inflated self appraisal---can lead to successful careers in business and politics.

(Hat tip: Rogier van Bakel)

I just received a review copy of The Cure for Our Broken Political Process: How We Can Get Our Politicians to Resolve the Issues Tearing Our Country Apart by Sol Erdman and Lawrence Susskind which purports to tell us how to fix our government so that our leaders will spend less time fighting with each other and more time solving our problems.

Naturally, I'm skeptical. I've heard these kinds of claims before, and they often turn out to be partisan hackery: If we just get the other guys to see things our way, everything will turn out great! Either that, or they want to do impossible things like "getting money out of politics" or eliminating special interests.

Interestingly, Erdman and Susskind's approach is apparently almost the opposite of that last one. They are both experts at conflict resolution, and they've noticed that people with competing special interests---industrialists and environmentalists, for example---can learn how to work together to reach solutions that make both sides happy. It's only the politicians in the Democratic and Republican parties that can't work together.

The problem, they say, is that our democratic process has some design flaws. The way we fill elected offices doesn't reward politicians properly for cooperating to get things done. Erdman and Susskind have a plan to fix this.

I'm curious how they'll handle some of the objections and concerns.

Why do they think their plan---whatever it is---will work? Do they backup their ideas with a good theory of the election process? Or have they found real-world examples that work? I'd prefer both, but at a minimum their ideas should not be contradicted by the theories, because even if there are working examples, the theories have an ugly way of reasserting themselves.

Then there's the question of whether we can get there from here. Are there constitutional barriers? Does getting there involve some magical moment where Congress does the right thing? And could the process be subverted into something even worse than it is now?

Finally, one of the biggest dangers of this plan is that it could work too well. Government getting stuff done is not a concept that warms the libertarian heart. Gridlock is good government.

On the other hand, as ineffective as our politicians can be, they've managed to create a government that is still quite large and intrusive. I guess the question is whether Erdman and Susskind's plan for resolving issues will include libertarian small-government ideas at the bargaining table, or whether their plan to end strife and make government more decisive will be biased toward more government intervention.

Update: I should add that even if I don't believe in their solution, I expect their description of the problem to give me some new insights into the political process.

One Chicago suburb has a plan to improve its budget next year:

The Village of Maywood increased the liquor license fee for liquor stores from $1,875 to $10,000 to pay for additional police presence around these establishments.

...

Village officials say the increase is needed "to offset police services and enforcement activities and other costs ... associated with the stores," according to a memo from Village Attorney Michael Jurusik to the mayor and board of trustees.

"We've gotten too many complaints," Maywood Mayor Henderson Yarbrough said of the loitering, panhandling and other nuisances associated with liquor stores.

And apparently, nobody in Maywood ever noticed until now. I wonder what the Maywood police have been doing with their time.

Anyway, I found this story through the always-interesting Second City Cop blog, which has this to say:

Anyone want to take a bet that instead of Maywood reaping $70,000 in licensing fees, they lose the $13,125 they were getting in the first place? You'd have to weigh it against the alleged "extra" police presence at the liquor stores, but wouldn't a better purpose have been served by requiring the liquor stores to have on-site security? You'd have the $13,125 in license fees, you'd have part-time jobs for 14 or more people providing security and you'd have a business being a more responsible entity to the village.

SCC's anonymous author is pretty bright, and he's right that increasing the tax burden on the stores will encourage them to leave. Granted, the per-store increase of $8125 isn't a whole lot of money, so I doubt they'll leave immediately, but it does make it less likely they'll stay, and it definitely disourages new stores from opening.

On the other hand, SCC doesn't seem to realize that forcing the stores to hire additional employees will have the same effect. To the store owner, it doesn't matter whether his extra costs go to village taxes or to unneeded employees. Either way, he doesn't have to pay it if he moves his business out of town.

I'm not entirely surprised that SCC makes this mistake---he probably doesn't see it as a problem. It's exactly the kind of thinking I'd expect from someone who is both a government employee and a union member, two institutions which pay far too much importance to creating jobs. Also, I'm pretty sure that SCC is blinded by the expectation that the new security positions will be filled by police retirees or off-duty cops.

In other words, this is an argument between government employees over exactly how to pick the taxpayers' pockets. This is why government sucks.

As an antidote to my report on Obama Derangement Syndrome, check out this terrific post by Paul Mirengoff at PowerLine. It's intended as guide for conservatives "coping with an Obama presidency," but it's also a great guide to blogging about politics and policy in a way that matters.

A few highlights:

Pray that President Obama achieves greatness in office.

Our overriding concern must always be the country we love, not the success of a party or an ideology.

For examples of how to break this or any other of Mirengoff's rules, we don't have to look much farther than some of the oppenents of the Bush administration. When the War in Iraq was getting under way, some opponents seemed almost gleeful at the prospect of American failure. I thought they were pretty disgusting. Now that the war has lasted 5 years and killed over 4000 American soldiers...I'd like to think they didn't really know what they were wishing for.

Don't assume that Obama is always wrong.

Judge all of his positions on the merits; don't conclude that a position is wrong just because he takes it. Republicans tended to fall into this trap with President Clinton. For example, some opposed our military involvement in Kosovo based not on an analysis of the situation there, but rather on a knee-jerk anti-Clinton response. This approach is irresponsible and unpatriotic. 

Be patient in your opposition.

Don't mimic the left (this is always good advice) and conclude that because the country isn't getting mad about policies that bother you, Obama is therefore a "Teflon president." In fact, you should stop reading the first 10 pundits who call him that. Americans are fair-minded. They will give Obama time to succeed, as they should. The mainstream media will buy him additional time. But eventually the honeymoon will end.

Both of these are exactly right. The left's everything-Bush-does-is-wrong bleat was annoying and counterproductive. The loudmouths carrying "Bush=Hitler" signs and demanding Bush's impeachment on his first day in office only made it harder for people to see some of the real problems with the Bush administration.

Be fair in your opposition.

None of the 101 things that you criticize Obama for should be illegitimate or trivial. Remember that the president isn't responsible for every adverse development that occurs on his watch. Even sound decisions often produce adverse consequences. Don't judge Obama's decisions in a vacuum; compare them to the alternatives.

For those of us who will be blogging the next few years of American government, it's worth reading and remembering the whole thing.

Erick Erickson at RedState has an awesome plan for the next election:

RedState is pleased to announce it is engaging in a special project: Operation Leper.

We're tracking down all the people from the McCain campaign now whispering smears against Governor Palin to Carl Cameron and others. Michelle Malkin has the details.

We intend to constantly remind the base about these people, monitor who they are working for, and, when 2012 rolls around, see which candidates hire them. Naturally then, you'll see us go to war against those candidates.

It is our expressed intention to make these few people political lepers.

Yeah, holding a grudge for four years will take you far in politics.

While we're at it, leprosy is not a moral failing, it's a disease. Lepers are sick people. It's usually considered appropriate to show compassion toward them.

Also, there's no need to quarantine people with leprosy. Once you've diagnosed someone with leprosy, it's cheaper and easier to treat them than to quarantine them. Besides, most people in the world are naturally immune.

So, the plan is to be cruel, ignorant, and vindictive. Because this is exactly the kind of thinking I want from the people in charge of our government. Don't you?

I'd been meaning to post something about the foolish way Obama's opponents had been criticizing him for his work as a community organizer, but I never got around to it. Maybe now that he's won, someone will pay attention.

Let's start with Rudy Giuliani's pompous, sneering performance in this video, complete with bizarrely over-acted befuddlement at what a community organizer is. He's acting like it's some made-up nonsense job. That takes a lot of gall, coming from someone whose first political job was as a party committeeman.

Everyone's political career has to start somewhere. Arnold Schwarzenegger may get to start as the governor of a large state, but most politicians have less impressive beginnings: Community organizer, small-town mayor, party committeeman. So what makes being a party hack like Giuliani a better starter job for a politician than being a community organizer? Nothing.

Sarah Palin's comment on the matter is a little more substantive, but it misses the point just as much:

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.

True. But you know what else community organizers don't have? Armed enforcers and tax revenue. It's a lot easier to get things done when you can force people to obey at gunpoint, and you can take all the money that you need.

When you're a community organizer like Obama was, you can't make anybody do anything. No one has to take your orders, or even your phone call. No one has to give you any money.

To be sure, Sarah Palin gained her authority over the mechanisms of Alaskan government by winning elections. There's nothing illegimate about that. She appealed to people and won their votes.

As a community organizer, however, Obama appealed to people too. Instead of getting their votes, he got their direct personal support for his causes. When you can get people to support you and work toward your cause even though you have no authority over them, we have a special word for it. We call that leadership.

Many people don't like the direction Obama wants to lead this country, but his opponents have just been taught a hard lesson about the error of underestimating Obama's ability to lead.

Agitator Radley Balko posted a nice message of pride which got this in the comments:

If "we've truly moved beyond race", then no one would be making such a big deal about the US' first dark-skinned president.

I see where that's coming from, but here's why making a big deal about this dark-skinned president means we've "moved beyond race": The skin color of our next president won't be a big deal at all.

It's kind like how Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton put us in a position where nobody much cared that the Republican vice-presidential candidate was a woman.

Friend-of-the-blog Tom McKenna has this to say about the election:

With 600 million dollars and an adulatory media, even the #1 leftist in the Senate can become President.

Don't forget the enormous help Obama received from the Republican party, whose new motto these last eight years has been "We're the party of limited gov----Oh! Look at all that shiny power and money! Let's take control of everything!"

Barack Obama is going to piss me off in all kinds of ways over the next four to eight years, but now, in this time of dreams between the election and the inauguration, I'm enjoying the fact that the United States of America is going to have a black president.

I see at least three good things coming out of this:

First, it says a lot of good things about our country and our people that a black man can become president. To be clear, a McCain victory wouldn't have meant we're racists, but an Obama victory is strong evidence that we're not. We've come far. I'm proud of us.

Second, maybe some of the less conventional black leaders (Al Sharpton, call your office) will finally fade from the scene. Black political power no longer has to rely on guerilla politics.

Third, we now know how the story of American racism ends: The racists get their asses kicked. Racism won't vanish in a week or a year or even a decade, but it will vanish. Barack Obama's victory is a clear message to all the hardcore racists out there---the KKK, the Nazis, Stormfront: It's over. You've lost. You are no longer important. There's no place for you here in the future.

I think this will be my only election post today.

Just make sure you really know what you like.

(Hat tip: Eric Kohn)

Scott Greenfield uses the Sarah Palin 1st Amendment flub to complain about the way non-lawyers are allowed to express opinions about the law:

Whenever our politicians lack the education and knowledge to understand and appreciate how the law works, particularly the Constitution, they feel nonetheless empowered to expound on their personal view of how it should be, and what it is, in their view.

That sounds a bit like Scott doesn't like non-lawyers talking about the law, but he's always been kind to me about my ignorance, so that's not quite it. His position is a little more subtle, and a little more directed towards politicians.

I'm not suggesting that only lawyers belong in politics. But I am suggesting that non-lawyers don't get a free pass to ignorantly opine, or even whine, about the law.

Well, no, but I think accomodations have to be made. Just because someone is unable express an idea in the proper legal terms doesn't mean they have a bad idea.

Successful software engineers learn this early in their career. Just because your customer (or client or boss) doesn't know how the software works, what it does, or even how to reboot their computer, doesn't mean their opinion is worthless. This is especially true if they are the end user of the software. In that case, their opinion is the only one that matters.

So, with regard to Palin's comments, if they don't make sense to a lawyer, that doesn't mean they're foolish. It might be a good idea to draw her out on her ideas more so you separate the legal errors from the more important issues of philosophy and values.

Then again, here's how ABC is reporting what she said:

"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

...

"It's sort of perplexing to me, because I'm a practical person and plainspoken also, but just cutting to the chase and calling things like I see them, just like most Americans.  But this has not left a bitter taste in my mouth, the bitter shots taken by the mainstream media and by some of the elitism there in Washington," Palin said.

I don't think you need to be a legal expert to see some muddled thinking here.

I get campaign email of all kinds these days. In this post I would like to analyze an email message entitled "They Basically Stole Ballots" which I received from James Carville earlier today. It begins,

Dear Mark,

Aaaaarrgh! Aaaaahh! Leave me alone! AARRG! I thought you were a disgusting political creature eight years ago, and that was when you still retained a few vestigal human attributes. Now you're just The Spin That Walks Like A Man! Just go Away! I've been sitting through two goddamned years of this relentless bullshit from you and your Republican counterparts, and I just can't take it anymore! I don't think all you campaign professionals are even the same species as the rest of us! Leave me alone you fucking freaks!!!!

Sorry, dear readers. I thought I could hold on three more days, but something just snapped.

Reason magazine asked a number of libertarian writers a few questions about the upcoming election. Since my questionnaire was apparently lost in the mail, I figured I'd save them the trouble of updating their article by posting my answers here.

1. Who are you voting for in November?

Bob Barr of the Libertarian party. If the Illinois polls suddenly close up, I'll switch to Barack Obama, because the Republican party deserves to suffer a legendary ass-kicking.

2. Who did you vote for in 2004 and 2000?

Kerry, to get rid of Bush, and whoever the Libertarians ran in 2000.

3. Is this the most important election in your lifetime?

Feels like it. I'm not too sure how to judge these things. The 2000 election didn't seem like much of a big deal until we got to see Bush in action.

4. What will you miss about the Bush administration?

The chance to kick Republicans around. As a libertarian who started out as a Democrat, I've had to listen to too many Republicans claiming that their party is all about freedom. Bush's totalitarian leanings have been a handy way to dispute their smug assertions.

5. Leaving George W. Bush out of consideration, what former U.S. president would you most like to have waterboarded?

Woodrow Wilson. Radley Balko says it best: "Jailed political dissenters, created the Federal Trade Commission, got us into World War I. He also enacted the first federal income tax, the first modern military draft, and the first federal drug prohibition. Wilson also re-segregated the federal government...An all-around loathesome human being."

 

Being an irredeemable cynic, this pretty much sums up my feelings about an Obama presidency:

I just got to Thursday night's Daily Show on Tivo, and one of the featured segments involved Samantha Bee and Jason Jones expressing their frustration at a focus group of undecided voters. How could they not see the difference between the candidates? How could they not know who they like better after 20 months of campaigning? It's like they're stupid or something!

It was funny, but it was also unfair. I know who I'm voting for in this election, but as a sometimes undecided voter, and a somewhat ambivalent voter even now, I feel the urge to defend those of us who have trouble deciding the way the pollsters want us to.

First of all, the talking heads, the bloggers, the punditocracy---this stuff is their job. Paying attention to the candidates for 20 months, that's their purpose in life. Me, I've got shit to do. If I wasn't writing Windypundit, I would have only a vague idea of who the candidates are and what they stand for, and I certainly wouldn't know anything about Sarah Palin and Joe Biden.

Second, who's president isn't terribly important to most people's lives. If John Kerry had been president for the last four years, it would not have made a practical difference to me in my personal life. Other things loom much larger: My father's declining health, the well-paying project I'm working on for one of my clients, upgrading the computer hardware and software I use every day. These are the things that are directly important to me. These things affect my life far more than the occupant of the White House.

Third, voting isn't very important. The polls are very clear: If I cast my vote for President, Barack Obama will win in this state. If I stay home and do billable work, Barack Obama will win in this state. From a strictly selfish point of view, there's no point in voting. I take an interest and vote because I'm fascinated by the process, but I can hardly blame someone who sees no need to vote.

Fourth, the campaign coverage doesn't say much about the issues I consider most important. For me, the most important single issue---far more important to me than immigration, the economy, or the war in Iraq---is the war on drugs. Any major candidate who pledged to stop the war on drugs would get my respect, my vote, and my material support. Everything else is a distant second. I'm sure most undecided voters have other issues that concern them but which aren't being addressed by the candidates.

Fifth, the media coverage doesn't help us understand the candidates very much. They report that the candidates are trading punches over their economic plans, for example, but they don't describe and analyze the plans. The campaign sites aren't very helpful either. John McCain says he's in favor of the American economy. So is Barack Obama. This is not helpful.

So, there's nothing wrong with being undecided. However...

A few years ago, the FAA was considering letting Chicago's O'Hare airport land planes on conflicting runways. This would improve the volume of landings and reduce congestion in the air. On the other hand, there are some safety concerns about having planes scheduled to fly intersecting paths.

One of the local newspapers conducted an informal poll of readers, asking whether this was a good idea or a bad idea. I didn't answer the poll question because I have no clue. Questions of airport flight operations are best left to people who understand a lot more about aviation than I do. Some decisions should be left to the experts.

I think the same reasoning applies to political elections: If you haven't been paying attention, or you can't make up your mind, don't vote. There's nothing wrong with leaving the decision to people who know more than you. This is why I hire lawyers to handle legal problems, and this is why people hire me to handle computer problems.

There's no shame in not having paid attention to presidential politics these last two years. It's a complicated subject, and the reward for paying attention is vanishingly small. But then don't fall for the propaganda that you have to go out and vote anyway. People who pressure you to make decisions you aren't ready to make are not your friends. They're trying to manipulate you. Don' t let them.

It's hard to really be sure, but the dumbest issue among the many dumb issues to emerge from this election season is the question of whether it was disrespectful of Newsweek to put an unretouched photo of Sarah Palin on the cover because it exposed all her flaws.

That's an easy one: Newsweek does journalism. They're not supposed to retouch any of the photos. Besides, have you ever heard anyone suggest that they should retouch the photos of the men they put on the cover?

Nevertheless, I took mouse in hand and made an attempt. Here's before-and-after: (click to enlarge)

Even discounting my meager photoshop skills, it's not much of an improvement because the base photo doesn't need much improvement. It's well-posed and well-lit. If Palin gets a book deal, it would make a great cover.

Update: Want more? Let me soften the hell out of her nasal-labial fold, thin her nose, raise her cheekbones, remove the sneer, and sharpen the smile: (click to enlarge)

Update: Sarah visits the uncanny valley.

One of the many side issues during this campaign season has been the use of contemporary music by the campaigns---in commercials or as background to conventions and rallies. The original artists don't always like the candidates who use their music, and often they have the legal right to stop them. (Not always. Music licensing is complicated and often kind of stupid.)

Getting sued by the remnants of a 20-year old band is a little embarassing for a campaign, but given the gigantic egos of people in politics, I've been expecting for some time that the political class would take advantage of the fact that they write the copyright laws and just create an exception for music during campaigns.

And here's the first sign of it, in a Washington Post op-ed by Christopher Sprigman and Siva Vaidhyanathan from the University of Virginia:

Artists should speak up, loudly, when they feel the use of their songs misrepresents their views, particularly if such use could create the public impression of an endorsement.

But the one thing they should not do -- and should not legally be permitted to do -- is file a copyright lawsuit to prevent the political use of a song.

The first reason they give is somewhat technical:

Almost all recording artists make their songs available for use via a "blanket license" from firms such as ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Performers) or BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.). By lowering the cost of licensing, the blanket licensing system provides artists with revenue they would not otherwise obtain; it also makes it easy for bars and restaurants to play music without hassle, fear or crippling costs. If artists start trying to pick and choose who is eligible for a blanket license, the efficiency of the system would be destroyed.

Although somewhat simplified, that's reasonably accurate. However, it only explains why it would be an unwise business practice for artists to pick and choose their licensees, not why it would be bad public policy.

(By the way, the idea that the current music licensing system is efficent is a questionable proposition. It was probably pretty efficent back when music was all recorded live in studios and then pressed into vinyl records, but in our era of modern digital production pipelines, where highschool students can make music videos with pocket cameras and distribute them over the internet, it seems to pointlessly impair creativity.)

Their other reason is a little scary:

Politicians use songs as a way to tell people what they stand for -- or at least what they want us to believe they stand for. Using a song to communicate a political message is just the kind of speech the First Amendment was designed to protect.

And I fully support the right of every politician to write and record as many songs as they want. But if they want to use somebody else's songs, they should play by the rules.

Kip Esquire has a well-reasoned response worth reading.

 

 

When John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his runningmate, one of the first things everybody noticed was that after all the talk about how inexperienced Barack Obama was, McCain's pick for Vice President---that is, his choice for President if he can't do the job---had even less experience. It seemed an odd choice, and it undercut his campaign's ability to bring up the experience issue.

Now David Tarrell of In The Moment points out another Obama-like aspect of McCain's choice. One of the stickier character issues the right has been throwing at Obama is his relationship with former Weather Underground bomber William Ayers. Any association with former terrorist, no matter how tenuous, is cause for concern. Which makes it all the more interesting that Sarah Palin's husband was involved in the anti-American Alaska Independence Party, the founder of which, Joe Vogler, was murdered when a deal to buy plastic explosives went bad.

It's like McCain was trying to undermine his own side's talking points.

Over at Marathon Pundit, blogger John Ruberry accuses Barack Obama of being a "free speech phony" and quotes with approval from an editorial by Ann Woolner:

When WGN-AM Radio in Chicago scheduled a two-hour interview last week with David Freddoso, who wrote The Case Against Barack Obama the campaign sent out an alarm to supporters, sparking an avalanche of angry phone calls to the station.

I think this misses the mark. It's one thing to try to shout down an opponent trying to give a speech in an auditorium, but Freddoso was appearing on a talk show. People are supposed to call in to talk to the guest. Executive producer Zack Christenson has only said that the extra volume of calls made it more difficult to run the show, but the show still ran and Freddoso still got to say his piece. Calling this an attack on free speech is silly.

Woolner tries to characterize the incident as a deliberate attempt to "jam a radio station's phone lines with angry callers" and argues that the Obama campaign should have sent someone to the station for a debate.

Maybe. But asking supporters to call the station is certainly a reasonable alternative. The proper response to "bad" speech is "good" speech, and that's what the callers where doing. Woolner is just arguing about who should be delivering the speech.

What's especially odd about Ruberry's excerpt of this piece is that there are clearer examples of the Obama campaign's attempts to suppress opposition speech.

For example, the National Rifle Association is running this ad, accusing Obama of all kinds of anti-gun nuttiness, which may or may not be true. I'll let Jesse Walker explain the problem with the Obama campaign's response:

Instead of, say, crafting a response ad, Obama's team had general counsel Robert F. Bauer send stations a letter arguing that "Failure to prevent the airing of 'false and misleading advertising may be 'probative of an underlying abdication of licensee responsibility.'" And, more directly: "For the sake of both FCC licensing requirements and the public interest, your station should refuse to continue to air this advertisement."

(Copy of the letter here.)

So, while the stuff John Ruberry was complaining about earlier is not worth worrying about, this is a genuine threat to use the government to squelch what someone is saying. It makes me wonder about the things Obama will try to do if we actually put him in charge.

(And while we're at it, I don't think the NRA is totally off the mark. Bauer's letter includes a detailed explanation of how the NRA twisted Obama's position on guns, and they didn't have to twist very far. His statements on gun control have left him a lot of maneuvering room, and the NRA was able to use some of it against him.)

On the other hand, when it comes to using the law to attack election-related free speech, Obama's just playing it by the book. And John McCain wrote the book.

Thanks to the McCain-Feingold Law and others like it, when a group of Americans wants to band together to discuss politics with other Americans, they need permission from the government. It's called campaign reform, but it's arguably the greatest attack on free speech in my lifetime.

Awesome.

There's been a list going around of books that Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin tried to have banned.  The list is a lie.

Then there's the photo of her wearing an American flag bikini and holding a rifle, or the one of her in a short skirt and high heels, or the nude photo of her that appeared in a Chinese newspaper. All fakes.

There's also the "lizards of Satan" quotes from her that circulated around the internet. Also fake.

Then there's the story that John McCain and Sarah Palin have both sought to have rape victims charged for the cost of the "rape kit" that police use to gather evidence. To pick a concrete example, here's Jed Lewison's description of what McCain did:

In 1994, John McCain voted against legislation -- pushed through Congress by Joe Biden -- that helped put an end to the practice of charging rape victims for sexual assault exams.

Well, sort of. Section 2005 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (H.R. 3335) conditions financial grants to the states on them not charging rape victims for the exams, and McCain really did vote against the bill. However, section 2005 is only 300 words out of the entire 150,000-word bill. With 500 times more stuff in the rest of the bill than in Section 2005, it seems absurd to imply that McCain was specifically voting against that section. It's another example of the lie-that-is-not-technically-a-lie that is so common during the political season.

Now consider the accusation against Sarah Palin:

Eight years ago, the Alaskan Legislature had to pass a bill that banned towns from charging rape victims for the kits used to prove the crime and capture the perpetrator. These kits cost between $300 and $1,200 a piece, and are an essential portion of the investigation. There was only one town in the state doing this: Wasilla, where Sarah Palin was mayor.

I followed the links and poked around, and the story seems pretty solid. Former Alaska Governor Tony Knowles is quoted as saying, "There was one town in Alaska that was charging victims for this, and that was Wasilla." It seems like a smoking gun.

I don't believe a word of it.

On its own, the story appears moderately credible, but given the parade of lies that came before it, I see no reason to believe this is anything other than another lie.

Maybe it's not, but until the story has been thoroughly investigated, can you blame me for being skeptical?

Over at Classically Liberal, they raise in interesting question that someone really ought to ask John McCain. As we all know by now, Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol has a 17-year old daughter who is pregnant by her 18-year old boy friend. I don't see how this has anything to do with Palin's qualifications for vice president.

But here's the thing: In McCain's home state of Arizona, the age of consent is 18, with no "romeo and juliet" exception for people near in age. If Bristol and her boyfriend had sex in Arizona, he would be guilty of a Class 6 felony, punishable by 1 to 2.25 years in prison. I think he would also have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

So the question for McCain is: Should Bristol's boyfriend be sent to prison? Or is this part of Arizona's criminal code a stupid idea? Unless I've misread the Arizona code, it pretty much has to be one of those, right?

To be fair, these laws are probably not enforced very often when the lovers are this close in age. But most states do enforce the drug laws. In a post at The Art of the Possible the lovely and talented Jennifer raises some issues about these laws that suggests a question for Barack Obama.

Obama has admitted to using both pot and cocaine, and it doesn't seem to be hurting his chance of election. It certainly doesn't bother me.

But here's my question: Since you've been a legislator at the state and federal levels for several years without trying to repeal the laws against pot and cocaine, would our country have been better off if you'd been sent to prison when you were a teenager?

Of course, if Obama had been caught and sent to prison (like a lot of other young people) he probably never would have been allowed to rise up in his community and run for office.

As Jennifer points out, the moral principle at work here is very strange: Despite claims to the contrary, it's okay to do drugs in your youth, and you can still become an important politician, as long as you never got caught.

I can't help it. This is just a little spooky.

I know I'm late, but everyone else has said something about it, so I might as well. I'm just going to quote a few small bits from the speech and drop some comments.

I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night.

It's been what, less than a week? And already I'm tired of hearing about Biden taking the train. We get it already.

We meet at one of those defining moments - a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more.

I was about to bitch about this, because there's nothing unusual about us being at war and having less-than-stellar economic performance. It happens all the time. However, he did say it was "one of" the defining moments, so I'll give him a pass.

These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush.

In a nutshell, that's the basic bad idea of the Democrats: That government has to provide a solution to every problem. Lately, it's also the basic bad idea of the Republicans.

We are more compassionate than a government that...sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes.

He's talking about New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, right? Because it wasn't just Bush's FEMA that let the people of New Orleans down.

Tonight--- tonight I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and Independents across this great land - enough! This moment - this election - is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive. Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third. And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look like the last eight. On November 4th, we must stand up and say: "Eight is enough."

In other words, to no one's surprise, Obama is running against George Bush.

But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time? I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a ten percent chance on change.

The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives - on health care and education and the economy - Senator McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made "great progress" under this President. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisors - the man who wrote his economic plan - was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners."

Lots of McCain-slamming here. I'll get back to that later.

Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?

Once again, we're hearing anti-corporate nonsense from Obama. Corporations exists only as legal entities, so they consume no real-world resources. If you let corporations keep more money, it all has to go to the people who own them, run them, loan them money, or work for them.

I'm unfamiliar with most of McCain's other proposals that are being slammed by Obama, but I'm willing to bet that McCain's privatization plan for Social Security is bad. Most privatization plans are ugly mixtures of government and private investment that provide very little benefit.

We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was President

Some day I must find out where these job figures come from. Is that only jobs created, ignoring jobs lost? It seems too high for a net figure. And in any case, the unemployment numbers are probably more representative of our national welfare.

Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

Good luck figuring out how to define that in a way that businesses can't work around.

The only way I can think of to stop companies from shipping jobs overseas is to make it hard for them to import their products back here. If Nike can't bring shoes into the country, they won't have any reason to build factories outside the country.

Of course, making it harder to import shoes also makes it harder for Americans to buy shoes and drives up the price of footwear. For a guy who doesn't want to help corporations at the expense of ordinary Americans, Obama sure seems willing to screw over consumers.

Also, if we start imposing import tariffs (or worse, quotas) so will our trading partners, which will hurt all American industries that are net exporters. Trade wars are never good for the economy.

I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.

On the other hand, I never would have thought I'd hear a Democrat talking about reducing capital gains taxes.

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Ten years? I say "no way." It took us almost ten years to go to the moon, and that was much easier than converting the power generation and transportation facilities of a nation of 300 million people to use alternative energy sources.

As President, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power.

I gotta give him props. The estimates of our natural gas reserves are huge. And when was the last time you heard a Democrat say nice things about nuclear power?

I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I'll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy - wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced.

There he goes again, helping out those corporations he hates so much. I guess giving corporations 150 billion dollars is an investment in the economy that creates new jobs, but giving those same companies billions of dollars in tax breaks is evil.

And doesn't he just like to frighten us with the outsourcing bogeyman?

Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy.

No, no, no. We don't compete in the global economy. Individual firms may have competitors in other nations, but countries as a whole don't compete in any meaningful sense of market competition.

I'll invest in early childhood education. I'll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. And in exchange, I'll ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American - if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.

Yes, blow a kiss to the teachers' unions. And is that a national service program he's talking about?

And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day's work, because I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons.

With a few exceptions, women already have the same opportunites, they just don't all want them. Much of the apparent pay differential can be explained by the fact that women don't really have exactly the same jobs as men.

And today, as my call for a time frame to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed by the Iraqi government and even the Bush Administration, even after we learned that Iraq has a $79 billion surplus while we're wallowing in deficits, John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.

This is actually turning out rather well. The new Iraq security strategy seems to be working, so by the time Obama is in charge, everyone will probably want to withdraw our troops.

As Commander-in-Chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home.

That sounds like the Powell doctrine, which the Bush administration abandoned for the Iraq war.

For part of what has been lost these past eight years can't just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose. And that's what we have to restore.

This sort of rhetoric scares me. To the extent we have a true common purpose, we should work toward it, of course, but my family has purposes of our own, and I don't want us to abandon them for any politician's idea of what our "common purpose" should be. We'll be hearing more about this in next week's convention.

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than they are for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This too is part of America's promise - the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

One of these things is not like the others. Obama's line that he doesn't know "anyone who benefits when...an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers" is wrong on its face. He clearly knows who benefits, because he mentions them in the quoted sentence: When an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers, both the employer and the illegal workers benefit. So do consumers, who get cheaper products. Obama may want to formulate policy that ignores the welfare of those people, but it's a lie to pretend that no one will be hurt.

On the other hand, it's nice to see a mention of gay marriage in there, even if it's hidden.

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that's to be expected. Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

Which is what Obama did to McCain when he was slamming him earlier in the speech.

You have shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington.

This is a great line. "At defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. " Awesome. I love it.

Never gonna happen.

Our election system is sliding faster and faster toward being a fake form of democracy.

Here's an anti-Obama ad created by the American Issues Project, which appears to be some sort of conservative organization. It points out some possibly troubling connections between presidential candidate Barack Obama and William Ayers, a member of a radical group called the Weathermen, which committed terrorist acts in the 1970's.

I have no idea if the ad is accurate, because it's not really the point of this post.  This is:

Obama general counsel Bob Bauer today sent a second, sharper letter to the Justice Department, directly attacking the Dallas billionaire funding a harsh attack ad, Harold Simmons.

"We reiterate our request that the Department of Justice fulfill its commitment to take prompt action to investigate and to prosecute the American issues Project, and we further request that the Department of Justice investigate and prosecute Howard (sic) Simmons for a knowing and willful violation of the individual aggregate contribution limits," he wrote.

Wonderful. Now we have a politicians trying to prosecute each other's supporters for illegal advertising. This is a predictable consequence of our insane campaign financing laws, which try to characterize all speech about candidates as being equivalent to providing financial support. This is a direct attack on free speech where it matters most: Politics.

Although, it's not as if McCain doesn't have it coming.

I remember some years ago when feminists in Canada pushed through anti-pornography legislation in the name of protecting women. Once the law became effective, the very first victim of the law was a lesbian bookstore.

Similarly, Senator McCain has been a leader in the push for these stupid campaign finance laws---the flagship law is the McCain-Feingold Act---so it's only fitting that his supporters feel their sting.

Bizarrely, some right wing folks aren't thinking too clearly about the source of the threat:

If Obama is elected President, will he appoint an Attorney General who will carry out politically-motivated prosecutions like the one he is now demanding? I suppose we can't know for sure, but why wouldn't he? If he demands criminal prosecution of free speech that opposes his political interests when he's a candidate, why wouldn't he order it as President?

Are we supposed to believe that McCain, the guy who invented these un-American laws, wouldn't try to enforce them? 

With the conventions going on this week and next, both the Underdog Blog and Simple Justice have posts up reminding us that police state operations have become the norm around major political events, with protestors coralled blocks away in so-called "free speech zones." Silly me, I thought the whole damned country was supposed to be a free speech zone.

Both of them post this video:

I find the visuals of the protestors being confronted by faceless black-clad cops very disturbing. It looks like something you'd expect from a dictatorship. I guess the way you can tell it's still America is that they have batons and pepper spray instead of rifles and bayonets.

On the other hand, because of the way the video is put together it's hard to tell what's really going on. For one thing, I think a lot of the heavy police gear is body armor. That's generally a good thing, because keeping the cops safe reduces the chances of any of them lashing out in fear and hurting people.

Also, in any crowd of protestors, there are always going to be a few people who attempt to provoke the police to create a propaganda incident. If those are the people we see getting capstunned or arrested, it's hard to get outraged over them receiving exactly the attention they wanted.

To some extent, the distant free speech zones and the riot police are a response to the threat of sophisticated demonstrators whose goal is not only to protest the political events but to shut them down. They don't want a repeat of Seattle's WTO protests.

Things get really suspicious, however, when police start arresting members of the press who are there to cover the events, not take part in the protests. That's what happened to ABC news producer Asa Eslocker yesterday. Again, I don't know the facts, so he may have had it coming.

Still, I don't like seeing this sort of thing in my country.

Fans of TNT's The Closer know that when Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson tells a suspect that he's going to get away with his crimes, but then she asks him to do just one harmless little thing for her, he's about to go down hard.

I thought of that when I read this:

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton's name will be placed in nomination along with nominee-in-waiting Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention, an emblematic move intended to unite the party after a divisive primary.

...

"I am convinced that honoring Senator Clinton's historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong united fashion," said Obama, an Illinois senator.

I'm sure he's right.

Maybe it's just because I don't pay enough attention to election campaigns, but this is about the stupidest argument I've ever seen.

More coolness found at Hit & Run:

This is connected to the story that Sonny Landham (who played Billy in Predator) is running for Senator in Kentucky. If he wins, he'll be the third Predator star to gain political office.

Early in his career, Landham took off his clothes in a few adult fims, so naturally he's running on the Libertarian ticket.

Read the story at Hit & Run.

Mickey Kaus notices something interesting about McCain's new "Tolerance" ad, aside from the fact that it's two and a half minutes of lets-all-work-together-to-make-this-country-great feel-good noise:

Johm McCain?

Virginia Postrel has an interesting article in the Atlantic in which she argues that the glamour of Barack Obama has attractions and dangers.

For some reason, perhaps the magical origins of the word glamour, her argument makes me think of a couple of things in the Harry Potter universe: To supporters Obama is the Mirror of Erised, showing people what they desire most, but to his opponents he's a boggart, appearing to be whatever they fear most.

If he becomes president, we'll all find out what he really is.

(Hey, I'm sleep-deprived today. Give me a break.)

Without further explanation, here's former Democratic Presidential candidate Senator Mike Gravel.

Everybody's still talking about Obama's speech on race, so I might as well put in my two cents. Was it self serving? Of course. He's a politician in an election year. But I mostly thought it was damned good.

Too many politicians, when confronted with embarassing statements by a friend, will either dissemble---"I didn't know", "that's out of context", "you're just bringing this up to attack my candidacy"---or else throw their friend under a bus.

Obama did neither. He denounced Pastor Wright's inflammatory rhetoric, but he didn't abandon him. That's how real people do it. That's how I do it.

One of my friends is a bit of a racist, to the point where she will occasionally drop the N-word into our conversation. I don't like it when she gets that way, but there's not much I can do to change her mind, and I'm not going to kick her to the curb just because her behavior is sometimes distasteful. You just don't do that to friends.

Only someone with obscene political ambitions would choose friends based on how good they'll look in an election year. I think pretty much the same thing goes for pastors.

(Actually, that's another issue. Most people don't choose a pastor, they choose a congregation. Churches serve a social function as well as a religious one, and the pastor is only part of the package. I imagine there are days when people listening to Wright's sermon just role their eyes at the things he goes on about. That's part of the fun.)

Obama's larger message about race relations in this country sounded pretty good too. Basically, he pointed out that there's been an ongoing struggle over race since this country was founded, that things have been improving steadily, and that people of all races have genuine reasons to be angry or fearful about the process. Then he called on everyone to put aside fake election-time racial issues---who said what, what did they mean, and who's outraged by it---and focus on the real problems we all face together. Only he said it better than I did.

It was a message of conciliation and unity, but I also think he was very politely warning his opponents: In a battle of words over whether the friends of white or black candidates are more racist, the white folks are going to lose.

Still, it was nicely done. Instead of spouting slogans, Obama treated his audience as adults who could understand the nuances of friendship and community and politics and race.

It also doesn't hurt that I agreed with almost everything he said. But "almost" leaves room for a couple of problems. The first one is here:

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many.

Why is it that so many political liberals hate corporations? This just seems terribly misguided to me. Corporations are the mechanism by which we can quickly, efficiently, and voluntarily aggregate the resources of thousands of people toward a common goal. Without them, we'd be a third-world nation. They are the engines of our national prosperity.

I'm not saying that corporations don't end up doing some really bad things, but that's because they are run by people, and people sometimes do bad things.

Also---and this is one of the key policy differences between liberals and libertarians like me---most of the really bad things done by corporations are only possible because some government is helping them. Corporations like Pfizer or Target can't take people's land by eminent domain, only governments can do that. Corporations can't force anyone to do anything, except with the help---or at least the acquiescence---of governments.

Those lobbyists and special interests Obama talks about wouldn't be able to dominate Washington if our congressmen and president weren't so eager to let them. Before blaming the business world, Obama should clean his own house.

The second problem with Obama's speech is here:

This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

There are at least three problems with that sentence. First, there's nothing wrong with making a profit. If it weren't for profits, nobody would invest in corporations, and they wouldn't employ people to make stuff.

Second, corporations don't switch to overseas factories to make a profit. They switch to overseas factories to lower their cost of production. If they're lucky, they might be able to keep some of the savings and make a profit---at least for a little while---but usually they are forced by competition to pass their savings on to consumers. That's because their competition is also lowering costs with overseas production, and if they didn't lower prices to match, they'd lose their market share and go out of business. Corporations ship jobs overseas to lower consumer prices so they can stay alive.

The third problem really stinks up Obama's speech. He's allowed his anti-corporate obsession to corrupt his egalitarian impulses. When corporations "ship our jobs overseas," they give them to other people, people who in most cases need them more than we do. Apparently those other people don't count in Obama's calculus.

At the start of his speech, Obama makes a point of mentioning that his father was from Kenya. Obama supports increased immigration, so I guess it would be okay with him if Kenyans came here to work in an American factory. So why would it be wrong for an American company to bring the factory to the Kenyans?

It's not for nothing that Chicago is known for the slogan "Vote early, vote often." This town is famous for voting irregularities. Florida took that fame away from us, what with a presidential election swinging on butterfly ballots and hanging chad.

But today, in a story reported by the Tribune's David Kidwell, we showed that although we may not be #1 any more, when it comes to election weirdness, we've still got some moves:

It's no Agatha Christie novel but a real case for election investigators sent to the 49th Ward's 42nd precinct Tuesday morning, after 20 ballots were cast with "magic" invisible ink pens.

Election officials just smirked, shook their heads in disbelief and called it the most bizarre election snafu in recent memory.

Apparently, said city election board spokesman James Allen, the poll workers told incredulous voters—including one spouse of an election judge—that the stylus used for touch-screen voting was actually an inkless pen to fill out paper ballots.

We're back, baby!

If I get time tomorrow, I'm going to visit a few polling places to talk to people and take pictures for the Chi-Town Daily News. I know where I have to vote, but I haven't got a clue where to find other polling places in the neighborhood.

The first place I thought to look is the Illinois State Board of Elections web site. Let's see, there are sections on Campaign Disclosure, Election Information, Voting Information---ah hah! That must be it.

There's a voter information pamplet, adopted and proposed rulemaking, a humorous video on why to vote---okay, I gotta see what counts as humor by Board of Elections standards. Buffering...buffering...buffering..."Terry S. Vermin has been re-elected. Oh no! Quick! To the Time Machine!"...buffering...buffering...buffering...sigh. I have a 3Mb connection.  It's about what you'd expect.  See for yourself.

Anyway, there are links for district boundaries, voting systems, election authorities, and a history of polling place accessibility. Nothing about where to vote under Voter Information.  Let's look around some more...Aha, there's a link to something called the Illinois Voters Guide.

Oh, well, that's not good.

(It was at this point that I realized I had the makings of a blog entry.)

So I backed up and followed the Election Authorities link and then clicked through to the Cook Country Clerk's Office and found a page that will find your polling place. But it doesn't have what I need.

I know what's going on here. If I complained to the Illinois Board of Elections, someone there would tell me it's not their job to keep track of polling places. That makes it seem like they're just being obstructionist jerks, but it's not really that. I just haven't found the right unit of government yet. They're still delivering terrible customer service, but they just don't see it as their problem to point me to the right place.

Anyway, just for the fun of it, I type my address into the Cook County Clerk's form for finding polling locations, and sure enough, I get an error message:

No Information Found

No information was found for the information submitted.
Note that this service is FOR SUBURBAN COOK COUNTY VOTERS ONLY.

Obviously, even though Chicago is entirely in Cook County, it has its own web site. Not surprisingly, there's no link.

So now it's off to the City of Chicago web site. It would be nice to see a link or a little content box about the election on the front page, but there's nothing. The city web portal is a soulless, spirit-crushing, content-managed monstrosity that seems to be designed to prevent any city department from posting anything interesting or relevant. It's pretty obvious that some pages are never maintained.

As I'm steeling myself to poke around in the twisty maze of links, I get another idea. I back up to the list of Election Authorities and...yes, they have a link for the City of Chicago. I note that the builders of this page have bought a new domain rather than try to use the city's main portal. Maybe it will have something useful.

I click on "Voters", then "Find your polling place" and get to a form which I fill out with my address. It finds me, and it has the right polling place.

Even better, it also has a PDF of all the polling places in the city. Score!

There are dozens of polling places in my ward alone, but now at least I can find them.

That was the hard way to get that information, but I was curious how hard it would be. Now let me try the easy way. I type "where do i vote in chicago" into Google and click the "I Feel Lucky" button and Bam! Right to the Chicago elections page.

Barack Obama seems like a heck of guy, but I'm not convinced he's ready to be president. I like a candidate who talks about hope---so many seem to be trying to scare us all to death---but I want him to get a little more experience.

I think Hillary Clinton has a better chance of getting us out of Iraq in a reasonable way, and I'm hoping she'll follow her husband's economic policies. That's not what she's saying she'll do, but then her husband said a lot of crazy things too, and he managed to avoid ruining the economy.

Or we could get a Republican president. Everybody says the Democrats are going to win this thing, but then last summer everybody said Giuliani would be the Republican nominee. Political fortunes change pretty fast---just ask our current president.

As for Obama, I say we bring him back to Illinois...and run him for governor.

If he can hold that office for a few years without doing anything disgraceful (that's setting the bar pretty high by Illinois standards), he'll have done the people of Illinois a great service, and he'll get some executive experience for his next presidential run.

Sigh. I don't really know what I'm talking about. When Bush was elected, I figured he'd probably do a decent job, so what do I know? Maybe I'll just vote for Ron Paul, so that whatever happens I'll be able to say it's not my fault.

If you're not a regular surfer in the libertarian blogosphere, you probably haven't been following the big Ron Paul story, which is that around a decade ago he published a newsletter and a few issues had some stuff that seems pretty racist.

The libertarian blogs have been posting a lot about this story, and every time they do, a bunch of Paul's supporters chime in with rather a lot of criticism, even to pieces that are mostly constructive advice. Having waded through a lot of their comments, I've seen a few that make me understand why Wonkette (a political blogger I've heard of but rarely read) calls these people Paultards.

I'd like to address a few of their arguments, starting with some of the sensible ones.

This is old news.

Paul's supporters in libertarian circles have been hauling this out ever since Paul himself first used it in response to a few questions by Reason's David Weigel:

reason: Do you have any response to The New Republic's article about your newsletters?

Ron Paul: All it is--it's old stuff. It's all been rehashed. It's all political stuff.

reason: Why don't you release all the old letters?

Paul: I don't even have copies of them, because it's ancient history.

reason: Do you stand by what appears in the letters? Did you write these...?

Paul: No. I've discussed all of that in the past. It's just old news.

This may be old news to Paul's supporters, but it's not old news to a lot of other people.

The big story about Ron Paul in libertarian circles is that he's attracted a much larger following to the movemenent than any other libertarian figure. His supporters bring this up all the time.

Guess what?  All those new followers weren't paying attention the first time this was news, back when Paul was running for Congress in Texas.

Virginia Postrel posts an excerpt from a message she received:

My wife and I were big Ron Paul supporters (until yesterday, in fact). We're also 29 and 30 years old, which means we weren't paying attention to Ron Paul in the 90's. We donated money to the campaign, and I suppose we failed to do the due diligence on Paul, as we didn't dig through archives of his old newsletters. We feel terrifically betrayed, not only by Ron Paul, but by older libertarians like yourself for not publicly warning us about him.

This was not old news to those people.

Paul didn't even write those articles.

Yeah, we got that. As nearly every libertarian writer on the subject has acknowledged, nobody has ever heard Paul say anything like what's in those letters. Everyone involved says that a lot of those articles were written by other people. We're all willing to believe that someone else wrote a lot of that stuff.

We're even somewhat willing to believe that Paul didn't read the newsletters before they went out. It was a fundraising operation, and he probably had other things to do besides read the newsletter. But you've got to admit it was pretty careless to allow stuff line that to be sent out in his name.

Paul has already taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under his name.

Yes, he has. But some of us don't just want him to take responsibility, we want an explanation of how this happened.

Paul says he didn't know what was in the newsletters. Maybe the people writing the newsletters were using them to advance their own agenda, but surely at some point one of Paul's friends or staffers came up to him and said, "Ron, you need to see what's in the newsletter. I think we have a problem..."

However, if that happened, Paul seemingly never did anything about it. He claims he doesn't even know who the writers were.

"It’s obvious that you’re out to get Ron Paul. Why don’t you do equal reporting on the TRUCKLOADS of skeletons and evil things that the other candidates and media don’t discuss?" (source)

If a woman is dating a man who never takes her anyplace nice, why does she complain only about him to her girlfriends when there are billions of other men who aren’t taking her anyplace at all?

Paul's the one who's asking us to dance.

You're going after Paul about the newsletters just like you did about the Don Black donation.

That wasn't a libertarian issue at all. Paul didn't take Don Black's money. Don Black sent some money to the Paul campaign, at which point it stopped being Don Black's money and became Paul's money. Paul could do whatever he wanted with his money. Most libertarians got that.

"Kirchick is a Yalie bonesman -- that should explain all to discredit the story!" (source)

I suppose whatever that means could be a reaon for Kirchick to lie. But since the Ron Paul campaign has acknowledged the newsletters were sent out, what exactly would he be lying about?

Kirchick saved all this until right before the New Hampshire primary. Kirchick is just out to get Ron Paul.

Of course he is. We'd never hear anything bad about politicians if it weren't for their enemies. Do you think the Clinton whitehouse would ever have said anything about Monica Lewinsky if someone else hadn't brought it up first?

"The Lavander Mafia along with the Israel firsters are trying to destroy Ron Paul." (source) "The 'libertarians' at tReason have shown their true colors. Anything to service your neocon masters, eh?" (source) "Here is an anatomy of the spread of the smear campaign against Ron Paul just prior to and on the crucial “king-making” New Hampshire primary day..." (source)

So it's all a conspiracy? The gays, the Jews, the neocons, the Beltway libertarians...all out to get Ron Paul?

I have several responses here:

1. That's exactly the sort of crazy talk that got us here in the first place.
2. Even if there were a conspiracy against Paul, that doesn't actually make him a better candidate.
3. It still doesn't explain the newsletters.
4. The writers at Reason are hardly out to get Ron Paul. They've been glossing over his anti-libertarian positions on some issues for months, and now that the newsletters are big news, they're not exactly beating on Ron Paul so much as begging him to explain.

"We will remember your actions in this campaign, and we will never support Reason or CATO again if you continue down this path." (source) 

I guess when you can't make arguments, you give ultimatums.

You're just beating a dead horse.

Oh, but that comment never gets old...

Paul has said he didn't write the newsletters and that he takes moral responsibility. What more do you want?

An actual explanation of what happened.

Saying it's old news, shooting the messenger, and crying "Conspiracy!" are not explanations. They're attempts to avoid an explanation.

Explaining that someone else wrote the newsletters is only part of the explanation. Here are a few questions for Dr. Paul that might fill in some details:

• When did you first find out what was in the news letters? Who pointed it out to you? What was your first reaction?
• Who wrote the letters? If you don't know, why not? Didn't you think it was important at the time to find out who the author was? If not, why not?
• If you don't know who the author was, then who had final editorial control of the newsletters? Not you, but the person who actually made the decision to let this stuff run?
• Did you confront the author/editor about this? What did they say?
• Why did you let this go on so long? Did you not notice? Did you not think it was important?
• Was it a matter of free speech? Were you reluctant to censor the writers? Was that a mistake?
• Was the appeal to racists a big-tent strategy? Were you pandering to the racists just to get their money? Weren't you concerned how that would make you look?

One more thing:

Ron Paul is a fearless advocate of libertarianism. He wants to end the war on drugs, bring the troops back home, shut down the Federal Reserve bank, abolish income taxes, and eliminate half the cabinet. He says more crazy things in a 10-minute interview than most candidates say all year.

Ron Paul is not afraid to say what he believes, and he clearly believes that the American people will agree with him once they understand what he's saying.

So why doesn't he trust us with the explanation for the newsletters?

[Note: I think this story has played itself out, at least for the moment, and now that I've got this out of my system, I'm tired of writing about it.]

Ron Paul was on CNN, talking to Wolf Blitzer about the racist material in his newsletters. He repudiates the content of the offending pieces, but he still says he has no idea who wrote them. I have a lot of trouble with that statement.

Paul must have known there was racist material in the newsletter, but he appears not to have done anything about it. In fact, he claims not to even know which of his staff wrote those parts.

Does that seem reasonable to you? If you were a politician---or anybody with a newsletter, really---and someone showed you that the newsletter had racist statements going out in your name, wouldn't you have wanted to find out who was doing it?

Either Paul does know who wrote those articles and he's lying when he says he doesn't, or else Paul read those newsletters and didn't see anything that alarmed him. Neither of those is a very reassuring answer.

You can watch the whole Paul interview here. Be warned, it's about 8 minutes long, and parts of it are painful to watch. Paul is not a slick public speaker. Blitzer actually takes pity on him and tries to coach him through the interview. It's a little like going to dinner with your great uncle Herb who calls all black males "colored boys," and you know he probably doesn't mean anything by it, but you really hope nobody you know is sitting in the next booth.

Except that Paul isn't family, so I can kick him to the curb any time I want, and maybe it's time I do. That's too bad, because it's been nice seeing libertarian ideas getting airtime, so I've kind of been rooting for Paul even though I disagree with him on a number of his pet issues.

Blogger Kip Esquire has been all over Paul for months about his opposition to gay marriage. I probably should have been paying more attention. It's not a libertarian position to say the government should only give special legal status to pairs of people if they are of an acceptable gender combination.

Paul's also not much of a libertarian when it comes to immigration, with all his talk about enforcing immigration laws, ending the 14th Amendment's guarantee of citizenship to all persons born in the United States, and "securing our borders," whatever that means.

Ron Paul is also an advocate for putting our currency back on the gold standard and abolishing the Federal Reserve Bank. Both those ideas seem a little crazy to me, but I have to admit I don't understand the issues well enough to be sure.

More recently, I've heard that Paul wants the United States to remove our military forces from all foreign countries. The argument is that having forces in other countries is costly and risks involving us in battles that are not our own. But withdrawing certain of our forces could allow other free nations to fall, which is clearly a bad thing for freedom. Also, it's a lot better to fight an enemy on foreign soil than on our own.

Some of Paul's supporters have defended the racist material in the newsletters---or at least Paul's response to it---by saying that even if Paul has racists thoughts, he would never use the government to do racists acts, because that goes against libertarian principles.

I think they are confusing policy and personal values. For example, I think the principle of free speech means that Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps should be not be prevented by force of government from saying the hateful things he says. But I would not want to elect him to office, or invite him into my home, or be photographed standing anywhere near him in case people get the wrong idea. Paul's not anywhere near that bad, but these newsletters still worry me.

Another response from Paul's supporters is that no candidate is perfect, and Ron Paul is the best there is. Sadly, this could be true.

Think about this for a minute: In the CNN interview above, Ron Paul says that if he wins the election he'll pardon everyone who's in federal prison for a non-violent drug offense. So by not supporting Paul, am I really saying that my distaste for a few racist newsletters is more important than freeing 80,000 people from bondage?

It's a haunting thought. Or it would be, except for one thing: Ron Paul is not going to be our next president. The Ron Paul presidency isn't going to serve the libertarian cause because there isn't going to be a Ron Paul presidency. It's just not going to happen, and it never was.

On the other hand, the Ron Paul candidacy has been serving the libertarian cause fairly well. Paul and his supporters have put a lot of great libertarian ideas out in front of the public, and that's a good thing. Among other accomplishments, Paul has gone a long way toward making drug war opposition an acceptable policy. That's a tremendous contribution to freedom.

Ron Paul's run for president has been a great publicity stunt for the libertarian movement, but if the newsletters start to make libertarianism look bad, it's going to undo some of our gains. In that case, it would be better if the public stopped hearing so much about Ron Paul.

We'll see what happens, but maybe it's time to bring the Ron Paul revolution to a quiet end.

Something calling itself The New Republic has an article by James Kirchick called "Angry White Man" accusing Republican/libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul of racism, and it looks pretty ugly. The piece quotes from some newsletters sent out in Paul's name during the 90s. It's vile stuff:

"Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began," read one typical passage. According to the newsletter, the looting was a natural byproduct of government indulging the black community with "'civil rights,' quotas, mandated hiring preferences, set-asides for government contracts, gerrymandered voting districts, black bureaucracies, black mayors, black curricula in schools, black tv shows, black tv anchors, hate crime laws, and public humiliation for anyone who dares question the black agenda." It also denounced "the media" for believing that "America's number one need is an unlimited white checking account for underclass blacks."

This "Special Issue on Racial Terrorism" was hardly the first time one of Paul's publications had raised these topics. As early as December 1989, a section of his Investment Letter, titled "What To Expect for the 1990s," predicted that "Racial Violence Will Fill Our Cities" because "mostly black welfare recipients will feel justified in stealing from mostly white 'haves.'" Two months later, a newsletter warned of "The Coming Race War," and, in November 1990, an item advised readers, "If you live in a major city, and can leave, do so. If not, but you can have a rural retreat, for investment and refuge, buy it."

Ron Paul has not handled this very well:

reason: Do you have any response to The New Republic's article about your newsletters?

Ron Paul: All it is--it's old stuff. It's all been rehashed. It's all political stuff.

reason: Why don't you release all the old letters?

Paul: I don't even have copies of them, because it's ancient history.

reason: Do you stand by what appears in the letters? Did you write these...?

Paul: No. I've discussed all of that in the past. It's just old news.

This may be old news to Paul, but it's not old news to me. I never heard of these newsletters before, and I'll bet a lot of the people casting votes for him haven't either. Besides, "old news" is not a response. It's an attempt to avoid a response.

Sigh. Hanging out with libertarians now and then, I've had to learn to avoid those libertarians. The conversation usually goes someting like this:

One of Those Libertarians: I'm a libertarian.

Me: I'm something of a libertarian myself. I'm not a fan of big intrusive government.

OoTL: Me neither. We've got to find some way to stop affirmative action and welfare.

Me: Oh, hey, nice to meet you but I've got a thing...

I worry a bit about people who contemplate all the myriad ways government is abusing us and conclude that the biggest problem is laws that help minorities.

(Personally, technically, I think affirmative action is a bad idea too.  The government should not be telling us who to do business with based on race. But it's not the first problem I think of when I worry about the abuse of government power. It's not even the tenth problem, and maybe not even the hundredth problem.)

It sounds like some of Paul's supporters were those libertarians.

In a press release, Paul has denied writing the newsletters, denounced the contents, and more-or-less said he's sorry they went out in his name.

That's not good enough for me. I want to know how these letters went out for years without him doing anything about it. Maybe he trusted his people too much and didn't bother to read them, but in all those years, surely one of his friends came up to him at some point and said, "Paul, you need to see what's in the newsletter..."

I often tell people I do political blogging, but the truth is that while I cover political issues, I don't usually cover actual politics. However, there was some sort of event in Iowa yesterday that everyone is talking about, and according to the rumors I'm hearing, it wasn't just another debate or poll but an actual election, so maybe I should say something about it.

I guess I'm most surprised by the results for Chris Dodd and Duncan Hunter, largely because I didn't know that Chris Dodd and Duncan Hunter were still in this race.

The Republican results worry me. In 6th place with nearly 4% of the vote, we're still a little too close to a Giuliani presidency for my comfort.

Oddly, the Iowa results mirror my best guess at the final election outcome. I think it will be Obama v.s. Huckabee, and I think Obama will draw a few more votes in the general election.

Either that, or else the Hillary Clinton election machine will keep grinding away, crushing all opposition, until she defeats Romney in the general election.

Or maybe something else will happen. You heard it here first.

 

If you think I overstate the dangers of a Giuliani presidency, check out the cover The American Conservative uses to promote it's article about Giuliani's grind-our-enemies-under-our-chariot-wheels foreign policy.

 

I ought to admit here that I tried to read the article, but it was kind of a boring analysis of various people's influences on Giuliani.

(Hat tip: Hit & Run)

Not sure who to vote for?  There's an interesting presidential candidate selector quiz over at glassbooth.org.

You start by ranking the importance of the issues, which you do by distributing 20 points over 14 issues. For example, if the most important issues are health care and social security, you might give those each 5 points, and then scatter the remaining 10 points over a few other issues. Note that adding point to an issue like gun control doesn't mean you're in favor of gun control. It just means you have strong feelings about it one way or the other.

Once you've ranked the issues for the selection software, it asks you a few questions about each issue that you gave at least one point. The site then compares your values to the candidates, ranks them by similarity, and shows you the top three.

I am not too surprised by my top three:

• 1 - Ron Paul
• 2 - Christopher Dodd
• 3 - Dennis Kucinich

With Mike Gravel running a close 4th place. Whackjobs, every one of them, according to the media.

I don't know much about where Christopher Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, or Mike Gravel stand on the issues, but Ron Paul as my #1 choice seems about right. I disagree with several of his positions, but I doubt anyone else comes closer on the issues I think are most important. He's not everything I'd want in a president, but he's definitely off in the right direction from the rest of the pack.

The site ranks all the candidates in order of similarity to my values.  Tom Tancredo is third from the bottom, with Mitt Romney just below him.

Regular readers will be able to guess who came in dead last.

(Hat tip: Todd Zywicki)

Even before he started running for president, there were three things I didn't like about Rudy Giuliani when he was mayor of New York:

• He said things like this.
• He tried to shut down legal businesses he disliked, such as strip clubs and adult bookstores.
• He aggressively defended New York police officers against accusations of misconduct before investigating.
• After police chief Bratton brought down New York's crime rate, Giuliani forced him out and took credit.
• At the end of his last term, Giuliani floated the idea of postponing the mayoral election so he could stay in office a little longer.

(Hmm. That's actually five things.  I really don't like Rudy.)

Now Rachel Morris looks back at Giuliani's mayoral period in this terrific anti-Rudy piece in Washington Monthly. He apparently behaved less like an elected official and more like a king consolidating his power.

I'm beginning to think Giuliani wouldn't just be a bad president, he'd be a terrifying president.

(Hat tip: Hit & Run)

Maybe.

I thought the kerfuffle over Obama not wearing a flag pin was pretty dumb. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody on Obama's campaign staff orchestrated the whole mess to make his opponents look petty.

Now John Ruberry just pointed out another flag flap for Obama. This time it's a picture of him and several other people standing for the national anthem. He's the only one who doesn't have his hand on his heart.

Somehow, this one bothers me.

I know I don't always remember to put my hand on my heart. I don't go to many live sporting events, so I rarely hear the anthem played, and I sometimes forget that I'm supposed to be doing something until I notice everyone else doing it. But I'm pretty sure a Senator and presidential candidate hears it a lot more.

Maybe that's the problem. Maybe he's been hearing it five times a day, every day, for the last year, and this time he forgot to salute. Maybe he was doing something else when they started playing—carrying a brief case, shaking hands with people in the crowd—and he just didn't go into "national anthem mode." Maybe if you watch every candidate all day every day, they all do stuff like this.

(It's not just a lucky shot by the photographer. There's also a video of the event which shows him with his arms down for a while. I should point out, however, that if you listen to the singing on the video, you can't entirely dismiss the possibility that he didn't realize that was supposed to be the national anthem.)

I can understand why he wouldn't wear a flag pin. Most people don't wear them, so by wearing one he would be making a greater show of patriotism than most Americans, and some people are repelled by that. I know I tend to suspect that anyone who puts on an extravagent show of patriotism is faking it because they are trying to sell me something.

But there's nothing extravagent about putting your hand on your chest. This is probably nothing...but I'd still like to hear his explanation.

Cartoonist David Horsey on the possiblilites at a Spouse's Debate.

This has the ring of truth.

This sounds like a good idea to me:

Oath of Presidential Transparency For Open, Transparent, and Accountable Government

I, __________________________, candidate for President of the United States, pledge to the American Public that, if elected President of the United States, my administration will be fully and robustly committed to open, transparent, and accountable government principles.

Effective management, accountability, transparency, and disclosure of taxpayer expended resources by federal agencies are of the utmost importance to maintain the trust of the American people. The paramount goal is effective and efficient delivery of critical government programs to the American people. Results-oriented management of federal agencies and taxpayer resources must be aggressively pursued and must provide maximum value for the public good.

Within 30 days of accession to the Presidency, I will execute an Executive Order ensuring timely implementation of, and administrative commitment to, the letter and spirit of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency (FFAT) Act of 2006 (PL# 109-282, 120 Stat. 1186).

The FFAT is supposed to establish a free searchable website that lists every person or organization that receives federal funds, so we'll all know where the money's going.

Signed, so far, by Senator Barack Obama (who was instrumental in passing the FFAT), Rep. Ron Paul (the most libertarian candidate), and Sen. Sam Brownback.

I think Rudy Giuliani may well be the most authoritarian of the mainstream presidential candidates. The man loves power too much. Here he is in a speech from 1994, before 9/11 made people forget what an ass he is:

We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

I think Rudy Giuliani is so law-and-order that he's Vlad Ţepeş waiting to be reborn. If you pitched the question to him in just the right way during a debate, I'm sure he'd enthusiastically support sending a message to would-be lawbreakers by impaling convicted criminals on the street corners and leaving their bodies to rot in the hot sun.

(Hat tip: Balko.)

Heh.

I didn't watch the Republican debates, but it sounds like it went about how I'd expect, only worse.

As a libertarian, I'm interested in seeing how well Ron Paul does. I don't agree with everything he stands for, but I like his minimalist approach to government. He's one of the few successful politicians who can hear about a new problem in the world and not immediately respond with a government program to fix it. He takes seriously the idea that some things just aren't part of the government's job.

That would be a refreshing change of pace.

There's no real chance he'll win, of course. The media doesn't understand him or take him seriously, and according to Reason, he's not a very good debater. In answer to a hypothetical question about the war in Iraq, he somehow managed to sound like he was blaming the United States's Iraq policy for the 9/11 attack. Giuliani promptly clobbered him.

(Not surprising. Giuliani's most important qualification for the job of President is that his city got blown up on 9/11. He's very strong on that subject.)

I guess when it comes to debating, Ron Paul just isn't quick on his feet. If we libertarians want to put someone in the debates who can hold his own in a verbal boxing match, I think our best bet is to draft magician/TV personality Penn Gillette. He's an incredibly fast thinker, he's a principled libertarian, and he knows how to craft short and devastating verbal attacks.

I just wish he wouldn't say "fuck" so much.

I'm listening to the audiobook of George Lakoff's Whose Freedom?: The Battle Over America's Most Important Idea, in which he contrasts the progressive and conservative ideas of freedom.

Lakoff repeats over and over again that progressive morality is built on empathy, whereas conservative morality is based on discipline. That formulation makes a certain amount of sense, but it doesn't get him where he wants to go.

For example, Lakoff claims that progressives empathize with the poor and want to help them with social programs, whereas conservatives say that social programs will make the poor dependant on government handouts, which hurts their self-discipline.

Now I've heard that argument from conservatives, and like Lakoff, I'm not impressed by it, but Lakoff is leaving out a huge part of the conservative case against social programs. It's a point that should be immediately obvious to anyone with even a passing grasp of economic reasoning: Somebody has to pay for the social programs.

If a government social program gives a single mom $1000 to take care of her children, that $1000 has to be taken away from someone else. The single mom deserves our empathy, but so does the person who earned that $1000 in the first place. It's okay to be empathetic, but be empathetic equally.

Lakoff could try to take a number of approaches to counter this argument. He could offer an argument as to why we should pay for social programs, or he could argue that the money would come from people who don't deserve it, or he could reject the "somebody-has-to-pay-for-it" argument as irrelevant misdirection.

However, it's disingenuous of him to completely omit a huge part of the conservative argument in a book that purports to explain conservative thought to progressives. It mischaracterizes the conservative view, which is unfair to conservatives and a disservice to his progressive readers.

For reasons not worth explaining, I've been listening to the audiobook of George Lakoff's Whose Freedom?: The Battle Over America's Most Important Idea, which is about the conflict between progressives and conservatives over the idea of freedom.

The book's subtitle is a bit misleading, although technically correct. I was expecting a book about different ideas of freedom. Instead, the book is about how progressives and conservatives discuss the idea of freedom. It is literally about the battle of words over the idea of freedom, rather than about the different concepts of freedom.

Lakoff is himself a progressive, which is what liberals are calling themselves these days now that the word liberal has been ruined by a conspiracy of leftist radicals and right-wing talk radio hosts. He believes progressive ideas about freedom are inherently correct, and he discusses how conservatives have used rhetorical methods such as framing metaphors to draw people away from the progressive vision.

Lakoff explains most of the differences between progressive and conservative rhetoric as a contrast between the different metaphors of morality that progressives and conservatives use to frame the concept of freedom. Conservatives, he say, use a "strict father" model of morality, whereas progressives use a "nurturant parent" model.

Right away, he's lost me. I don't like either of those models. The reason is that we're not just talking about morality in the abstract. We're talking about politics, and therefore we're talking about the morality that should be enforced by our government.

I don't want the government to act like any kind of parent. I want it to act more like a loyal employee or servant. Of course, a nanny is a type of servant, and no libertarian wants to live in a nanny state that watches our every little misstep and tries to make us act like perfect people, so maybe servant isn't quite right.

Perhaps a better role model for government is a lifeguard at a pool. He spends most of his time sitting at the side of the pool. He's vigilant, but he only intervenes when there's serious danger. If the kids in the pool are splashing and yelling or calling each other names, he pays them no mind, but if someone's life is in danger, he acts decisively and comes to the rescue. Otherwise, he lets the kids be kids and enjoy playing in the water.

You'd have to have a few other metaphors as well: The government as referee, resolving disputes according to pre-established rules. The government as trustee, administering the common wealth for the benefit of its owners. There are probably a few other useful metaphors that will come to mind if I think about it.

But the government as parent? I'd rather be an orphan.

Now that I've got some sleep, I have a few more thoughts on the State of the Union address. I'll be skipping around a bit.

I liked some of the general fluff at the front:

The rite of custom brings us together at a defining hour -- when decisions are hard and courage is needed. We enter the year 2007 with large endeavors underway, and others that are ours to begin. In all of this, much is asked of us. We must have the will to face difficult challenges and determined enemies -- and the wisdom to face them together.

Some in this chamber are new to the House and the Senate -- and I congratulate the Democrat majority. (Applause.) Congress has changed, but not our responsibilities. Each of us is guided by our own convictions -- and to these we must stay faithful. Yet we're all held to the same standards, and called to serve the same good purposes: To extend this nation's prosperity; to spend the people's money wisely; to solve problems, not leave them to future generations; to guard America against all evil; and to keep faith with those we have sent forth to defend us. (Applause.)

We're not the first to come here with a government divided and uncertainty in the air. Like many before us, we can work through our differences, and achieve big things for the American people. Our citizens don't much care which side of the aisle we sit on -- as long as we're willing to cross that aisle when there is work to be done. (Applause.) Our job is to make life better for our fellow Americans, and to help them to build a future of hope and opportunity -- and this is the business before us tonight.

I like it when they say stuff like that. It paints a nice vision of democracy.

On the other hand, he does raise the ugly spectre of bipartisanship. I prefer it when they hate each other and get nothing done.

I'm not sure I want this government to "work through [their] differences, and achieve big things for the American people." I don't want to be dragged into their dreams of greatness. I want them to leave me alone so I can achieve my own little things. My goals may be small by comparison to Bush's goals, but they're my goals.

A future of hope and opportunity begins with a growing economy -- and that is what we have. We're now in the 41st month of uninterrupted job growth, in a recovery that has created 7.2 million new jobs -- so far. Unemployment is low, inflation is low, and wages are rising. This economy is on the move, and our job is to keep it that way, not with more government, but with more enterprise. (Applause.)

I'm sure some member of the opposition has already responded by pointing out that the economy isn't good for everyone—the single head of household raising two kids, the factory worker whose job has just been outsourced to the third world—but most economic choices are tradeoffs and the economy is never equally good for everyone. Statistics by their nature are reductions of messy reality into simpler stories that are easier to comprehend. If properly chosen, they are still meaningful and useful.

These statistics have proven themselves over many years, and these statistics mean the country is doing very well by historical standards. President Bush and the Republicans didn't create this healthy economy, they simply don't have the power to do that. As always, we the people created it with our money, our hard work, our ingenuity, and our enterprise. But the President and his party deserve props for not screwing it up. It hasn't always been that way.

First, we must balance the federal budget. (Applause.) We can do so without raising taxes. (Applause.) What we need is impose spending discipline in Washington, D.C. We set a goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009, and met that goal three years ahead of schedule. (Applause.) Now let us take the next step. In the coming weeks, I will submit a budget that eliminates the federal deficit within the next five years. (Applause.) I ask you to make the same commitment. Together, we can restrain the spending appetite of the federal government, and we can balance the federal budget.(Applause.)

Sigh. That's five interruptions for applause in a single paragraph. Remember what I said earlier about democracy being "banal and unsightly"? This calculated applause is a perfect example. Note that since Speaker Nancy Pelosi is seated right behind Bush we get to see what she applauds for. I'd swear sometimes I can see her pause to make the calculation of just how much to clap. Glenn Reynolds is trying to draw conclusions from this. It's a little depressing to think that it matters.

More substantively, reducing the deficit is not the best reason to cut government spending. The best reason to cut government spending is to stop the government from consuming so much of our productive output.

And, finally, to keep this economy strong we must take on the challenge of entitlements. Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are commitments of conscience, and so it is our duty to keep them permanently sound. Yet, we're failing in that duty. And this failure will one day leave our children with three bad options: huge tax increases, huge deficits, or huge and immediate cuts in benefits. Everyone in this chamber knows this to be true -- yet somehow we have not found it in ourselves to act. So let us work together and do it now. With enough good sense and goodwill, you and I can fix Medicare and Medicaid -- and save Social Security. (Applause.)

Shorter version: We all promise to work together to not to piss off the AARP.

Bush goes on to discuss healthcare:

...I propose a standard tax deduction for health insurance that will be like the standard tax deduction for dependents. Families with health insurance will pay no income on payroll tax -- or payroll taxes on $15,000 of their income. Single Americans with health insurance will pay no income or payroll taxes on $7,500 of their income. With this reform, more than 100 million men, women, and children who are now covered by employer-provided insurance will benefit from lower tax bills. At the same time, this reform will level the playing field for those who do not get health insurance through their job. For Americans who now purchase health insurance on their own, this proposal would mean a substantial tax savings -- $4,500 for a family of four making $60,000 a year. And for the millions of other Americans who have no health insurance at all, this deduction would help put a basic private health insurance plan within their reach. Changing the tax code is a vital and necessary step to making health care affordable for more Americans. (Applause.)

In other words, tax breaks for people who buy insurance, but not for people who pay for healthcare costs out of pocket. Anybody else think the insurance lobby has something to do with this?

[Update: Of course, that's how it is now anyway, so this isn't actually a step back. Also, the tax break for having insurance will be accompanied by making employer-paid insurance count as taxable income. The upshot is that people will be getting roughly the same tax breaks on insurance they get now, but they'll be able to choose plans that aren't offered by their imployer, and the self-employed will be able get tax breaks too. Arnold Klingk explains what I didn't understand, and I agree with most of what he says.]

...[W]e cannot fully secure the border unless we take pressure off the border -- and that requires a temporary worker program. We should establish a legal and orderly path for foreign workers to enter our country to work on a temporary basis. As a result, they won't have to try to sneak in, and that will leave Border Agents free to chase down drug smugglers and criminals and terrorists...

No kidding. It's well known, too, that because illegal border crossings have become more difficult, people who sneak across are afraid they won't be able to get back in if they leave, so they're actually more likely to settle here instead of returning to their families in their homeland. The devil is in the details for stuff like this, but it's possible that by making it easier to cross the border we'll actually reduce the number of aliens in the country.

It's in our vital interest to diversify America's energy supply -- the way forward is through technology. We must continue changing the way America generates electric power, by even greater use of clean coal technology, solar and wind energy, and clean, safe nuclear power. (Applause.) We need to press on with battery research for plug-in and hybrid vehicles, and expand the use of clean diesel vehicles and biodiesel fuel. (Applause.)

Biodiesel? I wonder if this is pandering to the farm states?

We must continue investing in new methods of producing ethanol -- (applause) -- using everything from wood chips to grasses, to agricultural wastes.

Ethanol. Yup! It's about the farm states.

The rest was about the war. I need to read it more carefully before deciding if I have anything to say about it.

I haven't seen it yet (I'll wait for the transcript and read along), but I'm predicting that the state of our union is strong, and we can make it even stronger. But that's just a guess.

Update: Okay, now I've seen it, and I was close:

...the State of our Union is strong, our cause in the world is right, and tonight that cause goes on.

That was near the end. The beginning...was a touch of class:

Thank you very much. And tonight, I have a high privilege and distinct honor of my own -- as the first President to begin the State of the Union message with these words: Madam Speaker.

Sure, he's the President. He's supposed to show some class, and he has people to help him. Still, it was nice. Democracy is often a banal and unsightly form of government, but every once in a while democracy gives us a nice moment.

I should probably say some more about the speech, but I think I'll leave that up to someone else.

This political quiz asks you to make some odd choices. For example, who do you trust more, the Postal Service or the Pentagon?

I scored a 22, which puts right in the middle. That's about what I expected. As a libertarian, I'm all over the place on a quiz that assumes left and right are the only options. Sometimes I hated all the answers.

In some ways I'm what might be called a Guns and Gays Liberal. An America where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons is an America I would be happy to live in.

Over at the Intrade predition market, the price for GOP control of the house has plunged to 21.3 over the weekend. I think this probably means the uncertainty in the polling data is going away as people are running out of time to change their minds. The smart money (55.1) seems to be on a Democratic House and a Republican Senate.

I don't know how smart Intrade's bidders are, but they know a lot more than I do, so that's my prediction too.

I'm also going to go out on a limb and predict that no Illinois Senators will lose their office in this election.

Via David Weigel of Hit & Run, comes a USA Today story about a $50 million advocacy program to discourage 19 to 29-year-olds from having sex.

There's a winning slogan for the Republican party: We want you to have less sex!

I realize the "sinner" issues—internet gambling, sex, medical marijuana—are not really Republican-only issues, and the Democrats have voted along with a lot of this, but it's the Republicans who are in charge.

I don't really follow election politics that much, so I don't really know why the Republicans seem to be headed for defeat in the House, but the Republican opposition to a traditional American value—fun—is part of why they deserve to be defeated.

If you ever want to know more about my political beliefs, just watch this video clip found by regular Hit & Run commenter Herrick of Senator Rick Santorum explaining that the pursuit of happiness is harming America:

(Click to Launch Video)

One very short summary of my political beliefs is that Senator Santorum is a horse's ass. Just about everything else follows naturally from that.

Santorum ridicules the idea that people should be able to do whatever they want to do as long as no one gets hurt. What else is there? What justification is there for government intervention in the private affairs of Americans if no one is being hurt?

Allowing people to do whatever they want to do as long as no one gets hurt is the whole point of government. Don't take my word for it, read what Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had to say about it:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Broadly speaking, I acknowledge no legitimate limits to my right to the pursuit of happiness, unless my pursuit interferes with someone else's pursuit of happiness. I acknowledge the same principle for everyone else: As long as their pursuit of happiness does not interfere with mine, I have no objections that merit the enforcement of law.

In opposing the pursuit of happiness, Rick Santorum is exhibiting the kind of un-Americanism that is all too typical of Republican candidates (not that they have a corner on the market or anything). It's starting to show, too. A week before the election, he's 13 points behind in the polls and trading at 7.3 at intrade. Rick Santorum is about to lose his job.

Update: As an example of what I mean by Republican un-Americanism, John Tierney is pointing out that using the Republicans' narrow definition of morality, there is no moral majority. Eight million Americans were on-line gamblers until the Republicans took that away. Over a hundred million Americans have tried marijuana, and more than 200 million think it should be legal for medical use.

I neither gamble nor smoke, but with that kind of busy-body attitude, it's only a matter of time until the moral scolds get to something I care about. In America, us "sinners" vastly outnumber the Republican righteous.

Tigerhawk quotes a Paul Krugman column about the ability of a Democrat-controlled congress to investigate the executive branch, to which he responds:

I must confess that I am in the very unfamiliar position of agreeing with Paul Krugman. If you want two years of Congressional investigations, by all means vote for the Democrats.

That might be safer than two years of legislation.

[Welcome Instapundit readers. Sorry Glenn launched me on one of my less meaty posts, but please do browse.]

As John Hinderaker points out, the polls are showing that the Democrats will win big in this coming election. Over at Tradesports, it's more of the same, with GOP control of the House at 32.5 out of 100. (Those are live links, but that's how it looked when I wrote this.)

I think I agree with Glenn Reynolds. I don't know if the Democrats deserve to win, but the Republicans richly deserve to lose. Certainly they haven't delivered much of what they promised.

Let's see, when you're a Congressman and you're caught exchanging sexual instant messages with 16-year old boys...

(1) Avoid lengthy denials and resign immediately. Check.

(2) Enter re-hab program. Check.

(3) Explain that you're a victim too.

From an AP wire story:

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Former Rep. Mark Foley, under investigation for sending lurid Internet messages to young male Capitol Hill pages, issued a series of revelations from rehab, including a claim that he had been sexually abused as a teen.

Attorney David Roth, speaking on Foley's behalf at a Florida news conference Tuesday, said Foley was molested between ages 13 and 15 by a clergyman. He declined to identify the clergyman or the church, but Foley is Roman Catholic.

"Mark does not blame the trauma he sustained as a young adolescent for his totally inappropriate" e-mails and instant messages, Roth said. "He continues to offer no excuse whatsoever for his conduct."

Roth, who spoke for Foley while the congressman is in rehab for alcohol abuse and mental illness, said Foley denied having inappropriate sexual contact with minors and said he was under the influence of alcohol when he wrote the notes.

Asked why he didn't disclose this information sooner, Roth said, "Shame, shame."

"As is so often the case with victims of abuse, Mark advises that he kept his shame to himself for almost 40 years," Roth said.

So...

(3) Explain that you're a victim too. Check.

Not bad for only five days work.

I believe the remaining steps are

(4) Find God.

(5) Written confession, in the form of a book deal.

(6) Talk shows, talk shows, talk shows.

If he hurries, he can be crying on Oprah by next summer.

In communist countries, the leaders like to pretend the revolution is still going on, that they're still standing up for the little guy. Twenty or thirty years after the revolution is over, the powers-that-be like to pretend they are still revolutionary leaders rather than, well, the powers-that-be.

In that spirit, meet Senator John McCain, who still likes to pretend he's a Washington outsider.

A friend of mine was concerned a few days ago that the anti-gay-marriage amendment might actually pass, which would cause her some personal heartache. I told her I thought it was just a stunt, and not worth worrying about.

Other people seem to think so too. For example, the D.C. Examiner supports a ban on same-sex marriage, but thinks trying to pass an amendment is a waste of time, saying "expending any effort on behalf of the proposal now is literally a fool's errand".

An ABC News poll indicates that even though most Americans oppose same-sex marriage, they also oppose a constitutional amendment to ban it. From what I've seen, a lot of folks on the right don't want same-sex marriage, but they also don't want the federal government defining marriage.

As I was writing this, another group of people spoke up: The United States Senate has rejected the amendment, giving it only 49 of the 60 votes needed to move to the next stage of voting.

I'm no expert at politics, but I think part of the reason the amendment is unlikely to pass is that a lot of people on the right regard it as a cynical attempt to earn their support. One of the reasons Bush's popularity is so low these days is that he has betrayed a lot of his supporters. He hasn't trimmed the size of government or launched a school vouchers program or reduced taxes or made progress on any of the other conservative issues. He's not getting a lot of cooperation these days.

Some folks at Reason magazine agree with this and add another reason the amendment is probably doomed: Marriage is traditionally defined by the states. In states where a large group of people are upset about same-sex marriage they have been able to get it banned, at which point they lose interest in the issue.

I'm not optimistic for the prospects of widespread same-sex marriage in this country, but I don't think a total constitutional ban is ever going to happen.

People are sometimes puzzled when they ask me about my politics and I tell them I am something of a libertarian. That's not a familiar word to them. So for their benefit, from a comment in the Hit & Run blog, here's one of the best descriptions ever:

When Duke was running for president in the Doonesbury strip as a Libertarian he explained:

Democrats are for pot and promiscuity.

Republicans are for guns and tobacco.

Libertarians are for all four plus pornography.

Last year, the California government had a really great idea. (No, that's not the start of a joke.) Many California taxpayers have income only from regular employment and don't have any unusual deductions. This means that their state income taxes can be calculated entirely from the payroll data already in the state's tax database.

As part of a pilot program, California sent 50,000 taxpayers something called a "ReadyReturn," which was essentially a California income tax return with all the information already filled in. All the taxpayers had to do was sign it and mail it back. So, taxpayers save time because they don't have to fill in the form, and the state saves time because all the data on the form is already in their tax database so there's no need to enter it again. Great idea, huh? Who could be against that?

As it turns out, lobbyists from the tax preparation industry are against that. They've got several members of the state legislature to oppose it.

Yes, you heard right. They're lobbying the government to make your life more difficult so they can sell you services to make your life easier. I'll bet this isn't the first time, either. I'll bet those bastards have been doing this for years. It would certainly explain a lot of things about my taxes...

Whole ugly story here.

(Hat tip: The Agitator.)

Or President.

Singer-actress Jessica Simpson, the star of "Dukes of Hazzard," spurned an offer to attend the National Republican Congressional Committee gala fund-raiser tonight because she didn't want to politicize her favorite charity.

According to Reuters, those close to Simpson said she declined a request to appear that same evening at the fund-raiser for the NRCC -- even after she was offered a face-to-face, private meeting with Bush.

Nice try, George.

I guess now it's plan B:

Mary Carey, the buxom, XXX movie star who caused an uproar last year for dining with President Bush and her pornographer, apparently still has a hunger for the nation's capital, and will have dinner with the president once again this week.

The former candidate for California governor is to attend the United to Victory dinner with Bush on Thursday, and have lunch at a related event Wednesday where Bush adviser Karl Rove is the guest speaker. She says she's taking part at the invitation of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is organizing the events.

First all the big spending, now this. The Republicans are looking more like the Democrats every day.

My wife's boss's son, Matthew, has a school assignment to write letters to his Congressional representative and to one of the Senators from Illinois. He's trying to think of questions to ask them. I thought I could make a few suggestions:

1. There's a piece of the World Trade Center in the Drug Enforcement Agency's exhibit on the link between terrorism and drug trafficking, even though the DEA admits there's no link between 9/11 and drug trafficking. Are the DEA administrators stupid? Or are they trying to exploit the victims of 9/11?
2. The United States imprisons a larger portion of its population than any other country. Is that because the people of the United States are a pack of criminals? Or is that because the government of the United States is a cruel tyranny?
3. In July of 2002, less than a year into the War on Terror, the top federal prosecutor for South Carolina, Strom Thurmond Jr., took the time to prosecuted a 21-year old college woman for selling her used panties through the mail. The crime carries a maximum sentence of five years. Was this a stupid prosecution? Or was this the stupidest prosecution?
4. Our current system of military draft registration was created in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Now that we've helped kick the Soviets out, and the Soviet Union has crumbled and fallen, and our own invasion of Afghanistan is complete, can we stop making high school kids sign up for this?
5. There's a federal law that limits all toilets to a maximum of 1.6 gallons per flush. That's a great rule for people in, say, Los Angeles, because they decided to build the United States' second most populous city on the edge of a desert. Those of us living in Chicago, however, have wisely chosen to live next to one of the largest bodies of fresh water on the planet. Why does the law treat all of us the same when there are such obvious differences between regions? In fact, since water purification and sewage treatment are both local activities, why is this a federal matter?
6. The new cockpit security systems now installed on all commercial flights have rendered them hijack-proof. All the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) needs to watch out for are explosives, firearms, and other weapons that could bring down a plane. Why hasn't the TSA streamlined its security checkpoints? Why aren't all those resources being redirected to secure other targets that remain vulnerable? Does the government have some ulterior motive for continuing to subject Americans to pointless warrantless searches by petty bureaucrats?

Any additional suggestions from you folks out there?

Jane's Law: The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane.

In the North Carolina 13th Congressional District, the Democrats are in power, so it's the Republicans who are insane, and specifically Republican candidate Vernon Robinson.

You've got to see this Quicktime video of his latest campaign ad.

Jane's Law: The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane.

From Why Mommy Is A Democrat:

Cheney hit his target, but the Democrats keep missing the point:

The furor over the accident and the White House delay in making it public are "part of the secretive nature of this administration," said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "I think it's time the American people heard from the vice president."

First of all, a cover-up is only a scandal for the people not involved in the thing being covered up. If Dick Cheney is trying some sort of cover-up, that's not a good thing. But the real crime here, if there is a crime, is that Dick Cheney shot a guy. The cover-up, if there is one, is no big deal by comparison.

Second, it's not any kind of cover-up if they inform the appropriate law enforcement office of the incident and don't interfere with the investigation. Which they apparently did, and did not, respectively.

Third, it's not the job of the White House press office to keep the public informed of every stupid thing these people do in their private life. It's not a cover-up just because you don't issue a press release.

Those are all symptoms of the real problem Democrats face trying to exploit this story for political gain: This is not a political story. Dick Cheney's poor gun handling skills don't make him a bad Vice President, and none of this has anything to do with President Bush.

Also, neither of those guys is going to run for President next time.

I didn't watch the State of the Union live, but I watched the streaming video and read along with the transcript at the Whitehouse web site.

I noticed Bush hands Cheney and the speaker two big manilla envelopes. I'm sure I could look it up somewhere, but I wonder what's in them? Written copies of the speech, maybe? President Jefferson started a tradition of giving a written State of the Union report to Congress. A nice idea, but he didn't have television to deal with. I wonder if someone in college today will grow up to be President and decide to start a State of the Union Blog. After all, the Constitution just says the state of the union should be given "from time to time."

Actually, lets's look at what the Constitution says about the communications regarding the state of the union:

He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient

In other words, the President is supposed to tell Congress what's going on and suggest legislation. But that happens every day: Every government agency generates reports and newsletters on a daily basis, and they all lobby Congress for legislation that will help them out. Having an official State of the Union speech is a little silly. It's not like he's telling anyone anything they don't already know:

Tonight the state of our Union is strong--and together we will make it stronger.

Wow. The union is "strong." Did anybody else see that coming?

Sigh.

Everybody is talking and writing about the speech, and I doubt I have much to add, but let me just see if I can find a thing or two.

Our country must also remain on the offensive against terrorism here at home. The enemy has not lost the desire or capability to attack us. Fortunately, this nation has superb professionals in law enforcement, intelligence, the military, and homeland security.

Yeah, we do. But we also have these guys, and these guys, and don't forget these guys. Then there's this guy. And I just stumbled across this guy while writing this. We have good reasons for enacting new police powers with great care.

"It is said that prior to the attacks of September the 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy. We now know that two of the hijackers in the United States placed telephone calls to al Qaeda operatives overseas. But we did not know about their plans until it was too late. So to prevent another attack -- based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute -- I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al Qaeda operatives and affiliates to and from America. [...] If there are people inside our country who are talking with al Qaeda, we want to know about it[.]"

It's not a question of whether the government should be able to tap the phone calls of suspected al Qaeda members in America—of course they should—it's a matter of requiring supervision of an independent court.

If the taps are classified as too sensitive for public consumption, then we should have a secret court with judges that are cleared for handling such matters. Actually, we already do, in the form of FISA courts which are frankly not as independent as I'd like. And if it's hard to find a judge when you need one, hire more judges and make them work night and weekend shifts.

Getting a warrant from a judge is more trouble than doing without, but that's the point. If it's not worth the trouble of getting a judge to sign off, then I don't believe it's worth the invasion of privacy either.

In the last five years, the tax relief you passed has left $880 billion in the hands of American workers, investors, small businesses, and families -- and they have used it to help produce more than four years of uninterrupted economic growth.

Um, a growing U.S. economy is normal and expected. It's caused by increased population, increased capital investment, and improved technology. If the economy shrinks instead of growing, that's called a recession and everybody bitches about it and votes President Bush's father out of office. All the government has to do is not fumble the economy too much, and that's the job of the Federal Reserve board, not the President.

Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security--yet the rising cost of entitlements is a problem that is not going away. And every year we fail to act, the situation gets worse.

It's going to keep getting worse. I've never really been able to follow all the arguments about Social Security. I'm not sure if that's my fault or the fault of the people making the arguments. Here's what I do know: The upcoming retirement of the baby boomers means that millions of people will stop producing stuff, but they want to continue consuming stuff.

As a consequence, either some people will have to work a little harder to produce all that stuff, or else some people will have to consume a little less. All the arguments about Social Security, entitlement programs, and private investments are just arguments over the accounting and legal structures used to manage this. It's not that those aren't important issues, but almost none of the options will do much to solve the basic problems that will arise.

So tonight, I ask you to join me in creating a commission to examine the full impact of baby boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. This commission should include members of Congress of both parties, and offer bipartisan solutions. We need to put aside partisan politics and work together and get this problem solved.

Who needs a commission? People have been working on this for years, and there is no solution. There is only an argument over who will have to work more, who will get to consume more, and the role of governments in making those decisions. Hard work or reduced consumption will still be the only choices.

Bush hits on the topic of "keeping America competitive" several times. Each time he goes on to describe something important to keeping America competitive:

• "keeping our economy growing"
• "be good stewards of tax dollars"
• "open more markets for all that Americans make and grow"
• "an immigration system that upholds our laws, reflects our values, and serves the interests of our economy"
• "affordable health care"
• "affordable energy"
• "We must continue to lead the world in human talent and creativity"

But wait, isn't every single one of those things a good idea all by itself? What does competition between nations have to do with any of those things?

Nothing. If the United States was completely isolated from the rest of the world—no trade of any kind—every single one of those things would still be a good idea.

When you hear people talking about America competing against other countries—it used to be Japan, but now Bush is talking about China and India—it's important to remember that nations don't really compete against each other, at least not economically. Produceers of goods compete against other producers of similar goods in the same market, regardless of which countries they are in. American companies are in competition against foreign companies, but America itself is not in competition against other nations. The free market is not a war zone.

Heh.

The text is about something else, but I like the cartoon.

Everybody else is showing me theirs, so i'll show you mine. From The Politics Test:

You are a Social Liberal (80% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (78% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating

No surprises there. Right smack in the middle of libertarian land. it's lonely up in that corner: Just me, Thomas Jefferson, and the Unabomber.

Steve Landsburg points out that a miscount in the upcoming election wouldn't be the disaster that some people want us to think it would be.

I felt exactly the same way last time. No matter which candidate you think won the election, the worst case is that we got the second best guy running instead of the best guy. That's not how it was supposed to be, but it's not as if Bush wasn't in the running.

Fidel Castro got re-elected. He was among 1808 winners in the latest Cuban election, all of whom ran unopposed. The folks who run Cuba apparently expect observers to believe that the lack of opposition in the elections is a sign of solidarity.

My favorite quote:

Castro maintains that Cuba's elections are more democratic than those of most nations because candidates here do not spend huge amounts of money on campaigns.

I guess people who aren't familiar with democracy don't even know enough about it to fake it well.

Virginia Postrel has been discussing how to reduce the ridiculous over-representation of farm states in the Senate. She wants to merge a few of them. Yeah, it's unconstitutional to force them, but that doesn't mean we can't figure something out.

Since we're all big-time free-market believers here in the blogosphere, the obvious way is to pay them. If Dakotans are like anyone else, they'd probably agree to merge for, say, $1000 each. That's only about $1.5 billion. Even 10 times that is not unreasonable as government expenses go.

I'm not sure if that's really workable, because the people making the decisions, elected politicians, have very different interests from the population they're supposed to represent. Given the choice of losing their jobs or costing Dakotans $1000 each, I think they'd hit people in the wallet like they always do. (If the Dakotas have a strong ballot referendum system, it's a whole different story.)

Of course, for our purposes, we don't need to eliminate the states, just the Senators. Perhaps the new constitution of Dakota could specify two separate governmental regions, with separate governors, legislatures, court systems, budgets, and so on...except for the Senators.

Another choice might be to double the representation of all the non-farm states. Yeah, it effectively reduces the representation of the farm states, but so does adding another state, and that's clearly allowed. Hmmm...maybe the solution is to split a lot of the high-density states into new states which can be admitted to the union as usual.

I have a lot of sympathies for the ideals of the Libertarian party, but their campaigning skills leave a lot to be desired.