David Limbaugh
Friday, July 31, 2009
I am gratified that an awakened public has sent Congress an unequivocal message not to socialize our health care system, but note that this war is just beginning. Gen. Barack Obama is not the slightest bit deterred by the public's negative reaction, because he knows more than they do about what's best for them.
As we go forward, it's imperative we recognize that the current hiccup in Obama's momentum is a result of so-called Blue Dog Democrats' refusing to go along with his plan -- and this, largely because their constituents are raining down "tea party" speed bumps on their heads warning them against endorsing this disaster.
But if we're not careful, Obama will negotiate a path around this opposition, and it's important we anticipate it and prepare accordingly. The key lies in understanding the main reason for the Blue Dogs' resistance.
The Blue Dogs see themselves as being all about fiscal responsibility, even though most of them enthusiastically signed on to his budget-busting trillion-dollar porkulus scheme and his cap-and-tax debacle. Those little details aside, they have based their opposition to the bill thus far on their fear that the program wouldn't be able to pay for itself.
If that's true, then all Obama has to do to capture their support (he may already have) is to convince them it will be deficit-neutral -- or better. He can do that either by manipulating the numbers or by making adjustments to create the illusion it would pay for itself.
Let's set aside for now the canard that socialized medicine could be structured to pay for itself even with the diminution in quality and quantity it guarantees. What's relevant here is that Obama might be able to convince the Blue Dogs that it could. Then the bill would regain momentum, setting in motion the inevitable destruction of the world's greatest health care system.
Here's the point. Fiscal concerns aren't the only reason to oppose this Stalinist nightmare. We have to understand that socializing our entire health care system would destroy the great things about our system, much more completely than mandates, regulation and other government intervention already have.
Health care quality, quantity, choice and cost are all in jeopardy. This message has to be communicated effectively to the already skeptical public before Obama negotiates his end run around the fiscal responsibility issue alone -- as if that were the only legitimate objection.
In selling his scheme, Obama has already been promoting the myth that our system is no better than those of other advanced nations. His recent statements have betrayed his openly contemptuous attitude toward American health care and our top-flight medical profession. His attitude is consistent with his revealed general attitude about America, which he denigrates every time he gets a chance, especially on foreign soil.
He enjoys saying -- incorrectly -- Americans pay $6,000 more per year on health care than people of other advanced nations for no better care.
The statement is abominably false. Just as Obama is manipulating the cost and benefit numbers to enlist popular and Blue Dog support for his socialized medicine conspiracy, he distorts statistics to make the specious claim that our health care system isn't far superior to all others.
That's why we opponents of Obama's war against our health care system must bone up on the facts that put the lie to the ongoing liberal hoax concerning the quality of American health care -- as well as to all their other health care myths.
A great place to start is "The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care," by Sally C. Pipes. This is an extraordinarily edifying book that should be must-reading -- a health care mandate even I can agree to -- for every citizen upon whom socialized medicine could be visited and every politician contemplating visiting it upon us -- or properly opposing it.
This book could be so helpful to the national discussion that I intend to devote a number of columns to it. But with the remaining short space in this one, let me highlight just one of its 10 myth-busting chapters, which debunks the notion that government-run health care systems of other countries are superior or even remotely equal to the American system.
I'll address in future columns how the proponents of socialized medicine distort the statistics to hide the overwhelming superiority of the American system, but for now, I'll quote Ms. Pipes on the quality issue: "In measuring the quality of a health care system, what really matters is how well it serves those who are sick. And it's here that American really excels."
Please stay tuned, and in my following columns, I'll give you specific data backing up Pipes' claim -- data that expose President Obama's disgraceful attempt to deceive Americans about American health care quality. And I'll expose you to Pipes' other nine myth-debunking chapters -- and her market-based solutions. The system needs reform, but in the direction of less government, not more.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
The Lonely Israeli Left
Caroline Glick
Friday, July 31, 2009
Israel's leftists are lonely these days. This was the central thrust of an opinion column in Tuesday's New York Times authored by Aluf Benn, editor-at-large of the left-wing Haaretz newspaper.
Benn's article, "Why Won't Obama Talk to Israel?" was a plaintive call for US President Barack Obama to woo the Israeli public. As Benn put it, "Next time you're in the neighborhood, Mr. President, speak to us directly."
Benn's article has been touted by Obama supporters and detractors alike as evidence that the president has a credibility problem with Israelis. Jewish Obama supporters sought to soften the impact of Benn's article on their fellow Jewish leftists by claiming that Obama is listening to the likes of Benn. For instance, the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg reported without irony that administration officials defend Obama's silence toward Israel by arguing that his June 4 speech to the Muslim world in Cairo was also geared toward Israelis.
The June 4 address of course was the one where Obama compared Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi Holocaust of European Jewry and to black slavery in the antebellum American South. It was also the speech where he embraced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim that Israel owes its existence to the Holocaust and not to the Jewish people's legitimate right to self-determination in our homeland.
Benn's piece is an interesting read, but not for the reasons that have been widely cited. It is interesting for what it says about the Israeli Left on the one hand, and what it says about Obama and his American Jewish supporters on the other.
Although Benn gives a long bill of particulars on why Israelis mistrust Obama, the general thrust of the article is supportive of the administration. Far from an attack on Obama, it is a cry for help. Benn and his fellow Israeli leftists want the administration to help them by changing the tenor of its policies, not the policies themselves.
Whereas the American Left was triumphant in the 2008 elections, the Israeli Left was decimated in Israel's general elections in February. Its two standard bearers - Meretz and Labor - were effectively wiped out. Its new flagship, Kadima, failed to win the support of any other party in its bid to form a governing coalition. Worse still, consistent polling shows that the general public rejects every one of the Israeli Left's central policies. From the swift establishment of a Palestinian state, to the mass expulsion of Jews from Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem, to unilateral land giveaways to the Palestinians, the Israeli Left today speaks for a but a small minority of Israelis.
Benn cited last month's Jerusalem Post poll which showed that a mere six percent of Israeli Jews view Obama as pro-Israel while some 50 percent of Israeli Jews perceive the president as more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israel. As he sees it, Obama's failure to win the trust of the Israeli public will make it impossible for him to coerce the Netanyahu government into freezing Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. This is a disaster for Benn and his colleagues. For unless the US can force the government's hand, there is no chance that they will be able to see their radical policies implemented.
It is in his attempt to convince Obama to help the Israeli Left that Benn makes his most consequential critique of the US leader. As he puts it, Obama "seems to have confused American Jews with Israelis."
Benn points out that Obama's repeated attacks on Holocaust denial resonate more strongly with US Jews than with Israelis and that the two Jewish populations have "different historical narratives."
Benn is onto something when he notes the differences between Israeli and American Jews. But he fails to grasp the real significance of what Obama is doing and what is actually happening in relations between the two communities.
It isn't that Obama is confusing the two groups. Through both his rhetoric and his actions, Obama is demonstrating his priorities and concerns.
Obama cares about securing the support of American Jews. He does not care about gaining the support of Israeli Jews. Moreover, Obama feels comfortable wooing the former while alienating the latter because he recognizes something that Benn has apparently missed: Today a large and growing chasm separates leftist US Jews from leftist Israeli Jews.
During his recent meeting at the White House with hand-picked American Jewish leftist activists and centrist American Jewish leaders, Obama explained that he welcomes open disputes with Israel. As he put it, during the Bush presidency, there was "no daylight [between the US and Israel] and no progress."
Whereas Obama's goal of openly distancing the US from Israel is a source of anxiety and frustration for Israeli leftists who believe that US pressure should be a means to the end of compelling Israel to give away land to the Palestinians, it is a positive development for American Jewish Leftists. Led by the new anti-Israel Jewish lobby J Street, and supported by groups like Americans for Peace Now, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the National Jewish Democratic Council, the American Jewish Left supports the White House's hostile positions on Israel as an ends unto themselves.
J Street - a creation of Democratic fund-raiser and anti-Israel activist George Soros - was established ahead of the 2008 elections to lobby the White House and Congress to foment breaches in the US-Israel strategic relationship.
When Soros first raised the prospect of a Jewish anti-Israel lobby in October 2006, he argued that there was a need to institutionalize what had until then been ad-hoc anti-Israel lobbying efforts by American Jewish groups in order to scuttle Congressional support for Israel and undermine mainstream American Jewish organizations.
True to their mandates, today J Street and its fellow leftist Jewish groups Americans for Peace Now and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom lobby Congress to adopt positions that place the US in direct confrontation with Israel. The three groups are presently lobbying Congress to oppose an AIPAC initiative calling on Obama to pressure Arab governments to normalize relations with Israel. In their view, the move is objectionable because it doesn't contain a demand that Israel stop building homes for Jews in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. J Street similarly opposed Operation Cast Lead, claiming that Israel's actions to defend its citizens from rocket and mortar attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza were contrary to the interests of peace.
Although attacking Israel on the Palestinian issue is the central pillar of these groups' missions, they are also involved in defending Iran's nuclear weapons program and championing Syria in Washington. In late May, J Street lobbied Congress not to place new sanctions on Iran, claiming, "On Iran, the president is promoting tough, direct diplomacy... but the chances of [his] success won't be helped by Congress imposing tight timelines or a new round of sanctions."
The group has similarly supported ending sanctions against Syria and pressuring Israel to relinquish the Golan Heights to Syrian control.
In short, through their full-throated support for all of the Obama administration's anti-Israel policies, the organized American Jewish Left has made clear that today it does not share a common goal with the Israeli Left. It does not view US pressure on Israel as a means to achieve peace and normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Rather, like Obama, it views pressure on Israel as a means to weaken US ties to Israel in the interest of pursuing closer ties with the Arab world.
THE CURRENT split between the Israeli and American Jewish Left, as well as the Obama administration's disparate treatment of both groups have policy implications for the Netanyahu government in its dealings with all three.
According to a number of American Jewish leaders, Obama's decision to meet with a hand-picked audience of American Jews at the White House on July 13 was a direct response to the Jerusalem Post poll. Obama's senior advisers feared that the massive Israeli mistrust of Obama the poll exposed was liable to spill over into the American Jewish community.
To date, in contending with the White House, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has been careful to minimize the significance of the White House-initiated crisis in relations. Fearing a domestic backlash, Netanyahu and his advisers have even gone so far as to leak reports of imminent agreements between the Obama administration and Israel on the issue of home construction for Jews in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
What the White House's distress over the Post's poll shows, however, is that today - with a domestic consensus now backing Netanyahu against Obama - Netanyahu has less call to minimize the breach than Obama does. Indeed, doing so only advances Obama's fortunes among American Jews and so strengthens the position of anti-Israel Jewish organizations that support him. Rather than leak stories about an impending deal, Netanyahu's advisers should leak stories about American intransigence and hostility.
Moreover, given the administration's overarching desire to put "daylight" between the US and Israel, reaching an agreement with Washington will bring no relief. Since it is the administration's goal to weaken US ties to the Jewish state, clearly any deal that Israel could obtain would either be antithetical to Israel's national interests or breached by the administration.
Perhaps in response to J Street's ever-expanding media presence, Ambassador Michael Oren intimated last month that he intends to reach out to far-Left American Jewish groups. To the extent that this is a serious initiative, it should be dropped immediately.
Through their actions, J Street and its allies have made clear that their institutional interests are served by weakening Israel. Their mission is to harm Israel's standing in Washington and weaken the influence of the mainstream American Jewish community that supports Israel.
Rather than empower these anti-Israel groups by legitimizing them, the government should take a page out of Obama's playbook. Obama gave the impression of hosting a big tent for American Jews by inviting both friendly far-Left groups and friendly centrist groups to meet with him on July 13. He legitimized his friends at J Street and Americans for Peace Now by treating them as equals of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
By the same token, Israel's embassy should act as a big tent by reaching out to Israel's supporters on both the political Right and the center. All groups that support Israel should be welcome.
As to the Israeli Left, to date, Netanyahu has successfully built a strong, stable center-right coalition by going over its head and forming a national consensus around support for defensible borders, a united Jerusalem and rejecting unreciprocated concessions of any kind. While the prime minister arguably made an unnecessary and potentially disastrous mistake in announcing his support for a demilitarized Palestinian state, by and large, he has successfully marginalized the Left.
Benn's anguished plea for help from the Obama administration shows that Netanyahu's policies are having the desired effect. His political opponents are descending into the depths of political irrelevance. Netanyahu should leave them to their richly deserved fate.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Israel's leftists are lonely these days. This was the central thrust of an opinion column in Tuesday's New York Times authored by Aluf Benn, editor-at-large of the left-wing Haaretz newspaper.
Benn's article, "Why Won't Obama Talk to Israel?" was a plaintive call for US President Barack Obama to woo the Israeli public. As Benn put it, "Next time you're in the neighborhood, Mr. President, speak to us directly."
Benn's article has been touted by Obama supporters and detractors alike as evidence that the president has a credibility problem with Israelis. Jewish Obama supporters sought to soften the impact of Benn's article on their fellow Jewish leftists by claiming that Obama is listening to the likes of Benn. For instance, the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg reported without irony that administration officials defend Obama's silence toward Israel by arguing that his June 4 speech to the Muslim world in Cairo was also geared toward Israelis.
The June 4 address of course was the one where Obama compared Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi Holocaust of European Jewry and to black slavery in the antebellum American South. It was also the speech where he embraced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim that Israel owes its existence to the Holocaust and not to the Jewish people's legitimate right to self-determination in our homeland.
Benn's piece is an interesting read, but not for the reasons that have been widely cited. It is interesting for what it says about the Israeli Left on the one hand, and what it says about Obama and his American Jewish supporters on the other.
Although Benn gives a long bill of particulars on why Israelis mistrust Obama, the general thrust of the article is supportive of the administration. Far from an attack on Obama, it is a cry for help. Benn and his fellow Israeli leftists want the administration to help them by changing the tenor of its policies, not the policies themselves.
Whereas the American Left was triumphant in the 2008 elections, the Israeli Left was decimated in Israel's general elections in February. Its two standard bearers - Meretz and Labor - were effectively wiped out. Its new flagship, Kadima, failed to win the support of any other party in its bid to form a governing coalition. Worse still, consistent polling shows that the general public rejects every one of the Israeli Left's central policies. From the swift establishment of a Palestinian state, to the mass expulsion of Jews from Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem, to unilateral land giveaways to the Palestinians, the Israeli Left today speaks for a but a small minority of Israelis.
Benn cited last month's Jerusalem Post poll which showed that a mere six percent of Israeli Jews view Obama as pro-Israel while some 50 percent of Israeli Jews perceive the president as more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israel. As he sees it, Obama's failure to win the trust of the Israeli public will make it impossible for him to coerce the Netanyahu government into freezing Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. This is a disaster for Benn and his colleagues. For unless the US can force the government's hand, there is no chance that they will be able to see their radical policies implemented.
It is in his attempt to convince Obama to help the Israeli Left that Benn makes his most consequential critique of the US leader. As he puts it, Obama "seems to have confused American Jews with Israelis."
Benn points out that Obama's repeated attacks on Holocaust denial resonate more strongly with US Jews than with Israelis and that the two Jewish populations have "different historical narratives."
Benn is onto something when he notes the differences between Israeli and American Jews. But he fails to grasp the real significance of what Obama is doing and what is actually happening in relations between the two communities.
It isn't that Obama is confusing the two groups. Through both his rhetoric and his actions, Obama is demonstrating his priorities and concerns.
Obama cares about securing the support of American Jews. He does not care about gaining the support of Israeli Jews. Moreover, Obama feels comfortable wooing the former while alienating the latter because he recognizes something that Benn has apparently missed: Today a large and growing chasm separates leftist US Jews from leftist Israeli Jews.
During his recent meeting at the White House with hand-picked American Jewish leftist activists and centrist American Jewish leaders, Obama explained that he welcomes open disputes with Israel. As he put it, during the Bush presidency, there was "no daylight [between the US and Israel] and no progress."
Whereas Obama's goal of openly distancing the US from Israel is a source of anxiety and frustration for Israeli leftists who believe that US pressure should be a means to the end of compelling Israel to give away land to the Palestinians, it is a positive development for American Jewish Leftists. Led by the new anti-Israel Jewish lobby J Street, and supported by groups like Americans for Peace Now, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the National Jewish Democratic Council, the American Jewish Left supports the White House's hostile positions on Israel as an ends unto themselves.
J Street - a creation of Democratic fund-raiser and anti-Israel activist George Soros - was established ahead of the 2008 elections to lobby the White House and Congress to foment breaches in the US-Israel strategic relationship.
When Soros first raised the prospect of a Jewish anti-Israel lobby in October 2006, he argued that there was a need to institutionalize what had until then been ad-hoc anti-Israel lobbying efforts by American Jewish groups in order to scuttle Congressional support for Israel and undermine mainstream American Jewish organizations.
True to their mandates, today J Street and its fellow leftist Jewish groups Americans for Peace Now and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom lobby Congress to adopt positions that place the US in direct confrontation with Israel. The three groups are presently lobbying Congress to oppose an AIPAC initiative calling on Obama to pressure Arab governments to normalize relations with Israel. In their view, the move is objectionable because it doesn't contain a demand that Israel stop building homes for Jews in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. J Street similarly opposed Operation Cast Lead, claiming that Israel's actions to defend its citizens from rocket and mortar attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza were contrary to the interests of peace.
Although attacking Israel on the Palestinian issue is the central pillar of these groups' missions, they are also involved in defending Iran's nuclear weapons program and championing Syria in Washington. In late May, J Street lobbied Congress not to place new sanctions on Iran, claiming, "On Iran, the president is promoting tough, direct diplomacy... but the chances of [his] success won't be helped by Congress imposing tight timelines or a new round of sanctions."
The group has similarly supported ending sanctions against Syria and pressuring Israel to relinquish the Golan Heights to Syrian control.
In short, through their full-throated support for all of the Obama administration's anti-Israel policies, the organized American Jewish Left has made clear that today it does not share a common goal with the Israeli Left. It does not view US pressure on Israel as a means to achieve peace and normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Rather, like Obama, it views pressure on Israel as a means to weaken US ties to Israel in the interest of pursuing closer ties with the Arab world.
THE CURRENT split between the Israeli and American Jewish Left, as well as the Obama administration's disparate treatment of both groups have policy implications for the Netanyahu government in its dealings with all three.
According to a number of American Jewish leaders, Obama's decision to meet with a hand-picked audience of American Jews at the White House on July 13 was a direct response to the Jerusalem Post poll. Obama's senior advisers feared that the massive Israeli mistrust of Obama the poll exposed was liable to spill over into the American Jewish community.
To date, in contending with the White House, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has been careful to minimize the significance of the White House-initiated crisis in relations. Fearing a domestic backlash, Netanyahu and his advisers have even gone so far as to leak reports of imminent agreements between the Obama administration and Israel on the issue of home construction for Jews in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
What the White House's distress over the Post's poll shows, however, is that today - with a domestic consensus now backing Netanyahu against Obama - Netanyahu has less call to minimize the breach than Obama does. Indeed, doing so only advances Obama's fortunes among American Jews and so strengthens the position of anti-Israel Jewish organizations that support him. Rather than leak stories about an impending deal, Netanyahu's advisers should leak stories about American intransigence and hostility.
Moreover, given the administration's overarching desire to put "daylight" between the US and Israel, reaching an agreement with Washington will bring no relief. Since it is the administration's goal to weaken US ties to the Jewish state, clearly any deal that Israel could obtain would either be antithetical to Israel's national interests or breached by the administration.
Perhaps in response to J Street's ever-expanding media presence, Ambassador Michael Oren intimated last month that he intends to reach out to far-Left American Jewish groups. To the extent that this is a serious initiative, it should be dropped immediately.
Through their actions, J Street and its allies have made clear that their institutional interests are served by weakening Israel. Their mission is to harm Israel's standing in Washington and weaken the influence of the mainstream American Jewish community that supports Israel.
Rather than empower these anti-Israel groups by legitimizing them, the government should take a page out of Obama's playbook. Obama gave the impression of hosting a big tent for American Jews by inviting both friendly far-Left groups and friendly centrist groups to meet with him on July 13. He legitimized his friends at J Street and Americans for Peace Now by treating them as equals of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
By the same token, Israel's embassy should act as a big tent by reaching out to Israel's supporters on both the political Right and the center. All groups that support Israel should be welcome.
As to the Israeli Left, to date, Netanyahu has successfully built a strong, stable center-right coalition by going over its head and forming a national consensus around support for defensible borders, a united Jerusalem and rejecting unreciprocated concessions of any kind. While the prime minister arguably made an unnecessary and potentially disastrous mistake in announcing his support for a demilitarized Palestinian state, by and large, he has successfully marginalized the Left.
Benn's anguished plea for help from the Obama administration shows that Netanyahu's policies are having the desired effect. His political opponents are descending into the depths of political irrelevance. Netanyahu should leave them to their richly deserved fate.
The ultimate resting place of socialized medicine?
Paul Jacob
Sunday, August 02, 2009
My wife and I disagree about some of the key end-of-life issues. When such morbid subjects arise, as they must and as they have with increasing frequency as the debate over medical care rages on, she remains adamant that she does not want to linger in pain, holding on to those final months, weeks, days or moments through any extraordinary medical intervention.
On the other hand, I want to live for every additional second modern medicine or Providence might permit. Dylan Thomas summed up my feelings in his most famous poem:
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
As President Barack Obama and Congress discuss health care legislation, and we citizens worry over the ramifications of possible policy outcomes, there arises the haunting specter of euthanasia. My wife and I may disagree on what end-of-life decision to make, but we agree that it should be our decision, not the government's.
A proposal to cover millions more Americans with medical insurance predicated on spending less on medical care in the process perplexes enough. But for those who care about freedom -- not having government tell you how to live -- and those who wish to live as long as they can -- by definition, not having the government tell you to hang it up and die -- there is even more to fear.
It's not that Obamacare is a one-step federal government takeover of medicine. But it does qualify as another giant step in that same frightening direction.
We've known for years that the more the government picks up the tab for our doctors, nurses, and drugs, the more the government will tell us how to live our lives. What to eat. What not to eat. What not to smoke or drink. What recreations not to engage in (too dangerous), and that we need to do more leg-lifts and jumping jacks with more gusto -- like a scene I recall from 1984.
Already cities have banned trans fat. The poor, who happen to smoke or drink alcohol in larger percentages than those more well off, are increasingly crushed under sin taxes. There's talk of hiking taxes on Dr. Pepper -- and candy.
We can hope that the power of police unions can keep donuts on the market at relatively low expense.
But expect much worse. And though the excuse for ever greater nannying will always be to protect the taxpayers (forced by politicians to pay the medical bills of everyone else), it will be government experts, not taxpayers, dictating dietary and exercise mandates to the population.
Still, the issue of euthanasia is even more frightening. Older people, as their bodies deteriorate, cost more money. Putting hospitals under increased government budgetary oversight and command will not miraculously increase government budgets for hospitals. Cutting costs will become a draconian theme, never ending . . . until death.
Even now, "death by waiting" is a common rationing procedure in Britain and Canada. If you are young and living under socialized medicine, getting dialysis from government-run hospitals is fairly easy; if you are old, wait. The system's limited medical facilities, doctors and nurses practice a kind of triage. The aged are the hopeless, in this common scenario, and give up their lives for the good of the hospital budget.
This is hardly an "easy death" or "good killing" ("euthanasia" comes from euthanos or “good death”). It is death by bureaucracy. Bureaucrats love their queues, need their queues. And the impetus is clear: Saving "the taxpayers" -- not the patients.
Former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm addressed this issue decades ago when he philosophized, "We've got a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts and everything else like that and let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life."
Mr. Obama and the congressional architects of their new medical regime are promising to cut the overall cost of care. Are we really to believe there will be no pressure to deny expensive treatments in order to save money?
Many opponents of Obamacare are jumping on a provision in one version of this legislative work-in-progress, a directive to pay doctors to counsel the elderly -- and terminally ill patients -- on various end-of-life issues. In the New York Post, Betsy McCaughey said this mandate "invites abuse" and that "seniors could easily be pushed to refuse care."
A front-page Washington Post article, headlined "Talk Radio Campaign Frightening Seniors," reported that this controversy "undercuts what many say is the fundamental challenge of discussing sensitive costly societal questions about how to align patient wishes at the end of life with financial realities, for both the family and taxpayers."
Not getting a pacemaker at 75 years old may mean a person dies at 77 or 78, instead of at 83. What are five years of life worth? Who should decide?
With the federal government in the medical care business through the so-called Public Plan, folks in Washington will have the power to decide.
If you don't like your health insurance company, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
My wife and I disagree about some of the key end-of-life issues. When such morbid subjects arise, as they must and as they have with increasing frequency as the debate over medical care rages on, she remains adamant that she does not want to linger in pain, holding on to those final months, weeks, days or moments through any extraordinary medical intervention.
On the other hand, I want to live for every additional second modern medicine or Providence might permit. Dylan Thomas summed up my feelings in his most famous poem:
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
As President Barack Obama and Congress discuss health care legislation, and we citizens worry over the ramifications of possible policy outcomes, there arises the haunting specter of euthanasia. My wife and I may disagree on what end-of-life decision to make, but we agree that it should be our decision, not the government's.
A proposal to cover millions more Americans with medical insurance predicated on spending less on medical care in the process perplexes enough. But for those who care about freedom -- not having government tell you how to live -- and those who wish to live as long as they can -- by definition, not having the government tell you to hang it up and die -- there is even more to fear.
It's not that Obamacare is a one-step federal government takeover of medicine. But it does qualify as another giant step in that same frightening direction.
We've known for years that the more the government picks up the tab for our doctors, nurses, and drugs, the more the government will tell us how to live our lives. What to eat. What not to eat. What not to smoke or drink. What recreations not to engage in (too dangerous), and that we need to do more leg-lifts and jumping jacks with more gusto -- like a scene I recall from 1984.
Already cities have banned trans fat. The poor, who happen to smoke or drink alcohol in larger percentages than those more well off, are increasingly crushed under sin taxes. There's talk of hiking taxes on Dr. Pepper -- and candy.
We can hope that the power of police unions can keep donuts on the market at relatively low expense.
But expect much worse. And though the excuse for ever greater nannying will always be to protect the taxpayers (forced by politicians to pay the medical bills of everyone else), it will be government experts, not taxpayers, dictating dietary and exercise mandates to the population.
Still, the issue of euthanasia is even more frightening. Older people, as their bodies deteriorate, cost more money. Putting hospitals under increased government budgetary oversight and command will not miraculously increase government budgets for hospitals. Cutting costs will become a draconian theme, never ending . . . until death.
Even now, "death by waiting" is a common rationing procedure in Britain and Canada. If you are young and living under socialized medicine, getting dialysis from government-run hospitals is fairly easy; if you are old, wait. The system's limited medical facilities, doctors and nurses practice a kind of triage. The aged are the hopeless, in this common scenario, and give up their lives for the good of the hospital budget.
This is hardly an "easy death" or "good killing" ("euthanasia" comes from euthanos or “good death”). It is death by bureaucracy. Bureaucrats love their queues, need their queues. And the impetus is clear: Saving "the taxpayers" -- not the patients.
Former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm addressed this issue decades ago when he philosophized, "We've got a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts and everything else like that and let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life."
Mr. Obama and the congressional architects of their new medical regime are promising to cut the overall cost of care. Are we really to believe there will be no pressure to deny expensive treatments in order to save money?
Many opponents of Obamacare are jumping on a provision in one version of this legislative work-in-progress, a directive to pay doctors to counsel the elderly -- and terminally ill patients -- on various end-of-life issues. In the New York Post, Betsy McCaughey said this mandate "invites abuse" and that "seniors could easily be pushed to refuse care."
A front-page Washington Post article, headlined "Talk Radio Campaign Frightening Seniors," reported that this controversy "undercuts what many say is the fundamental challenge of discussing sensitive costly societal questions about how to align patient wishes at the end of life with financial realities, for both the family and taxpayers."
Not getting a pacemaker at 75 years old may mean a person dies at 77 or 78, instead of at 83. What are five years of life worth? Who should decide?
With the federal government in the medical care business through the so-called Public Plan, folks in Washington will have the power to decide.
If you don't like your health insurance company, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Chappaquiddick Revisited
Liberals still lionize Ted Kennedy. Forty years ago, he revealed his true character.
By R. P. George and D. Quinn
Friday, July 31, 2009
On the evening of July 18, 1969, Mary Jo Kopechne died while trying to free herself from Edward M. Kennedy’s submerged automobile in a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island.
The fortieth anniversary of Miss Kopechne’s death passed with scarcely a word’s being mentioned of it in the media. Perhaps it was not simply a matter of liberal bias. With Senator Kennedy now seriously ill, many journalists no doubt considered that it might be unseemly to bring up the subject.
But however uncomfortable it may be to recall the circumstances of Mary Jo Kopechne’s death, Americans must not forget what happened to her, nor must a delicate sensibility prevent us from remembering how a powerful man and his savvy handlers were able to shield him from responsibility for his behavior towards her. Mary Jo Kopechne died because, after recklessly causing an accident, Teddy Kennedy, in his nearly unfathomable self-absorption and political ambition, failed to do what almost anyone would have done to rescue her — namely, report the accident and call for emergency help. Instead, Kennedy thought only of himself and his political career.
Mary Jo Kopechne was 29 years old when she died. She was a bright and idealistic young woman who had worked closely with Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in the presidential campaign that ended tragically with his assassination in June 1968. On July 18, 1969, she attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island that reunited several of RFK’s campaign workers and friends. Teddy Kennedy also attended the party, and he and Miss Kopechne left together sometime before midnight, with Kennedy at the wheel of his 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88.
Having taken a wrong turn, and driving too fast along a dirt road, Kennedy was unable to brake properly when approaching Dike Bridge, which had no guardrail. The car went over the side of the bridge and plunged into the channel, known as Poucha Pond. Ted Kennedy managed to escape the submerged and overturned vehicle, but Mary Jo Kopechne did not.
Kennedy later claimed that he made several attempts to swim down to the car to rescue her. He then rested on the shore for a few minutes before walking back to the party. On the way, he passed several houses where he could easily have stopped, asked for help, and notified authorities. With a woman in danger of drowning, that is what any decent person would have done. But Kennedy did not do it. He later said that he had not seen a house with a light on. This would have been a pathetic excuse even if true. The evidence is, however, that the very first house that he had passed, only 150 yards or so from the scene of the accident, had a light on.
When Kennedy finally got back to the party, he enlisted a cousin, Joseph Gargan, and a friend, Paul Markham, to return to the accident scene and attempt a rescue. (What was needed, of course, was a properly trained and equipped emergency diver.) When their efforts failed, the two men — both of them lawyers — attempted to prevail on Kennedy to report the accident and get police and professional rescue help. But Kennedy did not report the accident. Gargan and Markham testified that they themselves did not report it only because they believed that Kennedy was going to do so. What Kennedy did, rather, was return to his hotel room in nearby Edgartown, where he retired for the night. Early the next morning, Gargan and Markham joined him and again pressed him urgently to notify the authorities. Instead, Kennedy found a pay phone and began soliciting advice from trusted friends and relatives. By this point, Mary Jo Kopechne was certainly dead, and Teddy Kennedy had still not notified the authorities.
The police first heard of the incident when a pair of fishermen, having seen the car in the water, went to one of the residences that Kennedy had passed the evening before to make sure that the authorities had been informed. The police sent a diver, who quickly recovered Miss Kopechne’s body. From its positioning in the car, it was clear that she had survived for some time before drowning or exhausting the available oxygen. It was surely a terrifying and perhaps an agonizing death. The diver later testified that, had Kennedy run to the nearest residence and called for emergency help, “there is a strong possibility that she would have been alive on removal from the submerged car.”
The police became aware that the car belonged to Edward M. Kennedy when they ran a check on the license plate. When Kennedy, still at the pay phone, saw that the body had been recovered, he went to the police station, where he made a few more calls and then dictated to Markham a statement for the police. It was carefully crafted to avoid saying very much, thus keeping open a range of explanatory options.
A week later, Kennedy pleaded guilty to the comparatively minor charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury. Astonishingly, the local Massachusetts judge, a man named James Boyle, gave Kennedy only the statutory minimum punishment — two months of jail time — which he immediately suspended. In explaining his leniency, Judge Boyle pointed to what he described as Kennedy’s “unblemished record.” One supposes that for the judge, it was a bit like having Mother Teresa in the dock.
Having managed the immediate legal issues, the legendary Kennedy machinery went to work on managing the political problem created by the senator’s shocking behavior. On the evening of his sentencing, one week after Miss Kopechne had died in his car, Kennedy read a prepared statement that was broadcast on network television. The statement was a masterwork of spin — telling parts of the story (in the least unfavorable light possible, of course); leaving out the more inculpatory parts; and vacillating between abject apology and excuse making. The most risible part was when he suggested that his conduct was accounted for by a cerebral concussion and shock, while insisting that, of course, he wouldn’t dream of using his medical condition as an excuse.
He asked the people of Massachusetts whether they wanted him to resign. “Think this through with me,” he said. “In facing this decision, I seek your advice and opinion. In making it I seek your prayers.”
It worked.
Six weeks later, an inquest into Mary Jo Kopechne’s death was held. Kennedy’s lawyers asked the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to make it a secret inquest, and the judges proved to be entirely compliant. Later, a lengthy transcript of the inquest was made available to the public. The presiding judge was one who had already proven to be friendly from Kennedy’s point of view: James Boyle. Interestingly, Boyle found “probable cause” for believing that Kennedy was guilty of criminal negligence and even possibly manslaughter. Still, he did not issue a warrant for the senator’s arrest.
The district attorney, an ambitious Democrat named Edmund Dinis, almost certainly could have gotten a grand-jury indictment, but he, too, declined to pursue the matter. In fact, when a grand jury looked at the question, Dinis told the jurors that there was not sufficient evidence to warrant an indictment of the senator even on charges of reckless endangerment, much less manslaughter.
Did we mention that all of this happened in Massachusetts? Did we note that the perpetrator was Democratic United States senator Edward M. Kennedy?
In the end, Kennedy’s punishment for his appalling acts and even more appalling omissions at Chappaquiddick was that the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles suspended his driver’s license for a few months.
Many liberals lionize Teddy Kennedy. They like his politics and often thrill to his aggressive tactics against their adversaries. (That list begins with Robert H. Bork, whom Kennedy defamed brutally in a successful effort to block his confirmation as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.) But they should consider what kind of man Ted Kennedy is. His character was revealed at Chappaquiddick and in all that he said and did to evade responsibility for his conduct in the months and years that followed.
It is a sad irony that liberal groups heap praise on Kennedy as a champion of women’s rights. Of course, the reason they like him — and the reason he can always count on them to deflect attention from questions of character and to attack those who raise the questions — is that he is a champion of liberal ideology. Someone who honored women’s rights — someone who honored human rights — would have laid aside any question of political consequences, run to a nearby house, and called for emergency help to rescue a woman whose life, through his own fault, was in grave peril. Such a person would have honored the right to life of Mary Jo Kopechne.
By R. P. George and D. Quinn
Friday, July 31, 2009
On the evening of July 18, 1969, Mary Jo Kopechne died while trying to free herself from Edward M. Kennedy’s submerged automobile in a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island.
The fortieth anniversary of Miss Kopechne’s death passed with scarcely a word’s being mentioned of it in the media. Perhaps it was not simply a matter of liberal bias. With Senator Kennedy now seriously ill, many journalists no doubt considered that it might be unseemly to bring up the subject.
But however uncomfortable it may be to recall the circumstances of Mary Jo Kopechne’s death, Americans must not forget what happened to her, nor must a delicate sensibility prevent us from remembering how a powerful man and his savvy handlers were able to shield him from responsibility for his behavior towards her. Mary Jo Kopechne died because, after recklessly causing an accident, Teddy Kennedy, in his nearly unfathomable self-absorption and political ambition, failed to do what almost anyone would have done to rescue her — namely, report the accident and call for emergency help. Instead, Kennedy thought only of himself and his political career.
Mary Jo Kopechne was 29 years old when she died. She was a bright and idealistic young woman who had worked closely with Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in the presidential campaign that ended tragically with his assassination in June 1968. On July 18, 1969, she attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island that reunited several of RFK’s campaign workers and friends. Teddy Kennedy also attended the party, and he and Miss Kopechne left together sometime before midnight, with Kennedy at the wheel of his 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88.
Having taken a wrong turn, and driving too fast along a dirt road, Kennedy was unable to brake properly when approaching Dike Bridge, which had no guardrail. The car went over the side of the bridge and plunged into the channel, known as Poucha Pond. Ted Kennedy managed to escape the submerged and overturned vehicle, but Mary Jo Kopechne did not.
Kennedy later claimed that he made several attempts to swim down to the car to rescue her. He then rested on the shore for a few minutes before walking back to the party. On the way, he passed several houses where he could easily have stopped, asked for help, and notified authorities. With a woman in danger of drowning, that is what any decent person would have done. But Kennedy did not do it. He later said that he had not seen a house with a light on. This would have been a pathetic excuse even if true. The evidence is, however, that the very first house that he had passed, only 150 yards or so from the scene of the accident, had a light on.
When Kennedy finally got back to the party, he enlisted a cousin, Joseph Gargan, and a friend, Paul Markham, to return to the accident scene and attempt a rescue. (What was needed, of course, was a properly trained and equipped emergency diver.) When their efforts failed, the two men — both of them lawyers — attempted to prevail on Kennedy to report the accident and get police and professional rescue help. But Kennedy did not report the accident. Gargan and Markham testified that they themselves did not report it only because they believed that Kennedy was going to do so. What Kennedy did, rather, was return to his hotel room in nearby Edgartown, where he retired for the night. Early the next morning, Gargan and Markham joined him and again pressed him urgently to notify the authorities. Instead, Kennedy found a pay phone and began soliciting advice from trusted friends and relatives. By this point, Mary Jo Kopechne was certainly dead, and Teddy Kennedy had still not notified the authorities.
The police first heard of the incident when a pair of fishermen, having seen the car in the water, went to one of the residences that Kennedy had passed the evening before to make sure that the authorities had been informed. The police sent a diver, who quickly recovered Miss Kopechne’s body. From its positioning in the car, it was clear that she had survived for some time before drowning or exhausting the available oxygen. It was surely a terrifying and perhaps an agonizing death. The diver later testified that, had Kennedy run to the nearest residence and called for emergency help, “there is a strong possibility that she would have been alive on removal from the submerged car.”
The police became aware that the car belonged to Edward M. Kennedy when they ran a check on the license plate. When Kennedy, still at the pay phone, saw that the body had been recovered, he went to the police station, where he made a few more calls and then dictated to Markham a statement for the police. It was carefully crafted to avoid saying very much, thus keeping open a range of explanatory options.
A week later, Kennedy pleaded guilty to the comparatively minor charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury. Astonishingly, the local Massachusetts judge, a man named James Boyle, gave Kennedy only the statutory minimum punishment — two months of jail time — which he immediately suspended. In explaining his leniency, Judge Boyle pointed to what he described as Kennedy’s “unblemished record.” One supposes that for the judge, it was a bit like having Mother Teresa in the dock.
Having managed the immediate legal issues, the legendary Kennedy machinery went to work on managing the political problem created by the senator’s shocking behavior. On the evening of his sentencing, one week after Miss Kopechne had died in his car, Kennedy read a prepared statement that was broadcast on network television. The statement was a masterwork of spin — telling parts of the story (in the least unfavorable light possible, of course); leaving out the more inculpatory parts; and vacillating between abject apology and excuse making. The most risible part was when he suggested that his conduct was accounted for by a cerebral concussion and shock, while insisting that, of course, he wouldn’t dream of using his medical condition as an excuse.
He asked the people of Massachusetts whether they wanted him to resign. “Think this through with me,” he said. “In facing this decision, I seek your advice and opinion. In making it I seek your prayers.”
It worked.
Six weeks later, an inquest into Mary Jo Kopechne’s death was held. Kennedy’s lawyers asked the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to make it a secret inquest, and the judges proved to be entirely compliant. Later, a lengthy transcript of the inquest was made available to the public. The presiding judge was one who had already proven to be friendly from Kennedy’s point of view: James Boyle. Interestingly, Boyle found “probable cause” for believing that Kennedy was guilty of criminal negligence and even possibly manslaughter. Still, he did not issue a warrant for the senator’s arrest.
The district attorney, an ambitious Democrat named Edmund Dinis, almost certainly could have gotten a grand-jury indictment, but he, too, declined to pursue the matter. In fact, when a grand jury looked at the question, Dinis told the jurors that there was not sufficient evidence to warrant an indictment of the senator even on charges of reckless endangerment, much less manslaughter.
Did we mention that all of this happened in Massachusetts? Did we note that the perpetrator was Democratic United States senator Edward M. Kennedy?
In the end, Kennedy’s punishment for his appalling acts and even more appalling omissions at Chappaquiddick was that the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles suspended his driver’s license for a few months.
Many liberals lionize Teddy Kennedy. They like his politics and often thrill to his aggressive tactics against their adversaries. (That list begins with Robert H. Bork, whom Kennedy defamed brutally in a successful effort to block his confirmation as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.) But they should consider what kind of man Ted Kennedy is. His character was revealed at Chappaquiddick and in all that he said and did to evade responsibility for his conduct in the months and years that followed.
It is a sad irony that liberal groups heap praise on Kennedy as a champion of women’s rights. Of course, the reason they like him — and the reason he can always count on them to deflect attention from questions of character and to attack those who raise the questions — is that he is a champion of liberal ideology. Someone who honored women’s rights — someone who honored human rights — would have laid aside any question of political consequences, run to a nearby house, and called for emergency help to rescue a woman whose life, through his own fault, was in grave peril. Such a person would have honored the right to life of Mary Jo Kopechne.
Obama Turns On Freedom Around the Globe
Bob McEwen
Friday, July 31, 2009
For more than twenty years American foreign policy has been guided by a freedom agenda: the notion that our security interests are best protected by advancing the cause of freedom around the world. Ronald Reagan championed it when he won the cold war, George H.W. Bush when he fought the first gulf war, and Bill Clinton when he committed America to defending human rights in the Balkans. Now, here comes President Barack Obama. who has effectively turned America’s back on the cause of freedom around the globe.
Right now, freedom hangs in the balance in Honduras. President Manuel Zelaya has been sent packing because of his attempted power grab and efforts to subvert the constitution. The Honduran constitution limits him to just one 4-year term. (This restriction is seen as so important that in Honduras even the Honduran congress and the President acting together cannot discard it.) Nevertheless, this Hugo Chavez wannabe began an unconstitutional and illegal referendum that would allow him to rule indefinitely. The Honduran Supreme Court, Attorney General, and Congress, however, all proceeded to follow their constitution. Accordingly, he was expelled and replaced by the proper successor of his own political party. Evidence now reveals the extent that Zelaya has been supported in his power grab by Chavez of Venezuela and neighboring Nicaragua who are placing hundreds of supporters into Honduras to foment trouble.
What has been President Obama’s response? On which side does the United States now stand? Mr. Obama has sided with Zelaya, even echoing his words that the Honduran effort to faithfully follow their constitution amounts to “a coup.” The Obama Administration even co-sponsored a resolution in the United Nations condemning Honduras and calling for Zelaya's reinstatement. Little surprise that Hugo Chavez has gleefully declared that Obama’s move will “deliver a major blow” to the people and government of Honduras.
Alone, this might be seen as a poor decision. But it is part of a troubling pattern of behavior that speaks to something deeper at work.
When Iranians took the streets in recent weeks to declare their rejection of the unfair and rigged elections in their country, President Obama dithered and sat mute for days preferring to play the role of neutral observer rather than the advocate for freedom. Only after world public opinion soundly came out against the mullahs in Iran did Obama feel safe to condemn their brutal suppression of protestors.
In June, when the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) offered its annual Democracy Award to five leaders of Cuba’s pro-democracy movement, the White House was curiously silent. The NED asked the White House for a presidential meeting with dissident Bertha Atunez, who headed the Cuban Rosa Parks Women’s Movement for Civil Rights. Previous Presidents Bush and Clinton had met with NED award winners. But this time they were ignored by the White House. No doubt this was because the Obama Administration seeks to curry favor with Cuba’s dictators. The normally pro-Obama Washington Post editorial page was quick to conclude that the White House was saying, “Message to Mr. Chavez and the Castro brothers: We can work with you. Message to Cuba’s democratic opposition: We don’t have time for you.” Only after the Washington Post contacted the White House to explain their silence did they proceed to issue a bland statement.
Obama’s rhetoric in support of democracy is slippery and elusive. During his June speech in Cairo, Egypt Obama offered a relativistic definition of democracy, saying he was committed to governments that “reflect the will of the people.” Dictators everywhere recognize that as their phrase. Tyrants such as the Castro brothers in Cuba always claim this is exactly what they do. During an April meeting of the Organization of American States, Obama tried to warm relations with Chavez. He pushed us further down the road of abandoning a freedom agenda when he explained that he wanted to avoid discussions about democracy and “break free from some of the stale debates and old ideologies that have dominated and distorted the debate in this hemisphere for far too long.” His Secretary of State Hillary Clinton added, “Let’s put ideology aside. That is so yesterday.” The world must wonder, do Americans now believe that championing civil liberties are just stale debates?
President Obama apparently believes that by warming up to autocrats in Iran, Russia, and Venezuela he can change them and their regimes. No doubt he’s putting great faith in his ability to charm and communicate. But he is deluding himself if he believes that these tyrants are simply misguided democrats that will succumb to his persuasion. The cold war did not end because we magically conjoled communist elites to see things our way. The cold war ended because we enabled “people power” and then democratic values triumphed.
The President needs to worry less about getting along with tyrants and instead concern himself more with the security of the American people. He will do that best by standing up for democratic values.
Friday, July 31, 2009
For more than twenty years American foreign policy has been guided by a freedom agenda: the notion that our security interests are best protected by advancing the cause of freedom around the world. Ronald Reagan championed it when he won the cold war, George H.W. Bush when he fought the first gulf war, and Bill Clinton when he committed America to defending human rights in the Balkans. Now, here comes President Barack Obama. who has effectively turned America’s back on the cause of freedom around the globe.
Right now, freedom hangs in the balance in Honduras. President Manuel Zelaya has been sent packing because of his attempted power grab and efforts to subvert the constitution. The Honduran constitution limits him to just one 4-year term. (This restriction is seen as so important that in Honduras even the Honduran congress and the President acting together cannot discard it.) Nevertheless, this Hugo Chavez wannabe began an unconstitutional and illegal referendum that would allow him to rule indefinitely. The Honduran Supreme Court, Attorney General, and Congress, however, all proceeded to follow their constitution. Accordingly, he was expelled and replaced by the proper successor of his own political party. Evidence now reveals the extent that Zelaya has been supported in his power grab by Chavez of Venezuela and neighboring Nicaragua who are placing hundreds of supporters into Honduras to foment trouble.
What has been President Obama’s response? On which side does the United States now stand? Mr. Obama has sided with Zelaya, even echoing his words that the Honduran effort to faithfully follow their constitution amounts to “a coup.” The Obama Administration even co-sponsored a resolution in the United Nations condemning Honduras and calling for Zelaya's reinstatement. Little surprise that Hugo Chavez has gleefully declared that Obama’s move will “deliver a major blow” to the people and government of Honduras.
Alone, this might be seen as a poor decision. But it is part of a troubling pattern of behavior that speaks to something deeper at work.
When Iranians took the streets in recent weeks to declare their rejection of the unfair and rigged elections in their country, President Obama dithered and sat mute for days preferring to play the role of neutral observer rather than the advocate for freedom. Only after world public opinion soundly came out against the mullahs in Iran did Obama feel safe to condemn their brutal suppression of protestors.
In June, when the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) offered its annual Democracy Award to five leaders of Cuba’s pro-democracy movement, the White House was curiously silent. The NED asked the White House for a presidential meeting with dissident Bertha Atunez, who headed the Cuban Rosa Parks Women’s Movement for Civil Rights. Previous Presidents Bush and Clinton had met with NED award winners. But this time they were ignored by the White House. No doubt this was because the Obama Administration seeks to curry favor with Cuba’s dictators. The normally pro-Obama Washington Post editorial page was quick to conclude that the White House was saying, “Message to Mr. Chavez and the Castro brothers: We can work with you. Message to Cuba’s democratic opposition: We don’t have time for you.” Only after the Washington Post contacted the White House to explain their silence did they proceed to issue a bland statement.
Obama’s rhetoric in support of democracy is slippery and elusive. During his June speech in Cairo, Egypt Obama offered a relativistic definition of democracy, saying he was committed to governments that “reflect the will of the people.” Dictators everywhere recognize that as their phrase. Tyrants such as the Castro brothers in Cuba always claim this is exactly what they do. During an April meeting of the Organization of American States, Obama tried to warm relations with Chavez. He pushed us further down the road of abandoning a freedom agenda when he explained that he wanted to avoid discussions about democracy and “break free from some of the stale debates and old ideologies that have dominated and distorted the debate in this hemisphere for far too long.” His Secretary of State Hillary Clinton added, “Let’s put ideology aside. That is so yesterday.” The world must wonder, do Americans now believe that championing civil liberties are just stale debates?
President Obama apparently believes that by warming up to autocrats in Iran, Russia, and Venezuela he can change them and their regimes. No doubt he’s putting great faith in his ability to charm and communicate. But he is deluding himself if he believes that these tyrants are simply misguided democrats that will succumb to his persuasion. The cold war did not end because we magically conjoled communist elites to see things our way. The cold war ended because we enabled “people power” and then democratic values triumphed.
The President needs to worry less about getting along with tyrants and instead concern himself more with the security of the American people. He will do that best by standing up for democratic values.
No More Racial Sell-Outs
Linda Chavez
Friday, July 31, 2009
Rick Sanchez, a CNN anchor, provoked a tempest in a Twitter this week when he said he'd be a rich guy if he "sold out as hispanic and worked at fox news." The commentary on the episode mostly centered on whether working at Fox News Channel constituted "selling out," with left-wing bloggers defending Sanchez and conservatives weighing in on Fox's behalf. But the real outrage in Sanchez's statement isn't what he implied about Fox News; it's the whole idea that an individual is capable of "selling out" others who happen to share his race or ethnicity.
First, a bit of disclosure: I've been a Fox News contributor since 2001. I'm usually on to discuss politics or comment on a news item, including recently giving my views on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.
While I suppose Sanchez might read the latter as proof that Fox invited me as a "token" Hispanic conservative foil to the liberal Hispanic judge, he'd be reading into it his own biases. In fact, Fox has invited me on to discuss every Supreme Court nominee since I became a regular contributor. I was one of the earliest critics of Harriet Miers (a Bush nominee) and a staunch supporter of Chief Justice John Roberts, with whom I worked in the Reagan White House, and Justice Samuel Alito. I'm there to articulate a political point of view and to share my policy expertise, not to "represent" the views of women or Hispanics on any issue.
Unless you believe that all women -- or blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, you name it -- think alike, it's absurd to assume that any one person can or should represent the views of the diverse members of his or her particular group. Of course, we don't tend to do that with whites or men for that matter.
We'd be rightly offended if, say, Bill Clinton was accused of being a traitor to his race or sex because he supported affirmative action programs that benefited blacks or women. Yet a black, Hispanic, or woman who criticizes those same programs is in for a heap of abuse based on his or her alleged disloyalty. I know; I've been called everything from Tia Tomas to Malinche (the Indian woman who aided Hernando Cortez in overthrowing the Aztec empire) to "coconut" for my alleged ethnic betrayal. One viewer offered the following critique after I testified against Sotomayor: "I want to congratulate you for having the courage to sit in front of all those old white men and reinforce their opinions of Latinos. You managed to place yourself in the very useful position of smearing the accomplishments of a fellow Latina. I wonder how good it feels to be used that way. ..."
We rightly condemn stereotyping when it maligns whole groups of people. We know that it's bigoted to use terms like shiftless or lazy or greedy to describe racial or ethnic groups. And any public figure who does so soon suffers the consequences. Radio shock jock Don Imus lost his job -- at least temporarily -- after calling the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy-headed ho's," and scores of others have suffered similar or worse fates. So why is it acceptable to call someone a sell-out because he or she doesn't conform to ethnic stereotypes about political beliefs?
We ought to relegate terms like Uncle Tom, sell-out, and traitor-to-your-race (or sex) to the same category we do racial and sexual epithets. They reflect the same root prejudices. Anytime we assume that we know something fundamental about how a person behaves or thinks based on race, ethnicity, or sex, we're exhibiting our own biases. People aren't good or bad, hard-working or irresponsible, smart or dull, liberal or conservative based on the amount of melanin in their skin or the number of X-chromosomes in their DNA.
The sooner we start judging people as individuals, not as members of groups, the sooner we'll put prejudice and bias of all sorts behind us once and for all. So the next time Rick Sanchez starts casting ethnic aspersions based on politics, let's recognize his prejudice for what it is.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Rick Sanchez, a CNN anchor, provoked a tempest in a Twitter this week when he said he'd be a rich guy if he "sold out as hispanic and worked at fox news." The commentary on the episode mostly centered on whether working at Fox News Channel constituted "selling out," with left-wing bloggers defending Sanchez and conservatives weighing in on Fox's behalf. But the real outrage in Sanchez's statement isn't what he implied about Fox News; it's the whole idea that an individual is capable of "selling out" others who happen to share his race or ethnicity.
First, a bit of disclosure: I've been a Fox News contributor since 2001. I'm usually on to discuss politics or comment on a news item, including recently giving my views on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.
While I suppose Sanchez might read the latter as proof that Fox invited me as a "token" Hispanic conservative foil to the liberal Hispanic judge, he'd be reading into it his own biases. In fact, Fox has invited me on to discuss every Supreme Court nominee since I became a regular contributor. I was one of the earliest critics of Harriet Miers (a Bush nominee) and a staunch supporter of Chief Justice John Roberts, with whom I worked in the Reagan White House, and Justice Samuel Alito. I'm there to articulate a political point of view and to share my policy expertise, not to "represent" the views of women or Hispanics on any issue.
Unless you believe that all women -- or blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, you name it -- think alike, it's absurd to assume that any one person can or should represent the views of the diverse members of his or her particular group. Of course, we don't tend to do that with whites or men for that matter.
We'd be rightly offended if, say, Bill Clinton was accused of being a traitor to his race or sex because he supported affirmative action programs that benefited blacks or women. Yet a black, Hispanic, or woman who criticizes those same programs is in for a heap of abuse based on his or her alleged disloyalty. I know; I've been called everything from Tia Tomas to Malinche (the Indian woman who aided Hernando Cortez in overthrowing the Aztec empire) to "coconut" for my alleged ethnic betrayal. One viewer offered the following critique after I testified against Sotomayor: "I want to congratulate you for having the courage to sit in front of all those old white men and reinforce their opinions of Latinos. You managed to place yourself in the very useful position of smearing the accomplishments of a fellow Latina. I wonder how good it feels to be used that way. ..."
We rightly condemn stereotyping when it maligns whole groups of people. We know that it's bigoted to use terms like shiftless or lazy or greedy to describe racial or ethnic groups. And any public figure who does so soon suffers the consequences. Radio shock jock Don Imus lost his job -- at least temporarily -- after calling the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy-headed ho's," and scores of others have suffered similar or worse fates. So why is it acceptable to call someone a sell-out because he or she doesn't conform to ethnic stereotypes about political beliefs?
We ought to relegate terms like Uncle Tom, sell-out, and traitor-to-your-race (or sex) to the same category we do racial and sexual epithets. They reflect the same root prejudices. Anytime we assume that we know something fundamental about how a person behaves or thinks based on race, ethnicity, or sex, we're exhibiting our own biases. People aren't good or bad, hard-working or irresponsible, smart or dull, liberal or conservative based on the amount of melanin in their skin or the number of X-chromosomes in their DNA.
The sooner we start judging people as individuals, not as members of groups, the sooner we'll put prejudice and bias of all sorts behind us once and for all. So the next time Rick Sanchez starts casting ethnic aspersions based on politics, let's recognize his prejudice for what it is.
Dodd and Obama: Corrupt Birds of a Feather
Michelle Malkin
Friday, July 31, 2009
Everything you need to know about false Hope and Change can be found in one picture: the image of President Obama embracing embattled Sen. Chris Dodd.
The troubled Democrat is in deep over his sweetheart Countrywide home-loan deals, corporate bailout cash and crony associations. New revelations by Countrywide whistleblower Robert Feinberg confirm what more and more of Dodd's constituents in Connecticut are coming to realize: He's a lying weasel.
Dodd denied knowledge of the special treatment the subprime mortgage company had given him and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad on home loans. (Dodd's were worth more than $800,000.) Feinberg flatly contradicted him in secret testimony on the Hill this week.
Connecticut voters are not smiling about Dodd's hypocritical bashing of lobbyists on the airwaves while he parties with them behind closed doors. And as they scrimp through the recession, they haven't forgotten about Dodd's dozy Irish cottage deal with convicted insider trader Edward Downe Jr. (who received a Clinton pardon with Dodd's generous help). Sandra Harris, an unaffiliated voter from West Hartford, Conn., told the Hartford Courant: "I've lost respect for him. … It's time for a change." A Quinnipiac poll now shows that 60 percent of key independent voters disapprove of Dodd.
But Dodd's cratering numbers and mounting ethics scandal aren't just about Dodd. Damaged birds of a feather flock together. Even before these latest disclosures, Dodd's approval ratings had dropped to their lowest levels ever. Yet, Obama -- agent of the "new politics," erstwhile Breath of Fresh Air, guarantor of all that is good and clean in Washington -- declared his support for Dodd's 2010 re-election campaign bid.
"I can't say it any clearer: I will be helping Chris Dodd because he deserves the help," Obama announced in April. "He just has an extraordinary record of accomplishment, and I think the people of Connecticut will come to recognize that."
Obama progressives should cringe at their president's bear hug of one of the most ethically compromised politicians on Capitol Hill. The Beltway swamp is teeming with Democratic corruption scandals -- Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha's earmark factory and tax-subsidized airports and radars to nowhere; New York Rep. Charlie Rangel's rent-controlled apartment scams and tax scandals; California Rep. Maxine Waters' business ties to a minority-owned bank that received $12 million in TARP money under smelly circumstances, for starters. But Dodd's career epitomizes the most fetid aspects of Washington's culture of corruption. It's a textbook case of nepotism, self-dealing, back scratching, corporate lobbying, government favors and entrenched incumbency.
When he launched his presidential bid in February 2007, Obama inspired millions and rallied the world with his pledge to "build a more hopeful America." He told a cheering crowd in Springfield, Ill., land of Lincoln, that he recognized "that there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity to this announcement. I know that I have not spent a long time learning the ways of Washington, but I have been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington have to change."
Two years later, Obama declared his support for an entrenched U.S. senator drowning in the decrepit old politics of pay-for-play.
Two years later, at a "historic" and "unprecedented" record pace, Obama presided over a heap of botched nominations, crony appointments, lobbyist paybacks, union and left-wing activist payoffs, and abandoned promises to make government more transparent and accountable to ordinary Americans.
"Washington is broken," Obama lamented on the campaign trail. Yet, under President Obama, the business of Washington is booming. The collapse of the Era of HopeNChangeyness demonstrates the first and last law of political physics: As government grows, corruption flows. Massive new federal spending plus tens of thousands of pages of new regulations plus unprecedented new powers over taxpayers and the economy ensure limitless new opportunities for sleaze, favor trading, deal cutting and influence peddling.
The president's dwindling blind faithful may still cling to the belief that he can work miracles. But no one, not even Barack Obama, can drain a swamp by flooding it.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Everything you need to know about false Hope and Change can be found in one picture: the image of President Obama embracing embattled Sen. Chris Dodd.
The troubled Democrat is in deep over his sweetheart Countrywide home-loan deals, corporate bailout cash and crony associations. New revelations by Countrywide whistleblower Robert Feinberg confirm what more and more of Dodd's constituents in Connecticut are coming to realize: He's a lying weasel.
Dodd denied knowledge of the special treatment the subprime mortgage company had given him and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad on home loans. (Dodd's were worth more than $800,000.) Feinberg flatly contradicted him in secret testimony on the Hill this week.
Connecticut voters are not smiling about Dodd's hypocritical bashing of lobbyists on the airwaves while he parties with them behind closed doors. And as they scrimp through the recession, they haven't forgotten about Dodd's dozy Irish cottage deal with convicted insider trader Edward Downe Jr. (who received a Clinton pardon with Dodd's generous help). Sandra Harris, an unaffiliated voter from West Hartford, Conn., told the Hartford Courant: "I've lost respect for him. … It's time for a change." A Quinnipiac poll now shows that 60 percent of key independent voters disapprove of Dodd.
But Dodd's cratering numbers and mounting ethics scandal aren't just about Dodd. Damaged birds of a feather flock together. Even before these latest disclosures, Dodd's approval ratings had dropped to their lowest levels ever. Yet, Obama -- agent of the "new politics," erstwhile Breath of Fresh Air, guarantor of all that is good and clean in Washington -- declared his support for Dodd's 2010 re-election campaign bid.
"I can't say it any clearer: I will be helping Chris Dodd because he deserves the help," Obama announced in April. "He just has an extraordinary record of accomplishment, and I think the people of Connecticut will come to recognize that."
Obama progressives should cringe at their president's bear hug of one of the most ethically compromised politicians on Capitol Hill. The Beltway swamp is teeming with Democratic corruption scandals -- Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha's earmark factory and tax-subsidized airports and radars to nowhere; New York Rep. Charlie Rangel's rent-controlled apartment scams and tax scandals; California Rep. Maxine Waters' business ties to a minority-owned bank that received $12 million in TARP money under smelly circumstances, for starters. But Dodd's career epitomizes the most fetid aspects of Washington's culture of corruption. It's a textbook case of nepotism, self-dealing, back scratching, corporate lobbying, government favors and entrenched incumbency.
When he launched his presidential bid in February 2007, Obama inspired millions and rallied the world with his pledge to "build a more hopeful America." He told a cheering crowd in Springfield, Ill., land of Lincoln, that he recognized "that there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity to this announcement. I know that I have not spent a long time learning the ways of Washington, but I have been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington have to change."
Two years later, Obama declared his support for an entrenched U.S. senator drowning in the decrepit old politics of pay-for-play.
Two years later, at a "historic" and "unprecedented" record pace, Obama presided over a heap of botched nominations, crony appointments, lobbyist paybacks, union and left-wing activist payoffs, and abandoned promises to make government more transparent and accountable to ordinary Americans.
"Washington is broken," Obama lamented on the campaign trail. Yet, under President Obama, the business of Washington is booming. The collapse of the Era of HopeNChangeyness demonstrates the first and last law of political physics: As government grows, corruption flows. Massive new federal spending plus tens of thousands of pages of new regulations plus unprecedented new powers over taxpayers and the economy ensure limitless new opportunities for sleaze, favor trading, deal cutting and influence peddling.
The president's dwindling blind faithful may still cling to the belief that he can work miracles. But no one, not even Barack Obama, can drain a swamp by flooding it.
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