By Frank Gardner
Friday, March 29, 2008
The BBC's security correspondent, Frank Gardner, can reveal that Arab soldiers have been taking part in dangerous missions alongside US troops in Afghanistan.
Troops from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been delivering humanitarian aid to their fellow Muslims and, on occasion, fighting their way out of Taleban ambushes. Though Jordanian forces have been carrying out some base security duties, the UAE's troops are the only Arab soldiers undertaking full-scale operations in the country.
Until now, their deployment has been kept so secret that not even their own countrymen knew they were here.
In a windowless room, surrounded by sandbags, the Emirati patrol commander briefs his troops for tomorrow's mission: a hearts-and-minds visit to an Afghan village.
His troops are dressed in desert fatigues, topped with sand-coloured shemaghs, the traditional wrap-around headdress of the Gulf.
When the patrol moves out through the mountain valleys, it looks exactly like any other convoy from the US-led coalition.
The Emiratis are on their guard, wary of ambush, alert for roadside bombs.
At the last minute, the village they had originally planned to visit was deemed too dangerous: the Americans could not guarantee to provide air cover.
So they travel instead to one they have been to before, to hand out gifts and discuss what projects need building.
As fellow Muslims, they get a warm reception from the villagers.
"At first I thought these were American soldiers and I wanted them to leave but when they said they were Muslims I knew they were our brothers," a young Afghan man says.
Hajji Fazlullah, another Afghan villager, says: "The Arab troops come in our country and our village, we are very happy."
Riot risk
Of course, these are not the only coalition troops giving out aid to Afghans. But what is really winning hearts and minds is the Islamic connection.
In a sunlit courtyard, a small boy recites the Koran from memory, watched by his proud father, and by the UAE's Maj Ghanem Al-Mazroui.
Unlike most western military officers, he has spent over two years getting to know these villagers, eating and praying with them.
But handing out humanitarian aid in Afghanistan is not as easy as it sounds.
As the crowd builds up rumour spreads that there is not enough to go round and people surge forward.
The Afghan police wade in, pushing and hitting the villagers.
More than once, Maj Ghanem has to restrain them. Without sensitive handling, the situation could easily descend into a riot.
There is even a scramble for the empty cardboard boxes.
But eventually the Arab troops manage to restore order and they leave without a shot being fired.
'Here to help'
Still, it is going to come as a surprise to most people that for the last five years, an Arab Muslim army has been operating here in Afghanistan, alongside the Americans as part of the coalition.
So I asked Maj Ghanem whether he was worried about how some people in the Arab world might react to this.
"We have an answer for that. Even if you are asking back in the UAE or in the Gulf, or you asking here, we have the same answer," he said.
"We make a contract with the US Army to help the people down here, not to fight".
But I put it to him that in fact his troops have been fighting insurgents as well as handing out aid.
"If we have any types of personal attacks we react with fire. And after that we go to the elders in this area: 'Why are you shooting us? We came here to help you.
"'If you have the same picture of all coalition forces, we are different. We came here to help you.'
"And we try to convince the people about the US, about British. They came here to give you peace."
Blueprint for Afghanistan
The man who kick-started the Arab humanitarian effort in Afghanistan five years ago is Hamad al-Shamsi, the UAE's humanitarian aid co-ordinator.
A devout Muslim, a father of 10, and a former fighter pilot, he has been travelling all over Afghanistan, often at great personal risk.
He believes his country's efforts are smoothing a path for the rest of the coalition.
"If we are visiting [somewhere] like this village and we do some service for them, then the coalition will know when they are approaching that there is somebody from their side who is coming here who has done something for us," Mr Shamsi says.
"So the relations will be easier than if they come directly with no first approach".
His words are born out by some of the Afghans we meet, including Governor Merajudeen Patan, who was instrumental in getting UAE's money invested in the troubled province of Khost.
"People are not afraid that Emiratis will harm their religion, or disrespect the mosque or burn the mosque, things of this nature," Governor Patan says.
"People are very friendly with them. Everybody will drag them in for lunch or for dinner."
These are hearts-and-minds operations at their most effective - drinking tea with Afghans, discussing what help can be provided.
The Emirati approach is to meet their fellow Muslims' religious needs first, then build schools and clinics later.
But for this to have a wider, lasting, and national effect, the blueprint would need to be repeated and expanded by others, many times over and throughout Afghanistan.
And that is not likely to happen in the near future.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Detroit: The City That Liberalism Ruined
By Rich Lowry
Monday, March 31, 2008
It could be an item on a David Letterman Top Ten List of "How to Know Your Mayor is Headed for a Major Scandal" -- he's known as the "Hip-Hop Mayor."
That's what they call Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, now famous for text messages detailing the affair he had with his chief of staff. Kilpatrick had denied the relationship under oath in a lawsuit brought by two police officers Kilpatrick allegedly fired to cover up his personal misconduct. He has been indicted on eight felony counts including perjury and obstruction of justice.
This would just be another dreary entry in the long annals of misbehaving politicians if it weren't for the backdrop of a decaying city. Elected at age 31 in 2002, Kilpatrick was supposed to bring youthful vitality to his job, and he talked about reform. Now, he's just another tragedy to befall Detroit, a city whose decline is -- as psychologists put it -- overdetermined, but stands as a stark statement of the failure of urban liberalism.
Detroit suffers from every possible malady except a plague of locusts, and that's only because they find urban living uncongenial. The city has a revitalized downtown, but all around it, the city rots. Forbes magazine declared Detroit "America's Most Miserable City," on the basis of its unemployment and crime rates, among other things. The unemployment rate of 8.2 percent is the highest of any major urban area in the nation, and its homicide rate is higher than New York's in the bad old days of the early 1990s.
The city has lost 1 million residents since 1950. It was hit by the decline of the auto industry and white flight, fueled partly by racism. These trends would have rocked the city no matter what. Detroit compounded them with disastrous governance, personified by Mayor Coleman Young, who held office for 20 years beginning in 1974.
His record raises the question why, if it wanted to engage in a nefarious plot to hurt blacks, the federal government would invent the AIDS virus when it could simply emplace mayors like Coleman Young instead. "Imagine a Rev. Jeremiah Wright with real power," says urban expert Fred Siegel. Coleman taunted suburbanites, accusing them of "pillaging the city," while his scandal-plagued administration managed the city into the ground.
He neglected policing, maintaining that "crime is a problem, but not the problem. The police are the major threat ... to the minority community." The 1968 riots never really ended in Detroit, dragging on in a long crime wave. With government services terrible to nonexistent and both crime and tax rates high, there was no reason for anyone to stay. "Several Detroit mayors have been the best economic development officers Oakland County ever had," comments Michael LaFaive of the Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy, referring to the county to Detroit's north.
Public-sector unions protect the dismal status quo. Detroit high schools graduate just a third of their students, according to an estimate by Michigan State University. But when a philanthropist offered to spend $200 million to create 15 new charter high schools, teachers staged a walk-out. Mayor Kilpatrick spurned the offer. These failing schools throw kids with no skills into a struggling economy in an environment characterized by social breakdown.
No matter what Mayor Kilpatrick did with his chief of staff or how many lies he has told, this is the true scandal of Detroit -- and too many American cities. In the wake of the controversy over Rev. Wright, Barack Obama called for a national conversation on race. But we talk about race incessantly already, and Mayor Kilpatrick will carry on his own dialogue by playing on black fears with charges of "selective prosecution."
What would better serve the interests of African-Americans and the country is a national conversation about good urban governance -- how to crack down on crime, reform the schools and free the economy from sclerotic government. Detroit awaits it, as its disgraced mayor twists in the wind.
Monday, March 31, 2008
It could be an item on a David Letterman Top Ten List of "How to Know Your Mayor is Headed for a Major Scandal" -- he's known as the "Hip-Hop Mayor."
That's what they call Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, now famous for text messages detailing the affair he had with his chief of staff. Kilpatrick had denied the relationship under oath in a lawsuit brought by two police officers Kilpatrick allegedly fired to cover up his personal misconduct. He has been indicted on eight felony counts including perjury and obstruction of justice.
This would just be another dreary entry in the long annals of misbehaving politicians if it weren't for the backdrop of a decaying city. Elected at age 31 in 2002, Kilpatrick was supposed to bring youthful vitality to his job, and he talked about reform. Now, he's just another tragedy to befall Detroit, a city whose decline is -- as psychologists put it -- overdetermined, but stands as a stark statement of the failure of urban liberalism.
Detroit suffers from every possible malady except a plague of locusts, and that's only because they find urban living uncongenial. The city has a revitalized downtown, but all around it, the city rots. Forbes magazine declared Detroit "America's Most Miserable City," on the basis of its unemployment and crime rates, among other things. The unemployment rate of 8.2 percent is the highest of any major urban area in the nation, and its homicide rate is higher than New York's in the bad old days of the early 1990s.
The city has lost 1 million residents since 1950. It was hit by the decline of the auto industry and white flight, fueled partly by racism. These trends would have rocked the city no matter what. Detroit compounded them with disastrous governance, personified by Mayor Coleman Young, who held office for 20 years beginning in 1974.
His record raises the question why, if it wanted to engage in a nefarious plot to hurt blacks, the federal government would invent the AIDS virus when it could simply emplace mayors like Coleman Young instead. "Imagine a Rev. Jeremiah Wright with real power," says urban expert Fred Siegel. Coleman taunted suburbanites, accusing them of "pillaging the city," while his scandal-plagued administration managed the city into the ground.
He neglected policing, maintaining that "crime is a problem, but not the problem. The police are the major threat ... to the minority community." The 1968 riots never really ended in Detroit, dragging on in a long crime wave. With government services terrible to nonexistent and both crime and tax rates high, there was no reason for anyone to stay. "Several Detroit mayors have been the best economic development officers Oakland County ever had," comments Michael LaFaive of the Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy, referring to the county to Detroit's north.
Public-sector unions protect the dismal status quo. Detroit high schools graduate just a third of their students, according to an estimate by Michigan State University. But when a philanthropist offered to spend $200 million to create 15 new charter high schools, teachers staged a walk-out. Mayor Kilpatrick spurned the offer. These failing schools throw kids with no skills into a struggling economy in an environment characterized by social breakdown.
No matter what Mayor Kilpatrick did with his chief of staff or how many lies he has told, this is the true scandal of Detroit -- and too many American cities. In the wake of the controversy over Rev. Wright, Barack Obama called for a national conversation on race. But we talk about race incessantly already, and Mayor Kilpatrick will carry on his own dialogue by playing on black fears with charges of "selective prosecution."
What would better serve the interests of African-Americans and the country is a national conversation about good urban governance -- how to crack down on crime, reform the schools and free the economy from sclerotic government. Detroit awaits it, as its disgraced mayor twists in the wind.
Criticism and Islam
By Afshin Ellian
Monday, March 31, 2008
'Fitna" has arrived.
Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders put the 15-minute movie about the Quran on the Internet Thursday night. But for weeks before anyone saw it, the Dutch flag was burned around the Islamic world. Iran's undemocratically-elected parliament endorsed a boycott of the Netherlands, and Web sites linked to al Qaeda called for terrorist attacks.
Americans may be accustomed to images of angry bearded men setting their flag alight. The Dutch aren't. In response, the government raised the national terrorist threat level to "substantial" while Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende distanced himself from the movie. Until the last moment, he urged Mr. Wilders not to show the film.
The message of "Fitna" is that the Quran is the living inspiration for jihadists. Without the Quran's violent passages, the film suggests, Islamic terrorism would not exist. Mr. Wilders shows verses from the Quran alongside hate speeches by imams and graphic images of Islamic terrorism -- from 9/11 to the Madrid train bombings in 2004 and the London attack a year later. He uses footage from the video-taped beheading of a hostage by Islamic terrorists. He also shows the most famous of the Danish cartoons (the one with a bomb on Muhammad's head) that triggered demonstrations across the Muslim world two years ago.
The Western world long ago learned to criticize, even mock, religion. Think of such movies as "The Life of Brian" and "The Da Vinci Code" or more serious texts on Christianity by Nietzsche, whose famous phrase "God is Dead" is part of popular culture. Competition of ideas is fundamental to the Western way of life. The Islamic world isn't accustomed to such discussions.
As in other countries, the terrible attacks of 9/11 raised existential questions in the Netherlands that remain the subject of heated debate to this day. They paved the way for the political rise of Pim Fortuyn, a flamboyant, openly gay former university professor and writer. Fortuyn fulminated against the dark sides of political Islam -- terrorism, the subjugation of women and homosexuals, and anti-Semitism. His murder in 2002 by an extreme leftist was seen as an assault on Holland's democratic order.
That shock was compounded in 2004 when in Amsterdam, the capital of freedom and tolerance, a Dutch Muslim of Moroccan descent shot and nearly decapitated filmmaker Theo van Gogh. The murderer declared that Islam demanded of him to kill Van Gogh, who had made a short movie that criticized the mistreatment of women in Islam. After the murder, the filmmaker's collaborator, Somali-born parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, was put under 24-hour police protection.
When Ms. Hirsi Ali went to live in the U.S. in 2006, Geert Wilders picked up the baton. He takes a hard stance on Islamic terrorism and calls for a stop to immigration, at least until Dutch Muslims are better integrated. Some of his arguments are pure polemic. For instance, he says the Quran is a "fascist" book. Since it is illegal in the Netherlands to publish Hitler's "Mein Kampf," he argues, so it should be illegal to publish the Quran. One can have a debate about the Quran, but to ban the book altogether is ridiculous, and he knows it.
Yet his outrageous remarks have stirred a constructive discussion about the Quran and Islam in the Netherlands that is more vigorous than in any Western or, for that matter, Muslim country. And uncomfortable as they may be for Dutch Muslims, they help them view their religion in a more critical light. Notwithstanding the growing appeal of radical Islam, the political participation of moderate Muslims is on the rise, a positive sign of integration. For the first time in Dutch history, two Muslims are in the cabinet.
Dutch Muslims have so far reacted calmly to "Fitna." There have not been any demonstrations, peaceful or violent, in the Netherlands. Perhaps this is further evidence that the hard debate has helped Dutch Muslims to understand Western values.
The issue isn't really Mr. Wilders's movie, or whether it incites hatred, which I doubt. It's whether we are capable of defending our values against the intolerance of radical Muslims. Some people wanted "Fitna" banned before seeing it. That's disconcerting. Dutch law prohibits a priori censorship.
A strand in Western society -- a combination of European nihilism, self-loathing and timidity -- favors appeasement. It is not the strength of our enemies but our weakness that might be our ruin.
Should "Fitna" lead to violence and protests against the Dutch, Europe will hopefully show more solidarity than it did with the Danes during the cartoon crisis. Any weakness in the resolve to defend our democratic legal order should be seen for what it is: Betrayal and cowardice.
Monday, March 31, 2008
'Fitna" has arrived.
Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders put the 15-minute movie about the Quran on the Internet Thursday night. But for weeks before anyone saw it, the Dutch flag was burned around the Islamic world. Iran's undemocratically-elected parliament endorsed a boycott of the Netherlands, and Web sites linked to al Qaeda called for terrorist attacks.
Americans may be accustomed to images of angry bearded men setting their flag alight. The Dutch aren't. In response, the government raised the national terrorist threat level to "substantial" while Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende distanced himself from the movie. Until the last moment, he urged Mr. Wilders not to show the film.
The message of "Fitna" is that the Quran is the living inspiration for jihadists. Without the Quran's violent passages, the film suggests, Islamic terrorism would not exist. Mr. Wilders shows verses from the Quran alongside hate speeches by imams and graphic images of Islamic terrorism -- from 9/11 to the Madrid train bombings in 2004 and the London attack a year later. He uses footage from the video-taped beheading of a hostage by Islamic terrorists. He also shows the most famous of the Danish cartoons (the one with a bomb on Muhammad's head) that triggered demonstrations across the Muslim world two years ago.
The Western world long ago learned to criticize, even mock, religion. Think of such movies as "The Life of Brian" and "The Da Vinci Code" or more serious texts on Christianity by Nietzsche, whose famous phrase "God is Dead" is part of popular culture. Competition of ideas is fundamental to the Western way of life. The Islamic world isn't accustomed to such discussions.
As in other countries, the terrible attacks of 9/11 raised existential questions in the Netherlands that remain the subject of heated debate to this day. They paved the way for the political rise of Pim Fortuyn, a flamboyant, openly gay former university professor and writer. Fortuyn fulminated against the dark sides of political Islam -- terrorism, the subjugation of women and homosexuals, and anti-Semitism. His murder in 2002 by an extreme leftist was seen as an assault on Holland's democratic order.
That shock was compounded in 2004 when in Amsterdam, the capital of freedom and tolerance, a Dutch Muslim of Moroccan descent shot and nearly decapitated filmmaker Theo van Gogh. The murderer declared that Islam demanded of him to kill Van Gogh, who had made a short movie that criticized the mistreatment of women in Islam. After the murder, the filmmaker's collaborator, Somali-born parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, was put under 24-hour police protection.
When Ms. Hirsi Ali went to live in the U.S. in 2006, Geert Wilders picked up the baton. He takes a hard stance on Islamic terrorism and calls for a stop to immigration, at least until Dutch Muslims are better integrated. Some of his arguments are pure polemic. For instance, he says the Quran is a "fascist" book. Since it is illegal in the Netherlands to publish Hitler's "Mein Kampf," he argues, so it should be illegal to publish the Quran. One can have a debate about the Quran, but to ban the book altogether is ridiculous, and he knows it.
Yet his outrageous remarks have stirred a constructive discussion about the Quran and Islam in the Netherlands that is more vigorous than in any Western or, for that matter, Muslim country. And uncomfortable as they may be for Dutch Muslims, they help them view their religion in a more critical light. Notwithstanding the growing appeal of radical Islam, the political participation of moderate Muslims is on the rise, a positive sign of integration. For the first time in Dutch history, two Muslims are in the cabinet.
Dutch Muslims have so far reacted calmly to "Fitna." There have not been any demonstrations, peaceful or violent, in the Netherlands. Perhaps this is further evidence that the hard debate has helped Dutch Muslims to understand Western values.
The issue isn't really Mr. Wilders's movie, or whether it incites hatred, which I doubt. It's whether we are capable of defending our values against the intolerance of radical Muslims. Some people wanted "Fitna" banned before seeing it. That's disconcerting. Dutch law prohibits a priori censorship.
A strand in Western society -- a combination of European nihilism, self-loathing and timidity -- favors appeasement. It is not the strength of our enemies but our weakness that might be our ruin.
Should "Fitna" lead to violence and protests against the Dutch, Europe will hopefully show more solidarity than it did with the Danes during the cartoon crisis. Any weakness in the resolve to defend our democratic legal order should be seen for what it is: Betrayal and cowardice.
Liberals and Their False Idols
By Burt Prelutsky
Monday, March 31, 2008
There are major differences between liberals and conservatives, and that’s why I never know what people such as Barack Obama are talking about when they speak of bringing us all together. And I suspect that Jeremiah Wright’s surrogate son doesn’t know, either.
For instance, if I support the surge in Iraq and you insist on bringing the troops home by next Thursday, what’s our compromise? Bringing our troops only partway home? Say as far as the Canary Islands?
If you’re in favor of same-sex marriages and I happen to think the whole idea is a very silly joke, where’s our common ground? Doing away with opposite-sex marriages?
If I believe in capital punishment and you don’t, what constitutes a midway point between our positions? Only executing convicted killers whose last names start with the letters between A and M?
One of the most unpleasant things about liberals is the way they tend to place the politicians they endorse on pedestals. Frankly, I have never understood this phenomenon. How is it that so many people turn into besotted teenagers once they decide to vote for someone?
I’m not saying that I don’t like some politicians more than others. I like those who vote the way I want them to and I dislike the ones who don’t. But when you get right down to it, most politicians on either side of the aisle are pretty mediocre human beings. What is their great accomplishment, after all? These are people who have devoted their lives to convincing other people to hand over their hard-earned money so that they can get or keep a job that essentially consists of spending other people’s tax dollars. Often enough to keep the tabloid press occupied, these palookas are caught taking bribes, using drugs and getting involved in sex scandals. In other words, they often behave like the rock stars they aspire to be, even though they can’t sing, cavort around a stage or play a musical instrument.
Politicians, unlike cops, firemen and members of the military, are not called upon to do anything dangerous, heroic or the least bit self-sacrificial. Instead, they build up fiefdoms on your tax dollars, go on junkets around the world, receive the sort of health care only millionaires can dream of and the sort of pensions no working stiff can even imagine.
If they deign to place their names on ghost-written books, millions of you will rush out to buy them, and if they manage to give a speech, also ghost-written, that doesn’t put everyone into a coma, they’re hailed as great orators.
I swear, when I see the ladies gazing up at Hillary Clinton, adoration shining in their eyes, or at the hordes of born-again left-wingers gathered to watch Barack Obama transform water into whine, I feel grateful that I don’t know any of them.
It’s not because I’m a conservative that I haven’t mentioned John McCain. For one thing, most Republicans have no illusions about him. Many of them will vote for him in November for one very good reason; namely, that their blood runs cold at the mere thought of either Democrat being the next commander-in-chief. For another thing, conservatives tend to be realists, and just about the only politician who really excites them is Ronald Reagan, and he’s been dead since 2004.
I don’t happen to think it’s a coincidence that left-wingers are much more juvenile than conservatives when it comes to making idols of politicians. As psychiatrist Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., points out in his new book, “The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness,” liberals are very much “like spoiled, angry children. They rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from the cradle to the grave.”
For over 35 years, Dr. Rossiter has diagnosed and treated more than 1,500 patients and examined nearly 3,000 civil and criminal cases as a board-certified forensic psychiatrist. Regarding the sort of liberalism being espoused by Obama, Clinton and their devout worshippers, he states: “A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity, as liberals do. A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population, as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation’s citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state, as liberals do.”
Dr. Rossiter goes on to say that the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization; satisfying infantile claims of entitlement, indulgence and compensation; augmenting primitive feelings of envy; rejecting the sovereignty of the individual and subordinating him to the will of the government.”
Take that, Hillary and Barack! Take that Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi! Take that, Harry Reid and Charles Schumer, Chris Matthews and Barbara Boxer! Take that, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, Keith Olbermann and John Murtha!
In summation, Dr. Rossiter writes: “When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious.”
At the risk of burying you all in psychological jargon, suffice to say that the good doctor agrees with my own diagnosis: Liberals are cuckoos.
Monday, March 31, 2008
There are major differences between liberals and conservatives, and that’s why I never know what people such as Barack Obama are talking about when they speak of bringing us all together. And I suspect that Jeremiah Wright’s surrogate son doesn’t know, either.
For instance, if I support the surge in Iraq and you insist on bringing the troops home by next Thursday, what’s our compromise? Bringing our troops only partway home? Say as far as the Canary Islands?
If you’re in favor of same-sex marriages and I happen to think the whole idea is a very silly joke, where’s our common ground? Doing away with opposite-sex marriages?
If I believe in capital punishment and you don’t, what constitutes a midway point between our positions? Only executing convicted killers whose last names start with the letters between A and M?
One of the most unpleasant things about liberals is the way they tend to place the politicians they endorse on pedestals. Frankly, I have never understood this phenomenon. How is it that so many people turn into besotted teenagers once they decide to vote for someone?
I’m not saying that I don’t like some politicians more than others. I like those who vote the way I want them to and I dislike the ones who don’t. But when you get right down to it, most politicians on either side of the aisle are pretty mediocre human beings. What is their great accomplishment, after all? These are people who have devoted their lives to convincing other people to hand over their hard-earned money so that they can get or keep a job that essentially consists of spending other people’s tax dollars. Often enough to keep the tabloid press occupied, these palookas are caught taking bribes, using drugs and getting involved in sex scandals. In other words, they often behave like the rock stars they aspire to be, even though they can’t sing, cavort around a stage or play a musical instrument.
Politicians, unlike cops, firemen and members of the military, are not called upon to do anything dangerous, heroic or the least bit self-sacrificial. Instead, they build up fiefdoms on your tax dollars, go on junkets around the world, receive the sort of health care only millionaires can dream of and the sort of pensions no working stiff can even imagine.
If they deign to place their names on ghost-written books, millions of you will rush out to buy them, and if they manage to give a speech, also ghost-written, that doesn’t put everyone into a coma, they’re hailed as great orators.
I swear, when I see the ladies gazing up at Hillary Clinton, adoration shining in their eyes, or at the hordes of born-again left-wingers gathered to watch Barack Obama transform water into whine, I feel grateful that I don’t know any of them.
It’s not because I’m a conservative that I haven’t mentioned John McCain. For one thing, most Republicans have no illusions about him. Many of them will vote for him in November for one very good reason; namely, that their blood runs cold at the mere thought of either Democrat being the next commander-in-chief. For another thing, conservatives tend to be realists, and just about the only politician who really excites them is Ronald Reagan, and he’s been dead since 2004.
I don’t happen to think it’s a coincidence that left-wingers are much more juvenile than conservatives when it comes to making idols of politicians. As psychiatrist Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., points out in his new book, “The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness,” liberals are very much “like spoiled, angry children. They rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from the cradle to the grave.”
For over 35 years, Dr. Rossiter has diagnosed and treated more than 1,500 patients and examined nearly 3,000 civil and criminal cases as a board-certified forensic psychiatrist. Regarding the sort of liberalism being espoused by Obama, Clinton and their devout worshippers, he states: “A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity, as liberals do. A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population, as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation’s citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state, as liberals do.”
Dr. Rossiter goes on to say that the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization; satisfying infantile claims of entitlement, indulgence and compensation; augmenting primitive feelings of envy; rejecting the sovereignty of the individual and subordinating him to the will of the government.”
Take that, Hillary and Barack! Take that Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi! Take that, Harry Reid and Charles Schumer, Chris Matthews and Barbara Boxer! Take that, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, Keith Olbermann and John Murtha!
In summation, Dr. Rossiter writes: “When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious.”
At the risk of burying you all in psychological jargon, suffice to say that the good doctor agrees with my own diagnosis: Liberals are cuckoos.
Saddam’s Useful Idiots
Keeping up a long, ignoble tradition of the American Left.
By Daniel J. Flynn
Monday, March 31, 2008
Fresh allegations that Iraqi intelligence funded the prewar propaganda trip to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq by U.S. Representatives Jim McDermott, David Bonior, and Mike Thompson should not surprise anyone familiar with the history of the American Left. Ideological tourism, in which totalitarian powers engineer the junkets of influential leftists in exchange for positive publicity in the enemy nation, has seduced the likes of such radical heavyweights as Lincoln Steffens, W.E.B Du Bois, John Reed, and Tom Hayden.
Jack Reed is the father of the political pilgrimage. He traveled to witness the Russian Revolution on the dime of an American heiress. He later departed Soviet Russia with “Moscow Gold” — a million rubles (mostly in diamonds, actually) — and tales of utopia beyond the Urals.
“I suddenly realized that the devout Russian people no longer needed priests to pray them into heaven,” Reed, witnessing a Bolshevik funeral, wrote in Ten Days That Shook the World. “On earth they were building a kingdom more bright than any heaven had to offer, and for which it was a glory to die.” Although the author was a paid agent of Soviet Russia’s Bureau of International Revolutionary Propaganda, in 1999 a panel convened by New York University named the book one of the 20th century’s ten best works of journalism.
Reed’s inspiring book, and evangelistic fervor, motivated others to make the Hajj to the Left’s Mecca. Reed’s mentor Lincoln Steffens journeyed to Soviet Russia on his apprentice’s advice. “The revolution in Russia is to establish the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth, now,” wrote Steffens — using “Christian” as his appropriate nom de plume — “in order that Christ may come soon; and, coming, reign forever. Forever and ever, everywhere. Not over Russia alone. The revolution in Russia is not the Russian revolution. It is ‘The Revolution.’ ”
The grisly realities of the Soviet Union ultimately discredited such tales, but not the tales’ tellers. After largely disappearing in the 1940s and ’50s, the overseas jaunts returned again and again, with successive generations of Leftists forgetting the mistakes of the past.
Herb Aptheker, historian of the Communist Party USA, reinstituted 1930s-style ideological tourism in the 1960s by convincing SDS’s Tom Hayden and Yale University’s Staughton Lynd to travel to North Vietnam. “We are conscious of the ways in which some intellectuals during the nineteen-thirties sought to excuse the evil side of Soviet Communism,” Hayden and Lynd reflected. Yet the duo made excuses too. They compared the “ ‘rice-roots’ democracy” of Vietnamese Communists to American town meetings of the previous century, likened Vietnamese Communists to oppressed blacks in the American South, and announced support for the National Liberation Front. “Both sides use violence,” the pair conceded of the Vietnam War’s combatants, “but this does not mean both sides are equally violent . . . the other side employs violence more discriminately.”
The all-time dupe of totalitarian-engineered junkets has to be W. E. B. Du Bois, who served as a willing propagandist for the most murderous regimes in world history. In 1926, the man who had helped found the NAACP journeyed to “Holy Moscow.” “I stand in astonishment and wonder at the revelation of Russia that has come to me,” Du Bois proclaimed. “I may be partially deceived and half-informed. But if what I have seen with my eyes and heard with my ears in Russia is Bolshevism, I am a Bolshevik.” For unceasing propaganda on their behalf, the Soviet government awarded Du Bois the Lenin Peace Prize more than 30 years later.
A “partially deceived and half-informed” Du Bois uttered wildly inaccurate assessments of other totalitarian states as well. In 1937, Du Bois described the Japanese invasion of Manchuria as somehow benefiting the Chinese. He explained the conflict between China and Japan as the result of China’s “submission to white aggression and Japanese resistance” to it. Biographer David Levering Lewis notes that Du Bois’s Japanese junket was “facilitated by one of Imperial Japan’s most effective agents in the United States.” Du Bois, oblivious (willfully perhaps) to his travel agent’s position, claimed he “never knew” if this “student” served the Japanese government in any official capacity.
Traveling to Nazi Germany in 1936 for nearly half the year through the beneficence of American grant money, Du Bois found “domestic peace,” “a nation at work,” “houses for the poor,” “great celebrations,” and “new songs, new ideals, a new state, a new race.” It was, he reasoned, the truest socialist state next to Soviet Russia.
What of the racism of the Third Reich? Du Bois reported experiencing no hostility on account of race. Though clearly bothered by Germany’s anti-Semitism, Du Bois opined that it was “a reasoned prejudice.” “In the World War Jews did their legal service, but they were not eager to serve in an army in which they could not act as officers,” Du Bois reported to readers of the Pittsburgh Courier in December 1936. “After the war, bankers, financiers and merchants had many opportunities to profiteer at the expense of the workers and the middle class. Jews were prominent in such happenings because they were so largely represented in these callings.”
Du Bois concluded his series on Germany with an elongated quote from a German juxtaposing the tiny percentage of Jews in Germany with massive percentages of Jews in banking, the stock exchange, government, and law. Much done had been “shameful,” but “the worst was over.” In fact, it was just beginning.
In 1959, China proclaimed a national holiday in Du Bois’s honor to celebrate his trip there. In return, Du Bois bizarrely portrayed a China in chaos as a model to be emulated. In the midst of Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward, in which tens of millions perished in state-induced famines, Du Bois saw in China “a sense of human nature free of its most hurtful and terrible meanness and of a people full of joy and faith and marching on in a unison unexampled in Holland, Belgium, Britain, and France; and simply inconceivable in the United States.”
Democratic Congressmen Jim McDermott, David Bonior, and Mike Thompson didn’t make such enthusiastic declarations about Iraq in 2002 as their ideological forebears had done about America’s enemies in times past. Embarrassing their own government, not embracing another, was their aim. Had the congressional trio recalled the shameful nature of past instances of ideological tourism, they may never have gone. It is this convenient amnesia that not only enables the Left to glorify the likes of Jack Reed on film and W. E. B. Du Bois in two Pulitzer Prize–winning biographies, but allows leftists such as McDermott, Bonior, and Thompson to repeat their mistakes without consequence. Doubtless, their embarrassment will be forgotten all too soon, as well.
By Daniel J. Flynn
Monday, March 31, 2008
Fresh allegations that Iraqi intelligence funded the prewar propaganda trip to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq by U.S. Representatives Jim McDermott, David Bonior, and Mike Thompson should not surprise anyone familiar with the history of the American Left. Ideological tourism, in which totalitarian powers engineer the junkets of influential leftists in exchange for positive publicity in the enemy nation, has seduced the likes of such radical heavyweights as Lincoln Steffens, W.E.B Du Bois, John Reed, and Tom Hayden.
Jack Reed is the father of the political pilgrimage. He traveled to witness the Russian Revolution on the dime of an American heiress. He later departed Soviet Russia with “Moscow Gold” — a million rubles (mostly in diamonds, actually) — and tales of utopia beyond the Urals.
“I suddenly realized that the devout Russian people no longer needed priests to pray them into heaven,” Reed, witnessing a Bolshevik funeral, wrote in Ten Days That Shook the World. “On earth they were building a kingdom more bright than any heaven had to offer, and for which it was a glory to die.” Although the author was a paid agent of Soviet Russia’s Bureau of International Revolutionary Propaganda, in 1999 a panel convened by New York University named the book one of the 20th century’s ten best works of journalism.
Reed’s inspiring book, and evangelistic fervor, motivated others to make the Hajj to the Left’s Mecca. Reed’s mentor Lincoln Steffens journeyed to Soviet Russia on his apprentice’s advice. “The revolution in Russia is to establish the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth, now,” wrote Steffens — using “Christian” as his appropriate nom de plume — “in order that Christ may come soon; and, coming, reign forever. Forever and ever, everywhere. Not over Russia alone. The revolution in Russia is not the Russian revolution. It is ‘The Revolution.’ ”
The grisly realities of the Soviet Union ultimately discredited such tales, but not the tales’ tellers. After largely disappearing in the 1940s and ’50s, the overseas jaunts returned again and again, with successive generations of Leftists forgetting the mistakes of the past.
Herb Aptheker, historian of the Communist Party USA, reinstituted 1930s-style ideological tourism in the 1960s by convincing SDS’s Tom Hayden and Yale University’s Staughton Lynd to travel to North Vietnam. “We are conscious of the ways in which some intellectuals during the nineteen-thirties sought to excuse the evil side of Soviet Communism,” Hayden and Lynd reflected. Yet the duo made excuses too. They compared the “ ‘rice-roots’ democracy” of Vietnamese Communists to American town meetings of the previous century, likened Vietnamese Communists to oppressed blacks in the American South, and announced support for the National Liberation Front. “Both sides use violence,” the pair conceded of the Vietnam War’s combatants, “but this does not mean both sides are equally violent . . . the other side employs violence more discriminately.”
The all-time dupe of totalitarian-engineered junkets has to be W. E. B. Du Bois, who served as a willing propagandist for the most murderous regimes in world history. In 1926, the man who had helped found the NAACP journeyed to “Holy Moscow.” “I stand in astonishment and wonder at the revelation of Russia that has come to me,” Du Bois proclaimed. “I may be partially deceived and half-informed. But if what I have seen with my eyes and heard with my ears in Russia is Bolshevism, I am a Bolshevik.” For unceasing propaganda on their behalf, the Soviet government awarded Du Bois the Lenin Peace Prize more than 30 years later.
A “partially deceived and half-informed” Du Bois uttered wildly inaccurate assessments of other totalitarian states as well. In 1937, Du Bois described the Japanese invasion of Manchuria as somehow benefiting the Chinese. He explained the conflict between China and Japan as the result of China’s “submission to white aggression and Japanese resistance” to it. Biographer David Levering Lewis notes that Du Bois’s Japanese junket was “facilitated by one of Imperial Japan’s most effective agents in the United States.” Du Bois, oblivious (willfully perhaps) to his travel agent’s position, claimed he “never knew” if this “student” served the Japanese government in any official capacity.
Traveling to Nazi Germany in 1936 for nearly half the year through the beneficence of American grant money, Du Bois found “domestic peace,” “a nation at work,” “houses for the poor,” “great celebrations,” and “new songs, new ideals, a new state, a new race.” It was, he reasoned, the truest socialist state next to Soviet Russia.
What of the racism of the Third Reich? Du Bois reported experiencing no hostility on account of race. Though clearly bothered by Germany’s anti-Semitism, Du Bois opined that it was “a reasoned prejudice.” “In the World War Jews did their legal service, but they were not eager to serve in an army in which they could not act as officers,” Du Bois reported to readers of the Pittsburgh Courier in December 1936. “After the war, bankers, financiers and merchants had many opportunities to profiteer at the expense of the workers and the middle class. Jews were prominent in such happenings because they were so largely represented in these callings.”
Du Bois concluded his series on Germany with an elongated quote from a German juxtaposing the tiny percentage of Jews in Germany with massive percentages of Jews in banking, the stock exchange, government, and law. Much done had been “shameful,” but “the worst was over.” In fact, it was just beginning.
In 1959, China proclaimed a national holiday in Du Bois’s honor to celebrate his trip there. In return, Du Bois bizarrely portrayed a China in chaos as a model to be emulated. In the midst of Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward, in which tens of millions perished in state-induced famines, Du Bois saw in China “a sense of human nature free of its most hurtful and terrible meanness and of a people full of joy and faith and marching on in a unison unexampled in Holland, Belgium, Britain, and France; and simply inconceivable in the United States.”
Democratic Congressmen Jim McDermott, David Bonior, and Mike Thompson didn’t make such enthusiastic declarations about Iraq in 2002 as their ideological forebears had done about America’s enemies in times past. Embarrassing their own government, not embracing another, was their aim. Had the congressional trio recalled the shameful nature of past instances of ideological tourism, they may never have gone. It is this convenient amnesia that not only enables the Left to glorify the likes of Jack Reed on film and W. E. B. Du Bois in two Pulitzer Prize–winning biographies, but allows leftists such as McDermott, Bonior, and Thompson to repeat their mistakes without consequence. Doubtless, their embarrassment will be forgotten all too soon, as well.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Truly Scary
By David Strom
Friday, March 28, 2008
Americans are justly worried about the long-term economic effects of the current mortgage crisis and the credit crunch that has resulted from it. Politicians are scrambling to reassure voters that everything is under control, or that at least they have a plan to deal with the crisis.
Yet the size of the current economic problems we face is dwarfed by the coming disaster that politicians of all stripes are ignoring. Barring any serious shocks to the financial system, the tools that the Federal Reserve is using (and inventing) will likely mitigate the harm to the overall economy. Unfortunately the looming fiscal crisis we face will not be so easily dealt with.
You can get a good sense of the scale of the crisis by visiting the Heritage Foundation’s 2008 Federal Revenue and Spending Book of Charts. The name implies that the book will put you to sleep, but trust me, it is more likely to keep you up at night.
A quick scan of the Heritage report will turn any true conservative’s stomach. It turns out that the Federal Government is far better at creating crises thanthe private sector. However irresponsible people in the private sector have been at times, our fearless government leaders have beat them by a mile in that department. After all, as the executives at Bear Stearns found out, the consequences for failure can be dire. In government, it is not always so.
Federal Spending is on an unsustainable path. And it’s not earmarks, silly spending projects, or even welfare that is going to do us in. It’s the entitlement programs and the growing national debt that are on track to destroy the American economy and the American way of life unless we do something about the problem. Yet while we have heard from each of the major party candidates about schemes to deal with the current economic mess, none of them has seriously addressed this larger looming crisis.
Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are already eating up an enormous fraction of the Federal Budget. In fact, over the past 40 or so years Federal discretionary spending has risen by 152% in real dollars, while mandatory entitlement spending has increased by 759%. Mandatory (entitlement) spending now makes up 58% of the Federal budget—twice as much as in 1965—and because it’s on autopilot it is going to eat up more and more of the budget unless politicians make the necessary changes.
What are the consequences of not facing up to the growing entitlement problems? According to the Congressional Budget Office entitlement spending and paying interest on the debt could drive federal spending to almost 80% of the American economy in coming decades. And that is without any significant growth in discretionary federal spending. Spending on interest alone could account for up to 40% of our economy because of the deficits we will wrack up if we don’t reign in entitlement spending.
The American economy would collapse long before we reach that point. As more and more of our economic resources are diverted to federal spending on entitlements, investment will dry up and economic growth will slow to a crawl. America’s economy already depends upon huge inflows of capital from abroad. How many dollars do you think the Chinese will want to sink into an American economy that is dominated by government spending on entitlements? Europe and Canada have their own entitlement problems, so don’t expect any help there.
Politicians have been eager to take credit for innovative ideas to address the current credit crunch, all the while ignoring the fact that they are the true authors of the greatest economic crisis our country could ever face. Without real action soon, government policy will have undermined our economy’s ability to even maintain our current quality of life, no less grow and prosper.
We are all expected to cheer as the politicians bash the “greedy” corporate leaders who are blamed for getting us into the current financial mess, but what about the responsibility of politicians for putting America on the path to financial disaster in the coming decades? Nobody believes that we can keep things as they are, but nobody wants to talk about what it would take to reform entitlements to make them sustainable.
It is ironic to think that Americans are being sold on the idea that only government can save our economy from the recklessness of the financial industry. However mistaken, reckless, or even irresponsible private citizens have been in recent years, the scale of the problem is nothing compared to the one consciously created by our political leadership. Think about that as you listen to politicians’ promises.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Americans are justly worried about the long-term economic effects of the current mortgage crisis and the credit crunch that has resulted from it. Politicians are scrambling to reassure voters that everything is under control, or that at least they have a plan to deal with the crisis.
Yet the size of the current economic problems we face is dwarfed by the coming disaster that politicians of all stripes are ignoring. Barring any serious shocks to the financial system, the tools that the Federal Reserve is using (and inventing) will likely mitigate the harm to the overall economy. Unfortunately the looming fiscal crisis we face will not be so easily dealt with.
You can get a good sense of the scale of the crisis by visiting the Heritage Foundation’s 2008 Federal Revenue and Spending Book of Charts. The name implies that the book will put you to sleep, but trust me, it is more likely to keep you up at night.
A quick scan of the Heritage report will turn any true conservative’s stomach. It turns out that the Federal Government is far better at creating crises thanthe private sector. However irresponsible people in the private sector have been at times, our fearless government leaders have beat them by a mile in that department. After all, as the executives at Bear Stearns found out, the consequences for failure can be dire. In government, it is not always so.
Federal Spending is on an unsustainable path. And it’s not earmarks, silly spending projects, or even welfare that is going to do us in. It’s the entitlement programs and the growing national debt that are on track to destroy the American economy and the American way of life unless we do something about the problem. Yet while we have heard from each of the major party candidates about schemes to deal with the current economic mess, none of them has seriously addressed this larger looming crisis.
Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are already eating up an enormous fraction of the Federal Budget. In fact, over the past 40 or so years Federal discretionary spending has risen by 152% in real dollars, while mandatory entitlement spending has increased by 759%. Mandatory (entitlement) spending now makes up 58% of the Federal budget—twice as much as in 1965—and because it’s on autopilot it is going to eat up more and more of the budget unless politicians make the necessary changes.
What are the consequences of not facing up to the growing entitlement problems? According to the Congressional Budget Office entitlement spending and paying interest on the debt could drive federal spending to almost 80% of the American economy in coming decades. And that is without any significant growth in discretionary federal spending. Spending on interest alone could account for up to 40% of our economy because of the deficits we will wrack up if we don’t reign in entitlement spending.
The American economy would collapse long before we reach that point. As more and more of our economic resources are diverted to federal spending on entitlements, investment will dry up and economic growth will slow to a crawl. America’s economy already depends upon huge inflows of capital from abroad. How many dollars do you think the Chinese will want to sink into an American economy that is dominated by government spending on entitlements? Europe and Canada have their own entitlement problems, so don’t expect any help there.
Politicians have been eager to take credit for innovative ideas to address the current credit crunch, all the while ignoring the fact that they are the true authors of the greatest economic crisis our country could ever face. Without real action soon, government policy will have undermined our economy’s ability to even maintain our current quality of life, no less grow and prosper.
We are all expected to cheer as the politicians bash the “greedy” corporate leaders who are blamed for getting us into the current financial mess, but what about the responsibility of politicians for putting America on the path to financial disaster in the coming decades? Nobody believes that we can keep things as they are, but nobody wants to talk about what it would take to reform entitlements to make them sustainable.
It is ironic to think that Americans are being sold on the idea that only government can save our economy from the recklessness of the financial industry. However mistaken, reckless, or even irresponsible private citizens have been in recent years, the scale of the problem is nothing compared to the one consciously created by our political leadership. Think about that as you listen to politicians’ promises.
The Same Old Spiel about a 'New' New Deal
By Jonah Goldberg
Saturday, March 29, 2008
The New Deal is 75 years young this month.
A host of commentators have invoked the current mortgage credit crisis as justification for a sweeping intrusion of the government into the economy, not just into the credit markets. American Prospect editor Harold Myerson says, "Bring on the new New Deal."
For all this talk of newness, you might be surprised at how old the idea is. Liberals were calling for a "new New Deal" when the first New Deal was barely out of diapers. That's one reason FDR launched a "second New Deal" from 1935-1937. In 1944, he attempted to jump-start a third New Deal with his "second Bill of Rights."
Let's set aside Harry Truman's "Fair Deal," JFK's "New Frontier," LBJ's "Great Society" and Bill Clinton's "New Covenant." I'm sure Jimmy Carter had something like this, too; I just try to avoid paying any attention to the man.
Even the New Deal wasn't as new as many claimed (as I argue in my book, "Liberal Fascism"). FDR himself sold the New Deal as a continuation of the war socialism of the Wilson administration, in which FDR had served. For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the signature public-works project of the New Deal, had its roots in a World War I power project. (As FDR explained when he formally asked Congress to create the thing, "This power development of war days leads logically to national planning.")
Since George W. Bush was elected, liberals have been calling for new New Deals more frequently than my daughter asks "are we there yet?" whenever we're in the car. After 9/11, Sen. Charles Schumer argued that the terrorist attack proved the need for a new New Deal, and that "the president can either lead the charge or be run over by it." After Hurricane Katrina, left-wing journalist William Greider spoke for many when he said that the natural disaster required a "new New Deal." Last January, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley said the looming recession was all the excuse government needed. The head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rahm Emmanuel, wrote last January that we need "a New Deal for the New Economy" that provides everything from universal health care to sweeping job training, in response to globalization.
Now it's the financial crisis that requires a you-know-what.
It's like liberals are playing a game of "Jeopardy" where the response to every question is, "What is a new New Deal?"
Still, it's worth noting for the record that the New Deal didn't really do what most of these people think it did. It didn't, for example, end the Great Depression. It prolonged it - by years. It didn't really crack down on big business - it gave big business unprecedented power to regulate itself, to the detriment of small businessmen.
But when you point out these facts, the usual response is, "So what?"
Well, if you're going to proclaim that what we need is a new New Deal when you're conceding that the New Deal didn't work, you've got a problem on your hands.
But the problems go deeper than that. Some say what they love about the New Deal was its "bold, persistent experimentation," in FDR's famous words.
"We need our leaders to recapture the urgency of the New Deal era, an enthusiasm for experimentation that attempts to address Americans' core challenges and not just win elections," writes Andrea Batista Schlesinger in the April 7 issue of The Nation.
Others, like Emanuel, suggest that "planning" was the essence of the New Deal. But planning and experimentation are, in fact, opposites. You don't "experiment" when performing an appendectomy or when building a house; you follow a plan.
More important, these New Deal nostalgists don't like experiments in the first place. It's all one-way, about finding new ways to expand government, not new ways to solve problems. Experiments like school vouchers or social security privatization: These are completely taboo to the same people clamoring for a new New Deal.
Others will tell you that what was great about the New Deal was its spirit of "hope" and "unity" - two words we hear a lot these days. But hope for what? Unity about what?
The answer is obvious. The hope for power that comes with unity. "Experimentation" is really just a dishonest word for allowing the would-be Brain Trusters to do whatever they want. And if it fails, well, that's no reason to take away their licenses, because they warned us they were "experimenting."
Saturday, March 29, 2008
The New Deal is 75 years young this month.
A host of commentators have invoked the current mortgage credit crisis as justification for a sweeping intrusion of the government into the economy, not just into the credit markets. American Prospect editor Harold Myerson says, "Bring on the new New Deal."
For all this talk of newness, you might be surprised at how old the idea is. Liberals were calling for a "new New Deal" when the first New Deal was barely out of diapers. That's one reason FDR launched a "second New Deal" from 1935-1937. In 1944, he attempted to jump-start a third New Deal with his "second Bill of Rights."
Let's set aside Harry Truman's "Fair Deal," JFK's "New Frontier," LBJ's "Great Society" and Bill Clinton's "New Covenant." I'm sure Jimmy Carter had something like this, too; I just try to avoid paying any attention to the man.
Even the New Deal wasn't as new as many claimed (as I argue in my book, "Liberal Fascism"). FDR himself sold the New Deal as a continuation of the war socialism of the Wilson administration, in which FDR had served. For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the signature public-works project of the New Deal, had its roots in a World War I power project. (As FDR explained when he formally asked Congress to create the thing, "This power development of war days leads logically to national planning.")
Since George W. Bush was elected, liberals have been calling for new New Deals more frequently than my daughter asks "are we there yet?" whenever we're in the car. After 9/11, Sen. Charles Schumer argued that the terrorist attack proved the need for a new New Deal, and that "the president can either lead the charge or be run over by it." After Hurricane Katrina, left-wing journalist William Greider spoke for many when he said that the natural disaster required a "new New Deal." Last January, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley said the looming recession was all the excuse government needed. The head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rahm Emmanuel, wrote last January that we need "a New Deal for the New Economy" that provides everything from universal health care to sweeping job training, in response to globalization.
Now it's the financial crisis that requires a you-know-what.
It's like liberals are playing a game of "Jeopardy" where the response to every question is, "What is a new New Deal?"
Still, it's worth noting for the record that the New Deal didn't really do what most of these people think it did. It didn't, for example, end the Great Depression. It prolonged it - by years. It didn't really crack down on big business - it gave big business unprecedented power to regulate itself, to the detriment of small businessmen.
But when you point out these facts, the usual response is, "So what?"
Well, if you're going to proclaim that what we need is a new New Deal when you're conceding that the New Deal didn't work, you've got a problem on your hands.
But the problems go deeper than that. Some say what they love about the New Deal was its "bold, persistent experimentation," in FDR's famous words.
"We need our leaders to recapture the urgency of the New Deal era, an enthusiasm for experimentation that attempts to address Americans' core challenges and not just win elections," writes Andrea Batista Schlesinger in the April 7 issue of The Nation.
Others, like Emanuel, suggest that "planning" was the essence of the New Deal. But planning and experimentation are, in fact, opposites. You don't "experiment" when performing an appendectomy or when building a house; you follow a plan.
More important, these New Deal nostalgists don't like experiments in the first place. It's all one-way, about finding new ways to expand government, not new ways to solve problems. Experiments like school vouchers or social security privatization: These are completely taboo to the same people clamoring for a new New Deal.
Others will tell you that what was great about the New Deal was its spirit of "hope" and "unity" - two words we hear a lot these days. But hope for what? Unity about what?
The answer is obvious. The hope for power that comes with unity. "Experimentation" is really just a dishonest word for allowing the would-be Brain Trusters to do whatever they want. And if it fails, well, that's no reason to take away their licenses, because they warned us they were "experimenting."
One Missed Call
Wall Street Journal
Saturday, March 29, 2008
In Michael Mukasey, President Bush finally seems to have an Attorney General worthy of the current moment. In Nancy Pelosi's hometown this week, the former judge who once tried terror cases told the Commonwealth Club audience that even he had no idea of the extent of the threat.
Speaking of what he hears in his national security briefings, Mr. Mukasey said, "It is way beyond – way beyond anything that I knew or believed. So, if I was picked for the level of my knowledge . . . that was a massive piece of false advertising."
As reported by the New York Sun, he also offered a perspective, partly personal as a former Manhattanite, on the necessity of warrantless antiterror surveillance. Before 9/11, Mr. Mukasey said, "We knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went. We've got" – here the Attorney General paused with emotion – "we've got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn't come home, to show for that."
The AG also addressed why immunity from lawsuits is vital for the telecom companies that cooperated with the surveillance after 9/11. "Forget the liability" the phone companies face, Mr. Mukasey said. "We face the prospect of disclosure in open court of what they did, which is to say the means and the methods by which we collect foreign intelligence against foreign targets." Al Qaeda would love that. The cynics will call this "fear-mongering," but most Americans will want to make sure we don't miss the next terror call.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
In Michael Mukasey, President Bush finally seems to have an Attorney General worthy of the current moment. In Nancy Pelosi's hometown this week, the former judge who once tried terror cases told the Commonwealth Club audience that even he had no idea of the extent of the threat.
Speaking of what he hears in his national security briefings, Mr. Mukasey said, "It is way beyond – way beyond anything that I knew or believed. So, if I was picked for the level of my knowledge . . . that was a massive piece of false advertising."
As reported by the New York Sun, he also offered a perspective, partly personal as a former Manhattanite, on the necessity of warrantless antiterror surveillance. Before 9/11, Mr. Mukasey said, "We knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went. We've got" – here the Attorney General paused with emotion – "we've got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn't come home, to show for that."
The AG also addressed why immunity from lawsuits is vital for the telecom companies that cooperated with the surveillance after 9/11. "Forget the liability" the phone companies face, Mr. Mukasey said. "We face the prospect of disclosure in open court of what they did, which is to say the means and the methods by which we collect foreign intelligence against foreign targets." Al Qaeda would love that. The cynics will call this "fear-mongering," but most Americans will want to make sure we don't miss the next terror call.
Friday, March 28, 2008
10 More of the Greatest Pieces of Conservative Wisdom
By John Hawkins
Friday, March 28, 2008
Even the most dull-witted bunglers in the mountains of Appalachia or the outskirts of Berkeley probably have a much better handle on their own individual circumstances, how to make themselves happy, and how to spend their own money than a Ph.D from Harvard with a genius level IQ who's sitting in Washington, D.C.
It's not a bad thing to have high standards, but there's very little to be said for destroying men's entire careers for a single thoughtless statement, demanding that politicians address our every problem to make us happy, or expecting soldiers to never make an honest mistake in the middle of a war zone.
Put another way, excellence is achievable, but perfection is not.
The world is full of evil men with bad intentions who will take more than a mile if you give them an inch. When we forget that and think we can just talk out every difference with our foreign enemies who have sworn to kill us -- or begin to treat home grown criminals in our jails like they're victims of society instead of victimizers who got where they are by preying on their fellow citizens -- there is always a heavy price to be paid.
Friday, March 28, 2008
"A measure of hypocrisy is necessary to a functioning society. It's quite possible, on the one hand, to be opposed to the legalization of prostitution yet, on the other, to pull your hat down over your brow every other Tuesday and sneak off to the cat house on the other side of town. Your inability to live up to your own standards does not, in and of itself, nullify them. The left gives the impression that a Republican senator caught in a whorehouse ought immediately to say, "You're right. I should have supported earmarks for hookers in the 2005 appropriations bill." That's the reason why sex scandals take down Republicans but not Democrats: Sex-wise, the left's standards are that whatever's your bag is cool – which is the equivalent of no standards. Thus, Monica Lewinsky was a "grown woman" free to make her own decisions on the carpet of the Oval Office. Without agreed "moral standards," all you have is the law. When it's no longer clear something is wrong, all you can do is make it illegal." -- Mark SteynThe flesh is weak and we human beings often do foolish things that conflict with our own moral values. Not to excuse the hypocrisy of that, but who's the better person -- the fellow who advocates high moral standards and falls short occasionally or the person who never falls short because he advocates living an immoral life? Clearly, the former is the better husband, the better father, the better Christian, and just plain old better for our society. Hypocrisy is a notable failing, but there are still far worse things than hypocrisy.
"The virtue of a federalist, republican form of government is that the more you push these decisions down to the level where people actually have to live with their consequences, the more likely it is they will be a) involved and interested in the decision-making process, and b) happy with the result. Federalism is also morally superior because it requires the consent of the governed at the most basic level. Sure, your side can lose an argument, but it's easier to change things locally than nationally. And, at the end of the day, if you don't get your way, there's always the highway. It's easier to move to the next state than it is to move to Canada." -- Jonah GoldbergThe likelihood of a decision being wise is often inversely proportional to how far removed the decision maker is from the person directly affected by the decision. This is why it's so disturbing to see the federal government trying to regulate everything from what kind of TV we can own to the sort of light bulbs we have in our homes.
Even the most dull-witted bunglers in the mountains of Appalachia or the outskirts of Berkeley probably have a much better handle on their own individual circumstances, how to make themselves happy, and how to spend their own money than a Ph.D from Harvard with a genius level IQ who's sitting in Washington, D.C.
"Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families." -- Benjamin RushIt is patriotism that helps transform a mere stranger to a countryman that, under the right circumstances, a man will help and defend, sometimes at the cost of his own life. For love of country, people will donate money, toil for countless hours in the most thankless of jobs, and even take up arms if necessary. Such a noble urge should be encouraged, taught to our children at every opportunity, and honored for the good it does for our society.
"The accumulation of wealth is a process which is of itself morally neutral. True, as Christianity teaches, riches bring temptations. But then so does poverty." -- Margaret ThatcherToo many people in our society have been persuaded that most rich people have, at worst, done something immoral to become so wealthy or at best, that they're merely lucky. Although there are some people who fit that description, most affluent people got that way by serving their fellow man in some form or fashion. Moreover, these successful people often tend to pay enormous sums in taxes and employ large numbers of people directly or through their purchases. That is something to be admired and encouraged, not frowned upon, lest we learn the tragic lesson of Aesop's farmer, who killed the goose that laid the golden egg.
"It is not the critic that counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or the doer of deeds could have them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the Arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but he who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great devotion; who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails while daring greatly, knows that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls, who know neither victory nor defeat." -- Teddy RooseveltWe live in a "microwave" society where we expect everything right now, exactly the way we want it, with zero mistakes. That's not the real world. Human beings are not robots, and, yes, we make mistakes, fall short, and disappoint.
It's not a bad thing to have high standards, but there's very little to be said for destroying men's entire careers for a single thoughtless statement, demanding that politicians address our every problem to make us happy, or expecting soldiers to never make an honest mistake in the middle of a war zone.
Put another way, excellence is achievable, but perfection is not.
"Tolerant, but not stupid! Look, just because you have to tolerate something doesn't mean you have to approve of it! ..."Tolerate" means you're just putting up with it! You tolerate a crying child sitting next to you on the airplane or you tolerate a bad cold." -- South ParkFor all of us to live in an open, free society with a wide variety of different views, we have to be able to tolerate a variety of widely diverging opinions. However, this is not enough for some people, who insist that we treat every opinion and lifestyle choice as equally valid and healthy for society. But, what they are failing to understand is that there is a difference between tolerance and acceptance. Just because you can do something doesn't always mean you should.
"Diversity worship and multiculturalism are currency and cause for celebration at just about any college. If one is black, brown, yellow or white, the prevailing thought is that he should take pride and celebrate that fact even though, just as in the case of my eye color, he had nothing to do with it. The multiculturist and diversity crowd see race as an achievement. In my book, race might be an achievement, worthy of considerable celebration, only if a person was born white and through his effort and diligence became black." -- Walter WilliamsRace-based groups like the NAACP, the KKK, La Raza, and the American Nazi Party do very little good and much harm to our country. In fact, the very idea that something as arbitrary as skin color should determine people's actions, beliefs, and political party is odious and un-American. Moreover, it has long been apparent that the sort of ethnic tribalism inevitably displayed by people in these race-based groups is actually more of a source of strife in our country than the racism they are supposedly combating.
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." -- Winston ChurchillThere are many reasons why people should prefer capitalism over socialism. One of the most compelling is that it is better to be poor while still having the opportunity to become wealthy through your own efforts than to be poor and have little opportunity to advance, but to share your fate with almost everyone else.
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -- George OrwellBecause we humans are such short-lived creatures, we tend to have a myopic view of the world. We think that because we're civilized, everyone else is just as civilized. However, the truth is that nations like America are the exception and the rule, historically, has been little more than the law of the jungle.
The world is full of evil men with bad intentions who will take more than a mile if you give them an inch. When we forget that and think we can just talk out every difference with our foreign enemies who have sworn to kill us -- or begin to treat home grown criminals in our jails like they're victims of society instead of victimizers who got where they are by preying on their fellow citizens -- there is always a heavy price to be paid.
"When government does, occasionally, work, it works in an elitist fashion. That is, government is most easily manipulated by people who have money and power already. This is why government benefits usually go to people who don't need benefits from government. Government may make some environmental improvements, but these will be improvements for rich bird-watchers. And no one in government will remember that when poor people go bird-watching they do it at Kentucky Fried Chicken." -- P.J. O'RourkeIt's always amusing to hear a politician rail against "special interests" because when they begin naming names, you'll notice that they always seem to be the groups that are influential with THE OTHER political party. So, what inevitably happens when a different political party takes power? The old special interests are shoved to the side, people cheer, and then shortly thereafter the new special interests are catered to and the cycle starts anew. The key to stopping this behavior isn't to change parties or put some new rule in place; it's to get the government out of the business of handing out favors in the first place.
Bush the Multilateralist
Wall Street Journal
Friday, March 28, 2008
John McCain gave a major foreign policy address in Los Angeles Wednesday, and if his intention was to convey a subtle message about what distinguishes him from the current White House occupant, he seems to have succeeded -- at least with the press.
The presumptive Republican nominee spoke of the need for a "new global compact" based on "mutual respect and trust," of adding "luster to America's image in the world," and of "paying a 'decent respect to the opinions of mankind.'" The media played it all up as an attempt to distance himself from the "unilateral" President Bush, although the Arizona Republican never used that word.
We fully understand why Mr. McCain feels the need to show that his Administration would not simply be a third Bush term. But with Mr. Bush's days in office nearing an end, it's worth blowing apart the myth of the "go it alone" Presidency. The truth is that, with a couple of exceptions, he's been the model of a modern multilateralist.
Mr. Bush came under early fire after announcing that the U.S. would reject the Kyoto Protocol. Of course, the U.S. had never ratified Kyoto, and the Clinton Administration had refused even to submit it for a vote. In 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 not to endorse any climate change pact that didn't include China, India and other developing countries, as Kyoto didn't. Voting "aye" were Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Harry Reid, among other noted unilateralists.
Then came September 11 and the war in Afghanistan, which the U.S. continues to wage under a NATO flag. Unfortunately -- and despite the honorable exceptions of Britain, Canada and Holland -- few of America's allies in the theater are willing to commit more troops, much less put them in harm's way.
Iraq is where the unilateral myth settled into media concrete. But in fact, in 2002 President Bush bucked the advice of his more hawkish advisers and agreed to take Tony Blair's advice and seek another U.N. Resolution -- was it the 16th or 17th? -- against Saddam Hussein. Resolution 1441 passed 15-0. True, the Administration failed to obtain a second resolution, not least because the French reneged on private assurances that it would agree to a second resolution if America obtained the first. But who was being unilateral there? As it was, the "coalition of the willing" that liberated Iraq included, besides the U.S. contingent, some 60,000 troops from 39 countries, who have operated under a U.N. resolution blessing their presence.
The Bush Administration has since become all too multilateralist, even -- or especially -- regarding the "axis of evil." On North Korea, the Administration adhered strictly to the six party formula. Oddly, the same critics who decry "unilateralism" would prefer that the U.S. negotiate with Pyongyang directly -- which is to say, unilaterally -- and do without the help currently being offered by Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul and Moscow.
As for Iran, following revelations in 2002 that Iran had secretly pursued an illegal nuclear program for 15 years, Mr. Bush agreed to hand over the diplomacy to Germany, Britain and France, the so-called E3. Their efforts failed. So the Administration agreed to negotiate directly with Iran provided the mullahs suspend their uranium enrichment program. The Iranians refused.
Next the Administration succeeded in turning the matter over to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has been seeking answers about Tehran's nuclear file for five years. The IAEA's questions have yet to be fully answered. In 2006, the U.N. Security Council set a deadline for Iran to suspend enrichment. The deadline was flouted. The Security Council has since agreed to three weak resolutions sanctioning Iran. Even as his days in office dwindle, Mr. Bush has adhered to this failing multilateral diplomacy.
Shall we go on? For the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Administration arranged the so-called "road map," which is overseen by the "Quartet" of the U.S., Russia, the U.N., and the European Union. In Lebanon, the Administration worked closely with none other than France's Jacques Chirac to force the withdrawal of Syrian troops in 2005. With Russia, Mr. Bush welcomed its bid to join the World Trade Organization and has rebuffed suggestions -- including from Mr. McCain in his speech Wednesday -- that it be expelled from the G-8.
Mohamed ElBaradei owes his third term as head of the IAEA to the Administration, never mind that he all but openly campaigned for John Kerry in the 2004 election. On Darfur, the Administration has repeatedly deferred to the African Union and a pair of U.N. Secretary-Generals. Even after gathering evidence of secret Sudanese bombing runs in Darfur last year, Mr. Bush bowed to a special plea by the U.N.'s Ban Ki-moon to give diplomacy more time. The killings have continued. On global warming, the Administration has sought a compact with Australia, India and China to develop more carbon-neutral technologies.
All of this goes unnoticed by the news media, which long ago settled on their "unilateral" stereotype and which has now become a Democratic talking point. Here's a prediction: Despite their campaign talk about cooperating with the world, two years into a McCain, Obama or Clinton Presidency our relations with Europe and the Middle East won't be much different than they are today. These disputes have far more to do with underlying differences in national interest and values than they do with the myth of Mr. Bush's unilateral diplomacy.
Friday, March 28, 2008
John McCain gave a major foreign policy address in Los Angeles Wednesday, and if his intention was to convey a subtle message about what distinguishes him from the current White House occupant, he seems to have succeeded -- at least with the press.
The presumptive Republican nominee spoke of the need for a "new global compact" based on "mutual respect and trust," of adding "luster to America's image in the world," and of "paying a 'decent respect to the opinions of mankind.'" The media played it all up as an attempt to distance himself from the "unilateral" President Bush, although the Arizona Republican never used that word.
We fully understand why Mr. McCain feels the need to show that his Administration would not simply be a third Bush term. But with Mr. Bush's days in office nearing an end, it's worth blowing apart the myth of the "go it alone" Presidency. The truth is that, with a couple of exceptions, he's been the model of a modern multilateralist.
Mr. Bush came under early fire after announcing that the U.S. would reject the Kyoto Protocol. Of course, the U.S. had never ratified Kyoto, and the Clinton Administration had refused even to submit it for a vote. In 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 not to endorse any climate change pact that didn't include China, India and other developing countries, as Kyoto didn't. Voting "aye" were Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Harry Reid, among other noted unilateralists.
Then came September 11 and the war in Afghanistan, which the U.S. continues to wage under a NATO flag. Unfortunately -- and despite the honorable exceptions of Britain, Canada and Holland -- few of America's allies in the theater are willing to commit more troops, much less put them in harm's way.
Iraq is where the unilateral myth settled into media concrete. But in fact, in 2002 President Bush bucked the advice of his more hawkish advisers and agreed to take Tony Blair's advice and seek another U.N. Resolution -- was it the 16th or 17th? -- against Saddam Hussein. Resolution 1441 passed 15-0. True, the Administration failed to obtain a second resolution, not least because the French reneged on private assurances that it would agree to a second resolution if America obtained the first. But who was being unilateral there? As it was, the "coalition of the willing" that liberated Iraq included, besides the U.S. contingent, some 60,000 troops from 39 countries, who have operated under a U.N. resolution blessing their presence.
The Bush Administration has since become all too multilateralist, even -- or especially -- regarding the "axis of evil." On North Korea, the Administration adhered strictly to the six party formula. Oddly, the same critics who decry "unilateralism" would prefer that the U.S. negotiate with Pyongyang directly -- which is to say, unilaterally -- and do without the help currently being offered by Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul and Moscow.
As for Iran, following revelations in 2002 that Iran had secretly pursued an illegal nuclear program for 15 years, Mr. Bush agreed to hand over the diplomacy to Germany, Britain and France, the so-called E3. Their efforts failed. So the Administration agreed to negotiate directly with Iran provided the mullahs suspend their uranium enrichment program. The Iranians refused.
Next the Administration succeeded in turning the matter over to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has been seeking answers about Tehran's nuclear file for five years. The IAEA's questions have yet to be fully answered. In 2006, the U.N. Security Council set a deadline for Iran to suspend enrichment. The deadline was flouted. The Security Council has since agreed to three weak resolutions sanctioning Iran. Even as his days in office dwindle, Mr. Bush has adhered to this failing multilateral diplomacy.
Shall we go on? For the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Administration arranged the so-called "road map," which is overseen by the "Quartet" of the U.S., Russia, the U.N., and the European Union. In Lebanon, the Administration worked closely with none other than France's Jacques Chirac to force the withdrawal of Syrian troops in 2005. With Russia, Mr. Bush welcomed its bid to join the World Trade Organization and has rebuffed suggestions -- including from Mr. McCain in his speech Wednesday -- that it be expelled from the G-8.
Mohamed ElBaradei owes his third term as head of the IAEA to the Administration, never mind that he all but openly campaigned for John Kerry in the 2004 election. On Darfur, the Administration has repeatedly deferred to the African Union and a pair of U.N. Secretary-Generals. Even after gathering evidence of secret Sudanese bombing runs in Darfur last year, Mr. Bush bowed to a special plea by the U.N.'s Ban Ki-moon to give diplomacy more time. The killings have continued. On global warming, the Administration has sought a compact with Australia, India and China to develop more carbon-neutral technologies.
All of this goes unnoticed by the news media, which long ago settled on their "unilateral" stereotype and which has now become a Democratic talking point. Here's a prediction: Despite their campaign talk about cooperating with the world, two years into a McCain, Obama or Clinton Presidency our relations with Europe and the Middle East won't be much different than they are today. These disputes have far more to do with underlying differences in national interest and values than they do with the myth of Mr. Bush's unilateral diplomacy.
Bush's Africa Legacy
By Michael Steele
Friday, March 28, 2008
President Bush showed the world that it isn't words, but actions, that truly make a difference. Millions throughout Africa would agree.
Mr. Bush recently completed a historic visit to the African continent; a trip he described as "the most exciting, exhilarating, uplifting trip" of his presidency. During his visit, we saw pictures of the president dancing, celebrating and attending ceremonies with heads of state. But the real story is not about just this one trip; it is about the commitment the president made to Africa and what the United States has been quietly accomplishing throughout the continent over the past eight years under Mr. Bush's leadership.
While critics here at home, including many in the press, focused on attacking Mr. Bush at every turn, he steadfastly pushed for greater investments to help the families and businesses of Africa. It's the great untold story that has rarely made headlines here in America, but even so, it has truly changed the world for millions of Africans.
As Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete noted, for the people of his country and others across the African continent, Mr. Bush's "legacy will be that of saving hundreds of thousands of mothers' and children's lives from malaria, preventing new HIV infections and giving hope to those infected through care and treatment, and helping millions of young men and women get education." Perhaps most importantly, he adds, Mr. Bush leaves "the legacy of assisting African nations and people [in building] capacity for their own growth and development." Over the last seven years, the U.S. has committed $1.6 billion to trade capacity-building assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, Mr. Bush launched the Millennium Challenge Account as a new model to support governments that commit to ruling justly, investing in people and encouraging economic freedom. In May 2007, he announced the Africa Financial Sector Initiative, which will create seven new investment funds that will mobilize more than $1.6 billion through support of OPIC.
In the area of improving health care in Africa, the president's actions are already producing measurable results: nearly 1.5 million people are receiving life-saving antiretroviral medications, HIV infection from HIV-positive mothers has been prevented in more than 150,000 infants and 29 million children have been enrolled in schools, some for the first time in their lives. For Mr. Bush, that's just the beginning. On his recent trip, he announced plans to provide more than 5 million mosquito nets to Tanzanians, as well as a new investment to help eradicate certain tropical diseases.
So why did he do it? As singer-songwriter Bob Geldof pointed out, "There are no votes in helping the poor of Africa, but Bush did it anyway." It clearly wasn't about winning votes or political gain. It was not about fodder for stump speeches and empty promises of hope. Instead of being about catch phrases that simply ring hollow, the president's quiet efforts in Africa have been about action, about compassion and about results.
Mr. Bush's unheralded commitment to helping the people and nations of Africa reminds us that we are the generation who will have it within our power not only to move hearts and minds but also to raise our hands to shape the very future of families, communities and even a continent. The ability to empower others rests not in empty promises or high-minded rhetoric, but rather in real actions that not only change lives, but also change the world.
During my trade mission to Africa as Maryland's lieutenant governor and on subsequent visits, I had the opportunity to witness firsthand how the seeds of empowerment were being planted through market reforms, health initiatives and long-term strategic planning across the African continent. I gained a new appreciation for the kind of business climate that continuing market liberalization and privatization can create, and also for the impact that U.S.-sponsored trade legislation truly offers as a mechanism of support.
Measures such as the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and Southern Africa Customs Union Free Trade Agreement (SACU-FRA) are making Africa more attractive to American companies who are interested in doing business on the continent. These reforms and the partnerships they foster will shape the economy of both continents for generations to come.
The time is ripe for Africa — and an African renaissance is beginning to emerge across the globe. Because of the efforts of the Bush administration, America will have an important role to play in helping to sustain that renaissance. But it will be equally important for future administrations to appreciate what Mr. Bush's leadership on Africa exemplified: The character of America is not so much revealed in what we say or the public attention we may get, but in what we do when no is watching.
Friday, March 28, 2008
President Bush showed the world that it isn't words, but actions, that truly make a difference. Millions throughout Africa would agree.
Mr. Bush recently completed a historic visit to the African continent; a trip he described as "the most exciting, exhilarating, uplifting trip" of his presidency. During his visit, we saw pictures of the president dancing, celebrating and attending ceremonies with heads of state. But the real story is not about just this one trip; it is about the commitment the president made to Africa and what the United States has been quietly accomplishing throughout the continent over the past eight years under Mr. Bush's leadership.
While critics here at home, including many in the press, focused on attacking Mr. Bush at every turn, he steadfastly pushed for greater investments to help the families and businesses of Africa. It's the great untold story that has rarely made headlines here in America, but even so, it has truly changed the world for millions of Africans.
As Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete noted, for the people of his country and others across the African continent, Mr. Bush's "legacy will be that of saving hundreds of thousands of mothers' and children's lives from malaria, preventing new HIV infections and giving hope to those infected through care and treatment, and helping millions of young men and women get education." Perhaps most importantly, he adds, Mr. Bush leaves "the legacy of assisting African nations and people [in building] capacity for their own growth and development." Over the last seven years, the U.S. has committed $1.6 billion to trade capacity-building assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, Mr. Bush launched the Millennium Challenge Account as a new model to support governments that commit to ruling justly, investing in people and encouraging economic freedom. In May 2007, he announced the Africa Financial Sector Initiative, which will create seven new investment funds that will mobilize more than $1.6 billion through support of OPIC.
In the area of improving health care in Africa, the president's actions are already producing measurable results: nearly 1.5 million people are receiving life-saving antiretroviral medications, HIV infection from HIV-positive mothers has been prevented in more than 150,000 infants and 29 million children have been enrolled in schools, some for the first time in their lives. For Mr. Bush, that's just the beginning. On his recent trip, he announced plans to provide more than 5 million mosquito nets to Tanzanians, as well as a new investment to help eradicate certain tropical diseases.
So why did he do it? As singer-songwriter Bob Geldof pointed out, "There are no votes in helping the poor of Africa, but Bush did it anyway." It clearly wasn't about winning votes or political gain. It was not about fodder for stump speeches and empty promises of hope. Instead of being about catch phrases that simply ring hollow, the president's quiet efforts in Africa have been about action, about compassion and about results.
Mr. Bush's unheralded commitment to helping the people and nations of Africa reminds us that we are the generation who will have it within our power not only to move hearts and minds but also to raise our hands to shape the very future of families, communities and even a continent. The ability to empower others rests not in empty promises or high-minded rhetoric, but rather in real actions that not only change lives, but also change the world.
During my trade mission to Africa as Maryland's lieutenant governor and on subsequent visits, I had the opportunity to witness firsthand how the seeds of empowerment were being planted through market reforms, health initiatives and long-term strategic planning across the African continent. I gained a new appreciation for the kind of business climate that continuing market liberalization and privatization can create, and also for the impact that U.S.-sponsored trade legislation truly offers as a mechanism of support.
Measures such as the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and Southern Africa Customs Union Free Trade Agreement (SACU-FRA) are making Africa more attractive to American companies who are interested in doing business on the continent. These reforms and the partnerships they foster will shape the economy of both continents for generations to come.
The time is ripe for Africa — and an African renaissance is beginning to emerge across the globe. Because of the efforts of the Bush administration, America will have an important role to play in helping to sustain that renaissance. But it will be equally important for future administrations to appreciate what Mr. Bush's leadership on Africa exemplified: The character of America is not so much revealed in what we say or the public attention we may get, but in what we do when no is watching.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
OK, Sen. Obama, Let's Have the Race 'Talk'
By Larry Elder
Thursday, March 27, 2008
In his Big Speech defending his 20-year membership in a church headed by a racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, conspiracy-believing pastor, Democratic candidate Barack Obama says America needs a frank "talk" about race.
For crying out loud, we talk incessantly about race! Pick up a newspaper -- any newspaper -- or turn on cable news and wait a few minutes. Race -- usually something about how blacks feel, how blacks think, how blacks and whites see things differently, yada, blah, etc. -- comes up.
Obama's plea reminds me of one of my "talks" about race -- this one more than 30 years ago. Back in college, I dated a young lady whom today I would call a "victicrat."
One day she came back from her sociology class. "We discussed race today," she said cheerfully, "and boy, did they get an earful." She then proceeded to tell me how she attacked "the white boys" for slavery, Jim Crow and the "continued oppression of blacks."
When I called it unfair to condemn her classmates for oppressing blacks, she said, "That's what they said, too, but we let 'em have it."
I then said, "What's so amusing?"
"What do you mean?"
"Your smile. You sure look like you're having fun. Turn around. Look in the mirror."
She turned and looked in the mirror hanging on the wall. Her expression of joy even surprised her.
"You really like putting down white people," I continued. "What, is this some sort of payback for slavery?"
We argued into the night. I saw an America full of promise and hope, and she saw only barriers with little sign of improvement.
Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, similarly seems downright joyful in attacking America, blaming the government for AIDS and drugs, and attributing the Islamofascist attacks of 9/11 to America's racism.
Wright believes that, in the year 2008, it remains hard out there for a black guy. So, too, do many members of the media, who called Obama's speech a "refreshing" call for a dialogue to deal with the "chasm" and "divide" between America's blacks and whites.
But consider the "talk" about race by former slave turned educator/author Booker T. Washington in his book "Up From Slavery" -- written in 1901, a mere three and a half decades after the end of slavery:
"I used to envy the white boy who had no obstacles placed in the way of his becoming a Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason of the accident of his birth or race. I used to picture the way that I would act under such circumstances; how I would begin at the bottom and keep rising until I reached the highest round of success.
"In later years, I confess that I do not envy the white boy as I once did. I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this standpoint, I almost reach the conclusion that often the Negro boy's birth and connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his task even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.
"From any point of view, I had rather be what I am, a member of the Negro race, than be able to claim membership with the most favoured of any other race. I have always been made sad when I have heard members of any race claiming rights and privileges, or certain badges of distinction, on the ground simply that they were members of this or that race, regardless of their own individual worth or attainments. I have been made to feel sad for such persons because I am conscious of the fact that mere connection with what is known as a race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless he has individual worth, and mere connection with what is regarded as an inferior race will not finally hold an individual back if he possesses intrinsic, individual merit. Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation out of the great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit, no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized and rewarded. This I have said here, not to call attention to myself as an individual, but to the race to which I am proud to belong."
American blacks live in a post-slavery, post-Jim Crow world, with a growing, thriving black middle class. We live in a country where, for the most part, hard work, focus, ability and some luck determine success. Why, then, the continued anger, negativity, and finger-pointing, in a country to which much of the world -- if it could -- would happily relocate?
So, let that talk begin.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
In his Big Speech defending his 20-year membership in a church headed by a racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, conspiracy-believing pastor, Democratic candidate Barack Obama says America needs a frank "talk" about race.
For crying out loud, we talk incessantly about race! Pick up a newspaper -- any newspaper -- or turn on cable news and wait a few minutes. Race -- usually something about how blacks feel, how blacks think, how blacks and whites see things differently, yada, blah, etc. -- comes up.
Obama's plea reminds me of one of my "talks" about race -- this one more than 30 years ago. Back in college, I dated a young lady whom today I would call a "victicrat."
One day she came back from her sociology class. "We discussed race today," she said cheerfully, "and boy, did they get an earful." She then proceeded to tell me how she attacked "the white boys" for slavery, Jim Crow and the "continued oppression of blacks."
When I called it unfair to condemn her classmates for oppressing blacks, she said, "That's what they said, too, but we let 'em have it."
I then said, "What's so amusing?"
"What do you mean?"
"Your smile. You sure look like you're having fun. Turn around. Look in the mirror."
She turned and looked in the mirror hanging on the wall. Her expression of joy even surprised her.
"You really like putting down white people," I continued. "What, is this some sort of payback for slavery?"
We argued into the night. I saw an America full of promise and hope, and she saw only barriers with little sign of improvement.
Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, similarly seems downright joyful in attacking America, blaming the government for AIDS and drugs, and attributing the Islamofascist attacks of 9/11 to America's racism.
Wright believes that, in the year 2008, it remains hard out there for a black guy. So, too, do many members of the media, who called Obama's speech a "refreshing" call for a dialogue to deal with the "chasm" and "divide" between America's blacks and whites.
But consider the "talk" about race by former slave turned educator/author Booker T. Washington in his book "Up From Slavery" -- written in 1901, a mere three and a half decades after the end of slavery:
"I used to envy the white boy who had no obstacles placed in the way of his becoming a Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason of the accident of his birth or race. I used to picture the way that I would act under such circumstances; how I would begin at the bottom and keep rising until I reached the highest round of success.
"In later years, I confess that I do not envy the white boy as I once did. I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this standpoint, I almost reach the conclusion that often the Negro boy's birth and connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his task even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.
"From any point of view, I had rather be what I am, a member of the Negro race, than be able to claim membership with the most favoured of any other race. I have always been made sad when I have heard members of any race claiming rights and privileges, or certain badges of distinction, on the ground simply that they were members of this or that race, regardless of their own individual worth or attainments. I have been made to feel sad for such persons because I am conscious of the fact that mere connection with what is known as a race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless he has individual worth, and mere connection with what is regarded as an inferior race will not finally hold an individual back if he possesses intrinsic, individual merit. Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation out of the great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit, no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized and rewarded. This I have said here, not to call attention to myself as an individual, but to the race to which I am proud to belong."
American blacks live in a post-slavery, post-Jim Crow world, with a growing, thriving black middle class. We live in a country where, for the most part, hard work, focus, ability and some luck determine success. Why, then, the continued anger, negativity, and finger-pointing, in a country to which much of the world -- if it could -- would happily relocate?
So, let that talk begin.
Conservatives Really Are More Compassionate
By George Will
Thursday, March 27, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Residents of Austin, Texas, home of the state's government and flagship university, have very refined social consciences, if they do say so themselves, and they do say so, speaking via bumper stickers. Don R. Willett, a justice of the state Supreme Court, has commuted behind bumpers proclaiming "Better a Bleeding Heart Than None at All," "Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Beauty," "The Moral High Ground Is Built on Compassion," "Arms Are For Hugging," "Will Work (When the Jobs Come Back From India)," "Jesus Is a Liberal," "God Wants Spiritual Fruits, Not Religious Nuts," "The Road to Hell Is Paved With Republicans," "Republicans Are People Too -- Mean, Selfish, Greedy People" and so on. But Willett thinks Austin subverts a stereotype: "The belief that liberals care more about the poor may scratch a partisan or ideological itch, but the facts are hostile witnesses."
Sixteen months ago, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, published "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism." The surprise is that liberals are markedly less charitable than conservatives.
If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:
-- Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).
-- Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.
-- Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush.
-- Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.
-- In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.
-- People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.
Brooks demonstrates a correlation between charitable behavior and "the values that lie beneath" liberal and conservative labels. Two influences on charitable behavior are religion and attitudes about the proper role of government.
The single biggest predictor of someone's altruism, Willett says, is religion. It increasingly correlates with conservative political affiliations because, as Brooks' book says, "the percentage of self-described Democrats who say they have 'no religion' has more than quadrupled since the early 1970s." America is largely divided between religious givers and secular nongivers, and the former are disproportionately conservative. One demonstration that religion is a strong determinant of charitable behavior is that the least charitable cohort is a relatively small one -- secular conservatives.
Reviewing Brooks' book in the Texas Review of Law & Politics, Justice Willett notes that Austin -- it voted 56 percent for Kerry while he was getting just 38 percent statewide -- is ranked by The Chronicle of Philanthropy as 48th out of America's 50 largest cities in per capita charitable giving. Brooks' data about disparities between liberals' and conservatives' charitable giving fit these facts: Democrats represent a majority of the wealthiest congressional districts, and half of America's richest households live in states where both senators are Democrats.
While conservatives tend to regard giving as a personal rather than governmental responsibility, some liberals consider private charity a retrograde phenomenon -- a poor palliative for an inadequate welfare state, and a distraction from achieving adequacy by force, by increasing taxes. Ralph Nader, running for president in 2000, said: "A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity." Brooks, however, warns: "If support for a policy that does not exist ... substitutes for private charity, the needy are left worse off than before. It is one of the bitterest ironies of liberal politics today that political opinions are apparently taking the place of help for others."
In 2000, brows were furrowed in perplexity because Vice President Al Gore's charitable contributions, as a percentage of his income, were below the national average: He gave 0.2 percent of his family income, one-seventh of the average for donating households. But Gore "gave at the office." By using public office to give other peoples' money to government programs, he was being charitable, as liberals increasingly, and conveniently, understand that word.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Residents of Austin, Texas, home of the state's government and flagship university, have very refined social consciences, if they do say so themselves, and they do say so, speaking via bumper stickers. Don R. Willett, a justice of the state Supreme Court, has commuted behind bumpers proclaiming "Better a Bleeding Heart Than None at All," "Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Beauty," "The Moral High Ground Is Built on Compassion," "Arms Are For Hugging," "Will Work (When the Jobs Come Back From India)," "Jesus Is a Liberal," "God Wants Spiritual Fruits, Not Religious Nuts," "The Road to Hell Is Paved With Republicans," "Republicans Are People Too -- Mean, Selfish, Greedy People" and so on. But Willett thinks Austin subverts a stereotype: "The belief that liberals care more about the poor may scratch a partisan or ideological itch, but the facts are hostile witnesses."
Sixteen months ago, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, published "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism." The surprise is that liberals are markedly less charitable than conservatives.
If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:
-- Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).
-- Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.
-- Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush.
-- Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.
-- In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.
-- People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.
Brooks demonstrates a correlation between charitable behavior and "the values that lie beneath" liberal and conservative labels. Two influences on charitable behavior are religion and attitudes about the proper role of government.
The single biggest predictor of someone's altruism, Willett says, is religion. It increasingly correlates with conservative political affiliations because, as Brooks' book says, "the percentage of self-described Democrats who say they have 'no religion' has more than quadrupled since the early 1970s." America is largely divided between religious givers and secular nongivers, and the former are disproportionately conservative. One demonstration that religion is a strong determinant of charitable behavior is that the least charitable cohort is a relatively small one -- secular conservatives.
Reviewing Brooks' book in the Texas Review of Law & Politics, Justice Willett notes that Austin -- it voted 56 percent for Kerry while he was getting just 38 percent statewide -- is ranked by The Chronicle of Philanthropy as 48th out of America's 50 largest cities in per capita charitable giving. Brooks' data about disparities between liberals' and conservatives' charitable giving fit these facts: Democrats represent a majority of the wealthiest congressional districts, and half of America's richest households live in states where both senators are Democrats.
While conservatives tend to regard giving as a personal rather than governmental responsibility, some liberals consider private charity a retrograde phenomenon -- a poor palliative for an inadequate welfare state, and a distraction from achieving adequacy by force, by increasing taxes. Ralph Nader, running for president in 2000, said: "A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity." Brooks, however, warns: "If support for a policy that does not exist ... substitutes for private charity, the needy are left worse off than before. It is one of the bitterest ironies of liberal politics today that political opinions are apparently taking the place of help for others."
In 2000, brows were furrowed in perplexity because Vice President Al Gore's charitable contributions, as a percentage of his income, were below the national average: He gave 0.2 percent of his family income, one-seventh of the average for donating households. But Gore "gave at the office." By using public office to give other peoples' money to government programs, he was being charitable, as liberals increasingly, and conveniently, understand that word.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
If Principles Matter, So Does McCain
By Mark Hillman
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
First, I am a conservative; then, I'm a Republican.
Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and James Dobson hold views much closer to my own and to those of most conservatives than does Sen. John McCain.
I have serious, principled disagreements with the Arizona senator on several issues. In the last two contested Republican primaries, my candidate has been Anybody But John McCain.
This election isn't about party or personalities, but about principles that will guide our country for the next four years or more.
Will our nation trend in a direction that is generally conservative or one that reverses modest gains of the past 28 years and lurches toward cradle-to-grave paternalism?
That's why — despite these disagreements — John McCain gets my support against whomever the Democrats nominate. It's also why principled conservatives should check their McCain disdain at the ballot box.
Recently, some conservatives behave as if they have nothing to lose if McCain loses. But a McCain loss equals a Barack Obama win, and we have plenty lose from that.
Conservatives remain unified on three key policy objectives: pro-growth tax policy and no-nonsense budgeting, judges who respect the constitution, and a resolve to defeat Islamic terrorists.
On these key issues the choice between McCain and Obama cannot be dismissed as the lesser of two evils. The choice is clear and the stakes are enormous.
McCain is one of just five Senators who flatly reject pork-barrel budget earmarks. He has vowed to veto any spending bill containing earmarks and has already incurred the wrath of several pork-loving Republicans. That's a welcome change from the you-scratch-my-back, I'll-scratch-yours spending of the last eight years.
By contrast, Obama has promised programs calculated to grow the already bloated budget by $900 billion.
Despite his vote against the Bush tax cuts, McCain has vowed to fight to preserve them. Obama conveniently forgets that middle class families benefited most from the Bush tax cuts and instead demagogues against "tax cuts for the rich." However, he can't pay for his big government utopia without squeezing the working class hard.
As a Vietnam veteran, McCain understands the lasting consequences of an ignominious defeat. America's stature was badly damaged for years after Vietnam. We now see that McCain's prescription for Iraq after Saddam was right, and the Bush-Rumsfeld strategy was wrong.
Had Obama's policy of surrender and retreat carried the day, the now-vindicated surge would be merely another paper gathering dust on a shelf, Iraq would remained mired in bloody sectarian attacks, and Iran would be emboldened to direct its terrorist accomplices toward Afghanistan.
Perhaps the most critical, principled reason to support McCain is the Supreme Court. Judging by their appointments' adherence to the text of the constitution, Republican presidents have had mixed success in rolling back judicial activism.
However, two things are indisputable: the constructionist justices on today's court were all appointed by Republicans, and the Democrat appointments are all undeniably liberal activists.
John Paul Stephens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the two justices most likely to retire soon, are both activists who re-write the constitution in contravention of the plain text. Replacing either or both with another John Roberts, Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas — each of whom McCain supported — could at last restore the court's historic role as a defender of broad individual liberty and a restraint against over-reaching government.
If Obama makes the next appointment, we can be certain he will fortify the court's activist wing. Should a constructionist justice retire or die, Obama could swiftly reverse the gains of the last 28 years.
Finally, the candidates' views on the sanctity of human life provide another stark contrast that conservatives dare not forget. McCain has consistently voted to restrict abortion, parting with pro-lifers only on stem cell research. Obama not only supports abortion on demand but callously voted to deny medical care to infants born during unsuccessful abortions.
Some conservatives argue that a Democrat victory would galvanize Republicans for 2010 and produce a public backlash, a la 1994. That's a tremendous gamble.
Democrats controlled Congress for 40 years from 1955 to 1995. In the Senate, Democrats ruled for 34 of those years. Here in Colorado, perhaps more than anywhere else, Republicans should realize how quickly political fortunes can change and how hard it is to reverse that tide.
Conservatives generally recognize short-sighted self-indulgence when practiced by others. Now many conservatives are in danger of practicing a suicidal self-indulgence of their own.
We must put aside self-pity and frustration and do what we always have done: choose the right and responsible course for our country.
If instead we purposefully withhold our votes to gratify our personal pride and prejudice, the surrendered freedoms, suffocating tax burdens, and national insecurity that result will be as much our responsibility as that of those we "helped" to elect.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
First, I am a conservative; then, I'm a Republican.
Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and James Dobson hold views much closer to my own and to those of most conservatives than does Sen. John McCain.
I have serious, principled disagreements with the Arizona senator on several issues. In the last two contested Republican primaries, my candidate has been Anybody But John McCain.
This election isn't about party or personalities, but about principles that will guide our country for the next four years or more.
Will our nation trend in a direction that is generally conservative or one that reverses modest gains of the past 28 years and lurches toward cradle-to-grave paternalism?
That's why — despite these disagreements — John McCain gets my support against whomever the Democrats nominate. It's also why principled conservatives should check their McCain disdain at the ballot box.
Recently, some conservatives behave as if they have nothing to lose if McCain loses. But a McCain loss equals a Barack Obama win, and we have plenty lose from that.
Conservatives remain unified on three key policy objectives: pro-growth tax policy and no-nonsense budgeting, judges who respect the constitution, and a resolve to defeat Islamic terrorists.
On these key issues the choice between McCain and Obama cannot be dismissed as the lesser of two evils. The choice is clear and the stakes are enormous.
McCain is one of just five Senators who flatly reject pork-barrel budget earmarks. He has vowed to veto any spending bill containing earmarks and has already incurred the wrath of several pork-loving Republicans. That's a welcome change from the you-scratch-my-back, I'll-scratch-yours spending of the last eight years.
By contrast, Obama has promised programs calculated to grow the already bloated budget by $900 billion.
Despite his vote against the Bush tax cuts, McCain has vowed to fight to preserve them. Obama conveniently forgets that middle class families benefited most from the Bush tax cuts and instead demagogues against "tax cuts for the rich." However, he can't pay for his big government utopia without squeezing the working class hard.
As a Vietnam veteran, McCain understands the lasting consequences of an ignominious defeat. America's stature was badly damaged for years after Vietnam. We now see that McCain's prescription for Iraq after Saddam was right, and the Bush-Rumsfeld strategy was wrong.
Had Obama's policy of surrender and retreat carried the day, the now-vindicated surge would be merely another paper gathering dust on a shelf, Iraq would remained mired in bloody sectarian attacks, and Iran would be emboldened to direct its terrorist accomplices toward Afghanistan.
Perhaps the most critical, principled reason to support McCain is the Supreme Court. Judging by their appointments' adherence to the text of the constitution, Republican presidents have had mixed success in rolling back judicial activism.
However, two things are indisputable: the constructionist justices on today's court were all appointed by Republicans, and the Democrat appointments are all undeniably liberal activists.
John Paul Stephens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the two justices most likely to retire soon, are both activists who re-write the constitution in contravention of the plain text. Replacing either or both with another John Roberts, Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas — each of whom McCain supported — could at last restore the court's historic role as a defender of broad individual liberty and a restraint against over-reaching government.
If Obama makes the next appointment, we can be certain he will fortify the court's activist wing. Should a constructionist justice retire or die, Obama could swiftly reverse the gains of the last 28 years.
Finally, the candidates' views on the sanctity of human life provide another stark contrast that conservatives dare not forget. McCain has consistently voted to restrict abortion, parting with pro-lifers only on stem cell research. Obama not only supports abortion on demand but callously voted to deny medical care to infants born during unsuccessful abortions.
Some conservatives argue that a Democrat victory would galvanize Republicans for 2010 and produce a public backlash, a la 1994. That's a tremendous gamble.
Democrats controlled Congress for 40 years from 1955 to 1995. In the Senate, Democrats ruled for 34 of those years. Here in Colorado, perhaps more than anywhere else, Republicans should realize how quickly political fortunes can change and how hard it is to reverse that tide.
Conservatives generally recognize short-sighted self-indulgence when practiced by others. Now many conservatives are in danger of practicing a suicidal self-indulgence of their own.
We must put aside self-pity and frustration and do what we always have done: choose the right and responsible course for our country.
If instead we purposefully withhold our votes to gratify our personal pride and prejudice, the surrendered freedoms, suffocating tax burdens, and national insecurity that result will be as much our responsibility as that of those we "helped" to elect.
McCain: 'I Hate War'
By Amanda Carpenter
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Republican presidential candidate John McCain said his opposition to a premature withdrawal from Iraq is based on his hatred of war and criticized his Democratic opponents in a major foreign policy address Wednesday.
“I do not argue against withdrawal, any more than I argued several years ago for the change in tactics and additional forces that are now succeeding in Iraq, because I am somehow indifferent to war and the suffering it inflicts on too many American families,” McCain told the Los Angeles World Affairs Council after returning from a weeklong trip abroad where he met with foreign leaders. “I hold my position because I hate war, and I know very well and very personally how grievous its wages are. But I know, too, that we must sometimes pay those wages to avoid paying even higher ones later.”
On the campaign trail Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both fighting for the Democratic nomination, often say ending the war in Iraq would improve America’s world image. McCain refuted this position in his speech.
“Our critics say America needs to repair its image in the world,” McCain said. “How can they argue at the same time for the morally reprehensible abandonment of our responsibilities in Iraq?”
“Those who argue for it [withdrawal], as both Democratic candidates do, are arguing for a course that would eventually draw us into a wider and more difficult war that would entail far greater dangers and sacrifices than we have suffered to date,” McCain said.
Clinton and Obama have also repeatedly said they do not believe success is likely in Iraq. Clinton told General David H. Petraeus at a Senate Armed Forces hearing last year it would take the “willing suspension of disbelief” to believe the General’s testimony about progress in Iraq were true.
“Those who argue that goals in Iraq are unachievable are wrong, just as they were wrong a year ago when they declared the war in Iraq already lost,” McCain said. “Since June 2007 sectarian and ethnic violence in Iraq has been reduced by 90 percent. Overall civilian deaths have been reduced by more than 70 percent. Deaths of coalition forces have fallen by 70 percent. The dramatic reduction in violence has opened the way for a return to something approaching normal political and economic life for the average Iraqi.”
McCain has been criticized by liberal special interest groups, such as MoveOn.org, for supporting “100 years of war” in Iraq. At a townhall meeting earlier this year, McCain said he could foresee keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years, as long as they were not being killed or wounded. McCain’s Democratic opponents have used these remarks to paint him as a war monger.
Following their lead Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean issued this statement after McCain's speech: "John McCain's empty rhetoric today can't change the fact that he has steadfastly stood with President Bush from day one and is now talking about keeping our troops in Iraq for 100 years."
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Republican presidential candidate John McCain said his opposition to a premature withdrawal from Iraq is based on his hatred of war and criticized his Democratic opponents in a major foreign policy address Wednesday.
“I do not argue against withdrawal, any more than I argued several years ago for the change in tactics and additional forces that are now succeeding in Iraq, because I am somehow indifferent to war and the suffering it inflicts on too many American families,” McCain told the Los Angeles World Affairs Council after returning from a weeklong trip abroad where he met with foreign leaders. “I hold my position because I hate war, and I know very well and very personally how grievous its wages are. But I know, too, that we must sometimes pay those wages to avoid paying even higher ones later.”
On the campaign trail Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both fighting for the Democratic nomination, often say ending the war in Iraq would improve America’s world image. McCain refuted this position in his speech.
“Our critics say America needs to repair its image in the world,” McCain said. “How can they argue at the same time for the morally reprehensible abandonment of our responsibilities in Iraq?”
“Those who argue for it [withdrawal], as both Democratic candidates do, are arguing for a course that would eventually draw us into a wider and more difficult war that would entail far greater dangers and sacrifices than we have suffered to date,” McCain said.
Clinton and Obama have also repeatedly said they do not believe success is likely in Iraq. Clinton told General David H. Petraeus at a Senate Armed Forces hearing last year it would take the “willing suspension of disbelief” to believe the General’s testimony about progress in Iraq were true.
“Those who argue that goals in Iraq are unachievable are wrong, just as they were wrong a year ago when they declared the war in Iraq already lost,” McCain said. “Since June 2007 sectarian and ethnic violence in Iraq has been reduced by 90 percent. Overall civilian deaths have been reduced by more than 70 percent. Deaths of coalition forces have fallen by 70 percent. The dramatic reduction in violence has opened the way for a return to something approaching normal political and economic life for the average Iraqi.”
McCain has been criticized by liberal special interest groups, such as MoveOn.org, for supporting “100 years of war” in Iraq. At a townhall meeting earlier this year, McCain said he could foresee keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years, as long as they were not being killed or wounded. McCain’s Democratic opponents have used these remarks to paint him as a war monger.
Following their lead Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean issued this statement after McCain's speech: "John McCain's empty rhetoric today can't change the fact that he has steadfastly stood with President Bush from day one and is now talking about keeping our troops in Iraq for 100 years."
The Clintons' Truth Deficit Disorder
By Michelle Malkin
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Seinfeld's George Costanza famously quipped: "It's not a lie if you believe it." This is how a Clinton -- take your pick, Hillary, Bill or Chelsea -- makes it through the day. Better living through self-delusion.
Seeking to burnish her foreign policy leadership credentials, Sen. Clinton has repeatedly peddled a harrowing anecdote about dodging sniper fire during a trip to Tuzla, Bosnia, in 1996. She brought her then-teenage daughter Chelsea on the dangerous mission. And entertainer Sinbad. And singer Sheryl Crow. And, oh, yeah, there was 8-year-old Emina Bicakcic, a Bosnian girl who calmly embraced the intrepid first lady and read her a poem on the tarmac -- while a huge contingent of children, parents and other onlookers surrounded them with not the least bit of concern about flying bullets.
When Sinbad, the Washington Post and every fact-checker on the Internet and under the sun debunked her tall tale, Sen. Clinton doubled down. She dissed Sinbad as a mere "comedian." She asserted that she and her compatriots ran for safety with "our heads down." She clung to her story that she "had to be moved inside because of sniper fire." And she embellished further: "There was no greeting ceremony, and we were basically told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened."
When video of the cheery greeting ceremony surfaced this week showing no such thing, Hillary's Truth Deficit Disorder kicked in and the symptomatic excuses poured forth. She "misspoke." Besides, she pooh-poohed, "I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement."
Priceless campaign slogan: The more she speaks, the more she "mis"-speaks. Finally, truth in Clinton advertising! (In our family, by the way, we call this condition "diarrhea of the mouth.")
And Hillary's not done. She sniffed that her Tuzla hustle was just a "minor blip." A "minor blip" that she just happened to tell, retell and adorn in her 2003 autobiography, in Dubuque, Iowa, in Waco, Texas, and in Washington, D.C., over the past three months to illustrate her bravery, fortitude, expertise and massive foreign policy experience edge over Barack Obama.
In a radio interview Tuesday, Hillary blamed her congenital dissembling on being "sleep-deprived." If that is so, then Hillary has been a walking zombie for years.
This is the woman who insisted for more than a decade that she was named after the late, great mountain-climber Sir Edmund Hillary -- never mind that she was born six years before he scaled Mt. Everest in 1953.
This is the woman who told "Dateline NBC" that daughter Chelsea was on a jog in New York City when the jihadists struck on 9/11 -- never mind that Chelsea later wrote a magazine essay revealing that she watched the attacks on television from a friend's apartment.
This is the woman who claimed to have "helped start" the federal Children's Health Insurance Program -- never mind that the program's original sponsors noted that Sen. Clinton fought the initial bill and had no role in writing the legislation.
This is the woman (echoed by her husband and daughter) who bragged that she was the "first" to call the disaster in Darfur "genocide" -- never mind that several other senators had done so in 2004, while her first press statement referring to Darfur as "genocide" wasn't until March 2006.
This is the woman who claimed to have organized "instrumental" meetings in Belfast and baldly asserted that she "helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland" -- never mind that key negotiators dismissed her as "totally invisible," "cheerleading" and "a wee bit silly."
And we haven't even gotten to the Whitewater era yet, which, not coincidentally, is when her Tuzla imaginary bullet-dodging adventure took place -- timed to distract from all of her and her husband's dishonest, dirty dealings.
At least Hillary "It's my mother's fault I lied about being named after Sir Edmund Hillary" Clinton and Bill "I have vivid memories of black churches burning that, uh, OK, never burned" Clinton can be proud of raising a daughter who didn't fall far from the reality-challenged tree. Asked in Bloomington, Ind., on Monday to explain how she survived the nonexistent sniper fire, the first daughter, with a promising future in fiction writing, responded smoothly: "We were well-protected by our United States military and the United States Secret Service."
Behold the Democratic choices for president: One candidate whose 20-year spiritual guru has an adversarial relationship with America, and another who has a life-long adversarial relationship with the truth.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Seinfeld's George Costanza famously quipped: "It's not a lie if you believe it." This is how a Clinton -- take your pick, Hillary, Bill or Chelsea -- makes it through the day. Better living through self-delusion.
Seeking to burnish her foreign policy leadership credentials, Sen. Clinton has repeatedly peddled a harrowing anecdote about dodging sniper fire during a trip to Tuzla, Bosnia, in 1996. She brought her then-teenage daughter Chelsea on the dangerous mission. And entertainer Sinbad. And singer Sheryl Crow. And, oh, yeah, there was 8-year-old Emina Bicakcic, a Bosnian girl who calmly embraced the intrepid first lady and read her a poem on the tarmac -- while a huge contingent of children, parents and other onlookers surrounded them with not the least bit of concern about flying bullets.
When Sinbad, the Washington Post and every fact-checker on the Internet and under the sun debunked her tall tale, Sen. Clinton doubled down. She dissed Sinbad as a mere "comedian." She asserted that she and her compatriots ran for safety with "our heads down." She clung to her story that she "had to be moved inside because of sniper fire." And she embellished further: "There was no greeting ceremony, and we were basically told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened."
When video of the cheery greeting ceremony surfaced this week showing no such thing, Hillary's Truth Deficit Disorder kicked in and the symptomatic excuses poured forth. She "misspoke." Besides, she pooh-poohed, "I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement."
Priceless campaign slogan: The more she speaks, the more she "mis"-speaks. Finally, truth in Clinton advertising! (In our family, by the way, we call this condition "diarrhea of the mouth.")
And Hillary's not done. She sniffed that her Tuzla hustle was just a "minor blip." A "minor blip" that she just happened to tell, retell and adorn in her 2003 autobiography, in Dubuque, Iowa, in Waco, Texas, and in Washington, D.C., over the past three months to illustrate her bravery, fortitude, expertise and massive foreign policy experience edge over Barack Obama.
In a radio interview Tuesday, Hillary blamed her congenital dissembling on being "sleep-deprived." If that is so, then Hillary has been a walking zombie for years.
This is the woman who insisted for more than a decade that she was named after the late, great mountain-climber Sir Edmund Hillary -- never mind that she was born six years before he scaled Mt. Everest in 1953.
This is the woman who told "Dateline NBC" that daughter Chelsea was on a jog in New York City when the jihadists struck on 9/11 -- never mind that Chelsea later wrote a magazine essay revealing that she watched the attacks on television from a friend's apartment.
This is the woman who claimed to have "helped start" the federal Children's Health Insurance Program -- never mind that the program's original sponsors noted that Sen. Clinton fought the initial bill and had no role in writing the legislation.
This is the woman (echoed by her husband and daughter) who bragged that she was the "first" to call the disaster in Darfur "genocide" -- never mind that several other senators had done so in 2004, while her first press statement referring to Darfur as "genocide" wasn't until March 2006.
This is the woman who claimed to have organized "instrumental" meetings in Belfast and baldly asserted that she "helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland" -- never mind that key negotiators dismissed her as "totally invisible," "cheerleading" and "a wee bit silly."
And we haven't even gotten to the Whitewater era yet, which, not coincidentally, is when her Tuzla imaginary bullet-dodging adventure took place -- timed to distract from all of her and her husband's dishonest, dirty dealings.
At least Hillary "It's my mother's fault I lied about being named after Sir Edmund Hillary" Clinton and Bill "I have vivid memories of black churches burning that, uh, OK, never burned" Clinton can be proud of raising a daughter who didn't fall far from the reality-challenged tree. Asked in Bloomington, Ind., on Monday to explain how she survived the nonexistent sniper fire, the first daughter, with a promising future in fiction writing, responded smoothly: "We were well-protected by our United States military and the United States Secret Service."
Behold the Democratic choices for president: One candidate whose 20-year spiritual guru has an adversarial relationship with America, and another who has a life-long adversarial relationship with the truth.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Democrats and the Economy
By Stephen J. Rose and Anne Kim
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The economy is either in or sliding toward recession, and according to media accounts, the middle class is getting hammered. The conventional wisdom is that the November elections will be a cakewalk for Democrats, who are perceived to be champions of the middle class.
But the "party of the middle class" has lost middle-income voters in six of the past seven congressional elections and the two most recent presidential races. While the "Bush recession" could redound to Democratic benefit this fall, Democrats could squander this opportunity if they fall into one of three traps on what they say and offer Americans. The traps are:
- Confusing 2008 with 1929. It's not even close. The overwhelming majority of Americans today are not on the brink of economic catastrophe, and Democrats should not treat them as if they are. In 2006, the median income of working-age husband-wife couples (ages 25-59) was $73,765. Eighty percent of Americans over 40 own a home, and while foreclosure rates have hit historic highs, it's still the case that relatively few homeowners are at risk of losing their homes over the next several years. Moreover, if the coming recession follows the same pattern of the last seven downturns since 1960, it will be relatively short and shallow. During past recessions, unemployment rose by about two percentage points, real GDP declined by a little less than 2%, and the average length of the downturn was a little less than 11 months.
- Confusing bad times with pessimism. Even during tough times, Americans are optimists and believers in the American Dream. They believe success or failure is within their control. Eighty percent believe you can start out poor and become rich in America. And while they are anxious over the current economic downturn and the broad changes brought about by globalization, they do not see themselves as victims, and are not comforted by politicians who recite a litany of their anxieties.
Most people think the economy is in poor shape and worry about potential misfortune. But this sour mood and their worries are tempered by a strong appraisal of their own financial situation and a low evaluation of personal risk. For example, only 15% think that it is at least somewhat likely that they could be laid off in the next year. Even in the most recent polls, over two-thirds of Americans describe their financial situation and standard of living as either good or excellent.
- Offering only security instead of success. We're not French. Americans want to succeed, not just get by. They don't dream about a better safety net. They dream about getting ahead. If Democrats default to a traditional recipe of expanding the safety net -- and that is all they offer -- they will hit the brick wall of public antipathy toward "big government." In a February 2007 poll conducted by Democracy Corps, 57% of Americans agreed that "government makes it harder for people to get ahead in life," and 54% thought that "government mostly gets in the way of the economy and job growth." While people not hurt by recessions are open to helping those who are, Democrats cannot assume that economic recessions automatically translate into broad public support for major government interventions.
What could get broader support is an agenda focused on helping individual Americans achieve success in times of vast economic change. The centerpiece of a "success agenda" should be college -- making it affordable and attainable to lessen the worries of parents about their children's future prospects. One idea is to offer generous scholarships to students who commit to government service for a set number of years after graduation. Another idea is to give a substantial "college tuition tax cut" to all Americans earning less than $150,000 but who are footing high-education bills.
Beyond college, the success agenda should be aimed at helping individuals navigate the new economy. For example, 401(k) accounts should be attached to workers, not companies. Health care needs to be available, reliable and affordable for everyone. Workers who lose a job, who are between jobs, or who are striking out on their own should be able to buy a low-cost health plan. And America should join every other industrialized nation and offer paid leave to new parents.
Congressional Democrats won the middle class in 2006, when the main issue was Iraq. They won the middle class in 1992, when Bill Clinton campaigned on a success agenda during hard economic times. Providing economic security should always be a mainstay of the Democratic Party. But believing that most middle-class Americans are only steps from disaster will lead to the wrong policy and political agenda. Only if Democrats speak to the true anxieties and aspirations of American families will they be rewarded in November.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The economy is either in or sliding toward recession, and according to media accounts, the middle class is getting hammered. The conventional wisdom is that the November elections will be a cakewalk for Democrats, who are perceived to be champions of the middle class.
But the "party of the middle class" has lost middle-income voters in six of the past seven congressional elections and the two most recent presidential races. While the "Bush recession" could redound to Democratic benefit this fall, Democrats could squander this opportunity if they fall into one of three traps on what they say and offer Americans. The traps are:
- Confusing 2008 with 1929. It's not even close. The overwhelming majority of Americans today are not on the brink of economic catastrophe, and Democrats should not treat them as if they are. In 2006, the median income of working-age husband-wife couples (ages 25-59) was $73,765. Eighty percent of Americans over 40 own a home, and while foreclosure rates have hit historic highs, it's still the case that relatively few homeowners are at risk of losing their homes over the next several years. Moreover, if the coming recession follows the same pattern of the last seven downturns since 1960, it will be relatively short and shallow. During past recessions, unemployment rose by about two percentage points, real GDP declined by a little less than 2%, and the average length of the downturn was a little less than 11 months.
- Confusing bad times with pessimism. Even during tough times, Americans are optimists and believers in the American Dream. They believe success or failure is within their control. Eighty percent believe you can start out poor and become rich in America. And while they are anxious over the current economic downturn and the broad changes brought about by globalization, they do not see themselves as victims, and are not comforted by politicians who recite a litany of their anxieties.
Most people think the economy is in poor shape and worry about potential misfortune. But this sour mood and their worries are tempered by a strong appraisal of their own financial situation and a low evaluation of personal risk. For example, only 15% think that it is at least somewhat likely that they could be laid off in the next year. Even in the most recent polls, over two-thirds of Americans describe their financial situation and standard of living as either good or excellent.
- Offering only security instead of success. We're not French. Americans want to succeed, not just get by. They don't dream about a better safety net. They dream about getting ahead. If Democrats default to a traditional recipe of expanding the safety net -- and that is all they offer -- they will hit the brick wall of public antipathy toward "big government." In a February 2007 poll conducted by Democracy Corps, 57% of Americans agreed that "government makes it harder for people to get ahead in life," and 54% thought that "government mostly gets in the way of the economy and job growth." While people not hurt by recessions are open to helping those who are, Democrats cannot assume that economic recessions automatically translate into broad public support for major government interventions.
What could get broader support is an agenda focused on helping individual Americans achieve success in times of vast economic change. The centerpiece of a "success agenda" should be college -- making it affordable and attainable to lessen the worries of parents about their children's future prospects. One idea is to offer generous scholarships to students who commit to government service for a set number of years after graduation. Another idea is to give a substantial "college tuition tax cut" to all Americans earning less than $150,000 but who are footing high-education bills.
Beyond college, the success agenda should be aimed at helping individuals navigate the new economy. For example, 401(k) accounts should be attached to workers, not companies. Health care needs to be available, reliable and affordable for everyone. Workers who lose a job, who are between jobs, or who are striking out on their own should be able to buy a low-cost health plan. And America should join every other industrialized nation and offer paid leave to new parents.
Congressional Democrats won the middle class in 2006, when the main issue was Iraq. They won the middle class in 1992, when Bill Clinton campaigned on a success agenda during hard economic times. Providing economic security should always be a mainstay of the Democratic Party. But believing that most middle-class Americans are only steps from disaster will lead to the wrong policy and political agenda. Only if Democrats speak to the true anxieties and aspirations of American families will they be rewarded in November.
Typical
By Cal Thomas
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
I am a typical white person, as Barack Obama might say, and did say, about his white grandmother. Like Rev. Jesse Jackson, I, too, have crossed the street to avoid a group of young black men who have a certain thug-in-the-hood look about them. Am I a racist? Only if Jesse Jackson is a racist. In fact, we are prudent.
On his old CNN TV show, Rev. Jackson and I once debated affirmative action. He favored it. I opposed it. I asked him, "Do you think you have this show because you are good or because you are black?" Jackson was speechless (a rarity) and he went to a commercial to keep from answering.
As I watch the exciting NCAA Basketball Tournament, I notice that most of the players are black. On some teams, all the players are black. Should an affirmative action program create slots so more whites, Hispanic and Asians can play, or should the best players be on these teams, without regard to race? The question should answer itself.
In his speech last week on race, Sen. Obama said blacks and whites have legitimate grievances and that whites who never owned a slave, or supported the slave trade, or knowingly discriminated against any African American have a right to be angry when affirmative action favors someone of a different race for a job for which they feel they are qualified.
The grievances of African Americans are starker. Their ancestors were kidnapped and brought to a country that was foreign to them and enslaved by mostly (but not exclusively) white people. Although the actions of a 19th-century Republican president freed them, 20th-century Democratic politicians discriminated against them, defiantly standing in schoolhouse doors, blocking their way to a better future.
This accusatory back and forth between races will continue beyond the current election unless all of us stop replaying past grievances. One can criticize some of what Obama said (and I have), but his appeal to lay the past to rest and move on to a better future is compelling and worth discussing.
One of the best tools I have seen that could help bridge the racial divide is a PBS documentary series called "African American Lives." Its creator and host is Harvard professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. The program is a rarity in television. It informs without bias.
This four-part series features Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Quincy Jones, Mae Jemison, Dr. Ben Carson, Dr. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot and Chris Tucker. Using DNA, the program traces their ancestry. Some have firm roots in African tribes, but others are surprising. For instance, Gates, who is African American, found that much of his DNA could be traced back to Ireland.
"African American Lives 2," the sequel to the original program, traced the lineage of comedian Chris Rock, singer Tina Turner, Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman Jr., and magazine publisher Linda Johnson Rice, among others. Using courthouse documents, plantation ledgers and slave ship records, the subjects learn surprising things about their forebears. One of Rock's ancestors was a South Carolina state senator. One of Turner's ancestors founded the school she attended as a child, though she didn't know about the genealogical link until the program revealed it in a touching moment.
I defy anyone but the most ardent racist to watch this series and not be transformed by what it reveals. I have spoken and exchanged e-mail with Dr. Gates and he says the main message in these programs is that slavery was more about economics than race.
More than slavery and discrimination, the loss of faith and family can be seen as the root of many of the problems in the black community. Even during the worst of times, black families held themselves together by holding onto God. Today, some have lost that faith and chaos threatens, chaos that Barack Obama - or anyone else - cannot repair.
The New York Times Magazine once did a cover story on prosperous black families in Prince Georges County, Md. What these families had in common, other than race, was that all were intact.
Unfortunately, those families are not typical. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2004, just 31.9 percent of black households had both spouses present, compared to 56.1 percent for white households. Hopefully, when intact black families become typical, many of the self-inflicted maladies in the black community will finally become atypical.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
I am a typical white person, as Barack Obama might say, and did say, about his white grandmother. Like Rev. Jesse Jackson, I, too, have crossed the street to avoid a group of young black men who have a certain thug-in-the-hood look about them. Am I a racist? Only if Jesse Jackson is a racist. In fact, we are prudent.
On his old CNN TV show, Rev. Jackson and I once debated affirmative action. He favored it. I opposed it. I asked him, "Do you think you have this show because you are good or because you are black?" Jackson was speechless (a rarity) and he went to a commercial to keep from answering.
As I watch the exciting NCAA Basketball Tournament, I notice that most of the players are black. On some teams, all the players are black. Should an affirmative action program create slots so more whites, Hispanic and Asians can play, or should the best players be on these teams, without regard to race? The question should answer itself.
In his speech last week on race, Sen. Obama said blacks and whites have legitimate grievances and that whites who never owned a slave, or supported the slave trade, or knowingly discriminated against any African American have a right to be angry when affirmative action favors someone of a different race for a job for which they feel they are qualified.
The grievances of African Americans are starker. Their ancestors were kidnapped and brought to a country that was foreign to them and enslaved by mostly (but not exclusively) white people. Although the actions of a 19th-century Republican president freed them, 20th-century Democratic politicians discriminated against them, defiantly standing in schoolhouse doors, blocking their way to a better future.
This accusatory back and forth between races will continue beyond the current election unless all of us stop replaying past grievances. One can criticize some of what Obama said (and I have), but his appeal to lay the past to rest and move on to a better future is compelling and worth discussing.
One of the best tools I have seen that could help bridge the racial divide is a PBS documentary series called "African American Lives." Its creator and host is Harvard professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. The program is a rarity in television. It informs without bias.
This four-part series features Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Quincy Jones, Mae Jemison, Dr. Ben Carson, Dr. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot and Chris Tucker. Using DNA, the program traces their ancestry. Some have firm roots in African tribes, but others are surprising. For instance, Gates, who is African American, found that much of his DNA could be traced back to Ireland.
"African American Lives 2," the sequel to the original program, traced the lineage of comedian Chris Rock, singer Tina Turner, Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman Jr., and magazine publisher Linda Johnson Rice, among others. Using courthouse documents, plantation ledgers and slave ship records, the subjects learn surprising things about their forebears. One of Rock's ancestors was a South Carolina state senator. One of Turner's ancestors founded the school she attended as a child, though she didn't know about the genealogical link until the program revealed it in a touching moment.
I defy anyone but the most ardent racist to watch this series and not be transformed by what it reveals. I have spoken and exchanged e-mail with Dr. Gates and he says the main message in these programs is that slavery was more about economics than race.
More than slavery and discrimination, the loss of faith and family can be seen as the root of many of the problems in the black community. Even during the worst of times, black families held themselves together by holding onto God. Today, some have lost that faith and chaos threatens, chaos that Barack Obama - or anyone else - cannot repair.
The New York Times Magazine once did a cover story on prosperous black families in Prince Georges County, Md. What these families had in common, other than race, was that all were intact.
Unfortunately, those families are not typical. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2004, just 31.9 percent of black households had both spouses present, compared to 56.1 percent for white households. Hopefully, when intact black families become typical, many of the self-inflicted maladies in the black community will finally become atypical.
Why Do Palestinians Get Much More Attention than Tibetans?
By Dennis Prager
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The long-suffering Tibetans have been in the news. This happens perhaps once or twice a decade. In a more moral world, however, public opinion would be far more preoccupied with Tibetans than with Palestinians, would be as harsh on China as it is on Israel, and would be as fawning on Israel as it now is on China.
But, alas, the world is, as it has always been, a largely mean-spirited and morally insensitive place, where might is far more highly regarded than right.
Consider the facts: Tibet, at least 1,400 years old, is one of the world's oldest nations, has its own language, its own religion and even its own ethnicity. Over 1 million of its people have been killed by the Chinese, its culture has been systematically obliterated, 6,000 of its 6,200 monasteries have been looted and destroyed, and most of its monks have been tortured, murdered or exiled.
Palestinians have none of these characteristics. There has never been a Palestinian country, never been a Palestinian language, never been a Palestinian ethnicity, never been a Palestinian religion in any way distinct from Islam elsewhere. Indeed, "Palestinian" had always meant any individual living in the geographic area called Palestine. For most of the first half of the 20th century, "Palestinian" and "Palestine" almost always referred to the Jews of Palestine. The United Jewish Appeal, the worldwide Jewish charity that provided the nascent Jewish state with much of its money, was actually known as the United Palestine Appeal. Compared to Tibetans, few Palestinians have been killed, its culture has not been destroyed nor its mosques looted or plundered, and Palestinians have received billions of dollars from the international community. Unlike the dying Tibetan nation, there are far more Palestinians today than when Israel was created.
None of this means that a distinct Palestinian national identity does not now exist. Since Israel's creation such an identity has arisen and does indeed exist. Nor does any of this deny that many Palestinians suffered as a result of the creation of the third Jewish state in the area, known -- since the Romans renamed Judea -- as "Palestine."
But it does mean that of all the causes the world could have adopted, the Palestinians' deserved to be near the bottom and the Tibetans' near the top. This is especially so since the Palestinians could have had a state of their own from 1947 on, and they have caused great suffering in the world, while the far more persecuted Tibetans have been characterized by a morally rigorous doctrine of nonviolence.
So, the question is, why? Why have the Palestinians received such undeserved attention and support, and the far more aggrieved and persecuted and moral Tibetans given virtually no support or attention?
The first reason is terror. Some time ago, the Palestinian leadership decided, with the overwhelming support of the Palestinian people, that murdering as many innocent people -- first Jews, and then anyone else -- was the fastest way to garner world attention. They were right. On the other hand, as The Economist notes in its March 28, 2008 issue, "Tibetan nationalists have hardly ever resorted to terrorist tactics…" It is interesting to speculate how the world would have reacted had Tibetans hijacked international flights, slaughtered Chinese citizens in Chinese restaurants and temples, on Chinese buses and trains, and massacred Chinese schoolchildren.
The second reason is oil and support from powerful fellow Arabs. The Palestinians have rich friends who control the world's most needed commodity, oil. The Palestinians have the unqualified support of all Middle Eastern oil-producing nations and the support of the Muslim world beyond the Middle East. The Tibetans are poor and have the support of no nations, let alone oil-producing ones.
The third reason is Israel. To deny that pro-Palestinian activism in the world is sometimes related to hostility toward Jews is to deny the obvious. It is not possible that the unearned preoccupation with the Palestinians is unrelated to the fact that their enemy is the one Jewish state in the world. Israel's Jewishness is a major part of the Muslim world's hatred of Israel. It is also part of Europe's hostility toward Israel: Portraying Israel as oppressors assuages some of Europe's guilt about the Holocaust -- "see, the Jews act no better than we did." Hence the ubiquitous comparisons of Israel to Nazis.
A fourth reason is China. If Tibet had been crushed by a white European nation, the Tibetans would have elicited far more sympathy. But, alas, their near-genocidal oppressor is not white. And the world does not take mass murder committed by non-whites nearly as seriously as it takes anything done by Westerners against non-Westerners. Furthermore, China is far more powerful and frightening than Israel. Israel has a great army and nuclear weapons, but it is pro-West, it is a free and democratic society, and it has seven million people in a piece of land as small as Belize. China has nuclear weapons, has a trillion U.S. dollars, an increasingly mighty army and navy, is neither free nor democratic, is anti-Western, and has 1.2 billion people in a country that dominates the Asian continent.
A fifth reason is the world's Left. As a general rule, the Left demonizes Israel and has loved China since it became Communist in 1948. And given the power of the Left in the world's media, in the political life of so many nations, and in the universities and the arts, it is no wonder vicious China has been idolized and humane Israel demonized.
The sixth reason is the United Nations, where Israel has been condemned in more General Assembly and Security Council resolutions than any other country in the world. At the same time, the UN has voted China onto its Security Council and has never condemned it. China's sponsoring of Sudan and its genocidal acts against its non-Arab black population, as in Darfur, goes largely unremarked on at the UN, let alone condemned, just as is the case with its cultural genocide, ethnic cleansing and military occupation of Tibet.
The seventh reason is television news, the primary source of news for much of mankind. Aside from its leftist tilt, television news reports only what it can video. And almost no country is televised as much as Israel, while video reports in Tibet are forbidden, as they are almost anywhere in China except where strictly monitored by the Chinese authorities. No video, no TV news. And no TV, no concern. So while grieving Palestinians and the accidental killings of Palestinians during morally necessary Israeli retaliations against terrorists are routinely televised, the slaughter of over a million Tibetans and the extinguishing of Tibetan Buddhism and culture are non-events as far as television news is concerned.
The world is unfair, unjust and morally twisted. And rarely more so than in its support for the Palestinians -- no matter how many innocents they target for murder and no matter how much Nazi-like anti-Semitism permeates their media -- and its neglect of the cruelly treated, humane Tibetans.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The long-suffering Tibetans have been in the news. This happens perhaps once or twice a decade. In a more moral world, however, public opinion would be far more preoccupied with Tibetans than with Palestinians, would be as harsh on China as it is on Israel, and would be as fawning on Israel as it now is on China.
But, alas, the world is, as it has always been, a largely mean-spirited and morally insensitive place, where might is far more highly regarded than right.
Consider the facts: Tibet, at least 1,400 years old, is one of the world's oldest nations, has its own language, its own religion and even its own ethnicity. Over 1 million of its people have been killed by the Chinese, its culture has been systematically obliterated, 6,000 of its 6,200 monasteries have been looted and destroyed, and most of its monks have been tortured, murdered or exiled.
Palestinians have none of these characteristics. There has never been a Palestinian country, never been a Palestinian language, never been a Palestinian ethnicity, never been a Palestinian religion in any way distinct from Islam elsewhere. Indeed, "Palestinian" had always meant any individual living in the geographic area called Palestine. For most of the first half of the 20th century, "Palestinian" and "Palestine" almost always referred to the Jews of Palestine. The United Jewish Appeal, the worldwide Jewish charity that provided the nascent Jewish state with much of its money, was actually known as the United Palestine Appeal. Compared to Tibetans, few Palestinians have been killed, its culture has not been destroyed nor its mosques looted or plundered, and Palestinians have received billions of dollars from the international community. Unlike the dying Tibetan nation, there are far more Palestinians today than when Israel was created.
None of this means that a distinct Palestinian national identity does not now exist. Since Israel's creation such an identity has arisen and does indeed exist. Nor does any of this deny that many Palestinians suffered as a result of the creation of the third Jewish state in the area, known -- since the Romans renamed Judea -- as "Palestine."
But it does mean that of all the causes the world could have adopted, the Palestinians' deserved to be near the bottom and the Tibetans' near the top. This is especially so since the Palestinians could have had a state of their own from 1947 on, and they have caused great suffering in the world, while the far more persecuted Tibetans have been characterized by a morally rigorous doctrine of nonviolence.
So, the question is, why? Why have the Palestinians received such undeserved attention and support, and the far more aggrieved and persecuted and moral Tibetans given virtually no support or attention?
The first reason is terror. Some time ago, the Palestinian leadership decided, with the overwhelming support of the Palestinian people, that murdering as many innocent people -- first Jews, and then anyone else -- was the fastest way to garner world attention. They were right. On the other hand, as The Economist notes in its March 28, 2008 issue, "Tibetan nationalists have hardly ever resorted to terrorist tactics…" It is interesting to speculate how the world would have reacted had Tibetans hijacked international flights, slaughtered Chinese citizens in Chinese restaurants and temples, on Chinese buses and trains, and massacred Chinese schoolchildren.
The second reason is oil and support from powerful fellow Arabs. The Palestinians have rich friends who control the world's most needed commodity, oil. The Palestinians have the unqualified support of all Middle Eastern oil-producing nations and the support of the Muslim world beyond the Middle East. The Tibetans are poor and have the support of no nations, let alone oil-producing ones.
The third reason is Israel. To deny that pro-Palestinian activism in the world is sometimes related to hostility toward Jews is to deny the obvious. It is not possible that the unearned preoccupation with the Palestinians is unrelated to the fact that their enemy is the one Jewish state in the world. Israel's Jewishness is a major part of the Muslim world's hatred of Israel. It is also part of Europe's hostility toward Israel: Portraying Israel as oppressors assuages some of Europe's guilt about the Holocaust -- "see, the Jews act no better than we did." Hence the ubiquitous comparisons of Israel to Nazis.
A fourth reason is China. If Tibet had been crushed by a white European nation, the Tibetans would have elicited far more sympathy. But, alas, their near-genocidal oppressor is not white. And the world does not take mass murder committed by non-whites nearly as seriously as it takes anything done by Westerners against non-Westerners. Furthermore, China is far more powerful and frightening than Israel. Israel has a great army and nuclear weapons, but it is pro-West, it is a free and democratic society, and it has seven million people in a piece of land as small as Belize. China has nuclear weapons, has a trillion U.S. dollars, an increasingly mighty army and navy, is neither free nor democratic, is anti-Western, and has 1.2 billion people in a country that dominates the Asian continent.
A fifth reason is the world's Left. As a general rule, the Left demonizes Israel and has loved China since it became Communist in 1948. And given the power of the Left in the world's media, in the political life of so many nations, and in the universities and the arts, it is no wonder vicious China has been idolized and humane Israel demonized.
The sixth reason is the United Nations, where Israel has been condemned in more General Assembly and Security Council resolutions than any other country in the world. At the same time, the UN has voted China onto its Security Council and has never condemned it. China's sponsoring of Sudan and its genocidal acts against its non-Arab black population, as in Darfur, goes largely unremarked on at the UN, let alone condemned, just as is the case with its cultural genocide, ethnic cleansing and military occupation of Tibet.
The seventh reason is television news, the primary source of news for much of mankind. Aside from its leftist tilt, television news reports only what it can video. And almost no country is televised as much as Israel, while video reports in Tibet are forbidden, as they are almost anywhere in China except where strictly monitored by the Chinese authorities. No video, no TV news. And no TV, no concern. So while grieving Palestinians and the accidental killings of Palestinians during morally necessary Israeli retaliations against terrorists are routinely televised, the slaughter of over a million Tibetans and the extinguishing of Tibetan Buddhism and culture are non-events as far as television news is concerned.
The world is unfair, unjust and morally twisted. And rarely more so than in its support for the Palestinians -- no matter how many innocents they target for murder and no matter how much Nazi-like anti-Semitism permeates their media -- and its neglect of the cruelly treated, humane Tibetans.
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