I have been on Blogger for 20 months and have learned a lot. The world has changed within even this brief time frame, and new opportunities await in other forums.
I have done some investigation and found that Wordpress offers more possibilities in terms of blogging methods, tactics, etc. than Blogger seems to afford at present. So I have opened my blog today at Wordpress. It looks rather plain at the moment, but I hope to change that very soon.
I hope you'll join me at glenlasbury.wordpress.com! Thanks for participating here and let's keep the conversation going!
Monday, November 16, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
One more item from the Gerson lunch
I really wanted to write more last night, but exhaustion overcame me and my brain just shut down.
In the ensuing 24 hours, I have thought as much about the overarching message that Gerson sent as I have about the interesting anecdotes he shared about his former boss (George W. Bush). I wrote last night that Gerson is not a militant conservative. I don't mean to imply by such wording that he is not a real conservative; for that reason, I chose my terminology carefully, even through my post-midnight fatigue!
To elaborate: Gerson relayed strong concern about the subtext that he feels the GOP is sending to certain demographic groups, especially Hispanics. His fear, as best I could discern it, is that the indiscriminate message that Hispanics are receiving from Republicans is that they are not welcome in this country and therefore, not in the GOP. In other words, the way we craft what we say and the enthusiasm (or lack thereof) in which we reach out to people must change. Gerson specifically named Tom Tancredo as a representative of the element of extremism (and probably nativism, although Gerson did not use the term) that Gerson feels endangers the party and its chances of dominance in the future.
I have several thoughts that I humbly offer in response to someone with the keen intellect, penetrating rhetoric and experience in the corridors of power that Michael Gerson possesses.
I would first acknowledge that there is a strain of racism against Mexicans that does exist in our country. That is a shameful stain that must be erased, but I don't think there is any proof that it is limited to adherents of my party as opposed to the other. Racism is an ugly, equal opportunity offender and is grossly unfair, undesirable and unhealthy.
The fact that I never hear the easy immigration advocates own up to, though, is that there are legitimate security concerns on the Mexican border. Beyond that, what about the rule of law? If more Mexicans should be allowed to emigrate to this country, then make the legal case for that. No one except a few fringe nutcases is out there protesting that no one should be allowed to immigrate from Mexico.
The fact is that the bulk of Hispanics tend to ally strongly with many of the values that conservatives hold dear. As Ronald Reagan put it, "Hispanic voters are Republicans. They just don't know it yet." I'll be the first to admit that Republicans can be clunky communicators at times (though with a mainstream media that exponentially magnifies every misstep, perhaps the slips of the tongue that occur are exaggerated). So perhaps Gerson has a point when it comes to tone, but I disagree with what I fear is his underlying philosophy, governed more by his view of what constitutes compassion and charity than the colder realm of logic.
I would like to clarify that in this post, I have zeroed in on a point of divergence with Michael Gerson, out of an hour of very stimulating information and Q&A. He is a fine man with a humble, gracious spirit. I have seen a lot of political speakers, especially in the last year or two and Michael Gerson's ability with words and recall of political arcana is almost unparalleled. (Karl Rove and George Will come to mind when contemplating comparative figures.) If I had taken better notes, I would remember other points of commonality that I could pass along. But I didn't...there were only about 30 of us in the room and space was tight and I was chowing down and whispering to my seatmates...need more excuses?
If I ever get to hear Michael Gerson again, I would like to ask him how he would address my belief that yes, you must compromise in politics in order to garner accomplishments, BUT what about the times when compromise cannot be achieved without betrayal of principle? After all, the same Master that both Michael Gerson and I seek to serve once rhetorically questioned his followers: "What is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?"
In the ensuing 24 hours, I have thought as much about the overarching message that Gerson sent as I have about the interesting anecdotes he shared about his former boss (George W. Bush). I wrote last night that Gerson is not a militant conservative. I don't mean to imply by such wording that he is not a real conservative; for that reason, I chose my terminology carefully, even through my post-midnight fatigue!
To elaborate: Gerson relayed strong concern about the subtext that he feels the GOP is sending to certain demographic groups, especially Hispanics. His fear, as best I could discern it, is that the indiscriminate message that Hispanics are receiving from Republicans is that they are not welcome in this country and therefore, not in the GOP. In other words, the way we craft what we say and the enthusiasm (or lack thereof) in which we reach out to people must change. Gerson specifically named Tom Tancredo as a representative of the element of extremism (and probably nativism, although Gerson did not use the term) that Gerson feels endangers the party and its chances of dominance in the future.
I have several thoughts that I humbly offer in response to someone with the keen intellect, penetrating rhetoric and experience in the corridors of power that Michael Gerson possesses.
I would first acknowledge that there is a strain of racism against Mexicans that does exist in our country. That is a shameful stain that must be erased, but I don't think there is any proof that it is limited to adherents of my party as opposed to the other. Racism is an ugly, equal opportunity offender and is grossly unfair, undesirable and unhealthy.
The fact that I never hear the easy immigration advocates own up to, though, is that there are legitimate security concerns on the Mexican border. Beyond that, what about the rule of law? If more Mexicans should be allowed to emigrate to this country, then make the legal case for that. No one except a few fringe nutcases is out there protesting that no one should be allowed to immigrate from Mexico.
The fact is that the bulk of Hispanics tend to ally strongly with many of the values that conservatives hold dear. As Ronald Reagan put it, "Hispanic voters are Republicans. They just don't know it yet." I'll be the first to admit that Republicans can be clunky communicators at times (though with a mainstream media that exponentially magnifies every misstep, perhaps the slips of the tongue that occur are exaggerated). So perhaps Gerson has a point when it comes to tone, but I disagree with what I fear is his underlying philosophy, governed more by his view of what constitutes compassion and charity than the colder realm of logic.
I would like to clarify that in this post, I have zeroed in on a point of divergence with Michael Gerson, out of an hour of very stimulating information and Q&A. He is a fine man with a humble, gracious spirit. I have seen a lot of political speakers, especially in the last year or two and Michael Gerson's ability with words and recall of political arcana is almost unparalleled. (Karl Rove and George Will come to mind when contemplating comparative figures.) If I had taken better notes, I would remember other points of commonality that I could pass along. But I didn't...there were only about 30 of us in the room and space was tight and I was chowing down and whispering to my seatmates...need more excuses?
If I ever get to hear Michael Gerson again, I would like to ask him how he would address my belief that yes, you must compromise in politics in order to garner accomplishments, BUT what about the times when compromise cannot be achieved without betrayal of principle? After all, the same Master that both Michael Gerson and I seek to serve once rhetorically questioned his followers: "What is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?"
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Lunch with Michael Gerson
Today's big event was a classic example of how I really need to get my game on when it comes to blogging properly. I didn't even think to take my camera with me so I could post some pictures later, which would have lent immeasurable gravitas to my write-up of the lunch. (OK, I'm exaggerating, but it would have been more fun to read. Is that better?)
I need a Blackberry or an iPhone; I really do. Then I would always have photographic equipment with me and would not be forced to make myself remember to cart along the handheld. And that would totally justify the extra $30+ a month (at least) that I would have to dish out in order to brag about being a Blackberry patron. At least, that's what I tell myself.
I learned two things today. One is that McCormick & Schmick's is a very classy place with tasty cuisine. I shall return. Every bite of the seared salmon in (some kind of) berry sauce, mashed potatoes and vegetable medley was mouthwatering. Not to mention the upside down apple pie.
But more importantly, of course...I knew Michael Gerson was a gifted wordsmith. I have followed his efforts for quite some time now, both during the Bush administration and then subsequently, since he began authoring 2 weekly op-ed columns for the Washington Post. But it is spectacularly impressive in person to see how effortlessly he can verbalize such prolific prose in addition to writing it. Not everyone can do both equally well.
Gerson is not a dominantly charismatic figure, in the sense of lighting up a room with his presence, but he is extremely brilliant in a friendly Harvard scholar fashion. (This description turns out to be more apt than I knew. Harvard's 2007 Institute of Politics Series billed Gerson in a promotion as "the 'perfect storm' of speechwriting skills...a man of purpose and policy with a powerful gift for words.")
Indiana Family Institute President Curt Smith introduced him. If I heard correctly, he brought Gerson into Senator Dan Coats' speechwriting shop back in the '90's, which launched Gerson's political involvement. So in a sense, Indiana gave Michael Gerson to President Bush?
Gerson spoke for 35-40 minutes, then took questions for probably another 20. There were a number of noteworthy moments, but as would be expected, his stories about the former President were highly memorable. I wish I could remember the verbatim term he used to describe George W., but it was something along these lines: "the most unmasked person I have ever known." He clarified further; the former President takes no pains, ever, to try to hide from his countenance the emotions he is feeling at any moment, whether sadness, happiness, boredom or pleasure. He described George W. as gregarious and outgoing, whereas he (Gerson) is quiet and withdrawn. In that vein, the most hilarious story he told occurred back in the days when then-Governor George W. Bush was still in his first presidential campaign, sometime in 1999. Somehow, Gerson found himself alone in the Governor's mansion with the future President, and in an extremely rare development, both of them had some time on their hands. Mr. Bush asked Michael, "Would you like to just hang out for a while?" Gerson related that "in what now seems a completely crazed answer," he responded, "Not really" (to the future President of the United States and current Governor of Texas AND his boss, no less). Bush just chuckled and draped his arm around Gerson and replied, "Oh, that's right; you don't DO that, do you?"
Surprisingly, he really did not have a whole lot to say about specific Bush policies and convictions and he said very little about the speeches he wrote. He did note that he helped craft the address Bush gave to a joint session of Congress on Thursday, September 20, 2001 (9 days after 9/11) and that it was all done in 1 day. (This was the speech that contained the phrase "We will not turn, we will not falter and we will not fail." At the time, it was pretty much universally acclaimed by politicians and pundits of both parties and all persuasions.)
Gerson referenced the assistance Bush provided for AIDS victims in Africa more than once. I did not realize until today that he became an Assistant Policy Advisor to the President in Bush's second term. This gave the leverage he used to urge the President to act as he did in providing help for Africa and increasing the financial outlays of other social programs.
Gerson also addressed the current political scene for both Republicans and Democrats. He stated that Obama had prevailed in every age and demographic in the election from 18 to 85. He also won 7 states that Bush had taken twice. Gerson characterized Obama's victory as the most convincing one in decades for these very reasons. Yet today, it is difficult to make the case that Republicans are not on the ascendancy, in spite of the fact that a year ago, James Carville was writing about 40 years of Democrat majority.
The only time when I saw Gerson's face clench in visible emotion (anger) was when he referred at about this point in his talk to President Obama's continued criticism of former President Bush, even after now being in office for 9 months. Gerson used the term "bitterness" to describe this habit on the current President's part.
However, he quickly went on to observe that Republicans have tone problems of their own. One of the most dramatic points he made concerned the ascendancy of Hispanics among the electorate. We must make encroachments here if we are to win future elections.
I am exhausted so I am going to save further analysis of this for another time. Suffice it to say that it was a highly enjoyable hour and a half that most of us would not have been at all reluctant to extend for an even longer period. However, Gerson is not at all a militant fighter for the conservative cause, even though he is committed to most ideas that the movement would consider conservative. More on this next time, not only as applies to Gerson, but others on the public scene today.
I need a Blackberry or an iPhone; I really do. Then I would always have photographic equipment with me and would not be forced to make myself remember to cart along the handheld. And that would totally justify the extra $30+ a month (at least) that I would have to dish out in order to brag about being a Blackberry patron. At least, that's what I tell myself.
I learned two things today. One is that McCormick & Schmick's is a very classy place with tasty cuisine. I shall return. Every bite of the seared salmon in (some kind of) berry sauce, mashed potatoes and vegetable medley was mouthwatering. Not to mention the upside down apple pie.
But more importantly, of course...I knew Michael Gerson was a gifted wordsmith. I have followed his efforts for quite some time now, both during the Bush administration and then subsequently, since he began authoring 2 weekly op-ed columns for the Washington Post. But it is spectacularly impressive in person to see how effortlessly he can verbalize such prolific prose in addition to writing it. Not everyone can do both equally well.
Gerson is not a dominantly charismatic figure, in the sense of lighting up a room with his presence, but he is extremely brilliant in a friendly Harvard scholar fashion. (This description turns out to be more apt than I knew. Harvard's 2007 Institute of Politics Series billed Gerson in a promotion as "the 'perfect storm' of speechwriting skills...a man of purpose and policy with a powerful gift for words.")
Indiana Family Institute President Curt Smith introduced him. If I heard correctly, he brought Gerson into Senator Dan Coats' speechwriting shop back in the '90's, which launched Gerson's political involvement. So in a sense, Indiana gave Michael Gerson to President Bush?
Gerson spoke for 35-40 minutes, then took questions for probably another 20. There were a number of noteworthy moments, but as would be expected, his stories about the former President were highly memorable. I wish I could remember the verbatim term he used to describe George W., but it was something along these lines: "the most unmasked person I have ever known." He clarified further; the former President takes no pains, ever, to try to hide from his countenance the emotions he is feeling at any moment, whether sadness, happiness, boredom or pleasure. He described George W. as gregarious and outgoing, whereas he (Gerson) is quiet and withdrawn. In that vein, the most hilarious story he told occurred back in the days when then-Governor George W. Bush was still in his first presidential campaign, sometime in 1999. Somehow, Gerson found himself alone in the Governor's mansion with the future President, and in an extremely rare development, both of them had some time on their hands. Mr. Bush asked Michael, "Would you like to just hang out for a while?" Gerson related that "in what now seems a completely crazed answer," he responded, "Not really" (to the future President of the United States and current Governor of Texas AND his boss, no less). Bush just chuckled and draped his arm around Gerson and replied, "Oh, that's right; you don't DO that, do you?"
Surprisingly, he really did not have a whole lot to say about specific Bush policies and convictions and he said very little about the speeches he wrote. He did note that he helped craft the address Bush gave to a joint session of Congress on Thursday, September 20, 2001 (9 days after 9/11) and that it was all done in 1 day. (This was the speech that contained the phrase "We will not turn, we will not falter and we will not fail." At the time, it was pretty much universally acclaimed by politicians and pundits of both parties and all persuasions.)
Gerson referenced the assistance Bush provided for AIDS victims in Africa more than once. I did not realize until today that he became an Assistant Policy Advisor to the President in Bush's second term. This gave the leverage he used to urge the President to act as he did in providing help for Africa and increasing the financial outlays of other social programs.
Gerson also addressed the current political scene for both Republicans and Democrats. He stated that Obama had prevailed in every age and demographic in the election from 18 to 85. He also won 7 states that Bush had taken twice. Gerson characterized Obama's victory as the most convincing one in decades for these very reasons. Yet today, it is difficult to make the case that Republicans are not on the ascendancy, in spite of the fact that a year ago, James Carville was writing about 40 years of Democrat majority.
The only time when I saw Gerson's face clench in visible emotion (anger) was when he referred at about this point in his talk to President Obama's continued criticism of former President Bush, even after now being in office for 9 months. Gerson used the term "bitterness" to describe this habit on the current President's part.
However, he quickly went on to observe that Republicans have tone problems of their own. One of the most dramatic points he made concerned the ascendancy of Hispanics among the electorate. We must make encroachments here if we are to win future elections.
I am exhausted so I am going to save further analysis of this for another time. Suffice it to say that it was a highly enjoyable hour and a half that most of us would not have been at all reluctant to extend for an even longer period. However, Gerson is not at all a militant fighter for the conservative cause, even though he is committed to most ideas that the movement would consider conservative. More on this next time, not only as applies to Gerson, but others on the public scene today.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
I'm back...but should this blog be?
As of 2:30 AM Sunday, October 18, I felt like a free man. I submitted my final paper in my last Liberty University course, Systematic Theology II. If I get even a decent grade for it, I will be finished with the Master's in Religion program. Thus, my 12-day absence from blogging, now to be recommenced. My studies have impacted the frequency with which I have been able to blog and the depths that I have been able to explore while doing so. I hope that changes now...I think.
This blog has accomplished the purposes for which I started it about a year and a half ago. I wanted to 1) air my political views, 2) practice my writing and 3) interact with others on political issues of the day.
Definitely, the first two have come to pass, but I'm not sure how much this blog impacts #3 anymore. The cyberworld has changed, even in the last 18 months. When I started this blog, I probably had 10 Facebook friends. I closed in on the 700th last week, not as many as some I know, but higher than the average, which, according to Facebook itself is somewhere around 130. I can post a brief status update (max 420 characters) and almost instantly receive several hits in response; I can then continue that conversation for days if I want to. (That happened last week with a discussion on Anita Dunn.)
More importantly, though, Twitter has..."exploded" is the best term I can come up with. I had a Twitter account for several months, but never got serious about it until about 9 weeks ago. As of today, I have well over 300 followers and am following over 500 myself, all of whom are avid political junkies.
So do most people really read blogs anymore? To be honest, I hardly do...and I have one that I claim to hope others will patronize. Yet, I'm mostly not returning the favor; I just don't think to do it after Facebook and Twitter. And I can't remember when the last time was that I left a comment!
I do read Red State every day and go to Townhall several times a week. Red State, though, is more like a daily activist news feed and their Editor, Erick Erickson, sends a Morning Briefing out every day with the top stories, which are invariably timely. (Erick is also on Facebook and Twitter. Just in case you wondered. He Retweeted one of my Tweets today. Are you impressed?)
So I'm going to keep doing this for a while and see where it goes. But I wonder how much longer blogging will be something that much of anyone sticks with for a significant period of time.
I want to try a couple of things and see if they work, doing some things with graphics and photos and video...more than just text, to kind of spice it up a bit. So we'll see...
This blog has accomplished the purposes for which I started it about a year and a half ago. I wanted to 1) air my political views, 2) practice my writing and 3) interact with others on political issues of the day.
Definitely, the first two have come to pass, but I'm not sure how much this blog impacts #3 anymore. The cyberworld has changed, even in the last 18 months. When I started this blog, I probably had 10 Facebook friends. I closed in on the 700th last week, not as many as some I know, but higher than the average, which, according to Facebook itself is somewhere around 130. I can post a brief status update (max 420 characters) and almost instantly receive several hits in response; I can then continue that conversation for days if I want to. (That happened last week with a discussion on Anita Dunn.)
More importantly, though, Twitter has..."exploded" is the best term I can come up with. I had a Twitter account for several months, but never got serious about it until about 9 weeks ago. As of today, I have well over 300 followers and am following over 500 myself, all of whom are avid political junkies.
So do most people really read blogs anymore? To be honest, I hardly do...and I have one that I claim to hope others will patronize. Yet, I'm mostly not returning the favor; I just don't think to do it after Facebook and Twitter. And I can't remember when the last time was that I left a comment!
I do read Red State every day and go to Townhall several times a week. Red State, though, is more like a daily activist news feed and their Editor, Erick Erickson, sends a Morning Briefing out every day with the top stories, which are invariably timely. (Erick is also on Facebook and Twitter. Just in case you wondered. He Retweeted one of my Tweets today. Are you impressed?)
So I'm going to keep doing this for a while and see where it goes. But I wonder how much longer blogging will be something that much of anyone sticks with for a significant period of time.
I want to try a couple of things and see if they work, doing some things with graphics and photos and video...more than just text, to kind of spice it up a bit. So we'll see...
Friday, October 9, 2009
Defending the Dream Summit 2009, Part II
I used my time between the rally and the Tribute to Ronald Reagan Dinner Friday night to check out the sponsor displays (Heritage Foundation, Leadership Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, among many others) and also stuck my head inside Blogger Row a few times to see what was going on. I texted one of my Tweeps (Twitter buddies), Katy Benningfield from North Carolina, and found out that she was on Blogger Row, so went in and met her and her husband, Rob for the first time, even though we already felt like we were pretty well acquainted!
The Tribute to Ronald Reagan Dinner was a perfectly stellar affair. My intrepid new Hoosier friends, James and Lisa Deaton, had gotten to the head of the line into the Arlington Ballroom and most of our group from the Senate office visits that afternoon was able to sit together, at a very decently situated table.
I am still somewhat nonplussed (but in a good way) that there were actually two prominent dinner keynoters. I don't know that I have ever attended a political dinner before where that was the case, so it was definitely a benefit that they were both highly gifted speakers. Radio host Laura Ingraham was first. I heard via Twitter later on that evening that she gave her entire speech with a 100+ degree fever; I imagine that was probably true since she had spoken about losing her voice earlier that day on her radio show. She had a good time discussing the big event of the day, namely, the Olympic news.
Laura, if anything, is probably an even more effective speaker than Ann Coulter is. This would stand to reason since Ann's gift lies in the power of her pen and Laura is the most successful female talk show host on the radio today.
But the true star of the evening was Indiana's own Congressman Mike Pence, who, come to think of it, also used to be a talk show host. I have seen Pence on a few occasions and been on a conference call with him, but this was a venue that allowed Mike Pence to demonstrate his formidable communication skills. He had the crowd in the palm of his hand from the very beginning; it was something beautiful to behold! The speech was a perfect mix of inspiring anecdotes, stirring challenges and scintillating wit. That probably sounds effusive, but you would have to have been there. I heard a lot of buzz on the way out to the Metro that night about Presidential possibilities and for the first time, I began to take this possibility seriously. (I saw a news story later this week about Pence paying a visit to South Carolina; I have no clue whether this means anything or not.)
Saturday followed the same format as Day 2 of Right Online: celebrity speakers in the morning followed by an afternoon full of panel workshops.
Newt Gingrich kicked things off. I have heard Newt in person a number of times now. Tim Phillips introduced him as "the best mind in the conservative movement." Hard to argue with that, love him or diss him. He never seems to use any notes and seemingly pulls this brilliant analysis out of thin air over and over again. The most memorable analogy that he drew that morning once again addressed Obama's failure to secure the Olympics for Chicago. Newt reminded us all that as a Georgia resident, he was invested in the struggle to bring the Olympics to Atlanta in 1996. But, in a bipartisan gesture, he paid full credit to Andrew Young, at that time the (Democrat) mayor of Atlanta. Young, recollected Newt, worked tirelessly for months, lobbying each member of the Olympic committee, making the case for Atlanta. We all know how the story turned out. Newt then moved in for the rhetorical sucker punch, stating that the Chicago Olympic attempt by Obama is emblematic of his whole approach to just about anything. Smile a lot, give a nice speech and hope everything works out OK, rather than doing the hard work necessary to bring about real accomplishment. Newt asserted that if Obama had laid the proper groundwork, as Andrew Young did, Chicago would probably be lighting the torch in 7 years.
Senator Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, was the recipient this year of the George Washington Award from Americans for Prosperity, for his tireless championing of genuine conservative principles. He accepted the award and gave a short speech, as well, in which he stated that he "fears" the reproach of the American people far more than anything the inside-the-Beltway crowd can do to him or say about him. His leadership of the Senate Conservative Fund, with its early endorsement of Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania and its backing of Marco Rubio in Florida is one of many efforts that bears out the truth of what he told us.
Steve Moore, from the Wall Street Journal, gave basically the same speech that I had heard at Right Online. Good stuff; it just all sounded familiar, but then again, that may be because hardly a day goes by when he isn't featured in a segment on Fox. Smart guy, so it figures.
John Fund also appeared briefly at Dream '09, another very intelligent author and commentator from the Wall Street Journal. He has done major work exposing the fraudulent shell game that ACORN represents.
But the real red meat that morning came from radio host Herman Cain. WOW. This guy was on fire. I had heard him fill in for Neal Boortz a couple of times, but again, had never had occasion to watch him in a setting such as this. He had the crowd going with a SIN acronym that represents liberals who are not worth trying to convert: Liberals who Shift the subject, Ignore facts and finally, Namecall are "unsaveable", so it is time to move on to someone else who is actually willing to think. Not the most sophisticated material, but it was only part of the whole and in any event, Cain's talk was more of a pep rally than a serious speech. I know he is more than capable of giving the latter and would like to hear him do it sometime; Cain, after all, is a former chairman and CEO of Godfather Pizza, which was close to bankruptcy at the time he took it over. (He subsequently restored it to profitability in a mere 14 months.)
The morning rally ran long and most of us left for lunch before Larry Kudlow was up. This was, again, my first time to see Kudlow, but I hope it won't be the last. Kudlow has his own TV show on CNBC, unseen by me to date. I didn't know there was still a reason to watch CNBC with the advent of Fox Business, but I will be checking it out. Kudlow is an avid supply-side economist and a capable speaker; all in all, this may very well have been my favorite presentation of the day. I just wish I had taken better notes. I had forgotten that Kudlow was among the 8 or 9 conservatives at George Will's home when Will hosted President-elect Barack Obama back in January. Kudlow regaled us with a bit of atmospheric description of the evening, stating that Obama was a very nice and charming young man, "but let me tell you something: He doesn't know a bloody thing about the economy." The crowd roared.
I went to three workshops that afternoon and by far, the best was the one on Social Media Networking, hosted by Melissa Clouthier, Aaron Marks and Katie Favazza. Melissa is a contributor at Right Wing News (John Hawkins' site), Aaron is a social media consultant in Pittsburgh and Katie has blogged in the past for Townhall and now has her own blog at CatherineFavazza.com. All 3 emphasized the absolute essentiality of networking online as the wave of the future, through Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Ning groups and a number of other venues.
Miscellaneous favorite moments of Dream '09:
1. Exchanging a few words with Jim Miller, AFP board member and former Budget Director in the Reagan administration. I told him that Reagan is the first President I remember and that if it weren't for him, I probably wouldn't even be attending an event like Dream '09. I'm sure he had heard this before, but he was extremely gracious.
2. Getting acquainted with other activists from different key think tanks and grassroots organizations. As I stated yesterday, it feels like a family after a while...very much a happy warrior atmosphere. It was good to briefly see Elizabeth Terrell from the "Not Evil, Just Wrong" team, as well as her boss, film director Phelim McAleer, after talking with them at Right Online. Also Amy Menefee from AFP and my friends Kurt & Kristen Luidhart (who live within 60 miles of me, but whom I seem to see more often out of state lately than otherwise) and a number of Tweeps whom I met in person for the first time.
3. Seeing all the young kids that aren't caught up in the mush of liberalism, but are eager to advance the conservative, free-market cause. It is encouraging, beyond words.
The Tribute to Ronald Reagan Dinner was a perfectly stellar affair. My intrepid new Hoosier friends, James and Lisa Deaton, had gotten to the head of the line into the Arlington Ballroom and most of our group from the Senate office visits that afternoon was able to sit together, at a very decently situated table.
I am still somewhat nonplussed (but in a good way) that there were actually two prominent dinner keynoters. I don't know that I have ever attended a political dinner before where that was the case, so it was definitely a benefit that they were both highly gifted speakers. Radio host Laura Ingraham was first. I heard via Twitter later on that evening that she gave her entire speech with a 100+ degree fever; I imagine that was probably true since she had spoken about losing her voice earlier that day on her radio show. She had a good time discussing the big event of the day, namely, the Olympic news.
Laura, if anything, is probably an even more effective speaker than Ann Coulter is. This would stand to reason since Ann's gift lies in the power of her pen and Laura is the most successful female talk show host on the radio today.
But the true star of the evening was Indiana's own Congressman Mike Pence, who, come to think of it, also used to be a talk show host. I have seen Pence on a few occasions and been on a conference call with him, but this was a venue that allowed Mike Pence to demonstrate his formidable communication skills. He had the crowd in the palm of his hand from the very beginning; it was something beautiful to behold! The speech was a perfect mix of inspiring anecdotes, stirring challenges and scintillating wit. That probably sounds effusive, but you would have to have been there. I heard a lot of buzz on the way out to the Metro that night about Presidential possibilities and for the first time, I began to take this possibility seriously. (I saw a news story later this week about Pence paying a visit to South Carolina; I have no clue whether this means anything or not.)
Saturday followed the same format as Day 2 of Right Online: celebrity speakers in the morning followed by an afternoon full of panel workshops.
Newt Gingrich kicked things off. I have heard Newt in person a number of times now. Tim Phillips introduced him as "the best mind in the conservative movement." Hard to argue with that, love him or diss him. He never seems to use any notes and seemingly pulls this brilliant analysis out of thin air over and over again. The most memorable analogy that he drew that morning once again addressed Obama's failure to secure the Olympics for Chicago. Newt reminded us all that as a Georgia resident, he was invested in the struggle to bring the Olympics to Atlanta in 1996. But, in a bipartisan gesture, he paid full credit to Andrew Young, at that time the (Democrat) mayor of Atlanta. Young, recollected Newt, worked tirelessly for months, lobbying each member of the Olympic committee, making the case for Atlanta. We all know how the story turned out. Newt then moved in for the rhetorical sucker punch, stating that the Chicago Olympic attempt by Obama is emblematic of his whole approach to just about anything. Smile a lot, give a nice speech and hope everything works out OK, rather than doing the hard work necessary to bring about real accomplishment. Newt asserted that if Obama had laid the proper groundwork, as Andrew Young did, Chicago would probably be lighting the torch in 7 years.
Senator Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, was the recipient this year of the George Washington Award from Americans for Prosperity, for his tireless championing of genuine conservative principles. He accepted the award and gave a short speech, as well, in which he stated that he "fears" the reproach of the American people far more than anything the inside-the-Beltway crowd can do to him or say about him. His leadership of the Senate Conservative Fund, with its early endorsement of Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania and its backing of Marco Rubio in Florida is one of many efforts that bears out the truth of what he told us.
Steve Moore, from the Wall Street Journal, gave basically the same speech that I had heard at Right Online. Good stuff; it just all sounded familiar, but then again, that may be because hardly a day goes by when he isn't featured in a segment on Fox. Smart guy, so it figures.
John Fund also appeared briefly at Dream '09, another very intelligent author and commentator from the Wall Street Journal. He has done major work exposing the fraudulent shell game that ACORN represents.
But the real red meat that morning came from radio host Herman Cain. WOW. This guy was on fire. I had heard him fill in for Neal Boortz a couple of times, but again, had never had occasion to watch him in a setting such as this. He had the crowd going with a SIN acronym that represents liberals who are not worth trying to convert: Liberals who Shift the subject, Ignore facts and finally, Namecall are "unsaveable", so it is time to move on to someone else who is actually willing to think. Not the most sophisticated material, but it was only part of the whole and in any event, Cain's talk was more of a pep rally than a serious speech. I know he is more than capable of giving the latter and would like to hear him do it sometime; Cain, after all, is a former chairman and CEO of Godfather Pizza, which was close to bankruptcy at the time he took it over. (He subsequently restored it to profitability in a mere 14 months.)
The morning rally ran long and most of us left for lunch before Larry Kudlow was up. This was, again, my first time to see Kudlow, but I hope it won't be the last. Kudlow has his own TV show on CNBC, unseen by me to date. I didn't know there was still a reason to watch CNBC with the advent of Fox Business, but I will be checking it out. Kudlow is an avid supply-side economist and a capable speaker; all in all, this may very well have been my favorite presentation of the day. I just wish I had taken better notes. I had forgotten that Kudlow was among the 8 or 9 conservatives at George Will's home when Will hosted President-elect Barack Obama back in January. Kudlow regaled us with a bit of atmospheric description of the evening, stating that Obama was a very nice and charming young man, "but let me tell you something: He doesn't know a bloody thing about the economy." The crowd roared.
I went to three workshops that afternoon and by far, the best was the one on Social Media Networking, hosted by Melissa Clouthier, Aaron Marks and Katie Favazza. Melissa is a contributor at Right Wing News (John Hawkins' site), Aaron is a social media consultant in Pittsburgh and Katie has blogged in the past for Townhall and now has her own blog at CatherineFavazza.com. All 3 emphasized the absolute essentiality of networking online as the wave of the future, through Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Ning groups and a number of other venues.
Miscellaneous favorite moments of Dream '09:
1. Exchanging a few words with Jim Miller, AFP board member and former Budget Director in the Reagan administration. I told him that Reagan is the first President I remember and that if it weren't for him, I probably wouldn't even be attending an event like Dream '09. I'm sure he had heard this before, but he was extremely gracious.
2. Getting acquainted with other activists from different key think tanks and grassroots organizations. As I stated yesterday, it feels like a family after a while...very much a happy warrior atmosphere. It was good to briefly see Elizabeth Terrell from the "Not Evil, Just Wrong" team, as well as her boss, film director Phelim McAleer, after talking with them at Right Online. Also Amy Menefee from AFP and my friends Kurt & Kristen Luidhart (who live within 60 miles of me, but whom I seem to see more often out of state lately than otherwise) and a number of Tweeps whom I met in person for the first time.
3. Seeing all the young kids that aren't caught up in the mush of liberalism, but are eager to advance the conservative, free-market cause. It is encouraging, beyond words.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Defending the Dream Summit 2009, Part I
#DAD09 was the Twitter hashtag this year for the 2009 Defending the Dream Summit, sponsored by Americans for Prosperity--a factoid of which I would have been completely unaware had I not already attended the Right Online conference in Pittsburgh last August, also sponsored by AFP. I went into Right Online with perhaps 7 people following me on Twitter; I arrived at Dream '09 with around 250. (In the last week, I've continued to tick upward, now trending at 276.) What a difference a weekend can make, no?
Americans for Prosperity is a grassroots activist organization that feels as though it has burst onto the scene with a dynamite explosion of intensity and passion for conservatism, seasoned with humor and a family atmosphere. This lends a kind of contagious joy to their conferences; I enjoyed the last one so much that I immediately began to make plans to attend this one. (Not that I ever need an excuse to either visit Washington, DC or attend a political activism type of event.)
I arrived at the Courtyard by Marriott in Alexandria around 12:30 last Friday (10/2), having just heard the news on Laura Ingraham's show that Chicago had been cut from consideration for the Olympics during the first round. By the time I checked in, changed into casual/dress clothes and Metro'd over to the Marriott Gateway in Arlington, it was around 1:30; I barely made the last AFP bus from the Marriott to the Capitol for the 2:00 PM anti-Obamacare rally that kicked the event off. I had been on the ground on the Senate side of the Capitol for all of 5 minutes when I ran into my buddy Kurt Luidhart from back home in Indiana. He had work to do so wasn't sticking around and gave me the "Indiana" sign to hold up high when it was time to split into state delegations for our visits to our Senators' offices.
The rally lasted probably 30 minutes; Shona Holmes, a brain tumor patient from Canada and Tracy Walsh, a breast cancer survivor and mother of 5, presented very compelling personal stories of their own struggles and how the current American health care system was the boon that led to their eventual overcoming of their particular adversities. (Google "Americans for Prosperity" and either one of their names for more details.) Congressman Bob Goodlott, R-Virginia, also briefly addressed the rally participants.
All told, there were 8 of us from Indiana who marched from the Capitol to the office of Senator Evan Bayh in the Russell Office Building, with zilch expectation of actually seeing him. O we of little faith! We had nosed around his office for about 3 minutes, complete with an offer of help from his apple-cheeked young staffer when the Senator came around a corner in khakis and sneakers. We introduced ourselves to the Senator and snapped some photos, then the Senator asked us how he could help us. James Deaton, from "We the People", a 501(c)3 in Columbus, IN, explained that we were there to ask Senator Bayh not to support a government takeover in any healthcare legislation that might pass. He calmly replied that he didn't think that type of bill would pass (I believe he qualified it, though, by adding "this year" to his remark).
James went on to ask him about tort reform. Bayh responded that he probably wouldn't be pursuing this as an agenda item since "those who support it probably wouldn't vote for it anyway" (meaning the final health care bill).
James' wife, Lisa, asked the Senator to please consider what the proper approach would be for Indiana, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. Bayh replied that he often was the only one to buck his own party on issues and was known as consensus builder rather than a partisan. (Not his exact words, but I believe I'm faithful here to the spirit of what he said.)
One other remark the Senator made stands out in my memory. Lisa Deaton mentioned California as an example of the type of morass that we want to avoid and Bayh candidly opined that "California's a mess!" This, I must admit, surprised me, but I suppose California is in such bad shape that all but the most overtly blinded can't help but admit it.
Evan Bayh is a very smooth, even-keeled type of personality; I mean no disrespect by stating that I'm sure he has purposefully cultivated this demeanor over the years. It is very effective in neutralizing dissent and is quite disarming, proof that the Biblical King Solomon was onto something with Proverbs 15:1. Though I don't believe Evan Bayh is quite the moderate voice of reason he portends to be (he voted for neither Roberts or Alito, among other positions), I have to admit the Senator was very cordial and listened as much as he talked, which is a rarity in today's rhetoric-based political climate. I hope our visit made at least something of an impressive dent in his consciousness as he faces the debate ahead on health care.
We were unsuccessful, however, in our attempt to speak with Senator Dick Lugar; he was "not available", according to his staff. Lugar's digs are in the Hart Building, the newest Senate office complex. It has more of a modern, less regal feel than the Russell, but is also a bit more plush. A fine, very courteous young woman (Liz) ushered us into Lugar's conference room, where we discussed both health care and energy for the next 20 minutes or so. I did get one question in here, regarding Lugar's refusal to hold town hall meetings and meet with his constituents. Liz replied that most of Lugar's PR events around the state were open to the public and that he happily takes questions at all of them, so he didn't feel the need to hold town hall meetings in addition to his regular schedule. Lisa D. expressed dissatisfaction with this answer and Jim Brattan, a Tea Party leader from Evansville, added that Lugar had been in Evansville very recently, but 1) the event was closed and 2) there was very little advance notice for other visits he had made to the area. Liz indicated that this was duly noted, but there was not much she could do about it at the moment, which we, of course, understood. She did state that Lugar is opposed to both the public option in health care and the current cap & trade bill.
We bade Liz farewell and headed back to the buses after thanking her for her valuable time.
My impressions? Visiting the Senators' offices was a worthwhile exercise for me on a couple of counts. First, this is citizen involvement in politics at its most basic; we walk right into their offices and tell them exactly what we think and they listen! How awesome (not using this term loosely in the slightest) is that and where else does this occur?!?! Additionally, though, the presence of power in those few square miles around the Capitol is palpable, and the high ceilings and lofty accoutrements of the Senate office buildings lend to that impression. Unless you come with a definite message to deliver from a heart of conviction, it is easy to become tongue-tied in the presence of such prestige.
(It is late and since I'm already a week past the summit, it won't hurt for me to hold over for another few hours before finishing my write-up. So toodles until tomorrow...or rather, later today...)
Americans for Prosperity is a grassroots activist organization that feels as though it has burst onto the scene with a dynamite explosion of intensity and passion for conservatism, seasoned with humor and a family atmosphere. This lends a kind of contagious joy to their conferences; I enjoyed the last one so much that I immediately began to make plans to attend this one. (Not that I ever need an excuse to either visit Washington, DC or attend a political activism type of event.)
I arrived at the Courtyard by Marriott in Alexandria around 12:30 last Friday (10/2), having just heard the news on Laura Ingraham's show that Chicago had been cut from consideration for the Olympics during the first round. By the time I checked in, changed into casual/dress clothes and Metro'd over to the Marriott Gateway in Arlington, it was around 1:30; I barely made the last AFP bus from the Marriott to the Capitol for the 2:00 PM anti-Obamacare rally that kicked the event off. I had been on the ground on the Senate side of the Capitol for all of 5 minutes when I ran into my buddy Kurt Luidhart from back home in Indiana. He had work to do so wasn't sticking around and gave me the "Indiana" sign to hold up high when it was time to split into state delegations for our visits to our Senators' offices.
The rally lasted probably 30 minutes; Shona Holmes, a brain tumor patient from Canada and Tracy Walsh, a breast cancer survivor and mother of 5, presented very compelling personal stories of their own struggles and how the current American health care system was the boon that led to their eventual overcoming of their particular adversities. (Google "Americans for Prosperity" and either one of their names for more details.) Congressman Bob Goodlott, R-Virginia, also briefly addressed the rally participants.
All told, there were 8 of us from Indiana who marched from the Capitol to the office of Senator Evan Bayh in the Russell Office Building, with zilch expectation of actually seeing him. O we of little faith! We had nosed around his office for about 3 minutes, complete with an offer of help from his apple-cheeked young staffer when the Senator came around a corner in khakis and sneakers. We introduced ourselves to the Senator and snapped some photos, then the Senator asked us how he could help us. James Deaton, from "We the People", a 501(c)3 in Columbus, IN, explained that we were there to ask Senator Bayh not to support a government takeover in any healthcare legislation that might pass. He calmly replied that he didn't think that type of bill would pass (I believe he qualified it, though, by adding "this year" to his remark).
James went on to ask him about tort reform. Bayh responded that he probably wouldn't be pursuing this as an agenda item since "those who support it probably wouldn't vote for it anyway" (meaning the final health care bill).
James' wife, Lisa, asked the Senator to please consider what the proper approach would be for Indiana, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. Bayh replied that he often was the only one to buck his own party on issues and was known as consensus builder rather than a partisan. (Not his exact words, but I believe I'm faithful here to the spirit of what he said.)
One other remark the Senator made stands out in my memory. Lisa Deaton mentioned California as an example of the type of morass that we want to avoid and Bayh candidly opined that "California's a mess!" This, I must admit, surprised me, but I suppose California is in such bad shape that all but the most overtly blinded can't help but admit it.
Evan Bayh is a very smooth, even-keeled type of personality; I mean no disrespect by stating that I'm sure he has purposefully cultivated this demeanor over the years. It is very effective in neutralizing dissent and is quite disarming, proof that the Biblical King Solomon was onto something with Proverbs 15:1. Though I don't believe Evan Bayh is quite the moderate voice of reason he portends to be (he voted for neither Roberts or Alito, among other positions), I have to admit the Senator was very cordial and listened as much as he talked, which is a rarity in today's rhetoric-based political climate. I hope our visit made at least something of an impressive dent in his consciousness as he faces the debate ahead on health care.
We were unsuccessful, however, in our attempt to speak with Senator Dick Lugar; he was "not available", according to his staff. Lugar's digs are in the Hart Building, the newest Senate office complex. It has more of a modern, less regal feel than the Russell, but is also a bit more plush. A fine, very courteous young woman (Liz) ushered us into Lugar's conference room, where we discussed both health care and energy for the next 20 minutes or so. I did get one question in here, regarding Lugar's refusal to hold town hall meetings and meet with his constituents. Liz replied that most of Lugar's PR events around the state were open to the public and that he happily takes questions at all of them, so he didn't feel the need to hold town hall meetings in addition to his regular schedule. Lisa D. expressed dissatisfaction with this answer and Jim Brattan, a Tea Party leader from Evansville, added that Lugar had been in Evansville very recently, but 1) the event was closed and 2) there was very little advance notice for other visits he had made to the area. Liz indicated that this was duly noted, but there was not much she could do about it at the moment, which we, of course, understood. She did state that Lugar is opposed to both the public option in health care and the current cap & trade bill.
We bade Liz farewell and headed back to the buses after thanking her for her valuable time.
My impressions? Visiting the Senators' offices was a worthwhile exercise for me on a couple of counts. First, this is citizen involvement in politics at its most basic; we walk right into their offices and tell them exactly what we think and they listen! How awesome (not using this term loosely in the slightest) is that and where else does this occur?!?! Additionally, though, the presence of power in those few square miles around the Capitol is palpable, and the high ceilings and lofty accoutrements of the Senate office buildings lend to that impression. Unless you come with a definite message to deliver from a heart of conviction, it is easy to become tongue-tied in the presence of such prestige.
(It is late and since I'm already a week past the summit, it won't hurt for me to hold over for another few hours before finishing my write-up. So toodles until tomorrow...or rather, later today...)
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The UN speech I'd like to hear
This week, in President Obama's speech to the United Nations, he declared that he "took office at a time when many around the world had come to view America with skepticism and distrust." He did not say anything in the remainder of the speech to indicate that this perspective was an invalid one. Nor would I expect that he would; after all, President Obama's wife told us all last year that for the first time in her life, she felt proud of her country (once it was clear that her husband was winning the Democratic Presidential nomination).
I would love, just once, to hear a President of either party go to the UN and offer some sentiments along this line:
"Messrs. Qaddafi, Castro, Chavez, et. al: You all have denounced the United States vociferously and fomentedly for years, if not decades...and, I might add, for jolly well long enough. If it weren't for this country, none of you could even afford a skyscraper with bright carpets and padded chairs such as the one we are convening in now, not to speak of the posh hotel suites you are occupying during your stays here. This country was built on the initiative of people who put their reputations, untold hours of hard work and their very livelihoods, in many cases, on the line to make it possible. It is called capitalism; it works and the whole world is more productive and better off because of it. We love freedom, we love the flag and we love God. No, our people aren't perfect; they have their weaknesses and their foibles, and we have some bad apples, but by and large we get up every day and go out and try to improve our lot in life, thereby creating more opportunities for those underneath us on the economic ladder to improve their status and standing. In the last 200 years, the world has progressed to a greater extent than the last 5,000 years of civilization have ever seen. We have left the buggy whip, the mule and plow and the institution of slavery behind forever and replaced them with jet planes, automobiles and central air conditioning. What a country! Welcome to the United States of America!"
Don't tell me it can never happen or I'll have to find another pipe dream.
The President went on to say to the assembled world leaders that going forward, no nation should seek to dominate another. I have heard a lot of commentary on this in the several days that have elapsed since then. Charles Krauthammer opined that this was one of the more naive statements to ever be uttered by a sitting President. I don't know if my reasons for agreeing with Krauthammer or synonymous with the ones he had for expressing this belief to begin with, but I do think Krauthammer's assessment was accurate. Krauthammer, however, tends to come from a more neoconservative position than I do, with a practiced defense of American empire. I do not share that outlook; I believe history shows that America has flourished when it has concentrated on sound fiscal policies domestically, combined with incentives for the kind of hard work, ingenuity and investment that lead to prosperity. This can be combined with a robust determination to defend our interests in the world at large, but it need not lead to an interventionist foreign policy.
I actually think that President Obama was even more dangerously wrong in another portion of the speech: "It is my deeply held belief that in the year 2009 - more than at any point in human history - the interests of nations and peoples are shared." This sort of claptrap makes for a good applause line from the tinhorn dictators at the UN, but it is a ridiculous across-the-board formulation. The "interests" within our own country aren't even shared, beyond the most basic fundamentals of putting food on the table and bringing home a paycheck, by hook or crook. The philosophical and political differences within the United States have never been more pronounced, let alone across the rest of the globe. What the President is trying to tell us is that we should all care about and work for the same goals. But we cannot and will not; we see the world too differently. The President sees other countries that are more "compassionate" and "fair" and "socially just" than the United States because these countries maintain a higher output of tax dollars of which this portion of the population can take advantage. I and my fellow conservatives, on the other hand, see a country that has already moved much too far in this direction and needs to return more of its tax revenues to their rightful earners who made the money in the first place!!! This is genuine fairness, rather than the artificial equitability advocated by liberal politicans who want to pad their vote tallies with the ballots of grateful welfare recipients.
I would love, just once, to hear a President of either party go to the UN and offer some sentiments along this line:
"Messrs. Qaddafi, Castro, Chavez, et. al: You all have denounced the United States vociferously and fomentedly for years, if not decades...and, I might add, for jolly well long enough. If it weren't for this country, none of you could even afford a skyscraper with bright carpets and padded chairs such as the one we are convening in now, not to speak of the posh hotel suites you are occupying during your stays here. This country was built on the initiative of people who put their reputations, untold hours of hard work and their very livelihoods, in many cases, on the line to make it possible. It is called capitalism; it works and the whole world is more productive and better off because of it. We love freedom, we love the flag and we love God. No, our people aren't perfect; they have their weaknesses and their foibles, and we have some bad apples, but by and large we get up every day and go out and try to improve our lot in life, thereby creating more opportunities for those underneath us on the economic ladder to improve their status and standing. In the last 200 years, the world has progressed to a greater extent than the last 5,000 years of civilization have ever seen. We have left the buggy whip, the mule and plow and the institution of slavery behind forever and replaced them with jet planes, automobiles and central air conditioning. What a country! Welcome to the United States of America!"
Don't tell me it can never happen or I'll have to find another pipe dream.
The President went on to say to the assembled world leaders that going forward, no nation should seek to dominate another. I have heard a lot of commentary on this in the several days that have elapsed since then. Charles Krauthammer opined that this was one of the more naive statements to ever be uttered by a sitting President. I don't know if my reasons for agreeing with Krauthammer or synonymous with the ones he had for expressing this belief to begin with, but I do think Krauthammer's assessment was accurate. Krauthammer, however, tends to come from a more neoconservative position than I do, with a practiced defense of American empire. I do not share that outlook; I believe history shows that America has flourished when it has concentrated on sound fiscal policies domestically, combined with incentives for the kind of hard work, ingenuity and investment that lead to prosperity. This can be combined with a robust determination to defend our interests in the world at large, but it need not lead to an interventionist foreign policy.
I actually think that President Obama was even more dangerously wrong in another portion of the speech: "It is my deeply held belief that in the year 2009 - more than at any point in human history - the interests of nations and peoples are shared." This sort of claptrap makes for a good applause line from the tinhorn dictators at the UN, but it is a ridiculous across-the-board formulation. The "interests" within our own country aren't even shared, beyond the most basic fundamentals of putting food on the table and bringing home a paycheck, by hook or crook. The philosophical and political differences within the United States have never been more pronounced, let alone across the rest of the globe. What the President is trying to tell us is that we should all care about and work for the same goals. But we cannot and will not; we see the world too differently. The President sees other countries that are more "compassionate" and "fair" and "socially just" than the United States because these countries maintain a higher output of tax dollars of which this portion of the population can take advantage. I and my fellow conservatives, on the other hand, see a country that has already moved much too far in this direction and needs to return more of its tax revenues to their rightful earners who made the money in the first place!!! This is genuine fairness, rather than the artificial equitability advocated by liberal politicans who want to pad their vote tallies with the ballots of grateful welfare recipients.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
ACORN's demise
I just took a brief glance at my last 5 or 6 posts, which span back about 3 weeks. Not proud of that. My friend Jed Hutchison, who blogs on religion and not politics, is an every-single-day-I-post-something type of blogger. I never have been...but I aspire to that, and it just may happen someday soon. This week, though, is illustrative of how illusive such a goal is for me and probably will be for the next several weeks. My youngest daughter had a 5-in-1 surgical procedure on Tuesday morning and didn't get out of the hospital until last night. In the meantime, I was shuttling back and forth from Indianapolis to Kokomo, conducting standard university duties, studying material for my last Liberty class when I got the chance and paying attention to news and catching a day with the Hoosier Congressional Policy Leadership Series. Of the above list, the one element that will soon be changing is the scholarly obligation to Liberty; I will complete the final requirement for the Master of Arts in Religion when I close out my Systematic Theology II class on October 18, 4 weeks from tomorrow! I hope to kick the blog into higher gear after that.
In the midst of it all, I have failed to blog on what I am convinced may be one of the biggest, if not the most significant scoop of the year. I probably shouldn't feel too badly about it, because so did most of the mainstream media (fail to report on it, that is). I sat in on a conference call a couple of days ago with Fox News' and the "Weekly Standard's" Fred Barnes, whom I always enjoy when he turns up a couple of times a week on the Fox News All Stars. Barnes chuckled with genuine delight over what an unlikely pattern the story of ACORN's exposure has followed! Two twentysomething young activists with a video camera have, at the very least, brought about the proposal to defund ACORN by both houses of Congress, the complete break with ACORN by the US Census Bureau and a manifestly steep falloff in donations. It is, indeed, a beautiful thing to behold, and we can only hope that ACORN's ill fortunes continue to accelerate.
It has been an interesting September. What is it about this month anyway? Last year, we had the first TARP bailout and this year, we are treated to the health care debate and the 9/12 March on Washington, with its several thousand patrons (har, har). I think I prefer 2009, all things being equal.
On other matters ACORN-related: Charlie Gibson's admission on Don Wade and Roma's WLS radio show, replete with nervous giggling, that he had not even heard about ACORN and its difficulties...let's just say that the mind reels. I got to ask Fred Barnes about this on our HCPLS conference call and I admitted my incredulousness at Gibson's reply as I posed my question. As I suspected, Barnes knows Gibson and says he is a very nice man, but is just out of touch up in New York. Barnes also observed that it is a telling sign of the times when an evening news man on one of the ostensibly "Big 3 networks" is so insulated from reality that he is completely unaware of one of the major breaking stories of the day.
Bertha Lewis, the current head of ACORN, will be on Fox News Sunday tomorrow morning. I will be watching; I would anyway, but I will go out of my way to do it, even though if I have guests since President Obama has chosen to hit 5 other shows tomorrow, including Univision, but to snub Fox. Chris Wallace said on O'Reilly last night that "They [the Obama White House] are the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington. They constantly are on the phone, or emailing me complaining, well, you had this guest. Or you did this thing. I mean, they are working the umps all the time. I think it works for the others. It doesn't work with me." Very frank admission from the most non-partisan Sunday host out there, the rightful heir to Tim Russert.
In the midst of it all, I have failed to blog on what I am convinced may be one of the biggest, if not the most significant scoop of the year. I probably shouldn't feel too badly about it, because so did most of the mainstream media (fail to report on it, that is). I sat in on a conference call a couple of days ago with Fox News' and the "Weekly Standard's" Fred Barnes, whom I always enjoy when he turns up a couple of times a week on the Fox News All Stars. Barnes chuckled with genuine delight over what an unlikely pattern the story of ACORN's exposure has followed! Two twentysomething young activists with a video camera have, at the very least, brought about the proposal to defund ACORN by both houses of Congress, the complete break with ACORN by the US Census Bureau and a manifestly steep falloff in donations. It is, indeed, a beautiful thing to behold, and we can only hope that ACORN's ill fortunes continue to accelerate.
It has been an interesting September. What is it about this month anyway? Last year, we had the first TARP bailout and this year, we are treated to the health care debate and the 9/12 March on Washington, with its several thousand patrons (har, har). I think I prefer 2009, all things being equal.
On other matters ACORN-related: Charlie Gibson's admission on Don Wade and Roma's WLS radio show, replete with nervous giggling, that he had not even heard about ACORN and its difficulties...let's just say that the mind reels. I got to ask Fred Barnes about this on our HCPLS conference call and I admitted my incredulousness at Gibson's reply as I posed my question. As I suspected, Barnes knows Gibson and says he is a very nice man, but is just out of touch up in New York. Barnes also observed that it is a telling sign of the times when an evening news man on one of the ostensibly "Big 3 networks" is so insulated from reality that he is completely unaware of one of the major breaking stories of the day.
Bertha Lewis, the current head of ACORN, will be on Fox News Sunday tomorrow morning. I will be watching; I would anyway, but I will go out of my way to do it, even though if I have guests since President Obama has chosen to hit 5 other shows tomorrow, including Univision, but to snub Fox. Chris Wallace said on O'Reilly last night that "They [the Obama White House] are the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington. They constantly are on the phone, or emailing me complaining, well, you had this guest. Or you did this thing. I mean, they are working the umps all the time. I think it works for the others. It doesn't work with me." Very frank admission from the most non-partisan Sunday host out there, the rightful heir to Tim Russert.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Retraction and the Fed
I have a former student who lives in Iowa and reads my blog regularly (thanks, Karen!) She diligently took it upon herself to check in with Senator Charles Grassley after reading my "Audit the Fed is dead" post from a couple of months ago. I am happy to stand corrected on this. I reported what I remember reading at the time, which was that Grassley had blocked DeMint's efforts on "Audit the Fed." In fact, Grassley had sponsored a similar piece of legislation, the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act. I was correct, unfortunately, in citing Senator Richard Shelby, also a Republican, as the culprit who essentially neutered the bill by very narrowly defining its potential auditory functions to a few specific tasks.
Charles Grassley, in spite of the fears of some conservatives, has proved to be a stalwart, refusing to give an inch on the so-called "public option" in the Senate health care negotiations. I don't ever want to convey mistruth, but in this case, I am more than happy to retract my unwarranted criticism of such a determined advocate for transparency in government.
The Federal Reserve will be getting its share of attention in the coming weeks, with the recent release of a book by one of the Fed's harshest critics. Ron Paul's End the Fed will hit bookstores this week. In celebration of that event, I want to highlight this article, in the "Huffington Post", of all places, a site which I normally do not recommend, but which, in this instance, provides a fascinating look at the destinies of those intrepid economists who have departed from Federal Reserve orthodoxy in recent years. Credit where credit is due; Ryan Grim has assembled a fantastic research piece here, which makes for scintillating reading.
Charles Grassley, in spite of the fears of some conservatives, has proved to be a stalwart, refusing to give an inch on the so-called "public option" in the Senate health care negotiations. I don't ever want to convey mistruth, but in this case, I am more than happy to retract my unwarranted criticism of such a determined advocate for transparency in government.
The Federal Reserve will be getting its share of attention in the coming weeks, with the recent release of a book by one of the Fed's harshest critics. Ron Paul's End the Fed will hit bookstores this week. In celebration of that event, I want to highlight this article, in the "Huffington Post", of all places, a site which I normally do not recommend, but which, in this instance, provides a fascinating look at the destinies of those intrepid economists who have departed from Federal Reserve orthodoxy in recent years. Credit where credit is due; Ryan Grim has assembled a fantastic research piece here, which makes for scintillating reading.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Congressman Joe Wilson
So the President gave another speech after the last one that I blogged about. (I know that ending sentences with prepositions is not grammatically sound. I feel terrible that I just did it.)
Now that 3 days have passed since the President addressed a joint session of Congress, I am beginning to wonder if Joe Wilson got more mileage out of President Obama's speech than the President did. Since the President's stemwinder on health care, Joe Wilson has:
1) Been on Sean Hannity's radio show
2) Been on Sean Hannity's TV show
3) Been booked for Fox News Sunday
4) Obtained thousands of Twitter followers, including yours truly
5) Raised somewhere around $700,000 for his 2010 re-election campaign and perhaps most rewarding of all,
6) Really gotten under the skin of our Democrat friends.
Rush Limbaugh was disappointed that Joe Wilson apologized to President Obama for shouting "You lie" as the President made an assertion that health care for illegal aliens would never be a part of any legislation to cross his desk. I humbly differ with MahaRushie on this one. Wilson did the right thing to apologize, as befits a Southern gentleman of his stature.
But as "National Review's" Kevin Williamson put it, "Joe Wilson was rude, but also right." Columnist Rich Galen expands and somewhat echoes, "Turns out there is nothing in any of the four or five or 27 versions of this legislation which specifically requires proof of citizenship - or even legal immigrant status - so Wilson was right, if rude."
I would only add one more comment to all of this: Wilson's response to the President was not only both of the above, but also understandable. Wilson is a flesh and blood player in a high stakes game on which the quality of millions of lives and trillions of dollars, not to mention the future of the Republic, are riding. That he got a little carried away in the heat of the moment is, to me, more comforting than disconcerting.
So does the office of the President still merit respect, especially in the chambers of Congress. Affirmative! But I will still be doing my part to render Joe Wilson's campaign coffers just a tad more fulsome. After all, didn't someone famous once say that "A little rebellion now and then is a good thing"?
Now that 3 days have passed since the President addressed a joint session of Congress, I am beginning to wonder if Joe Wilson got more mileage out of President Obama's speech than the President did. Since the President's stemwinder on health care, Joe Wilson has:
1) Been on Sean Hannity's radio show
2) Been on Sean Hannity's TV show
3) Been booked for Fox News Sunday
4) Obtained thousands of Twitter followers, including yours truly
5) Raised somewhere around $700,000 for his 2010 re-election campaign and perhaps most rewarding of all,
6) Really gotten under the skin of our Democrat friends.
Rush Limbaugh was disappointed that Joe Wilson apologized to President Obama for shouting "You lie" as the President made an assertion that health care for illegal aliens would never be a part of any legislation to cross his desk. I humbly differ with MahaRushie on this one. Wilson did the right thing to apologize, as befits a Southern gentleman of his stature.
But as "National Review's" Kevin Williamson put it, "Joe Wilson was rude, but also right." Columnist Rich Galen expands and somewhat echoes, "Turns out there is nothing in any of the four or five or 27 versions of this legislation which specifically requires proof of citizenship - or even legal immigrant status - so Wilson was right, if rude."
I would only add one more comment to all of this: Wilson's response to the President was not only both of the above, but also understandable. Wilson is a flesh and blood player in a high stakes game on which the quality of millions of lives and trillions of dollars, not to mention the future of the Republic, are riding. That he got a little carried away in the heat of the moment is, to me, more comforting than disconcerting.
So does the office of the President still merit respect, especially in the chambers of Congress. Affirmative! But I will still be doing my part to render Joe Wilson's campaign coffers just a tad more fulsome. After all, didn't someone famous once say that "A little rebellion now and then is a good thing"?
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
President Obama and schoolchildren
Erick Erickson sums it up most concisely in a Facebook status update from a few minutes ago:
"Not really worked up about the President's school speech."
Me neither.
We may not appreciate his policies, but Barack Obama is the duly elected President of the United States who won a fairly sizeable victory last fall. We also may believe (and I do, based on empirical observation) that many Americans did not realize all that they were voting for when they elected him.
Still, for now, President Obama is the leader of the United States of America, of the free world, if you will. A few points that are worth making:
1. We conservatives profess to value education. Why should we denigrate the President when he encourages students to study hard and stay in school? He should be doing this, shouldn't he?
2. We justifiably criticize many of President Obama's initiatives. But if we cry foul over EVERYTHING he does, who looks like the extremists in the eyes of the average swing voter? A little pragmatism once in a while never hurts.
3. Read the President's remarks if you are worried about the speech. I have. I can find no fault with any of it; frankly, any President of any ideological orientation could give this talk.
4. (And last) If you are worried about the President giving a 10-minute speech to your children, yet you put them on a government bus every day to be transported to a government school to be educated by government textbooks that, according to Tucker Carlson's Fox special last Friday, are authored by one of a mere 3 textbook companies with countless sensitivity censors as a part of the process...
Just think about that for a while.
"Not really worked up about the President's school speech."
Me neither.
We may not appreciate his policies, but Barack Obama is the duly elected President of the United States who won a fairly sizeable victory last fall. We also may believe (and I do, based on empirical observation) that many Americans did not realize all that they were voting for when they elected him.
Still, for now, President Obama is the leader of the United States of America, of the free world, if you will. A few points that are worth making:
1. We conservatives profess to value education. Why should we denigrate the President when he encourages students to study hard and stay in school? He should be doing this, shouldn't he?
2. We justifiably criticize many of President Obama's initiatives. But if we cry foul over EVERYTHING he does, who looks like the extremists in the eyes of the average swing voter? A little pragmatism once in a while never hurts.
3. Read the President's remarks if you are worried about the speech. I have. I can find no fault with any of it; frankly, any President of any ideological orientation could give this talk.
4. (And last) If you are worried about the President giving a 10-minute speech to your children, yet you put them on a government bus every day to be transported to a government school to be educated by government textbooks that, according to Tucker Carlson's Fox special last Friday, are authored by one of a mere 3 textbook companies with countless sensitivity censors as a part of the process...
Just think about that for a while.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Glenn Beck and Van Jones
I had planned for several hours to put this up tonight, and then the news crossed the wire a few minutes ago that Van Jones has resigned. This is the best political news I've heard in a while...yet another setback for an administration increasingly besieged by incompetence and misfortune.
There will, I'm convinced, be much more to say about the hapless Obama team in the weeks to come; things will only heat up this fall.
For the moment, I plan to be one of the first to pay Glenn Beck the kudos he is due for shining the light on the truly detestable human being that Van Jones is. If anyone else was out in front of this story in the way that Beck was, I don't know who it would be. This has been one of those news items that has been fascinating to view as it spun out into more and more of a nightmare for the White House, to the point where yesterday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs could only offer the lame defense that "Van Jones continues to work for this Administration." And Glenn Beck was pushing it relentlessly the whole time.
Totally as a point-of-privilege bit of background...I am somewhat proud that I was listening to Glenn Beck before being a Glenn Beck fan was cool. It has been quite a ride, although a bittersweet one, watching the evolution of not only his show, but his reach and influence. I'll explain: I remember the first time I stumbled across his show, on a cold February morning in 2002, headed east towards Ohio, tuning into the AM blowtorch out of Fort Wayne, News Talk 1190 WOWO at around 9:06 EST. Glenn was yukking it up with Stu, Dan and the rest of the team and I was thinking, "Who IS this guy?" and not in a really impressed sort of way, either! He was SO off the wall and extremely random; I was used to Rush Limbaugh methodically dissecting a news item or opinion piece and Glenn just had the feel of someone who didn't take it all real seriously. I listened occasionally over the next couple of years and he grew on me until by 2005, I was an avid fan and went to see his stage show when he came to the Murat Theater in Indianapolis.
This is the deal: Townhall.com blogger Matt Lewis recently opined that Beck seems more like a rodeo clown to him than a serious political commentator. I like Matt and highly respect his opinion, but I differed with him on this point; however, I think I understand why he proffered that assessment. Until a couple of years ago, that is exactly how I would have described what Glenn did: hilarious radio, with a seasoning of seriousness thrown in from time to time. Good, clean fun. I miss it, to be honest. His comedic timing was excellent and he discussed a lot of things that were, frankly, really inane, but also really funny.
But not anymore. About 2 years ago, I noticed a far more purposeful tone to what Glenn was doing with his radio broadcast and his new TV show. It was a slow build, but it was easy to discern that he was doing homework requiring the kind of digging that he had not engaged in up to that point, reading books, doing research and thinking below the surface. The humorous, sarcastic edge is not as observable now as it once was; in fact, I heard Glenn himself say a couple of weeks ago on the radio show that he wishes desperately on most days that he could "just go back and do funny again", but that he would be failing his audience and his calling if he did.
Glenn has brought substantive people of expertise to his microphones that, otherwise, might not have had a voice or a platform this soon, including many faces from my favorite new advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity. Other organizations and people such as the Media Research Center, Steve Moore from the Wall Street Journal and Art Laffer, the famous supply-side economist who drew the Laffer Curve on a restaurant napkin, are routinely featured.
But my prediction is that the Van Jones resignation will bring Glenn's portfolio to a whole new dimension. Glenn Beck has walked us all through every step of the Van Jones travesty, from exposing him as a Marxist to documenting his revolutionary worldview to unearthing the radio clips that show Jones' intentions to remake the country in a leftist Communist image to finally exposing his 9/11 Truther connections.
There is a beautiful subtext to this whole story: Van Jones was the former president of Color of Change, the environmentalist wacko group that led the boycott against Beck and tried to influence Beck's sponsors into pulling away from his show. Glenn Beck went head to head with the Obama administration and in the end, the administration blinked.
So now, in the words of one of my Twitter buddies (whose Tweet I can't locate at the moment, in order to give credit), Van Jones can go to the Czar listings in the phone book and start job hunting.
There will, I'm convinced, be much more to say about the hapless Obama team in the weeks to come; things will only heat up this fall.
For the moment, I plan to be one of the first to pay Glenn Beck the kudos he is due for shining the light on the truly detestable human being that Van Jones is. If anyone else was out in front of this story in the way that Beck was, I don't know who it would be. This has been one of those news items that has been fascinating to view as it spun out into more and more of a nightmare for the White House, to the point where yesterday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs could only offer the lame defense that "Van Jones continues to work for this Administration." And Glenn Beck was pushing it relentlessly the whole time.
Totally as a point-of-privilege bit of background...I am somewhat proud that I was listening to Glenn Beck before being a Glenn Beck fan was cool. It has been quite a ride, although a bittersweet one, watching the evolution of not only his show, but his reach and influence. I'll explain: I remember the first time I stumbled across his show, on a cold February morning in 2002, headed east towards Ohio, tuning into the AM blowtorch out of Fort Wayne, News Talk 1190 WOWO at around 9:06 EST. Glenn was yukking it up with Stu, Dan and the rest of the team and I was thinking, "Who IS this guy?" and not in a really impressed sort of way, either! He was SO off the wall and extremely random; I was used to Rush Limbaugh methodically dissecting a news item or opinion piece and Glenn just had the feel of someone who didn't take it all real seriously. I listened occasionally over the next couple of years and he grew on me until by 2005, I was an avid fan and went to see his stage show when he came to the Murat Theater in Indianapolis.
This is the deal: Townhall.com blogger Matt Lewis recently opined that Beck seems more like a rodeo clown to him than a serious political commentator. I like Matt and highly respect his opinion, but I differed with him on this point; however, I think I understand why he proffered that assessment. Until a couple of years ago, that is exactly how I would have described what Glenn did: hilarious radio, with a seasoning of seriousness thrown in from time to time. Good, clean fun. I miss it, to be honest. His comedic timing was excellent and he discussed a lot of things that were, frankly, really inane, but also really funny.
But not anymore. About 2 years ago, I noticed a far more purposeful tone to what Glenn was doing with his radio broadcast and his new TV show. It was a slow build, but it was easy to discern that he was doing homework requiring the kind of digging that he had not engaged in up to that point, reading books, doing research and thinking below the surface. The humorous, sarcastic edge is not as observable now as it once was; in fact, I heard Glenn himself say a couple of weeks ago on the radio show that he wishes desperately on most days that he could "just go back and do funny again", but that he would be failing his audience and his calling if he did.
Glenn has brought substantive people of expertise to his microphones that, otherwise, might not have had a voice or a platform this soon, including many faces from my favorite new advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity. Other organizations and people such as the Media Research Center, Steve Moore from the Wall Street Journal and Art Laffer, the famous supply-side economist who drew the Laffer Curve on a restaurant napkin, are routinely featured.
But my prediction is that the Van Jones resignation will bring Glenn's portfolio to a whole new dimension. Glenn Beck has walked us all through every step of the Van Jones travesty, from exposing him as a Marxist to documenting his revolutionary worldview to unearthing the radio clips that show Jones' intentions to remake the country in a leftist Communist image to finally exposing his 9/11 Truther connections.
There is a beautiful subtext to this whole story: Van Jones was the former president of Color of Change, the environmentalist wacko group that led the boycott against Beck and tried to influence Beck's sponsors into pulling away from his show. Glenn Beck went head to head with the Obama administration and in the end, the administration blinked.
So now, in the words of one of my Twitter buddies (whose Tweet I can't locate at the moment, in order to give credit), Van Jones can go to the Czar listings in the phone book and start job hunting.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Thoughts on the passing of Ted Kennedy
I posted within minutes last year after Senator Kennedy was diagnosed with the brain tumor that claimed his life late Tuesday night. It has taken me a little longer this time, but I know my thoughts, along with those of all Americans, have been with the Kennedy family over the last couple of days, especially since they so recently experienced the loss of another family member, Eunice Shriver.
My parents were, to say the least, not political types at the time I was growing up. They still aren't, but they do vote now. Hard to say where I acquired my politically oriented genes. In any event, one of the less than 10 books of a pseudo-political nature that we had on our bookshelf growing up was a coffee table-type book on the JFK assassination. (Don't ask. I don't know.) A very youthful Teddy (31 years old at the time) was featured prominently in a number of the photos. Dad also subscribed to "US News and World Report", which I am pretty sure is still in circulation, but was one of 3 weekly magazines that were widely read even by non-news junkies back in those days when dinosaurs roamed the earth. One of the first pictures I remember seeing back when my political appetite was beginning to be whetted was a picture of Senator Ted Kennedy with the rest of his family at a candlelight memorial vigil for his other fallen brother, Robert F. Kennedy.
And from that point on, Senator Ted Kennedy loomed large on the political landscape, even though the issues on which I agreed with him were few and miniscule.
It is no exaggeration when Kennedy is referenced as the "Last Lion" of the Senate, much as I hate to admit it and wish a conservative could hold a similar title. Kennedy simply was a legislative and political giant, with a name that contained the historical resonance of a bygone era. One of the highlights of an early visit back in 2001 that Pam and I made to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC was a brief glimpse of Ted Kennedy on the Senate floor. Funny the things you recall...I remember how florid his complexion was and that his back was a little hunched. The latter was probably due to a plane crash he survived back in the late '60's. As to the facial redness...I will kindly spare further comment.
Kennedy was a genuine liberal and made no bones about it. He never pretended to be other than what he was. For this, I respect his memory and wish for more politicians who would be willing to be correspondingly honest and forthright regarding their convictions.
It is sad, but I must do my 2 cents worth to help set the record straight about the mainstream media spin we have endured for the last 1 & 1/2 days on Ted Kennedy's record and outlook. It is understandable that Kennedy's acolytes in both politics and the media are trying to attach the sentimental appeal of his memory to a health care bill that will prove devastating to the nation if it is passed. After all, this was, by Kennedy's own admission, the cause to which he devoted his career.
It is inexcusable, however, when these same people, in reverential tones, counsel kindness and noncensoriousness to us all, while invoking Ted Kennedy's reputation. This is pure and simple falsehood, at best, and disingenuousness at worst.
As Bill Kristol accurately pointed out on "Special Report" last night, no conservative can ever forget the smear campaign that Kennedy led against the illustrious Judge Robert Bork, one of the most powerful legal minds of the 20th century. Here, courtesy of Townhall.com, is the famous clip that ended up destroying Bork's chances of occupying a seat on the Supreme Court, one of the greatest losses in the history of the American judiciary.
Enough has been said about Chappaquiddick and the story is well known. I will not revisit it further.
American politics will never be the same, and even though my sympathies are with the Kennedy family at this time of grief, I cannot pretend that I will miss the vigorously leftist activism of Senator Ted Kennedy. I do, however, desperately wish that we could produce a lion on our side who would fight for the Constitution and its tenets with the same enthusiasm and zest with which Senator Kennedy championed progressive causes.
My parents were, to say the least, not political types at the time I was growing up. They still aren't, but they do vote now. Hard to say where I acquired my politically oriented genes. In any event, one of the less than 10 books of a pseudo-political nature that we had on our bookshelf growing up was a coffee table-type book on the JFK assassination. (Don't ask. I don't know.) A very youthful Teddy (31 years old at the time) was featured prominently in a number of the photos. Dad also subscribed to "US News and World Report", which I am pretty sure is still in circulation, but was one of 3 weekly magazines that were widely read even by non-news junkies back in those days when dinosaurs roamed the earth. One of the first pictures I remember seeing back when my political appetite was beginning to be whetted was a picture of Senator Ted Kennedy with the rest of his family at a candlelight memorial vigil for his other fallen brother, Robert F. Kennedy.
And from that point on, Senator Ted Kennedy loomed large on the political landscape, even though the issues on which I agreed with him were few and miniscule.
It is no exaggeration when Kennedy is referenced as the "Last Lion" of the Senate, much as I hate to admit it and wish a conservative could hold a similar title. Kennedy simply was a legislative and political giant, with a name that contained the historical resonance of a bygone era. One of the highlights of an early visit back in 2001 that Pam and I made to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC was a brief glimpse of Ted Kennedy on the Senate floor. Funny the things you recall...I remember how florid his complexion was and that his back was a little hunched. The latter was probably due to a plane crash he survived back in the late '60's. As to the facial redness...I will kindly spare further comment.
Kennedy was a genuine liberal and made no bones about it. He never pretended to be other than what he was. For this, I respect his memory and wish for more politicians who would be willing to be correspondingly honest and forthright regarding their convictions.
It is sad, but I must do my 2 cents worth to help set the record straight about the mainstream media spin we have endured for the last 1 & 1/2 days on Ted Kennedy's record and outlook. It is understandable that Kennedy's acolytes in both politics and the media are trying to attach the sentimental appeal of his memory to a health care bill that will prove devastating to the nation if it is passed. After all, this was, by Kennedy's own admission, the cause to which he devoted his career.
It is inexcusable, however, when these same people, in reverential tones, counsel kindness and noncensoriousness to us all, while invoking Ted Kennedy's reputation. This is pure and simple falsehood, at best, and disingenuousness at worst.
As Bill Kristol accurately pointed out on "Special Report" last night, no conservative can ever forget the smear campaign that Kennedy led against the illustrious Judge Robert Bork, one of the most powerful legal minds of the 20th century. Here, courtesy of Townhall.com, is the famous clip that ended up destroying Bork's chances of occupying a seat on the Supreme Court, one of the greatest losses in the history of the American judiciary.
Enough has been said about Chappaquiddick and the story is well known. I will not revisit it further.
American politics will never be the same, and even though my sympathies are with the Kennedy family at this time of grief, I cannot pretend that I will miss the vigorously leftist activism of Senator Ted Kennedy. I do, however, desperately wish that we could produce a lion on our side who would fight for the Constitution and its tenets with the same enthusiasm and zest with which Senator Kennedy championed progressive causes.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Rest in peace, Robert Novak
I heard the news from Mark Steyn (who was filling in for Rush on Tuesday) that Robert Novak had passed away, succumbing to the brain tumor with which he was diagnosed last summer.
I never got to meet Bob Novak or even hear him speak, but I felt a profound sadness, nonetheless. I fear we will not see his kind again. Novak was an old-school reporter who was fearlessly committed to integrity. He was, however, not afraid to brandish his conservative credentials, though this did not translate to protectiveness towards Republican politicians.
Robert Novak was famous for the scoops that he uncovered, and there was a new one almost every week. I read his columns religiously. They were always interesting and he could write like nobody's business. Novak was more than your standard-issue pundit; there was clout behind what he wrote and said because of the half a century he had spent becoming acquainted with the ways of Washington.
I think I first saw Novak on Crossfire back around 2002 or so; he was representing the Right and Paul Begala the Left. Candidly, Novak was a far more gifted writer than he was a speaker; he was not as glib on his feet as some (Tucker Carlson, for instance, whom I also like and yes, Paul Begala, whom I don't so much), but he always had something worthwhile to say or cover.
One of the last memories I have is of Novak covering the South Carolina Republican primary for Fox News. McCain had just won and Novak essentially predicted that this indicated that the nomination now belonged to McCain. Sean Hannity, who was anchoring at that moment, protested that surely this didn't mean it was all over for Mitt Romney and the other hopefuls? Novak replied that he had covered Republicans for 50 years and if South Carolina GOP voters were throwing their support behind a candidate, his nomination was virtually assured. We all know how that turned out.
Novak's story of his journey to the Catholic faith from agnosticism is one of the most moving conversion stories I have ever encountered. He details this in his memoir, as well. He was approached in 1996 by a young female student who asked if he had joined the church (evidently, she knew that he had looked into it). He replied that he had not and had no intention of doing so anytime soon. Her response was, "Mr. Novak, life is short, but eternity is forever." He was so shaken by this simple witness that he began a spiritual journey that lasted until his death.
It is sad that Novak's final years were marked by the controversy of the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson non-story. Novak did nothing wrong in reporting the facts that he was given by the source he eventually disclosed: Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage. Yet, he was forced to expend $160,000 in legal fees while keeping silent as the situation unfolded. The whole thing was a sham and charade masquerading as justice, and it was fitting that Novak was ultimately cleared, but sad that he had to endure this pitiless ordeal. Plame was not even a covert agent and had not been for some time.
Bob Novak left a legacy behind him that represented the best that conservative journalism has had to offer. I have missed his columns for the last year and have feared that this day would come, all too soon. Tim Russert, Tony Snow and now Robert Novak. We keep losing men whose shoes are too big to fill.
I never got to meet Bob Novak or even hear him speak, but I felt a profound sadness, nonetheless. I fear we will not see his kind again. Novak was an old-school reporter who was fearlessly committed to integrity. He was, however, not afraid to brandish his conservative credentials, though this did not translate to protectiveness towards Republican politicians.
Robert Novak was famous for the scoops that he uncovered, and there was a new one almost every week. I read his columns religiously. They were always interesting and he could write like nobody's business. Novak was more than your standard-issue pundit; there was clout behind what he wrote and said because of the half a century he had spent becoming acquainted with the ways of Washington.
I think I first saw Novak on Crossfire back around 2002 or so; he was representing the Right and Paul Begala the Left. Candidly, Novak was a far more gifted writer than he was a speaker; he was not as glib on his feet as some (Tucker Carlson, for instance, whom I also like and yes, Paul Begala, whom I don't so much), but he always had something worthwhile to say or cover.
One of the last memories I have is of Novak covering the South Carolina Republican primary for Fox News. McCain had just won and Novak essentially predicted that this indicated that the nomination now belonged to McCain. Sean Hannity, who was anchoring at that moment, protested that surely this didn't mean it was all over for Mitt Romney and the other hopefuls? Novak replied that he had covered Republicans for 50 years and if South Carolina GOP voters were throwing their support behind a candidate, his nomination was virtually assured. We all know how that turned out.
Novak's story of his journey to the Catholic faith from agnosticism is one of the most moving conversion stories I have ever encountered. He details this in his memoir, as well. He was approached in 1996 by a young female student who asked if he had joined the church (evidently, she knew that he had looked into it). He replied that he had not and had no intention of doing so anytime soon. Her response was, "Mr. Novak, life is short, but eternity is forever." He was so shaken by this simple witness that he began a spiritual journey that lasted until his death.
It is sad that Novak's final years were marked by the controversy of the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson non-story. Novak did nothing wrong in reporting the facts that he was given by the source he eventually disclosed: Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage. Yet, he was forced to expend $160,000 in legal fees while keeping silent as the situation unfolded. The whole thing was a sham and charade masquerading as justice, and it was fitting that Novak was ultimately cleared, but sad that he had to endure this pitiless ordeal. Plame was not even a covert agent and had not been for some time.
Bob Novak left a legacy behind him that represented the best that conservative journalism has had to offer. I have missed his columns for the last year and have feared that this day would come, all too soon. Tim Russert, Tony Snow and now Robert Novak. We keep losing men whose shoes are too big to fill.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Right Online 2009
I was not even aware of the Americans for Prosperity think tank a year ago, let alone that they had sponsored the first annual Right Online conference in Austin, TX last summer.
I first began to hear about AFP a few months ago as Glenn Beck brought different personalities from the organization onto his show. Someone invited me to become a Facebook fan of the organization, then I received a Facebook friend request from their President, Tim Phillips, followed shortly by an invitation to the second Right Online conference. The end result of this process was my presence in Pittsburgh on August 14-15 at the Station Square Sheraton right on the riverfront.
The conference kicked off at noon on Friday, 8/14. I won't go into painstaking detail over every detail that occurred, but there were a number of highlights and observations that I want to record while memory is still relatively fresh. (My laptop unfortunately contracted a virus on Saturday afternoon, probably due to the Sheraton's unsecure connection, from which it did not recover until Monday afternoon. And then I had a paper to write and work to catch up on, yada, yada, yada...thus my inability to blog about the conference until tonight!)
If there was one overarching lesson with which I came away from Right Online, it is the power of Twitter! I created my Twitter account several months ago and did well to check it briefly every couple weeks or so. I arrived in Pittsburgh following maybe 10 people on Twitter, with my own followers in the single digits. By the time I drove home to Indiana on Sunday, I was following close to 100 people and had nearly as many fellow Tweeters who had jumped aboard my Twitter rocket! And the number has steadily accelerated every day since then.
Midway through Friday afternoon, I walked around a corner at the Sheraton and who should be standing there, Blackberry in hand, but my fellow Hoosier and political pal, Kristen Luidhart...neither of us had had a clue that the other would be present, though I had noticed her Tweeting on the Right Online Tweetdeck. She warned me that Twitter is addictive, and she knew whereof she spoke. It fosters a sense of community among activists like us that is difficult to adequately portray if you haven't yet taken the plunge yourself. There is something about the immediacy and spontaneity of putting your views out there for instant comment and receiving quick feedback in real time that is quite rewarding. More on Twitter in a minute...
It was fun to see a number of people whose blogs I have followed and whose columns I have read for a number of years. John Hawkins of Right Wing News (who is also a Townhall.com columnist) was on the first panel of the day on Social Networking 101. Matt Lewis, who has broken a lot of scoops on Townhall.com over the last few years and blogs regularly at Politics Daily, was in charge of the second panel. Matt shared pointers on political blogging that will probably lead to some facelifts on this very blog in the days ahead, as soon as I can afford to expend some resources in both dollars and time. The key concept that I garnered from Matt's very interactive lecture is that "Words are not enough" when it comes to blogging. Pictures and video are the spice that adds real pleasure to a blog for the reader; they provide the hook that brings the reader back.
There were so many unexpected delights in the 28 or so hours that the conference lasted, but chief among those was the opportunity to get a bit better acquainted with Irish filmmaker Ann McElhinney. I just took a peek back at my blogs about CPAC 2009, and I see that I neglected to say a word about the presentation that she and her husband, Phelim McAleer, gave on CPAC Saturday (February 28, 2009) about their upcoming anti-global warming conspiracy documentary "Not Evil, Just Wrong." So a bit of background. Andrew Breitbart very shrewdly booked Ann and Phelim in the slot right before Ward Connerly, who directly preceded Rush Limbaugh's closing speech. I would wager that there probably were not 10 people in the ballroom that day who had ever heard of Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer, but the venue was jammed to capacity because of eagerness to hear Rush. Ann and Phelim spoke to the crowd for about an hour about their project, interspersed with clips from the film. They entered a roomful of strangers and walked off waving to 6,000 screaming fans. Yes, they are that good.
Back to Right Online...I walked up to Ann and Phelim at the hotel bar and introduced myself, saying how much I had enjoyed their speech at CPAC. We talked for a minute, then about an hour later, at Matt Lewis' workshop on Facebook & Twitter, Ann sat down in front of me and shared some of the vision she and Phelim have for their project. Ann is a ball of restless kinetic energy, like few people I have ever seen. She and Phelim have paid a price for their conversion to conservatism since they were both flaming liberals until 5 years ago when they filmed the documentary "Mine Your Own Business" and saw that the real villains of the story were not businessmen, but environmentalists who forced continued regional poverty at the expense of their own posturing.
The closing event of the day was a screening of "Not Evil, Just Wrong." The movie runs about 85 minutes. As the father of a kindergartener who came home from 2 straight weeks of Earth Day celebrations at her school this last year telling me why I needed to take care of the trees and not drive as much, I can assure you that this film is sorely needed...and that is the least of the reasons why it is MUST viewing. The movie documents the testimony of the British lawyer who took Al Gore to court for misstatements that were made in the film (the prosecution won!), as well as a founding member of Greenpeace who realized where the organization was going in the '80's and chose to make his departure. But the most poignant observation concerns the destruction that has been wrought in the name of global warming dogma, with the withholding of DDT from poor African nations. DDT is the chemical that Rachel Carson made famous in her book "Silent Spring", which in turn heavily influenced Al Gore. Carson's thesis was that DDT was a lethal chemical for birds. Not true, as it turns out, but it was enough for the anti-DDT lobby to swing into action and have it banned. Until now, other than John Stossel, I'm not sure who else has covered the fact that 30 million Africans have died from malaria because of the absence of DDT in mosquito-swarmed areas of the continent. There is much, MUCH more to this film and it debuts nationwide on Sunday, October 18. More on that in the coming weeks.
I believe, with everything in me, that I listened to the next Senator from Pennsylvania speak last Friday night. Pat Toomey gave an eloquent, impassioned and brilliant speech after our dinner. This is a warm, witty and wise man; it is easy to discern why he lost to Specter by only 4 points in a bitterly contested 2004 primary, even when the biggest of big guns (President Bush and Senator Rick Santorum, among other establishment figures) were lined up against him. Toomey understands the free enterprise system and the power of liberty in a way that Arlen Specter doesn't begin to have the capacity to grasp. He is also a pleasant man with an easy demeanor, which should stack up well against the man who is reportedly feared by his staff as one of the meanest bosses on Capitol Hill. As conservative online media personality David All recently Tweeted, "Arlen Specter typifies absolutely everything that is wrong with Washington." Toomey cracked that he had hoped and planned to run against Arlen Specter in the Republican Party, but he had no idea he would drive him clear out of the party! He was interrupted by repeated ovations from a very enthusiastic crowd and closed with a heartfelt homage to "those who will have to pay for all of these new government programs....people that somehow are forgotten about in all of the wheeling and dealing in Washington." (Not verbatim, but close.)
Saturday morning was the time slot allotted to the celebrity speakers. Erick Erickson, of Redstate.com, has built such a huge following with one of the best blogs in cyberspace and Ed Morrissey of Hotair.com has crafted a blog that now surpasses the Daily Kos in readership! (Somehow, you haven't yet seen that headline in the New York Times or heard Chris Matthews mentioning it, have you?) They were warmly welcomed by the Saturday crowd, as they deserved to be. Steve Moore, from the "Wall Street Journal", Grover Norquist from Americans for Tax Reform and Jim Pinkerton from Fox News, gave us some commentary on the current political situation and Michelle Malkin closed out the morning session with an animated speech. As the author of the current #1 New York Times bestseller Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies, Malkin was greeted with joyful cheers from the eager crowd. She is a capable speaker, as well as a gifted writer and tireless blogger.
The day closed with a panel on "Map to Victory: How the Right Can Win Online." It was moderated by Rob Bluey, with Matt Lewis and Erick Erickson as participants. This was one of the most fascinating segments of the whole conference as Lewis and Erickson shared their ideas on how to most effectively drive opinion and dialogue in the blogosphere and took questions from the crowd.
I promised more about Twitter, so I'll close this post with this story. By the time the conference was over, I was Tweeting with the best of them throughout each session. This final panel was broadcast LIVE on C-Span. As I was sitting there minding my own business, I looked down at my computer screen and saw a Tweet directly to me from a Jenci Spradlin in Tennessee. She had seen me on TV when the camera went to a questioner in the crowd, so was jumping on Twitter to tell me that she had glimpsed me out in the audience! If this isn't the ultimate illustration of the power of multiple media forums, I don't know what is. I have gotten more than a few chuckles out of that in the days since...and not to Tweet my own horn or anything (sorry for the bad pun), but Jenci also got a small donation for her Breast Cancer Awareness walk this week that she wouldn't have gotten if she hadn't met a new Twitter buddy that she saw on TV!
I first began to hear about AFP a few months ago as Glenn Beck brought different personalities from the organization onto his show. Someone invited me to become a Facebook fan of the organization, then I received a Facebook friend request from their President, Tim Phillips, followed shortly by an invitation to the second Right Online conference. The end result of this process was my presence in Pittsburgh on August 14-15 at the Station Square Sheraton right on the riverfront.
The conference kicked off at noon on Friday, 8/14. I won't go into painstaking detail over every detail that occurred, but there were a number of highlights and observations that I want to record while memory is still relatively fresh. (My laptop unfortunately contracted a virus on Saturday afternoon, probably due to the Sheraton's unsecure connection, from which it did not recover until Monday afternoon. And then I had a paper to write and work to catch up on, yada, yada, yada...thus my inability to blog about the conference until tonight!)
If there was one overarching lesson with which I came away from Right Online, it is the power of Twitter! I created my Twitter account several months ago and did well to check it briefly every couple weeks or so. I arrived in Pittsburgh following maybe 10 people on Twitter, with my own followers in the single digits. By the time I drove home to Indiana on Sunday, I was following close to 100 people and had nearly as many fellow Tweeters who had jumped aboard my Twitter rocket! And the number has steadily accelerated every day since then.
Midway through Friday afternoon, I walked around a corner at the Sheraton and who should be standing there, Blackberry in hand, but my fellow Hoosier and political pal, Kristen Luidhart...neither of us had had a clue that the other would be present, though I had noticed her Tweeting on the Right Online Tweetdeck. She warned me that Twitter is addictive, and she knew whereof she spoke. It fosters a sense of community among activists like us that is difficult to adequately portray if you haven't yet taken the plunge yourself. There is something about the immediacy and spontaneity of putting your views out there for instant comment and receiving quick feedback in real time that is quite rewarding. More on Twitter in a minute...
It was fun to see a number of people whose blogs I have followed and whose columns I have read for a number of years. John Hawkins of Right Wing News (who is also a Townhall.com columnist) was on the first panel of the day on Social Networking 101. Matt Lewis, who has broken a lot of scoops on Townhall.com over the last few years and blogs regularly at Politics Daily, was in charge of the second panel. Matt shared pointers on political blogging that will probably lead to some facelifts on this very blog in the days ahead, as soon as I can afford to expend some resources in both dollars and time. The key concept that I garnered from Matt's very interactive lecture is that "Words are not enough" when it comes to blogging. Pictures and video are the spice that adds real pleasure to a blog for the reader; they provide the hook that brings the reader back.
There were so many unexpected delights in the 28 or so hours that the conference lasted, but chief among those was the opportunity to get a bit better acquainted with Irish filmmaker Ann McElhinney. I just took a peek back at my blogs about CPAC 2009, and I see that I neglected to say a word about the presentation that she and her husband, Phelim McAleer, gave on CPAC Saturday (February 28, 2009) about their upcoming anti-global warming conspiracy documentary "Not Evil, Just Wrong." So a bit of background. Andrew Breitbart very shrewdly booked Ann and Phelim in the slot right before Ward Connerly, who directly preceded Rush Limbaugh's closing speech. I would wager that there probably were not 10 people in the ballroom that day who had ever heard of Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer, but the venue was jammed to capacity because of eagerness to hear Rush. Ann and Phelim spoke to the crowd for about an hour about their project, interspersed with clips from the film. They entered a roomful of strangers and walked off waving to 6,000 screaming fans. Yes, they are that good.
Back to Right Online...I walked up to Ann and Phelim at the hotel bar and introduced myself, saying how much I had enjoyed their speech at CPAC. We talked for a minute, then about an hour later, at Matt Lewis' workshop on Facebook & Twitter, Ann sat down in front of me and shared some of the vision she and Phelim have for their project. Ann is a ball of restless kinetic energy, like few people I have ever seen. She and Phelim have paid a price for their conversion to conservatism since they were both flaming liberals until 5 years ago when they filmed the documentary "Mine Your Own Business" and saw that the real villains of the story were not businessmen, but environmentalists who forced continued regional poverty at the expense of their own posturing.
The closing event of the day was a screening of "Not Evil, Just Wrong." The movie runs about 85 minutes. As the father of a kindergartener who came home from 2 straight weeks of Earth Day celebrations at her school this last year telling me why I needed to take care of the trees and not drive as much, I can assure you that this film is sorely needed...and that is the least of the reasons why it is MUST viewing. The movie documents the testimony of the British lawyer who took Al Gore to court for misstatements that were made in the film (the prosecution won!), as well as a founding member of Greenpeace who realized where the organization was going in the '80's and chose to make his departure. But the most poignant observation concerns the destruction that has been wrought in the name of global warming dogma, with the withholding of DDT from poor African nations. DDT is the chemical that Rachel Carson made famous in her book "Silent Spring", which in turn heavily influenced Al Gore. Carson's thesis was that DDT was a lethal chemical for birds. Not true, as it turns out, but it was enough for the anti-DDT lobby to swing into action and have it banned. Until now, other than John Stossel, I'm not sure who else has covered the fact that 30 million Africans have died from malaria because of the absence of DDT in mosquito-swarmed areas of the continent. There is much, MUCH more to this film and it debuts nationwide on Sunday, October 18. More on that in the coming weeks.
I believe, with everything in me, that I listened to the next Senator from Pennsylvania speak last Friday night. Pat Toomey gave an eloquent, impassioned and brilliant speech after our dinner. This is a warm, witty and wise man; it is easy to discern why he lost to Specter by only 4 points in a bitterly contested 2004 primary, even when the biggest of big guns (President Bush and Senator Rick Santorum, among other establishment figures) were lined up against him. Toomey understands the free enterprise system and the power of liberty in a way that Arlen Specter doesn't begin to have the capacity to grasp. He is also a pleasant man with an easy demeanor, which should stack up well against the man who is reportedly feared by his staff as one of the meanest bosses on Capitol Hill. As conservative online media personality David All recently Tweeted, "Arlen Specter typifies absolutely everything that is wrong with Washington." Toomey cracked that he had hoped and planned to run against Arlen Specter in the Republican Party, but he had no idea he would drive him clear out of the party! He was interrupted by repeated ovations from a very enthusiastic crowd and closed with a heartfelt homage to "those who will have to pay for all of these new government programs....people that somehow are forgotten about in all of the wheeling and dealing in Washington." (Not verbatim, but close.)
Saturday morning was the time slot allotted to the celebrity speakers. Erick Erickson, of Redstate.com, has built such a huge following with one of the best blogs in cyberspace and Ed Morrissey of Hotair.com has crafted a blog that now surpasses the Daily Kos in readership! (Somehow, you haven't yet seen that headline in the New York Times or heard Chris Matthews mentioning it, have you?) They were warmly welcomed by the Saturday crowd, as they deserved to be. Steve Moore, from the "Wall Street Journal", Grover Norquist from Americans for Tax Reform and Jim Pinkerton from Fox News, gave us some commentary on the current political situation and Michelle Malkin closed out the morning session with an animated speech. As the author of the current #1 New York Times bestseller Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies, Malkin was greeted with joyful cheers from the eager crowd. She is a capable speaker, as well as a gifted writer and tireless blogger.
The day closed with a panel on "Map to Victory: How the Right Can Win Online." It was moderated by Rob Bluey, with Matt Lewis and Erick Erickson as participants. This was one of the most fascinating segments of the whole conference as Lewis and Erickson shared their ideas on how to most effectively drive opinion and dialogue in the blogosphere and took questions from the crowd.
I promised more about Twitter, so I'll close this post with this story. By the time the conference was over, I was Tweeting with the best of them throughout each session. This final panel was broadcast LIVE on C-Span. As I was sitting there minding my own business, I looked down at my computer screen and saw a Tweet directly to me from a Jenci Spradlin in Tennessee. She had seen me on TV when the camera went to a questioner in the crowd, so was jumping on Twitter to tell me that she had glimpsed me out in the audience! If this isn't the ultimate illustration of the power of multiple media forums, I don't know what is. I have gotten more than a few chuckles out of that in the days since...and not to Tweet my own horn or anything (sorry for the bad pun), but Jenci also got a small donation for her Breast Cancer Awareness walk this week that she wouldn't have gotten if she hadn't met a new Twitter buddy that she saw on TV!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Donnelly town hall on August 12
I was pleased to be able to attend Congressman Joe Donnelly's town hall meeting yesterday at the Inventrek Technology Park here in Kokomo. As soon as I turned the corner onto Home Avenue and could see the parking lot, I knew this would be different from any previous town hall I had patronized in the past. I had never seen this parking lot even close to capacity, and by the time the session began, it was.
I have come to several conclusions, some of which I reached during the town hall; other thoughts came to me after the event was finished.
ACORN seemingly had been notified of the meeting to a far greater extent than anyone opposing the bill had been. They were very well organized with professionally printed signs, several tables with staffed workers and a good-sized pavilion with brochures and bumper stickers. There was even a handmade sign attached to one of the tables that advised us "Jesus would vote "YES." Nice. Mind you, the ACORN logo was nowhere to be found, but their fingerprints were all over everything.
In spite of the above, the crowd swelled to what I would estimate was around 400 and in the end, was 80/20 against the bill. The variations in the intelligence of the respective questions were staggering. A representative sampling of supporters of the bill included questions such as "Congressman, what is the biggest lie you have heard about the health care bill?", which Donnelly wisely dodged by saying that he really didn't want to use such language since he believed that everyone there that day was concerned about their country. Donnelly also did not reply to another man who went into a diatribe about his own 6-year span of medical examinations, which seemed to have no real narrative thread, since his health checked out fine all the way through the story and which concluded with this brilliant consummation: "I don't know much about democracy or socialism or communism...but it seems to me that here in America, we ought to get all of this for free!" He was roundly booed by a robust majority which included yours truly. (And yes, I did try to behave, though it was difficult at times.)
The questions from opponents were substantive and varied in intensity from cordial to heated, but not rude. There were, of course, varying levels of articulateness from the questioners. I was especially impressed by a middle-aged military wife who asked the Congressman to please tell Nancy Pelosi that she was exercising her rights as an American by being present and opposing the bill, a far cry from Pelosi's accusation of un-American activity. Every major fear about the bill was repeatedly and eloquently addressed, from the "death panel" rumors to the out-of-control costs of government spending to increasing government oversight to denial of care based on perceived life value.
Joe Donnelly, who defeated a good Congressman in 2006 (Chris Chocola), is not someone with whom I feel a natural affinity, but my hat is off to him for facing his constituents and doing so in a way that was courteous and open-minded. I really don't know which way he will ultimately vote; he is the classic example of a blue-dog Democrat as I described in another recent post. He was asked if he was prepared to vote for the bill even it meant political suicide. His answer was that however he voted, his position on any legislation is that he had a job before he went to Congress and he'll have one when he isn't there anymore, so his vote is never based on what it might do to his political future. I hope that reply was a genuine reflection of his heart. He had no unkind words to say about private initiative, but he did fall back on what seems to be a new talking point in the town hall meetings. When questioners would protest about the cost, he repeatedly would ask, "What do you think about Medicare? That's a government program. Do you want to get rid of it?" Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) pulled the same tactic on O'Reilly last night. This ploy may be effective if people don't understand that it is government intervention that has put us here in the first place, but of course, Medicare has to be reformed if it is going to last; it currently has a $40 trillion unfunded liability, which Donnelly certainly didn't choose to mention. Knowledge of the free market and economic cause and effect was not, shall we say, manifestly on display from the Congressman, but I can't say I was terribly surprised at that.
We have real hope here of blocking this, but if the Congressman votes "Yes" in the fall, he will do so against the wishes of the vast majority of his constituents who have done their civic duty and made their voice heard.
I have come to several conclusions, some of which I reached during the town hall; other thoughts came to me after the event was finished.
ACORN seemingly had been notified of the meeting to a far greater extent than anyone opposing the bill had been. They were very well organized with professionally printed signs, several tables with staffed workers and a good-sized pavilion with brochures and bumper stickers. There was even a handmade sign attached to one of the tables that advised us "Jesus would vote "YES." Nice. Mind you, the ACORN logo was nowhere to be found, but their fingerprints were all over everything.
In spite of the above, the crowd swelled to what I would estimate was around 400 and in the end, was 80/20 against the bill. The variations in the intelligence of the respective questions were staggering. A representative sampling of supporters of the bill included questions such as "Congressman, what is the biggest lie you have heard about the health care bill?", which Donnelly wisely dodged by saying that he really didn't want to use such language since he believed that everyone there that day was concerned about their country. Donnelly also did not reply to another man who went into a diatribe about his own 6-year span of medical examinations, which seemed to have no real narrative thread, since his health checked out fine all the way through the story and which concluded with this brilliant consummation: "I don't know much about democracy or socialism or communism...but it seems to me that here in America, we ought to get all of this for free!" He was roundly booed by a robust majority which included yours truly. (And yes, I did try to behave, though it was difficult at times.)
The questions from opponents were substantive and varied in intensity from cordial to heated, but not rude. There were, of course, varying levels of articulateness from the questioners. I was especially impressed by a middle-aged military wife who asked the Congressman to please tell Nancy Pelosi that she was exercising her rights as an American by being present and opposing the bill, a far cry from Pelosi's accusation of un-American activity. Every major fear about the bill was repeatedly and eloquently addressed, from the "death panel" rumors to the out-of-control costs of government spending to increasing government oversight to denial of care based on perceived life value.
Joe Donnelly, who defeated a good Congressman in 2006 (Chris Chocola), is not someone with whom I feel a natural affinity, but my hat is off to him for facing his constituents and doing so in a way that was courteous and open-minded. I really don't know which way he will ultimately vote; he is the classic example of a blue-dog Democrat as I described in another recent post. He was asked if he was prepared to vote for the bill even it meant political suicide. His answer was that however he voted, his position on any legislation is that he had a job before he went to Congress and he'll have one when he isn't there anymore, so his vote is never based on what it might do to his political future. I hope that reply was a genuine reflection of his heart. He had no unkind words to say about private initiative, but he did fall back on what seems to be a new talking point in the town hall meetings. When questioners would protest about the cost, he repeatedly would ask, "What do you think about Medicare? That's a government program. Do you want to get rid of it?" Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) pulled the same tactic on O'Reilly last night. This ploy may be effective if people don't understand that it is government intervention that has put us here in the first place, but of course, Medicare has to be reformed if it is going to last; it currently has a $40 trillion unfunded liability, which Donnelly certainly didn't choose to mention. Knowledge of the free market and economic cause and effect was not, shall we say, manifestly on display from the Congressman, but I can't say I was terribly surprised at that.
We have real hope here of blocking this, but if the Congressman votes "Yes" in the fall, he will do so against the wishes of the vast majority of his constituents who have done their civic duty and made their voice heard.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Health Care Townhalls
As I began to type the above title, the computer wanted to automatically populate it with "Health Care Deja Vu." I had forgotten about that blog post, which I probably put up about a month ago. I have to smilingly wonder how noteworthy my blogs are when I forget about them myself. What can I expect from my readers??? Nevertheless, I had no idea when I wrote that post how prophetic it would turn out to be. The parallels to the overreach of the Clintons in 1993-94 are just stunning. And if anything, the heat is dialed up even higher than it was then.
The health care town hall meetings and the drama they are spawning are the lead story on every newscast. These may not be fun times, but they sure are momentous. It is quite a feeling to know with certainty that we are seeing scenes unfold on our TV and computer screens that will be recorded for posterity in the history books...unless the revisionists carry the day.
Times like these give me hope that the American people still have a reserve of outrage left in them that can be called up when it truly is needed. And make no mistake about it; there is a time for outrage, just as there is a time to lay down arms. I just watched a clip again from the town hall that Arlen Specter held earlier today; a 35-year-old lady in a blue shirt told the Senator that she had never been interested in politics, but "you have awakened a sleeping giant." Her sentiment was echoed in a variety of ways around the room.
The memo has clearly gone out from the White House that attacks along the lines of the "un-American" labelling and mentions of "swastikas", ala Nancy Pelosi, must no longer be leveled. Specter, the new Democrat, was quite subdued and complimentary of his audience, even though faced with friction. (One presumes he also is acquainted with Pennsylvania polls, which show him tied with former Representative Pat Toomey in a general election match-up.)
Obama held a town hall in New Hampshire today, his first in the Granite State since 2007 (hat tip to the Wall Street Journal for that little factoid). He also tried to convey a less belligerent tone than he demonstrated at the Creigh Deeds fundraiser in Virginia last week. Fox News reported, though, that he slipped up when he attributed the segment in the health care bill on "end of life consultations" to Georgia's junior Republican Senator Johnny Isakson, who later vociferously denied any involvement in the bill at all.
There is such a potpourri of action surrounding this issue that it requires breathless effort to keep up on it all.
On the periphery of it all is the undeniable conclusion that the media has dug in their heels. Do a Youtube check on Chris Matthew's interview with Tim Phillips, the Director of the advocacy organization, Americans for Prosperity, and see what your impressions are. Matthews is so rude and abrasive that it is difficult to sit through the whole 9+ minutes of footage. I posted this on my Facebook Wall, with a note wondering what has happened to Chris Matthews? I used to enjoy his show; it was fun and had a light tone to it, even if I didn't share his political bias on some things. Today, it is hard to recognize the old Matthews for the vicious, angry diatribes that get spewed on a regular basis. I don't watch anymore, but I still hear clips from the show here and there.
It is unwise to make any predictions at this point, but when Dick Durbin is openly admitting that the public option may not last as part of the health care bill, we have to assume that we have scored a victory here. This is nothing short of amazing, when considering the odds against such a win: 60 Democrat votes in the Senate and a large majority in the House.
But we have a long way to go before we call truce.
The health care town hall meetings and the drama they are spawning are the lead story on every newscast. These may not be fun times, but they sure are momentous. It is quite a feeling to know with certainty that we are seeing scenes unfold on our TV and computer screens that will be recorded for posterity in the history books...unless the revisionists carry the day.
Times like these give me hope that the American people still have a reserve of outrage left in them that can be called up when it truly is needed. And make no mistake about it; there is a time for outrage, just as there is a time to lay down arms. I just watched a clip again from the town hall that Arlen Specter held earlier today; a 35-year-old lady in a blue shirt told the Senator that she had never been interested in politics, but "you have awakened a sleeping giant." Her sentiment was echoed in a variety of ways around the room.
The memo has clearly gone out from the White House that attacks along the lines of the "un-American" labelling and mentions of "swastikas", ala Nancy Pelosi, must no longer be leveled. Specter, the new Democrat, was quite subdued and complimentary of his audience, even though faced with friction. (One presumes he also is acquainted with Pennsylvania polls, which show him tied with former Representative Pat Toomey in a general election match-up.)
Obama held a town hall in New Hampshire today, his first in the Granite State since 2007 (hat tip to the Wall Street Journal for that little factoid). He also tried to convey a less belligerent tone than he demonstrated at the Creigh Deeds fundraiser in Virginia last week. Fox News reported, though, that he slipped up when he attributed the segment in the health care bill on "end of life consultations" to Georgia's junior Republican Senator Johnny Isakson, who later vociferously denied any involvement in the bill at all.
There is such a potpourri of action surrounding this issue that it requires breathless effort to keep up on it all.
On the periphery of it all is the undeniable conclusion that the media has dug in their heels. Do a Youtube check on Chris Matthew's interview with Tim Phillips, the Director of the advocacy organization, Americans for Prosperity, and see what your impressions are. Matthews is so rude and abrasive that it is difficult to sit through the whole 9+ minutes of footage. I posted this on my Facebook Wall, with a note wondering what has happened to Chris Matthews? I used to enjoy his show; it was fun and had a light tone to it, even if I didn't share his political bias on some things. Today, it is hard to recognize the old Matthews for the vicious, angry diatribes that get spewed on a regular basis. I don't watch anymore, but I still hear clips from the show here and there.
It is unwise to make any predictions at this point, but when Dick Durbin is openly admitting that the public option may not last as part of the health care bill, we have to assume that we have scored a victory here. This is nothing short of amazing, when considering the odds against such a win: 60 Democrat votes in the Senate and a large majority in the House.
But we have a long way to go before we call truce.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Kokomo gets stimulus money
I had just finished checking out at the U-Scan line at Kroger when the headline caught my peripheral vision. I swiveled quickly, in time to see the front page of the Kokomo Tribune my fellow grocery buyer had purchased. There on the front page, in gi-normous block letters of multi-point font: DELPHI WINS BIG.
The story went on to detail the $89 million that President Obama had just announced that our local Delphi plant would be receiving.
For me, the verbiage of the title spoke volumes. How exactly did this "win" take place?
Democrat Congressman Joe Donnelly, of Indiana's Second District, has an answer:
"I voted for the stimulus, and this is why I voted for it. All the folks who say nothing’s happening ... now $90 million has come to Kokomo for long-term growth... I’m just really excited about this development. It just further affirms the greatness of Kokomo.”
The emphasis is mine and it is purposeful. Joe Donnelly is a blue-dog Democrat, as close to a conservative as the Democratic Party has to offer today. He is pro-life, at least in some instances and he voted against the Cap & Trade bill.
Yet, his core business/finance philosophy is solidly within the Democratic Party mainstream. To Donnelly, a "win" for Delphi means that they have been awarded the lottery ticket of government largesse. And this proves greatness? HOW? At one time, greatness was defined in the automotive industry by production on the free market of cars that people wanted to purchase by companies that remained competitive the old-fashioned way: cost analysis, insightful leadership and shrewd management of the bottom line.
I still believe that a "win" is predicated on actual achievement in a field where there is tangible measurement of achievement and the lack thereof. But to the Kokomo Tribune and Joe Donnelly, my vision must seem desperately outmoded.
Delphi will hum along a while longer, perhaps even for a few years, with an infusion of cash like that. And Kokomo residents will breathe a collective sigh of relief. But not only have we simply postponed our day of reckoning; we celebrate at the expense of our children and grandchildren who have been stuck with a credit card statement for $89 million plus interest.
The story went on to detail the $89 million that President Obama had just announced that our local Delphi plant would be receiving.
For me, the verbiage of the title spoke volumes. How exactly did this "win" take place?
Democrat Congressman Joe Donnelly, of Indiana's Second District, has an answer:
"I voted for the stimulus, and this is why I voted for it. All the folks who say nothing’s happening ... now $90 million has come to Kokomo for long-term growth... I’m just really excited about this development. It just further affirms the greatness of Kokomo.”
The emphasis is mine and it is purposeful. Joe Donnelly is a blue-dog Democrat, as close to a conservative as the Democratic Party has to offer today. He is pro-life, at least in some instances and he voted against the Cap & Trade bill.
Yet, his core business/finance philosophy is solidly within the Democratic Party mainstream. To Donnelly, a "win" for Delphi means that they have been awarded the lottery ticket of government largesse. And this proves greatness? HOW? At one time, greatness was defined in the automotive industry by production on the free market of cars that people wanted to purchase by companies that remained competitive the old-fashioned way: cost analysis, insightful leadership and shrewd management of the bottom line.
I still believe that a "win" is predicated on actual achievement in a field where there is tangible measurement of achievement and the lack thereof. But to the Kokomo Tribune and Joe Donnelly, my vision must seem desperately outmoded.
Delphi will hum along a while longer, perhaps even for a few years, with an infusion of cash like that. And Kokomo residents will breathe a collective sigh of relief. But not only have we simply postponed our day of reckoning; we celebrate at the expense of our children and grandchildren who have been stuck with a credit card statement for $89 million plus interest.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Birthing a distraction
Barack Obama should release his birth certificate. But while he continues to hold out, the Birthers need to give it up.
I have watched with some perplexity as some continue to be fixated on this birth certificate "issue." It has been clanging around in the ether for so long now that I can't even recall verbatim all of the quotes that I have heard from various reliable sources that apply to this discussion.
I do remember the first serious column I read on Obama's birth certificate, by Ron Kessler of Newsmax. Newsmax is a conservative magazine with street cred and if you want to read his column "Obama Was Born In the United States", you can do so here. The element of this exposure that I find most noteworthy is that Philip Berg, the lawyer who initially brought the birth certificate lawsuit to court, is a certifiable wingnut who also believes that Bush and Cheney knew about and even orchestrated the events of 9/11 in advance of their occurrence.
Bill O'Reilly talked about the Birthers last week; his position is that they have a right to say what they want and focus on what they feel is worth their time, but that it is a closed issue. The Factor investigated it all at some point last year and found nothing worth pursuing.
I wish I had been jotting down notes back in January when I was in Louisville and caught Michael Medved's radio show for a few minutes. Medved did a masterful job of tracing the thread of all that would have had to take place, for no reason at that time, for Obama's mother to have gone to Kenya as a poor and very pregnant young woman just to give birth to her son. For what reason? So that he wouldn't be born in the United States? If so, why? This is how conspiracy theories collapse under their own weight.
Erick Erickson, who runs one of the best political blogs at www.redstate.com, very accurately labels this whole argument as a distraction. His thesis is that Obama may very well have a paper birth certificate, but that he is pursuing a dual strategy by toying with those who are obsessed with this issue and then hoping to brand all conservatives as angry maniacs that have their priorities out of sync.
Here is my final point: Even if Obama's birth certificate weren't legit, what happens at that time? Impeachment? That would never fly in this House of Representatives. It would be far more effective for all truly engaged citizens to zero in on Obama's policy failures, as well as weighing in with constitutional ideas for the future, rather than pursuing a goal that is ultimately hopeless. This is another Vince Foster smoking gun, to coin a Clinton-era incident; if any proof ever emerges, it will show that the Birthers had embarked on an ill-fated quest all along.
I have watched with some perplexity as some continue to be fixated on this birth certificate "issue." It has been clanging around in the ether for so long now that I can't even recall verbatim all of the quotes that I have heard from various reliable sources that apply to this discussion.
I do remember the first serious column I read on Obama's birth certificate, by Ron Kessler of Newsmax. Newsmax is a conservative magazine with street cred and if you want to read his column "Obama Was Born In the United States", you can do so here. The element of this exposure that I find most noteworthy is that Philip Berg, the lawyer who initially brought the birth certificate lawsuit to court, is a certifiable wingnut who also believes that Bush and Cheney knew about and even orchestrated the events of 9/11 in advance of their occurrence.
Bill O'Reilly talked about the Birthers last week; his position is that they have a right to say what they want and focus on what they feel is worth their time, but that it is a closed issue. The Factor investigated it all at some point last year and found nothing worth pursuing.
I wish I had been jotting down notes back in January when I was in Louisville and caught Michael Medved's radio show for a few minutes. Medved did a masterful job of tracing the thread of all that would have had to take place, for no reason at that time, for Obama's mother to have gone to Kenya as a poor and very pregnant young woman just to give birth to her son. For what reason? So that he wouldn't be born in the United States? If so, why? This is how conspiracy theories collapse under their own weight.
Erick Erickson, who runs one of the best political blogs at www.redstate.com, very accurately labels this whole argument as a distraction. His thesis is that Obama may very well have a paper birth certificate, but that he is pursuing a dual strategy by toying with those who are obsessed with this issue and then hoping to brand all conservatives as angry maniacs that have their priorities out of sync.
Here is my final point: Even if Obama's birth certificate weren't legit, what happens at that time? Impeachment? That would never fly in this House of Representatives. It would be far more effective for all truly engaged citizens to zero in on Obama's policy failures, as well as weighing in with constitutional ideas for the future, rather than pursuing a goal that is ultimately hopeless. This is another Vince Foster smoking gun, to coin a Clinton-era incident; if any proof ever emerges, it will show that the Birthers had embarked on an ill-fated quest all along.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Economics ignoramuses
Our esteemed Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has come out swinging again, blasting the insurance companies as "villains." Reuters reported on Thursday that Pelosi had accused the insurance companies of conspiring to kill Obamacare (oh, if only) and in the process, uttered the following:
"Of course they've been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure...They are the villains. They have been part of the problem in a major way. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening."
It has been a decade or so since I first heard Rush Limbaugh use the phrase "a glittering jewel of colossal ignorance" to describe Rosie O'Donnell. I fell in love with the term immediately, and would like to fondly extend it at this time to San Francisco's own Nancy Pelosi.
I would like to, but I would be doing her a kindness in labeling her rhetoric as the offshoot of a mere lack of adequate knowledge. Pelosi knows full well what she is doing in falling back on the tried and true tactic of blaming the rich or vilifying "big business" for the results of her own failed pet projects.
Private insurance companies offer the best possible protection against catastrophe of which a consumer can avail himself. Like any business, they have to earn a profit to stay afloat. This is done by bringing enough people into the insurance pool who fear the results of being caught in a disastrous circumstance that those who actually encounter such a dilemma have enough dollars to avoid being soaked.
Thomas Sowell, with the pungently common sense that is his trademark, raised some very salient questions in a column last week that counter Pelosi's reckless charges:
With both common sense and economic analysis saying that Obama cannot expand government medical care without expanding the already runaway federal deficit, it is quite a trick to get the public to believe otherwise — a big challenge requiring big distractions...
Insurance companies are [a] distraction and a scapegoat because they do not insure "pre-existing conditions." Stop and think about it: If you could wait until you got sick to take out health insurance, why would you buy that insurance while you are well?
You could avoid paying all those premiums and then — after you got sick — take out health insurance and let the premiums paid by other people pay for your medical treatment.
That is not "bringing down the cost of health care." It is sticking somebody else with paying those costs. So is taxing "the rich." So is passing on those costs to your children and grandchildren through government deficit spending.
"Of course they've been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure...They are the villains. They have been part of the problem in a major way. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening."
It has been a decade or so since I first heard Rush Limbaugh use the phrase "a glittering jewel of colossal ignorance" to describe Rosie O'Donnell. I fell in love with the term immediately, and would like to fondly extend it at this time to San Francisco's own Nancy Pelosi.
I would like to, but I would be doing her a kindness in labeling her rhetoric as the offshoot of a mere lack of adequate knowledge. Pelosi knows full well what she is doing in falling back on the tried and true tactic of blaming the rich or vilifying "big business" for the results of her own failed pet projects.
Private insurance companies offer the best possible protection against catastrophe of which a consumer can avail himself. Like any business, they have to earn a profit to stay afloat. This is done by bringing enough people into the insurance pool who fear the results of being caught in a disastrous circumstance that those who actually encounter such a dilemma have enough dollars to avoid being soaked.
Thomas Sowell, with the pungently common sense that is his trademark, raised some very salient questions in a column last week that counter Pelosi's reckless charges:
With both common sense and economic analysis saying that Obama cannot expand government medical care without expanding the already runaway federal deficit, it is quite a trick to get the public to believe otherwise — a big challenge requiring big distractions...
Insurance companies are [a] distraction and a scapegoat because they do not insure "pre-existing conditions." Stop and think about it: If you could wait until you got sick to take out health insurance, why would you buy that insurance while you are well?
You could avoid paying all those premiums and then — after you got sick — take out health insurance and let the premiums paid by other people pay for your medical treatment.
That is not "bringing down the cost of health care." It is sticking somebody else with paying those costs. So is taxing "the rich." So is passing on those costs to your children and grandchildren through government deficit spending.
More and more people are catching onto this, which is exactly why Obamacare is tanking in the polls, even as a health care bill was passed in a House committee on a 30-28 party-line vote late last night.
Contemplate a few possibilities with me:
1. It is more than likely that a politician who constantly claims to speak for "the American people" cares very little about what the American people actually think about a given subject, but is desperate to hold onto his power base, which is sustained by the Washington gravy trough.
2. That same politician has usually never met a payroll and signed paychecks every two weeks for any employees, while trying to decide what kind of health insurance plan they can afford.
3. Trial lawyers, which form a huge component of the Democratic party base, have exacerbated health care costs for decades now by continuous malpractice suits. Some of these are valid, but many of them are frivolous and, as a result, have driven up malpractice insurance premiums. I wouldn't hold my breath expecting tort reform any time soon out of these Congress, though or even entertained as a quasi-serious notion.
4. Could it be that that "filthy rich businessman" may actually be a person who compensates his employees well, is a contributing member of his community and actually has incorporated some economic principles into his business dealings that work in the real world where the requirement not to deficit spend has to actually be met? Not to mention demand for a product that people want to buy and on which they are willing to spend hard-earned dollars?
The time has come to begin to examine preconceived templates. Yet, in spite of the lack of evidence, we embrace the dictates of a biased media and phony politicians, rather than doing the hard work of understanding the economic principles that actually keep the world functioning.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Who are the players?
Regardless of which side you are on or in which direction you feel the country is moving, I don't know how anyone could plausibly deny that the last 6 months have been eventful. I believe the country has changed, perhaps irreversibly; from my point of view, I just hope that it, in fact, is not permanent.
At the end of President Obama's first 6 months, whose influence can we clearly see has been exerted? Whose platform has increased? Who has dominated the discussion?
From a legislative and public image perspective, President Obama has successfully become the face of the way business is done in Washington in the 21st century. This is not shocking, on the one hand; he is ostensibly the world's most powerful man, after all. Yet, from another angle, it bears further examination.
This administration has not been without its gaffes. I should probably watch MSNBC more so that I can find out what is being said about Press Secretary Robert Gibbs by his fans. He seems laughable to me, and I don't mean that in a partisan way; Mike McCurry, for instance, was a fantastic Press Secretary and we know who his boss was. Scott McClellan, on the other hand, made me cringe long before he went native. So hopefully, I've established my bona fides, but not enough for some, I'm sure...Back to Gibbs; on Fox News Sunday this last week, he couldn't repeat enough times that the President had chosen his words poorly in the Gates-gate incident.
Quick, who is the Secretary of State???
Now that you've paused to remember, where on earth is she? How many of you watched her appearance on "Meet the Press" last Sunday? (I meant to; I really did, but I had to slice potatoes or something.) Did you know she just went overseas again for another trip? What happened while she was there? Most of you really don't know the answers to these questions. Think about past Secretaries of State, even recent ones like Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice, let alone Ronald Reagan's (George Shultz) or George Bush I's (James A. Baker III) and the profile they maintained, the news coverage they generated.
Now...who is the Secretary of the Treasury? How about the National Security Advisor? Is the attorney general a man or a woman? What have they been up to lately?
At breakfast with a friend yesterday, we were discussing this very thing. Obama's favorables have been very high until recently; they are now taking a dip, which caused us to consider what team Obama has backing him that are producing policies and driving the agenda, who also have a game plan for obstacles that are thrown in the way and for unseen emergencies that may arise. Our conclusion was that it all begins and ends with Barack Obama. This is good for him if trends move his way with little fluctuation because he gets the glory. If, however, ominous portents continue to emerge, the glossy image is going to cave and it will be come painfully obvious that there is nothing of substance behind the Wizard's curtain.
I dare not leave out Nancy Pelosi when discussing influence in Washington. She forced a stimulus bill through, as well as a Cap & Trade fiasco and is still asserting that the votes are there to pass Health Care. So she has to be credited for getting out there and racking up accomplishments even if I don't support them.
Bill O'Reilly also brought up a valid point last night on the "Factor." Rahm Emanuel is a manifest power in the White House. While not a name that non-political junkies would recognize, his fingerprints are everywhere. He is probably as powerful a Chief of Staff and enforcer as Karl Rove ever was (Rove, in theory, was just a Deputy CoS).
But there you have it. Obama, Pelosi, Emanuel (Rahm, not Jesus; see the Gospel of Matthew 1:23, if you don't get that).
As an admittedly impartial commentator, the remarkable fact to me is the unified stance and, as a result, the enhanced profile that conservatives and some professional Republicans have largely maintained in opposing the President. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have ratings that are going through the roof. Jim DeMint, the Senator from South Carolina who holds a 100% rating from the American Conservative Union, is attracting the spotlight for his soft-spoken, but highly vocal opposition to Obama's programs. Sarah Palin, even while resigning from the Governorship in Alaska, has never received more attention from both her supporters and detractors. Minority Leader John Boehner has been resolute in leading the movement for truth in the House on health care, cap and trade and TARP II. And a good number of Republican footsoldiers in the House are out in the media on a regular basis sounding the socialist alarm, from Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to Eric Cantor of Virginia to Mike Pence of Indiana. Now we just need some legislative victories in 2010 to top it all off, as well as more Senators to assist Jim DeMint in his crusade for liberty. Senate Conservatives Fund, anyone?
At the end of President Obama's first 6 months, whose influence can we clearly see has been exerted? Whose platform has increased? Who has dominated the discussion?
From a legislative and public image perspective, President Obama has successfully become the face of the way business is done in Washington in the 21st century. This is not shocking, on the one hand; he is ostensibly the world's most powerful man, after all. Yet, from another angle, it bears further examination.
This administration has not been without its gaffes. I should probably watch MSNBC more so that I can find out what is being said about Press Secretary Robert Gibbs by his fans. He seems laughable to me, and I don't mean that in a partisan way; Mike McCurry, for instance, was a fantastic Press Secretary and we know who his boss was. Scott McClellan, on the other hand, made me cringe long before he went native. So hopefully, I've established my bona fides, but not enough for some, I'm sure...Back to Gibbs; on Fox News Sunday this last week, he couldn't repeat enough times that the President had chosen his words poorly in the Gates-gate incident.
Quick, who is the Secretary of State???
Now that you've paused to remember, where on earth is she? How many of you watched her appearance on "Meet the Press" last Sunday? (I meant to; I really did, but I had to slice potatoes or something.) Did you know she just went overseas again for another trip? What happened while she was there? Most of you really don't know the answers to these questions. Think about past Secretaries of State, even recent ones like Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice, let alone Ronald Reagan's (George Shultz) or George Bush I's (James A. Baker III) and the profile they maintained, the news coverage they generated.
Now...who is the Secretary of the Treasury? How about the National Security Advisor? Is the attorney general a man or a woman? What have they been up to lately?
At breakfast with a friend yesterday, we were discussing this very thing. Obama's favorables have been very high until recently; they are now taking a dip, which caused us to consider what team Obama has backing him that are producing policies and driving the agenda, who also have a game plan for obstacles that are thrown in the way and for unseen emergencies that may arise. Our conclusion was that it all begins and ends with Barack Obama. This is good for him if trends move his way with little fluctuation because he gets the glory. If, however, ominous portents continue to emerge, the glossy image is going to cave and it will be come painfully obvious that there is nothing of substance behind the Wizard's curtain.
I dare not leave out Nancy Pelosi when discussing influence in Washington. She forced a stimulus bill through, as well as a Cap & Trade fiasco and is still asserting that the votes are there to pass Health Care. So she has to be credited for getting out there and racking up accomplishments even if I don't support them.
Bill O'Reilly also brought up a valid point last night on the "Factor." Rahm Emanuel is a manifest power in the White House. While not a name that non-political junkies would recognize, his fingerprints are everywhere. He is probably as powerful a Chief of Staff and enforcer as Karl Rove ever was (Rove, in theory, was just a Deputy CoS).
But there you have it. Obama, Pelosi, Emanuel (Rahm, not Jesus; see the Gospel of Matthew 1:23, if you don't get that).
As an admittedly impartial commentator, the remarkable fact to me is the unified stance and, as a result, the enhanced profile that conservatives and some professional Republicans have largely maintained in opposing the President. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have ratings that are going through the roof. Jim DeMint, the Senator from South Carolina who holds a 100% rating from the American Conservative Union, is attracting the spotlight for his soft-spoken, but highly vocal opposition to Obama's programs. Sarah Palin, even while resigning from the Governorship in Alaska, has never received more attention from both her supporters and detractors. Minority Leader John Boehner has been resolute in leading the movement for truth in the House on health care, cap and trade and TARP II. And a good number of Republican footsoldiers in the House are out in the media on a regular basis sounding the socialist alarm, from Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to Eric Cantor of Virginia to Mike Pence of Indiana. Now we just need some legislative victories in 2010 to top it all off, as well as more Senators to assist Jim DeMint in his crusade for liberty. Senate Conservatives Fund, anyone?
Friday, July 24, 2009
UPDATE: Obama's Waterloo
President Obama has manifested very deft political skills once again. Minutes ago, he went to the press room of the White House and spoke to the media. Evidently, he has been on the phone with both Sergeant Crowley (the police officer in question) and Professor Gates. Obama's statement just now was that his opinion was still that Crowley had probably overreacted, but that unfortunately, Gates had overreacted, as well. And to the extent that he, President Obama, had misspoken in characterizing the situation as he did, he regretted that.
He did not apologize but he projected empathy for both sides, in contrast to his gut reaction on Wednesday.
I find that I fear this President's initiatives more and more and that his policies are more extreme than I thought they were. But this shows that his instincts in regards to at least the appearance of personal skills are more highly attuned than the last two Presidents' were. Both Bush 43 and Clinton tended to dig in their heels when uncomfortable situations arose. Obama finds ways to neutralize the issue quickly in a way that will satisfy the broad middle.
I think it is safe to say that the danger of permanent infliction of harm to his reputation has passed, at least stemming from this particular incident. However, the pundits will probably continue to vocally ponder the story for the next week or so and we can expect to hear it subjected to further commentary on the Sunday shows. This is as it should be. The President's initial wording on Wednesday was insulting and unfair, but he did pivot well to cover his tracks today.
He did not apologize but he projected empathy for both sides, in contrast to his gut reaction on Wednesday.
I find that I fear this President's initiatives more and more and that his policies are more extreme than I thought they were. But this shows that his instincts in regards to at least the appearance of personal skills are more highly attuned than the last two Presidents' were. Both Bush 43 and Clinton tended to dig in their heels when uncomfortable situations arose. Obama finds ways to neutralize the issue quickly in a way that will satisfy the broad middle.
I think it is safe to say that the danger of permanent infliction of harm to his reputation has passed, at least stemming from this particular incident. However, the pundits will probably continue to vocally ponder the story for the next week or so and we can expect to hear it subjected to further commentary on the Sunday shows. This is as it should be. The President's initial wording on Wednesday was insulting and unfair, but he did pivot well to cover his tracks today.
Obama's Waterloo
We know the health care bill has been shelved for the time being. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced today that it is on hold until fall. This means we get a brief reprieve, but must stay vigilant.
It is too early to tell, but universal health care may not be the biggest of Obama's worries. I only tuned in for the last half of his press conference last night and completely missed the question and Obama's answer about the Henry Louis Gates, Jr. arrest. I was in session all day today with my friends at the Hoosier Congressional Policy Leadership Institute (today's theme was Health Care; fortuitous, indeed?), so heard zero news. Tonight, at my weekly book study on The 5,000 Year Leap, the guys in my discussion group asked about it, and that was my introduction to the incident.
In one word, describing the police department's actions as "stupid," the President has poured salt into the gaping gash of racial tension in the United States. Barack Obama, who was supposed to be the great transcendent figure that would help us move beyond race, took sides in a conflict in which he was not in full possession of the facts.
I wrote all of the above before going to the Reuters recounting of the Gates incident. Reuters is far from a conservative news organization, yet here is how their reporter filed the story:
President Barack Obama plunged his presidency into a charged racial debate and set off a firestorm in one of America's most liberal bastions by siding with a black Harvard scholar who accuses police of racism.
Saying he was unaware of "all the facts" but that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, "acted stupidly" in their arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Obama whipped up emotions on both sides of an issue that threatens to open old wounds in America.
Need I say more?
President Obama has blundered, big time. Watch his ratings and observe where this story goes over the next week. He is already losing independents. This type of blatantly biased analysis is not what they seek from their commander-in-chief.
It is too early to tell, but universal health care may not be the biggest of Obama's worries. I only tuned in for the last half of his press conference last night and completely missed the question and Obama's answer about the Henry Louis Gates, Jr. arrest. I was in session all day today with my friends at the Hoosier Congressional Policy Leadership Institute (today's theme was Health Care; fortuitous, indeed?), so heard zero news. Tonight, at my weekly book study on The 5,000 Year Leap, the guys in my discussion group asked about it, and that was my introduction to the incident.
In one word, describing the police department's actions as "stupid," the President has poured salt into the gaping gash of racial tension in the United States. Barack Obama, who was supposed to be the great transcendent figure that would help us move beyond race, took sides in a conflict in which he was not in full possession of the facts.
I wrote all of the above before going to the Reuters recounting of the Gates incident. Reuters is far from a conservative news organization, yet here is how their reporter filed the story:
President Barack Obama plunged his presidency into a charged racial debate and set off a firestorm in one of America's most liberal bastions by siding with a black Harvard scholar who accuses police of racism.
Saying he was unaware of "all the facts" but that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, "acted stupidly" in their arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Obama whipped up emotions on both sides of an issue that threatens to open old wounds in America.
Need I say more?
President Obama has blundered, big time. Watch his ratings and observe where this story goes over the next week. He is already losing independents. This type of blatantly biased analysis is not what they seek from their commander-in-chief.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
New health care developments
I'm watching a replay right now on C-Span of a joint presser that Senators Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Max Baucus of Montana, both Democrats, held earlier today. (There may have been other Senators participating as well; I tuned in about 10 minutes ago.) Conrad just said that he never did believe that a bill would get through in time for the August recess. And Baucus, who spoke prior to Conrad, had very high words of praise for Doug Elmendorf, the Congressional Budget Office chairman who has come under such fire for insisting that the Obama health care plan is demonstratively unaffordable.
Baucus did spin a little when describing the White House's hardball tactics towards Elmendorf; Baucus opined that Elmendorf hadn't been mistreated, but even with that aside, it is still clear that something is afoot. There is a huge crack in the shield of mystique around this President.
The Congressional Budget Office is one of those agencies that is regarded as independent, yet the Obama White House is playing politics with the numbers that the CBO has run and the ensuing figures that have been produced. Harry Reid snidely asserted that Elmendorf "ought to think about running for office." (Oh, the Freudian layers we could deduce from that.)
I saw probably the last half hour tonight of Obama's own press conference. Bill O'Reilly characterized the press as "docile." I differed with that assessment; I felt the President was actually quite defensive and that the press was very forthright in their questioning.
There are no transcripts up yet that I can find of the questions that the reporters asked, but it was around the third to last question that I noted. It was posed by a female reporter who asked the President if he felt there was anything to the allegations that transparency had been lacking in his White House, specifically surrounding who exactly all the President's appointees are. (I presume she meant the czars.) Obama's reply was very testy, something about "Your cameras have been here all along; you've seen who has been present." Classy.
It is becomingly increasingly apparent, if it ever was not, that this White House has no qualms whatsoever about viscerally personal kneecaps when they feel threatened. The heroic Senator from South Carolina, Jim DeMint, has dared to step out and say things about this President's agenda that are perceived as just not collegial enough. His statement earlier this week about universal health care was as follows: "If President Obama does not pass universal health care, this will be his Waterloo. It will break him."
The shoe fit...and the President is hitting back, claiming that DeMint has never done anything to reform health care. DeMint has counterpunched and has an ad that is going up nationwide later this week that, I believe, will reference all of the health care reform bills he has sponsored (of course, the reform is not governmental in its origin, so it isn't legitimate according to the Left).
So clearly, the Saul Alinsky-style tactics are in full swing again, as President Obama seeks to marginalize yet another opponent through smears and innuendo. Let us hope that this particular attempt works as well as the attack on Rush Limbaugh for daring to state that he hoped that the President fails.
Baucus did spin a little when describing the White House's hardball tactics towards Elmendorf; Baucus opined that Elmendorf hadn't been mistreated, but even with that aside, it is still clear that something is afoot. There is a huge crack in the shield of mystique around this President.
The Congressional Budget Office is one of those agencies that is regarded as independent, yet the Obama White House is playing politics with the numbers that the CBO has run and the ensuing figures that have been produced. Harry Reid snidely asserted that Elmendorf "ought to think about running for office." (Oh, the Freudian layers we could deduce from that.)
I saw probably the last half hour tonight of Obama's own press conference. Bill O'Reilly characterized the press as "docile." I differed with that assessment; I felt the President was actually quite defensive and that the press was very forthright in their questioning.
There are no transcripts up yet that I can find of the questions that the reporters asked, but it was around the third to last question that I noted. It was posed by a female reporter who asked the President if he felt there was anything to the allegations that transparency had been lacking in his White House, specifically surrounding who exactly all the President's appointees are. (I presume she meant the czars.) Obama's reply was very testy, something about "Your cameras have been here all along; you've seen who has been present." Classy.
It is becomingly increasingly apparent, if it ever was not, that this White House has no qualms whatsoever about viscerally personal kneecaps when they feel threatened. The heroic Senator from South Carolina, Jim DeMint, has dared to step out and say things about this President's agenda that are perceived as just not collegial enough. His statement earlier this week about universal health care was as follows: "If President Obama does not pass universal health care, this will be his Waterloo. It will break him."
The shoe fit...and the President is hitting back, claiming that DeMint has never done anything to reform health care. DeMint has counterpunched and has an ad that is going up nationwide later this week that, I believe, will reference all of the health care reform bills he has sponsored (of course, the reform is not governmental in its origin, so it isn't legitimate according to the Left).
So clearly, the Saul Alinsky-style tactics are in full swing again, as President Obama seeks to marginalize yet another opponent through smears and innuendo. Let us hope that this particular attempt works as well as the attack on Rush Limbaugh for daring to state that he hoped that the President fails.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Health Care Reform Deja Vu
You probably don't have to be much younger than I am (I turned 34 in May) not to remember Hillarycare at all. Universal health care coverage was one of the key planks that candidate Bill Clinton promised when he ran for President in 1992. Clinton became a much more moderate President in the final 6 years of his 2 terms because of having to work with Newt Gingrich and a GOP Congress. Many of us forget, and again, some of us weren't old enough to remember how much he tried to overreach in his first 2 years. (He almost looks conservative when you compare Clinton's spending levels to those of George W. Bush, not to mention the present administration.)
Clinton appointed his wife, who of course was unelected by the American people, to oversee the whole health care process. She did so in a very secretive way, refusing to release the names of the people who were on the task force considering various health care proposals. Ira Magaziner was a pseudo-intellectual type who worked with Hillary on this particular effort, but his was about the only name that was released to the public. As the details of the bill trickled out, protests began to stir in the country at large, as well as on Capitol Hill, but the Clintons refused to budge or entertain any dissent whatsoever.
Because of their unyielding stance and the perception that they had something to hide, not to mention the fact that the bill itself was monstrously huge and stuffed with pork, ultimately Hillarycare went down in glorious flames.
Fast forward 16 years. A friend who works in Congressman Steve Buyer's office e-mailed me a copy of the government flow chart that will become reality if universal health care passes under President Obama's strident championship. Her admonition? "Read it and weep." She wasn't kidding much. I had seen John Boehner put up the same chart on TV a few days ago, but hadn't really tuned in. This labyrinthine maze of who reports to whom and which organizations receive funding from which endowments and which official OK's which appropriation, etc., etc. is mentally exhausting at just a cursory glance.
This may be intentional for a number of reasons, but it may also be inevitable. Universal health care will mean yet another expansion of government, and of course, all of the czarships that have been created within the last few months have to make sure they protect their turf, not to mention all of the cabinet agencies and undersecretaries and deputy assistants who have to offer their input...it is mind-boggling.
Support for this effort is sinking, which is heartening. People realize we are out of money. The President even admits it and says health care provision must not broaden the deficit. How can it NOT? Yet President Obama declares that we have "talked this problem to death" and the time for action has come. Yet, this obfuscates the fact that we have no assurance that the current plan being considered in Congress will cover all of the uninsured. We do know that it will change the health care system of the United States forever and create yet another massive bureaucracy.
For this reason alone, it must be opposed. But, one must also ask what role we should play as custodians of our own health? More on that tomorrow.
Clinton appointed his wife, who of course was unelected by the American people, to oversee the whole health care process. She did so in a very secretive way, refusing to release the names of the people who were on the task force considering various health care proposals. Ira Magaziner was a pseudo-intellectual type who worked with Hillary on this particular effort, but his was about the only name that was released to the public. As the details of the bill trickled out, protests began to stir in the country at large, as well as on Capitol Hill, but the Clintons refused to budge or entertain any dissent whatsoever.
Because of their unyielding stance and the perception that they had something to hide, not to mention the fact that the bill itself was monstrously huge and stuffed with pork, ultimately Hillarycare went down in glorious flames.
Fast forward 16 years. A friend who works in Congressman Steve Buyer's office e-mailed me a copy of the government flow chart that will become reality if universal health care passes under President Obama's strident championship. Her admonition? "Read it and weep." She wasn't kidding much. I had seen John Boehner put up the same chart on TV a few days ago, but hadn't really tuned in. This labyrinthine maze of who reports to whom and which organizations receive funding from which endowments and which official OK's which appropriation, etc., etc. is mentally exhausting at just a cursory glance.
This may be intentional for a number of reasons, but it may also be inevitable. Universal health care will mean yet another expansion of government, and of course, all of the czarships that have been created within the last few months have to make sure they protect their turf, not to mention all of the cabinet agencies and undersecretaries and deputy assistants who have to offer their input...it is mind-boggling.
Support for this effort is sinking, which is heartening. People realize we are out of money. The President even admits it and says health care provision must not broaden the deficit. How can it NOT? Yet President Obama declares that we have "talked this problem to death" and the time for action has come. Yet, this obfuscates the fact that we have no assurance that the current plan being considered in Congress will cover all of the uninsured. We do know that it will change the health care system of the United States forever and create yet another massive bureaucracy.
For this reason alone, it must be opposed. But, one must also ask what role we should play as custodians of our own health? More on that tomorrow.
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