Category Archives: Political Commentary

Political Commentary, Space

How The VSE Was Derailed

21 Comments

Paul Spudis has a tale of two visions. It’s pretty clear that (as I pointed out in my New Atlantis piece) if the administration had been serious about the VSE, they shouldn’t have given it to NASA as the lead:

Just as war is too important to be left to the generals, man’s future in space is too important to be left to NASA. After President Reagan proposed the creation of a national missile defense system in 1983, it became clear that the U.S. Air Force was not properly organized or motivated—and so a new agency was created to pursue the president’s vision. The new agency, today called the Missile Defense Agency, was very innovative and made great progress because it could focus on its one goal. Along those lines, the Bush administration might have done well to establish an Office of Space Development (with “exploration” being merely a means to an end) that could draw on other federal resources—not just NASA, but the Departments of Defense and Energy—as well as the private sector.

I don’t understand why Mike Griffin was given so much freedom to pervert it by the White House, and if Marburger didn’t complain, or if his complaints were ignored. Unfortunately, as I note throughout the piece, space isn’t important, and once the administration had a new plan and new administrator, they seem to have pretty much ignored it.

[Wednesday morning update]

There’s an interesting discussion on the topic going on in comments between Paul, Frank Sietzen and others over at NASA Watch. I’m inferring from it that Marburger was pretty marginalized within the White House, which would seem to correlate well with an external view of events since the VSE was announced.

[Bumped]

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Taking His Name In Vain

25 Comments

Senator Isakson isn’t very happy with the president’s invoking him as a supporter of health-care deform.

But actually, the reason I’m posting is for a grammar flame:

“This is what happens when the President and members of Congress don’t read the bills,” says Isakson in a paper statement. “The White House and others are merely attempting to deflect attention from the intense negativity caused by their unpopular policies. I never consulted with the White House in this process and had no role whatsoever in the House Democrats’ bill. I categorically oppose the House bill and find it incredulous that the White House and others would use my amendment as a scapegoat for their misguided policies…”

No, Senator. It is you who is “incredulous,” not what the White House did. What you find about that is “incredible.” This is a common error (like confusing “imply” and “infer”) but that’s no excuse for it in a written press release.

Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

The Holy War On Religion

23 Comments

…by some scientists.

Even though I generally agree with them, I am as put off by atheistic evangelizing as I am by any other kind. This is not a productive strategy to promote either science, or secularism. And I’m interested to read Chris Mooney’s latest book. I enjoyed Storm World, and it looks like his views have evolved somewhat from this book, which I found overly polemical.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Rationing

83 Comments

Megan McArdle has some thoughts:

Robert Wright notes that “we already ration health care; we just let the market do the rationing.” This is a true point made by the proponents of health care reform. But I’m not sure why it’s supposed to be so interesting. You could make this statement about any good:

“We already ration food; we just let the market do the rationing.”
“We already ration gasoline; we just let the market do the rationing.”
“We already ration cigarettes; we just let the market do the rationing.”

And indeed, this was an argument that was made in favor of socialism. (No, okay, I’m not calling you socialists!) And yet, most of us realize that there are huge differences between price rationing and government rationing, and that the latter is usually much worse for everyone. This is one of the things that most puzzles me about the health care debate: statements that would strike almost anyone as stupid in the context of any other good suddenly become dazzling insights when they’re applied to hip replacements and otitis media.

It doesn’t help that there is so much economic ignorance out there (not to mention in my comments section).

[Update a few minutes later]

Glenn Reynolds has some further thoughts:

Also, the market doesn’t deny you a hip replacement or a pacemaker because someone in government thinks your political views are “un-American.” Given the cronyism and thuggery we’ve seen with the bailouts, etc., I’m not confident this would hold true under a government health program. And I’m absolutely certain there would be a special track for insiders and favorites.

So am I.

[Late morning update]

Five leftist myths about health-care reform.

[Update a few minutes later]

Caught in the act: a blatant lie by Barack Obama about his support for single payer. Just how stupid does he think we are? And how clueless is he if he thinks that we can’t find this kind of thing on the Internet?

[Update before noon]

The people are seeing through the snake oil:

Thirty-two percent (32%) of voters nationwide favor a single-payer health care system where the federal government provides coverage for everyone. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% are opposed to a single-payer plan.

Fifty-two percent (52%) believe such a system would lead to a lower quality of care while 13% believe care would improve. Twenty-seven percent (27%) think that the quality of care would remain about the same.

Forty-five percent (45%) also say a single-payer system would lead to higher health care costs while 24% think lower costs would result. Nineteen percent (19%) think prices would remain about the same.

…Data released earlier today shows that 51% of voters fear the federal government more than private insurance companies when it comes to health care decisions. Forty-one percent (41%) have the opposite fear.

We’re not as stupid as they want us to be.

General, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Satire, Social Commentary

Some Thoughts On Comparing The President To Hitler

18 Comments

They seem to have won back their democracy, no thanks to the White House.

As a test of the state of “Bush the Nazi” rhetoric, I went to Google and typed in “Bush is a Nazi” and got 420,000 hits, well behind “Hitler was a Nazi” (654,000 hits), but then Hitler WAS a Nazi and had a 75-year head start. (Computer searches like this are very crude instruments. They sweep up many references that cannot fairly be listed as slurs. But they do offer a rough idea of the amount of name-calling.)

President Clinton did fairly well in the Nazi sweepstakes (158,000 hits, but that’s only 20,000 references for each presidential year, compared to 120,000 annually for the 3 1/2 year-incumbency of George Bush.) The odd thing is that I typed in the names of every Nazi I ever heard of, excluding only Hitler himself, and the group total was still less than George Bush gets alone. This might indicate that either that George Bush is by far the second most important Nazi of all time, or that the Democrats and the left now require some sedation.

But that was then, this is now…

And remember, that was five years ago. I’ll bet that a similar search now would provide much larger results.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

So It’s Official

127 Comments

Not only is dissent racist, and no longer patriotic — it’s downright Un-American.

Just when was it that opposing socialism became un-American? Are Nancy and Steny going to revive this?

I’m pretty sure this isn’t the way to win the hearts and minds of the American people. They seem to be just desperately flailing. I can’t take them seriously of course, in their sudden interest in discussing the issue. If they’d had their way, the bill would already have been a fait accompli, with no public discussion at all. But we’re the ones who are “un-American.”

[Noon Pacific update]

Geraghty has similar thoughts to mine:

I understand that the House of Representatives has done this before when Democrats were running the show.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., could chair with Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as the ranking member, except we would need some sort of catchy nickname for the idea of looking through the American population for those who dissent from the line of the White House and holding them up for public demonization and ridicule and shunning…

Beyond that, I would have someone who’s not in Congress right now put together a list of people who ought to be shunned and public persona non grata for their un-American behavior and views. We could get some prominent Democratic state legislatior to run it — say, Wisconsin Democratic Assembly Member Spencer Black — and we could name that list after him…

It would be ironic on multiple levels.

[Afternoon update]

So, do Nancy and Steny think that the SEIU is un-American?

Opponents of reform are organizing counter-demonstrators to speak at this and several congressional town halls on the issue to defend the status quo. It is critical that our members with real, personal stories about the need for access to quality, affordable care come out in strong numbers to drown out their voices.

The logical and hypocritical knots into which these creatures twist themselves is a sight to behold.