I was never a big John Ashcroft fan, but this administration has achieved the impossible — made me nostalgic for the Bush administration. Another lesson here is not to give Democrats named “Janet” major cabinet posts.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Laugh
…so you don’t cry. Dave Barry reviews the year:
It was a year of Hope — at first in the sense of “I feel hopeful!” and later in the sense of “I hope this year ends soon!”
It was also a year of Change, especially in Washington, where the tired old hacks of yesteryear finally yielded the reins of power to a group of fresh, young, idealistic, new-idea outsiders such as Nancy Pelosi. As a result Washington, rejecting “business as usual,” finally stopped trying to solve every problem by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it and instead started trying to solve every problem by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at it.
He goes through it month by month.
Why The Tea Parties Matter
If we can defeat this new advance of totalitarianism on the Hill in the next couple months, it will be due to them. And I hope that this is the end of Max Baucus’ political career. Not to mention many others’ of course…
Cross The River
We were told we had to do it because of the however many millions of uninsured, yet this bill will leave some 25 million Americans uninsured. On the other hand, millions of young fit healthy Americans in their first jobs who currently take the entirely reasonable view that they do not require health insurance at this stage in their lives will be forced to pay for coverage they neither want nor need. On the other other hand, those Americans who’ve done the boring responsible grown-up thing and have health plans Harry Reid determines to be excessively “generous” will be subject to punitive taxes up to 40 percent. On the other other other hand, if you’re the member of a union which enjoys privileged relations with Commissar Reid you’ll be exempt from that 40 percent shakedown. On the other other other other hand, if you’re already enjoying government health care, well, you’re 83 years old and, let’s face it, it’s hardly worth us giving you that surgery for the minimal contribution you make to society, so in the cause of extending government health care to millions of people who don’t currently get it we’re going to ration it for those currently entitled to it.
Looking at the millions of Americans it leaves uninsured, and the millions it leaves with worse treatment and reduced access, and the millions it makes pay significantly more for their current health care, one can only marvel at Harry Reid’s genius: government health care turns out to be all government and no health care. Adding up the zillions of new taxes and bureaucracies and regulations it imposes on the citizenry, one might almost think that was the only point of the exercise.
Uncharacteristically, I think that Mark Steyn is too optimistic.
The Folly Continues
…no thanks to the government, the plane was not destroyed, and we won’t get to the bottom of the larger conspiracy (enabling the likes of Napolitano to say there’s no indication of a larger plot — much less one launched by an international jihadist enterprise) because the guy got to lawyer up rather than be treated like a combatant and subjected to lengthy interrogation. But the terrorist will be convicted at trial (this “case” tees up like a slam-dunk), so the administration will put it in the books as a success … just like the Clinton folks did after the ’93 WTC bombers and the embassy bombers were convicted. In their minds, litigation success equals national security success.
Stooge Gibbs said today that the administration takes the war seriously, but you wouldn’t know it by their behavior. Attempting to blow up a civilian airliner while being Muslim is not a civilian crime — it is an act of war, by an illegal combatant.
[Update a few minutes later]
More thoughts from Victor Davis Hanson:
I think the year-long mantra of “Bush destroyed the Constitution” is now almost over, and we will begin again worrying about our collective safety rather than scoring partisan points by citing supposed excesses in our anti-terrorism efforts. With the delay in closing Guantanamo (from the promised shuttering on Jan. 20, 2010 to . . . sometime in 2011?), Obama’s quiet copy-catting of Bush security protocols (such as wiretaps, intercepts, tribunals, and renditions), and the popular outcry against the upcoming show trial of KSM in New York, a public consensus is growing that radical Muslims like Hasan and Mutallab will continue to attempt to kill Americans. Citizens increasingly understand that the last eight years of relative safety following 9/11 were due only to heightened security at home and proactive use of force abroad, that we should cease trying to appease radical Islam by dreaming up new euphemisms (“overseas contingency operations,” “man made disasters,” etc.), and that it is time to stop the apologetics and kowtowing, and grudgingly accept that thousands of radical Islamic fundamentalists worldwide want to kill Americans — and dozens of governments, at least on the sly, hope that they do. Such venom has nothing to do with past American behavior or George Bush’s strut, nor can it be ameliorated on the cheap by Barack Obama’s Nobel Prize, middle name, or reset-button diplomacy.
Even if he starts now, though, people will remember the naivety of the first year of office, and the left will remain angry at him that he’s acting just like the BusHitler. He’s in a no-win situation, politically. And I have no sympathy. He asked for the job, and lied his way into it.
Low Bar
Let me just say, for one, that I have absolutely no less confidence in Janet Napolitano after her performance today than I did the day she was nominated, or confirmed. In fact, I’ll go farther and say exactly the same thing about the president. Unlike some, my respect for his ability, experience, integrity or viewpoints has not diminished in any way since his election. Neither of them has disappointed me in any way whatsoever.
The Latest Man-Caused Disaster Attempt
I have some thoughts, over at PJM.
Give Me Liberty…
To paraphrase Churchill’s famous statement about Munich, in which he is purported to have said that “the government had to choose between war and shame. They chose shame. They will get war, too.”
Our government has had to choose between liberty and social justice. They chose social justice. They will get neither.
As she notes, too many Americans have lost the concept of the value of liberty, or have never had it.
The Foolishness Of Reliance On Authority
Roger Simon runs into a Hollywood nitwit who believes in global warming because NASA says so.
Point 1: “NASA” doesn’t say so. One duplicitous ideologue masquerading as a climate scientist at one particular NASA center says so. That center had to confess error on his behalf (no doubt through clenched teeth).
Point 2: “NASA” has no opinion on anything. NASA is a government agency, with thousands of employees, of varying opinions. The previous NASA administrator, in fact, famously outraged the warm mongers with his own skepticism, but if any one person could have spoken for NASA at the time, it would have been Mike Griffin, not James Hansen.
Point 3: NASA has had many spectacular achievements in the past. It has also had many spectacular failures. To rely on it, as an agency, as a source of authority for something (particularly when there is no official agency position on it) is foolish. In fact, this false sense that people have in NASA as an authority has contributed greatly to the difficulty over the past decades to raise money for private ventures. This is because investors, when doing due diligence on an investment decisions, have often gone to someone at NASA who knows nothing about the venture, and relied on their foolish advice, for no other reason than they worked for NASA.
Anyway, this gets back to the foolishness of relying on people who claim to be scientists, instead of on science itself.
Obama The Party Crasher
For someone who came into office pledging more respect for the US from the rest of the world, the president’s not doing a very good job.
[Sunday morning update]
Why the world’s leaders find it easy to say no to Obama:
It isn’t just that that no one has cut Obama any slack. World leaders seem to be taking pleasure in rebuffing him, disappointing him, even, in some cases, mocking him. French President Nicolas Sarkozy famously called Obama an “inexperienced, ill-prepared” leader.
Praising and admiring Obama are still common, but raising doubts about him, even scoffing at him, is now becoming fashionable. Although he is still popular among Europeans and more popular with Muslims than his despised predecessor, Obama is being tagged with the unflattering label John Quincy Adams earned before he lost the 1828 election: “Adams can write, Jackson can fight.”
Oh, he can fight all right. But only when it comes to domestic enemies. It’s the Chicago Way.